Commons Sitting of 9 February 1966

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  TRANSPORT

    70 m.p.h. Speed Limit
    Sir W. Anstruther-Grayasked the Minister of Transport what preliminary reports she has received regarding the working of her 70 miles per hour speed limit.
    Sir Clive Bossomasked the Minister of Transport if she will make a statement on accident rates on motorways and other roads previously not subject to speed limits since the experimental 70 miles per hour limit was introduced, and on accident rates during the equivalent period of the previous year.
    Mr. Joplingasked the Minister of Transport if she will give an assurance that, following the end of the experiment for a 70 miles per hour speed limit on all roads until Easter 1966, she will remove this restriction whilst she assesses the results of the experiment.
    Mr. Rowlandasked the Minister of Transport when it will be decided whether the 70 miles per hour speed limit experiment should end on 13th April 1966.
    Mr. Burdenasked the Minister of Transport how the accident figures for the first full month after the imposition of the 70 miles per hour speed limit on roads classified as motorways compare with the accident figures on the same roads in the same month last year.
    The Minister of Transport (Mrs. Barbara Castle): It would not be practicable, without being misleading, to give a series of interim reports during the four months that the present experiment will be in operation. The evidence
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    referred to in the answer to the hon. Member for Leominster (Sir Clive Bossom) on 2nd February will become available during March, and will cover all relevant factors up to the latest possible date. After considering this evidence I will let the House know my conclusions. This will be before the end of the present experiment on 13th April.
    Sir W. Anstruther-Gray: May we take it from that that the right hon. Lady will promise the House and the country that we will have an opportunity of debating this matter before the 70 m.p.h. speed limit becomes permanent?
    Mrs. Castle: As I have said, I will inform the House of my conclusions before the end of the period. Questions concerning debates are not for me.
    Mr. Rowland: Would my right hon. Friend give an assurance that if the early evidence on this subject is inconclusive, she will feel able to extend the period of the experiment despite the clamour from the small minority of motorists who like to drive very fast?
    Mrs. Castle: I must be guided by the analysis of the situation which will be put to me by the Road Research Laboratory. I will study all the implications then.
    Sir Clive Bossom: Is it not a fact that the Road Research Laboratory and the police will not have had time to study the results by April and be able to come to a firm conclusion? Will the right hon. Lady therefore assure the House that she will not ask for a further extension of time?
    Mrs. Castle: I am satisfied that the Road Research Laboratory will have time but if it feels that it has not had time, it will no doubt let me know.
    Mr. Jopling: Would the right hon. Lady not agree that, in terms of, for example, prosecutions, it will be very difficult in the final month of the four-month period to make an assessment of the first three months of the experiment? Would she look again at Question No. 18 and remove this restriction at the end of the four-month period until she has worked out properly what the effect of the experiment has been?
    Mrs. Castle: I am satisfied that the procedure which has been announced will enable me to work out properly what the effect of the experiment has been, and I will report to the House the reasons for the conclusions which I may draw.
    Mr. Wilkins: Is it not a fact that my right hon. Friend has considerable evidence to show that many accidents are due to excessive speeds, and will she at least tell the House that she intends to resist sectional pressures in the interests of road safety?
    Mrs. Castle: It is certainly true that there is evidence from other countries to show that excessive speed is a cause of accidents and that a reduction in speed helps to reduce accidents. It is because there was this evidence that we felt justified in making this experiment.
    Mr. Burden: Would the right hon. Lady not agree that she has available the figures for which I have asked, that they could be produced without any difficulty and that they would help to show to both motorists and the public whether this scheme is practicable and is doing the job for which it was intended?
    Mrs. Castle: I have told the House that it would not be practicable, without being misleading, to make interim statements. I have promised the House that I will make known to hon. Members both my conclusions and the reasons for them very fully before the end of the experimental period. Thus the rights of the House are fully safeguarded.
    Sir M. Redmayne: Is the right hon. Lady aware, however, that the time available for Praying against Orders of this type runs out within the next two or three weeks? Since it is important that we debate the many, many representations that have been made to us and since we will have to have a debate on this subject, will she try very hard to have at least some part of the evidence available by that time?
    Mrs. Castle: As I have said, these are matters for discussion through the usual channels. I have no desire to impose a situation on the House without hon. Members having a proper opportunity of studying what I am recommending.

    Lorries (Lights)
    Sir A. Meyerasked the Minister of Transport whether she will reconsider the refusal to strengthen the Regulations governing the lighting requirements of lorries, and especially of lorries carrying overhanging rear loads.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Stephen Swingler): The Working Party set up to review the lighting requirements for road vehicles will be considering these Regulations.
    Sir A. Meyer: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that if the Regulations provided that the rear lighting on lorries had to be a great deal brighter and much more visible than it is at the moment the Regulations would be easier to enforce? Would he take a look at what happens on the Continent in these matters, where they order these things very much better?
    Mr. Swingler: It is exactly that sort of question which we are examining as a result of the Working Party set up in December. The main problem which we have at present is to get a higher standard of enforcement of the present Regulations.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that some of the rear lighting on vehicles is too low down and in winter gets muddied up? Should not we have higher rear lights, as they have on the Continent and in America?
    Mr. SwinglerThat is precisely the sort of question that is being considered by the Working Party, and it will be making a report very shortly.
    Sir M. Redmayne: Could not the Minister try, through the medium of television, to stress the point about the standards of lighting on commercial vehicles? Bad rear lighting is most extraordinarily dangerous. A campaign on television would at least help to do something while these discussions are going on.
    Mr. Swingler: I quite agree. We shall be glad of any opportunities. I hope that these questions will do good in this respect.

    Form G.V/
    Mr. Geoffrey Wilsonasked the Minister of Transport whether she will seek to preserve the integrity of form

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    G.V.9, known as a prohibition notice, by issuing an alternative form for use in the case of vehicle defects which do not cause immediate danger to other road users.
    Mr. Swingler: The existing form and procedures already provide for a delayed prohibition notice where there is no immediate risk to public safety.
    Mr. Wilson: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that the publication of the total on form G.V.9 gives a false impression of the number of dangerous vehicles on the road? Would not it be better to have two different forms so that it would be clear how many dangerous vehicles there are?
    Mr. Swingler: The answer to the first part of that question is "No, Sir." The hon. Member will know that there is an immediate prohibition notice which indicates that the vehicle is identified as immediately dangerous. There is a delayed prohibition notice where defects can be remedied within 10 days. My right hon. Friend will consider with the interests involved the possibility of a different form of notice for some lesser degree of defects.

    Services (Co-ordination)
    Mr. Francis Noel-Bakerasked the Minister of Transport if she will now state the Government's policy for the coordination of transport services in the national interest, and give details of the future rôle envisaged for the railways.
    Mr. G. Campbellasked the Minister of Transport if she will make a statement on the Government's policy on the coordination of transport services.
    Mr. Ioan L. Evansasked the Minister of Transport what action she will take to ensure the greater use of the railway system as a part of a general policy to co-ordinate the nation's transport services.
    Mr. Ron Lewisasked the Minister of Transport what progress she has made regarding an integrated transport policy; and if she will make a statement.
    Mrs. Castle: I will publish my proposals for integrating the transport services of the country as soon as I have completed my review of the whole field of transport policy.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the satisfaction among her hon. Friends which greeted her arrival at the Ministry of Transport and that we wish her every possible success? We perfectly appreciate that this is a long and complicated business, but we have waited some time since the election. Can she give an indication of when her studies will be completed?
    Mrs. Castle: I thank my hon. Friend for his good wishes. I appreciate the desire to see the White Paper that I have promised to the House. I am pressing ahead with it as a matter of the utmost urgency. I can only say that I shall produce it as soon as I can.
    Mr. Campbell: Before the right hon. Lady completes her studies, will she bear in mind the serious deterioration in transport in the last four months in a substantial area of Scotland as a result of a policy which can best be described as disintegration?
    Mrs. Castle: I do not know to what detailed situation the hon. Gentleman is referring, but I rather suspect that he is talking about some of the "Marples martyrs".
    Mr. Evans: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the nation's transport difficulties go back largely to the doctrinaire action of the party opposite in denationalising road transport in 1953?
    Mrs. Castle: I agree with my hon. Friend that the principles on which public transport was supposed to operate under the 1962 Act do not make any kind of economic or social sense. This is why I want time to look at the question.
    Sir M. Redmayne: Would the right hon. Lady accept that, in so far as this is a study of the practicability of Labour dogma, we do not mind how long she takes?
    Mrs. Castle: I am sure that, when the White Paper is produced, even the right hon. Gentleman will have to agree with its irrefutable logic.
    Mr. Manuel: Will my right hon. Friend recognise that, although the House fully understands that she is labouring under the difficulties laid down by the Transport Act, 1962, we have special difficulties in Scotland where major rail closures—I emphasise the words "major rail

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    closures"—are listed to take place in the near future? Will she, therefore, publish her plan for integration at a very early date?
    Mrs. Castle: I have said that I shall do so as soon as humanly possible. In the meantime, I shall continue the policy of my right hon. Friend, my predecessor in this job, of not authorising any major rail closures which, after consideration by the Regional Economic Councils, conflict with economic plans. I must be guided by their advice, and I shall be.

    Driving on the Right
    Mr. F. Noel-Bakerasked the Minister of Transport when she will introduce driving on the right on British roads.
    Mrs. Castle: I am not yet ready to decide this.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that this decision has got to come sooner or later, and that the sooner it is done the cheaper it will be? As her predecessor told me that in 1962 preliminary estimates of the cost were completed, could my right hon. Friend make an interim report and publish what information she has already acquired on the subject? It would be very helpful to public opinion and the interests involved.
    Mrs. Castle: I am informed that at least £50 million would be needed for expenditure on altering road works, signs and so on. There are also implications for the design of crossings and a lot of other quite expensive implications. To hurry in without preparation would be even more costly. In any case, I think that I must give priority to the publication of my White Paper.

