Commons Sitting of 17 February 1965

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
DEATH OF SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL
  Message of Condolence
  Mr. Speaker: I have to acquaint the House that I have received a copy of a Resolution passed by the House of Representatives of the General Assembly of Iowa with the concurrence of the Senate, expressing grief on the death of Sir Winston Churchill, and I shall have this placed in the Library for inspection by hon. Members.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

  HOME INFORMATION SERVICES
  Mr. G. Campbellasked the Paymaster-General if he will improve the co-ordination of the home information services in disseminating Ministers' statements made upon their return to this country from abroad.
  The Paymaster-General (Mr. George Wigg): No, Sir.
  Mr. Campbell: How did it happen that, within a period of about two days last month, there appeared quite different versions of a Minister's statement made on his return from a sensitive area in South-East Asia?
  Mr. Wigg: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman puts down a Question to the Minister concerned.
  Mr. Dodds-Parker: In view of the Paymaster-General's responsibilities and the fact that we have had only one foreign affairs debate and one lot of Foreign Office Questions in the House in this Parliament, will the right hon.
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  Gentleman see whether he can make available better facilities for better Parliamentary representation at airports and on television where the Government's foreign policy is largely discussed?
  Mr. Wigg: The hon. Gentleman's question does not approach any area of my responsibility.
  Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Paymaster-General what action he is taking to co-ordinate the work of home information services in providing material on the future of the British aircraft industry
  Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Paymaster-General what proposals he has for the co-ordination of information about Her Majesty's Government's policies and responsibilities to make sure they are understood by those responsible for the Press, radio and television.
  Mr. Wigg: The information divisions of the Departments concerned maintain constant liaison on such matters and no special action is, therefore, required.
  Mr. Hamilton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there are most important matters about which the public should know and about which, clearly, right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench opposite do not know? Will he take steps, if not to co-ordinate information services within the Government, at least to co-ordinate them between Sir Roy Dobson and the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude)?
  Mr. Wigg: Statements by Sir Roy Dobson do not fall within my area of responsibility. I remind my hon. Friend that, as acknowledged by hon. Members opposite, I have done my best on matters of defence over the years to try to put that sort of thing right, without, I regret to say, any great success.
  Mrs. Short: Has my right hon. Friend's attention been drawn to last Thursday's "Gallery" programme on B.B.C. television when loaded questions were asked of certain trade unionists before an interview with the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, and has his attention been drawn to the Saturday evening programme on I.T.V.,"The Sullavan Brothers", in which there

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  was a story about a planning inquiry which implied that there was corruption in high places and that members of a local council could go and "soften up"—this was the term used—the Minister before he gave his decision after a planning inquiry? Does not my right hon. Friend think that it is time he took action with the B.B.C. and I.T.A. television services to make sure that they understand what this Government are doing and that they understand the rights and responsibilities of elected members of local councils.
  Mr. Wigg: I have great sympathy with my hon. Friend, but I am glad to say that responsibility for the B.B.C. and I.T.A. is not a matter for me.
  Mr. Kershaw: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the question just put by the hon. Lady the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renée Short) involves the absurd supposition that Ministers know what they are about?
  Mrs. Short: These Ministers do but ex-Ministers opposite did not.
  Mr. Kershaw: Will the right hon. Gentleman do what he can to persuade his colleagues to make their fuddled statements here in the House of Commons rather than at Press conferences and cosy dinner parties which he arranges?
  Mr. Wigg: As usual, the hon. Gentleman is personally insulting. [HON. MEMBERS: "0h."] His suggestions are personally insulting and they are woefully ignorant. The only compliment I can pay him is that, if he did know the facts, he would not understand them.
  Several Hon. Members—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. We must cease this exchange of compliments. I call Mr. Wolrige-Gordon; Question No. 4.

  SCOTLAND

    Hunter Committee (Report)
    Mr. Wolrige-Gordonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what are the reasons for the delay in the publication of the Hunter Committee's Report.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. William Ross): The Committee's
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    first Report was published in July, 1963. There has been no delay in its deliberations and the final Report is expected by about May of this year.
    Mr. Wolrige-Gordon: As the Order postponing the ban on the drift netting of salmon was placed only in February, was it not then understood that the Report would be ready by the time the ban was originally supposed to have been lifted?
    Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that this is a complicated matter and that there are conflicting interests, some being rather controversial. We asked the Hunter Committee to produce an interim report, and this is what it did, and action has to be taken in relation to the interim Report until such time as we get the final Report. There has been no delay.

    Typhoid Outbreak, Aberdeen (Report)
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is aware that the Departmental Committee of Inquiry appointed by the previous administration to inquire into the typhoid outbreak in Aberdeen in 1964 has produced a Report, Cmnd. 2542, which has exceeded its terms of reference by expressing opinions without evidence to support them, and in particular by attacking Dr. Ian MacQueen, the Medical Officer of Health of Aberdeen, who succeeded in bringing the typhoid epidemic to an end; and if he will now appoint another Committee presided over by a High Court judge to review that problem and report upon it.
    Mr. Ross: I do not accept that the Milne Report attacked Dr. MacQueen. It praised the speed and efficiency with which he and his staff tackled the outbreak, but came to a conclusion on the medical factors involved in the spread of the disease which differed from Dr. MacQueen's own assessment. From this followed the Report's criticisms concerning publicity, which were intended as guidance in future outbreaks. The Committee performed its task very thoroughly and there is no justification for a further inquiry.
    Mr. Hughes: Does my right hon. Friend realise that so much time has passed since I first tabled the Question, during which so many tributes have

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    been paid to Dr. MacQueen and his staff for their very successful work on that occasion, that I no longer press the Question? However, does he realise that in future cases of this kind the chairman of such a committee should be a Scottish High Court judge and not a member of the Civil Service presiding over an inquiry into his own Department, as was so in this case?
    Mr. Ross: My hon. and learned Friend should appreciate that one of the reasons why the Report was so well received and accepted as valuable was the services of that gentleman. He did a first-class job. It would be unfair to suggest that there was any bias in the matter.

    Undulant Fever
    Mr. Buchanan-Smithasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many cases of undulant fever have occurred in Scotland in each of the past five years.
    Mr. Ross: Undulant fever is not in itself a notifiable disease and complete statistics are not available. The only figures I have relate to people treated in hospital for this disease for the years 1961–1963. There were 35 in 1961, 22 in 1962, and 32 in 1963.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Would the right hon. Gentleman agree that a policy of eradication of brucellosis among cattle would reduce the risk of undulant fever and would be a great contribution to public health? In view of the attitude of the Minister of Agriculture, would the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to initiate such a policy in Scotland?
    Mr. Ross: I think that the hon. Gentleman will be aware that at the present time we have considerably reduced the risks in this respect by the free vaccination scheme, to which we are giving further publicity. He will also be aware that there has been a survey of the incidence of brucellosis in milk herds, and that there is a study group working on the problem on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture. After we get its report, which should come fairly soon, we should have all the information on which to base any further scheme. However, it is too early at the moment to start out on an eradication scheme.
    Mr. Kitson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that fewer calves are being vaccinated since the vaccination service has become free? Is he aware that Scotland is the only country in Western Europe, with the exception of England, where undulant fever is not a notifiable disease? Ought he not to accept the recommendations of the B.M.A. and make this a notifiable disease in Scotland?
    Mr. Ross: There has been a survey, and the Government are studying the results. There is at the moment a working party looking into the subject. Eventually we shall have a full picture of what should be done. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman suggests that the results are disappointing in England and Wales. I hope that he was not speaking for Scotland.
    Mr. Kitson: I was.
    Mr. Stodart: Will the right hon. Gentleman continue to do what my right hon. Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) did—keep Scotland out ahead? Will he take a lead in the matter of brucellosis, particularly remembering a fact of which both sides of the House must be proud, that it was Scotland which took the lead in eradicating tuberculosis?
    Mr. Ross: Yes, Sir. The part of the world from which I come was one of the first to achieve 100 per cent. eradication. However, the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that the lead which his right hon. Friend took was to introduce the scheme which the hon. Gentleman is now criticising.

    Protection of Animals (Anaesthetics) Act, 1964
    Mr. Buchanan-Smithasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has had regarding the operation of the Protection of Animals (Anaesthetics) Act, 1964; and what reply he has sent.
    Mr. Ross: Representations have been been made to my Department by the National Farmers' Union and other organisations representing hill sheep farmers in Scotland that the provisions in the Act governing the use of rubber rings should be amended by raising the age limit from one week to two months. The reply given in each case was that

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    there was no prospect of introducing amending legislation.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that veterinary opinion is by no means agreed that the rubber ring method of castration causes unnecessary suffering? Is he prepared to instruct the Department of Agriculture to advise hill farmers in Scotland on an alternative method?
    Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman should appreciate that farming opinion was consulted before the Act was put on the Statute Book, that the advice was available of our own veterinary officers in the Scottish Department and those of various associations not only in Scotland but elsewhere in the United Kingdom, and that they were all agreed that the Act should be introduced. We also had surveillance at that time over the Department of Agriculture of a man who was not undistinguished in the sheep breeding field, and also of a distinguished farmer in Scotland. Therefore, I am surprised that these protests did not come when the Bill was going through the House. The Measure came into force only in August last year. I appreciate that there have been protests. We have already stated that if we get evidence of a substantial character that some change should be made we will look at it.
    Mr. Noble: Does not the right hon. Gentleman know—I am certain that if he asks, his Department will tell him—that when the Act was agreed both the Scottish National Farmers' Union and the British Veterinary Association were to some extent confused about the evidence that they gave to the Scottish Office at the time. There has been a very considerable change since. This is a serious problem. It is right that the right hon. Gentleman should look at it again in the light of the fact that within a month or two these lambs will be born.
    Mr. Ross: My hon. Friend the Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. W. Baxter) has already been told that we are prepared to look at any evidence that might come forward in relation to this problem to prove that a wrong decision has been taken by the House. It should be remembered that it was this House which decided in favour of the Bill without any amendment. There was opportunity to make protests between the time
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    the Measure came from another place and its consideration in this House, but none came, and the Bill was passed without amendment.
    Mr. MacArthur: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a real problem here? Throughout the whole of Scotland it is almost impossible for this part of the law to be observed and quite impossible for it to be enforced. Is there not a danger that the continuation of such legislation will lead to the law falling into disrepute generally?
    Mr. Ross: the hon. Gentleman surprises me because he, too, was a member of the Government which allowed the Measure to go through.
    Mr. W. Baxter: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that it would be wrong for him to put too much stress on the wisdom and knowledge of gentlemen farmers sitting on the Opposition benches? Would it not be better for him to pay a greater degree of attention to the practical farmers of Scotland, who find it very difficult to implement this part of the Act? Might I draw his attention to the simple fact that bringing the sheep in for the purpose of getting the lambs castrated at an early age does more damage to the unborn lambs in the sheep? Is not this an important subject, and ought not my right hon. Friend to give it very special consideration?
    Mr. Ross: I noted this when my hon. Friend first stated it. I was here when he made the point. I can assure him that what further action we take will depend on the weight of evidence that backs up the protests which have been made and have been brought to my notice by hon. Members.

    Clean Air Orders (Grants)
    Mr. Edward M. Taylorasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will adjust the grants to residents of houses affected by clean air Orders, particularly where the total cost of conforming with the provisions of the orders exceeds £100.
    Mr. Ross: The standard grant is seven-tenths of the approved cost, but where a local authority thinks fit it has a discretion to pay all or part of the balance.
    Mr. Taylor: While I appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman has said, may

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    I ask whether he does not agree that the general practice of Scottish local authorities is to pay a grant similar to that of the Government? While in general, in the areas covered by these Orders, the average total cost of conversion is under £40, in the King's Park and Croft-foot area of my constituency the contribution of the residents will have to be more than £40 towards the total cost of £112. As hardship is involved, will the right hon. Gentleman look at the grant structure?
    Mr. Ross: The structure is quite clear. The standard grant is 70 per cent. of the cost, and 40 per cent. is borne by the Government and 30 per cent. by the local authority. There is discretion for the local authorities to pay more, and I understand that they decide in respect of this on the question of hardship. If hardship is proved and a further grant is paid, then the addition is met by the Government and the local authority in the same proportions.
    Miss Harvie Anderson: Will the right hon. Gentleman represent to the Minister of Power the necessity for ensuring that adequate fuel stocks are available in the area before the Order becomes effective?
    Mr. Ross: That is a different question but I have noted it.

    Local Authority Housing Loans (Interest Rates)
    Mr. G. Campbellasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he intends to introduce specially favourable borrowing rates of interest for housing.
    The Earl of Dalkeithasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will introduce a scheme for specially favourable borrowing rates for housing; and what information he has about the effect of high interest rates in relation to the number of new houses started in the last quarter of 1964.
    Mr. Galbraithasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what is his policy towards the provision of specially favourable borrowing rates of interest for housing.
    Mr. Ross: In Answer to a Question on 19th January, my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced
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    measures to mitigate the effects of the increased Bank Rate on the housing programme. Before deciding our long-term policy about loans for local authority housing, we wish to complete our reviews of housing subsidies and finance in conjuction with the local authority associations. I do not think high interest rates since October have materially affected the number of new houses started in the last quarter of 1964.
    Mr. Campbell: What is the right hon. Gentleman doing now to carry out the policy, stated on page 15 of the Labour Party manifesto, which promised special, low rates of interest for housing as compared with other interest rates?
    Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman must have confused long-term policy with short-term measures necessitated by the long-term failures of right hon. Gentlemen opposite.
    The Earl of Dalkeith: Is it not about time the right hon. Gentleman made a public apology to the people of Scotland, whose illusions have been so shattered by this repudiation of a firm election promise? Does not this merely go to show that Labour Party election manifestoes are not worth the paper they are written on?
    Mr. Ross: That depends who writes them, and if the noble Lord writes them, then I agree. He might make a public apology for the assumption he made in the latter part of his Question, which related to houses started in the month of October. As he knows, tenders are submitted six months beforehand.
    Mr. Galbraith: As the right hon. Gentleman's reply is a further blow to the people who believed that what the party opposite said at the election they would carry out, could not the right hon. Gentleman try to help local authorities which find themselves in difficulty because of these higher interest rates by encouraging places such as Glasgow to charge more reasonable rents? In Glasgow, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, rent actually paid is only one-third of the cost of providing houses.
    Mr. Ross: Has the hon. Gentleman changed his mind? He used to think that interest rates did not matter. He said that they were "a hoary old chestnut"

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    which the Opposition—then the Labour Party—persisted in regarding as a "hot potato". He should read the Answer given on 18th November and see what was then already being done in respect of this matter.
    We consider this to be a short-term measure. Let him take his mind back to the statement by the then Under-Secretary of State, who told us in 1956 that high interest rates were temporary. They were temporary for about eight years.
    Mr. William Hamilton: Can my right hon. Friend tell the House and the country how long it will take the Government to get us out the morass left behind by the previous Administration?
    Mr. Ross: They took 13 years to get us into it. It will not take us 13 years to get out of it.
    Mr. Noble: I do not want to follow the right hon. Gentleman on the last Question, although I would have a great deal of pleasure in doing so. Does not he remember that, month after month, he alleged that high interest rates were the main reason for difficulty in housing? Has he changed his mind?
    Mr. Ross: No. I always thought that the main reason for difficulty in housing was the Tory Government.
    Mr. Speaker: Mr. Taylor.
    Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. It is my fault for not making my intention distinct. I called the hon. Gentleman in respect of the next Question.

    School Building Programme, Glasgow
    Mr. Edward M. Taylorasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what official discussions took place between his Joint Under-Secretary and Glasgow's Convener of Education regarding the city's school building programme when the Joint Under-Secretary visited Glasgow or 11th January; and what decisions were reached about additional school building projects.
    Mr. Ross: Informal discussions took place, but there was no question of reaching decisions.
    Mr. Taylor: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this Answer appears rather shocking to those who listened to previous protestations about so-called savage building cuts in Glasgow and elsewhere? In these circumstances will he, as a matter of urgency, urge local authorities to use their allocations of money wisely by building less extravagant and lavish schools but building more of them?
    Mr. Ross: I do not see how that supplementary question is related to the Question on the Order Paper.

    Trade, Industry and Employment
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on his tour on 13th January of Scotland designed to increase trade, industry and employment there, indicating the places and firms he visited and his plans based on the results of those visits.
    Mr. Ross: As part of a three-day programme of visits to firms in the East and West of Scotland, I visited Richards Ltd. and the Hall Russell shipyard in Aberdeen, and the food processing factory of Robert Lawson & Sons at Dyce. I also met the Lord Provost, the County Convener, and representatives of their Councils. The up-to-date appreciation these visits gave me of the needs and prospects of industry in the area will be of great value in completing the regional economic studies which the Government intend should form part of the basis of a comprehensive economic plan for the whole of Scotland.
    Mr. Hughes: Does my right hon. Friend realise that his very successful visit has done much to stimulate trade, industry, commerce and employment in the north-east of Scotland? Will he follow this up by building advance factories to accommodate the new industries which we now hope will go there?
    Mr. Ross: Perhaps I should catch the train for Aberdeen right away.
    Lady Tweedsmuir: Will the right hon. Gentleman enumerate in what way his visit had this extraordinary effect? When is the North-East project likely to be published? It was well under way during the last Administration.
    Mr. Ross: The hon. Lady will appreciate that the success of my visit as recounted by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) is not something for me to explain. Nevertheless, my hon. and learned Friend is usually very reliable in reflecting what happens in that part of the country.
    The North-East Study was started during the last Administration but they never said that they would publish it. The study itself will have to be incorporated into the plan for the whole of Scotland.
    Mr. Wolrige-Gordonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what estimate he has made of the expansion of industry and employment in Scotland during the next 12 months; how much of it will be confined to the central belt; and how much to the rest of the country.
    Mr. Ross: From projects for which industrial development certificates have been issued, the employment expected to accrue is 35,000, of which about 32,000 will be in the central belt, including Dundee. The rate of manning up varies, but on past experience about one-third of all these jobs might arise in 1965. There are no corresponding figures for the expansion of other types of employment, but in recent years employment in the service industries in Scotland has risen by an average of about 18,000 annually, and I can see no reason why this rate of increase should not be maintained.
    Mr. Wolrige-Gordon: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I hope that that moderately optimistic survey will at least be more accurate than some of the surveys we have had in the past from right hon. and hon. Members opposite, because nothing the Government have done so far has in any way helped the expansion of industry and employment in Scotland and in some cases has even hindered it? Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that he is at least as militant and enthusiastic about getting work to other parts of the country, as well as to the central belt?
    Mr. Ross: My concern about the whole of Scotland has already been proclaimed, and proclaimed in the part of the world from which the hon. Member comes. I do
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    not know, but he strikes me as being completely out of touch with what is happening in Scotland. As to what is happening in the North-East, I can assure him that we are determined to carry out our pledges to the people of Scotland to ensure that they have a fair share of the expansion of industry in this country.
    Lady Tweedsmuir: Will the Secretary of State answer the question which I put to him earlier? When does he expect the detailed study of the North-East to be ready? And secondly, what are the considerations which made him decide not to publish it?
    Mr. Ross: I have not made any declaration not to publish it. I have said that it was a study, and what we do publish are plans co-ordinated with the other plans. I think that it is much more coherent to consider how they will affect a part of Scotland in the context of their effect on the whole of Scotland.

    Dairy Farming
    Mr. Manuelasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the decrease in the dairy cow population in Scotland from January, 1960, until December, 1964; and how many producers between the above dates abandoned dairying.
    Mr. Ross: There was a decrease of about 12,000 in the dairy cow population during this period. The number of producers producing milk for sale in the area of the three Milk Marketing Boards decreased by 1,116 in the same period.
    Mr. Manuel: Do not those figures confirm that there is a serious situation in Scotland? Will not my right hon. Friend further agree that speedy remedial action should now be taken in order to avoid the danger of a further reduction in milk production?
    Mr. Ross: Milk production during the period did not fall but rose because of higher productivity. We are, however, naturally concerned about the whole trend of things. We want to achieve a proper balance.
    Mr. Brewis: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that although there was a very considerable increase at the last

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    Price Review, the profitability for a dairy cow has fallen to a very low level? This is a very important industry in the south-west of Scotland. Will the right hon. Gentleman use his influence to try to increase the price, although his sympathies lie more with the urban consumer in Kilmarnock and other places?
    Mr. Ross: As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have very considerable interest in agriculture and in milk production in Kilmarnock and district. My constituency is not urban. He will be aware that certain discussions are taking place at the moment elsewhere and it would be very unwise of me to reply on this matter now or to be drawn in relation to the outcome of those discussions.
    Mr. George Y. Mackie: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the subject of alternatives to dairying is very important and that there is a general lack of confidence at the moment engendered by the failure of his right hon. Friend to support the efforts of the Potato Marketing Board?
    Hon. Members: Answer.
    Mr. Ross: If I could find what the Potato Marketing Board had to do with milk, I would answer.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many small milk producers are greatly worried by recent increases in rent, which in some cases have amounted to 7 per cent., representing as much as 2d. or 3d. in the gallon? Is he aware that my farming constituents are greatly annoyed by the policy of the landowners of Scotland, who would not hesitate to steal milk from a blind kitten?

    Housing Act, 1964
    Mr. Manuelasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will seek to amend the Housing Act 1964 to permit local authorities, where houses are structually sound and landlords refuse to use improvement grants to install baths, inside toilets and hot water, to purchase the houses compulsorily and provide these amenities themselves.
    Mr. Ross: Section 23 of the Housing Act, 1964, empowers Scottish local authorities to acquire tenements in order
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    to improve the houses in them. They also have a general power under Part V of the Housing (Scotland) Act, 1950, to provide accommodation by acquiring and improving individual houses.
    Mr. Manuel: Is my right hon. Friend perfectly certain that the 1964 Act allows local authorities compulsorily to acquire houses for modernisation where the landlord refuses to do so? Is he aware that if we can get local authorities to modernise structurally sound buildings, we will ultimately save many hundreds of thousands of pounds in local rates and national taxation?
    Mr. Ross: Yes, I am satisfied that the local authorities have this power under the 1964 Act.

    Glenrothes Development Corporation (Cadco Project)
    Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland why the paragraphs relating to the Cadco project were published in the Annual Report of the Glenrothes Development Corporation; and whether he will make a statement concerning those paragraphs.
    Mr. Ross: Because they were included in the Report for the year ended 31st March, 1964, as submitted by the Development Corporation to my predecessor in May, 1964, and presented to Parliament by him in July, 1964. I do not doubt that the paragraphs fairly record the Corporation's view of the project at the time when it prepared the Report.
    Mr. Hamilton: Is my right hon. Friend saying that in May, 1964, the Corporation had no inkling of the financial unsoundness of the Cadco project? In view of the cynicism with which these paragraphs were bound to be met by the local population, ought not extraordinary steps to have been taken to make sure that these paragraphs were not included? Paragraph 42, for example, regards the project as "most interesting".
    Mr. Ross: The Report itself was a matter not for the Scottish Office but for the new town Corporation. It is only right that I should accept that the Corporation regarded this at the time as a fair record of the project.

    Forth Road Bridge
    Sir W. Anstruther-Grayasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether the use of the Forth Road Bridge by private and State road haulage is in line with his estimates; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Ross: During the 20 weeks to 22nd January 1,609,000 vehicles crossed the bridge. No differentiation of type of vehicle was made in the count. In proposing a 2s. 6d. toll the Joint Board assumed that at least 5 million vehicles would cross the bridge in the first year.
    Sir W. Anstruther-Gray: May we take it from that reply that the figure of 2s 6d. for a toll appears to be working out all right?
    Mr. Ross: It will be some time before we have a full year's working and can make an assessment. There has to be a statutory review after a year, and although we do not yet have any summer figures and have nothing to work on in that respect, it strikes me that this is working out fairly well.
    The Earl of Dalkeith: Has the right hon. Gentleman received any representations from his hon. Friends for the removal of these tolls since he took over the office of Secretary of State?
    Mr. Ross: If the hon. Gentleman had been attending to his Parliamentary duties, he would have known that there have been Questions on the Order Paper about this subject.
    Mr. William Hamilton: But I regret to say that my right hon. Friend has not responded to those Questions. Will he give an undertaking that at the annual statutory review he will remove the tolls?
    Mr. Ross: I shall not put myself under any such obligation. I said that I would have a look at the whole problem at the time.
    Mr. G. Campbell: Was it not suggested in a publication which was issued just before the election and called "Signposts for Scotland" that tolls should be abolished?
    Mr. Ross: No, Sir. It did not say that.

    Agricultural Lime
    Mr. Stodartasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how much agricultural lime was used in Scotland during 1963 and 1964, respectively; and what percentage of the total tonnage required in each year was produced in Scotland.
    Mr. Ross: The amounts of agricultural lime used in Scotland in 1963 and 1964 were 992,000 tons and 1,064,000 tons respectively; the percentages of these tonnages produced in Scotland were 52 per cent. and 50 per cent. respectively.
    Mr. Stodart: Can the right hon. Gentleman say why the percentage of the production in Scotland is falling? Does he think that it is due to the operation of the 100-mile cut-off in the subsidy scheme, and is he therefore considering this, remembering the review which was promised after the agreement which was made with the farmers' unions and the lime producers?
    Mr. Ross: Yes, we are looking at the agreement to see how it works out, but it is far too early to say that the falling off is due to the reasons suggested. As the hon. Gentleman well knows—because he was sitting on this Front Bench on the night this scheme was prayed against, when he did not say a word—this is a complicated matter and more than just the transport element is involved.
    Mr. George Y. Mackie: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether he considers it fair that Scottish lime should receive a subsidy of 5s. a ton less than English lime?
    Mr. Ross: It does not necessarily follow. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the lime scheme is different for Scotland and there are further regional differences within Scotland. It is a very complicated formula, but if the hon. Gentleman wants to know why it was introduced, let him look at the Report of the Public Accounts Committee which criticised the previous lime scheme, which the last Government changed last year.

    Hospital Building Programme
    Mr. Stodartasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has yet concluded the review of the hospital building programme which he has undertaken.
    Mr. MacArthurasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he will complete his review of the hospital building programme in Scotland.
    Mr. Ross: My review of the hospital building programme will necessarily take some time to complete. The results will be published as soon as possible but I cannot yet say when that will be.
    Mr. Stodart: Can the right hon. Gentleman square to the satisfaction of the House his criticisms of the review last year, which he criticised on the ground that it followed within two years of the original plan, and his intention now to review the review within seven months? Can he say what is the purpose of the second review? Is it to reduce the total building programme, or increase it, or merely to adjust priorities within it?
    Mr. Ross: We want to ensure that the priorities of the last Administration were right. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that there were certain criticisms of the second review of the hospital programme and we have every reason and, I believe, duty to review the hospital building programme to see exactly what should be done.
    Mr. MacArthur: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is he and his right hon. Friends who have their priorities upside down? Is he aware that the cost of abolishing prescription charges in Scotland is about £2 million a year, which represents roughly half the cost of a new 600-bed general hospital? Would he not be better employed using this money to buy hospitals instead of buying votes?
    Mr. Ross: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we have got our priorities right. May I remind him, in respect of what he says about prescription charges, that this country was in difficulties. The Tory Government introduced those charges when "We never had it so good"; they forgot all about them, and never put them down.
    Mr. Noble: Yes, but the right hon. Gentleman perhaps has not noticed that his right hon. Friend the Minister of Health has announced an extra amount for the English hospital programme. We, therefore, in Scotland would rather have expected him to have done the same. Is
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    he slower in his review, or merely less convincing to his colleagues?
    Mr. Ross: No. If the same situation had arisen in Scotland we would have taken exactly the same steps. I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that even before that we had got an adjustment of £500,000 for hospital building, arising out of the decision which was taken about the siting of a university in Scotland.
    Mr. Noble: So the right hon. Gentleman in fact is saying he has not anything to do now because we did it?
    Several Hon. Members—
    Mr. Speaker: We must get on. We have got through a minimal number of Questions.

    Redevelopment Area, Kelvingrove
    Dr. Millerasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will investigate the causes of delay in commencing building operations in the Anderston Cross redevelopment area of Kelvingrove; and if he will take steps to ensure that the housing element of the scheme is proceeded with without further delay.
    Mr. Ross: I am glad to say that work on the first development of 117 houses will start at the beginning of March.
    Dr. Miller: I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. Is he aware that Glasgow Corporation gave approval to the full, detailed plans for this comprehensive development area in June, 1959, and due to the procrastination of the last Administration in this respect, during which they permitted vested interests to delay the beginning of this scheme, almost six years have gone by—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."]—and not one brick has been laid? Would he ensure that in the future, when schemes of this type are approved by corporations such as Glasgow Corporation, delaying tactics, such as were used by individuals in this case, are not permitted to thwart the rights of people—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."]—who must expect that their elected representatives do as they are asked to do?
    Mr. Ross: I can well appreciate the frustrations of the hon. Gentleman who had to cope with this as a local councilor

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    in this area and now has to do so as Member of Parliament for this district, but I think he will be the first to appreciate the gigantic nature of the task to be undertaken here, where a whole area has to be comprehensively cleared to be redeveloped from both the housing point of view and that of new industry. It does mean a tremendous task of compulsory purchase. It has been revised and changed, and as a matter of fact, 3,300 houses have had to be cleared, meaning the rehousing of more than 11,000 people, and not all, of course, in the same area again. We cannot override all the rights of individuals here. It is a complicated and a long task, but I can give the hon. Member an assurance that in future schemes we shall try as far as possible to speed matters up to ensure that we deal as quickly as possible with the housing problem of Glasgow or of any other area.

    A.1 Road (Berwick-on-Tweed- Edinburgh)
    Sir W. Anstruther-Grayasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he last travelled officially by car from Berwick-on-Tweed to Edinburgh by the A.1 road.
    Mr. Ross: I have not yet had occasion to do so.
    Sir W. Anstruther-Gray: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman when he will find time to visit this important part of Scotland? Would he be good enough, when he does so, to allow the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian to accompany him on the journey so that I may not only show him the good work which has been done in the last 12 years but also point out to him much work which still requires to be done, in particular on the stretch of road at the Dunbar bypass?
    Mr. Ross: I suspected that that was coming up. The right hon. Gentleman has undertaken two tasks, to show me what has been done and to show me what needs to be done. I feel sure that the second will take much longer than the first. I hope that I may be able to fit in some official engagement which will allow me to go to that part of Scotland, and I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that I shall treat him in the same way as
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    I have treated all other Members of Parliament whose areas I have been to: I welcome their company during my visits.

    Brunton Report
    Lady Tweedsmuirasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has now received all the representations from local authorities on the Brunton Report; and what action he proposes to take upon them.
    Mr. Ross: Twenty-nine of the 35 education authorities have sent me their proposals for implementing the Brunton recommendations, and I expect the remainder shortly. Generally, the proposals are very satisfactory, and I shall keep in close touch with the authorities about their implementation.
    Lady Tweedsmuir: Am I right in thinking that it was suggested that those replies should be returned by the end of October? What action has the right hon. Gentleman taken to encourage the remaining local authorities to come to some conclusion? Can he also say what has been the general nature of the replies he has received?
    Mr. Ross: Yes. I agree that the hon. Lady is quite right about that, but I certainly think that in some cases we should not unduly press the authorities if they can show reasons for delays which can properly be accepted. After all, 29 out of 35 is not bad at all. The actual plans are quite interesting, because we have a recognition of the part which vocational education will play in respect of the link-up with industry. Some are directly related to that. Others are of a more experimental nature. We are studying them all in the formulation of the advice to be given to local authorities and in the discussions taking place between the inspectorate and education authorities.

    Colleges of Education (Graduates)
    Lady Tweedsmuirasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will take steps to provide graduates with a salary instead of a student's allowance during their training at a college of education.
    Mr. Ross: I have nothing to add at present to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern), on 23rd December last.
    Lady Tweedsmuir: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that when all those representing Scottish seats on the benches opposite were in opposition they said that this was a very easy and simple thing to do, and asked the Government why it could not be carried out? How is it that he has taken so long not to do this easy and simple thing?
    Mr. Ross: The hon. Lady no doubt remembers the Knox Committee's Report in 1957. She did not do very much in respect of that from 1957 to 1964. I trust that she will give us a few months where she took years to do nothing. I hope she will appreciate what I said in my Answer, and I meant it, that I was not yet convinced about what should be done. Not all my hon. Friends nor I spoke on this aspect of education at the time. Many of us realised the difficulties.
    Mr. Woodburn: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that the reason given by many graduates for taking a job in industry is that a salary is at once payable? Would not he agree that they do this rather than go to colleges of education where they feel that it is an unfair sacrifice to have to do without a salary for a whole year, which salary they can get at once in industry? Would not it be a useful experiment to see whether it would be possible to pay them the salary of probationer teachers during their training period at colleges of education?
    Mr. Ross: I think that there is a lot in what my right hon. Friend says. That is why we are looking into this at the moment.
    Lady Tweedsmuir: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that it was precisely because we saw the difficulties that we did not do anything about this recommendation of the Knox Committee? I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on at last seeing the wisdom of the last Administration.
    Mr. Ross: As I understand the position, the Opposition have made up
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    their mind that nothing can be done about this. I have said that I am prepared to be convinced that something can be done.

