OBSCENE PUBLICATIONS ACTS (OPERATION) (Hansard, 30 March 1965)

Mr. Harold Garden (Birmingham, Selly Oak)
I am grateful for this opportunity to discuss the operation of the Obscene Publications Acts. The occasion arises from a Question which I tabled to the Home Secretary, to ask whether he would introduce legislation forbidding public libraries to stock books which booksellers had been prevented from selling and whose stocks of them had been confiscated. The Answer I had was that the Government were not convinced that such legislation was necessary or, indeed, would be practicable.
This matter arose, in the first place, because it was shown by an instance in my constituency that either the Act is bad or its enforcement is deficient, or both. The particular case was that of Mr. Windridge, of Bristol Road, Birmingham, a bookseller who was prosecuted under Section 3 of the Act. The stipendiary magistrate ordered the forfeiture of 15 titles. Among them were books called "The Carpet Baggers", "Tropic of Capricorn", "The Perfumed Garden" and "Kama Sutra".
The important point is that when the stipendiary magistrate announced that the books would be confiscated he did not name the books and the list was not made public in the court, but just because one of the Press representatives of the Birmingham Mail asked for the list it was produced. The point I make here is that the court's decision would not have become publicly known had not the Press representative at that time——

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Samuel Storey)
Order. The Minister is not responsible for court decisions.

§ Mr. Gurden
Thank you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I was not sure whether that was in order, but it is sufficient for me to make the point that the public ought to be aware of what the decision is that is made under the Act.
I do not complain of or criticise the decision of the court, but I am all for removing offensive publications, films, plays or television performances. I do not criticise the Act. What I criticise is the unfairness with which the Act is operating. My complaint is that there is great discrimination here, because these books were confiscated from this bookseller while public libraries and other distributors of books are quite free to continue to distribute these very same books in the very same area. This position simply makes nonsense of the Act.
I am anxious that the Minister should at least see that the administration of the Act is carried out equitably. The public libraries of Birmingham were made aware of this decision by the Press and were asked whether they intended to continue to distribute the books. The chairman of the public libraries declared that in his view the books were not obscene and he would continue to make them available to the public. I believe that a meeting of the libraries committee confirmed this decision. I do not quarrel with this at all, except that it is so unfair on other distributors of the books.
There is a point to be made about the public libraries in Birmingham——

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman seems to be referring to local authorities. What he has to show is some responsibility on the Minister.

§ Mr. Gurden
I am using the instance of the public libraries, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but I can say that all other distributors of books in the area and elsewhere in the country are at an advantage over this particular bookseller. I am sorry that public libraries are included in my complaint.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman must show that the Minister has some responsibility and is able to do something to meet his complaint.

§ Mr. Gurden
I take it that the Minister has the responsibility of seeing that obscene publications are not available and that the Acts do, in fact, work. Otherwise, it must be his responsibility—this is, perhaps, where I am in order—to ask the House to produce amending legislation.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
No; that is exactly what the hon. Gentleman may not do.

§ Mr. Gurden
I am not asking him to do that, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but the matters which I am putting to him might make it necessary for him to ask the House to do it. Perhaps that does bring me within order.
I do not disagree with the forms of censorship which are operated under the Acts. I do not know whether these books are obscene or not. I purposely avoided reading them so that my judgment would be quite unbiased. I am putting the case without suggesting that the stipendiary magistrate was right or wrong, and I thoroughly agree that the public should have protection against obscene literature.
The system of censorship of films, with the board of censors, is, perhaps, more satisfactory because it covers the whole country. When films are shown everyone knows that all distributors and cinema proprietors are treated equally. It is the unequal treatment of booksellers about which I complain. The same can be said, to some extent, about plays in the theatre. But television, of course, is quite unsatisfactory. There is nothing to help us with obscene things on television, and I do not know how far the Acts work there. There is great unfairness. The Press at least has its Press Council, and I suppose that it comes under the Obscene Publications Acts also to some extent.
1564 The situation is chaotic. The questions I put to the Minister are these. What action is being taken to prevent the flouting of the law and to regularise the position? Why are not public libraries prosecuted and books confiscated when, perhaps next door, a bookseller can suffer confiscation of books? How can book distributors protect themselves under this system? Why should not the public be protected by the enforcement of the law?
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not give what I regard as the foolish sort of answer which we have had from the B.B.C. television authorities, "If people do not like this stuff, they can switch off ". It is a principle of the law against social evils accepted in all decent countries that there must be a certain amount of protection. The majority of people have been incensed and outraged by the abuse of decent public standards. If the stipendiary magistrate was right and these books were obscene, he is, of course, to be commended for having them confiscated. I believe that the public are demanding action. Things are not working well. The Joint Under-Secretary of State would be the ideal person to deal with the matter.