    Transport Highway Authority
    Mr. Bostonasked the Minister of Transport what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government towards setting up an overall Transport Highway Authority to deal with road, rail and air transport.
    Mrs. Castle: Responsibility for controlling investment in the country's nationally-owned transport facilities must continue to rest with the Government. I shall bring our proposals for the inte-
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    gration of inland transport before the House as soon as possible.
    Mr. Boston: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that both British Railways and London Transport were given impossible terms of reference in the 1962 Act? Will she not take a thorough look at the whole financial set-up of both these bodies?
    Mrs. Castle: Yes, Sir—I am.

    Road and Rail Services (Costs and Demand)
    Mr. Mappasked the Minister of Transport when the studies will be concluded of track and policing costs of road and rail transport and of the support costs to air transport operating on routes within Great Britain.
    Mrs. Castle: My Department's current studies of road and rail transport costs and demand are comprehensive and will take a considerable time to complete, but I expect some preliminary results early this summer.
    Mr. Mapp: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the three studies that have already taken place on this subject, one of which was conducted by her own Ministry? Is she further aware that they were all in conflict with each other? Could we now have an authoritative study with the results made available to us even before, if possible, publication of her White Paper on general policy—which itself should be as soon as possible?
    Mrs. Castle: I assure my hon. Friend that he will be able to have the results of what will be a completely reliable study. But, as I have said, I do not think these results will be ready before the early summer. I have been under pressure from the House to produce the White Paper before that.
    Mr. Monslow: Since the railways are an integral part of the economic life of the nation, should not the construction, maintenance and policing of the railways be placed to the Defence Estimates?
    Mrs. Castle: I agree with the first part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question, but I am not sure that his suggestion in the second part would be acceptable.

  ROADS

    Pedestrian Crossings
    Mr. Rhodesasked the Minister of Transport to what extent it is her pre sent policy to approve, as speedily as possible, the siting of new pedestrian crossings when application is made for such by local authorities.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Morris): Yes, Sir. But decisions on these applications often require complex studies and discussions with all the interests concerned.
    Mr. Rhodes: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that some local authorities are reluctant to apply for pedestrian crossings because they feel that for many years Ministry policy has been rather against them and that in my constituency there is considerable pressure from pedestrians that more zebra crossings should be put down on the main arterial roads leading to the eastern and northern parts of the city?
    Mr. Morris: I am not aware of any such reluctance. Our object is to achieve a nationwide consistent general standard. As regards my hon. Friend's constituency, both the applications which have been made since 1963 were successful.

    Accidents
    Mr. Rhodesasked the Minister of Transport what proposals she has to reduce the accident rate on the roads; and whether she will make a statement.
    Mrs. Castle: The increasing number of road casualties causes me grave concern. We have already laid the Road Safety Bill before the House and I shall continue to tackle the problem energetically and constructively.
    Mr. Rhodes: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that, since 20 people are killed every day on the roads and nearly 1,000 are injured, any action she may take to keep irresponsible drunkards off the roads will be widely appreciated by pedestrians and motorists alike?
    Mrs. Castle: Yes, and that is why we have introduced the Road Safety Bill and
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    we shall be discussing the problem of drink and driving very exhaustively when the Bill is before the House tomorrow.
    Mr. Webster: Would it not be more apposite to have, rather than a limited Bill simply on drink and driving and commercial vehicles, a completely comprehensive Bill taking in all the points which have been raised and which are of great concern to the whole House?
    Mrs. Castle: No, I do not agree. I think that these are two urgent matters on which the House agrees that action should not be delayed. Tackling the problem of heavy lorries and the problem of drink and driving is an obvious way in which we can make progress, and I hope that the House will agree to do so.
    Captain W. Elliot: Would not the right hon. Lady agree that the best way to reduce accidents is to improve the roads? In that context, is it not deplorable that the Government have yet again cut back the road programme?
    Mr. Speaker: Order. There is a Question on the Order Paper about that.
    Mr. Geoffrey Wilsonasked the Minister of Transport whether she will make a statement on the Christmas figures of road accidents analysing the causes and indicating also the extent to which factors other than the conduct of drivers contributed to such accidents.
    Mr. John Morris: No special analysis has been made of last year's Christmas road accidents. The casualty figures for Christmas and the whole of December will be published later this month.
    Mr. Wilson: Ought there not to be an analysis? Does not the hon. Gentleman appreciate that if inflated figures of accidents are published at Christmas the general assumption by the public will be that it is due to drink during the Christmas festivities? In fact many of the accidents may be due to icy roads, fog, defective vehicles, or even bad roads. To take remedies, should not we know which is which?
    Mr. Morris: Christmas accidents have been analysed by the Road Research Laboratory three times in the last eight years. These suggested factors, except drivers' conduct, were the same as at

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    any other time. The results of investigations in the past point to the consumption of alcohol as an important factor in causing road accidents during Christmas. Weather is certainly another very important factor.
    Mr. Websterasked the Minister of Transport whether she will issue an analysis of road accidents with relation to the hours of day at which they occur.
    Mr. John Morris: An analysis of casualties by hour of day is given in Table 21 of the Ministry's publication "Road Accidents 1964". A copy is available in the Library.
    Mr. Webster: Do not the tragic figures of accidents involving pedestrians between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. show the great necessity of proper traffic engineering and the separation of vehicles from pedestrians? Do they not underline again the need for a proper and comprehensive Road Safety Bill?
    Mr. Morris: I appreciate the hon. Member's remarks, but he must appreciate that the worst hour of all for these casualties is between 11 p.m. and midnight on Saturdays when fatal and serious accidents average twice as many as in the next worst hours.

    Three-Lane Roads (Double White Lines)
    Sir Clive Bossomasked the Minister of Transport if she will provide information concerning the results of the experiments with double white lines on three-lane roads.
    Mr. John Morris: These experiments are still in progress.
    Sir Clive Bossom: Would the Minister extend these experiments to other parts of the country, because they have proved very successful in Europe? Can the House be assured that on no account will any more out-of-date three-lane roads be constructed, as they have been proved to be so dangerous?
    Mr. Morris: On the first point, we have not enough experience so far to justify any firm conclusions, but we hope to make a statement before the Summer Recess. On the second point, there is little scope, looking at a period of 20 years ahead, for new three-lane roads.
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    Usually for the needs of heavy traffic we would have dual carriageways anyway. This is a matter which will have to be considered in the light of what we discover.
    Mr. Longden: In the meantime, will the Minister agree to impose the restriction on the A.41 where it runs through my constituency? This is one of the most dangerous roads in the south of England, not so much for speeding, but because of the impatient selfishness of motorists passing at the wrong time and place. All the local authorities have been asking for this restriction for a long time.
    Mr. Morris: We have a number of experiments, and I am willing to consider the hon. Gentleman's suggestion.

    A.51 (Speed Limit)
    Mr. Templeasked the Minister of Transport why no action has yet been taken, as recommended by the Cheshire County Council, to impose a 40 miles per hour speed limit on the A.51 trunk road from its junction with the Chester by-pass in an easterly direction for approximately one and a quarter miles; and, in view of the present dangers to pedestrians on this stretch of trunk road, whether she will now act.
    Mr. John Morris: So far, a speed limit has not been considered appropriate. But we are having the position re-examined and I will then write to the hon. Member.
    Mr. Temple: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that since I tabled this Question there have been three more fatalities on this road and that as I came into the Chamber I received a message saying that there had been four more accidents in the last eight days? Is he further aware that there is grave disquiet about the situation on this road? Will he, therefore, take urgent action?
    Mr. Morris: I am aware of the recent fatal accident. I also know of the hon. Gentleman's long interest in this matter and that he tried to persuade the right hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) on the lines that he now advocates. What I am telling him is that I am willing to reconsider the matter.

    A.34 (Roundabout)
    Mr. Hugh Fraserasked the Minister of Transport whether, following the

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    November announcement of postponement, she will now restore the Stafford-Eccleshall road roundabout on the A.34 to her immediate road programme.
    Mr. Swingler: This scheme is expected to start in April.
    Mr. Fraser: I thank the hon. Gentleman very much.

    M.4 (Lighting)
    Sir A. Meyerasked the Minister of Transport whether the lighting of the Chiswick-Langley section of the M.4 will be reinstated in the road programme; and when work will commence.
    Mr. Swingler: My right hon. Friend intends to seek tenders for lighting the section between the Chiswick viaduct and London Airport later this month, and she hopes it may be possible to place the contract in the spring for completion before next winter.
    Sir A. Meyer: Does this mean that this will come back into the queue in the same place in the queue but at a later period of time?
    Mr. Swingler: This means that this is in the queue and, as I said, my right hon. Friend will seek tenders and we intend to have this scheme completed before next winter. The hon. Gentleman will know that it is a special scheme. It is not inexpensive; it will cost £125,000, but we think that on safety grounds it is justified.