    Housing
    Mr. Brewisasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the percentage decrease in new local authority houses started in the fourth quarter of 1964 and the same period in 1963.
    Mr. James Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will state the percentage decrease in new houses started by local authorities in the final quarter of 1964 and the same quarter of 1963; and what were the reasons for the decrease.
    Mr. Ross: Almost 27 per cent. This was due to a drop in the number of tenders approved between March and October, 1964.
    Mr. Brewis: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the House an assurance that in the first quarter of this year, when the Labour Government will have been in power for a complete quarter, there will not be a similar drop in starts for new local authority houses? Before he gives this assurance, will he remember that many assurances given during the election have not been kept?
    Mr. Ross: I cannot give the hon. Gentleman that assurance, for the simple reason that the starts on houses are related to the tenders approved, and tenders are submitted and approved about six months before, so the failure to approve tenders, whatever the reason may have been, six months before determined the fact that there was a drop of 27 per cent. in the last quarter of 1964.
    Mr. Hamilton: Fully conscious of the window-dressing by the last Government on the eve of the General Election, can my right hon. Friend now give us the figures for the second and third quarters of 1964, and can he also give us the figures since he took office?
    Mr. Ross: I can tell my hon. Friend that the hon. Gentleman seems to be upset by a decline in starts in the last quarter of 1964, which was 27 per cent., but if he had asked for the quarter before, the decline compared with 1963 was 29·4 per cent., and in the quarter before that it was 2·4 per cent.

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    With regard to the last part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question, I can assure him that the tenders approved in the last quarter of 1964, for which we have some responsibility, were the highest for 10 years.
    Mr. Brewisasked the Secretary of State for Scotland why 11,144 new houses were completed in the last quarter of 1964, but only 7,519 started.
    Dr. Millerasked the Secretary of State for Scotland why work on only 7,519 houses was commenced in the last quarter of 1964; and what steps he is taking to improve on this.
    Mr. Ross: Construction of public authority houses begins on an average some five months after the tenders have been approved. Tenders for only 9,000 houses were approved in the six months between March and October, 1964, whereas more than 15,000 were approved in the same period of 1963. I am glad to say that during the last three months of 1964 tenders for 9,857 houses were approved and I am giving public authorities every possible encouragement to build houses.
    Mr. Brewis: Has the right hon. Gentleman noticed that in this quarter there was a considerable increase in the number of houses completed by housing associations? As he and his hon. Friends were lukewarm about the assistance to be given to housing associations when the Housing Act of 1962 was being discussed, can he say whether he is going to encourage private enterprise building such as this, or whether he is going to try to strangle it as the last Labour Government did?
    Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman's memory is at fault if he is recalling the speeches that I made on the subject of housing corporations. I gave them every encouragement, and, as I have said at this Box, I continue to do so.
    Dr. Miller: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that the reduction in the number of houses commenced in the last quarter is a clear indication that the last Administration was much more concerned about planning the election than with getting on with the building of houses, and that the position now outlined by him is much more encouraging indeed?
    Mr. Ross: The tenders approved in the second quarter of last year were the lowest for 10 years. The tenders approved by this Administration in the last quarter were the highest for 10 years.

    Road Programme
    Mr. MacArthurasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what change there has been in the Scottish road programme announced in the Official Report of 27th July 1964.
    Mr. Ross: No, Sir. The five year road programme is reviewed annually in July.
    Mr. MacArthur: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any indication about whether he will observe the higher rate of programming approved by the late Government?
    Mr. RossI think that the hon. Gentleman should wait for the review that is to take place in July.

    Glenrothes (Piggeries)
    Sir J. Gilmourasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will state the capital cost per pig housed in the piggeries built at Glenrothes for the Cadco Company.
    Mr. Ross: As the number of pigs to be housed is not known, I regret that I am unable to answer the Question.
    Sir J. Gilmour: Would the right hon. Gentleman agree that as the piggeries were completed anyone who had any knowledge of agricultural subjects would very quickly be able to calculate that?
    Mr. Ross: Provided he was able also to tell what the through-put of pigs was from the piggeries.

    Meat (Verdon-Smith Report)
    Mr. Hendryasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will take steps to implement the recommendation in the Verdon-Smith Report that there be developed a national meat inspection service.
    Mr. Ross: I am at present examining this question in consultation with my right hon. Friends, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Minister of Health, as part of the wider issues raised by the Verdon-Smith Committee's Report.
    Mr. Hendry: While I agree that a study of this question is very desirable on the part of the Ministers concerned, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that there are wide variations in the standards applied by local authorities in the inspection at the moment, and does not this indicate that there may be serious danger to public health if the standards are too low? In these circumstances, will he circulate local authorities laying down standards which should be applied?
    Mr. Ross: As I have said, we are in consultation about this. I have received representations, and I take these representations and the point made by the hon. Gentleman with considerable seriousness.
    Mr. Stodart: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of what he has said? Does not he recollect that no less than 10 days ago his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture remarked that he had already, in his mind, made a decision on the Verdon-Smith Report? Is the right hon. Gentleman really asking the House to believe that he is slower in making up his mind than the Minister of Agriculture?
    Mr. Ross: I do not recall that my right hon. Friend declared what that change was.

    Tay Road Bridge
    Mr. Clark Hutchisonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the additional cost of the Tay Road Bridge over the original estimate; and if the building programme is up to time.
    Mr. Ross: I am informed by the Joint Board that the cost of completing the scheme may be about £51 million as compared with the Provisional Order estimate of £4·386 million. To this must be added the interest which will accrue on loans advanced during the construction period. There is a good prospect that the bridge will be ready for the target date of June, 1966.

    Police (Pay and Conditions)
    Mr. Clark Hutchisonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has received from the Scottish Police Federation about pay and conditions in the police forces in Scotland; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Ross: I apologise in advance for the length of this reply. On 3rd February the Scottish Police Federation gave my Department a memorandum identical to the one given by the Police Federation of England and Wales to my right hon. Friend, the Home Secretary. The memorandum proposes a general increase in the pay of constables, the introduction of a five-day week, improvements in the scale and quality of police equipment and improvements in methods of management.
    The proposals relating to pay and hours of duty are initially the concern of the Police Council for Great Britain, to which the Federation has referred them, and it would be improper for me to comment on them at this stage. The other questions are for the Scottish Police Council, and I hope to arrange for them to be discussed at a meeting with that body in March.
    Mr. Clark Hutchison: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a great shortage of police in Scotland, and that many of the conditions in the forces are not good? What steps will he take to rectify the position?
    Mr. Ross: If the hon. Member will read the Answer that I gave on this point a few weeks ago he will see that we are seized of the situation and are taking it into account. It will be taken into account in the discussions that will take place.

CIVIL AVIATION POLICY
The Minister of Aviation (Mr. Roy Jenkins): I would like to make a statement on certain aspects of civil aviation policy.
The Civil Aviation Licensing Act, 1960, provides for the Air Transport Licensing Board to grant licences, subject to a right of appeal to the Minister, to operate specified services. I do not propose, at this stage, to ask the House to make a change in this legislative framework. I nevertheless believe that it would be in the public interest to lay down some guide lines to the Government's views of the objectives of licensing policy.
Three main types of operation are concerned: inclusive tour charter services; scheduled services overseas; and internal services within the United Kingdom.

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In general, it is not, in my view, desirable to apply restrictions to the inclusive tour charter services on holiday routes. The growth of such services has been made possible by an agreed European policy of licensing liberally applications by reputable operators of each other's countries. This traffic may have some effect on scheduled carriers, but to attempt to deal with this problem by restricting licences would prevent some members of the public who want inclusive tours from booking them and, in addition, might tilt the balance of trade within the restricted market against British operators.
I have accordingly asked the Air Transport Licensing Board if its procedures for dealing with the applications of British operators for this type of service can be simplified and expedited. The two Corporations are, of course, free to compete in the inclusive tour charter market.
So far as scheduled services on international routes are concerned, I am not convinced that the national interest is, in general, served by more than one British carrier operating on the same route. No other European country attempts to insert two of its carriers on any single international route and I believe that a continued British attempt to do so is likely not only to be harmful to the established British operator, but to bring no net gain to British civil aviation as a whole. I do not, therefore, propose to reopen with foreign Governments those cases where the A.T.L.B. has licensed parellel international services by British operators and it has so far proved impracticable to secure the necessary traffic rights on acceptable terms.
I shall also be ready to use my statutory power to direct the Board to refuse applications when it appears to me that foreign rights cannot be obtained without detriment to an established service or to the British share of the traffic as a whole. At the same time, any British operator, public or private, who wishes to provide a genuinely new service or open up some fresh market for British aviation will have my full support.
On some trunk routes in the United Kingdom independent companies are now operating services of limited frequency alongside B.E.A. The A.T.L.B. has not
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so far thought it right to allow them to operate at anything approaching an unrestricted frequency. That accords with my own view. In the short run, unrestricted competition might produce a better service to passengers, but probably at the cost of all the operators serving the routes in question doing so at a loss. The longer term results could well be to force up fares, or to lead to a lower frequency after one operator had been eliminated. The benefits to the passenger would be likely to be short-lived. While, therefore, so far as rests with me, the independent airlines may continue undisturbed to operate their present limited frequencies on these domestic trunk routes, I do not think it right to offer them the prospect of an unrestricted or extended frequency in the near future. In these circumstances, it will be for these companies to consider whether they wish to continue as at present, or to withdraw completely from these routes.
Should they choose the latter alternative, B.E.A. will revert to being the sole operator. I therefore propose to institute special measures to ensure that B.E.A. pays particular regard to the consumer interest. I shall seek an early opportunity to appoint to B.E.A.'s Board a member who will be charged with paying especial attention to the interests of the domestic passenger. I also propose to strengthen the terms of reference of the Regional Advisory Committees for Civil Aviation, with particular emphasis on the quality of service and convenience of timings to meet local needs. I am sure that B.E.A. will not wish to fall down on their national responsibilities in any of these respects.
On other internal routes there may be a case for more enterprising development of air services by independent airlines, and for giving them reasonable security of tenure of licences. The Government's eventual policy must naturally have regard to the study of the co-ordination of the transport system which Lord Hinton has undertaken to conduct.
These general statements of policy intention, which must be subject to exception in some cases and which are, of course, without prejudice to the duty of the Board and of myself to give full attention to evidence and argument in particular cases, will, I believe, offer reasonable security and a good prospect of

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growth both to the Air Corporations and to the independents. Both types of operator have an important part to play in the rapidly expanding future of British civil air transport. In the view of the Government they need not achieve this at each other's expense.
Mr. Maude: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, coming on top of the recent change in policy in respect of trooping tenders, this statement represents a very severe blow to the independent airline operators, who have made an enormous contribution to the growth and efficiency of British civil aviation?
Is he aware that he has admitted in his statement, by implication, that they have served as a yardstick and an incentive to the efficiency of B.E.A., because he says that when competition is reduced he will have to put a special extra watchdog on B.E.A.? Does he realise that this is absolutely no substitute for the discipline which competition alone can bring? Will he reconsider these policies and recognise that competition in civil aviation is the only safeguard for the passengers?
Mr. Jenkins: The hon. Member was enunciating a very extreme position at the end of his supplementary question. It was not the case that under the previous Administration unrestricted competition—unrestricted competitive rights—or anything approaching it, was granted to independent operators.
As for trooping, I made a statement about this treating the issue on its own merits, which I believe made it reasonable that the Corporation should compete for carrying the nation's troops.
As for charging B.E.A. with looking after passengers' interests especially, if the removal takes place—and independent operators are entirely free to decide whether they should carry on as at present, as they can do—I shall be extremely anxious to ensure that B.E.A. pays the fullest regard to consumer interests in this matter.
Mr. Rankin: I gather from what my right hon. Friend has said that he will encourage B.E.A. to pay greater attention to consumer interests in aviation. Does net he agree that B.E.A. has done a great service in opening up the routes to the Western Isles—at a continuing loss to the Corporation—and also the
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routes over the Irish Sea? Does he realise that this results yearly in a loss of £500,000 to the Corporation? Will he bear that fact in mind, and consider the possibility of giving the Corporation a little assistance in relation to those developments?
Is he further aware that the policy of the independents has been to compete on the lucrative routes, particularly between Glasgow and London, which B.E.A. has developed? Will he encourage the independents to try to develop those parts of Scotland and England which are not at present sufficiently catered for in aviation?
Mr. Jenkins: I am very well aware of the most valuable service which B.E.A. performs by its Highlands and Islands services. I think that we should keep that closely in mind.
On the latter part of my hon. Friend's question, I said towards the end of my statement that on other internal routes—and that includes other Scottish routes—there may well be a case for more enterprising development of services by independents.
Mr. Marten: Is it true that the independent airlines have sent the Minister a memorandum about this very subject? Is it also true that the Minister is seeing the independent airlines tomorrow? If so, is it not extremely discourteous that he should have made this dreary Socialist statement today?
Mr. Jenkins: I am, of course, in constant touch with airline operators. I took the opportunity of seeing—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question."] If hon. Members wish to have the question answered, I will respect their wishes. Yes, it is true that the independent airlines sent me a policy statement, but the policy of the Government, with great respect, is not determined by policy memoranda of this kind.
Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement? It will be particularly encouraging to those who believe that the expansion of civil aviation is a major hope for the future of the aviation industry.
Mr. Jenkins: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend.
Mr. Lubbock: Could the Minister more precisely define the criteria to be followed by the A.T.L.B. which we on this bench welcome?—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Does he consider that this eliminates the need for legislation to amend the Civil Aviation Licensing Act, or is he leaving that for further consideration at a later stage? Could he also say whether the independent operators will have every opportunity of developing feeder services in the British Isles, in spite of the fact that this general new byelaw is under way now? In safeguarding consumer interests, will he bear in mind, now that B.E.A. has a virtual monopoly of the more lucrative long-range internal routes, that it has an obligation to maintain less lucrative services in the Highlands and Islands?
Mr. Jenkins: As I said earlier, I am not proposing for the moment to disturb the legislative framework. Let us see how we get on under this statement of policy.
I am very anxious to see a growth of scheduled services throughout the United Kingdom and I shall be glad to see new ones developed, whether by public or private operators.
I must correct the hon. Member on his third point. B.E.A. is not being given a monopoly. The position is not being changed from that which exists. I am merely refusing to allow a position in which unrestricted competition is allowed. I am sure that the Corporation will continue, as it has done in the past, to discharge its national responsibility.
Sir A. V. Harvey: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that where the independent airlines have competed with B.E.A. there has been an immediate improvement in B.E.A.'s services? Is he further aware that on the London-Manchester run, the time-keeping of B.E.A. services is very bad indeed and that for many months in the year it takes one, two or three weeks to get a seat and that some competition there would do a great deal of good?
Finally, is he aware that the independent airlines have said that they would place large orders for new civil aircraft if they were given reasonable tenure in the future? Will those orders now be placed?
Mr. Jenkins: The first part of the hon. and gallant Member's premise is arguable. In any case, the question which I have to decide is whether to move from here to a position of unrestricted competition on these domestic routes. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Yes. I did not think that it was right to do that.
So far as the equipment purchasing policy of the independents is concerned, they have first to decide whether to maintain their existing frequencies on these routes and, secondly, what purchasing policy they will pursue.
Mr. Galbraith: Is this not a most monstrous policy, showing that the Government have no concern at all for consumers and are more interested in preserving the monopoly of the nationalised concern?
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the national interest. What does this curious phrase "national interest" mean, when it is the interests of the passengers which should count? Is he not aware that in the Toothill Report it was stated that B.E.A. was failing to fulfil traffic needs between Scotland and England? What is the good of adding one extra man to the Board of B.E.A. to keep it on its toes? The way to keep any company on its toes is to have some competition.
Would he be good enough to answer the second part of the question put to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten)? Is he or is he not seeing the independent airlines tomorrow? If he is, why did he make this statement before seeing them?
Mr. Jenkins: I shall, if I may, answer the second part of the hon. Member's question first, as it seemed a little more precise than the first part. I saw representatives of the two main independent airlines which this statement must affect before making this statement. I made this statement today, at the earliest possible opportunity, partly because I had been under considerable pressure from one of those airlines to make the statement as soon as possible. It is true that I have a meeting—I shall be very glad to see it go ahead, if they are—with a body which does not represent all the independent airlines to discuss general matters with them.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. We must get on.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS
  Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Bill
  Mr. Hendry: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 5th March, I shall call attention to the need to debate the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Bill in Committee of the whole House, and move a Resolution.
  Relations with Europe
  Sir J. Foster: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 5th March, I shall call attention to relations with Europe, and move a Resolution.
  Industry (Restrictive Practices)
  Mr. Currie: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 5th March, I shall call attention to restrictive practices in industry, and move a Resolution.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY)
  Ordered,
  That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock.—[Mr. Short.]

  NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT 1957 (AMENDMENT)
  3.50 p.m.
  Mr. Leslie Hale: I beg to move,
  That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for the payment of unemployment benefit to persons whose ambit of employment is permanently or temporarily restricted by disease, disablement or other physical incapacity; to amend the National Insurance Act 1957; and for purposes in connection therewith.
  I rise to ask the leave of the House to introduce a modest Amendment to Section 4 of the National Insurance Act, 1957, which was a very controversial section, long debated. The Bill I seek to introduce is a modest one, related only to registered disabled people, totally blind and registered blind, and people under a great physical incapacity. It does not seek to raise the other controversy.
  The late Alfred Lord Tennyson, in an observation not made in another place, but high over Temple Bar, spoke of
  "A land of settled government,
  A land of just and old renown,
  Where Freedom slowly broadens down
  From precedent to precedent."
  That has never been my experience in the courts. On the contrary, my experience is that freedom, welfare and social justice gradually narrow down from precedent to precedent. That has been the lamentable case here.
  I ought to say, in fairness to right hon. Gentlemen opposite, that Section 4 of the 1957 Act is selected because it is the ruling Statute. It is fair to them, because they have enough on their plates already, to say that the roots of the evil have previously been seen in previous regulations, and some decisions which led to the problem have been taken earlier. There were a series of cases before the National Industrial Commissioners on unemployment benefit, raised on the case of employment on Christmas Eve and whether the National Insurance officer could allocate accumulated holiday pay after periods of unemployment.
  Then there came the disastrous case in 1955 quoted as Case No. 13 of 1955, and the number seems appropriate. In that case a registered blind worker was

  1195
  employed at an institute for the blind. He was employed for five days a week on making bedding. There was at that time a reduction in the demand for bedding, possibly due to social reasons and practices which it might be indelicate and irrelevant for me to pursue, but the result was that this worker was not always employed for five days but much more frequently for only four.
  By Thursday night, there being no work left, work ceased. The management said that there was a five-day agreement. It was always anxious to keep a five-day agreement and the only reason for the lack of one day was the lack of work—one would have thought that that was unemployment. The Commissioners decided the ambit of employment had been reduced to four days and, therefore, no pay was payable for the other day.
  Unhappily, the matter moved to Oldham, in a case which I took before the Commisisoners, in which a man, long on sick benefit and seriously ill, was found three days' work a week in an institution working five days. The benevolent manager, anxious to help, said that he could not have this man in employment unless there was someone there capable of watching and helping him. The manager was able to provide only three days' work a week for this man. Sick benefit was lost because the man was employed. Unemployment benefit was received until the National Insurance officer intervened—again, with great respect, may I say that the initiative comes from the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, whose officers receive their wages, like manna from a benevolent service, in line with the mutations of the moon.
  The Commissioners decided that the ambit of this man's work had been reduced to three days and that he was not entitled to unemployment benefit because work was not available. The result of that was, of course, a further serious injury to a man suffering from ill-health. A great deal of worry and a great deal of expense was caused with no public benefit to anyone. I say that nowhere,
  1196
  in all the debates and discussions which took place here and in Standing Committees of the House on Section 4 of the Bill of 1957, did anyone express the view that this result should accrue.
  It is true that judges in their infinite wisdom—I agree entirely with them—say, "We shall not pursue the motives of Parliament, because those motives are inscrutable." But, one may think, should not the Ministry, through its officers, institute legislation of this kind, which has never had a real and effective voice in its favour from Parliament? I referred to precedents. It would not be fair if I did not quote the justice of Portia, who said something quite different which may be regarded as a precedent:
  "And many an error, by the same example,
  Will rush into the state: it cannot be."
  The Bill which I seek to introduce is a one-Clause Bill. It would be, as I said, limited to people gravely ill or disabled. It would merely say that we shall not talk about the limitation of the ambit of work if it is due, or mainly due, to the disablement, to the disability, so as to enable people to be found periods of work suitable to their disability and have a little benefit for the unemployment which results from their disability. I am sure that it would be the will of the whole House that effect should be given to such a Bill.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Hale, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Manuel, Mr. Mapp, Mr. Woof, Mr. Sydney Silverman, Mr. Harold Walker, Mr. Alldritt, and Mr. Winterbottom.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT 1957 (AMENDMENT)
  Bill to make provision for the payment of unemployment benefit to persons whose ambit of employment is permanently or temporarily restricted by disease, disablement or other physical incapacity; to amend the National Insurance Act 1957; and for purposes in connection therewith, presented accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday 5th March and to be printed. [Bill 84.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  SUPPLY
  [6TH ALLOTTED DAY]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Dr. HORACE KING in the Chair]

CIVIL ESTIMATES, SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1964–65
  CLASS VI

    VOTE 13. MINISTRY OF HEALTH
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £404,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1965, for the salaries and expenses of the Ministry of Health; for the expenses of certain committees, etc.; and for sundry services.
    Whereupon Motion made, and Question, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again.—[Mr. Grey]—put and agreed to.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.
    Motion, made and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Grey.]

    NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE (MANNING)
    3.59 p.m.
    Mr. Richard Wood: It is a matter of some regret to me that the first speech which I make in this House on the subject of the National Health Service should be made at a time when it is plain to everyone that a crisis faces the Service, some say the greatest crisis since 1948. The focal point of this crisis, as the House will be only too well aware, is the anxiety and dissatisfaction that exists among general practitioners. I will come to that focal point later.
    I will, first, speak generally about the National Health Service. This is a short debate and I understand that a number of hon. Members wish to speak. I hope that nothing I say will make more difficult the task of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health, which is, as I see it, to develop and improve the services not
    1198
    only to those who are unwell, but to those who are not unwell; both the curative and preventive services.
    Looking back, I think that we all agree that the idea of a comprehensive service was not only a most imaginative one, but was also extremely bold, because the resources with which to implement it—the human resources, resources of building equipment, and so on—never were and never will be unlimited. The competing claims on those resources were and always will be strong and the demand for benefits, not only at the start but right through, has remained keen and buoyant.
    Therefore, the danger has existed, since the very inception of the Health Service, that at times or at some time the demand for medical care would overwhelm or intolerably strain the means of providing it. As we are aware, this pressure on resources has been evident at various points and times since the inception of the Service. At present, it is the general practitioners who are likely to occupy the attention of the nation and Parliament, so much of what I say—and much of what all hon. Members will say today—will be concerned with the general practitioner.
    We are also conscious of the strain which is at present imposed on the nursing services, physiotherapists—I had occasion this morning, in one of the newer hospitals, to discuss these difficulties—and a host of ancillary workers whose contribution to the National Health Service is indispensable. And in the local authority sphere of health and welfare there is a similar pressure of demand.
    In the promises which appeared in the Socialist election manifesto and in the election addresses of a number of prominent Labour candidates who now occupy extremely lofty positions in Her Majesty's Government we noticed a great deal of vague speculation—which was, no doubt, attractive to some—about the acceleration of programmes, more staff, improved conditions and expansion in the various branches of the Health Service. We had from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs these words:
    "The health of the nation demands, and will get, an intensive programme of new hospital building, an increased supply of doctors, nurses and other qualified staff."

    1199
    When I recently suggested to the Minister of Health that many of his right hon. and hon. Friends who had criticised the modesty of the Conservative plans for hospital building—which seems to be a clear implication of the election address of his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs—he, with his great astuteness, referred me to the earlier view of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; that the Conservative programme could not be exceeded by any party with any degree of responsibility. No doubt it is that remark which both he and the Prime Minister would most like to recall.
    Instead of the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs' intensive programme of hospital building we have a review of the building programme which, the Minister of Health told us last week, would be "a lengthy business." All we know of the immediate future, or of the future at all, is that the Government intend to provide £5 million more than the original estimate of expenditure for 1965–66. I find this most welcome, but I am bound to say that its significance in real terms is beginning to be a little doubtful in view of the cost increases which are now taking place.
    What the Minister of Health has done, if I may so describe it, is to switch off the light which my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) cast on this subject; and after the end of the next financial year we will find ourselves plunged into a darkness which will make it impossible for us to deduce either the intentions of the Government, or the rapidity of their desire to honour the pledges of the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs and others to get on with the intensive programme of hospital building. Perhaps this is the whole point of the exercise. I hope that the Minister, when he replies, will give us some idea of the likely duration of the review, of what this "lengthy business" means.
    I also ask the right hon. Gentleman to confirm his intention, when the review is completed, then to announce its result and his conclusions to the House of Commons so that hon. Members will be able to satisfy themselves that the anxieties of their constituents are being fully attended to and that the momentum of hospital building in the early 'sixties is being fully maintained.
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    The problem which, naturally, will claim most of our attention today is the mounting strain on the medical services, the dissatisfaction of general practitioners with the recent pay award and the deep anxiety of a great many of them about their future. This problem faces us as a great crisis because of the place of general practitioners in our medical system. This seems to be of such importance that any serious breakdown in this part of the system carries an immediate threat to the whole structure of the Health Service.
    It is the general practitioner alone who really knows the individual, his family, his past and his whole background. The general practitioner must play a leading part in the health team, in its task of curing the patient. While he may not have the specialised knowledge of the consultants who are dealing with his patients, it is he who has the specialised knowledge of the individuals with whom the consultants must deal.
    The Review Body set up in 1962 to advise the Prime Minister has now issued its fifth Report. The Government have accepted its recommendations and the general practitioners have made no secret of their dissatisfaction. That is the situation, as I see it, which we face this afternoon.
    Some time ago the Minister of Health declined in the House of Commons to give a description of the pool system, not because he lacked the ability to do so but because he feared, probably rightly, that most hon. Members—including myself would lack the ability to comprehend it. If I were tempted to describe the pool system I should be deterred from doing so for precisely the opposite reasons.
    The Minister of Health (Mr. Kenneth Robinson): I intend to make a shot at describing it today.
    Mr. Wood: We look forward to that and hope that our comprehension will have improved.
    I was about to make the boast that although I do not intend to have a shot at it, I will lay my hand on my heart and claim to have mastered its essential principles. I have frequently learned from experience that when complicated intellectual conceptions, after years of struggle, are finally squeezed within the scope of my mental equipment, those conceptions have the awkward habit of

    1201
    suddenly and disconcertingly losing all practical significance.
    It has happened to me very often. Sad as I should be to feel that my weary hours of studying, and mastering, the pool system should be completely wasted, I must admit to very serious doubts whether a system of remuneration, either in its present form or with the modifications proposed by the Review Body, which seems to be so widely disliked and distrusted by general practitioners, can long continue to occupy the place in the Health Service which it has held since that Service started.
    I realize—and, of course, the doctors do—that this was the system that they chose in 1948, but many of us—including, I think, the right hon. Gentleman himself—have become very conscious of its weaknesses. In fact, I recall that in the debate on 27th July last the right hon. Gentleman said—and perhaps he intends to remind us of it today:
    "… I am sure that it is possible, even without any change in the basic system of capitation fees, to evolve a simpler, more acceptable, and satisfactory method of paying general practitioners than the present pool allows."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th July, 1964; Vol. 699, c. 1012.]
    My understanding of this is that, whilst it is the Review Body which recommends the amount of remuneration, the method of remuneration is properly a matter for discussion directly between the Ministry of Health and the profession, either within or outside the Working Party on General Practice—the France Committee.
    Therefore, I shall ask the right hon. Gentleman to tell us today, either that he has already begun talks with the profession on these lines or that he is prepared to do so immediately, with a view to reaching agreement on an alternative method of remuneration which the doctors will find satisfactory. Perhaps he will, at the same time, tell us whether he has yet reached agreement with the profession on a change in the method of reimbursing practice expenses.
    Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether or not he and his predecessors have given undertakings to the profession—as I believe they did give them—that such changes will not be introduced without the profession agreeing to them?
    In that debate of 27th July of last year, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Small
    1202
    Heath (Mr. Denis Howell), who is now a Joint Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science—expressed himself on remuneration in forthright it not particularly scientific terms. He said:
    "People have … said that money is not the root of all their discontent, but we know that at the bottom it jolly well is …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th July, 1964; Vol. 699, c. 1060.]
    I would not dare to be so dogmatic. I have no doubt that remuneration is of great importance, but I also have no doubt that other things in this connection are most important, too. Long hours, constant availability, responsibility—literally—for life and death are bound to impose their own strain on any human being, and I suppose that most people—and I expect that most of us this afternoon will have a go at it—could name a long list of additions to these natural burdens.
    There is the widespread feeling that the doctor's professional skill is not being used to the best advantage; that there is no link between skill or experience and reward; that there is no proper career structure. Many doctors feel that the doctor has too little time for his patients, who very often need reassurance and advice, which can take a very long time to give, more than any actual treatment in the narrow sense. They feel that the doctor has too little opportunity to maintain contact with his patients in hospital, especially those who are in for short stay. The doctor very often finds difficulty in arranging home helps or home nursing for his patients.
    There is also the difficulty—and this is of extreme importance—of remaining a good doctor. I think that it was the Porritt Committee which emphasised the increased importance of postgraduate training, but how many hard-pressed general practitioners can, in these days, keep up with the continual accumulation of new knowledge? Then there are the doctor's personal anxieties—the burden on his wife, the problem of educating his children, and the future for his wife and children if he overworks and dies.
    I do not think that any hon. Member doubts the sincerity and sympathy of the right hon. Gentleman, although many of the election statements of his right hon. Friends make some of us suspect that they do not share his knowledge or his

    1203
    insight into these very important problems. He himself told us last year that his party planned to establish at least four new medical schools. His right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, in his election address, told the voters of Huyton that they could expect urgent steps to overcome the serious staffing difficulty. Everyone appreciates that staffing difficulties cannot immediately be overcome, but we are justified in expecting, from the Prime Minister's words in his election address, that the steps will be taken at once, particularly as we were told that all Labour's plans were poised four months ago to "swing into instant operation".
    We would, therefore, like the Minister to tell us this afternoon what plans he has for reducing shortages of staff, when they would be put into operation, and when they will begin to have effect. We should also like him to tell us whether or not he has already persuaded his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to provide the money, not only for the new medical schools but for the expansion of places at existing schools, and for the encouragement of such improvements as a widened system of group practice. Further, will he refrain, particularly at the present time, from putting new burdens on to general practitioners and, instead, do all that he possibly can to reduce the load they carry at present?
    My third point is one that I have already made, and it is by far the most important. I hope that he will be able to answer in perfectly satisfactory terms the request that the Government should accept the responsibility that now lies upon them to lead the way out of this grave crisis that at present faces the National Health Service and that, therefore, he will immediately begin discussions with the profession with a view to devising a new framework within which general practitioners will be willing to work and to provide the best service for their patients.
    4.18 p.m.
    The Minister of Health (Mr. Kenneth Robinson): Perhaps I may begin by congratulating the right hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) on his first speech in his "shadow" capacity. I am sure that the whole House will agree that in so far as his speech related to
    1204
    the immediate crisis it was constructive; and that nothing he said has made my task any more difficult than it already is. I am grateful to him for that.
    The right hon. Gentleman mentioned a number of other things besides the doctors' dispute, and perhaps I should here warn you, Mr. Speaker, and the House, that it is my intention later to seek leave of the House to reply very briefly to the debate. I should like to deal with those other topics then, but I want to devote my opening remarks to the doctors' dispute. First, however, I should like to speak briefly about another and no less essential profession—that of nursing.
    There are amongst nurses recruitment and staffing problems, but the latest available total for all grades of nursing and midwifery staff in Great Britain is the highest we have ever had. It is true that the number of student nurses has regrettably fallen slightly below last year's figure, but it remains the second highest figure ever recorded. I hope that recruitment of nurses will be helped by the pay settlement for student nurses which has just been reached, with increases ranging from between 6 per cent. and 12 per cent. in rough figures, which will become effective on 1st March. Negotiations on increases for other nursing staffs are continuing amicably and I hope that a settlement will be reached in a couple of months.
    Mr. Eric Lubbock: Does the Minister intend to say anything about pupil nurses while he is dealing with recruitment?
    Mr. Robinson: The figures I gave of student nurses included pupil nurses. I have not separate figures for pupil nurse recruitment, but they, too, benefit from this pay increase. I hope all this has some relevance to the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman about the staffing of hospitals. I hope, too, that the House will note a marked contrast here with the bitter pay negotiations for nurses about three years ago.
    There is, I think, not a great deal between the two sides of the House on the question of the crisis in the general medical services, but there is one point which, I think to his credit, the right hon. Gentleman did not make, but which