§ Mr. John Cordle (Bournemouth, East and Christchurch)
I am a little concerned by what my hon. Friend is saying. Is he saying that there are obscene publications which are acceptable to libraries although they have already been ruled by the courts as unacceptable to the country? Is it likely that such offensive and obscene publications as "Penthouse" and other journals and salacious literature could be accepted by libraries although they had already been through the courts and ruled as offensive?

§ Mr. Gurden
That appears to the position proved in this case. This is what I strongly object to. I hope that the Joint Under-Secretary of State agrees that something must be done about it and that the sort of answer I have had from his right hon. and learned Friend is unsatisfactory.

§ The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. George Thomas)
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) has raised a matter of considerable public 1565 interest and importance. The question of literature that might corrupt or deprave is one that is bound to be of major concern to this House. Purveyors of filth, whoever they are, whatever their motives, should never—and, I like to believe, never will—find the protection of this House. The hon. Member was kind enough to outline in four questions the points which disturb him and it would undoubtedly help if, at first, I dealt with the working of the law dealing with obscene publications.
The Obscene Publications Acts, 1959 and 1964, are the basis on which the police work and all who are concerned with the operation of the law in the protection of our standards. These Acts impose penalties for publication of obscene matter and for conveying obscene matter in one's possession or control for the purpose of publication for gain. Publication includes selling, hiring, lending, distributing or circulating. The Acts include a definition of obscenity and it is here that part of the difficulty arises.
The definition depends on tendency to deprave or corrupt—not merely to shock or disgust or offend, but to corrupt and deprave. I can think of a programme, the name of which wild horses would not drag out of me, which disgusts, shocks and offends hon. Members on both sides of the House, but does not corrupt or deprave. When we discuss the question of obscenity we have to bear in mind all the relevant circumstances under which the books are sold.
For instance, literature which might fairly be said to be likely to corrupt a young person could safely be given to a doctor. There might be a book with illustrations of parts of the human anatomy which doctors naturally would want to have, but which, if they got into the hands of teen-agers, could lead them into depravity.
The hon. Member drew attention to the Birmingham case, about which I do not wish to go into detail. Like him, I have not read the books and, therefore, it would be impertinent of me to pass any judgment upon them. However, while the Home Secretary is responsible for the adequacy, the suitability and the overall working of the Obscene Publications Acts, he is not a prosecuting autho- 1566 rity. As I have had to explain to the large number of hon. Members who recently wrote to me about a publication, the Home Secretary does not initiate prosecutions. It is left to the chief officers of police to enforce the law. The Obscene Publications Acts do not provide any procedure for declaring that a book or work is objectively and per se obscene and corrupt. The test is a corrupting tendency. Whether a book is sold by a bookseller or given by a librarian, if it is likely to deprave or corrupt, the police can act, and no doubt would act, impartially and freely.
I understand that, as it happens, the issue of these books in Birmingham is on a very restricted scale from the public library and that young people could not easily get them. There has to be a special application for them. It is not for me to defend or justify a prosecution, but I understand that when these books were in the shops, they were on open sale and that anyone, including teen-agers, could buy them.
Of course, there is a difference when there is a restricted sale. Booksellers can protect themselves as much as librarians if they exercise a wise discretion about whether a book would be dangerous in the hands of young people. I do not wish to give advice to booksellers, because they have their own professional advisers, but I will say that the same law applies to booksellers and to public libraries, except in one regard, and that is the forfeiture of books which are seized. Under the Obscene Publications Acts, a magistrate may order books to be seized if they are held with the possibility of selling them for gain, or using them for gain, and financial gain obviously does not enter into the question when a public library is concerned.
The hon. Gentleman is right to remind the House and the country generally that we can never be too careful about our standards in our literature. As I understand it, the Obscene Publications Acts do not apply to broadcasting and television. The latter is covered by the Television Act, which is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General.
I assure the hon. Gentleman that we have no evidence that the books which he mentioned tonight are generally on 1567 sale. However, if he has evidence and is concerned that these books tend to corrupt and deprave, he ought to go to the police. If he has evidence that they are being sold by other booksellers and he is satisfied that they are dangerous in the hands of certain people and are being sold indiscriminately, he, or any member of the public, ought to inform the police.