    Road Programme
    Sir M. Redmayneasked the Minister of Transport (1) whether the postponements in the road programme announced in July have been restored to the programme; and what is the starting date for such works;
    (2) whether she will give an assurance that no further postponements in the road programme are contemplated.
    Mr. Fisherasked the Minister of Transport if she will now restore the cuts in the road programme.
    Mr. Molloyasked the Minister of Transport what are the effects on the road programme of the recent deferments; and what arrangements will apply for the future.
    Sir M. Redmayne: On a point of order. Can I make the point, Mr. Speaker, that my Questions Nos. 16 and 17 are related to the statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday on cuts in public investment? In answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod) who took the point of the roads programme in questioning him, the Chancellor said that his right hon. Friend would answer Questions on which detailed supplementary questions could be put.
    These are the Questions. We did not then press the point on roads. Large numbers of hon. Members either have Questions down or have constituency interests in the road programme and it is obvious that the ordinary run of Question Time will not cope with this situation. I therefore rang up the Minister's office this morning to ask whether the right hon. Lady would be good enough to answer these Questions at the end of Question Time and I was told that that was not possible. We have now a situation in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer avoided questions yesterday and the Minister is avoiding detailed Questions today. I appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, to protect the rights of back benchers and the Opposition and I appeal to the Minister to change her mind even at this late hour.
    Mr. Speaker: I would hope that points of order when possible will be put at the end of Questions. They take up valuable Question time. I have not the power to determine whether the Minister should change her mind.
    Sir Harmar Nicholls: On a point of order.
    Mr. Speaker: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will reserve his point of order.
    Sir Harmar Nicholls: In view of what has been said, is it a fact that it is not possible for the Minister to answer at the end of Question Time rather than now?
    Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order for the Chair. It is in order for the right hon. Lady to answer Questions at the end of Question Time. This is taking up precious Question time.
    Dame Irene Ward: You can do it, Barbara.
    Mrs. Castle: I regret that it is quite impossible for me to answer these Questions at 3.30, when I have another urgent official engagement.
    The recent deferment measures will result in a reduction in Exchequer expenditure of about £7 million in the current financial year and £12 million in 1966–67. From now onwards the starting-dates of new schemes will be settled only by reference to the new financial allocation and will no longer be postponed for any fixed period. These arrangements will allow the schemes originally deferred to go ahead, together with most of the schemes originally programmed for 1966–67. Moreover, there will be an acceleration of the rate of expenditure after that year if the economic situation permits.
    Sir M. Redmayne: Is not it clear that the rate of expansion of the road programme has now been permanently-slowed down? The Minister has confirmed that the saving in the current year is £7 million and in a full year £12 million, which is the figure that we were given in November, but is the figure really worth anything to the Chancellor of the Exchequer against the losses caused by the lack of continuity in the execution of the road programme, and against the overall loss to the economy due to inadequate road communications? Will not the Minister do what her predecessor failed to do, and what she seems to be failing to do, and impress upon the Chancellor that the road programme must have priority above all other public works?
    Mrs. Castle: I cannot accept for a moment that this means any kind of serious cut-back. All that we have had is a reduction of £19 million over two years in a five-year programme running at £1,000 million. If all goes well with the economy we shall regain this loss pretty well completely by the end of the period. In view of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman's party when in Government 10 years ago was spending less than £9 million on roads in Great Britain while we shall be spending in 1966–67 £145 million in England alone, I do not think that it lies in the right hon. Gentleman's mouth to talk about deferment.
    Several Hon. Members—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Questions and answers were too long.
    Mr. Molloy: If the effect of deferment will be somewhat eased next year and some progress will be made, can my right hon. Friend say what will be the overall effect on the next five-year programme?
    Mrs. Castle: The fact is that we shall be making up in 1966–67 about one-third of the ground which we lost in 1965–66 and, as I have said, we hope to make up the rest of it in the following years before the end of the five-year programme.
    Mr. Fisher: As about 80 per cent. of all freight is now carried by road and more than 500,000 new cars come on the roads every year, may I ask the right hon. Lady whether, far from making any cuts, she should not be considering substantial increases in the programme, particularly if she has any intention of implementing the Buchanan proposals?
    Mrs. Castle: We have not made any cuts. We have been increasing. There has been £19 million-worth of deferments, but we already are catching up on the last six months' deferment. We hope to catch it all up in the programme. It is a question of phasing it. I would point out that in the road programme we shall be spending next year £148 million while it took nine years for the Opposition when in Government to produce a roads programme at all and then they were spending under the road programme an average of only £80 million a year. If that is not an increase, I should like to know what is.
    Mr. Bessell: Can the right hon. Lady assure the House that not only will there be no reduction in spending on the development areas but also on the roads connecting those areas with the rest of the country?
    Mrs. Castle: The deferments did not apply to schemes in the development areas in any way nor to schemes that in any way affected—[Interruption.] I am saying, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer explained yesterday, that the operation of the policy up to now has to be in the situation as it is legally at the moment. This is the explanation which the Chancellor gave yesterday. No road programmes were deferred in these development areas.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. We must get back to shorter questions and answers. Mr. William Clark.
    Mr. Longden: On a point of order.
    Mr. Speaker: No, I hope not.
    Mr. Longden: May I inquire whether Question No. 30 was taken with the last batch or whether it is to be answered separately?
    Mr. Speaker: It is to be answered separately.

    Mitcham Corner, Cambridge
    Sir H. Kerrasked the Minister of Transport whether the work on Mitcham Corner, Cambridge, has been reinstated in the Government programme; and when work will commence.
    Mr. Swingler: Work is planned to start in June if there is satisfactory progress in land negotiations.
    Sir H. Kerr: As the work is urgent, what estimate can the hon. Gentleman give of when he hopes that it will be completed?
    Mr. Swingler: It is difficult to say, because a supplementary compulsory purchase order was necessary here, and how swiftly it can be started depends now on the speed of the land negotiations. But, as I said, if everything goes well, the work is planned to start in June, and it will be carried through as swiftly as possible.

    A.62 (Snow Conditions)
    Mr. Duffyasked the Minister of Transport on how many days this winter the A.62 between Huddersfield and Oldham has been blocked by snow at Standedge.
    Mr. John Morris: On 29th November it was blocked for about six hours.
    Mr. Duffy: Is my hon. Friend aware that on more than one occasion this winter school buses for Colne Valley High School have been prevented from moving along this road and examinations have been disorganised, and that my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster (Mr. Harold Walker) has been prevented from travelling along this road during the course of his Parliamentary duties? It
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    is not only a commercial trunk route, but it is a vital communication between two communities and an important school, so will my hon. Friend see that its clearance has the highest priority?
    Mr. Morris: I shall bear my hon. Friend's remarks in mind.

    Projects (Southend-on-Sea)
    Sir S. McAddenasked the Minister of Transport what major road projects in the County Borough of Southend-on-Sea have been deferred by the cuts in public expenditure announced in November, 1965; what is the estimated cost thereof; and what is the anticipated date of their reinstatement.
    Mr. John Morris: The works affected were the northern section of the Inner Ring Road and the reconstruction of the railway bridge at Bankside, the total estimated cost of which is about £1·2 million. I understand that the corporation proposes to start work this month.

    South Orbital Road (Godstone-Reigate)
    Sir J. Vaughan-Morganasked the Minister of Transport when she expects to begin work on the Godstone-Reigate stretch of the South Orbital Road.
    Mr. Swingler: We hope in the year 1970.
    Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan: As this has been promised many times and was in the programme for 1966–67, how does the hon. Gentleman account for the delay, and why has not even a draft line been published?
    Mr. Swingler: The right hon. Gentleman will know that this is an extremely difficult and complex scheme, with a great deal of technical work to be done in design and deciding on the land to be acquired in order to avoid damage to amenity and things of that kind. It will take a great deal of time. My right hon. Friend hopes to publish the Order for the line of the road in the course of this coming summer. Thereafter, we shall go through the statutory processes providing for objections and so forth. In our view, it is impossible to expedite the scheme.
    Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan: In view of the very unsatisfactory nature of that

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    reply—and, I expect, probably the reply to my Question No. 29 as well—I beg to give notice that I shall seek an early opportunity to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

    A.25 (Blechingley-Nutfield)
    Sir J. Vaughan-Morganasked the Minister of Transport when she expects to reinstate into the road programme the Blechingley-Nutfield A.25 improvement scheme; and when work will be begun.
    Mr. Swingler: I understand that Surrey County Council, as the responsible highway authority, hopes to start work in June. But this largely depends on the outcome of compulsory purchase order proceedings.
    Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan: Is it not quite clear that the county council is doing far better than the Ministry?
    Mr. Swingler: No, Sir. It is quite clear that there is the possibility here of making minor improvements which are highly desirable, but it is necessary—the right hon. Gentleman himself participated in laying down these laws—to carry through complicated statutory processes for a major scheme such as the South Orbital Road.

    A.127 (Hall Lane, Essex)
    Mr. Lagdenasked the Minister of Transport if she will at once restore to the road programme the scheme for the A.127, Hall Lane, Essex, which has been deferred.
    Mr. Swingler: Tenders are now being sought with a view to starting work in April.
    Mr. Lagden: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that this is not merely a desirable facility but a matter of saving life, and that the recommendation given by his own Department is that it is an absolute necessity? Cannot he expedite it?
    Mr. Swingler: We are speeding these matters up, and I have said that tenders are being sought with a view to starting work in April. This is a scheme which will cost £250,000. It required serious consideration. We shall speed it up as much as we can.

    Roundabout Scheme (Rayleigh Weir)
    Mr. Braineasked the Minister of Transport whether she will give an assurance that the Rayleigh Weir roundabout scheme in Essex on the A.127 will not be delayed for more than six months under the road expenditure reduction programme; and what will be its new starting date.
    Mr. Swingler: The earliest starting date in accordance with the deferment measures would have been June this year, but to avoid interfering with peak summer traffic the work is now planned to start in September.

    Accidents (Epping New Road)
    Mr. Biggs-Davisonasked the Minister of Transport how many accidents have occurred on the Epping New Road within Buckhurst Hill, and where; and how many have resulted in death or serious injury.
    Mr. Swingler: There were 11 accidents in 1965 between Whitehall Lane and Rangers Road. None was fatal, but three involved serious injury. Most of the accidents happened in the vicinity of junctions. I am writing to the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that only yesterday constituents of mine reported to me another serious accident at this black spot? May my constituents and I at least have an assurance that the Minister of Transport will favourably consider the proposals of the county highways committee for a new type of "pedestrian crossing ahead" sign and overhead flashing beacons?
    Mr. Swingler: I am sorry to hear that there has been a further accident. Measures to improve safety by the introduction of signal control or a pedestrian crossing are being urgently considered, and the hon. Gentleman will hear the results shortly.