    1205
    has been made in the Press and, which, according to the Press, may be made by hon. Members opposite during the debate and which I should like to get out of the way before I get to the main part of my speech. That is the Government's decision to abolish prescription charges. I think that it is wholly irrelevant to the main issue in this debate. I am not aware that the decision was opposed by the party opposite and it has not so far tabled a Prayer to annul the Regulations. Should it do so, I should be glad to deploy the full case.
    I only want to say today very briefly that the Labour Party has been pledged for more than 10 years to get rid of these charges—for very good reasons, in our view Throughout that period until last July we were supported in our view wholeheartedly by the doctors themselves, and then on a single occasion, at a meeting highly charged with emotion over a number of different issues, the doctors suddenly and without any previous warning reversed their decision. This they were perfectly entitled to do, but what would the country and the party opposite have said if the Labour Party had casually jettisoned, on the eve of a General Election, a specific pledge to the electorate which had been repeated times without number?
    Anyhow, what was the censure debate on 2nd February about if it was not about alleged breaches of election pledges by the Labour Government, pledges which were considered to be broken because they had not been redeemed within the first 100 days? This is a specific pledge, redeemed and in full operation 15 weeks after our taking office.
    Further, we do not, and we did not, share the only coherent reason which has been given by the doctors themselves for reversing their attitude, namely, the fear of increased work load and of widespread abuse by patients. These fears were reiterated with increasing force amongst doctors as 1st February approached. I said then that I thought they were exaggerated and that I did not share them. Little has been heard of these fears since 1st February. There is no evidence so far of any substantial increase in prescriptions over the country as a whole and no evidence whatever of abuse by patients.
    1206
    This issue has been raised by and on behalf of general practitioners because somehow they seem to think that, but for this decision, £22 million would have been available to increase their remuneration. The fact is that no remuneration has been withheld from them because of this expenditure on behalf of their patients, any more than it has been withheld on account of the increase in old-age pensions. The only circumstance that might have made this point relevant and anything more than a red herring would have been if the Government had rejected the award of the independent Review Body. Instead of that, we accepted it.
    I want now to turn to the main problem and I want, during the course of my remarks, to try to clear away a number of dangerous misunderstandings about the present position. I cannot regard it as anything but somewhat ironical that it should be on my head that the wrath of the family doctors is being visited because, like the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod), who, about 10 years ago, held the office that I now hold, I am the son of a family doctor. Although, perhaps, I had no valid judgment at the time, I have plenty of evidence that my father was a good general practitioner. At least I know that he loved his work and that he worked hard at it. No doubt he worked too hard, because he died of a coronary thrombosis at the age of 42. That was over 40 years ago, when conditions were very different and perhaps even in some respects hard for the G.P. than they are today.
    But, young as I was, I absorbed the atmosphere of a family doctor's home which was also his surgery, and what one absorbs in the first dozen years of one's life stays with one for life. So I do claim first-hand knowledge of what is involved in being a family doctor and any prejudices I may have are likely to be in sympathy with the family doctor rather than to the contrary.
    I think, also, that I can claim to have shown some awareness of the serious situation which for some years has been developing in general practice. Of a number of articles that I wrote and speeches I made while in opposition perhaps I need only mention my speech in the debate to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, the debate I initiated on

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    27th July last year, on the family doctor service. In that speech I referred to the many warning signs over the years which had been ignored by a succession of Conservative Ministers of Health, until the profession erupted in 1963. Let the House face this fact. Here is one more critical situation inherited from the previous Government which had been festering through years of neglect.
    Shortly after taking office I wrote a personal letter to all family doctors, the first time, I understand, that any Minister of Health has done this. I wrote it in an effort to convey to them my good will and my concern that good family doctoring should flourish. The letter included the statement that I was
    "ready to discuss more radical reforms in general practice, either through the medium of the Working Party or in any other way that may be thought appropriate".
    The response to this letter from the profession was a mixed one. Of the very many doctors who wrote in reply to me, the majority at least showed appreciation of my intentions and some desire to co-operate constructively. Some replies and some comments in the journals were cynical, suspicious and even downright abusive. For my part, I can only say that I wrote the letter in complete sincerity and that I stand by every word of it. At least, the replies encourage me to believe that there are enough family doctors willing to work constructively for the genuine partnership between profession and Government that is essential for the future of the Health Service.
    Now there has been another and more violent eruption. Perhaps the right attitude to adopt to this is that it was bound to come sooner or later without a considerable change in the general practice set-up—that the situation was unstable and must reach this crisis before a remedy could be found. Whether the eruption would have been quite so violent and bitter under a Conservative Government is a question on which there has been some speculation in the Press and elsewhere. One can only wonder. However that may be, the crisis is upon us and out of it can come an opportunity which the Government are willing to seize, if the profession will do the same.
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    I would be the last to deny that there are very real problems connected with general practice that the medical profession and I have to face and tackle today. Some of them go far deeper than levels of remuneration, though pay and methods of pay must certainly loom large. The detonator of the latest explosion, if I may so describe it, was the award of the indepent Review Body, of which I shall say more later, but to understand it I must try, as I promised the right hon. Gentleman, to explain the basis of the pool system which is now the focus of the family doctor's discontent.
    The pool system, in essence, goes back more than half a century, far beyond the beginning of the National Health Service, to the old National Insurance days. There are two elements which go into the pool. The first is the agreed average net income for all official services of G.Ps., multiplied by the total number of G.Ps., broadly speaking. The second element is the total practice expenses of all those G.Ps. as agreed by the Inland Revenue, for tax purposes. That is the global total.
    From the global total is deducted all separately remunerated payments to G.Ps. from public services—for example, hospital and local government work—and then the balance that remains is distributed amongst G.Ps. on a capitation basis, that is a fee, with certain loadings, for each patient on each G.P's. list. I have simplified what is an extremely complex system. I hope that I have not misrepresented it in any way in so doing. It is a system which is fully understood by few doctors and by even fewer members of the public.
    One undesirable result of this system to which I called attention long before either the leaders of the profession or the previous Government got around to discussing it, is that, though 100 per cent. of practice expenses are repaid to the profession as a whole, they are repaid not according to what each doctor incurred but on an averaged basis as part of the capitation fee. Thus, a doctor spending a great deal on ancillary help or maintenance of his premises in order to give a better service to his patients does so by encroaching on what should be his net income, while at the other end of the scale the doctor who is content to spend the very minimum on his practice is able

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    to pocket as net income a large proportion of what is intended to be reimbursement of expenses.
    Thus, it can fairly be said that the second category is being subsidised by the first; or perhaps I can put it in another way. There could hardly be a bigger financial disincentive to improving and modernising the standards of general practice.
    The pool system is not anything that has been imposed on the profession by machiavellian Governments or Ministers of Health, as many doctors appear to believe today. The profession has always accepted it willingly, and it made no attempt in evidence before the Royal Commission on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration, which reported in 1960, to seek any change. The Royal Commission's Report endorsed the system in these words:
    "Because of the practical advantages … and because the profession is accustomed to it and on the whole likes it we recommend a continuance of the pool system."
    Now the profession considers that these latest developments—and I quote again—
    "demonstrate … the improbability of ever securing justice for family doctors so long as the present pool system remains the basis of remuneration."
    But I have already expressed my willingness to discuss methods of remuneration, and I cannot understand why it should be necessary to demand such discussions as the profession is now demanding with the truculence that is being exhibited. There is a similar demand for a new contract of service, on which it has always been open to the profession to make suggestions. I have not shown myself difficult of access to the profession. Since I took office, in four months I have had at least half a dozen meetings with B.M.A. leaders on such questions as immigration, compensation and prescription charges. There is only one subject on which there is a request for a meeting at present outstanding, and that is on free drugs for private Patients—
    Lord Balniel: I interrupt purely to clarify a point. Has the right hon. Gentleman directly approached the medical profession, suggesting negotiations with them?
    Mr. Robinson: One of the purposes of my letter of 1st January was to make it
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    perfectly clear that I was ready to discuss with the profession any basic changes in the structure of general practice. The claim for remuneration at this time was before the Review Body. I must tell the noble Lord that if I had put forward any constructive suggestion at this time, in this atmosphere, it would have been met automatically with hostility and suspicion. I was awaiting, as I was bound to await, an initiative from the profession.
    Lord Balniel: I am sorry to press this point, but I think that we ought to be clear. If I understand the right hon. Gentleman aright, he has not, in fact, made any direct approach to the British Medical Association or other representatives of the profession. Does the right hon. Gentleman not feel, in the atmosphere which exists at the moment, that it might help the atmosphere were he directly to approach the profession?
    Mr. Robinson: Perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to proceed with my speech. I think that he will find satisfactory answers to his questions in the course of it.
    I was saying that there is only one subject on which there is a request outstanding and it is free drugs for private patients, which it is difficult to see as a proposal crucial to the family doctor's future. If the pool and the present contract are, indeed, so intolerable, it is hard to see why changes have not been put forward earlier, beyond the change in the pool which was proposed to and in part accepted by the Review Body, and why the British Medical Association has not even sought an approach to discuss them with me.
    The truth may well be that the causes of the present crisis are more deep seated and can be traced to the family doctor's feeling of insecurity about his place in the world of medicine.
    Sir Keith Joseph: The right hon. Gentleman referred to changes which were proposed. Proposed to the Review Body by whom?
    Mr. Robinson: These were changes in the pool proposed by the evidence committee of the doctors to the Review Body. I hope that my speech will not become intolerably long, but perhaps I might interpolate an answer to a point made by the right hon. Member for Bridlington,

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    who said that he thought that the Review Body was concerned with the levels of remuneration and not the method. I think method is much more appropriately discussed direct with Ministers, and I said this when in opposition. The fact is that the profession itself asked for a change in method by making this demand of the Review Body and putting forward this claim.
    Medicine is very much more complicated than it was when this pattern of general practice was established, long before the Health Service. It becomes progressively more doubtful, as medicine advances, whether the family doctor can fill the place that he ought to effectively under the traditional pattern, working to a great extent in isolation and unsupported. He needs premises, staff, equipment and these things that can usually only be secured by working in groups. He needs time for continuing education to keep himself up to date, and this is also easier to organise in group practice.
    There are many general practitioners—and they are, in general, those who suffer most under the present system—who are gearing themselves for this forward movement, but the profession as a whole is still a collection of individuals isolated from each other and from their negotiators. The result has been a lack of collective initiative from which much of the current frustration must derive. This frustration is then projected on to the Minister and to the Government as the obvious scapegoats. The waters are deeply troubled, and it is not surprising that destructive elements like the Fellowship for Freedom in Medicine and the Communist Party are fishing in them, exploiting and trying to maximise the dissatisfaction.
    Perhaps in all this turmoil too little is heard from the ordinary hard-working G.P. who is devoted to his job and his patients and has no time—and perhaps little inclination—to engage in medical politics, or even to take part in local meetings of the British Medical Association. Occasionally, one or other of them writes to the Press. There was a letter in The Times on 15th February, and six Birmingham doctors wrote to the British Medical Journal on 13th February. Many of them have written to me.
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    Many of them have asked me to discount much of the bitterness and anger that is more widely expressed. But the bitterness and anger is undoubtedly there, sincerely felt by many G.Ps, and I certainly would not wish to under-rate it in any way.
    It is quite wrong to say that no initiative has come from the Government to meet these problems. True, many locust years were wasted, but belatedly, less than a year ago, a Working Party was set up on which representatives from the profession, sitting down with officers of Health Departments, considered a wide range of problems affecting general practice. I am glad to pay tribute, as I did then, to the right hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Barber) my predecessor, for that initiative.
    The problems which the Working Party was to discuss had been largely identified by the Annis Gillie Report on the Field of Work of the Family Doctor, from a committee set up on Government initiative. I regret as a sad fact that there were no corresponding initiatives from the profession itself and, even sadder, that the profession has made so little response and has failed to recognise the sincerity of our desire fundamentally to improve general practice.
    A number of improvements have been discussed and proposals made to the profession. If little progress has so far been made this can hardly be laid at the door of the Government. It is very much more due to the cumbersome machinery for consultation and decision within the medical profession itself. A further obstacle to change has been the doctor's status as an independent contractor, a status on which he has insisted ever since the beginning of the National Health Service. If he were an employee, premises, staff, and equipment would automatically be provided by the Government, just as they are for hospital doctors, and he would be paid a net salary according to his grading.
    But because of the doctors' obsessive insistence on this independent status I could not now introduce a salaried full-time service, if that was what the profession as a whole wanted, without new legislation. Aneurin Bevan was compelled by the profession to incorporate a specific prohibition of this in the 1949 National Health Service Act.

    1213
    It is on this account that we have the present pool system of remuneration and that we have so much difficulty in agreeing on arrangements to pay some of the expenses direct. We have had to find a formula for direct payments that would give real help to the doctor who wants to provide himself with better facilities, without depriving him of personal financial responsibility for what he provides. We have proposed to the profession, and their leaders have agreed to recommend it, a direct payment of a proportion of the wages of ancillary staff. It is this view which, in a sense, is at the core of the present troubles.
    It was conceived at first as a limited redistribution of expenses already paid in full. This inevitably meant that if some doctors with high expenses were to receive more pay, those with low expense ratios would receive rather less. Most people may think this equitable, but the profession, whilst welcoming the principle, wished to avoid any scheme that would result in a fall in net income for any doctor. This could be avoided only by placing additional money in the pool, because die pool already contained 100 per cent. of all expenses incurred.
    Now this is precisely what the Review Body award has made possible. Indeed, it has made possible not only the introduction of this ancillary scheme in this way, and another scheme for providing direct payments in respect of practice premises, but also a small increase in the capitation fee from which all will benefit. In percentage terms, for a doctor with an average net income this means increases ranging from 2frac12; per cent. for those G.P.s who do not employ or intend to employ ancillaries, to around 14 per cent. for those who employ one full-time helper, and to around 20 per cent., or some £550 a year, if he is employing a full-time and a part-time helper, as many do.
    The overall additional cost to the Exchequer is about £51 million a year, or about 10 per cent. if averaged over all general practitioners.
    Mr. Lubbock: Did not the Review Body, in its recommendations on the ancillaries, say that the financial means to do this would be provided from the surpluses which would otherwise have been distributed to doctors as soon as the pool calculations were completed?
    1214
    Are not the doctors now going to lose that?
    Mr. Robinson: It is the precise opposite. Under the Review Body proposals, the balances would be paid out in full to the profession and the greater part of the new £5½, million would be devoted to launching the ancillary scheme.
    I have described the effect of this, and to use such words as "snub" and "insult" to describe such an award, coming on top of a 14 per cent. increase two years ago, which was intended to last for three years, must seem to many trade unionists a strange use of language.
    Since general practitioners' pay is settled on the advice of an independent body, it is not for me to express a view as to whether G.P.s are adequately paid or not, but I must put it on record that if this award is included their increases since the Royal Commission was appointed eight years ago have aggregated to around 50 per cent. Their present net average income is £2,765, to be increased by this award to rather over £3,000. The present gross average income is rather over £4,200 a year, which would rise to very nearly £4,500 a year if this award were accepted.
    I must now say a few words about the Review Body itself. This body was appointed following the recommendation of the Royal Commission with the enthusiastic support of the profession.
    Dr. Wyndham Davies Dr. Wyndham Davies (Birmingham, Perry Bar) rose—
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Dr. Horace King): Order. If an hon. Member wishes to seek to intervene he must ask whoever is speaking whether he may intervene. It is not enough merely to stand.
    Mr. Robinson: I have given way rather frequently and I still have a good deal to say. I do not wish to take up too much of the time of the House and I hope that I shall be allowed to proceed.
    The Review Body was described by a leading general practitioner as
    "a method of removing, for all time, the recurring disputes with the Government on pay."
    Those are slightly ironical words today. The body comprises seven distinguished

    1215
    and wholly independent men, under the chairmanship of Lord Kindersley. Its existence confers on doctors and dentists a privilege denied to all other Health Service staff. The Chairman of the General Medical Services Committee, Dr. Cameron, who is one of the key figures in this dispute, told the British Medical Association Council a month ago:
    "It would be regrettable if the profession were to take up a militant attitude which might be construed as a threat to the Review Body and its work."
    Dr. Cameron added that the profession would have given anything for arbitration in the dispute with the Government before the Royal Commission was appointed. He said that one of the great benefits which had come out of the package deal was undoubtedly the setting-up of the Review Body and added:
    "You can call it anything you like, but basically it is a form of arbitration, and it is something the profession must have. We cannot conduct our affairs in a state of threat and counter-threat with successive Administrations."
    A week later, the same Dr. Cameron told his own committee:
    "The profession itself suggested to the Royal Commission that a Review Body should be set up which could consider the profession's case from time to time. One of the great results of the Royal Commission was the setting up of the Review Body, which, in fact, is a form of arbitration".
    Another leading general practitioner, who is a most prominent and militant leader in the present dispute, quoted the following words with evident approval:
    "If one accepts an arbitration, one is almost in duty bound to accept its verdict".
    I take just one more quotation, which, with the indulgence of the House, I should like to read in full. It is a short letter written to the Permanent Secretary of my Department, and published, I may say, by the Secretary of the British Medical Association. It was dated 17th December, precisely two months ago today:
    "Thank you for sending me a copy of the Joint Statement of Intent on Productivity, Prices and Incomes and its accompanying letter addressed to Sir Thomas Holmes Sellors and Dr. Cameron"—
    they are, respectively, Chairmen of the Central Consultants and Specialists Committee and of the G.M.S.C.—
    1216
    "After consultation with them and the Chairman of Council of the B.M.A., and on behalf of all the members of the Joint Evidence Committee, I am instructed to say that we have full confidence in the independent Review Body procedure as recommended by the Royal Commission and accepted by the Government, Parliament and the profession. We are equally confident in assuming that the Government will accept and act promptly upon any recommendations which the independent Review Body may make".
    Dr. Stevenson's confidence was not misplaced. The Government did precisely what the leaders of the profession had asked. We accepted the award, and it was not altogether easy in the context of this time. We accepted it promptly and in its entirety.
    The doctors were disappointed. They had asked for £18 million and they had got £5½ million, and it was not recommended as a straight percentage increase but, for the greater part, as a method of helping the more hard-pressed general practitioners with higher expense ratios. The Review Body had examined the case put before it by the doctors, and, in paragraph 46 of its Report, had written:
    "Although we do not question the sincerity of the conviction of general practitioners that remuneration has been seriously inadequate ever since 1948, we find no evidence to support it and do not share it."
    That was the view of the Review Body, frankly and clearly stated.
    Disappointed as they were, it is very hard to exonerate the leaders of the B.M.A. from the charge of misleading their members as to the effect of the award, which even now is utterly misunderstood by many doctors. Instead of an objective factual statement, the B.M.A., in its letter to members, chose to describe the award in the most derisory possible terms, as no more than 1d. per consultation. If they really needed an average, it would have been more accurate, and far less tendentious, to cite the figure of £250 per year increase in net income, which is what the award, in fact, represents.
    Dr. Wyndham Davies: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Robinson: I am sorry, but I cannot give way at the moment.
    The entire presentation of the case by the leaders of the profession to its members smacks more of a competition in militancy between the various warring

    1217
    factions than of any attempt at a constructive approach to a solution.
    Does the profession think that the Government were right or wrong to accept the award? Does it think that we should have rejected it, and, if so, how is it imagined that the Review Body could have remained in being? Has the profession lost confidence in the Review Body, and, if so, what does it suggest putting in its place? These are questions which require answers.
    I have been asked whether I stand by assurances given by my predecessor and myself that the scheme of direct payment for ancillaries will not be imposed on the profession against its wish. I do not regard the acceptance by the Government of this award as in any way inconsistent with those assurances, but I must emphasise that, in my view and that of my advisers, the proposal is in the best interests of general practice.
    But it is for the doctors to decide. We have still to learn whether or not the profession accepts the recommendations. In spite of the sharp reaction, they do not appear to have been rejected. Once they are accepted, £5½ million of Exchequer money will be put into the pool; but to put this money in for a flat-rate increase in capitation does not constitute acceptance, as paragraph 59 of the Review Body's Report makes clear.
    Now, one or two general words in conclusion. I think it a pity that the profession should feel the need to express itself so strongly to get negotiation on methods of remuneration and the form of the contract, but, so long as negotiations can take place with a sense of urgency, perhaps it does not matter how they come about. This, of course, is on the assumption that there is no question of negotiation under duress. There has been talk of resignations and of necessary preliminaries to negotiation. But I cannot imagine that this means that I am expected to agree to this or that, on pain of resignation of doctors from the Health Service, before negotiations can begin. Clearly, no Government could be expected to do that, or to negotiate under threat of withdrawal by a specified date.
    I have clearly said, and I repeat now, that I have always been willing to discuss basic charges in the structure of general
    1218
    practice, in the terms of service and methods of remuneration. There is no need of threats to get me to negotiate. Perhaps the profession might be reminded that it is never wise to hurl oneself at a door which is already open.
    For the last time, I quote Dr. Cameron again, speaking only a week or two ago:
    "So long as we are the responsible body dealing with general practitioner affairs, it should be our policy to negotiate, and to continue to negotiate, and only after negotiations fail to consider any other course of action".
    If that is the spirit in which the profession will enter these discussions, and if the doctors will concede my good faith and put aside their suspicions, then, I believe, we can reach a successful conclusion.
    I said at the beginning of my speech that the right attitude to adopt in the present crisis might be to regard it as something which was bound to come sooner or later and, having come, even to be welcomed, perhaps, for the opportunity it gives for advance. I have been obliged to speak to the House in plain terms about the reasons for the crisis, as I see them, and about the responsibility which the leaders of the profession must bear. But I hope that nothing I have said will suggest that I am reluctant to seize this opportunity for advance or unhopeful about what might come out of it. On the contrary, I am now more than ever convinced that the Government and the profession must get together to grapple with the deep seated problems of general practice which go far beyond remuneration.
    We have now come to a point where there are only two alternatives, as I see them. They are reconstruction of general practice within the Health Service so as to allow the family doctor to play his proper part in the future development of medical care, or the disintegration of general practice and the erosion of the whole concept of the family doctor, which we in this country specially cherish and which here as nowhere else in the world plays so vital a part in the whole medical scene. There can, surely, be no doubt which of these alternatives we must strive for.
    4.59 p.m.
    Mr. R. H. Turton: As one who for a short time held the

    1219
    responsibility of the right hon. Gentleman and, during that period, engaged in the preparatory work which eventually saw the Review Body set up, I wish to say a few words in the debate.
    First, I regret the tone of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, which, I believe, will not be helpful in a very difficult situation. We have to accept the fact that there has for some years, unfortunately, been great disappointment among general practitioners with the working of the Health Service.
    I thought that the right hon. Gentleman was very unwise in saying that he had inherited great problems. When I became Minister, I also inherited the malice between the general practitioners and Mr. Aneurin Bevan at that time, but I never mentioned it in the House. It was a great mistake for the right hon. Gentleman to try to play party politics about something which is far beyond that.
    Mr. A. Woodburn: As one of the Ministers with Aneurin Bevan in the negotiations with the doctors, I must point out that there was no foundation for this feeling at all. Mr. Willink, a predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman's at the Ministry of Health in the Coalition Government, had the same experience with the doctors. "Nye" Bevan was entirely reasonable—we both were. The trouble was that the doctors never got down to the problem of how the Service was to work and wasted a great deal of time on inessentials.
    Mr. Turton: That reinforces what I said. I inherited a great deal of malice, but I do not believe that in such a matter it is wise to try to play party politics. [HON. MEMBERS: "What is the right hon. Gentleman doing now?"] If hon. Members opposite will listen to me, they will hear what I am doing.
    There has been a great decrease in the number of principals in general practice—74 in the year ended last September. I am quoting from the Kindersley Report. I notice the right hon. Gentleman shaking his head. Does he wish to correct me?
    Mr. K. Robinson: The right hon. Gentleman's figure is not wrong. I would suggest that that was not a great decrease.
    1220
    In fact, it was the first decrease ever.
    Mr. Turton: Also, about 25 per cent. of doctors are emigrating. These are serious problems which the House must tackle. I agreed with the right hon. Gentleman when he said that it was not remuneration in particular with which general practitioners were dissatisfied but conditions of service. But there has been a great deal of misunderstanding about the system of remuneration, and it should be cleared up. I did not feel that the right hon. Gentleman's speech cleared it up.
    Our intention when we set up this body was to take the difficult question of arguing about the total quantum of remuneration, the total amount of the pool, away from argument between the Ministry and the profession and put it into entirely independent hands. That was done in the case of both the Pilkington Royal Commission and the Kindersley Committee. I should have thought that there was no argument that both those Committees had discharged that duty well and satisfactorily. Both of them came to conclusions about the right increase in remuneration for the profession at the respective times. The Pilkington Commission recommended a 9 per cent. increase, and this time the increase recommended is £5½ million.
    I have always understood that the working out of the details of distribution should be left to the profession and the Minister. That is what I understood by the pledge given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Barber), that he would not impose any system of reimbursement of practice or ancillary expenses, and equally from the pledge repeated by the right hon. Gentleman. Therefore, I should have thought that if we could reach a more friendly situation between the doctors and Parliament—both parties in Parliament—it should be possible to avoid the tragic step of doctors withdrawing from the Health Service, and we might be able to try to get agreement about how the £5½ million will be distributed.
    I agree with the recommendation in the Kindersley Report—I have always thought this absolutely right—that the payment for Executive Council services should be taken out of the pool. I

    1221
    should have thought that was the fair and right way to deal with the matter. That also happens to have been part of the evidence of the general practitioners to the Kindersley Committee. That recommendation would appear to take £5,300,000 out of the pool, and yet, as a result of the bringing in of the Working Party's proposals for the reimbursement of ancillary and practice expenses, that will involve about £3 million to £4¼ million of this sum.
    I should have hoped that the Minister would make it clear when he makes his second speech today by leave of the House that he is not imposing any of these machinery aspects of the Kindersley Report on the profession and that all that he is saying is that he accepts the recommendation that there should be awarded to the general practitioner service an extra £5½ million and that he will work out with them in friendly session—rather different from the attitude that we found in his speech—how it is to be distributed.
    Mr. K. Robinson Mr. K. Robinson rose—
    Mr. Turton: Perhaps I might finish first, and then I will give way.
    One sees that paragraph 59 of the Kindersley Report would not be out of line with what I am suggesting. I refer to the recommendation for an increase in average earnings of general practitioners to £2,775 with the exclusion of the Executive Council payments. Paragraph 59 says:
    "If (as we think desirable) the schemes for partial direct reimbursement of certain practice expenses are introduced from 1st April, 1965, some £4 million to £5 million will cease to be reimbursed through capitation fees …"
    In other words, the Report is saying that if there is agreement between the profession and the Minister, certain consequences will follow. It is accepting the Minister's pledge, which has been repeated, that there will be no imposition of this on the profession.
    Therefore, I hope that the Minister will make it clear that the way is open now for negotiation, not on the total sum of £51 million when the doctors ask for £18 million, but on how the £51 million will be distributed. If he did so, that would help to ease a very difficult situation throughout the country. The dissatisfaction is far more widespread
    1222
    than one would gather from what the right hon. Gentleman has said.
    I ask him to make two other statements in the near future. One he has already done today—that he will look again at the whole system of remuneration to try to make it less complicated. It is extremely involved. I ask him to do that in consultation with the medical profession.
    Secondly, in recent years we have had both the Gillie Report and the Porritt Report. I believe that the time has now come when we should review the whole structure of the Health Service. There are a great many wise suggestions in the Porritt Report which I hope the Minister will consider. There is far too much duplication and waste in the Health Service at present. There is far too little co-ordination between those who are working in the hospitals, those working in general practice and those concerned with the prevention of disease.
    I do not look upon health as a party matter, and I never have done so. The Health Service was conceived by the National Government at the end of the war. We are all jointly responsible for the introduction of the Service, and we are all jointly responsible for its advantages and its shortcomings. I certainly take my share of the blame as well as the credit. It is against that background that we should attempt to make the Health Service work better and more efficiently than it has done in the past. I believe that if the Minister grasps the opportunities and seeks the good will of all those working for the profession we can succeed in getting this dispute settled without bitter acrimony.
    5.10 p.m.
    Mr. James A. Dunn: I rise to introduce myself to the House as Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale, and, as usual, to ask for the indulgence of hon. Members for my maiden speech—although I appreciate that any medical diagnosis of my facial appearance would deny the word "maiden".
    I follow in the footsteps of many worthy and illustrious representatives of the constituency. They range from the famous family of Baden-Powell to Elijah Sandham and William Keenan and last, but not least, to the most recent of my

    1223
    predecessors, Mr. Norman Pannell. Each in his own way made valuable contributions to the debates of this House with independence and authority. I hope, in some small measure, to follow in their footsteps.
    It would be wrong of me to attempt to deal with subjects that have been introduced by right hon. Gentlemen so far in this debate, because I am the first to appreciate that this could never be accepted as non-controversial, so I shall try to deal with the issues that face the Kirkdale constituency, one in particular.
    Kirkdale is in the middle belt of the city. Its housing ranges from urban renewal to the "two up, two down". Predominantly, however, Liverpool housing, and especially the housing in Kirk-dale, is of the small, terraced type of high density. We have a large population and many large families.
    A constant problem is that of hospital accommodation and, unfortunately, we suffer from the lost opportunities of yesteryear. At present, we are confronted by the proposed closure of the Stanley Hospital, which has been in existence for over 100 years—even before the famous family came to represent the constituency which I now have the honour to represent. The Stanley Hospital serves a dockland area which also has other industrial and commercial activity in the first belt of the city. It also serves the neighbouring constituences of Scotland and Bootle. The catchment area is very large. It is quite a closed community and the intended closure of the hospital will cause—is causing already—consternation throughout my constituency. For our people it is a catastrophe and it is being said that it will endanger the future well-being and health of the residents of Kirkdale.
    The hospital itself is a small unit. It has about 110 acute beds, a first-class emergency and casualty department and an out-patients' department that has more than served the needs of the community. Last year, about 21,000 people passed through the out-patients' department and that figures does not reveal the high proportion of the under-14s taken there for emergency treatment. It is very convenient for a mother with a small family, living close to the main arterial road to the North from Liverpool, to be able to take a child, hurt at
    1224
    home or at school or in a children's game, to the emergency service at the hospital.
    The emergency service for the dockland workers has always been immediately available. The removal of that service from the geographical centre which Stanley Hospital provides could cause great hardship. It is said—and I agree—that if the planners were looking for an ideal site on which to build a small, compact, modern general hospital they would probably pick the site on which Stanley Hospital now stands. Yet they propose to close the hospital that is already there.
    I appreciate that the intended closure in the first instance was proposed as the closure of a teaching hospital but, nevertheless, the regional hospital board could have declared its intention to continue with the service as it already existed. I am asked by my constituents to voice their anxiety, and I do so, as well as my own. I live in Kirkdale and although my home is a fair distance from Stanley Hospital it has been a source of security and guarantee to me and my family. To remove the hospital will cause concern to each and every person in Kirkdale as well as to those in the neighbouring constituencies I have mentioned.
    During the past year, about 2,000 inpatients have been treated at the hospital. This is not a high figure by any standards, but it does not reveal that the occupant of an acute bed very often became a geriatric case. We have not sufficient hospital accommodation for geriatric cases and most of those who found themselves in the Stanley Hospital with an ailment that needed further medical attention for a prolonged period were advised not to return home, for the simple reason that home conditions were very often so bad that they would retard recovery. There would be little opportunity for exercise and fresh air, while the cramped situation would cause nursing difficulties. Many of these homes are sub-standard. Running hot water is often not available at all while cold water is very often drawn from an outside tap.
    All these factors have made the imminent closure of the Stanley Hospital a serious threat to our community. It is causing a great deal of anxiety

    1225
    now. It will cause a great deal of inconvenience because the hospital is easy of access in our area. Relatives visiting patients have no difficulty in travelling. I ask my right hon. Friend to reconsider the decision to close the hospital.
    Kirkdale has many things of which I am proud, not least the Stanley Hospital. The late Cardinal Godfrey was Kirkdale boy, and, on a lighter note, the ground of the Liverpool Football Club is in the heart of my constituency, and some hope that 1965 will be a year of attainment for that club. Still being lighthearted, an old friend of mine used to tell the story of a Liverpool supporter who saved up for many years to see Liverpool win the Cup, but who, unfortunately, died a millionaire. I hope that most people in Kirkdale will not die disappointed with the service offered at the Stanley Hospital under the control of my right hon. Friend.
    5.20 p.m.
    Sir John Vaughan-Morgan: There are few greater pleasures in the House than congratulating an hon. Member on his maiden speech. I should like very sincerely to congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. Dunn) on his contribution this afternoon. There are always certain traditions of a maiden speech which should be observed, although they have been somewhat breached in many instances in this Parliament. They should not be contentious and they should preferably deal with local affairs. A particularly attractive feature is when some reference is made to the hon. Member's predecessor, particularly when he comes from another party. The hon. Member fulfilled all the true traditions of the House in his maiden speech, including his reference to Norman Pannell, who is a good friend of many of us on both sides of the House. I am sure that we were all delighted to hear the hon. Member. He has done credit to Kirkdale and we look forward to hearing him in future, perhaps on less contentious issues and perhaps less local issues, but we shall, none the less, look forward to hearing him.
    I should like to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his office. No right hon. Gentleman has ever come to that office having made so many speeches on the subject with which he was to deal.
    1226
    I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will understand that his past speeches will form a gold mine of research on matters on health policy for hon. Members on this side of the House.
    I have to declare an interest in this debate in that I am the chairman of a teaching hospital. I have to be somewhat circumspect in my remarks, because I am a creature of the Minister, appointed by him. My appointment is due for renewal in about a year's time, but I have every hope that it will not be the right hon. Gentleman himself who may renew it. Perhaps in passing I may pay tribute to a colleague whom we have just lost both from the House and from the Board of Westminster Hospital, Llywelyn Williams, a very much loved colleague here and on the Board and a very dear friend of mine.
    Most of the debate has been about the general practitioners, as is understandable in present circumstances, but I should like first to draw attention to a fact of which the right hon. Gentleman will be fully aware. It is that there are other difficulties, particularly in the hospital service. Everybody knows about the shortages of medical and ancillary staff, but few people appreciate the increasing problem of the difficulties which are beginning to arise with non-medical staff. It is becoming very difficult to recruit good, young administrative staff, secretaries, clerical and domestic staff. This even now applies to what are sometimes called the prestige hospitals.
    I want to draw the Minister's attention to one of the reasons for the difficulty and the dissatisfaction in the hospital service. It is a certain dichotomy of approach within the Ministry of Health. All hospitals have these staffing difficulties. The Ministry of Health officials listen very sympathetically to the tales of woe which are told, but then point out that these are matters for the Whitley Council. The boards of the hospitals then get in touch with the management side of the Whitley Council at the Ministry of Health and are told that these matters are under discussion. Somehow—and this applies whatever party is in power—if and when the discussions come to fruition, they do so far too late to assist in a solution of the problem.