§ Mr. Eric Ogden (Liverpool, West Derby)
I speak with diffidence, but surely my hon. Friend is aware that a book which has been confiscated in Birmingham is on sale publicly within two miles of this building. If published in hard-back covers at 57s. 6d., it is available to the public. Although a person can be prosecuted for selling a book in Birmingham, the same book can be sold in another town; because the police have not prosecuted, it is available to everyone. It is the difference between town and town, place and place and cover and cover to which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) is objecting.

§ Mr. Thomas
The hon. Member and my hon. Friend should bear in mind that any member of the public who believes that literature that corrupts, or has a tendency to corrupt and deprave, is on sale, either has the right to undertake a prosecution himself—although I realise the difficulties of that—or he may inform the police that such literature is on sale. I have every confidence that the police administer and fulfil their duties impartially in this matter as between one bookseller and another.
It is, of course, true that different views might be held by different chief constables; that is not for me to deny. If, however, chief constables are satisfied that books corrupt or deprave or have a tendency to do so, they have an obligation to act when the information is brought to them.

§ Mr. Cordle
Surely, there must be something fundamentally wrong with the library authorities to allow such publications to be on their shelves or to allow them to be read by the general public when they have been prohibited in the courts.

§ Mr. Thomas
I understand that in one magistrates' court certain books were 1568 ordered to be seized and that there is disagreement about whether the magistrates' judgment was right. I also remind the House that the bookseller concerned did not appeal against the decision, or, at least, did not follow up his appeal.
Public library authorities have a serious public duty to perform and they must exercise it with care and discretion. They are bound to have in their possession books which, if placed in the hands of different types of people, could have different reactions. I understand that the Birmingham librarian insists upon discretion in the issue of books which are in his possession, including, for example, those to which reference has been made. Such is my information. If I am proved wrong, I shall some day apologise to the hon. Member, but I believe I am right in saying that these books are available only to adults who make special application to him.

§ Mr. Gurden
The position is as the hon. Gentleman has stated. That does not, however prevent children from getting the books, because adults can take them home and leave them lying around so that children can get them just the same. Children can ask adults to apply for the books for them. They can ask friends over the age of 21 to get from the library for them a book which they cannot get in the bookshops.

§ Mr. Thomas
There are no limits to the possibilities of censorship if we consider that what a parent has can get into the hands of children.
I will answer quickly the four questions which have been put to me. First, what action are we taking to prevent the law from being thwarted? We have every confidence that when these matters are brought before them, the police behave impartially in fulfilment of their oath. The second question was why libraries are not covered by the same provisions of the law. The answer is that libraries are so covered, with the exception that books cannot be seized for forfeiture.
How can booksellers protect themselves? They can protect themselves as libraries do by exercising the proper discretion and not putting books that may be in this category on sale where young people can get hold of them. And 1569 how can people be protected, or how can we maintain our standards? I believe that eternal vigilance is the price here.
I welcome the Debate, and I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Cordle) and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden) have also manifested a concern about this question.
1570 I believe that the booksellers' trade in general has very high standards. I have great confidence in the judgment of our booksellers by the few cases that come to light of this sort of literature being sold, and I am quite sure that the trade and all concerned will note with concern what has been said in this debate tonight.