    M.1 and M/
    Mr. G. Campbellasked the Minister of Transport how much of the work on the connections betwen the M.1 and the M.6 has been postponed by the 1965

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    economic measures; and when this will be resumed.
    Mr. Swingler: None, Sir.
    Mr. Campbell: Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that this is the most important route to the North, and will he do all he can to hasten the work?
    Mr. Swingler: Yes, Sir; we are doing everything possible to hasten the motorway links.

    Projects (Sevenoaks)
    Sir J. Rodgersasked the Minister of Transport how many important road projects in the Sevenoaks constituency that have been postponed have now been reinstated in the programme; and when work on them will be started.
    Mr. Swingler: No projects over £25,000 have been postponed.
    Sir J. Rodgers: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Sevenoaks constituency is one of the fastest growing in terms of population and growth of vehicles, both private and commercial, and will he review the postponements and particularly the necessity for an improved A25 to bypass villages such as Brastead and Otford to cope with the increased traffic using the Purfleet tunnel? Also, may I stress the necessity for the south orbital programme to be advanced? Is it not—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. This is too long. Enough has been asked, I think.
    Sir J. Rodgers: Is it not a fact—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I have ruled that enough has been asked.
    Mr. Swingler: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there have been no postponements of major projects affecting Sevenoaks. The only delay has been in a part of the Tonbridge By-pass scheme and that was due to technical factors in the preparation of the scheme. I can assure him that we will do justice to his problems in Sevenoaks.

    Speed Limits
    Mr. Gresham Cookeasked the Minister of Transport whether she will now revise the speed limits in built-up areas by raising the 30 miles per hour
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    limit to 35 miles per hour or 40 miles per hour in suitable conditions, and the 40 miles per hour limit to 50 miles per hour on dual carriageways, so as to make such limits more consonant with present conditions.
    Mr. John Morris: No, Sir. I doubt if this would help to reduce accidents.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: If the hon. Gentleman will drive strictly at 30 m.p.h. in the London area and other big conurbations, he will find that 90 per cent. of the other traffic will pass him at 35 to 40 m.p.h. and that he himself will be regarded as a nuisance on the road if he goes at 30. Should not these things be brought into line with reality?
    Mr. Morris: I frequently drive in London traffic. I would remind the hon. Gentleman that a major special review was carried out between 1960 and 1964 resulting in the removal or raising of speed limits over a considerable mileage. Speed limits are under constant review as a matter of normal routine.
    Mr. Rankin: Will my hon. Friend tell me how he can abolish speed limits which are not kept?

    Avonmouth-Aust New Road (Grant Aid)
    Mr. Corfieldasked the Minister of Transport when she intends to approve for grant aid the scheme to complete the Avonmouth-Aust New Road; and whether, in view of the anticipated opening of the Severn Bridge, she will consider the construction of this new road as one of urgency, which should be approved for commencement in the next financial year.
    Mr. Swingler: My right hon. Friend is prepared to earmark funds for an early start of work by the Gloucestershire County Council, the responsible highway authority. Her Divisional Road Engineer is discussing a timetable with it.
    Mr. Corfield: I thank the hon. Gentleman. Will he ask the Minister to glance at the map to see how impossible, for the heavy traffic involved, is the route that will have to be taken if this extension is not carried out?
    Mr. Swingler: It is a question of how quickly the county council can prepare

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    a scheme. We understand the urgency of the matter and reckon that construction will take about 20 months. As soon as the county council is ready with its scheme, my right hon. Friend will make a decision.

  RAILWAYS

    British Railways Board (Capital Debt)
    Mr. Websterasked the Minister of Transport whether the sum of £45,000,000, due on 1st January, 1966, in part repayment of the principal of the commencing capital debt of the British Railways Board, has been received from the Board.
    Mr. John Morris: No, Sir. The normal practice has been followed of renewing the debt as it becomes due. This instalment will now fall due for repayment on 1st January, 1991.
    Mr. Webster: Why all this veil of secrecy about the postponement of the repayment of £45 million for about 30 years? Is it not time railway finances were completely put in order? Has not the hon. Gentleman noticed the deep frustration of Mr. Raymond, the Chairman of the Railways Board, about the constant delay in implementing the reshaping plan and about the mechanism of closures due to the new sifting arrangement brought in by the Department?
    Mr. Morris: First, the hon. Gentleman's arithmetic is wrong. Secondly, there is no secrecy. Thirdly, this is necessary because the Board's internal financial resources are fully taken up in financing current investment.

    Liner Trains
    Mr. Eyreasked the Minister of Transport (1) if she will give statistics showing the commercial traffic now being carried weekly in liner trains;
    (2) whether private hauliers are being admitted to liner train depots.
    Mrs. Castle: The Board tells me that in the week ended 28th January, 93 containers loaded with commercial traffic were carried by liner trains. None of this traffic was brought to the terminals by private hauliers.
    Mr. Eyre: Is the Minister aware that the British Rail pamphlet on liner trains promises free access to all terminals for all kinds of road transport? Will the right hon. Lady now condemn the restrictive practices which deny this free access and which are causing this expensive national asset to be under-used?
    Mrs. Castle: The Government have made it clear that they would like the open terminal system to operate. I am still hopeful that we shall get the National Union of Railwaymen to agree.
    Mr. McBrideasked the Minister of Transport what proposals she has received from British Railways for major capital expenditure on the provision of liner train ports; and where these ports are situated.
    Mr. John Morris: Proposals already authorised include the provision of liner train terminals at London, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. These terminals will serve mainly domestic traffic but will be available also for imports and exports. At all major general cargo ports the volume and nature of container traffic is expected to be such that special rail facilities and services will be required later.
    Mr. McBride: Is my hon. Friend aware that it was with regret that I did not hear a Welsh port designated? Would he not consider that the designation of a Welsh port, such as Swansea, the natural population and growth centre of West Wales, would be in the interests of easing dock congestion?
    Mr. Morris: As my hon. Friend knows, I am well aware of the importance of Swansea. All I would say is that my Answer relates in the first part to the first five routes which will be operated. Certainly we will look at the whole matter in due course.

    Victoria Line
    Mr. Biggs-Davisonasked the Minister of Transport what proposals have been put to her for the linking of the Victoria Line to the Central Line by London Transport; and what reply she has given.
    Mr. Swingler: My right hon. Friend has received no such proposals from the London Transport Board. The

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    Board has examined the possibility of extending the Victoria Line to the catchment area of the Central Line but has concluded that other more important extensions of the underground system should take priority.
    Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that his reply will be somewhat disappointing to a number of my constituents? Can he assure me that the project as a whole will not be delayed owing to the financial restrictions of Socialism?
    Mr. Swingler: I do not know what project the hon. Gentleman is referring to, but extensions of the underground system are under very active consideration. This matter has been very carefully examined. The Board has advised that the central extensions—for example, of the Victoria Line to Brixton—are more urgent and must take priority. That does not mean that the proposal put forward by the hon. Gentleman will not be considered. It will be.
    Mr. John Harvey: Will the hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friend look at this matter personally? They will find that two miles would link Walthamstow with Leyton, and two vital lines with one another. Will he reconsider the whole matter?
    Mr. Swingler: This is strictly a question of priorities, of relieving the congestion where it is worst. The Board considers, and put forward to my right hon. Friend the view, that it is necessary to extend the underground system centrally first. These are the first things to be considered, and the hon. Gentleman's suggestion will be considered later.

    Unremunerative Services
    Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Minister of Transport whether, in view of the continued deficit of British Railways, she will take steps to ensure that all unremunerative services, which are run for purely social or other reasons, shall be a charge on the Exchequer and not on the Railways Board.
    Mrs. Castle: These services are, in fact, already a charge on the Exchequer owing to the payment of grant to the Railways Board in respect of their overall revenue deficit. But I shall be considering
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    the point which my hon. Friend has in mind, along with other relevant matters, in working out a co-ordinated transport policy.
    Mr. Hamilton: Can my right hon. Friend give an estimate of the size of the problem in financial terms?
    Mrs. Castle: As I think my hon. Friend knows, the total deficit of British Railways in 1964 was £121 million, and its estimated deficit for 1965 is £132 million.
    Mr. Hogg: Will the right hon. Lady consider adding to the list of these costs the costs of liner trains so long as the railway unions prevent access at the depot?
    Mrs. Castle: As I replied to the House earlier, some liner trains are operating. We hope that the system will be operating fully before too long.

    Passenger Line Closures (Alternative Services)
    Mr. Wolrige-Gordonasked the Minister of Transport whether she will now make a reconsideration of transport needs in areas where local railway passenger services have been removed.
    Mr. John Morris: My right hon. Friend will consider any evidence that alternative transport services do not meet the essential needs of former users of any particular services.
    Mr. Wolrige-Gordon: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the development, particularly under this Government, of local economies is a fluctuating process? Will he ensure that the door to redevelopment of passenger railway services is not for ever closed should ultimate local economic developments make such redevelopment viably possible?
    Mr. Morris: I cannot accept the first part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question. As to the second, I would point out that my right hon. Friend and I will take cognisance of the advice given to us by the planning councils.