    1227
    The current position of pharmacists in hospitals is a classic example. Outpatient dispensing is having to be abandoned in many hospitals and, as a result, on the other side the Ministry is faced with a large extra bill for the completion of prescriptions on EC 10. There is a sort of dichotomy of responsibility, for all these problems eventually come under the responsibility of the Minister, who somehow manages to give managements and boards the appearance of having a slightly split personality.
    I hesitate to suggest yet another Royal Commission, but I wonder whether there could not be some inquiry into the whole of lay staffing in the hospital service. The net result of such an inquiry might be, as I would hope, the scrapping of the Whitley machinery and possibly even the substitution of a review body on the lines which have become almost notorious in another connection. This may seem an odd moment to advocate such a change, but I believe that it would be welcome, particularly if it would give the boards and the teaching hospitals access to the review body so that they could put their case. I only throw that out as a suggestion for consideration.
    I want now to turn to the subject of the general practitioners. I am tempted to say that this is where I came in, because eight years ago I was very briefly at the Ministry of Health when Dennis Vosper was Minister, now my noble Friend Lord Runcorn. He, too, was faced with a crisis and angry doctors, and when doctors are angry they are very angry indeed. Like all angry people, they sometimes get a little irrational and liable to damage their own cause, however good it may be. I say that while deprecating some of the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman today, because it is no answer to the irrationality of the doctors to speak in the tone which the right hon. Gentleman sometimes employed in passages in his speech. Eight years ago, the crisis ended in the appointment of the Royal Commission, and it is the fifth Report of the Review Body which came out of the Royal Commission which has created the current rumpus.
    We must appreciate the difficulty which doctors have as negotiators. In-
    1228
    side the profession there are always inherent conflicts of interests which break their unanimity and weaken them as negotiators. There is the basic potential conflict of interest between the general practitioners and the consultants which, in a sense, is one of the causes of the present malaise. Out of the review there is now a further conflict between those who employ ancillary staff and those who do not. This is a conflict which has been exploited by the Report.
    In this dispute, I have some sympathy with the B.M.A. Against the B.MA. it can be said, as the Minister said, that we are only half-way through an agreed standstill period of three years. That might have been an argument for a rejection of their claim by the Review Body on the grounds that in another year a complete review would be taking place. But the Review Body did not do that. In fact, it accepted part of the claim, and I concur with my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) in feeling that there is a curious illogicality within the Report between the reasons for the decision and the nature of the award.
    Paragraph 55 of the Report of the Review Body says quite plainly
    "that the present system of remuneration does not recompense doctors for additional work resulting from an increase in the proportion of patients to doctors unless average net income is increased on that account."
    In other words, the quantum has increased and the amount of the award, in the circumstances and pending a review very shortly, does not seem to me to be unreasonable.
    What is unfortunate is that strings have been tied to the distribution of the award which must seem to many illogical and unfair. We all agree, perhaps, that it is high time to review the whole matter of pay, and it is certainly time to revise the expenses and review the use of ancillaries.
    Mr. K. Robinson: I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. Would he say whether in his opinion it is equally illogical and unfair for the Review Body to have recommended certain payments to be taken out of the pool which were part of the payments which the profession wanted taken out of the pool? There seems to be an analogy here.
    Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan: I think one could claim that as a logical point of view, and I am sure that we could find others. I am only pointing out what I consider to be illogicalities which have caused the present discomfort. I am not trying to drive a coach and horses through the Report of the Review Body, and I think that the right hon. Gentleman is quite right to accept it. However, I am bound to find cause for the discomfort in the medical profession. I think that this should have been done, therefore, in quite separate negotiations. Imagine an industrial award which gave an increase in wages and which specified how that increase was to be spent. That, really, is the nub of the issue. I think, therefore, that there has been a mistake by the Review Body in that illogicality, and, perhaps, in others too, and a mistake which the right hon. Gentleman has not seen fit to point out.
    5.34 p.m.
    Mr. Arthur Blenkinsop: On the whole, I welcome the fairly rational atmosphere in which we are discussing this matter and, in particular, I would like to welcome the speech of the right hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood), who opened the debate in a cool, reasonable and dispassionate way. I think that, without unfairness, one might welcome the right hon. Gentleman as yet another new face in this field of health debates. The benches opposite are littered with past Ministers of Health who were not speaking officially on this occasion, but I do not think that we lost anything on that account. I am sure that we welcome the new views of the right hon. Member for Bridlington.
    I must say that I found some of the strictures made by one of the other right hon. Gentlemen opposite on my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health rather amazing. It seems to me that my right hon. Friend, in making his initial speech, put forward the general problems which we are facing in an extremely moderate and careful way, and it is amazing that it should be said that it is perfectly proper for the professional body to use any kind of language it likes in reference to the Minister, and, indeed, to the whole Ministry, and not expect a few modest and factual statements to be made in reply.
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    I would not have thought that the profession itself was quite such a tender body as to be incapable of taking a little reasonable and modest plain speaking. I have had an acquaintance, partly direct and partly indirect, with the medical profession in the past, and I have certainly never found its members unable to express their views very vigorously indeed. Therefore, I do not see why if they do that there should not be a certain amount of honest speaking in return. To suggest that there should be this difference of treatment as between one body and another is extraordinary.
    The tragedy of this whole affair is clearly that there have been so many missed opportunities over the years. I think one can say perfectly fairly that they have been missed both by the medical profession and by the Ministry. The new development of the National Health Service, which was started by the late Nye Bevan, offered when it was introduced some exciting opportunities for the development of general practice. Perhaps one of the great tragedies is that these opportunities have never been taken. There has been very little leadership either from the medical profession or, perhaps in the past, from the Ministry itself, with a view to really keeping clearly in the minds of members of the profession the exciting possibilities offered to them.
    For example, there are opportunities of advancing the standards of the medical profession, of improving the quality of its work and the status of its members, which I know is a matter of very real concern to them. There has been this unfortunate lack of leadership throughout. I think it is a pity that for 13 years we had so many Ministers of Health. Without making an attack on them individually, this fact has inevitably meant a lack of continuity.
    I think it was unfortunate that there was no opportunity for the medical profession in the Health Service field to feel that it was part of an important developing service. In fact, that service has been relegated as something of a dead end. This is something which we must correct, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend is only too anxious to seek to correct it. We must seek to give the general practitioner and other workers in the Health Service a clearer view of the prospects

    1231
    ahead for the benefit of the whole country and of the contribution which they can make.
    In most parts of the world our own peculiar system of general practice is not accepted. Perhaps this is one of the few countries left where we have general practice in this form. Specialisation is developing nearly everywhere in the world and, in most parts of it, it has wiped out what we consider to be a general practice. Let general practitioners beware that in their present form of pressure they do not themselves precipitate what I am sure they do not want, and what none of us wants—the ending of this peculiar and perhaps unique service. This they could very well do if they pressed their claims in too irrational a way.
    Let us look at some of the problems which have emerged. I, like others who have spoken recently, have had some experience of this matter in the past. Of course, one can well understand this general feeling of dissatisfaction about their future expressed by the doctors, which I know my right hon. Friend is only too eager to put right and which I think can be put right, but, of course, as other hon. Members have said, they like most of us have been confused about the working of the methods of remuneration. The system which was devised, the pool system, with all its refinements, is an extremely complicated system.
    But let us be fair. Whose responsibility is that? It is the general practitioners' professional representative body itself, the British Medical Association, which insisted, in early negotiations in the Health Service, that somethng of this form should be established, and many of the practitioners themselves have insisted upon this in the past. This is what some of us feel to be so illogical about the present situation.
    I do not want to dwell unnecessarily on this, but, for example, there was the Danckwerts award, which I remember well because I was myself at the Ministry of Health at the time. One of the features of this package deal which was welcomed by the doctors because it involved a very substantial financial payment into the pool was the principle, which was accepted then, that the multiplier should be the number of doctors, the number of doctors serving the general
    1232
    public within the Service. This has now turned out unsatisfactorily for them, but though in fairly recent years it was the Ministry which made suggestions about altering this, suggesting that the multiplier should be the number of patients, the number of those the doctors were serving, which would have been much more beneficial to the doctors, this proposal was turned down.
    As one goes through the history of this it is astonishing to see that on almost every occasion when benefits would have accrued to the doctors it was their own representative organisation which tended to be on the other side, tended to oppose the proposals. For example, let us take the whole question of practice expenses. It is now, I understand, agreed by the joint committee, in making representations to the Review Body, and in discussions with the Ministry, that there should be some way of dealing separately with practice expenses. My right hon. Friend has outlined the absurdity of the present position, but the Ministry is not responsible for that absurd position, the absurdity that where a doctor does his best to improve the standard of his services he is likely to receive a smaller, not a greater, amount. Obviously this is a gross injustice. This was raised when the Royal Commission sat and heard the evidence, and, amazing as this may be, it was indeed the B.M.A. which insisted that it wanted to retain this system of including practice expenses within the pool. It is only during the last year or two that, one understands, it has in direct negotiations with the Ministry now agreed that some other, more sensible, measure should be adopted.
    I find it, therefore, quite absurd, that the British Medical Association should now be attempting to load coals of fire upon my right hon. Friend's head for something which it has in the past largely been responsible in arranging. For this, in fact, is the truth.
    Again, look at the point, mentioned by several speakers, and very properly, of the increased load on doctors, which we appreciate, because of the reduced total number of practitioners as against the number of patients. This is true. It is the relative increase in the number of doctors compared with the much greater increase in the population. That has happened; but then, if one looks back

    1233
    a little way, and it is not all that far past, one sees it was the medical profession itself which insisted upon the Ministry setting up the Willink Committee, which, of all things, recommended a reduction of entry into the medical profession. It was that Committee. Many of us objected to the Willink Committee's recommendation of that temporary 10 per cent. cut in entry to the training colleges at the time. Many of us thought it was an absurd suggestion, but the Government of the day—my right hon. Friend has not a scrap of responsibility for that—accepted it, temporarily—I agree they would not boast of it now—and aggravated the problem which faces the doctors.
    I appreciate that difficulty. I appreciate the problem that doctors are having to serve rather more patients, overall. This is something we should take account of, but then let us fairly look at the responsibility for this, to try to make sure we do not make decisions of this kind in the future. I appreciate that we had these difficulties in the negotiations with the medical profession, and I am merely saying now that it is really time when on both sides—for this is not really a party political matter necessarily at all—we invited both the Ministry and the profession to look seriously at the exciting prospect which there is still for the general practitioner in the future.
    As I see it, we can really devote some of the energy which has been displayed in the past in rather unnecessary namecalling to the point of how we can best improve the quality of the service for the benefit of the doctors themselves, and of their patients, because that is, after all, what we are concerned about: not only the doctors but the people they serve; it is the standard of the service we are really concerned about. Should we not now devote our attention to that matter of how best to improve the quality of the service? There we surely have a number of important suggestions which could be made, including the need today, I would have thought, to accept the fact that if we want the highest quality and standard of service we must think in terms of doctors working together in groups, and making the fullest possible use of ancillary help, as, increasingly, they are undoubtedly doing, such as that of health visitors, nurses, and, indeed, welfare staff.
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    With this aid there is no doubt that a great deal of their problem could be very much eased.
    Of course, in the long term we must tackle what we have delayed far too long, the speeding up of entry of students into the medical profession, increasing the size of our existing medical colleges and, indeed, providing new medical colleges. I am thinking of some perhaps quite revolutionary ways of training doctors in future, looking at the way in which doctors are trained, to make sure that general practice is not regarded as a blank end, so that doctors in training should not be encouraged to think of it as a blank end but as an exciting and valuable prospect. These are possible, practical things which can be done.
    As a sideline, I would suggest that we should not rule out the possibility of the Ministry itself providing premises for group practice in suitable areas, and, indeed, although this requires an alteration of the Act, offering full and adequate salaries to those willing to serve and taking part in such centres. This could be done by the initiative of the Ministry as part of the negotiations with the medical profession.
    I only mean that there are exciting prospects ahead, in which we can combine for the benefit of everybody. And is it not high time we got down to this? Here we have a Minister who is, I believe, only too eager to undertake this job and to work with the general practitioners. I feel that the issues which they have raised are utterly irrelevant in fact to the big and exciting problems which, I very much hope, they and my right hon. Friend will join together to tackle.
    5.50 p.m.
    Mr. Frederic Harris: Many of us were interested to see the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) back in the House, and we appreciate that he speaks with considerable knowledge of the past. As time is limited, I shall not follow the tone of what he said, save to comment that I do not agree with his view of the tone of the Minister's speech.
    The Minister complimented my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) on the modest way in which

    1235
    he made his remarks. I agree with the Minister on that, but I doubted—and I say this quite frankly, because I have respect for him and I listened carefully to the polite way in which, as always, he made his points—whether the Minister's speech helped the atmosphere at all. I found his speech rather dictatorial—[HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] Yes, definitely. It made me feel that if there were a number of people who were finding things disturbing and they were addressed with that kind of speech, they would not be prepared to calm down very easily. It is essential for us all, as far as possible, to create the kind of atmosphere which will do away with misunderstanding.
    Dr. David Kerr: In view of the hon. Gentleman's repeated accusations that the Minister was abusive to doctors, would he be kind enough to specify the particular complaint that he has about the Minister?
    Mr. Harris: I did not say that the Minister was abusive to doctors at all. I said that he did not help to create the atmosphere which is so essential at the moment to lead us to a reasonable settlement of this unfortunate dispute which may become very serious in the long run.
    As the Minister knows, I am one of three Members privileged to represent Croydon. It has a population of 250,000, and, on 1st April, because of the reorganisation of Greater London, will have a population of about one-third of a million. I might, therefore, claim that the views which emerge from Croydon invariably represent the sound views of the commonsense people of the nation.
    Dr. Kerr: I am one of the hon. Gentleman's constituents.
    Mr. Harris: That is true, and the hon. Gentleman ought to know that what I have said is correct.
    We are discussing the manning of the Health Service, and because of the present impasse with the doctors, I must tell the Minister that the doctors from Croydon have reached boiling point. Their feelings are very strong indeed. The Minister referred to letters in the Press, but he did not mention the communication which appeared in the Daily
    1236
    Telegraph on 1st February, signed by 24 Croydon doctors, in which they set out their concern about events within the Service. This letter did not deal solely with their own personal remunerations. It dealt with many other aspects, some of which the Minister touched on in his speech this afternoon.
    General practitioners are a vital element of our National Health Service. This applies to other branches of the Service, too, but, as we know, it would be impossible to run the Service without the doctors. This is a fact which we as Members of this House have to face in the present situation. I am the first to appreciate, of course, that if a large number of doctors withdrew from the Service because of the present dispute there would still be quite a number who would carry on, but at the moment G.P.s are under extreme pressure of work, and it is therefore not realistic to think that a smaller number could keep the Service solvent. The attitude of mind of the Croydon doctors at the moment is symptomatic of the rest of the country, and nothing but ill can come out of the present situation unless it is quickly resolved, and I ask the Minister to consider this as a matter of urgency—[Interruption.] I listened to the Minister. I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite to listen to what I have to say.
    We are now faced with the threat of mass resignations by G.P.s who consider that the dispute is due to the considered breaking of a promise, not only by the present Minister, but by previous ones, too. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) said, the doctors were given an assurance that no scheme would be imposed on them involving conditions set upon awards recommended by the Review Body. The doctors consider that this promise has been broken by the present Minister.
    Mr. K. Robinson: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would be kind enough to repeat the assurance which he says was given to the doctors.
    Mr. Harris: The assurance was that no scheme would be imposed on them involving conditions set upon pay awards recommended by the Review Body.
    Mr. K. Robinson: At no time has any such assurance been asked for or demanded of me or my predecessors. The assurance to which the profession refers concerns a particular scheme for direct payments for ancillary help. The assurance was that this would not be imposed on the profession against its wishes.
    Mr. Harris: That illustrates the confusion which exists, because I assure the Minister that what I have said represents the view of the bulk of the Croydon doctors. After all, Dr. Cameron is also a Croydon doctor.
    If the G.P.s go ahead with their three months' notice to the Minister of Health, it will mean that the Government will not have answered the strong complaints of the profession, and the Ministry will be faced with a critical situation. The Ministry could not provide a satisfactory service simply by mobilising other doctors from the Service or by attempting to use the already overcrowded outpatient facilities. Such a situation is, of course, quite unthinkable.
    We must all recognise that at the moment there is a serious shortage of medical manpower. I submit that in the long term this can be remedied by increasing the number of medical schools, and by increasing the number of places in the existing ones. In the short term, one practical remedy is to stop the tide of emigration which at the moment is averaging 400 doctors a year. This can be stemmed by making conditions much more attractive for them. After all, 400 doctors represent a quarter of the annual output from our medical schools.
    Mr. Lubbock: Is the figure of 400 gross or net? Does it take into account the fact that many of these doctors come back after serving overseas for a period?
    Mr. Harris: I do not know the answer to that question.
    Mr. Lubbock: It is rather important.
    Mr. Harris: I appreciate that, but I understand that at the moment 25 per cent. of the doctors who come out of our medical schools go overseas. This is a high percentage, and obviously these doctors are leaving because they consider the profession here to be not as attractive as they would wish it to be.
    Dr. David Kerr: Can the hon. Gentleman say what percentage of doctors emigrated in 1935, 1945, and 1955 respectively?
    Mr. Harris: As Ministers say, without notice I cannot possibly answer that question. The hon. Gentleman is a doctor, and no doubt he knows the answer. The Minister could easily answer the question. All that I claim is that at present the country cannot afford this drain upon its newly-qualified doctors. Our population is increasing at a time when the number of doctors is decreasing and the viability of the National Health Service is at stake.
    Only this morning I was advised of a questionnaire sent out to Croydon doctors before the findings of the Review Body were known. It contained a question asking them whether they would encourage their children to enter general practice as it is today. Out of 70 doctors only 10 said "Yes". In answer to another question whether they would actively discourage their children from entering the profession 42 out of 71 said Yes", which again regrettably confirms the strong feelings which they hold about the present situation within the National Health Service. In my view their feelings are symptomatic of the feelings of doctors in the rest of the country.
    Mr. Herbert Butler: What about coal miners?
    Mr. Harris: This is not a matter that can be treated lightly. Where are the recruits to come from in the future? Furthermore, Croydon hospitals are undermanned, especially among the junior staff, and particularly in the registrar grades, who provide the consultants for the future. This aspect of the problem needs careful watching.
    On 4th June last I raised the question of nurses' remuneration, for nurses are also an essential part of the National Health Service. It is all very well to maintain that we can get nurses to volunteer on the basis of vocation, but there is a competitive demand for the service of girls today—so much so that this is just not on, especially to the extent of recruiting the great number of nurses which the Service requires today.
    Let us consider the extent to which we depend on nurses from overseas. Contrary to what the Minister said, there

    1239
    is no doubt that the aboltion of prescription charges, coming at the time it did, when the doctors' legitimate complaints were not being met, acted as a red rag to a bull for the doctors. This added, and will continue to add, to their already heavy burdens.
    Like other hon. Members, I have a heavy postbag. I interview people every week and have plenty of meetings. Yet in all the years that I have done this I have never had a specific request for the removal of prescription charges. I am sure that many other hon. Members, if they are sincere, will know that that is an absolutely correct statement. On the other hand, my attention has often been drawn to our considerably overworked doctors. The action of the Government in removing prescription charges when they did was without question done to gain more political support, but it also aggravated what was an already difficult situation.
    As long as we take care of people who cannot afford to pay—and this can always be done by reimbursement, when applicable—nominal charges in the National Health Service are quite justified, because human nature is such that people never completely appreciate something that is given for nothing. They respond much more if some charge is made, however small.
    The Labour Party seems to be determined that everything shall be free for the people, but this always leads to flagrant abuse, even from people coming here from overseas. Who suffers in the end? The public. Because of this it is deprived of the best National Health Service that can be provided. This question of charging or not charging is of vital importance. It should be kept in proper perspective, and viewed against the necessity adequately to remunerate for their contribution those who are an integral part of the Service, such as doctors and nurses.
    In my opinion it is almost impossible for everything to run satisfactorily on a completely free basis. There is no bottomless pit in the Treasury to draw upon, and from which to pay for everything. Contributions, in one form or another, are essential. Many Socialists are now trying to bring to an end the practice—and only a very small percentage of people are involved—whereby
    1240
    people who are prepared to do so can pay for private hospital beds. This is a negative approach. It will not help to solve the problems of the Service.
    In view of the unfortunate impasse that has now arisen between the Minister and the doctors, I ask him to take a new and considered look at the present Service and to aim at creating a fresh, efficient and harmonious pattern in the family medical care services of this country. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton said, this is a matter which should transcend party politics.
    6.6 p.m.
    Mr. Laurence Pavitt: About the only thing that I agreed with in the contribution which we have just heard from the hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Frederic Harris) was his remark that the doctors in Croydon are in some state of confusion. If it is of any consolation to him I can assure him that a lot of other doctors are equally confused. The main point I want to make about what I considered to be his unhelpful speech is that he should look a little more closely at what my right hon. Friend said and what his right hon. Friend the Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) said, because, in my view, both those speeches did something to create the right kind of atmosphere. I wish that I could say that same thing about the hon. Member's speech.
    Mr. Frederic Harris: Is it a problem for the hon. Gentleman that perhaps I was too realistic in my remarks?
    Mr. Pavitt: I realise that many other hon. Members wish to speak, and although I would dearly love to be able to debate, point by point, the number of misconceptions under which the hon. Member seems to be suffering, I must go on to make my own speech. Hon. Members on both sides of the House realise that medical manpower embraces medical womanpower, and that we are discussing other things than general practitioners, although that will be the main burden of my comments.
    The House must face the fact that although we are discussing manpower within the National Health Service, the basic problem with which we are grappling is within the realm of incomes

    1241
    policy, because there is developing a wide discrepancy between the way in which we are rewarding people in commerce or production as compared with those who provide services like doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, radiographers and so on. That question goes wider than the debate, but it is basic to the problems which my right hon. Friend is having to tackle. In the Health Service there is a shortage of manpower in many sectors, not least with the professions supplementary to medicine.
    For example, in 1955 there were 3,907 physiotherapists. Seven years later the number had risen by exactly five, to 3,912. The House probably recognises that in connection with these ancillary sources of service within the National Health Service my right hon. Friend faces a considerable problem. Fortunately, I have every confidence that he will be able to tackle it. What happens in hospitals is that after we train radiographers they leave because of inadequate pay. They are employed by private contractors who send them back and we have to pay the contractors three times the amount we would have paid to retain their services. This kind of thing will not be solved in 100 or 200 days, but I am grateful that the Government are aware of the situation and are seeking to do something about it.
    The hon. Member for Croydon, North-West made some comments about nurses. I am most grateful for the fact that in the hospitals in my area, the Central Middlesex Group out of 828 nurses no fewer than 278 are Commonwealth immigrants. Without them our services would not be able to continue. In the light of the overall extreme difficulties of manpower, the hon. Member for Croydon, North-West and many other hon. Members are guilty of short-cut thinking when they say that prescription charges are an alternative to the question of whether or not doctors should get more pay. There is no analogy here. In a service spending £1,000 million a year one could find many sectors where a saving might be used to vend elsewhere as well. One could also say that for every doctor £112 per annum is spent by the drug companies on sales promotion for which we the taxpayers ultimately pay. There is also a good deal of advertising of
    1242
    medicines and drugs, for which we also pay. We might seek to get these and other kinds of expenses cut, and the saving diverted to doctors' pay.
    In my view, the redemption of the pledge on the abolition of the prescription charges was in health matters the absolute No. 1 priority. This was a situation in which the sick had to pay the most; the more sick one was, the more one had to pay. If one was over 65 or under 5, one went twice as often to the G.P. and had to pay twice as much. If one lived in South Wales one had to go three times as often as one had if one lived in Surrey, and therefore had to pay three times as much. On sheer grounds of equity, this was the right priority. It was also right in order to ensure that the G.P. gave his patients an early diagnosis and prevented them having to go to hospital so often and thus presenting the nation with a heavy hospital bill. Any financial barrier between patient and doctor is wrong.
    Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that we have reached a climax as far as the general practitioners are concerned—this has been sparked off by the recent pay award—I think that the House should give credit to the Government for the speed with which they accepted this pay award. They received it on 25th January, and by 8th February the Prime Minister was making the acceptance plain here in the House. When we look at the record of previous Administrations in dealing with doctors' pay, we see that a claim for a 24 per cent. increase in June, 1956, lasted a year until the Royal Commission was appointed in March, 1957. It was three years later—though there was an interim award—before that Commission finally reported, in February, 1960. The Government accepted it three months later, in April. Two years then went by before the review body was established.
    I think that in all fairness it should be said that the doctors' pay claim in 1963 was for 14 per cent. I asked the right hon. Gentleman who was then Prime Minister, Mr. Harold Macmillan, how he reconciled this 14 per cent. with the guiding light maximum, laid down by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, of 3½ per cent. He told me to divide the pay claim by three as it would have to last until 1966. Yet already, before the

    1243
    end of that time, we have another increase, which the Government are prepared to accept.
    I cannot see that my right hon. Friend the Minister has any other option when the doctors have insisted that their claims should be taken out of politics. When there is a Review Body, he can only do one of two things—accept its findings or reject them, and if the doctors are not satisfied with the review body award of £5½ million, they have the same option. My right hon. Friend has made equally clear today that if they decide to reject it, that is all very well, but at least they have a considered offer of £5½ million. This is a considerable increase for some of them—though not for all—which I think they could quite well accept and still continue their further negotiations for alteration in the Service.
    I accept the proposition which has emerged from any speeches in this debate that the central pool is no longer the best method of paying general practitioners. This was forced on the Government as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop), who was involved much more in those days. This idea of a doctor being a private entrepreneur under contract was the doctors' idea. The Government of the day accepted that this had to be done. The central pool today is no longer relevant to the conditions of practice today. It is not only we who find it difficult to understand; there are 99 doctors out of 100 who have not a clue how their pay is made up. Any system where there is no communication or understanding of its working must be a bad system, so it is time that we relinquished this idea.
    I hope that, as a result of negotiations, it may be possible to have a two-tier system in general practice, under which doctors who insist on the capitation plan can keep it, but new doctors coming in can be offered the kind of rights which a hospital doctor, including a consultant, gets. The consultant has a set salary and he knows, if he is away, that a locum will be provided. The new doctor should enjoy precisely the same kind of contractual relationship as the consultant does. I think that the feeling of the general practitioner is that there is no such animal as the average general prac-
    1244
    titioner. When he sees an amount referred to as the average amount received by a doctor, it bears no relation to the facts as he knows them. He does not know that there are 10 separate payments which are included in the "average" whether or not that general practitioner has access to that sector of income.
    I think that the question of the central pool is one which, inevitably, whatever is the outcome of the present crisis, must be negotiated afresh and some method of payment which is more logical and which is more easily seen to be just should be given to the general practitioners. One of the anomalies which the layman has difficulty in understanding is that we pay on the per capita basis for more patients than there are in the population. In 1963, there were 451,000 more patients than there were in the population; the difference had gone up to 528,000 in 1963; it went up to 640,000 in 1964. In other words, there are over half a million floating patients. Some of them must be on two doctors' lists at the same time, and there must be an element of unfairness in this.
    I was interested in the point raised by the hon. Member for Croydon, North-West about differentials. I am afraid that all doctors are qualified, but some are more qualified than others. A consultant at his peak with an A award gets £8,995, a senior registrar who may do appendectomies and a number of important operations gets £2,050 after four years. In a borough about the size of Croydon, with 200,000 inhabitants, a Medical Officer of Health gets £3,070, with a maximum of £4,170. But the average general practitioner gets £4,215 gross, out of which he has to pay for his car and his laundry and anything else. After all his payments, he gets about £2,765.
    It is not for us to lay down how the pattern of payment shall go, but I am certain that the key rests in organisation. With an inevitable shortage of manpower for the next seven years, the only way in which general practice can make sense is as a team job. Instead of giving lip-service to the G.P. as the leader of a social welfare team we should make it a reality by the organisational methods which are needed. A doctor should work with receptionists, midwives—if he is engaged on obstetrics—social workers,

    1245
    psychiatric social workers, if he aeals with people who are emotionally upset, and all the other people who are needed to make this a team job. I suggest that if the doctors and the Ministry would combine to make general practice a greatly improved service, it would be much easier to find the answer to the pay problem.
    It is absolute nonsense to talk of a doctor working 365 days a year and 24 hours a day without time off. He cannot do it. There is at the moment no feasible and organised modern way of catering for him when he wants time off. I notice that in London, out of 2,237 G.P.s there are 1,305 who have contracted out of their evening and weekend work by deputy service, emergency night calls and that sort of thing. Has the Minister considered this? If a doctor contracts out from, say, 5.30 p.m. one evening until 8 o'clock the next morning and from 12 o'clock on Saturday until the Monday morning, should he then get a reduction in the amount we pay? I think that the Minister could save money by paying the annual fee of a G.P. to the Emergency Night Call Service—about 100 odd guineas—and then deducting a pro rata hourly rate for the time the G.P. no longer contracts to give. The doctors cannot have it both ways. They should he prepared to work in a reorganised system with all kinds of modern methods using equipment and personnel to provide coverage for patients.
    I echo the words of my right hon. Friend and, if I may, I will extend his metaphor a little. He talked about doctors trying to rush through an open door. I am worried about whether, in order to do so, they are using the patient as a battering ram and that when they get through the door the patient may find himself flat on his back and in need of their aid. As has been shown by speeches from both sides of the House, and especially by the right hon. Member for Bridlington, there is much good will here, in the Ministry and among patients who are grateful to general practitioners. We must avoid the situation where this becomes some kind of a contest, a battle, where doctors score off a wicked Socialist Minister or the Minister scores off the obstinate doctors. We must see what we can get from this struggle, and secure the kind of service that we want for the
    1246
    patient. It is the patient, after all, who is the important factor.
    In my view the only way we shall begin to move from a purely curative service to preventing people from becoming ill is by keeping the general practitioner right in the centre of medical activities. In order that this may be done, there must be proper organisation, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will secure the support of hon. Members on both sides of the House in his efforts to provide it.
    6.21 p.m.
    Sir Richard Thompson: It was inevitable and predictable, in the circumstances in which this debate is taking place, that the gravamen of the Minister's speech should be the regrettable impasse which has been reached, or looks like being reached, in relation to the family doctor. I welcome some of the things which the Minister had to say, particularly what he said about keeping the door open for further negotiations. He must recognise as clearly as anybody else that the first priority among the great responsibilities which he has assumed is the need to tackle the question of the general practitioner service which, for most of us, represents the medical care which we need in the course of our lifetime. Thousands of people go through their lives without entering the portals of a hospital but practically none go through even a single year without having cause to call at a doctor's surgery or have the doctor come to their house.
    In the innumerable health debates at which I have been present in this House during the last 10 or 15 years we have said that the family doctor is either the cornerstone or the Cinderella of the National Health Service. Whichever description may be true—perhaps both are true—I am sure that now we have reached the stage where we must try to do something effective to reform the conditions—I refer particularly to financial conditions—under which the general practitioner works. I do not believe that a succession of pay awards, which might have had a better reception in the profession, strikes at the fundamental question. I was glad that the Minister and my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) recognised that, basically, this problem was not necessarily wholly one of finance.