    Western Region (Safety Standards)
    Mr. Boxasked the Minister of Transport, whether she is satisfied with the maintenance and safety standards on

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    the Western Region of British Railways; and if she will make a statement.
    Mr. Peter Millsasked the Minister of Transport (1) what was the total number of derailments on the Western Region in 1965;
    (2) if she is satisfied that all possible action is being taken on the Western Region of British Railways to maintain the high standard of safety that is required; and if she will make a statement.
    Mrs. Castle: The maintenance and safety standards of operation on the Western Region of British Railways are the responsibility of the British Railways Board, and I am satisfied that appropriate action is being taken to maintain them. The latest Annual Report on Railway Accidents by the Chief Inspecting Officer of Railways shows that the rate of significant collisions and derailments per million train miles on the Western Region during 1964 was only slightly above the average for British Railways as a whole, and also that there were fewer derailments on that Region than on some other Regions. The number of reported derailments on the Western Region in 1965 was 49, but this figure is provisional.
    Mr. Box: Is the right hon. Lady aware of the very great concern among the travelling public and railwaymen—not eased by events today—at the recent spate of incidents on the Western Region? Will she please consider issuing monthly reports, similar in detail to the one she sent to me by post recently, and instructions that daily line inspections should be reintroduced at least until the present spate of accidents is over?
    Mrs. Castle: Both the Ministry and the Railways Board are deeply concerned about any aspects which might seem to affect safety, but it would be wrong to get this out of perspective. The number of derailments in the Western Region this past year has been only slightly above the figures for previous years and is the same figure as in 1960. I should be glad to give any information of any kind that I might be asked for.
    Mr. Francis Noel-Baker: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is a great deal of anxiety among railwaymen, particularly the guards on freight trains
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    pulled by diesel locomotives? Will she, among other measures, permit hon. Members—or ask the Western Region to permit them—to make on-site inspections of the equipment used and of the places where derailments have taken place?
    Mrs. Castle: That would a matter for the Board. My hon. Friend knows, I think, that the Railways Board has begun by increasing the training period of drivers of diesel and electric locomotives, reducing the maximum permitted speeds, and so on, to meet the sort of problems revealed by these derailments.

  SHIPPING

    Portbury Dock Scheme
    Mr. Robert Cookeasked the Minister of Transport whether she will now announce her approval of the Port of Bristol Portbury Dock Scheme.
    Mrs. Castle: I will make a statement on this important issue as soon as I can.
    Mr. Cooke: Is the right hon. Lady aware that I was glad to see her smiling when she said that? I hope that she will give this most urgent consideration and resist some of the propaganda which has been coming from South Wales.
    Mrs. Castle: I am giving very urgent consideration to this because port development is needed in this country. I want to get the issue settled. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree that I must listen to all representations on this point.
    Mr. McBride: Is my right hon. Friend aware that yesterday a conference attended by local authorities, chambers of trade and trades councils offered unanimous opposition to this scheme? Will she take into consideration that the scheme, which would cost £37 million to £40 million, when completed would only add to the already existing surplus port and general cargo handling facilities in South Wales?
    Mrs. Castle: I am sure that the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke) will have noticed the representations being made.
    Mr. Webster: Will the right hon. Lady not be impressed by all this heavy lobbying but use her own judgment on this matter and go for the scheme, which is a completely new concept and a small version of the Euro-port, is imaginative and one of the most forward dock proposals yet put in this country?
    Mrs. Castle: I shall certainly use my own judgment in this matter and act in the best overall economic interests of the country.
    Mr. Wilkins: Will my right hon. Friend remember that it is only within the last few months or so that the authorities of the South Wales ports have realised that this scheme was to come into being and have suddenly started to make protests about it?

  ROLLS RAZOR LTD. (INQUIRIES)
  Mr. Maddanasked the Attorney-General, with regard to the affairs of Rolls Razor Limited, approximately how long it will take Scotland Yard to complete its inquiries into the matters referred to it by the Director of Public Prosecutions, in view of the fact that the Board of Trade has already conducted an inquiry which lasted for 17 months.
  The Attorney-General (Sir Elwyn Jones): The police inquiries in this case concern grave matters relating to numerous transactions over a period of six years involving a number of individuals and companies. To some extent, these inquiries will have to be more extensive and detailed than those made by the Board of Trade inspectors, and they are not expected to be completed in less than nine months at the earliest.
  Mr. Maddan: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman nevetheless impress upon those concerned the need for urgency because not only must justice be just but, if it is to be respected and relevant, it must be also somewhat contemporaneous?
  The Attorney-General: The need for justice is wholly appreciated. But it would, perhaps, produce injustice if proceedings were unduly rushed or brought prematurely.

  F.M.C. PRODUCTS, NOTTINGHAM, LTD.
  Mr. Snowasked the Attorney General what consideration the Director of Public Prosecutions has given to the suggestion made by Mr. Justice Glyn-Jones at the trial of Mr. John Brown at Stafford Assizes on 20th October, 1965 that a Bill of Indictment might be preferred against F.M.C. Products, Notting ham, Limited, and their transport manager; and if he will make a statement.
  The Attorney-General: The Director of Public Prosecutions caused careful and extensive police inquiries to be made and discussed the case with me on several occasions. We came to the conclusion that, on the evidence available, the only proceedings which could be brought with a sufficient prospect of success against the company and its transport manager were summary proceedings for a contravention of the Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations.
  Mr. Snow: Has the Director of Public Prosecutions now had an opportunity to examine the notes of the proceedings in the magistrates' court, proceedings which resulted from the Director's refusal to prefer a bill of indictment against the company? Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that I attended a case and that no evidence that I heard seemed to me to justify not putting the firm on a charge—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—on indictment?
  The Attorney-General: The company was, as my hon. Friend knows, prosecuted and fined the maximum penalty under the regulations. The proceedings in the magistrates' court were, of course, considered and reported upon, but nothing that transpired in those proceedings shed further light on the essential questions which had to be considered when we dealt with the suggestion of the trial judge that there should be proceedings by way of indictment against the company.

  SOLICITORS' CHARGES (CONVEYANCING)
  Mr. Mappasked the Minister without Portfolio whether he will refer to the Monopolies Commission or other

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  suitable body for inquiry the scales of legal charges imposed by the legal profession in respect of house purchase.
  The Minister without Portfolio (Sir Eric Fletcher): No, Sir. The scales of solicitors' charges for conveyancing business are prescribed by a committee set up under Section 56 of the Solicitors Act 1957, of which my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor is the chairman. My noble Friend has already initiated discussions with the Law Society with the object of reviewing the existing scales both for registered and unregistered land transactions. The Law Society has set up a sub-committee to consider these matters.
  Mr. Mapp: Is my hon. Friend aware that, in effect, the profession is both judge and jury in respect of these charges, and that there is profound indignation among ordinary people at the impossible charges which are being demanded, in a monopoly sense, for what are private services? Will he say whether in these days we cannot have a disinterested and detached body to review the services, practices and charges of the profession?
  Sir Eric Fletcher: I cannot accept what my hon. Friend says. The Lord Chancellor is perfectly impartial in the matter. As I have said, the matter of producing a reduction in the existing scales is under active consideration by a committee over which he is presiding.
  Mr. William Hamilton: What consumer interests are being consulted by the Lord Chancellor? Would my hon. Friend consider asking the Consumer Council its views on these matters, because it is very much concerned with monopolistic situations?
  Sir Eric Fletcher: I can assure my hon. Friend that the views and interests of consumers, as of the public generally, are being very carefully considered by my noble Friend.
  Hon. Members: Where from?
  Sir A. V. Harvey: Can the hon. Gentleman say why all these matters which affect the legal profession are always decided by the legal profession, even to his being at the Dispatch Box? Would it not be a good thing to have a quite impartial body and perhaps refer it to Mr. Aubrey Jones of the Prices and Incomes Board?
  Sir Eric Fletcher: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that this is a system which has operated for a very long time. [HON. MEMBERS: "Too long."] I am well aware of the criticisms which have been expressed, and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that everything that has been said will be most carefully taken into consideration by my noble Friend.
  Mr. Mapp: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment.

PACKINGTON ESTATE, ISLINGTON (PLANNING APPLICATIONS)
The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Richard Crossman): With permission, in view of the importance which any Minister of Housing and Local Government must attach to the views of the Council on Tribunals on his planning jurisdiction, I felt it right to give the House as soon as possible my comments on the Report issued this morning by the Council which is critical of my handling of certain planning applications concerning the Packington Estate, in Islington. I apologise in advance for the length of the statement, but this is a complicated issue.
The case concerns two planning applications made by Islington Borough Council for the redevelopment of this estate. The choice was either to rehabilitate, as has, of course, been done successfully in some other parts of Victorian Islington, or else to clear and redevelop the whole estate.
The first application came to me as an appeal by the borough council against the failure of the London County Council to reach a decision on its application, and I decided that the issues were of sufficient importance to call for a public inquiry. At this inquiry, in February last year, the proposals for redevelopment were opposed both by the local planning authority and by a number of third parties, including a group of 425 residents of surrounding properties. The objectors developed their case at great length and explained in detail how they thought the area could be successfully improved without redevelopment. But my Inspector

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came to the conclusion that redevelopment was the right solution.
When I came to consider his recommendation I sympathised with those who found the area attractive and who saw its potential for improvement. But the case against rehabilitation was strong. I was impressed by the expense and difficulty of achieving a really good result by these methods; and I had to take account of the 100 extra dwellings that redevelopment would produce.
I therefore said in my decision letter that
"any scheme which is to be acceptable must produce an environment which would justify the loss of the existing buildings; and it must not prejudice the amenities of the surrounding area."
The letter went on to say that I would
"want to be satisfied that this result would be attained before I would feel able to decide in favour of redevelopment against rehabilitation."
I also said in my letter that I would arrange a discussion with the borough council about how this could best be achieved. In short, I dismissed the appeal and made it perfectly clear that I wanted to see a better redevelopment scheme before I could drop the possibility of rehabilitation.
Following this, the borough council made a second application for planning permission for a revised scheme of redevelopment, and this was referred to me for decision. I could at my discretion have held a second inquiry on this application. But since the objections to redevelopment and the arguments for rehabilitation had been thoroughly discussed at the first inquiry, I came to the conclusion that in this case it was reasonable to dispense with a second inquiry.
It is this decision that the Council on Tribunals has criticised, particularly on the ground that it is difficult to reconcile with what I said on the first application.
I have thought this criticism over very carefully indeed and appreciate the motive which is, of course, to ensure that decisions are not taken without fully ventilating the facts and giving objectors the fullest opportunity for protest. In this case, I am clear that nothing would have been gained by a second inquiry that would have justified the months of delay. Having satisfied myself, there-
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fore, that the revised scheme was a good one, I granted planning permission for it.
The Council admits in its conclusions that I did not at any stage exceed my powers. I believe that I used those powers, as Parliament intended, to reach a prompt and fair decision.
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that any special report by the Council on Tribunals criticising a Minister's conduct in a particular case is a serious matter which the House will wish to probe after it has had the opportunity not only to consider the right hon. Gentleman's statement, but to read the special Report from the Council which, as he said, was available only this morning?
Is he aware that on a quick reading of the Council's Report one of the major points of criticism appears to be the fact that the objectors to the scheme which he approved not only had no opportunity whatever to put their case against it, but were unaware of its details until after his decision?
Pending the debate on the matter which I hope will take place, can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance to the House that, notwithstanding the attitude to public inquiries which he has expressed on other occasions, he will take this Report by the Council on Tribunals to heart and apply the spirit and principle of that Report in his dealing with future cases?
Mr. Crossman: The fact that I consider the matter to be serious is indicated by my decision to make a statement in the House this afternoon at the first opportunity.
As for the suggestion that the House would like to discuss it after studying the Report, I can say straight away that, if it can be arranged through the usual channels, nothing would please me more than a discussion on this matter. Indeed, I would like us to have a whole day, if we could, to debate the whole structure of our present planning procedures, because I think that we spend far too little attention in the House on this kind of extremely important administrative problem.
There is nothing I want more than a full and frank discussion of (a) the