    1247
    There is a sort of malaise in the profession which appears to be deep-seated. The question of professional status, or the apparent whittling down of the status of the general practitioner, helps to make apparent the presence of a "chip" on his shoulder. I think that the general practitioner is one who would be very reluctant to match the militancy of the "big battalions" when trying to secure better conditions for himself. He feels that he is being edged more and more into an attitude of militancy by what seems to me to be a pay structure which does not really apply the rewards in the right places. This malaise is something which is serious for the future of the profession.
    I quote figures with reluctance because some have been quoted already and almost all have been challenged, but my information regarding recruitment and wastage is that although on paper there is a substantial surplus of new doctors every year over those leaving the Service, dying or emigrating, nevertheless the lines on the graph are converging uncomfortably closely and the numerical surplus which appears to exist is not as real as it seems. The reasons for this are the number of doctors who emigrate—I believe that emigration is at a pretty high level—and the fact that there are a number of foreign and Commonwealth doctors who acquire their qualifications in this country, and who work here for a time, but do not necessarily stay here. There is a considerable number of women doctors and many are lost to medicine because they get married, or cease to practise for some other reason, and all this must be set against a background of a population increase.
    What can we do to stop the rot and restore the confidence of the general practitioner in his great profession? I am sure that the restoration of confidence in his future and his status in society is just as important for the general practitioner as the mechanics of a particular pay award. The Minister has said that doctors need not fling themselves at the door of his Ministry because that door is wide open. I do not think that such a statement can be made too often or too loudly. I have been appalled during this impasse by the apparent gap between the vast majority of general practitioners and their leaders. It occurs to me that the doctors and their leaders do not always
    1248
    talk the same language. I do not seek to apportion blame. I do not know who or what has gone wrong, but it seems fantastic that quite recently the British Medical Association should have said certain things while a large number of doctors apparently believed quite different things. There is an internal job of reorganisation to be done so that doctors may feel that the body which represents them is talking in a manner which represents what doctors think and feel. There appears to be a need for a meeting of minds. Some of the decisions of the British Medical Association have caused genuine anxiety and concern to doctors, and that does not seem to me to help the situation.
    I am sure that one of the central matters in our discussions—many speakers have mentioned it—must be the need to use our ingenuity, or at least for the Minister and his advisers to do so, in conjunction with the doctors, to devise a better system than the present central pool with its capitation fee. It was interesting to note that the Minister spelt out how it works as simply as he could, for the benefit of many hon. Members who are not fully conversant with the details of that complicated structure. I am quite certain that this kind of information is not appreciated by large sections of the medical profession.
    A system which is so hard to explain to the people who are operating under it, and which causes so much misconception about the expenses allowable and so on, is a system which cannot work well. If it is so complicated to define we should not worry very much about who started it, who wanted it or who insisted on having it. It all happened many years ago and the passage of time has shown that it is too cumbrous to fulfil the job it was designed to do.
    Once we accept that, without bothering about saying "You wanted it" or "You would not change it", the Minister's task of sitting down at the table with representatives of the profession and saying, "We are all agreed that the present deal does not work, so let us get down to one that does", will be greatly simplified.
    Both the Minister and my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridlington were right to pick out the disadvantages of the scheme. It is, shortly, a system which

    1249
    gives precious few incentives to good medicine and implies no penalties for slack or inefficient medicine. That is at the bottom of a great deal of the general practitioners' complaints. A conscientious doctor soon finds that he is being overworked, which is of no financial advantage to him. The only way to increase his remuneration is to take on more patients, but he conscientiously knows that he cannot give them good service. If, as a good doctor, he does not take on more patients, his practice remains at the same size and he gets no benefit from the extra fees he would otherwise have had.
    Conversely, a doctor who thinks that he must reduce his list of patients if he is to serve them properly is in the difficulty that, if he does, he receives much less money for being conscientious. Equally, there are doctors who are prepared to take on more patients than they are able to manage because that means a better financial deal for them, although they probably know that they are unable to look after them all as well as they should.
    We must, in these circumstances, find a new basis for remuneration. There is always the alternative, which I do not support—I know that some hon. Members would plump for it; although I do not think that the profession as a whole would support it—of a full salaried service. I reject this idea. Most members of the profession would reject it and I feel that there must be a middle way between the rather chaotic situation we have got into and the full salaried service which some would advocate as the best alternative.
    For the immediate future I suggest that the profession has everything to gain and nothing to lose by announcing its acceptance of an award which, after all, is the finding of a body which it wished to set up. which was set up with its agreement and to which the whole of this matter was referred. The profession need not regard that as the end of the day, but it would be wise for it to accept the award and to say, "Having done that, we are now really going to have a go at the Minister and settle among ourselves what we consider is a viable way of preserving a doctor's clinical independence in future, coupled with a more rational distribution of the
    1250
    available public money for this kind of service". I hope that the profession will do this and say, "Now we will sit down at the table with the Minister and hammer out a better scheme". If that could be done, not in an attitude of bitterness and recrimination—the sort of situation which has suddenly boiled over, for reasons I can well understand—I am sure that only good would follow.
    Many doctors have written to me in recent years saying that they regard themselves as Cinderellas—as the forgotten people. If they can approach this matter in a reasonable atmosphere I believe that today's debate, and the crisis which has forced us all to take cognisance of these difficulties, will not have been wholly in vain. It may, in the end, lead to a much better situation for medicine and patients.
    6.35 p.m.
    Mr. A. Woodburn: I apologise to the House for not being in my place during the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood). I was called out of the Chamber by a constituent who thought that I could be of some help in regard to a contract worth some millions of £s which he hopes to get from abroad. I could hardly have refused him.
    What I have heard of the debate has been extremely interesting, and I was glad that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health made it clear to the medical profession what this is all about. I agree with the hon. Members for Croydon, South (Sir R. Thompson) that the great majority of doctors have not been keeping in contact with the political arguments of their leaders or even with the negotiations. As a result, this has all come to them rather like a bolt out of the blue and they do not know what it is all about.
    It is in these circumstances that they have become misinformed and have got the impression that the Minister has done something to them, whereas he has merely been carrying out a pledge. As a doctor wrote in the Daily Telegraph the other day, after insisting on the Review Body doing this job, it is a breach of honour that the medical profession should not accept its findings. I have not quoted the exact words used,

    1251
    but certainly the other complaints are matters for negotation with the Minister and should not be hinged to the Review Body's decision.
    I agree with the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) that the difficulties we are discussing should not become matters of political cricket. The hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Frederick Harris), after also agreeing with this view, proceeded to introduce his own King Charles' head—prescription charges. They have nothing to do with the matter under discussion, and even the medical profession has been misled on the prescription charges issue.
    People have had free prescriptions since 1912. They continued to have them right up to the introduction of the National Health Scheme. We never heard anything about abuses during the years of the National Insurance Scheme, and I never myself used to pay for prescriptions at any time. I did not find that doctors either abused their position, or their patients; this whole business of so called abuse is a completely new idea. Doctors are entitled to prescribe as they always have, according to the needs of their patients. Women and children were not included in the old National Insurance Scheme because to have included them would have made the scheme too expensive. It was cheaper to restrict it to the wage-earner and leave the women and children to depend on charity and wait in the long queues at hospitals.
    When the National Health Service was introduced women and children were included so that they would receive full medical care—to which they should have been entitled all along. It should be recalled that throughout the country women went to their graves prematurely, because, to save the family budget, they would not go to the doctor. When the National Health Scheme was being drawn up every doctor said that one of the great calamities was that women and children, and there were others, were not going to the doctor at the first sign of illness. In many cases they waited until the disease had gone so far that it was incurable.
    When we introduced the National Health Scheme we insisted that every person should be able to go to the doctor at the first sign of illness. Now we are
    1252
    told that people should indulge in self-medication. "They must rub themselves with boracic ointment"—until the disease has gone too far—we are told. Time and again we hear that people should not go to see their doctors with frivolous complaints, but how does the average patient know whether or not his or her complaint is a frivolous one? Either people should go to their doctors before they become too ill or they will delay until it is too late. Surely it is much better for the doctor to have the happiness of telling a patient there is nothing wrong with him than it is to find that the patient has waited until he cannot be cured at all. The doctor gets satisfaction from helping and curing his patients. Fortunately, most doctors take that view, and only a minority of them grumble.
    The prescription charge was introduced, first, as a contribution to the Health Service and, as such, Is. a prescription might have been justified. Then, because a Tory women's conference wanted free prescriptions for private patients, the charge was raised to 1s. per item, and then to 2s. per item, which debarred old people and many people with families from getting their prescriptions.
    The hon. Member for Croydon, North-West said that the old people could recover the charge, but in many cases they had to pay nearly as much in bus fares to go to the National Assistance office. If he knows them, he must know that many of them would never go through all the rigmarole. The Conservatives knew it, and knew that money would thus be saved. Some of these people would rather starve or do without some of their medicines. One pharmacist told me that the old people used to come to him every week and ask him, "What can I do without on this prescription?" He then had to telephone the doctor to get that information.
    Did the doctor put on the prescription something that the old person did not need? If not, was there any reason why that old person should not get what was prescribed? Why should old people be humiliated in order to get a repayment from the National Assistance? I am sure that the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) would not agree that they should go through such an ordeal to get their medicine, because I know that she fought for women to get these services.

    1253
    It was a bit of meanness, and of political meanness, just as is this talk of foreigners getting free medicine. I remember that long before the Health Service existed, the Royal Infirmary at Edinburgh, and infirmaries elsewhere, gave free service to everyone, whether they came from Timbuctoo or anywhere else. Now that the nation has taken over the job, it seems that we are supposed to be meaner than were the charitable institutions of those days. People can pay if they want to. In fact, they do pay—the bigger their income the more they pay through Income Tax. When the next Budget is presented perhaps hon. Gentlemen opposite will remember that those who have most already pay their contributions to the National Health Service.
    I was one of the two Ministers involved when the Service was introduced, and I remember that the doctors insisted that there must be no obstacle between patient and doctor; that nothing must prevent the doctor from prescribing what the patient needed. Anything that breaks that rule is a crime against the health of those who are not prepared to go through all sorts of circumlocution departments to get repayment. There is no justification for interfering between patient end doctor. If a patient goes to hospital no one ever dreams that he should save a means test before the doctor or a nurse can give him his medicine every day. To think otherwise is nonsense.
    The hon. Member has introduced politics into this and would like doctors to believe that hordes of patients will turn up for free medicine. That reminds me of the Scotsman who looked into the chemist's shop window when there was a sale on and said, "What a pity there's no one ill at home". The idea that people want medicine just because they get it for nothing is nonsensical. If the hon. Member knew the effort it is for some people to sum up the courage to go to the doctor he would not say that, and if he were to look at Boots' counters he would recognise the number of people who still indulge in self-medication and he could reflect on how much how many people save the Health Service by doctoring themselves. I am sure that every hon. Member doctors himself most of the time, and Members of Parliament are just as economical as anyone else.
    1254
    I very much regret the way in which the doctors have reacted. I do not think that most of them mean to be irritable or that they resent this offer. Most of them do not know what it is all about, and when the Minister's statement gets round no one will be more surprised than many general practitioners. That was the case when the Health Service was introduced. The right hon. Member for Think and Malton (Mr. Turton) referred to the fact that I was engaged in those negotiations—hon. Members would not believe how difficult it was to get the doctors' representatives to consider how the Service was to work and the problems it would have to face. It nearly broke the hearts of Tom Johnston and Mr. Willink, as he then was.
    We had more co-operation from the Scottish doctors, of course, but there were many prejudices. For instance, doctors would have nothing to do with local authorities and medical officers of health. They wanted to get themselves out on a limb. They would have nothing to do with that, and said that they had to be separate. In Scotland, for this reason the doctors were brought under the Secretary of State and not connected with local organisations.
    In a way, they also separated themselves from the hospitals, because they did not negotiate in the same way as did the consultants. They never got down to practical terms. The consultants behaved quite differently—they got down to considering practical problems, and how the Service was to work in relation to hospitals. As a result, they got very good terms—in the minds of some general practitioners they got away with murder—and established themselves with all the facilities of the profession, with proper salaries, and a certain amount of liberty.
    The doctors acted otherwise and were cut off from the hospitals and the local authorities. They have been left out on a limb and, as the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Sir R. Thompson) said, that has as much to do with the present problem as any question of salary. The G.P.s feel that they are outside; that they have no connection with the scientific side of the profession. Because many of them have no way of doing the tests in hospital that they used to do, or of dealing with their patients there more

    1255
    completely, they feel frustrated and irritated, but that situation has largely been brought about by the doctors themselves.
    One of the cures is to reverse the process, and that has been done to some extent by group practices and by doctors associating themselves with hospitals, and in one or two cases we were able to build health centres. I know of two such health centres. In the bigger one, the one more fully equipped, the doctors simply use the rooms as consulting rooms and do practically no other work there at all. They make no real use of all the scientific facilities provided and act as individual doctors and do not co-operate much with each other. In the other, the doctors co-operate as they would in a group practice; they work in a scientific way and are much happier as a result.
    Some group practices are unable to have all the necessary facilities, but in other cases the doctors build what is almost a small health centre. I remember offering as a prototype health centre a hospital in a small town which was just ideal for doctors to work in. It could accommodate the ideal number of doctors—six or seven—but the doctors refused to co-operate with each other. I have a suspicion that it was because one of them was a woman. They did not get the health centre. There is no way in which people can be forced to work with each other. One of the troubles is that so many doctors are individualists and believe in doing their own empire building.
    One of the problems which has arisen and which causes much irritation in relation to capitation fees is that this empire-building makes doctors in some cases behave improperly to get more patients. A woman went to a doctor friend of mine and said that she wanted penicillin for a child of hers who was cutting his teeth. The doctor refused. The woman said, "If you do not prescribe it for me, I will go to the other doctor who will do it". The woman went to the chemist's next day and, sure enough, she had taken the whole of her family of five from my friend's list and the other doctor had prescribed penicillin for her child. No Government or Health Service can control such behaviour amongst doctors. If such competition continues, it is bound to lead to improper practices. No doubt in many
    1256
    cases patients are allowed to dictate their prescriptions. In some cases doctors are inclined to prescribe expensive prescriptions to show how much better they are than the doctor next door. This is wrong. Fortunately, only a small minority of doctors do this, but it causes mischief and irritation in the profession and gives rise to big lists.
    One of the matters which irritates the private practitioner is the Review Body's recommendation about merit awards. I dare not repeat some of the strong comments some medical practitioners have made about what are called the prima donnas. There are the prima donnas among the consultants. What they get is a mystery to the ordinary doctor. Now doctors see the prima donnas system coming into force for general practitioners. They are absolutely furious to think that there are to be prima donnas among themselves. They naturally think that the body which does the negotiating will become the prima donnas.
    The point is: how are the prima donnas to be selected? The general practitioner feels that he himself is so far away from these decisions that the money will go to the prima donnas and he will have nothing to do with it. This is just as irritating to the general practitioner as is the fact that, for example, apparently extra money is to go to those who employ secretaries.
    The status of doctors is undoubtedly a very important matter. Much work has been taken away from the doctor. We hear about the doctor being overworked, but it should be borne in mind that he has been relieved of a tremendous amount of work. Much of his ante-natal and post-natal work has been taken over by local authorites. A great deal of geriatric work has been taken away from the general practitioner. This may to some extent have reduced the general practitioner's interest in his profession. It has certainly reduced his work.
    Many doctors whom I know work too hard. It is ridiculous that doctors should have to work so hard. When I was Secretary of State I saw this for myself. I offered the practitioners to establish an office in each town to which their telephone calls could be transferred when they wanted to go out with their wives. This was a reasonable offer, because I know that doctors' wives have to sit by

    1257
    the telephone and that doctors and their wives can seldom go out together. This is a very human and important point. Nothing was done about my offer. It was not accepted because most doctors feared that if their patients' telephone calls were transferred to another office somehow or other those patients would drift on to another doctor's list.
    So long as this kind of atmosphere exists, no progress can be made. There are lone scouts who insist on being on tap for 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, which is a physical impossibility. It is difficult to get things changed in the profession. In the hospitals young students on the wards are sometimes there for 36 or more hours, on duty all the time. If a lorry driver was found to have driven for more than 11 hours he would be put in gaol or certainly fined. A doctor is expected to be able to treat a patient after 36 hours without sleep.
    What is the answer to this? The chiefs sly, "We did it when we were students". We are also told that the students like it and want to remain over the next day to report to their chief about what they have done. Could anything be more nonsensical in these modern days than that a man who is dealing with the most delicate machinery in the world—the human body—should have to work 36 or 40 hours at a stretch? No trade union would stand for it. But, instead of objecting to it, doctors seem to welcome and accept it. These are matters which should be examined. The whole National Health Service should be reviewed on the basis of all these experiences. Somehow or other we must get past the politicians on the negotiation body.
    There is another handicap. There are two bodies. They are competing. If one body accepts the award without criticism, it will look soft compared with the other body. So there are rival bodies to prove that each one is the more militant on behalf of the doctors. This makes it still more complicated for the Minister to get any satisfactory acceptance on a reasonable basis.
    Above all, the negotiating bodies are not in touch with the ordinary doctor in his profession. The ordinary doctor does not have time to go to committee meetings; he is too busy. He does not feel
    1258
    that he is interested in the political side. Therefore, a very few people, who may have no real appreciation of the feelings of their colleagues, decide these things and suddenly plunge the profession into a crisis, such as there is today.
    I therefore hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will not regard this doctors' revolt, as it is, as being a considered action by all doctors. It is a reaction against the surprise they received when this announcement was made, about which they had heard nothing or to which they had not paid attention until they suddenly found it on top of them. It is a very natural kick-back. They feel that they are having a raw deal. They see other people off on Saturdays and Sundays, working a five-day week, while they go on slogging and can get no time off.
    It may be true that this is partly due to the fact that they will not make arrangements with the doctor next door. It may be true that it is partly their fault. But doctors are like the ladies. They are kittle cattle and not easy to handle. They do not necessarily follow logic in all these matters. They must be handled delicately. They must be persuaded. They have to be nursed a little. If any man went home and talked cold logic to his wife, the chances are that there would be a break-up of his home. It must be realised that doctors are a little like this. They are sensitive people who know nothing about politics. They are ignorant on any subjects except their own profession, in the main. They are so engrossed in their profession that it is very difficult to get their intelligence shifted on to any other topic.
    I therefore hope that we shall try to bring about a new deal. This crisis may well be a blessing in disguise. It may be that this up-turn will make doctor's minds receptive to trying to get a new organisation of the Health Service. As I see it, the doctors should be connected with the hospitals. They should be connected with the medical officers of health. In my own constituency when they built a child clinic they built a doctors' consulting room attached to the clinic. This gets rid of some of the slum surgeries where people queued out of doors, where there was no lavatory and where there was no washing accommodation, for consultation in some old shop with a dirty

    1259
    blind which nearly made ill people even more ill to go near it. We want nice surgeries. It should be the responsibility, not of the doctor, but of the community, to provide such surgeries through the agency of the local authority. There should be surgeries and consulting rooms so attached. Already nurses are connected with the clinic. A whole lot of services are already laid on by the local authority. It is almost like a miniature health centre. This is one way of linking the doctors up with preventive medicine and with the medical officer of health.
    Doctors must also be allowed to get into hospitals and be associated in the treatment of their patients. They want the opportunity to use their skills in a more widely diversified form. They do not want merely to be welfare officers who decide whether their patient should go to a hospital. They want to use their skills. Some way must be found of associating doctors with hospitals.
    These are some points on status, which are much more important in the long run than salaries. I do not want to go into details on the dispute. The doctors now know that the Minister is willing to hear what they have to say and to sit down and consider a complete reorganisation of the Service. I hope that the doctors will now be in a mood, which they were not when the Service was formed, to think about the difficulties and consider the best way of solving them. Somebody—I do not mind whether it is the medical profession or not—should prepare a new scheme so that all these matters can be integrated and we can have a comprehensive scheme. But I hope hon. Members opposite will not introduce red herrings, like prescription charges and political prejudices, and thus interfere with the creation of a properly integrated scheme by which people may receive treatment according to their illness. No doctor would agree that people should receive treatment according to the contents of their pockets. People should be treated according to their illness, and the doctors should have the means to do it so far as their skill permits.
    The National Health Service, with all its faults, is the greatest organisation of its kind in the world. Even the Americans realise that. President Truman sent one of his representatives to investigate it,
    1260
    and he said to me, "Mr. Woodburn, we should love to have a health service in America, but we cannot. Many people in America do not have the normal hygienic amenities and we envy you your Health Service, but we have not the basis on which to build one." I am sure that in spite of all the money that the American doctors earn, they do not get the satisfaction which our doctors in the National Health Service enjoy.
    Stories about the emigration of doctors are a myth. Doctors have emigrated from this country for the last 50 years at least. If we saw the percentages of doctors who have emigrated from Scotland most of us would collapse, fearing that we had been left without a single doctor in the country. I am certain that ours is one of the best-served countries in the world, medically speaking—I certainly have no difficulty in finding a good doctor in Scotland—and we are proud of that fact. In the Highland medical service doctors travel hundreds of miles, rather like the flying doctor service operates in the Australian bush. This is not a matter of £. s. d. Let us give the profession the pride of doing the job according to its ability, and let us be proud of the Service.
    7.2 p.m.
    Mr. Eric Lubbock: During part of his speech the right hon. Member for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn) appeared to be attacking the doctors, and then he started on the women. To make an accusation about the whole of the profession and then to attack the fair sex on their illogicality comes ill from a politician, because I have always felt that politics was the most illogical of all professions.
    I am glad that the Minister began his speech by referring to the recruitment of nurses. We should not lose sight of that situation merely because of the general practitioner crisis which faces us. I was pleased to hear that recruitment is going well, but I wonder whether the figures would look so rosy if they were set against the need for more nurses in our hospitals and the question of a reduction in working hours.
    The Minister might be interested to hear that a front-page article in my local newspaper last week, the Orpington and Kentish Times, carried these headlines:
    "Voluntary helpers kept hospital wards open. Acute shortage of nurses."

    1261
    The article then said:
    "Voluntary helpers, many of them housewives, have been called upon to work in a number of wards at Orpington Hospital because of an acute shortage of nurses. In the last month an unusually heavy crop of illness among the nurses coupled with the slow rate of recruiting new stag have caused such a difficult situation that the matron has sent out an urgent call for help to voluntary organisations in the district."
    I do not think Orpington is alone in this. We cannot view with equanimity a situation in which a 'flu epidemic or a sudden call on the number of beds in the acute wards of hospitals will create a crisis in which matrons have to send out S.O.Ss to voluntary organisations to make up the deficiency. I ask the Minister, when considering the recruitment of nurses, to bear in mind this important requirement for additional nurses to cover the reduction in working hours, which has not yet come into effect in many hospitals but which, when it does, will make the situation increasingly worse as time goes on.
    There are many areas in the Health Service where there is a shortage of staff. I have a letter from the Secretary to the Orpington Mental Health Association stating that there is an acute shortage of psychiatric workers in the hospitals and local authority organisations. Coming back to the question of G.P.s, they are unable to cope with patients suffering from psychiatric disorders. Much more could be done by the recruitment of trained mental workers to relieve the work load on G.P.s.
    I agree with the Minister's main thesis that he cannot negotiate with the profession under the threat of withdrawal from the Health Service at some unspecified date. I have told friends of mine in the profession that I thought it was unwise that this threat should have been made, and that they may regret it at some future date when there may be in office a Government who find the recommendations of the Review Body unacceptable for economic reasons. We do not have to go back many years when this happened with a Whitley Council award. I warned the doctors that this action would set an unfortunate precedent.
    The Minister has made a useful gesture in his speech in saying that the door is always open and that he will be
    1262
    prepared to talk to the doctors. Doctors in my constituency have said that they want the discussions to proceed, and it the Minister is prepared to meet the profession this will go a long way towards alleviating some of their anxieties. They asked me to put it to him that he should seek a means of meeting the profession as a matter of urgency. In my view, the profession would be well advised to accept the recommendations of the Review Body and get together with the Minister as he has offered to do this afternoon.
    There are several matters in the Review Body's Report which have been left open for discussion. These include the question of compensation for loss of practice goodwill, the calculation of the return on capital which is to be credited to the pool, and seniority or merit payments. I agree with the profession that it would be very difficult to devise any satisfactory system of merit awards. I think the Minister would be well advised to have another look at the question of seniority payments to G.P.s.
    Another question left open by the Review Body's Report was the exact form of schemes for ancillary workers and practice premises. The Minister said that there were a number of misconceptions on the Review Body's recommendations, and this is one of the items to which that observation applies. I found it difficult to ascertain exactly what form this scheme would take. I have read through some letters that the Minister's predecessor wrote to Dr. Cameron last year, but they do not specify in detail how a doctor shall qualify for the payment of the contribution towards ancillary help. I was asked to find out from the Minister whether it would be possible for a scheme of part-timers to be considered. Many doctors employ married women to help and, of course, some employ their wives in this capacity. I think it would be unfair if the rules were drafted so as to exclude wives from qualifying for some of these reimbursements.
    I agree with those who have stated that the real crux of this matter is the shortage of staff in the general medical service and that the ultimate answer is the building of new medical schools. This is something that we said in our Liberal election manifesto, as the Labour

    1263
    Party did. I notice that the Minister did not refer to this matter in his opening speech. Will he say what has happened about the promises made by the Labour Party during the election campaign? Were these promises not precise in stating how many new medical schools were to be built? I agree with those who say that the new universities which are projected give us an opportunity of taking this step.
    The right hon. Gentleman talked about improving the conditions under which general practitioners work. This can be done only by reducing the size of their lists, and obviously that must depend on increasing the numbers coming out of medical schools. There are some minor ways in which the situation can be improved in the short term—measures to encourage married women to come back into the medical profession and perhaps experiments with health centres, which have never really got off the ground. There may be some areas where smaller hospitals closed under the ten-year plan would be suitable for health centres. Some experiments might be tried with these, even though it is generally accepted that, with general practices having grown up as they have, it would be impossible to impose the solution of health centres all over the country.
    I deplore the way in which some people have tried to stir up this dispute between doctors and the Government for political ends. This can be most disastrous not only from the point of view of doctors themselves but that of the patients. They are the people who will suffer in the long run. Let us take the heat out of this argument. Let the Minister get round the table with the doctors, and let us discuss this question in a calm atmosphere in which sensible solutions may be reached.
    7.12 p.m.
    Dr. Shirley Summerskill: I feel that I should state first of all that I am a medical practitioner and have been for four years and that before that I worked for a year in a hospital. But I am also speaking in this debate because as long ago as I can remember I have supported the National Health Service as a service to give the sick free treatment and impose no financial burden on people when they were ill.
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    The debate so far has been extremely well mannered and cool. The right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) said that this was not a party issue. I think that Aneurin Bevan was right when he said that health is at the heart of politics, and this issue today of manning the Health Service cannot be divorced from politics. Ever since 1948 when the Health Service was established it has been a party issue. I am sure that many of my hon. Friends remember that hon. Members opposite opposed the introduction of the Health Service.
    Dame Irene Ward: If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I do not think that she needs to go into that, because what she has just said is nonsense.
    Dr. Summerskill: I was not in the House at the time but I am sure that there must be some of my hon. Friends who were here who remember that the Conservative Party opposed in the Division Lobby the very setting up of the National Health Service.
    Mr. Maurice Edelman: I was in the House and I can confirm, and it will be within the knowledge of hon. Members, that the Conservative Party voted against the Third Reading of the Bill.
    Mrs. E. M. Braddock: And the other stages.
    Dr. Summerskill: I bring up past history because it pays hon. Members opposite to make health a very gentlemanly subject about which one does not have a great deal of argument. This has been their attitude to the Service over the last 13 years. We are today discussing a crisis in the manning of the Service which I believe has been brought about by 13 years of Conservative government. We are inheriting a situation in our hospitals, in general practice and in the local authority services which is the result of the complacency and neglect of hon. and right hon. Members opposite who formed the previous Government.
    Dr. Wyndham Davies: Would the hon. Lady not agree that many reputable medical authorities would say that the troubles in the Service stemmed from its inception rather than from the last 13 years?
    Dr. Summerskill: My hon. and right hon. Friends feel that with the right Government, right leadership and the right attitude towards it the Service can be made to work. In the few months in which we have been in power, and despite inheriting a severe economic crisis, we have brought in three major measures to try to resuscitate this Service which has been so neglected. We have kept our pledge and have found £22 million to relieve people from prescription charges. We have provided an extra £5 million for hospital buildings, and the Review Body is providing £51 million for the doctors.
    Any blame that may be apparent in the bad manning of the Health Service, in the lack of G.P.s, of nurses, of occupational therapists, of radiologists and so on, is on successive Ministers of Health from the benches opposite. The right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton, the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith), the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) and the right hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Barber) were all in power during the last 13 years as Ministers of Health. Therefore any judgments that are made today and directed at our own Minister of Health should be applied instead to those right hon. Gentlemen.
    Mr. Geoffrey Howe: Would not the hon. Lady agree that it is quite contrary to the justice of the case to condemn the Ministers of a Government who presided over a threefold expansion of the amount of money being spent on the Service as being responsible for its shortcomings? Would not she agree, rather, than the shortcomings are inherent to any Service striving for higher standards and are not easily resolved when any expenditure on the expansion of the Service has to come out of the taxpayer's purse? These are problems which are built into a nationalised service and it is not right to blame any deficiency on a Government who presided over a massive expansion of it when they were in office.
    Dr. Summerskill: If when they were in power the Opposition felt that there were built-in difficulties, why did they not denationalise the Health Service? They
    1266
    opposed it in the beginning, but they took it on and it was their job to make it work.
    This disgruntlement which we all agree exists among general practitioners did not start in the last few months. It has been there for years. There were grumblings of dissatisfaction and the volcano at last erupted when the Review Body announced its decisions. The findings of the Review Body have not been accepted or rejected by the doctors as yet, but I believe that the discontent does not rest solely on that score. This discontent has existed ever since the excellent Annis Gillie Report in 1963 which showed a picture of frustration, dissolution and depression among general practitioners. The Report showed that they were overworked, that they had too many patients on their large lists, that there were not enough general practitioners, and that they had inadequate access to hospitals. These are the things about which doctors are grumbling today, not just the Review Body announcement.
    Mr. Vic Feather, Assistant General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress, recently deplored the threatened withdrawal of doctors from the National Health Service. He said, quite rightly, that
    "If trade unionists had broken a three-year agreement in the same way as G.P.s were being advised to do and had rejected out of hand the findings of the review body which they had requested, they would have been widely attacked as representing the worst iniquities of the trade union movement. The Review Body was no different from an independent tribunal."
    I think we should all agree with that, but I must put this point to hon. Members on these benches as well as on the benches opposite. How many trade union leaders would tolerate their members working in the middle of the night after they had already done a day shift and, in fact, having no fixed hours of work at all? How many trade union leaders would tolerate their members having to supply locums when they were away sick or went on holiday and, in addition, having to pay those locums as well out of their own pockets?
    For these reasons, I believe that the position of the general practitioner today cannot be compared with that of someone in any other job or profession. As it is at the moment, the general practitioner's job is unique. It is up to us to reorganise the whole mode of life of the

    1267
    general practitioner. He has just as much right to regular hours, to the same amount of sleep, to holidays and leisure as anyone else. Here lies the basic cause of dissatisfaction among doctors, quite apart from the Review Body award.
    Various answers lie within the scope of the Government. First, health centres. I consider that in the health centre the future of the family doctor lies, particularly the younger doctor qualifying from hospital who is tempted to go abroad when he sees the situation here at home. Four to six general practitioners working together in a health centre could have full facilities for pathological examinations, X-rays and ancillary help. The Gillie Report tells us that this is the most satisfactory form of general practice not only for doctors but for patients. In such a scheme there would be the possibility of fixed hours, a national locum service, the opportunity to take refresher courses or do post-graduate studies, and the possibility of much needed married women doctors coming in to do part-time work attached to centres.
    The Government should undertake an urgent review of the method of remuneration. As has been said in the debate, the doctors' leaders have not been at all helpful in this matter. They did not approach the past Government on the question and it has fallen to the lot of the present Minister of Health to cope with the sudden demand to consider a new method of remuneration. The capitation method is falling out of favour, particularly with the younger doctors, because it is designed to placate the patient. An interest in quantity of patients not quality of work is what it inspires in the doctor.
    The pool system has been shown to be unfair and unpopular. The alternative method of remuneration is by a salaried service, and I believe that younger members of the profession are more sympathetic to the salaried service than to any other method. My right hon. Friend has told us that it would require legislation, but remuneration in a salaried service would, for the first time, give doctors security. There would no longer be a rat-race between family doctors to try to score up as many patients as they can on their lists, even to the extent of giving people drugs which they do not
    1268
    need so that they do not leave one's list.
    Under this system of payment, expenses and salary would be entirely separate. There would be security and, at the same time, increments according to age, seniority and, for instance, the high morbidity in an area where doctors practised. These things could all be initiated. Under such a scheme, doctors could move freely from general practice to hospital, to research work or to the World Health Organisation. There would be far more mobility among doctors.
    The third way to solve the crisis is to recruit more doctors. Patients are now demanding better medicine. There are more elderly people living to a greater age. The emphasis in future must be on preventive medicine. All those things will call for even more doctors than we have already. In Halifax 90 per cent. of the doctors resident in the hospitals are from the Commonwealth. The day will come when they will have their own hospitals to work and train in and we shall not have these people coming to us. We shall have to staff our own hospitals. At present, we are relying on nearly 4,000 doctors from abroad to staff our hospitals. The Robbins estimate was that, by 1981, we shall need 3,000 more medical students. This has now been found to be a gross underestimate and it has been calculated that we shall need 12,000 more medical students if we are to cope with the increased demand.
    It is urgent that we plan now for at least six new medical schools. I should like these medical schools to be in the industrial north of England, because it is near where they train that doctors tend to settle down and we need more family doctors in the North.
    All the measures are urgent, yet they will take months or years to implement. Under a Labour Government and a Minister of Health who really believes in the National Health Service, they are far more likely to be brought in quickly and, we hope, with the support of general practitioners. As my right hon. Friend said, the average general practitioner is not a political animal. He simply wants to get on with his job and do it well. It is up to this Government to inspire in him the feeling that he has the confidence of the Government and that the Government

    1269
    really mean to do something about his life and work and will give his profession a lead.
    It is for this Government to institute as soon as possible a thorough inquiry into the method of payment, the establishment of health centres and plans for greater recruitment. In this way, the manning of the Health Service will no longer be the cause of crisis that it is.
    7.28 p.m.
    Lord Balniel: I think it will probably be for the convenience of the House if I intervene at this stage to put forward some views in reply to points which have been made and to put a number of further questions to the Minister. The whole House will agree that the choice by the Opposition of this subject, the manning of the National Health Service, has proved very well worth while.
    It has proved not the least worth while because it has enabled the hon. Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. Dunn) to take the opportunity of making his maiden speech. The hon. Gentleman spoke with a special knowledge of his city not only as a Member of Parliament but as a city councillor. He referred to the important matter of hospital accommodation, which is highly relevant to the debate but which, because the debate has concentrated on the general practitioner service, has not otherwise been mentioned. The hon. Gentleman spoke also of another matter which was highly irrelevant, the Liverpool Football Club, but which, nevertheless, because of his enthusiasm, warmed the debate considerably. Having heard him speak for the first time we should like to say from these benches that we hope that he will take part in many debates on the National Health Service in future.
    The debate has given the Minister the opportunity to state clearly where he stands in this extremely unhappy situation which has arisen between the Government and the great mass of general practitioners. We have also had a number of speeches which have been temperate and constructive but which at the same time have expressed, quite rightly, the sense of frustration which is
    1270
    felt by the general practitioners, a sense of frustration which I quite accept has continued for a substantial length of time but which has been precipitated by the decision of the Government in the last few days to accept the Review Body's Report. Also, we have had a series of questions to which I hope clear and specific answers will be given by the right hon. Gentleman when he winds up the debate.
    Inevitably, as this debate follows so closely after the publication of the Review Body's Report on doctors' remuneration, and as it follows so closely after the explosion of anger among general practitioners, it has been dominated by the question of doctors' remuneration. This is, of course, predominant in our thoughts at the moment. But the debate is concerned not only with doctors' remuneration but with the manning of the National Health Service in general. The purpose of the debate has not been merely to discuss doctors' remuneration; its purpose has been also to discuss the working conditions in which doctors have to undertake their task, and, indeed, the future of the general practitioner service in the National Health Service, The purpose has been to discuss not only the general practitioner service but the manning of community care services and the hospital service.
    My right hon. Friend the Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) referred in some detail to the question of doctors' remuneration, and I shall be referring to it also in my remarks, but I shall also be referring to the equally important subject of the working conditions of doctors in the general practitioner service. The Minister has asked the doctors to take a long, cool look at the Report of the Review Body. It seems to me, though, that the Government have taken a long, cool look at their election pledges, and so cool has the look been that those election pledges have evaporated into thin air almost overnight. It is a very bitter irony for those who work in the National Health Service that, after all the promises to improve working conditions in the National Health Service, hardly 100 days have elapsed before the Government at their first review of a pay claim come into such sad conflict with the mass of general practitioners.
    Mr. K. Robinson: I should like to correct the noble Lord. The first claim was for the student nurses, and that has been satisfactorily settled.
    Lord Balniel: I was about to refer, and with pleasure, to the fact that that claim has been accepted by the Government. The right hon. Gentleman objects to what I am saying, but he must not do this. We were told that the Labour Party was poised to go into instant action. Hon. Gentlemen opposite must understand that some of the disillusion which exists in the National Health Service arises from the failure to implement some of the promises made so airily just before the General Election.
    As the right hon. Gentleman has encouraged me, perhaps I might refer him to the Labour Party election manifesto. It was called "New Britain". It ought to be renamed "Never-never Land". It says:
    "Labour will press ahead with a revised hospital plan… Labour will greatly increase the number of qualified medical staff. We shall train more doctors and dentists … by increasing the number of students admitted to existing medical school …".
    I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether there have been more pledges broken in so few words. [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite laugh, but they said that they would press ahead with their revised hospital plan, and the first major step which has been taken by them is not to publish a hospital plan. They said that they would greatly increase the number of qualified medical staff. My right hon. Friend has already asked the Minister what steps the Government are taking to increase the intake to the medical schools, and we have not had an answer yet. The Labour Party also in the manifesto on health talked about consultation with the unions concerned. One of the troubles about the existing dispute is that the Minister has not yet had consultations with the professional representatives of the general practitioners.
    It seems to me that the problem of general practitioners is not only a question of remuneration. It is an almost inextricable knot of which the main strands are a sense of overwork, a sense of underpayment and a sense of uncertainty about the status of the family doctor in the National Health Service both today and in the future.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mrs. Judith Hart): Perhaps the noble Lord remembers that three years ago when we were debating the pay of nurses he said exactly the same thing. He said at that time that the National Health Service was underpaid, understaffed and overworked. I wonder what steps he took to bring the attention of his right hon. Friends to that need in the three years that he had compared with the three months that we have had.
    Lord Balniel: The best answer that I can give the hon. Lady is to suggest that she should read that speech of mine, and she will then find the constructive comments that I made. I hope that during the course of my present remarks I shall be able to put forward some constructive suggestions because we most certainly are not happy about the dispute which has arisen between the doctors and the Government.
    On the question of pay, I should first like to welcome very warmly indeed the Minister's decision to invite the profession to discuss the whole question of the pooling system, the system of paying the family doctor. I believe the right hon. Gentleman is right to take this step. I certainly hope that the profession will take advantage of his invitation and be able to enter into negotiations. As he reminded us, it is only right that we should remember that the broad concept of the pooling system was established to meet the wishes of the general practitioners themselves, and only relatively recently it commanded their support. It has one great advantage. It is a means of payment which enables doctors to take part in the National Health Service without at the same time being salaried employees. It also has the advantage that it gives doctors security irrespective of the number of doctors who come into the Service. It also has the advantage from the country's point of view that it creates a fixed, budgetable sum of money to be allocated to the family doctor service.
    On the other hand, it seems to me that the disadvantages of the pool system as it exists are very considerable. It is immensely complex. The right hon. Gentleman once said that given 15 minutes he could explain it to the House. I would not make such a claim. I am sure that the great mass of the public simply do not understand the pool system, and I think

    1273
    it is equally true to say that the majority of doctors cannot understand the system by which they are paid. The 1963 Report of the Review Body gave rise to widespread misconceptions, and although the last Report has gone out of its way to avoid misconceptions and, indeed, has actually proposed a simplification of the pool system, the fact remains that the pool is an immensely complex structure. I think that for all those reasons alone it should be re-examined.
    Not only is it very complex. In no way does it provide a career structure for the family doctors. In no way is there a career structure for them similar to the one that exists for the doctors in the hospital service. And—even more important—it in no way relates their pay to the quality of medical care and skill that they provide for their patients. Now the disadvantages loom so large in the eyes of the general practitioners that it is clear that the existing pooling system has lost the confidence of the mass of G.Ps. I therefore welcome the decision of the right hon. Gentleman to open discussion so as to secure reform.
    There are several questions one must ask about this decision. Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to discuss only the administrative arrangements of the pooling system? Is he prepared to discuss only the mixture by which the distribution is made to individual doctors? Or is he opening up for discussion the global sum? Is he prepared to talk with the doctors about the quantum of remuneration? Is he prepared to talk with them about the 5½ million recommended for their pay? If he is not prepared to talk about the overall sum of money, I think both he and the profession are in a difficulty because any alteration in the distribution is bound to mean taking away moneys from what are now being proposed for certain individual doctors.
    Much of the difficulty has arisen because it has always been assumed—certainly by my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton), by the general practitioners and by me—that the Review Body would decide the overall amount only and that the actual method of distribution would be discussed with the professions concerned by what used to be called the Fraser Committee and what is now called the France Committee—the Joint Committee
    1274
    of the General Medical Services Committee and the Department of Health.
    But what appears to have happened is that while discussions were actually going on between the profession and the France Committee, the Review Body made its recommendations tying three-quarters of its proposed increase to the payment of practice expenses. The Government have accepted this without consulting the profession and without seeing whether it commanded its support. Certainly that seems to be the understanding of the profession. I should like the right hon. Gentleman to disentangle what appears to be a misunderstanding.
    Mr. K. Robinson: We can clear it up now. Is the hon. Gentleman really saying that one party to an arbitration ought to decide, before accepting, that the award is acceptable to the other side? This is a totally new doctrine. I have never heard it expressed before.
    Lord Balniel: I was about to say that my right hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Barber), if I understand the position correctly, gave a promise, when he was Minister of Health, to the general practitioners not to impose a new system of distribution without obtaining first of all the support of the profession. In a statement on 17th September, 1964, my right hon. Friend said:
    "I understand that the General Medical Services Committee propose in due course to put before the profession as a whole the agreed recommendations for the new method of reimbursing expenses."
    Those were the agreed recommendations within the France Committee. My right hon. Friend went on:
    "… It has never been my intention to impose this new method of reimbursing expenses, which would cost the taxpayer several millions of pounds, if the profession does not like it."
    We should be quite clear on this matter because it has caused widespread misunderstanding in the profession. The right hon. Gentleman should make clear whether he adheres firmly to the pledge given by his predecessor. I hope that he will be able to give as firm an assurance as that given by my right hon. Friend.
    It is quite clear that many in the profession do not like these recommendations at all. That is perfectly understandable. Half the general practitioners do not employ ancillary staff and for

    1275
    them the Review Body's Report provides an additional 1d. per consulation or 6d. per patient or £50 a year.
    Of course, the Kindersley Committee and the Ministry and we on these benches and the medical profession are all anxious to see doctors provided with enough money to spend on ancillary staff and practice expenses. But I think that the Minister is being slightly unwise if he intends to try to secure this by a pay award which ties three-quarters of the award to practice expenses if it does not have the support of the profession.
    For the first time since 1948, we have reached a point where we are faced with a practical possibility of the doctors ending their contracts with the N.H.S. Of course, there have been disputes in the last 17 years but I do not think that at any other time has withdrawal been considered as seriously as it is being considered today. I have not, I admit, spoken to many general practitioners since the announcement of the award, but those to whom I have spoken do not give me the impression of men who are bluffing. I think that there is a serious danger now of doctors withdrawing from the N.H.S. unless an accommodation can be reached with the Government.
    If the Minister is to retain the doctors in the Service he will have to take this opportunity of looking at the very fundamentals of their contract. He will have to find a way not only to preserve the independence of general practitioners—because they are not seeking to become salaried employees—and also to preserve the security such as is provided by the pool. He must evolve a contract which enables them to be rewarded financially for merit or ability or industry or willingness to provide a better service for their patients. I say this with great emphasis because medicine is, above all others, a service in which quality, care and skill should be encouraged by appropriate rewards.
    The second strand of the problem is overwork and one does not have to turn to the mass of reports—the Gillie Report, the Porritt Report, the Royal Commission Report and others—to have that proved. One has only to visit the waiting rooms of so many general practitioners. If we are to help doctors in the burden of work which they have to undertake and if we
    1276
    are to alleviate that burden of work, then we must try to encourage the development of group practices among general practitioners. I am talking not about financial partnerships but about the grouping of doctors, three or six or eight, in, ideally, purpose-built premises where they can make rota arrangements, where they can employ ancillary staff, dispensers, health visitors, midwives, and where they can operate an appointments system.
    We asked the right hon. Gentleman last week what steps he was taking to encourage group practice and he said:
    "Yes, Sir. I am aware of this—
    that is, the urgency—
    "and I realise that many doctors find difficulty in financing the provision of premises in which to set up in practice, but for the general practitioner to look to public funds for this raises problems about his whole relationship to the National Health Service. This is a matter on which the Working Party on General Practice will no doubt be expressing an opinion."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th February. 1965; Vol. 706, c. 15–16.]
    This was very different from what the right hon. Gentleman said only just before the General Election. He was not then saying that we must wait for a Report. He was not then saying that this brought into question the position of the general practitioner. He said:
    "The Government must accept responsibility for providing premises for group practice. A system of loans must be replaced by one of grants. That is what a Labour Government would be prepared to do."
    The right hon. Gentleman has Treasury sanction for an increase of £25 million in the National Health Service. Has he even asked for Treasury sanction to implement this pledge, which is as clear as can be made possible in the English language? Literally his next sentence was:
    "We should also give direct financial assistance towards the employment of ancillary help of the kind that I have described."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th July, 1964: Vol. 699, c. 1017.]
    Has he asked for Treasury sanction for this?
    He has been asked whether he is increasing the intake into the medical schools. Of course, we will not ask him whether he has asked for Treasury sanction for the four new medical schools which hon. Members opposite promised when they were in opposition. But we can ask whether he has requested

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    Treasury sanction even to increase the size of the existing medical schools?
    Finally, I turn to the subject of the status of general practitioners. General practitioners are not asking for a privileged position in society. What they ask is that if we value general practice, then we should develop a sound philosophy towards family doctoring, a philosophy and structure which place the doctor not at the periphery, but at the very heart of the Health Service. They ask that he should be given a position which does not leave him isolated between the community care services and the hospital service but integrated into both.
    Of course, we all recognise that an enormous question mark hangs over general practice at a time when all the trends in medicine are towards increased specialisation. Of course, we realise the difficulties, but I fully agree with the sentiments expressed in the Gillie Report and I feel that we should so frame our social policies that the family doctor should become the co-ordinator, the mobiliser and the leader of community care services.
    I hope that during his tenure of office the right hon. Gentleman will turn his attention to what I regard as the greatest field for reform in the Health Service—the co-ordination of the excessively fragmented personal family services, the child care service, the family caseworker service, the health visitors, the probation officers, the psychiatric social workers. If he can achieve a coordination of these personal family services, then I hope that he will find there a key place for the family doctor. I suggest that when searching for the key he will find it in those area health boards which were recommended in the Porritt Report.
    I believe that the crisis which has developed in the last few days is not merely a normal biennial pay dispute. It is a major turning point, almost a crossroads, in the relationship of the family doctor service with the National Health Service. There are immense difficulties at the moment, but arising from these difficulties we hope that there will now be a profound professional self-examination and that a lead will be given by the Minister to the finding of the new status for the family doctor and a new position
    1278
    for him in the structure of the Health Service. If he can do that, we from these benches will certainly do our best to assist him.
    Dame Irene Ward: Would my hon. Friend confirm that on the Second Reading of the National Health Service Bill on 2nd May, 1946, the Conservative Party moved an Amendment starting with the words:
    "That this House, while wishing to establish a comprehensive health service …"
    Will my hon. Friend confirm that, so that we can do away with the suggestion of hon. Members opposite that the Conservative Party was not in favour of the establishment of the National Health Service?
    Lord Balniel: I do not have the records of that debate before me but my hon. Friend's clear recollection entirely confirms my own impression.
    7.58 p.m.
    Mr. K. Robinson: By leave of the House, perhaps I may just complete the picture and state quite categorically that the Conservative Party voted against the Third Reading of the National Health Service Bill, which is an action well recognised in the House to represent opposition to the fundamental principles of the Bill under discussion.
    Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Robinson: I shall not give way any more—
    Dame Irene Ward: The right hon. Gentleman is frightened to.
    Mr. Robinson: —but I did not intend to allow the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) to get away with a half-truth of that kind.
    The House will agree that on the whole this has been a helpful and constructive debate. We have had the advantage of hearing from one ex-Minister of Health and three ex-Parliamentary Secretaries to the Ministry of Health, and we have also had the silent presence of one further ex-Minister and one further ex-Parliamentary Secretary.
    I must first mention, as did the noble Lord the Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel), the most admirable maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. Dunn). He

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    made his speech in a model form for a maiden speaker. He spoke about the Liverpool Stanley Hospital, about which he and I have corresponded at some length and about which we will no doubt correspond again.
    The right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) seemed to think that I was a little rough on some of the doctors' leaders. I can only think that he and perhaps some other hon. Members have not noticed what the doctors have been saying about me and about my Ministry. What I criticised in particular was the presentation of this Report to the doctors and the profession, and I am prepared to repeat and stand by my criticism. I quoted a number of remarks of Dr. Cameron, the Chairman of the G.M.S.C., which I thought showed his most considered and statesmanlike attitude towards the problem, and I contrasted remarks made by an obviously sincere leader of the profession before the award was published with some of the things said by some others since it was published. I thought that that was a point which I was entitled to make.
    The right hon. Gentleman's advice to me on the Review Body's award was, it seemed, "Do not reject it, do not accept it. Accept part of it and reject part of it which the profession does not like." This I do not regard as open to me. Here is a Report which I believe the Government could only have accepted or rejected, and we have accepted it. Nor do I regard acceptance of this Report as in any way inconsistent with the assurance given by my predecessor the former Minister, now the right hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Barber), which was read out by the noble Lord in his winding up remarks.
    I promised to say a word about the reference by the right hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) who opened the debate, about the review I am undertaking of the hospital programme. This is an important exercise, and it is essential that we have adequate time. This is going to involve a realistic study of costs, priorities, population changes, and so on. Certainly it will not be satisfactorily concluded before the end of this year. It may well take even longer
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    than that, but I certainly give this assurance that once it is finished I shall want to let Parliament and the country know the result of the conclusions which we have reached. We do intend to publish it at the end of that time.
    The right hon. Gentleman also referred to the impact of rising costs as the programme is developed. Well, while no Minister could give a categorical assurance about the future, rising costs in the sense of cost inflation have been taken into account hitherto, and consequently he was wrong in his assumption that the extra £5 million we are providing for the next financial year was little more than taking account of rising costs. This is £5 million extra in real terms. The rising costs increase had already been taken into account in the £63 million figure, on top of which we added the £5 million.
    The right hon. Gentleman, and, 1 think, some other Members, referred to shortages of manpower, especially of doctors. Of course, I acknowledge that there are too few doctors. I said so when in Opposition. I am not likely to have changed my mind now. There are too few, both in general practice and in the hospital service, but I really would remind hon. Gentlemen opposite that the acceptance by their Government of the Willink Committee's Report which recommended the cutting down of intake to medical schools by 10 per cent., a Report published and accepted in 1957, really did not help and does not help the present situation. So we are considering—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science who has, of course, responsibility for the establishment of new medical schools is considering—this matter, and I hope that the noble Lord will not add this to the list of alleged broken pledges of the Labour Government if we have not actually constructed new medical schools within 112 days.
    Dr. Wyndham Davies: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. May I just ask if he would consider that the acceptance of the Willink Report was an example of an acceptance of a long-term plan, of which we have heard so much from the Labour Party, which went so wrong—of a reputable body of people putting forward a suggestion for a long-term plan which has produced the results we have today?
    Mr. Robinson: I do not want to speculate on the reasons which led the Government of the day to accept that Report. I only say that its acceptance has not helped the present position.
    Sir Edward Boyle: In connection with what the right hon. Gentleman has just said about medical schools, I wonder whether he or his right hon. Friend have been considering the question whether they should come within the orbit of the Council for Admissions of the U.C.C.A. This was a matter which was under some consideration at the end of the last Parliament. I wonder if that matter is still being considered.
    Mr. Robinson: I think I am right in saying that that is entirely a matter for my right hon. Friend. I will certainly discuss it with him to see what progress has been made since the change of Government.
    I was going on to say—and this is the answer to the noble Lord—that we are continuing to expand existing medical schools, but he will not be surprised to know that we have not yet got all the figures relevant to the new Government as against the old.
    The noble Lord also asked me whether, when I saw the medical profession, when they came to see me, I would tell them I was only prepared to discuss this thing or that thing. I really thought I could not have made it more clear than I did in my opening remarks. I really am prepared to discuss anything at all with them. I must put in this reservation, however, as to the quantum of remuneration. As things stand at the moment, by agreement between the profession and the previous Government, this is a matter for the Review Body, and as long as it remains a matter for the Review Body obviously it would be improper of me to discuss it with the leaders of the profession.
    The only other reference I should like to make to what the noble Lord said is this. He quoted with some glee from a speech I made on, I think, 27th July last on general practice, when I said that we would give grants instead of loans for premises. The position is really no different. Is he really asking me, after all he has said about the imposition of the Review Body's award, that I should impose grants, with all that goes with
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    it, on the medical profession? It is perfectly true that the acceptance of premises from the Government does basically change the whole relationship with the general practitioners. If I were to try to impose this on them I would be in even worse odour with the profession than the noble Lord seems to think I am at the moment.
    I promised to wind up briefly. I want only to repeat what I said before. I regard this crisis as an opportunity I am ready to take, and I am looking forward to an approach from the medical profession.
    Colonel Sir Malcolm Stoddart-Scott: Would the right hon. Gentleman say a word about dentists? Does he not take the view that the shortage of dentists is even as important as the shortage of doctors? In ten years' time we shall not have enough dentists to carry out the service. Can the right hon. Gentleman say what preparations are being made and whether the new dental school in Wales has been started and whether there are to be more dental chairs in the other teaching hospitals? Could he also say a word about pharmacists? Does the Minister not think there is a shortage of pharmacists? He said that the decision about the prescription charge has not meant a great extra burden on them. Can he say whether we are training sufficient pharmacists, and whether there would be sufficient pharmacists if we were to provide free drugs and dressings for private patients?
    Mr. Robinson: By leave of the House I would reply to the hon. and gallant Member. I think it is true to say there is a shortage of pharmacists in general over the whole country. There are, of course, pay differentials between private industry and private commerce and the National Health Service and there is a substantial pay claim for pharmacists before the Whitley Council at the moment. On the question of dentists, I think the supply of dentists at this moment in numerical terms is probably a little more promising than he thinks. The intake of new dental students is increasing. However, if the hon. and gallant Gentleman would like some figures about that and would be good enough to put down a Question on the Order Paper I will gladly tell him what information I have.

    LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOUNDARIES, NORTHAMPTON
    8.8 p.m.
    Sir John Hobson: We now wish to raise the question of the ward boundaries for the newly extended County Borough of Northampton, and we on this side of the House want to know what possible explanation there can be, other than that of political pressure from the local Labour Party, for the Home Office having reversed its original decision to accept the recommendation of an independent inquiry in relation to the ward boundaries within the County Borough of Northampton.
    We want to know from the Home Secretary, whom we are very glad to see here this evening—we are grateful to him for coming—how he can possibly justify the disfranchising of a town of at present some 70,000-odd people, a town which is due on 1st April to receive an additional 10,000 electors within its boundaries. How can he justify disfranchising more than 80,000 people for nearly seven months at a vital moment in the development of the town, and how can he justify cementing on to that town during that period a narrow majority of two, which the Labour Party now holds on the council, merely because the Labour Party, as we understand it, does not like the decision which he and the independent tribunal took?
    Of course, we recognise that if the Home Secretary had been directly concerned with all the details of this from the beginning he would not have allowed any such decision to be taken. We hope that he will not allow his broad and respectable back to be used to shield some of his colleagues who we think have made a serious error, and we hope that when he has listened to what can be said, and realises its implications, he will think it right to stand by the decision which the Home Office, in his name, originally took in December of last year. Perhaps the most convenient way to do this is shortly to recount the history of the matter, and then shortly to adumbrate the points.
    On 10th December, 1963, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph), as the then Minister of Housing and Local Government,
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    decided that the boundaries of the County Borough of Northampton should be extended by the addition of fringe areas containing about 10,000 people, and it was intended that that extension should come into operaion on 1st April, 1965.
    On 25th March, 1964 the Home Office wrote a letter pointing out that there were disparities between the existing wards, and that new warding arrangements ought to be made for the extended county borough, and with that I think everybody would agree, because the ward boundaries in Northampton had not been reviewed for 30 years, and it was high time that they were readjusted.
    In that letter the Home Secretary set out the bases on which the boundaries should be redrawn and reconsidered. I understand that this is common form, and the usual basis on which a direction is given on every occasion when ward boundaries are to be redrawn. The bases were, first, to provide wards of approximately equal size, allowing for likely changes in the distribution of the town in the following five years. That was the overriding object of the exercise. Secondly, to have regard to the desirability of having easily identifiable boundaries, and thirdly, to have regard to any local ties which would be broken by the fixing of any particular boundaries.
    The letter—and I believe that this applies to all letters sent out in similar circumstances—did not contain any direction at all about the political considerations of applying those criteria. As I understand the position from my right hon. and hon. Friends who have served in the Home Office, it has always been a tradition in the Home Office that political considerations, even when discussed, do not form any part of the application of the criteria, except possibly to the extent of a consideration of how far the criteria have been properly applied. I understand that there have been a number of these inquiries, and that there has never been any question of the politics of the matter applying at all, and that this is the usual way in which the matter is dealt with.
    On 24th July, 1964, as a result of a petition to the election court, the control of the council of the Borough of Northampton passed to the Labour party, which then had a majority of 25 to 23. In the May election there had been a

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    spoilt vote in one ward, which had resulted in a tie, and the Conservative won the seat on lots being drawn. There was then an election petition. It was held that what was said to be a spoilt vote was not a spoilt vote, and the seat was awarded to the Labour Party, with the result that instead of being equal on the council, with the mayor holding the casting vote, the position from August last year was 25 Labour councillors and aldermen and 23 Conservatives.
    On 24th September the Home Office gave notice of a local inquiry to be conducted by an independent barrister, and appointed a Mr. Verney, who is a much respected member of the Bar and a person of some experience in this matter. He has, I understand, been doing this work for some time, and he has, I believe, conducted and presided over seven or eight inquiries of this nature.
    His inquiry opened on 12th October, three days before the General Election, and there were two proposals before the inquiry. One had been drawn up by the tow n clerk, and had the support of the Labour group on the local council, and the other had been drawn up by some of the Conservative councillors, though there had been an earlier Conservative scheme.
    In the course of his opening and explanations the town clerk said that
    "Any suggestion that his proposals were designed to secure a permanent Labour majority was unfounded and any political result would he fortuitous."
    I accept that without the slightest hesitation. The learned Clerk of Northampton happened for a short time to have served as my clerk of assize, and I have no doubt that he was genuinely attempting to apply the Home Office rules.
    But I do not think it fortuitous that his plan was received with alacrity and enthusiasm, and has been espoused ever since, by the Labour group on the council, because, as he said, if it secured a permanent Labour majority it would be fortuitous as far as he was concerned, and he obviously would never have said that unless he had foreseen that that would be the result. The view of the Conservative group on the council was that there was no doubt that that plan would result in a built-in majority for Labour, with seven wards certain Labour and five certain Conservative.
    1286
    The counter-proposals which were put forward were also an attempt—and I hope the House will accept the genuine attempt—by a responsible solicitor of the Supreme Court to apply the Home Secretary's rules. The view of the Conservative group was that its plan, which was not its first one, would provide for five wards which were likely to be Labour, five which were likely to be Conservative, and two which might change at every event.
    I recognise, and it is fair to tell the House, that the Labour Party took the exact opposite view. It took the view that the Conservative plan would provide a built-in Conservative majority of 7 to 5, whereas the town clerk's plan would provide two swingers—five Conservative, five Labour, and two swingers.
    Thus we had the situation, which I imagine is not unusual, that each party thought that the plan which it opposed was favourable to the other side, while each party thought that the plan which it supported was fair in that it provided two swinging wards as a result of the redrawing of the boundaries. One can never analyse figures of this kind, however many inquiries one has, because one can never know what the result is likely to be in such an event until it is put to the test.
    The counter-proposals which were drawn up were deposited with the town clerk on 14th September. That was almost a month before the inquiry was held. They were deposited there for all to see and consider, and on 15th September the Labour leader on the council was informed by the supporters of the counter-proposals that that had been done and that they were available to be seen. The counter-proposals were also published in the local Press, so they had the fullest possible publicity.
    At the inquiry on 12th October, several members of the Labour group on the council were present. They had ample opportunity to raise any points they wished to raise, and they were asked on more than one occasion by the person holding the inquiry whether anyone had any questions to put or any representations to make. The Labour chairman of the finance and general purposes committee of the borough gave evidence in support of the town clerk's proposals

    1287
    and could presumably have said anything he pleased in the course of his evidence.
    No political points were taken for or against either scheme. The supporters of the Conservative plan had intended to raise political objections to the town clerk's plan along the lines that I have indicated, but when they discovered that the town clerk was raising no objections on political grounds they did not pursue any political objections either. I submit that that was quite proper and correct. The only question in the end is whether the criteria laid down by the Home Secretary in his letter—the direction that the Home Secretary and the Home Office had given, as to what should be done—had been properly followed, and that inquiry, and the basis on which it was to be held, made no reference to any political consequences of the application of those criteria.
    The town clerk admitted that his figures took account only of natural growth, whereas the alternative scheme was based on future trends both of developments in the outer areas and clearance in the central areas. The inspector, without considering the political implications—because they were never discussed before him and because no party and no person present at the inquiry, although given the opportunity to do so, discussed them or drew his attention to them—recommended in his report to the Home Secretary that the counter-proposals were the better and that they should be adopted in substance, although he made some small alterations to them by cutting down some forecasts in respect of the clearance and development areas.
    But even on that basis he preferred the alternative scheme, and so recommended. He suggested that the Home Secretary should ask the Minister of Housing and Local Government to lay down in his Order a form of procedure which would avoid double elections in 1965. He therefore suggested that the new council should be elected en bloc in May, 1965, or, alternatively, that there should be elections to enable the new council to assume office on 1st April, 1965.
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    After the receipt of that recommendation the decision of the Home Office, in the name of the Home Secretary, was conveyed on 23rd December, and I think that I should read some passages in it. It said:
    "The Secretary of State has considered the main criticism made of the Council's proposals, that they failed sufficiently to take into account residential development in Northampton. He appreciates the contention that, since such development would take place for the most part in wards abutting the boundary whilst wards in the centre of Northampton would be affected by slum clearance, the electorates of the former wards would tend to increase and those of the latter to decrease with the result that there would be disparities between the electorates of the proposed wards in a few years' time. In the view of the Secretary of State the counter-proposals take account of this situation more satisfactorily than do the Council's proposals, by providing for wards in the centre with high electorates at present and wards abutting the boundary with low electorates. The Secretary of State accordingly accepts Mr. Verney's recommendation that the counter-proposals should be accepted subject to minor changes for the purpose of adopting boundaries which are more easily identifiable."
    Later on the letter states:
    "The Secretary of State notes that all parties are agreed that there should be fresh elections of councillors in 1965. Mr. Verney was in favour of elections on 13th May, as preferred by all parties, or alternatively on a date before the appointed day, 1st April, 1965, so that councillors could come into office on the appointed day. The Secretary of State agrees that there should be fresh elections. As for the date on which they should be held, the Secretary of State does not consider that it would be satisfactory to adhere to the ordinary day of election if the effect is that the areas to be added to the county borough would be unrepresented on the council between 1st April and the coming into office of the newly elected councillors on 17th May… The Secretary of State has decided therefore that provision should be made in the order for elections to be held on such day prior to the appointed day as the returning officer shall appoint."
    That decision, conveyed by that letter of 23rd December, brought a wail of anguish from the Labour group on the council, which decided to embark on a party political campaign to reverse the acceptance by a Labour Home Secretary of the report of an independent inquiry. On 8th January the finance and general purposes committee of the borough council met, and by a purely party vote decided to recommend to the borough council that action should be taken. On Monday, 25th January, the Labour chairman of the finance and general purposes committee and the hon. and

    1289
    learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) visited a Ministry in London. We do not know whether it was the Home Office or the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. We do not know what was said or what allegations were made, but we know that on Thursday, 28th January, at a council meeting, by a party vote of 25 to 23, a resolution was passed which was in two parts. The first said that the proposed warding arrangements were wholly unacceptable to the council, and the second that the Minister of Housing and Local Government should be informed of the views of the council, and that the proposals be abandoned and that the draft order amended.
    No suggestion was made in that resolution that the Home Office should be consulted—although the Home Office in these matters exercises a quasi-judicial function—or that it should be approached to reverse the decision, and no allegation was made in the resolution that anybody at any stage had been misinformed. On Monday, 29th January, a letter was sent by hand to the Home Office, but no Conservative member of the council has been provided with a copy of that letter. The deputy chairman of the finance and general purposes committee, who is a Conservative, asked for a copy of that letter, but the town clerk said that he was not able to hand it over, and it has never been published in the proceedings of the council.
    It may be quite innocent, but we have no idea what was in it. No one on behalf of the Home Office or on behalf of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government ever approached any Conservative member of the council from the date of that letter—not even the mayor who was a Conservative, or the deputy chairman of the finance and general purposes committee—to tell him of anything that was being transacted between the Labour group and the chairman of the finance and general purposes committee. Their approach was to see whether anything which was being said did or did not accord with the views of the Conservative group. On Wednesday, 3rd February, the Minister of Housing and Local Government announced the doubling of the population of the borough of Northampton to deal with London overspill and he said that he was embarking on discussions
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    with the local authority on the machinery and measures which would be needed for doubling the town and on the siting of new houses and the provision of new industry and new offices.
    Then, on 4th February, two rather astonishing letters arrived. The first was from the Home Office. It was signed by an official and it said:
    "I am directed by the Secretary of State to refer to your letter of 29th January forwarding the resolution of the Northampton Borough Council asking him to rescind the decision regarding the warding arrangements for the extended county borough … The Secretary of State has given the most careful consideration to the council's resolution. He notes the view expressed in the resolution, that Mr. Verney, the independent barrister who held the inquiry, was misinformed on certain material aspects. While the Secretary of State does not accept that insufficient opportunity was given to all concerned to express their views fully at the public inquiry he has decided that in the circumstances the best course will be for the whole question of the warding of Northampton to be considered afresh and publicly at a further local inquiry.
    The Secretary of State understands that the Minister proposes to lay the Northampton Order before Parliament during the third week in February in time for it to take effect on 1st April this year. There is insufficient time for the warding arrangements to be fully and publicly considered afresh before this date."
    He went on:
    "The Secretary of State considers that the first elections to be held in the borough as extended should be held on the basis of a new ward scheme and not on the basis of the existing wards with the added areas annexed. It would not however be practicable for the procedure under section 25 of the Act of 1933 to be completed in time for the suggested date of borough council elections (13th May). Accordingly the Secretary of State is asking the Minister of Housing and Local Government to provide in his Order for the ordinary borough elections in May to be postponed to such date as may be provided in an Order in Council … and that until the councillors elected at the postponed election come into office, the existing councillors should represent the existing wards, subject to the added areas being annexed to contiguous wards. The Secretary of State very much hopes that it will be found possible to hold elections on the basis of new wards at the latest by the end of October."
    Contemporaneously with that, a letter was sent from the Ministry of Housing and Local Government to the Borough of Northampton, setting out what they intended to include in the Order. It said:
    "The relevant article would read as follows:
    'Article 6(2) The ordinary elections of councillors of the borough due to take place in May, 1965, shall be postponed so as to