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Packington case, which is extremely interesting and which has raised issues of principle, and (b) the issues of principle themselves.
I should like to reserve what I have to say about the objectors until we have the full discussion which I hope is to be arranged.
The right hon. Gentleman asked me for an assurance that I had taken to heart what the Council had said. I have considered the Council's representations very carefully. As I was preparing this statement, I heard that the Council did not urge that I should have had a second inquiry, but I am very clear in my own mind, after taking into consideration all that the Council said, that the decision which I took was the right one.
I add one other thought. As a Minister of Housing and Local Government, one has first to consider whether an inquiry is legally necessary. However, even when it is not legally necessary, as in this case it was not legally necessary, a Minister should always choose an inquiry where it is necessary either to elicit the facts or to enable people to protest. But, once that has been done, the need to inquire must be balanced against the need not to have intolerable delay. I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that the biggest single complaint which I receive from the construction industry is that planning procedures are causing intolerable delays.
All I am saying is that in every decision as to whether an inquiry should voluntarily be given by me, I have to strike a balance between the need to investigate and to give the right of protest, and the need to say that there should be no further delay and that we should get on with the building. I felt on investigation that everything had been discussed almost ad nauseam and that the time had come for building.
Mr. Corfield: Is it not abundantly clear, however, that any arguments which were made at the inquiry were directed against the first scheme, which, by the right hon. Gentleman's own case, was an entirely different scheme and must have been entirely different from that which he approved? Is it not wrong for him to say that the inquiry was given by him voluntarily when he says that it was into an appeal against the refusal by the L.C.C.
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to give its consent? Is not that an occasion on which he is bound to hold an inquiry?
Mr. Crossman: I went into the law very carefully before making this statement. In this particular case I had to choose whether to grant an inquiry or not. It is true that if either Islington or the London County Council had asked for an inquiry, which they did not, I would have automatically had to give it. As they did not do so, it was left to me to decide whether to hold an inquiry into it.
Mr. Lubbock: While agreeing with what the Minister has said about the effect of planning delays on the construction industry, does he not think that the advocates of rehabilitation should at least have been given the opportunity of expressing a view on whether or not the criteria set out in his first decision letter had been satisfied by the new scheme? Is he aware that many people, not only in Islington, but in other parts of the country, are very worried about the way in which these far-reaching planning decisions are deliberately concealed from the public until it is too late for them to make any objection?
Mr. Crossman: If I had thought that there was any suggestion of concealing a planning decision from the public I would have been shocked. There was no suggestion of concealing a planning decision. On the contrary, it had been subjected to a long investigation. If it is suggested that the actual design of the block of buildings was something which should only be decided by an inquiry, one must distinguish between the giving of planning permission in general and the study of the particular form of architecture which one is using. It is on this point that we would need to have a period for probing our planning procedures.
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware, in view of the answer that he has given to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock), that if the Report of the Council on Tribunals is to be believed, the would-be objectors sought information on the second plan from the Islington Council and were refused it on the ground that it was before the Minister? In the light of that, how can the right

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hon. Gentleman say that there was no concealment of the plan from those who would have objected?
On the final sentence of his original answer to me, is the House to understand that, notwithstanding the censure of the Council on Tribunals, he has indicated that he would act in exactly the same way again in a similar situation?
Mr. Crossman: I must ask the right hon. Gentleman to read my statement. I said that I had very carefully considered the view of the Council on Tribunals and, on reflection, though I understood its motive, I still think I was right in thinking, as I gather it now does, that no second inquiry was necessary, and that I was, therefore, right to give the decision to go ahead.
Sir Harmar Nicholls: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that on the face of it the decision is similar to the Crichel Down case? Although my right hon. Friend only asked that the Minister would bear the Council on Tribunals' representations in mind in future, is it too late for the Minister to reconsider his decision at this stage? Has he not the power to withdraw his previous decision in order to give satisfaction to the people about this new scheme, and see that their point of view is taken into account? That was done in the Crichel Down case by the Minister who then sat on that Bench.
Mr. Crossman: I know that Members of the Opposition will clutch at any straws, but I think that they will be disappointed if we have, as I hope we do, a full discussion of this case and of planning procedure. The hon. Gentleman will not find that this is a Crichel Down case.
As to his other point, my answer is that the decision has been taken. There was no suggestion by the Council on Tribunals that it was not within my power to take the decision and I have decided that the decision was the right one to take in the circumstances, although I do bear in mind, as I always have done, the need to make the fullest possible investigation, as the Report suggests.
Sir David Renton: Can the Minister deal with the point, twice raised by my right hon. Friend, and to which he has
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as yet given no answer, namely, what of those objectors, or would-be objectors, who had no notice of the second application? Is he saying that he considers that his procedure has worked satisfactorily from their point of view?
Mr. Crossman: What I am saying is that the question I had to decide was between rehabilitation of this area and redevelopment. It was a finely balanced decision and I decided, after a long inquiry in which all of the objectors' cases were put, that, provided I could be satisfied that the redevelopment would be satisfactory, I would permit it to go ahead. Therefore, when I was convinced of this I made my decision.

PROTOTYPE FAST REACTOR
The Minister of Technology (Mr. Frank Cousins): With permission, I will make a statement about the building of a prototype fast reactor by the Atomic Energy Authority.
The fast reactor system is one of the principal lines of reactor development and shows good promise of being the most economical system in two senses—both in the cost of electricity produced, and in making the most effective use of uranium and of the plutonium produced as a by-product in Magnox and A.G.R. power stations. A balanced combination of these thermal and fast reactor stations represents the most efficient and economical power supply system which can be envisaged for the foreseeable future.
The Authority advises me that the design of a prototype is now sufficiently firm to justify starting construction and this has been sanctioned by the Government. The prototype will generate 250 MW (Electrical) and its cost, with the associated fuel production plant, will be about £30 million. It is expected that the reactor will be in operation in 1971.
I was advised by the Atomic Energy Authority that only two of its existing sites, namely, the reactor development establishments at Dounreay and Winfrith, would be suitable sites for the P.F.R. from the standpoint of technical requirements. After carefully considering all the relevant factors, the Government have decided that it should be built at Dounreay. The fuel production plant will be at Windscale.
Mr. Marples: While welcoming this decision, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman two or three questions? Besides the Dounreay and Winfrith sites, which other alternative locations were considered, and presumably rejected? Has the Minister taken the capital cost and the cost of transmission into account? Is Dounreay the most economical site? We well recognise that on regional grounds and on social considerations the site should be Dounreay, but could we have some estimate of what the costs are—if they are excessive—of siting the system there instead of in another place? Can the Minister say roughly what is the split of capital investment between Dounreay and Winfrith?
Mr. Cousins: The sites which were considered, in addition to the two I have mentioned, were Chapelcross and Wind-scale. For many reasons it was not considered proper to site the system in those places; the reactor facilities and research facilities were already in two places, and it was not felt proper to create additional research facilities at a place where these did not already exist.
There are many factors to be taken into account when considering the cost. It depends upon how one goes about assessing the extra cost. It is a question whether one can determine what the relative construction costs are, and what are the costs of the site itself and whether one has to take into account the transmission of electricity over a rather longer land line from there than from other areas. There is, therefore, a slight loss which is not excessive, but which has to be measured in quantity and cost.
There are other factors which have been taken into account. There is the question of the houses and schools which have been built at Thurso in the knowledge that development was taking place there. I hope to have something to say about development as distinct from research and the P.F.R. at a later stage. In total, the financial considerations did not play an important part in the siting decision. It is not possible to make a clear decision and say whether it would have cost a little more or less, because all the factors involved cannot be measured. But they were not all economic considerations which had to be measured. Winfrith has a tremendous
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amount of work going on and there is a fairly substantial programme of future work there.
Mr. Steele: Is my right hon. Friend aware that we of the Scottish Labour Group appreciate very much indeed the problems and difficulties which have been associated with this decision? Is he further aware that we warmly welcome the fact that the site is to be at Dounreay and that this decision will bring great encouragement to the people of the Highlands, and particularly to the Highlands and Islands Development Board, which will see it as a clear indication that the Government are prepared to ensure the further development of this part of Scotland, which has been forgotten for so long?
Mr. Cousins: I am, of course, well aware of the considerable satisfaction that this decision will give to this area. There has been a great deal of pressure and lobbying by all the parties concerned. The Highlands and Islands Development Board presented one of the best cases I have ever heard about the need for this kind of approach to the question of the northern part of Scotland and I am glad to be able to make this announcement.
But we must not rest exclusively on the idea that because P.F.R. is going to Dounreay that will be the end of the economic problems of the area. There is still a great deal to be done if we are to get satisfaction.
Mr. Noble: Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me to say how delighted we are on this side of the House that as a result of this decision, which has been rather long-delayed and which shows the careful consideration which has been going on in the Cabinet, the reactor will go to the right place? May I, through the right hon. Gentleman, extend my personal congratulations to the Secretary of State for Scotland for what I believe has been his part in getting this decision made?
May I ask the right hon. Gentleman two questions? First, does he remember which party caused Dounreay to be built, because there was some comment about the long time that this area had been forgotten? Secondly, can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether this decision will bring a build-up of employment in the area, or merely hold, which is very