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    take place in accordance with this paragraph, and no election of such councillor to fill a casual vacancy shall be held between the date of the coming into operation of this Order and the postponed election; and any councillor holding office immediately before such date shall (unless he resigns his office or it otherwise becomes vacant) continue to hold office until the fourth day after the day of the postponed elections. …
    The Borough council shall before 7th April, 1965, or such later date as the Secretary of State may allow, present a petition under Section 25 of the Local Government Act, 1933, praying for one or more of the following things …'"—
    and one is the alteration of the boundaries of the wards—
    "and if no such petition is presented, the said section 25 shall have effect as if a petition had been presented by the borough council to Her Majesty …"
    There are only two other facts. As a result of the letter from the Home Office, those who have been concerned in conducting the case for the counter-proposals were greatly upset and infuriated at the charge levelled, without hearing, by the Home Office that Mr. Verney had been misinformed. One of the promoters was a most respectable solicitor of the Supreme Court and a member of one of the best respected firms in Northampton one of them is a soldier, a deputy lieutenant and a prominent manufacturer in the town; and one of them was the mayor-designate for the borough for 1965–66.
    They wrote to the Home Office and asked what was meant by the allegation that Mr. Verney had been misinformed. They received a reply this morning from the Home Office, to say:
    "I am directed by the Secretary of State to refer to your letter of 9th February about the local inquiry held by Mr. Verney into the warding arrangements of the county borough of Northampton, and to give you an assurance that the Home Office letter of 4th February was not intended to imply that Mr. Verney had in any way been misinformed or misled in the evidence given by you or by Mr. Lewis or Mr. Wilson. The passage in the letter to which you draw attention related to the statement in the council resolution that Mr. Verney was wholly mistaken in stating that there was no political objection to the Conservative proposal."
    Of course, as far as Mr. Verney was concerned, there have been no objections of any sort to any proposals because the matter had not been discussed.
    Perhaps I can, on these facts, ask the Home Secretary these questions. Is it
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    right that no other charge except that was made, that Mr. Verney had been misinformed? The letter originally said that it was the view expressed in the resolution, but that resolution, of course, contained no such allegation.
    Secondly, who made the allegation that insufficient opportunity was given to all concerned to express views fully at the public inquiry? This allegation, in a letter of 4th February which the Home Secretary rejects, formed no part of the resolution forwarded to him. It is utterly untrue and unfounded. We should like to know who was making representations that such an event had occurred. Was such an allegation made to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, or was it made to the Home Office, or to both? Next, we should like to know why, if the allegations were being made, no opportunity was given at all for those who had supported the counter-proposals to deal with them before the previous decision was rescinded. After all, the Home Secretary in this situation is in a somewhat quasi-judicial capacity. He had taken one decision and was being asked unilaterally and ex parte by one party to reverse it.
    Why was there no approach by the Home Office to other people interested in this matter who had appeared at the inquiry and had been successful before the Home Secretary announced that he was going to reverse his decision? What part has the Ministry of Housing and Local Government played in all this? We know the result was supposed to have been sent to the Ministry. To what extent is the Ministry responsible for this reversal of policy?
    Now I come to the really important point. Why reopen the inquiry to discuss political issues at all? The letter received this morning makes the point that the only new circumstances which the Home Secretary has taken into account is the fact that politics was not discussed before Mr. Verney. His letter never suggested that they should be. As I have pointed out, opposing parties take opposite political views of the consequences of the two proposals. Is not this a complete departure from the usual independence of the Home Office and the Home Secretary in considering these warding arrangements? They are intended to divide the wards into equal areas so far as possible,

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    taking into account only the convenience of boundaries and whether community ties are being broken. If by the application of such criteria, which are surely the right criteria, a particular result is produced, it matters not in whose favour it is one way or the other.
    I understand that in a very large number of these inquiries no question of the political result is ever raised. I also understand that where it is raised, it is usual for the Home Office and those concerned in the matter almost wholly to ignore the political question. What one is trying to do out of fairness, and I say again in a quasi-judicial capacity, is to divide up the borough into roughly equal areas, taking amenity interests into account and seeing that convenient boundaries are arranged. All we are doing by this decision of the Home Secretary is to enable him to reverse himself, and throw this, and possibly future inquaries into warding arrangements, into the political melting pot. Would not it be better to stick to the tradition that one applies the Home Office criteria, because that is the object of the exercise and the only fair way to do it?
    The next question I should like to ask—perhaps it is only in passing—is how can a Minister of the Crown require legally elected representatives to pass a resolution? This is what the Minister of Housing and Local Government has announced he is proposing to put in his Order. How can a Minister of the Crown require legally elected representatives of a borough council to pass, by a majority of their total number, a resolution that they will present a petition to Her Majesty, because that is the procedure required under Section 25 of the Local Government Act?
    The Minister of Housing and Local Government seems to be assuming to himself the right to give directions to independent members of a local authority. How, I ask, can a Minister of the Crown announce that if the legally elected representatives do not do what they are told to do by him, he will proceed under an Act of Parliament, which requires a resolution, as if that resolution had been passed, when, in fact, it has not? Is not this wholly unlawful and without authority or precedent of any sort?
    If the Home Office Minister thought that it was unsatisfactory in December to
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    disfranchise 10,000 new voters for six and a half weeks, how can he possibly justify disfranchising not only 10,000 but the remaining 73,000 voters of Northampton for seven months while a new inquiry is drawn up and its result known, possibly at the end of October?
    How can he possibly justify cementing on to the whole of this town for seven months a narrow Labour majority of two, won by a single vote in a single ward at the elections last May, without even the chance to win a seat, because if there is a casual vacancy caused by death or resignation there is to be no by-election which would enable a seat to be recaptured from the other side? And this at a time when, first, the town is being doubled and vital expansion is taking place, secondly, when big questions of central development are involved and, thirdly, when there are vital questions affecting the local grammar schools and the control of education in the borough before the electors in this town?
    Above all, how can he possibly justify reversing decisions of an independent inquiry—which he had already himself accepted—because of the partisan and one-sided pressure of the local Labour group and without any attempt at all to obtain the views of those who take the opposite view in this town? Does he not agree that it is absolutely essential that when the new borough comes into operation there should be a newly elected borough council, upon a proper system of wards?
    Does he not think that the only proper way of securing that is to stick by his decision of December not to reopen a political dispute in which both sides will take opposite views and no conclusion will be reached? Are we not getting into a very dangerous position indeed, and will he not agree to reconsider the matter and to take the opportunity to look at the whole situation again and agree to stick by what was done by him and his Department in December of last year?
    8.43 p.m.
    The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir Frank Soskice): First let me complete the recital of fact. The right hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir J. Hobson), with a wealth of mysterious allusion, seemed to imply that something was being held back. I should

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    like to disclose exactly what he thought was being held back. A letter of 29th January, he said, was withheld from disclosure. That was what I understood from his speech.
    The House will remember that there was a meeting of the council on 28th January. There were two letters and I will read them both. The first was dated 29th January, 1965, from Mr. Rowe, the town clerk. It was addressed to the Secretary, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, Whitehall, London, S.W.1. It read:
    "Sir,
    I am directed by the Council to forward for the Minister's immediate attention the enclosed certified copy of a resolution approved by the Council at its meeting yesterday evening, relating to the proposed Warding arrangements.
    I am Sir,
    Your obedient servant—"
    and it was signed
    "C. E. Vivian Rowe, Town Clerk."
    That was the first mysterious letter. The second mysterious letter was dated 29th January, 1965, and was again signed by Mr. Rowe, but this one was addressed to the Under-Secretary of State, Home Office, Whitehall, London, S.W.1 It read:
    "Sir,
    East Midlands General Review Area
    I enclose for your information a copy of a letter which I have today forwarded to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, together with a copy of the enclosure thereto."
    I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will feel satisfied that ample disclosure has been made. If the nondisclosure of those letters disarranged the course of his argument, or put him in a position the less forcibly to make his point, I am very sorry. I now hand them to him, and I am sure that were he to seek leave to supplement his argument after having them, the House would be sympathetic.
    Sir J. Hobson: I appreciate that. I only raised the matter because I did not know what was said in the letters and, as they had been refused, one naturally asked what was in them. I entirely accept that they were absolutely proper letters from the town clerk, and I am sure that we are all very glad to hear about them. But the first question of who made the charges of impropriety, as
    1296
    they do not appear in the letters, still remains to be answered.
    Sir F. Soskice: I will deal with all the right hon. and learned Gentleman's questions later, if I may—I have them all carefully noted—but that is one point dealt with, and I cannot help but remember the well-known Latin phrase, Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.
    That pillar of suspicion having, I hope, been demolished, I come to the next. The right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke of a mysterious visit made to me by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget). My hon. and learned Friend visited me, and I was glad to see him—as I always am. He came in a state of high dudgeon—and the House knows what my hon. and learned Friend is like when he is in a state of high dudgeon. He represented to me that the consequence of my Order was to produce a monstrous injustice, that the House should know this, and that there was high feeling in Northampton.
    I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will not think that I am being unduly insensitive to the deep emotions he evinced if I make clear to the House now, as I made clear to him then, that I conceive my duty to be to the citizens of Northampton as a whole, and that I certainly would not think it a ground for my further intervention that a result has been produced that one side or the other in the council does not like. If that was all that was present in the featuring of this case, I certainly would not have taken any further step. But I think that, for reasons that I will disclose in a moment, the case goes far beyond that, and did warrant my intervention. If I may say so with respect and gratitude to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, having heard his speech I am amply reinforced in my conclusion.
    Perhaps I may say at the outset that I do not make any imputation against anyone concerned in these proceedings. We had, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman said, a representation from Mr. Walmsley, the solicitor who presented the counter-proposals, in which he complained that the attitude I had adopted implied a reflection upon him and upon certain others. May I make it as clear as I can in this public debate that I make no sort or kind of imputation upon him

    1297
    whatever, or upon those associated with him. I am sure that he presented the Conservative counter-proposals with the fairness and care that one would expect from a member of his profession. Having made that perfectly clear, I should like to tell the House why it was that I thought—and still think, having looked back on it—that it was appropriate for me to take the course I did take.
    First, what is that course? The course I have taken is to initiate procedure that will result in a new public hearing, and the shoot reason why I adopted that course, and thought it necessary so to do, was that it seemed to me, in view of what was brought to my notice, that the hearing before Mr. Verney, for reasons that certainly were not attributable to any blame on his part or on the part of the persons who appeared before him, had proceeded upon a misconception.
    It having proceeded upon a misconception and there being, as I understood, considerable feeling in Northampton and a sense of considerable resentment between the opposing sections of the council, it seemed to me that far the best course in the circumstances was to bring it about that there should be a new public hearing at which every possible point of view could be adequately ventilated and explored. It seemed to me that that was the only way in which this controversy, which has a longish history stretching back certainly to the beginning of 1964, could be finally set at rest. It seemed to me that it was not desirable that the new warding arrangements should take their birth in an atmosphere which I understood was likely to be one of suspicion and possibly mutual recrimination. I hoped, and I still hope and think I am right in so doing, to put an end to this finally once and for all. If there is a new public inquiry at which everybody can put their point of view, nobody can conceivably have the smallest grievance.
    Mr. Arthur Jones: Would not the right hon. and learned Gentleman admit that that type of inquiry has already taken place?
    Sir F. Soskice: I was coming on to say why I thought that the inquiry which has already taken place had, due to an accident more than anything else, not been a satisfactory inquiry, because it seemed to me that the Commissioner who con-
    1298
    ducted it had proceeded upon a misconception.
    Mr. Arthur Jones: I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will elaborate on "accident" in this context.
    Sir F. Soskice: Yes. That is just what I am about to do, if the hon. Gentleman will allow me to continue with my speech. If he would like to intervene, I should be only too glad for him to do so. I want to explain why it was that it seemed to me, rightly or wrongly—the House may agree or disagree with my judgment; it is a subject for discussion—that the inquiry had not been satisfactory, in the sense that it proceeded upon a misconception, and therefore was not likely to bring satisfaction and confidence to everybody who was dependent upon the conclusion at which Mr. Verney, an extremely able and careful barrister-at-law, had arrived.
    Mr. Arthur Jones Mr. Arthur Jones indicated dissent.
    Sir F. Soskice: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head. I cannot stop him from doing that. If I could define his thoughts other than as those of general disapprobation, I would try to answer him. I can do no more than that. I will do my best.
    May I recount what seemed to me to be the relevant facts leading up to the conclusion that I formed? As the right hon. and learned Gentleman pointed out to the House, Mr. Rowe, the town clerk, had prepared a scheme back in 1963. He did it, as I understand, entirely upon his own initiative. He did it upon a basis which he thought was fair. He did it because he thought there was a likelihood of an Order being made in due course by the Minister of Housing and Local Government, in view of the addition of new areas to the County Borough of Northampton.
    In August, 1964, the then newly emerging Labour majority accepted and put forward that scheme. This was about a year after the scheme was prepared. The Labour majority adopted it as its own and decided to put it forward. That was on 14th August, 1964. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman has pointed out, and it is part of the difficulty in this case, the two parties are very evenly balanced and it was a decision on an election petition which took the

    1299
    majority from the Conservatives and gave it to the Labour party on the council. Therefore, I must be very careful that, so far as can be achieved, feeling that there is any sort of unfairness in the way in which the majority arises is removed.
    That was in August, 1964. In September, 1964, the Conservatives prepared their counter-proposals and lodged them, perfectly properly. I have no criticism of that. They also lodged, as I understand, an objection on political grounds to the proposals made by the town clerk. I will, if I may for the sake of brevity, refer to "the town clerk's proposals" and "the counter-proposals" as being the two sets of proposals considered by Mr. Verney.
    Mr. Verney held the public inquiry on 10th October, 1964, and rendered his report to me in November. I read it. It seemed to me a well-reasoned report and I had no hesitation in accepting it. It was a report which entirely upheld the counter-proposals put forward on behalf of the Conservatives. It seemed to me when I read the Report that Mr. Verney's reasoning was convincing, and I accordingly intimated that I proposed to accept it.
    What I want to call attention to in this report is this. In three separate places Mr. Verney makes reference to the absence of political considerations, and that obviously weighed with him. If it were merely a passing reference, merely recording that no objection of a political nature was raised, perhaps it would not have mattered so much, but it is obvious in his report that he attaches importance to it.
    In order that the House may judge whether I am right or wrong, I will ask the indulgence of the House while I read two of the shorter passages. Before stating his conclusions he says:
    "It is right to emphasise that the town clerk's proposals, which now form the basis of the council's scheme, were drawn up by him alone with no political outcome in mind. The criticism from a political point of view was not pursued at the inquiry"—
    that means the Conservative criticism that had been lodged with the counter-proposals—
    "and should be disregarded in assessing the merits of the scheme. It is equally important
    1300
    to emphasise that no suggestion was made that the new Conservative proposals should be criticised as designed to secure political advantage, whatever may have been the defects of earlier proposals. The two schemes have to be judged solely according to whether or not they succeed in satisfying the criteria which have to be applied. The authors of each scheme have had these criteria clearly in mind."
    If the matter rested on that passage alone, I submit that it would be perfectly apparent that on the balance of circumstance Mr. Verney thought it was of importance. But he goes on to reinforce it in a later passage. He sets out his conclusions at the end of the report and he indicates the way in which his mind is moving. He says:
    "I am reinforced in my view"—
    that is the view which he has expressed in favour of the counter-proposals, and I would ask the House to note the word "reinforced"—
    "by the fact that no suggestion of political motive has been advanced. When the balance of power between two parties is so close, it must be expected that legitimate criticism on this basis would be put forward, if it reasonably could be. There being no such criticism of the Conservative Scheme, and the political criticism of the Council's Scheme not having been pursued, I have been free to determine my recommendation on the merits of each scheme as presented to me."
    The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked what has the political result got to do with it. Prima facie he is right in saying that. The objective of the inquiry is, as he says, to try to get a numerically properly balanced warding arrangement, with clearly-defined boundaries, attention being paid to local ties. On the other hand, the Conservative party clearly thought that political objections were material. They made a political objection, although they subsequently withdrew it. It is obvious that the Labour party thought so. But what is still more important is that Mr. Verney thought so. He may have been right or wrong in thinking so, but he certainly thought so, and he accordingly used the words which influenced me when I considered the case, that he was "reinforced" in the view that he expressed by the fact that there were no political considerations applicable in this case. That is one of the things which have influenced me.
    Mr. Arthur Jones Mr. Arthur Jones indicated dissent.
    Sir F. Soskice: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but that is how I read it.
    Mr. Jones: I shook my head because this is not pertinent to the issue at all, with respect.
    Sir F. Soskice: I am sorry to disagree with the hon. Gentleman. It is the case that I am trying to deploy and it seems to me that it is directly relevant and pertinent. The hon. Member may change his mind about it.
    That is what the parties thought, that is to say Mr. Verney, the Conservatives and the Labour party who were involved before him. But it may be said, "Whether they thought that or not, they may have been wrong and you have got to say whether it is relevant or not." This is my answer. I would certainly have thought that, had it been represented to Mr. Verney that one of the sets of proposals produced a very marked political result, he would have scrutinised that proposal with perhaps rather more anxiety than he brought to bear when he looked at them. That is a view which seems to me instinct in the language which he himself has used. We therefore start with the basis that here is Mr. Verney recording his conclusions upon the assumption that there is no political question there at all.
    The next material thing that happened is that the town council held its meeting on 28th January, and the House already knows from the right hon. and learned Gentleman's speech what it resolved. The council resolved by a majority of 25 to 23 to uphold a report which had been made by the finance and general purposes committee earlier, I think on 8th January. Therefore it seems to me that I ought to read part of that report, which was approved by the council's resolution, because it is directly relevant to the conclusions that were formed. I do not endorse what it says. I do not know whether it is right or wrong, but this is what was said:
    "The Chairman referred to the decision of the Secretary of State on the proposals submitted by the Council which had been contained in a letter dated 23rd December, 1964. He pointed out that these proposals were weighted heavily in favour of the Conservative Party and submitted the following figures to support that position…"
    Then it sets out the figures and proceeds in this way:
    "The proposals which were drawn up by the Town Clerk and approved by the Council gave no political advantage to either party. The Labour Group of the Council accepted
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    these as fair to both sides. The Conservative Party, whilst first objecting on political grounds, withdrew these objections at the inquiry. The probable political effect of the proposals drawn up by the Town Clerk was to divide the wards into five Labour and five Conservative, leaving Trinity and Kingsthorpe wards to swing according to the political pendulum. The effect of the Conservative counter proposals was to remove from both these wards a Labour area which would be added in each case to a ward which already had a substantial Labour majority, thereby making these two marginal wards into safe Conservative wards and giving a minority of Conservative voters a built-in majority of seven wards to five on the Council."
    I do not say that that is right; I deliberately avoid expressing an opinion about it, because I think that the inquiry which I anticipate will take place in due course should be conducted by a person with an open mind who should not be inhibited in any way by anything that I say in this debate.
    Then the resolution went on:
    "The Commissioner reporting to the Home Secretary emphasised that there was no political objection to the Conservative proposals. In this he was wholly mistaken. The Labour Group having accepted the Town Clerk's plan as fair and reasonable did not appear as objectors. As the Town Clerk was appearing for the Council and not representing the Labour Group, it was clearly impossible for him to deal with the political consequences of these proposals, and as the Conservative Party withdrew all political objections to the Town Clerk's plan, there was no opportunity to challenee the Conservative proposals upon the basis of their political consequences."
    The case I make is this. I contrast, and I ask hon. Members to contrast, that passage, these assertions put forward by a small majority of the council after a debate, with the assumption that underlay Mr Verney's report. He was clearly making his report on the assumption that there were no political aspects to the proposals which he was considering and, as I read out, here is the council resolving by a small majority that the effect of the proposals was to remove from two wards a Labour area which would be added in each case to a ward which already had a substantial Labour majority.
    Sir Harwood Harrison: There was ample opportunity before Mr. Verney, if the Labour Party wished to raise the matter. I cannot believe that Labour members were so naive as not to make a representation if they thought that the Conservative proposals were not acceptable.
    Sir F. Soskice: I absolutely agree, and I was about to indicate how that consideration impinges itself on my mind. They certainly had opportunity. Indeed, in the letter which the right hon. and learned Gentleman read, I pointed out that I did not accept that they had not had a proper opportunity of putting forward their considerations.
    In these circumstances, having received the resolution, I had to decide what was the right thing to do. Was it proper to leave the position as it was? Or was it proper to arrange to institute proceedings which would give opportunity for a further hearing? Was there any other course open? It seemed to me that there were only those two alternatives: either I could leave the position as it was or, there being to hand a ready procedure, I could say that the hearing before Mr. Verney proceeded on a misconception and take the other course. I do not say that Mr. Verney was misled, but the hearing proceeded on a misconception which, as I say, I do not attribute to anyone's fault. Therefore, since there was to hand a further opportunity for public discussion and for publicly putting these considerations which, at least, were thought by the parties, including Mr. Verney, to be material, should not that opportunity be made available?
    It is said that that is all very well, but the Labour party had an opportunity of putting its objection. I quite agree. That is an argument in favour of following the former of these two courses, that is, not changing the arrangements. It was a consideration which I weighed in the balance. If, for instance, it had simply Seen a matter of litigation between two opposing parties for a piece of property or something like that, I should, I think, on ordinary principles have said that, if one party did not take the trouble to put forward a consideration which it thought was material, that party must carry the disadvantage ensuing therefrom.
    What seemed to me the right view to take was this. This, after all, was a matter which affected the voting rights of about 70,000 people. It was a matter of extreme public importance. It was not merely transient and ephemeral but would last for a number of years. Therefore, it seemed to me that the kind of criteria one would normally apply to a private action between two competing
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    litigants would not be the criteria to apply here.
    The Labour party could have put forward its view, but it did not. It gave an explanation, which may or may not be sound. I feel that Mr. Rowe, the town clerk, was in a personal difficulty, and I quite understand that what was said about him was perfectly well-founded. I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that, if Labour people were present, they could and ought to have put forward their objection. In fact, they did not. But, for the reasons I have given, I did not regard this as an ordinary piece of litigation, as it were, but something far more important and transcending that, and it seemed to me that that was not a conclusive consideration.
    As I say, the basic question was whether one should leave matters as they were or give ample further opportunity for views to be aired. My judgment worked in the matter in this way. I thought—I have said this already—that, if I left it, the high feeling would grow. It would be said that Mr. Verney proceeded on a misconception, and words like "misleading" would begin to be bandied about. The feeling would fester, would not die down, and there would be left a very disagreeable heritage.
    The view I took was that, as there was ready available to hand the necessary machinery to enable everyone to have a full chance to air his views, not in an atmosphere of misconception but with the full case being raised, the relevance and importance of all matters could be adequately presented and explored. It seemed to me right to say that, although Mr. Verney is careful and experienced—I am most grateful to him for his painstaking work—his inquiry, for a reason which certainly was not his fault, miscarried. He had come to his conclusion under a misconception, and he had not realised that there was, at least, an alleged marked political result likely to ensue from the counter-proposals. It semed to me, therefore, that it ought to be decided that the inquiry before him had not reached a result which could carry everyone's confidence. For these reasons, it seemed to me that I ought, in the circumstances, to make that procedure available to the citizens of Northampton.
    I say this with every conceivable emphasis that I can. It does not make the

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    slightest difference to me—I hope that hon. Members will believe this, because I am saying it with all sincerity—that it was a Labour majority which was asking for the petition. It would have been exactly the same if a Conservative majority in similar circumstances had wanted one, too. Mr. Verney's conclusions were in favour of the Conservative counter-proposals, and I have not the slightest hesitation in accepting them. It seems to me that if for one reason or another—the circumstances of the case are very exceptional; I regard them as a chapter of accidents—the commissioner who is appointed under this extra-statutory procedure does not reach a conclusion on a satisfactory footing which ought to carry confidence in everybody's mind, a further opportunity, in a sense an appeal, if it is reasonably practicable to do so, should be given. That is my whole instinct, and that was the basis on which I arrived at my conclusions. That may be right, or it may be wrong.
    Having said that, I now address myself to the ten questions asked of the Attorney-General. The first question was: Who is it that says that Mr. Verney was misinformed? I have read out the relevant part of the town council resolution. That is where I got it from. Mr. Verney proceeded—whether "misinformed" was the right or the wrong term—under a misconception, as I like to put it. I would make clear that I am not asserting, and I have never asserted, that anyone misinformed him in the sense of purposely trying to mislead him. I do not think it happened, and I do not seek to put that forward. That is my first answer.
    The second question related to the issue of whether there was insufficient opportunity available for representations to be made to Mr. Verney. I say at once that the Labour representatives had a perfectly ample opportunity and they ought to have done it, but they did not do it. I have given to the House the weight which I attributed, rightly or wrongly, to that circumstance.
    The third question was: Why, if allegations were made, was no opportunity given to those against whom the allegations were made to rebut those allegations? I am not quite sure what allegations are referred to there. I have made no allegations. What is said, as I read the council's resolution, is that Mr. Verney, for the reasons there given,
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    was not made aware of the consequences of the Conservative counter-proposals. The resolution gives the reasons—that the town clerk was in a difficulty, and so on. That is my answer to the third question.
    The fourth question was: What part has the Minister of Housing and Local Government played in this? I ought to explain in answer to that question that the procedure which is adopted, and has been long adopted, between the Home Office and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government is an extra-statutory procedure. It is not laid down by Statute. It is the Minister of Housing and Local Government who makes the Order to implement the Boundary Commission's findings, and he is advised upon an extrastatutory basis by the Home Secretary of the time as to the best way of rearranging the warding within the enlarged area. So the Minister of Housing and Local Government's part, in the end, is limited to making the Order, if he thinks it proper to do so, accepting such advice as he receives from the Home Secretary with regard to what are the appropriate re-warding provisions.
    The next question is fundamental, and I think I have already answered it. It is, "Why require the Commissioner to discuss political issues?" That is an important and basic question, and I have sought to answer it. The reason is that, first, the parties all thought that the political question was material. So did Mr. Verney. Whatever they thought, it had at least this degree of materiality—that Mr. Verney, had he known that there was, at any rate, the asserted result of the counter-proposals as set out in the council's resolution, would, I think, have looked rather more narrowly at them. It is far from certain that, had he been aware of the political considerations, he would have arrived at the conclusion he did reach.
    Mr. Henry Brooke: I have had some experience of this subject. Does the Home Secretary think that a Commissioner holding an inquiry of this sort should or should not take into account political considerations? In this case, the request to Mr. Verney was sent out under my authority. As far as I am aware, political considerations were not mentioned in it. I gather that the right hon. and learned Gentleman

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    requires the Commissioner holding the new inquiry to take into account political considerations. If so, then the right hon. and learned Gentleman is changing Home Office policy.
    Sir F. Soskice: I do not mean to change Home Office policy at all. The objective of the inquiry is to secure warding arrangements which comply with the requirements—namely, that they shall be approximately equal in numbers, with boundaries that are clear, and that ties shall be taken into account.
    The place for consideration of political objections occupies, in that scheme, the following degree of importance, neither more nor less. There would have been an extremely marked political result in this case, supposing that what is said in the resolution is justified—and I do not know whether it is. Supposing a set of proposals is put before the Commissioner and that they produce a marked political result. I would have thought that any Commissioner, when examining those proposals and looking at what, after all, is a rather flexible picture—one cannot determine these things on very clear rules or clear numerical criteria—would examine more closely their effect.
    The Commissioner would certainly, I think, have in mind, quite apart from anything else, the desirability that his proposals should carry confidence. If there was a very marked political result, it would be desirable that he should at least take that into account in the sense that he might have to explore whether there could be any political motive which might have had any place in the formulating of the proposals. He should, as I say, look at it, but, of course, the result he must aim at is not a political result but a numerical result carrying the feature that the boundaries should be clear and that local ties should, as far as possible, be recognised. I am, therefore, not changing Home Office policy at all and that is what I conceive to be the relevance of the political aspect.
    Mr. Brooke: I once received a report from a Commissioner in which he said that he had refused to receive any evidence at the inquiry on the political consequences which might flow from one scheme or another. The recommendations he made were unfavourable to the
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    Conservative Party, but I unhesitatingly accepted them because I would have thought it wholly wrong to repeat a public inquiry in such circumstances.
    Sir F. Soskice: I am glad the right hon. Gentleman has said that because it enables me to point the difference between that report and the one now under consideration. The present report was based on a clear misconception that there were no such considerations. [HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] I am sorry, but that is how I read it. I do not understand how one can read the words, "I am reinforced in my conclusion", in any other sense, so it seems to me that the report was clearly based on a misconception. The case my predecessor has mentioned does not seem to me to be pari pasu. This was an exceptional case, because there was a misunderstanding.
    To continue answering the questions—Question No. 7 was: How could the Minister of Housing require locally elected representatives to pass a resolution? The only purpose of the provision in the Order which I hope will be made, so that the Minister is to be able to proceed on the footing that a petition has been presented, is to make absolutely certain that there is a public inquiry. The whole purpose of the procedure is that there should be a new Commissioner appointed, a scheme presented, and the matter fully and fairly heard before him.
    With regard to the supposed disfranchisement; disfranchisement is hardly the right word. I am postponing elections, but the persons who live in both the added areas and the existing ward areas are not disfranchised but represented by councillors now. To use the word"disfranchise" in this context is to use a rather emotive term which does not in any way describe what the real situation was.
    The same consideration applies to Question No. 9—"Why impose a Labour majority of two for eleven months?" The reason for that is that if one is to use the procedure and ensure plenty of time for a scheme to be put forward and for a hearing to take place and for everybody to have a full opportunity to put before the Commissioner the considerations which he desires to put, and bearing in mind the holiday period, there

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    should be provision in the Order for the election to take place as late as October—although the earlier the better.
    Sir J. Hobson: The right hon. and learned Gentleman has criticised my use of the word "disfranchise," but it comes from his own letter of 23rd December when he said that it was wrong to disfranchise people for six weeks.
    Sir F. Soskice: The word disfranchise in my letter was used in one context—[HON. MEMBERS: "0h."] If the right hon. and learned Gentleman has borrowed my word "disfranchise" and used it for the purposes of his speech, I do not complain, he is perfectly entitled to do so. The minimum period safely needed for the necessary proceedings to take place is set out in my letter of 4th February. I certainly do not want it to be a minute longer than can be helped.
    The next question is: "How could reversing the decision of Mr. Verney because of pressure of the Labour group be justified? "The answer is that most certainly it was not. When I got the council's resolution, it seemed to me that this was the fair course to take, the one course which would put an end to this matter and restore confidence as between the opposing points of view in the council and outside the council in Northampton. I greatly hope that the House will be able to take the view that, although it may have disadvantages, when one has a picture such as one has on the documents, the best thing is for the matter to be re-argued in public. I hope that the effect of the rehearing will not in any sense be inhibited by what is said in the House today, and that it will put an end to this matter once and for all and get a satisfactory result to the re-warding scheme available for Northampton.
    Sir Edward Boyle: What, other than the communications from the city council and the Labour majority and the high dudgeon of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) has influenced the right hon. and learned Gentleman at all between his letter of 23rd December and his letter of 4th February?
    Sir F. Soskice: Exactly what I have been trying to say, namely, the consideration that it seemed to me perfectly obvious from the terms of the council resolution that there had been a misconception on Mr. Verney's part. That was my independent judgment. I want the House to have the full facts and I do not want to keep back anything, but if the House does not know me better than to think that I am liable to be pressurised by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton, or anybody else in the House, I hope that the House will get to know me rather better before my term of office comes to an end.
    Sir H. Harrison: Surely if the Labour Party thought on reflection 48 hours afterwards that Mr. Verney had not really been fairly informed by it, it could either have indicated that to the right hon. and learned Gentleman as Home Secretary, or put this resolution to the council meeting before the result was known. It waited and then trumped up this excuse.
    Sir F. Soskice: As to waiting and trumping up an excuse, I understand—I do not know—that 28th January was the earliest time at which the council meeting could be fixed. Again, I do not want to say why that was. It certainly was not the council's fault. I understand it would have liked it much earlier but it simply could not help itself. It had to wait. It could have written to me, certainly, and perhaps it ought to have done, but it did not do so.
    9.25 p.m.
    Mr. Arthur Jones: I listened with great care to the halting explanation of the Home Secretary. I found it quite unsatisfactory, especially on the interventions which I made when he was so elaborately and carefully trying to deal with the issue—trying to confuse it, to my mind—of the political aspects of this decision.
    I speak on this because no fewer than 10,000 of my constituents are involved in this question of the boundary revision in the county borough. Use the words "unrepresented" or "disfranchised" as he will, the right hon. and learned Gentleman has used those words, both of them, just to suit his own convenience. When he says there is high feeling in Northampton, will he take my assurance

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    that that is certainly so? He and his colleagues are entirely responsible for it. There is the resentment to which he referred, and the resentment comes about entirely because he has gone back on an earlier decision, on grounds which are quite unsatisfactory, and, I submit to the House, quite unacceptable to us here this evening.
    What advantage is there in postponing the elections? He said in one of the earlier letters that there was everything to be said in favour of having early elections, and he accepted the recommendation of Mr. Verney that the elections should take place before the end of March. I read from the letter from his Department:
    "The Secretary of State does not consider that it would be satisfactory to adhere to the ordinary day of election if the effect is that the areas to be added to the county borough would be unrepresented on the council between 1st April and the coming into force of the newly elected council on 27th May."
    His new proposals leave a gap of some six months. He made no endeavour to explain the change in this matter or to justify his new course. We have had mentioned the general complexion of the council in the County Borough of Northampton. One, I think, might well be justified in assuming that this is in the ordinary way an authority which is run by a Socialist council, but the facts are that in the last seven years only in one year have the Socialists had a majority on the council. They divide the alder-manic seats equally between the parties in proportion to their elected councillors. It was only way back in 1958–59. Until the recent disputed vote, in all the years in between, the County Borough of Northampton had a majority of Conservative councillors and aldermen.
    Mr. R. T. Paget: Not Conservatives.
    Mr. Jones: I do not think that that intervention alters the facts.
    We need to direct our attention to the course of events which occurred between 23rd December and 4th February. I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir J. Hobson) for the complete review that he has given of the course of events. When the Home Secretary referred to the fact that the local
    1312
    council could not have called a meeting earlier than 20th January, I was about to intervene to say that that was a special meeting called by the council to deal specifically with the particular issues which he has raised in his reply.
    It is alleged that the Commissioner's facts on building and development were distorted. This implicates those who presented the case, and I very much welcome the letter which the Department has now sent to those at whom this reflection was directed, but in doing that the Home Secretary has turned the light on Mr. Verney. He is now accused of being wholly mistaken in his judgment—"misconception" was the word used by the Home Secretary in his speech. He now says that Mr. Verney was misled and was likely to mislead his Department in that judgment. The Home Secretary also referred to a chapter of accidents. This is an entirely unsatisfactory explanation of the course of events.
    In his customary fashion the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) gave vent to his views on this issue. I have here a copy of his letter which appeared in the Chronicle and Echo, the local Northampton paper, on 13th February. He said that the council had pointed out to the Minister that his Commissioner had based his finding on grossly inaccurate building forecasts. To whom is the hon. and learned Gentleman going to apologise for that assertion? He is not in sympathy with the Home Secretary with regard to the holding of elections. He said in his letter to the Chronicle and Echo:
    "The inconveniences resulting from delayed elections are very slight. Everyone will have a councillor whom they can go and see if they want anything.
    It is true that some of them will not have had a chance of voting for that councillor for a few months but that is surely preferable to having a majority of councillors from a party which the majority of the electorate voted against."
    This is the very denial of our democratic system of representative local government, and to try to find any sympathy of view between the Home Secretary and the hon. and learned Member for Northampton is very difficult indeed.
    Who is responsible for presenting "grossly inaccurate forecasts"? On what ground is this allegation made, and what substance is there for it? If there was

    1313
    any inaccuracy in the statements, surely the town clerk was in a position to correct them? The town clerk is referred to in Mr. Verney's report dated 16th November to the Home Secretary as the author of the council's scheme, that is, the Socialist,' proposal. It says:
    "Although he"—
    that is the town clerk—
    "had looked to the future, he had not been in a position to ascertain all the current development plans."
    Can this possibly be acceptable, and what basis does it provide for the remarks in the hon. and learned Gentleman's letter?
    What consultations, lobbying and pressures were being exercised during the month of January? It has been interesting to hear from the Home Secretary. I think his explanation is quite unacceptable as to what led him completely to change his mind on this question and issue his letter of 4th February which says, among other things, that he knows the view expressed in the resolution that Mr. Verney, the independent barrister who held the local inquiry, was misinformed on certain material aspects.
    Was there no opportunity for the town clerk and Councillor Dilleigh to correct any misstatements during the course of the inquiry? A quite reasonable assessment to make is that no corrections were made because no corrections were possible. I say it with regret, but I submit that the Home Secretary has placed himself in a completely false and untenable position. I have no doubt that this has arisen because of the great pressure that he has been under from his colleagues in the Government and the party opposite. Although he has not admitted it, he would be the first to realise the impact that this Volte face must have on Northampton and throughout the country—boundary revisions decided upon political grounds and as the direct result of political pressures. Local political bigwigs persuade Her Majesty's Home Secretary to reverse a decision, allegedly because his inspector at a public inquiry, at which all interested parties had every opportunity to put their case, was
    "misinformed on certain material aspects."
    How can he persuade himself that such an explanation is acceptable? What is the public in Northampton saying about this?
    1314
    I read from a resolution passed at a meeting held on Tuesday, 9th February:
    "This meeting strongly objects to this undemocratic and thoughtless action"
    and another, from the residents of Boothville:
    "When the public inquiry was held to determine whether Boothville should be added to the County Borough, assurances were given to us and to the representatives of Duston, Whitehills and Weston Flavell, which we understood to mean that we should not be disenfranchised if the County Borough were enlarged."
    This refers to an undertaking given on behalf of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Housing and Local Government.
    I echo the words of my right hon. and learned Friend. What part has the Minister played in this matter? Does he support the Home Secretary? Was he a party to the pressures put upon him? Does he not support the principle of elected representation in local government? The hon. and learned Member for Northampton clearly does not. I refer again to his letter in which he refers to the inconveniences resulting from delayed elections.
    Mr. Paget: The hon. Member had better read it all.
    Mr. Jones: I was hoping that I could keep my remarks short, because I am sure that other hon. Members wish to speak. The letter is here, and it can be read by any of those who are sufficiently interested.
    How far are the views that we have heard tonight a guide to the Government's attitude towards local government? Are the many thousands of supporters, both on the Socialist and on the Conservative side, and who give such a tremendous amount of public service to local government, to be treated as puppets in the type of political chicanery of which we have had such clear evidence in this affair? This is an issue that will have wider implications and will be of wider interest than merely to Northampton alone. What of the many boundary revision decisions which are due to be decided in the near future? Is what we have seen Labour policy—the use of revision for political needs and advantages? This is an issue which will be in front of the electorate in the forthcoming county and municipal elections.

    1315
    In my view, the decisions of the Home Secretary on the ward boundary review in Northampton expose a sinister threat to local government from this Labour Administration, and is clear evidence of the Government's determination to make decisions of such a character on the basis of party advantage.
    9.40 p.m.
    Mr. R. T. Paget: I agree with the hon. Member for Northants, South (Mr. Arthur Jones) that feelings on this matter in Northants run very high. They run higher than on any occasion that I remember during the 30 years in which I have been in public life in Northampton. Unlike the hon. Member, however, I do not propose to attempt to exaggerate those ill feelings. I may say that political ill-feeling of a party nature is something which is not usual in Northampton. We have a council which, as has been pointed out, is finely balanced. We have this system of chairmen from the majority party and vice-chairmen from the minority party. These chairmen and vice-chairmen work closely together in friendship and cooperation. I have worked with the council when it has been Conservative and when it has been Labour. I think that we have worked together in mutual confidence and also in mutual friendship. I have warm friendships with members of both parties in Northampton. Therefore, I feel a great desire that this kind of bitterness should not come about. That is why I greatly welcome what my right hon. Friend has done, because it was the only alternative to the continuation of that bitterness.
    I shall not try to go into the details of this. Members of my party felt that they had been unfairly placed in a position in which, even though they had secured a large majority of the votes—a majority of better than 10 per cent. of the votes—they would, none the less, inevitably be in a minority on the council. People who think that they will be put in that kind of position feel very bitterly about it. For local government to be good, there must be inter-party competition, but there must also be inter-party co-operation and inter-party confidence, and one could not have it on that basis. The wholly important thing here is that this sense of injustice should be removed, there should
    1316
    be an open and fair inquiry in which everything can be gone into and in order that both sides can be heard.
    The misunderstanding as to the right of hearing arose in this way. Originally, there had been three plans. There was the Labour plan and the Conservative plan and then the two committees of three members of each party agreed to ask the town clerk for an independent plan. That plan was then rejected by the Conservatives. The election petition came and the Labour Party decided to accept the independent plan and not go back to its own plan. The plan of the town clerk was passed by the council. It was advertised according to the rules. Being advertised, it was read in the council and objectors were called. No ratepayer objected. Rightly or wrongly, the Labour members were advised that as they were not objectors, they had no locus standi and could not appear at the inquiry. They did not appear at the inquiry and, as a party, we were unrepresented at the inquiry. The town clerk appeared representing the council, but believing himself to be in a position in which he could not go into the political questions. That is how this misunderstanding arose and, as a result of that misunderstanding, the Labour Party, rightly or wrongly, felt that it had been cheated and given a desperately unfair result.
    The only way to get decent political feeling in Northampton is to take the course which my right hon. Friend has advised. I hope that we shall not have any more ill feeling in a town where ill feeling is foreign.
    9.45 p.m.
    Sir Edward Boyle: We have listened tonight to the detailed reply of the Home Secretary to this debate. We on this side of the House shall want carefully to consider it, but I must say to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that on first consideration, after listening to his speech, we still feel anxious about this matter. I cannot say tonight that we are fully satisfied with the explanation that he has given. I must say to the House that it is possible that we may want to consider this matter further. This evening I should like to say only three or four things.
    First, I am quite certain that the letter sent out on 25th March, during the time when my right hon. Friend the Member

    1317
    for Hampstead (Mr. Brooke) was in office, set out what were the right criteria in this sort of case, and that any change in the criteria would certainly involve a considerable alteration in Home Office policy. I am coming on to the Verney report in a moment and to what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said. But I should like to remind the House that the criteria are absolutely clearly set out in this letter. Perhaps I may be permitted to read one or two paragraphs they are quite short:
    "In considering the number of councillors the desirability should be borne in mind of affording a reasonable level of representation whilst not having a council too big for business to be conducted efficiently or for the individual councillor to play a worthwhile part. The natural aims in drawing up the new ward boundaries would no doubt be to provide an approximately equal number of local government electors for each councillor, allowance being made for any likely change in electorate because of development within the next five years; and to have regard to the desirability of having easily identifiable boundaries and to any local ties which would be broken by the fixing of any particular boundary."
    I maintain that the Verney report clearly paid regard to these criteria and fulfilled them and that should be borne in mind when the right hon. Gentleman speaks of the Verney report "miscarrying".
    I should like to answer the specific point of the right hon. and learned Gentleman on the subject of the Verney report and the political considerations. The right hon. and learned Gentleman, of course, originally accepted the Verney recommendation. As he said, he had no hesitation in accepting it. But in explaining why he sent out the letter of 4th February and his changing his mind on this subject, and dealing with what he called a chapter of accidents, he said that the Verney report mentioned an absence of political considerations, that Mr. Verney himself thought these were relevant and that there was an element of misconception here.
    I do not agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman's view for a reason I should like to explain. When talking about politics in the report, Mr. Verney says not one but two separate things. First, he points out, quite rightly, that
    "the criticism of the town clerk's proposals from a political point of view was not pursued at the inquiry and should be disregarded in assessing the merits of the scheme".
    1318
    Incidentally, I am very glad that in his letter of 4th February the right hon. and learned Gentleman does away with the idea that insufficient opportunity was given to all concerned. Allegations have been made about that, and I am glad the point has been cleared up. But, with respect, that was surely not the principal point in Mr. Verney's mind. He comes back to this point in his conclusion. He goes on to say:
    "It is equally important to emphasise that no suggestion was made that the new Conservative proposals should be criticised as designed to secure political advantage whatever may have been the defects of earlier proposals."
    He comes back again in his conclusion to this question of motive. He says:
    "I am reinforced in my view by the fact that no suggestion of political motive has been advanced."
    I think that there is an important difference between the text accompanying the resolution and what Mr. Verney says in his report. It said in the text accompanying the resolution:
    "The Commissioner, reporting to the Home Secretary, emphasised that there was no political objection to the Conservative proposals."
    In this he was wholly mistaken, but Mr. Verney was not concerned with the fact that the objection was not taken. The point particularly in his mind was that "no suggestion of political motive has been advanced", and, therefore, Mr. Verney went on to say:
    "There being no such criticism of the Conservative scheme, and the political criticism of the Council's scheme not having been pursued, I have been free to determine my recommendations on the merits of each scheme presented to me."
    He was clear that, in those circumstances, he was free to accept either scheme. In my view he was perfectly right to feel that way. He was not under any misconception on this essential point and this is one of the principal reasons why it is a serious matter to take this new view of the question which, the Home Secretary said, should be reached as a conclusion which will be on the footing of confidence to all concerned.
    I am sure that the right hon. and learned Gentleman himself realises clearly the very great concern that his decision has already caused and how extremely difficult it is going to be in any case to maintain confidence in view of his intervention tonight. I simply cannot accept

    1319
    his view that there will be no difficulty now about maintaining confidence if we have one fresh inquiry. After all, this point is not merely the concern of those who are concerned with politics in Northampton, for there is the further point raised by the local Press, which stated:
    "The electors are entitled to ask why a ward system already approved by an impartial tribunal should be reviewed simply because a political party thinks it will lose votes in the right places. The public were under the impression that the purpose of re-warding was to provide 12 balanced electoral sections, balanced numerically as well as geographically. If this had been done once, the Press asked, why go into the matter again?"
    After listening to the explanation of the right hon. and learned Gentleman tonight we still feel that insufficient grounds have been given for going into this matter all over again.
    Finally, I say this to the House. Surely it is particularly important, where this sort of issue is concerned, that there should be, as it were, an absolutely objective procedure followed which leaves as little execuse as possible for any suggestions of political partiality. This is of great desirability to the whole country and to our local government system. The less, as it were, that personal will and personal decision comes into this, the better.
    It seems to me that the objective critieria laid down in the letter of March of last year were absolutely clear-cut. As I say, I think that these criteria were followed. It is obvious, on the evidence, that all those who were entitled to be heard had an absolute chance, rightly and properly, to be heard on that occasion. I do not think that anyone disputes that a number of members of the Labour group were present at the inquiry and I think I am right in saying that the Commissioner on two occasions asked if anyone in the room wished to make representations or to say anything.
    I believe that Mr. Verney was right to ask whether, even though representations had not been made, there was political motivation in this case, and to conclude that he had not had evidence of this in connection with the Conservative scheme. In these circumstances, to say that his Report miscarried is entirely unjustified. It would seem that his conclusions were reached in a perfectly normal and proper way and that the Home Secretary's
    1320
    acceptance of them in his letter of 23rd December was entirely right. What bothers me is that the right hon. and learned Gentleman seems to feel that—granted there is feeling in Northampton about this—he can best put this right by saying "Let us go right back to the beginning, start again and have a fresh inquiry."
    We on this side are very doubtful about this action. We feel strongly that the proper procedure having been followed here and a perfectly proper report arrived at with all the criteria attended to, the right hon. and learned Gentleman is making the situation more difficult, and is setting a very dangerous precedent for the administration of the Home Office in the future. This is surely a matter in which it is particularly important that the procedure followed by the Home Office should be well known, clear, and as objective as far as possible.
    I listened to the right hon. and learned Gentleman taking up one point put by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir John Hobson), dealing with it at some length, and quoting Latin. I could not help remembering a distinguished historian who once taught me who, reviewing a book by, I think, some learned men of a religious order, wrote:
    "How choosily these learned men nibble when nothing of consequence is at stake."
    The right hon. and learned Gentleman rather choosily nibbled at the point made by my right hon. and learned Friend.
    On the main issue we feel, having listened to the debate, that the Home Secretary has made an error of judgment. We are very concerned about what the consequences of that error of judgment may be for the future, and I must therefore tell the House that we on this side will want most carefully to consider this debate, and whether we should take the matter further.
    9.57 p.m.
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. George Thomas): The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle) has done less than justice to the considered statement put before the House tonight, by which the House has been informed fairly and in detail of every consideration that led to this second tribunal being suggested. The hon. Member

    1321
    for Northants, South (Mr. Arthur Jones) indicated—I think that I do him no injustice—that political considerations would define the ward boundaries. There is every intention, as my right hon. and learned Friend has said, that the tribunal that will be held under another distinguished chairman shall be as impartial as the last one was and will be given an opportunity, we hope, to restore what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) so wisely said is required, a better spirit in the public life of Northampton—
    Mr. Nigel Birch: Come off it, George!
    Mr. Thomas: The right hon. Gentleman is well known in Wales, but he would be well advised to realise that we have been left with only three minutes in which to reply to his right hon. Friend.
    The other matter that has been raised by the right hon. Member for Hands-worth is that Mr. Verney's reliance on the fact that there was no political consideration at stake was unimportant—that it did not count. That was the burden of his argument. As my right hon. and learned Friend has reminded the House, Mr. Verney himself made a special point of the fact that he thought that these considerations were not at stake. We would be doing an injustice to the people of Northampton if we did not recognise now that, these differences being present, there would be a festering sore in the life of Northampton unless this action were now taken.
    I believe that the speeches from the other side of the House tonight have done nothing but exacerbate feeling. My right hon. and learned Friend is merely anxious to ensure that the boundaries that are decided upon shall be acceptable to the whole community in Northampton, and I believe that if a further tribunal is held at which both sides can state their views fairly and accurately, and have them weighed, there will be no difficulty in their accepting the tribunal's further verdict, whichever way that verdict may go.
    The question of the tribunal is also—
    It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

    NORTH CRAY ROAD, SIDCUP
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Fitch.]
    10.0 p.m.
    Dame Patricia Hornsby-Smith: I wish tonight to raise the subject of the development of the North Cray Road. I am grateful to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, whom I know has had rather shorter notice of the debate than he would normally have had, but I have written to him explaining the circumstances which gave rise to it. I can only hope that the happy circumstances of his right hon. Friend the Minister of Health announcing on Saturday the decision which made academic the Adjournment debate I originally was to raise tonight will have an equally happy augury in the answer the hon. Gentleman is able to give me this evening. I must say straight away that the subject which I am raising of the development of the North Cray Road concerns not only my own constituency but, at its eastern end, the Bexley division also.
    I am raising this issue first for clarification for the sake of my constituents, for whom this subject has been for 26 years an unfulfilled legend, and also in the hope that the Parliamentary Secretary can give me some assurance as to the extent of the project, the date on which it will proceed, and the hoped for date when it will be completed. I am aware that there is at the moment—I have lost count of how many schemes there have been—a new and comprehensive scheme on the stocks. I accept that this has been necessary because of really dramatic changes in the whole of the environment of the area. Obviously many of the previous plans would not be applicable to the newly developed circumstances of the road.
    North Cray, pre-war, was a delightful country village with very little traffic through it on what was virtually a country lane. Even as long as 29 years ago, in 1936 the Chislehurst and Sidcup Urban District Council produced a plan of alterations to the road. Then they still looked on it as a country village, but three things have made the matter extremely urgent now and the last of those three made it essentially urgent within the last 12 months.

    1323
    First, it has suffered from the ordinary increase of the 10 per cent. a year additional motor car traffic. Quite rightly, the Parliamentary Secretary will say, I am sure, "That is one of the headaches all round the country". I accept that. Secondly, two housing estates have been built there by my local Urban District Council and the population has doubled in the area since the war. By virtue of the family houses which have been erected, there is a substantially larger proportion of child population than there was 15 years ago. What has in my view given this priority over similar claims of other roads in other areas was the opening of the Dartford-Purfleet tunnel a year ago and the quite staggering increase in heavy traffic down this road.
    The North Cray Road is very narrow. At one place it is only 15 feet wide. It links the A.20 with Old Bexley and then it winds through Old Bexley to link up with the A.2. The footpaths are so narrow that one pram will occupy the entire width and a toddler walking beside a pram has to be snatched out of the way of oncoming traffic, or, if the child is on the inside for safety, the pram has to be wheeled along the road. There have been several serious accidents on this road. Last time I put a Question about the number I was told that there were 13 serious accidents in a year and in the last four years there have been four deaths on this stretch of road. The traffic and the dangers have been enormously increased as a result of the opening of the Dartford-Purfleet Tunnel which in itself is a wonderful engineering achievement and has brought enormous benefit in relieving traffic congestion.
    Kent is well served north-south by two great trunk roads, the A.2 and the A.20. But when one tries to go east-west across Kent there is no major through east-west road, either in north or south Kent. Whilst one can drive happily from north to south, it is a motorist's nightmare to try to get from east to west. As the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport knows, Thames-side, both north and south of the river, is mainly industrialised and huge, heavy vehicles carrying, for example, cement and paper—two of the great industries of Thames-side—come not only from
    1324
    the south bank of the river westwards across the county, but, by virtue of the tunnel, they come across from Essex, through the tunnel on to the A.2, and if their journey takes them eastward the drivers have got to find what outlets they can in what are generally secondary roads in order to go east-west.
    Having swept through the tunnel, if they are going to the northern section of the south-eastern area they go down the A.2 until they get to the North Cray Road. Having gone along a wide multitrack road, they turn off down a narrow road leading them through Old Bexley village, round very sharp bends, over a narrow bridge on to the North Cray Road which is very winding and along which are footpaths some of which are not as wide as the benches in this Chamber. The traffic tears along with its very heavy loads to link up at Ruxley Corner, and if it wants to go to Croydon it goes along Sevenoaks Way. This stretch between the Sevenoaks link with the western side of the south-eastern area and with the A.2 is quite inadequate to meet this enormously increased traffic which we have had over the past two years. For residents, particularly the many families on the new housing estates with prams and young children, and also for the elderly, it is an absolute nightmare. Indeed, it is no mean hazard for the agile adult.
    I realise—and, no doubt, this is a point which the Parliamentary Secretary will put forward—that there is being built the South Orbital Road round Swanley, but I believe that estimates of the extent to which this will relieve the traffic on North Cray Road are very much exaggerated as drivers tend to stick to the wide—and at the moment it is being even further widened and, therefore, made faster—A.2 road. They stick to the A.2 road as long as they can, and they will do that all the more when it is widened to Blackheath.
    Drivers turn off across the country at the last practical moment, down the North Cray Road, to get to the southeastern area. In the same way, traffic coming from my industrial area in the Cray Valley, wanting to go to the east and to South Thames-side, or through the tunnel to Essex and East Anglia, comes off Sevenoaks Way, up to Ruxley Corner and down the North Cray Road to take the first opportunity of linking up with the tunnel.

    1325
    The feeling of anger and frustration among my constituents is not due to the projections of the proposed road widening which will certainly greatly hit many of those with fringe houses. They accept that it has got to be done and they are being perfectly reasonable about it, though many of them will lose their homes as a result. But they are annoyed at the lack of information given to them, and the continued delay. It is particularly hard on those residents, some of whom live in modest bungalows while others live in old Edwardian or Georgian houses.
    They know that they may lose all their house or they may be merely losing a chunk of their front gardens, but they have been denied for many years knowledge of how much they will lose and whether they will have to leave their homes at the end. They do not know whether it is advisable for them to try to move elsewhere and obtain other accommodation. In view of the uncertainty it is impossible for them to sell their property. They cannot honourably try to sell their property when they have not been fully informed how much of the various properties will be used.
    As late as last December residents received the answer when they made inquiries that
    "At this stage it is not possible to give overall widths or estimate the effect on individual properties.
    This is unfair to the fringe property holders who have expected that their properties will be affected. They want to know by how much. It is impossible for them to plan whether to stay in their homes or to move elsewhere.
    The Chislehurst and Sidcup Council unanimously agrees that traffic conditions warrant a major improvement as soon as possible. I accept that what ten years ago or even five years ago would have been a minor improvement must now be a major one because of the Dartford tunnel. Area surveys have been made and I believe that some preliminary land acquisition has been achieved where that was practicable, but up to date there has been no submission of any new scheme to the county council, which, in view of the magnitude of the project, I assume would have to give its opinion before the matter went to the Minister.
    The scheme falls into two sections, as far as I have been able to ascertain, and
    1326
    there is a suggestion that it should be carried out in two chunks. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary, with all the sincerity that I cart command, to consider this very seriously. The first portion, which it is suggested should be carried out, is that between Ruxley Corner on the A.20 and Vicarage Road on the Bexley boundary, which is in my constituency. It then runs from Vicarage Road through Old Bexley down a narrow lane until it links with the A.2. If this scheme is carried out in two sections, the resulting traffic chaos and the danger in that small Old Bexley part of the road will be quite dreadful. It will mean that any lorries and other traffic coming off a major road like the A.20 will be going down a dual carriageway from Ruxley Corner to Vicarage Road. The traffic will be tearing along at probably 40 m.p.h., and probably faster, to coincide with the speed of traffic on the dual track section of the A.20. This traffic will suddenly come to this little village with its shopping centre, its narrow winding road and tiny bridge. I believe that the traffic there will be appalling in this short strip of about three-quarters of a mile between the Old Vicarage border of my constituency and the Bexley section of the A.2 if work on the second section is left over to some future date.
    There will be from both ends high powered traffic streaming into this short strip through a very narrow and winding village with its shops and narrow pavements. I earnestly ask the Parliamentary Secretary if he can tell us when the scheme will go ahead and if he will give real consideration to this tremendous additional problem which does not apply elsewhere. This little road is subjected to tremendous traffic as a result of the opening of the Dartford tunnel. Will he do his utmost to see that the scheme is carried through as one project? I shudder to think what the problems will be otherwise.
    Many of the lorries race down the road over the speed limit. Moreover, the carriageway is so narrow that, if a lorry takes the corner even slightly faster than it should or a little wider than it should, anyone coming from the other direction is forced on to the pavement. I have more than once been forced on to the pavement because of a heavy lorry coming round and giving itself five feet of space from the other side, which, in so narrow

    1327
    a road, means that there is not sufficient room for another vehicle to pass.
    There is no doubt that many of the lorries do not keep to the speed limit. We have made protests to the police, who have been extremely good in having patrols in the area, but the hon. Gentleman does not need me to tell him that skilled lorry drivers have a most efficient method of signalling and, within minutes of a police patrol being on the road, all of them are scrupulously observing the speed limit. For a couple of days, they all keep to the speed limit, but, of course, the police have many calls on their time and have to go elsewhere, and, once again, heavy traffic is hurtling down this terribly narrow road which was never meant to take heavy vehicles of that kind.
    The normal increase in traffic and the building of new estates would on their own have justified the improvement of this road. I am quite sure that the South Orbital Road will not take the increased traffic away. This improvement project should have maximum priority and, as I have said, it should, above all, be done as one job, not only for reasons of safety but for reasons of economy as well. It would cost less done in one job rather than in two.
    I should mention also that, because of the narrowness of the road, lorries bound for Sidcup, as they get near Ruxley Corner, race through Ellenborough Road, through Palm Road and into the Sidcup Hill Road. They go through what was a tiny cul-de-sac where children could play in the street until a few months ago when, as a result of the building of one of the North Cray estates, the road was opened up into North Cray. Now, lorries race through roads which were never made for heavy traffic at all. I have had many complaints about it. I have had representations from the residents' association, from both political parties, and from many individuals.
    Will the hon. Gentleman give us an assurance that the scheme will go forward with all possible speed? I hope that he will be able to say that he accepts it as practicable to build the road right through from this link. Also, will he ensure that the longest possible notice is given to the fringe dwellers affected, many of whom do not know whether they will lose 5 ft., 10 ft., or 15 ft.
    1328
    of their property or will lose their whole house. A few do, but certainly not all of them know, and they are entitled to know, especially in connection with a major project of this kind necessitated by our admitted lack of east-west links in Kent.
    10.19 p.m
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Stephen Swingler): When I read the Order Paper yesterday morning, I received a bit of a shock. I had had the outrageous thought that we might actually pass a whole week without an Adjournment debate on a transport question. But the right hon. Lady the Member for Chislehurst (Dame Patricia Hornsby-Smith) was determined to maintain my reputation as the most popular Adjournment speaker in the House. I was a little worried also about the possibility of informing myself adequately about the need to improve the North Cray Road in the short time available I quite understand from what the right hon. Lady has said that owing to the swift actions that are taken by the present Government it is sometimes necessary at short notice to change the subjects for debate. Therefore, we accepted the challenge, and I am extremely pleased to have found that it has been possible to get the facts and to make what I hope will prove to be an agreeable reply to the points that she has mentioned.
    The right hon. Lady said that there have been in respect of the North Cray Road 26 years of frustration. I have not had time to investigate what has been going on over all those years. I am merely mindful of the fact that it is the right hon. Lady's right hon. Friends who have been in charge of the country's affairs during the greater part of that period. Perhaps that is the only partisan remark that I shall make tonight, because there is no dispute at all between the right hon. Lady and myself about the desirability of pressing ahead with the maximum speed to get the road improved. I say straight away that I am quite determined, having investigated the matter, that we in the Ministry of Transport shall not be the source of any delay whatsoever, if it can be avoided, in the provision of this improvement which will benefit the citizens in the area that are so badly affected by the present situation.

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    First, I want to amplify one or two things which have been said by the right hon. Lady about the importance of the road as a through traffic route. We recognise that the North Cray Road is part of the major North-South link between the important radials of the A.2 and the A.21 and that the North Cray Road comprises the greater part of the route between the A.2 and the A.20. Apart from its use by local traffic, we recognise that, as the right hon. Lady has emphasised, it has been increasingly used, clearly to the detriment, and sometimes to the danger, of many of the people living in the area, by traffic which has benefited from the construction of the Dartford-Purfleet Tunnel and wishes to use the lines of communication between that and the South-East side of London.
    I am advised that the average traffic volume in 1963 was 10,000 passenger car units per day. I am always a little unsure about some of these statistics, but I understand that this is a method of adding lorries to cars on the basis of one lorry equalling three car units. In 1964, a year later, the figure had risen to 12,000 passenger car units per day, which demonstrates the considerable build-up of traffic on that route. Indeed, the importance of the route for through traffic is shown by the fact that the North Cray Road is now designated as a primary route. This means that it will have the special signposting recently recommended by the Worboys Committee to facilitate its use by through traffic.
    We are faced with a situation where the Greater London Council has asked for this road to be made into a metropolitan road when that Council takes over on 1st April so that it should become the highway authority. That is a matter which is not yet decided and about which discussions are still going on, but it signifies once again the importance which is attached to the road. We know that, as the right hon. Lady has said, the present road has just a single carriageway which is very narrow and very winding and cannot possibly satisfactorily carry the traffic which is at present trying to use it. Visibility is very bad. In our view, it is just not possible to achieve useful results on this road by means of small-scale improvements here and there. We are therefore clear that what is needed
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    is the construction of a second carriageway.
    I know that some local residents have suggested that a dual two-lane road is unnecessary and that relief could be given by means of smaller improvements. But if we compare the traffic volumes which now exist on the road with similar situations elsewhere, it is clear that at least dual two-lane carriageways are necessary. In fact, dual three-lane carriageways have been considered, and here I come to a point mentioned by the right hon. Lady in regard to other road improvements in the area.
    The proposed new south orbital road between the A.2 and the A.20, which is now programmed for the year 1968–69, together with the local authority proposal for a new Croydon-Farnborough link road, which is not yet programmed, will provide a new route for through-traffic in this area and will, in our view, give some relief to the situation on the A.223. Therefore, in considering the question of the improvements that have to be made on the North Cray road, we conclude that the provision of a dual two-lane carriageway road is what is needed.
    The scheme, therefore, is designed to provide a second carriageway over the 1¾ miles of the A.223 between the Ruxley roundabout on the A.20 and the junction of the A.223 with Vicarage Road. We agree that this is an urgent matter, from the point of view of road safety, for maintaining traffic flow and for the benefit of the citizens of the area.
    It has already been programmed for the three-year period 1965–68 which we are just about to enter. We have a certain amount of flexibility in our planning for the three-year period, which is starting with the financial year 1965–66. It depends upon a number of factors as to how quickly this scheme, estimated to cost £300,000, can be brought forward.
    Dame Patricia Hornsby-Smith: The hon. Gentleman has dealt with the stretch between Ruxley corner and Vicarage Road. What is the prospect? It would be disastrous if we were to get a dual track road as far as Vicarage Road and then have the concentrated dangers of a narrow road on this small strip through to the A.2. Much more is needed to avoid these dangers.
    Mr. Swingler: I will come to that. I am making one point at a time. I cannot make an announcement about the whole link now.
    At the moment, the responsibility for the detailed design for improvement of the road and the acquisition of land is that of the local highway authority. Of course, there may be some change here on 1st April. It is a question of whether this road will be recognised as a metropolitan road to be taken over by the Greater London Council or whether it will come under the London Borough of Bexley. But in any case it is for the local highway authority now to proceed as rapidly as possible with finishing the
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    detailed design and submitting a grant application to us.
    I can assure the right hon. Lady that, as soon as we receive the proposal, we will deal with it as rapidly as possible, so that the local highway authority can proceed. The preparation of the scheme will meet some of the criticisms of her constituents.
    The Question having been proposed at Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
    Adjourned at half-past Ten o'clock.