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important, the existing number of people there?
Mr. Cousins: I do not forget which party caused Dounreay to be built. The right hon. Gentleman from time to time uses the kind of arguments which we use. Dounreay would have been built a little earlier if we had been in office. A great deal of very serious consideration has been given to this matter. I wish that the right hon. Gentleman had not said what he did say on one occasion—it did not make it any easier for me—that I had taken a decision that the reactor should go to Winfrith. I was continually lobbied, despite the fact that we were dealing with technical considerations.
The right hon. Gentleman asked whether this decision will build up employment in the area. It will do so temporarily by a limited number of people and then, for a short period, it will maintain a little higher level of employment. One thing which I have said twice—and I hope that we shall have an opportunity to make this clear in our discussions on the subject later—is that by itself it will not bring such a degree of employment to Dounreay as will make it a thriving community. It will generate electricity. After we have gone through the experimental period it will be an electricity generating station.
Unless we do something about the development of the area, in 10 years' time we might be talking about the same things and hon. Members might be asking whether we will put the third form of reactor in Dounreay. That is not a question we can lightly dismiss. We cannot say that, having solved this problem, we have solved all the problems of the region.
Mr. Woodburn: Is my hon. Friend aware that this decision will give great encouragement to the scientists who went to Dounreay to start this experiment and who have done such excellent work there? Will it be possible to make use of the pump storage facilities at Dounreay for the surplus electricity by using some of the lochs in the Highlands in order to make use of the night-produced electricity?
Mr. Cousins: I am aware that the decision will give a great deal of satisfac-
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tion to the scientists, because a number of them have been displaying during the past few months a not unnatural anxiety about their future and as to whether they would have continuity of employment there. I suggest that my right hon. Friend's second question should be addressed to the Secretary of State for Scotland.
Mr. Monro: While welcoming the decision to bring the reactor to Scotland, is the Minister aware of the acute disappointment which will be felt at Chapelcross? Can he give the House any information about future developments at Chapelcross which will retain the existing labour force?
Mr. Cousins: I am aware of the disappointment that will be felt in many places that it has been decided not to put the reactor in those places. The Government's difficulty was that we were talking of building one prototype fast reactor, not four, or we could have satisfied everyone. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I visited his constituency and saw the people concerned. There were discussions about the suitability of Chapelcross, but it was not found possible to provide the extensive research and development facilities required if we had placed the P.F.R. there.
As I said to the hon. Gentleman in reply to a Question, there are no plans for additional projects at Chapelcross at the moment. There are some aspects of the A.E.A's work which alter and which require the use of generating areas rather than research and development areas.
Mr. Manuel: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the great satisfaction which his statement will bring not only to the scientists, but to the ordinary people of Scotland doing their daily jobs? Is he further aware of the intense satisfaction it will give to the Highland Development Board and that it will give a fillip to ancillary industries to go to the Highlands, which are being depopulated? His decision will receive a great deal of support in the Highland areas. Ultimately, it will lead to the repopulation in the Highlands.
Mr. George Y. Mackie: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this decision is enormously sensible and will give great pleasure and satisfaction to the people of

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Caithness and round about? Will he be good enough to convey to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State the congratulations of myself and others and a partial withdrawal of some of the things which I said as a spur to help him in the long-drawn-out battle which is now, fortunately and correctly, over? Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the work will start?
Mr. Cousins: I shall be delighted to pass on to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State the views which the hon. Gentleman has expressed, particularly in view of the rather different and slightly more unpleasant things which he has said from time to time to him. It was understandable, but we had to examine all the factors.
We needed to take into consideration all the technical features to make sure that we had reached the right conclusion rather than a conclusion. It is, therefore, very satisfactory to know that we have made a decision which will please people. The work will start as soon as we can get in. We hope to get to the stage when we can see the possibility of the first commercial reactors by 1970.
Mr. Dalyell: Is it realised that most Scots interested in technical matters have been sensitive to the considerable technical and economic pressures of Winfrith? Is it also realised that the scientific community throughout Britain will congratulate the Government on their determination to spread modern scientific techniques and Government establishments throughout these islands?
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. We must move on.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  CONSOLIDATED FUND BILL
  Considered in Committee; reported without Amendment.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
  Mr. Speaker: Before I call the first Member to speak on Third Reading, I want to add to what I said yesterday when the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) raised a point of order.
  Hon. Members will recall that on the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill yesterday, I pointed out to the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale that the only items covered by the Bill are those for which increases are asked in the Winter Supplementary Estimates.
  As a general rule of very long standing
  "it is in order to discuss only the particular items which constitute the Supplementary Estimates, and the sub-heads of the original Estimates can only be referred to so far as they are involved in the fair discussion of the points contained in the items asked for in the Supplementary Estimates. It is quite obvious that it should be improper, as a general rule, to raise on a Supplementary Estimate the whole question of policy involved in the original Estimates; and, as I have stated, the discussion is properly confined to the items of the Supplementary Estimates. I think, however, that I ought to state that items of Supplementary Estimates may raise in themselves questions of policy, but the interpretation whether they do raise questions of policy or not must clearly be left to the Chair."
  The rule that I have just given to the House is not new, as I have deliberately repeated the words which Mr. Speaker used on 3rd March, 1893. I do so to remind the House that the rule is of long standing. In the debate on the present Bill, discussion is narrowly confined to the sums of money asked for by Ministers and to the reasons for those additional demands.
  Sir Harmar Nicholls: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Your Ruling yesterday, and what you have just read out is helpful, but it means that the area of discussion is reduced to a very narrow one. I would have thought that if justice was to be done to the discussion on these Estimates, a little extra

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  guidance might be given on how far hon. Members should go in what might appear to be moving into the sphere of policy. To take prescription charges as an example, would it be in order to discuss how much better the money could have been spent in other directions?
  Mr. Speaker: The only way in which the hon. Gentleman can learn whether he is transgressing the rule is to attempt to break it, when he will discover that he is called to order. I cannot rule in advance.
  Mr. William Yates: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday, the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot), sought to widen the debate to discuss South-East Asia. On referring to the Supplementary Estimates, I note, under 7(c), that the Minister required extra funds in relation to Laos, and I was wondering, in view of the fact that extra funds were required by the Government for Laos, how a debate on policy concerning Laos and South-East Asia could be excluded by the Chair.
  Mr. Speaker: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not go back and question the previous day's Ruling. The only question that could have been raised yesterday on Second Reading was an item specifically covered in the Supplementary Estimates. If the hon. Gentleman turns to the Supplementary Estimates, he will find exactly what items are involved in them. It is not possible, therefore, simply because the name of a State occurs in the Supplementary Estimates of Overseas Aid, to make that an opportunity for discussing the whole of South-East Asia or Vietnam, as the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale was seeking to do.
  Mr. William Yates: Further to my point of order, Mr. Speaker. When the Supplementary Estimates were submitted to the House a year ago, funds were appropriated by the House to the Minister in relation to South-West Arabia. On the Consolidated Fund Bill I raised the questions of prisons and administration in South-West Arabia. With respect, I should have thought that Members of the House, despite the ancient Ruling which you have mentioned, would want to look into this matter very much more care-
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  fully if, where money is required or used, we are not allowed to discuss the policy for which that money is required.
  Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. The House is so allowed. It is important, and I want the House to understand what is at issue.
  There are two kinds of Consolidated Fund Bill as far as scope of debate is concerned. I do not carry the hon. Gentleman's previous speeches in my head, but I have just been advised that when he raised the matter that he did it may have been on the March Consolidated Fund Bill, which is a far, far different matter, when the historic rights of back benchers are to raise grievances before they grant Supply are much wider in scope than on this one.
  In this case, the grant of Supply is a very limited one. It is confined to the Supplementary Estimates, and the grievances that hon. Members can raise on this particular Consolidated Fund Bill must arise out of the Supplementary Estimates.
  This is an important Ruling which I am making. I hope that the House will take note of it.

  NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE
  Mr. Richard Wood: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the House is extremely grateful to you for the Ruling which you have given, and perhaps grateful, also, for your pointing out that if we had done our researches adequately we would have had 73 years' notice of your decision today.
  As you have reminded us of it, it fills a number of hon. Members who had intended to take part in the debate with a certain amount of trepidation, and I shall do my best to relate the remarks that I make about the Ministry of Health and the Scottish Office Estimates as closely as possible to the Estimates themselves; and it is those Estimates to which we are anxious to give particular attention in the early part of today's debate.
  I should like to deal particularly with the consequences and implications of the decision to abolish prescription charges which the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health announced just before Christmas, 1964. It would be quite

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  improper for me or any of my hon. Friends to complain that the Government have honoured an election pledge, because in health matters that seems to have a certain scarcity value and is something of a collector's piece.
  Out of the galaxy of promises in "The New Britain", the Government seem to have selected one pledge, or, to be more accurate, half a pledge, which has made the honouring of all their other promises more difficult than it was before.
  We would certainly have given the Government every support in an attempt to improve the system of charges which they have now abandoned. It was certainly not a perfect system, and perhaps none of our systems is perfect. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, my right hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Barber) had worked out an important modification of it when he was Minister.
  I am suggesting today that the right hon. Gentleman could well have examined that first, but, as far as I know, no further discussions took place between his officials or himself, when he was in charge of the Ministry of Health, and the medical profession. He might also have re-examined with our entire approval and support the whole system of exemptions from the charges. He could have examined another problem which no doubt gave a considerable amount of trouble, that of general practitioners in country districts who do their own dispensing. We should also have supported an examination of the advisability of making a distinction between drugs which are necessary to save life and others which are less essential.
  The fact is that the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues had no interest at all in making any such examination.
  I have had the opportunity over the last 18 months to observe the right hon. Gentleman at fairly close quarters, and on fairly frequent occasions, and I am sorry to say that I find him much more of a doctrinaire politician than his benign appearance, his courteous behaviour, his diplomatic statements, and his general pragmatic approach would suggest. I find that he drinks more avidly from the pure fountain of Socialist doctrine than either Lord Attlee or Mr. Bevan.
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  Last week, during the debate on the Second Reading of the National Health Service Bill, I expressed disappointment at the right hon. Gentleman's unwillingness to experiment by allowing doctors to charge fees which could be wholly reclaimed by those in certain categories of need. The right hon. Gentleman was very shocked and told me, rather loftily, that this was alien to the whole idea of the National Health Service.
  It was presumably for the same reason, that, two months after the election, the right hon. Gentleman hurried towards total abolition of the prescription charges, thus relieving, as I pointed out on that occasion, hundreds of thousands of people well able to pay them. He described his move as the
  "first major step towards restoration of the free Health Service which the Labour Government introduced after the war."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th December, 1964; Vol. 704, c. 584.]
  The right hon. Gentleman told me on that occasion that the anxieties of the doctors about an increased work load were exaggerated. He later estimated—I think that it was in April of last year—that the abolition of these charges would cost about £25 million in England and Wales. My right hon. and hon. Friends and I decided to wait and see. We waited, and we have now seen that the estimates which he gave were wholly wrong. In the year 1963–64 the then 2s. prescription charge, with the exemptions which existed, brought in about £22 million. Since the charge was removed, and, presumably largely because of its removal, the number of prescriptions dispensed has greatly increased.
  In the first seven months after abolition, that is, from February to August inclusive, the number in England and Wales went up by 19 per cent., and the cost by 22 per cent. As the total cost of prescriptions in the previous year was £105 million, I estimate that the increased cost may be more than £20 million; and if one adds this to the loss of revenue, it comes to between the £40 million and £50 million which has been quoted with some authority during the last few months.
  I find it very hard to understand why, when announcing the abolition in December, 1964, the right hon. Gentleman thought that habits had so changed in the 15 years which separated his statement from that of Lord Attlee in October,

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  1949, when he announced the Government's intention to take powers to make a charge, and explained that its purpose would be
  "to reduce excessive and, in some cases, unnecessary resort to doctors and chemists, of which there is evidence.…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th October, 1949; Vol. 468, c. 1019.]
  Three weeks after that Mr. Bevan spoke of the "ceaseless cascade of medicine pouring down British throats", but his cascade was a trickle compared with the flood which the right hon. Gentleman seems to have unleashed.
  The right hon. Gentleman says that that is evidence of a pent-up demand, and in some sense it is. A great many potential demands are released by a decrease in price. But if, as in this case, a demand is released at the expense of other demands, it is not necessarily wise to release it, and to us the important question is: has the added benefit to health which has been secured by giving this demand complete freedom outweighed, first, the added burden on general practitioners, secondly, the greatly increased cost to the National Health Service, and, thirdly, most important of all, the postponement of improvements and expansion in the Service which would otherwise have been possible? After all, we are today discussing sums which represent a sizeable proportion of the total capital expenditure on hospital building last year.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health very kindly wrote to me last night explaining that he could not be here at the beginning of our debate. I replied to tell him that I wanted to quote some words which he had used during the course of a debate on the cytological service, which I attended. On that occasion the hon. Gentleman said:
  "…in the short period in which I have held office I have never been really satisfied with any of the services we give, although I recognise that our Health Service is by far the best in the world."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th January, 1966; Vol. 723, c. 367.]
  That seems to me—and I explained to the hon. Gentleman that I should be making this comment—an honest statement, free from complacency, which might have come from any Minister connected with the right hon. Gentleman's Department ever since the National Health Service began. But the natural
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  and proper dissatisfaction of the hon. Gentleman might possibly have been abated if £50 million, or even a proportion of that sum, had been available to his right hon. Friend to improve and expand the Service. We can all think of needs—I daresay that one or two hon. Members will be pressing them today—across the whole spectrum of the National Health Service where even a small proportion of that £50 million would have been able to bring considerable relief.
  The right hon. Gentleman announced last December that one of the regional hospital boards had had to suspend recruitment of nurses because of lack of money. The Royal College of Nursing, which is not, in the experience of many of us, generally given to using strong language, criticised as ludicrous the promotion by the Government of a publicity campaign to project the attractions of modern nursing, and the simultaneous decision to put a brake on recruiting.
  I turn from that to a small, but to my mind important, human example of the difficulties caused by this financial pressure. Only last week I asked the right hon. Gentleman about the provision of hearing aids for the small number of people unable to benefit by the aids provided by the Service. The right hon. Gentleman replied that he would have to
  "consider relevant priorities between improvements in this respect and improvements elsewhere in the Health Service."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st January, 1966; Vol. 723, c. 677.]
  Perhaps he will be able to find a place for this priority, but this is only one of the real human problems which has undoubtedly been pushed further away from solution by the costly abolition of the charges, and the kind of question which my hon. Friends and I would like to ask is whether it can really be a priority to leave florins in the pockets of the affluent, rather than to give back to a man the ability to hear.
  Socialism, as we have been told on many occasions, is the language of priorities, but to us the language is becoming increasingly incomprehensible. To abolish charges for those who can well afford to pay, in the face of the other needs of the Service, surely makes nonsense of the language, especially when those unable to afford them did not have to pay them.
  Mr. Will Griffiths: Was not the policy of the Government of which the right hon. Gentleman was a member one which took the florins from the public and did nothing to provide the hearing aids about which the right hon. Gentleman is speaking?
  Mr. Wood: I shall come to that point, because it is very important, and I thought that perhaps an hon. Gentleman or an hon. Lady might raise it. I promise to deal with it before I conclude my speech.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker, I hope that you will allow some general reflections on the mistaken choice of priorities which we believe the Government have made, because I think that they are closely related to the Estimates which we are discussing.
  I start with the Parliamentary Secretary's lack of real satisfaction with any of the services provided. Probably, if we were honest, most of us would agree with him. But if this is true of the mid-1960s it looks like being a great deal more true in 10 or 20 years' time. We are all aware of the fact that the proportion of old people in the population will increase, and that the sum total of need will accordingly increase fairly considerably. Need will increase in that proportion of the population which is always most subject to illness.
  Looking ahead at the advances in medicine—and the skill of the medical profession, in a sense, is always making its job harder—we can be sure that the medical profession will open the door to the possibility of far greater expenditure than we have to meet at present. If—as I hope is not impossible—the medical profession finds answers to the problems of cancer, circulatory diseases, and so on, we shall find the field for medical attention far wider than it is at present, and a greater need for medical care. People will live longer and, other things being equal, will need medical attention for a greater proportion of their lives.
  Thirdly, in this very general sense, there is the question of preventive health. The right hon. Gentleman and the Parliamentary Secretary have explained the progress which their Department is making in the direction of cytological screen-
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  ing. I have no doubt that many other possibilities will open up in the years ahead. I shall not attempt to overstate the case and pretend that a significant expansion would have been possible in all directions if only the Government had maintained the prescription charges. It would be foolish to put forward that argument. What is true, however, is that we can push forward more effectively into these new fields only if we have a really firm base to start from.
  The question is: to what extent have we this firm base? I must keep clear of detailed matters, because the Estimates are not concerned with them but, in general, the human resources of the National Health Service now seem to be overstretched. Buildings and equipment are inadequate, and many patients have to wait a very long time for hospital treatment. A number of examples have appeared recently in the Press. It would not surprise me if an exceptionally bright hon. Member or hon. Lady opposite—or the hon. Member who raised the question just now—asked what we were doing in the 13 years when we had responsibility. I want to make the point for them.
  Throughout this period we were trying to make the most effective use of a very large but limited sum of money—which now amounts to over £1,000 million a year—mostly contributed by taxpayers but some drawn from National Health contributions, with a relatively small but significant addition from the users of the Service. By their decision in December, 1964, the Government have made expansion more difficult, because they have at the same time reduced the inflow of money from the users of the Service and increased its cost.
  Therefore, whatever future priorities the Government choose, the choice of this first priority—the abolition of the prescription charges—has inevitably made it more difficult than it was, even under our Administration, to find the money for expansion. I therefore, ask the right hon. Gentleman where the money for this necessary expansion is to come from.
  Dr. Shirley Summerskill: In view of what the right hon. Gentleman has said, and since there was a prescription charge throughout the 13 years of Conservative government, is it intended that if ever there is another Conservative

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  Government the charge will be reimposed?
  Mr. Wood: That is quite a fair question to ask. I think that the hon. Lady was here at the beginning of my speech, when I suggested that what I hoped the right hon. Gentleman would do, rather than abolish the charges, was to carry out an examination of the various possibilities that I have mentioned, which, in my opinion, would have resulted in our being able to maintain this system while removing the inequities in it. That is what we shall try to do when we are next responsible, especially if, as I assume is only too likely, unfortunately, the resources available to the National Health Service, are still much smaller than we would like.
  I was asking the right hon Gentleman where, in the absence of revenue from the prescription charges and of the increased cost of the Service, he will find the necessary money for the expansion which I have no doubt he wants to see more than any of us—which is saying a considerable amount. Surely one of the sources cannot be a massive increase in taxation—because at the election we were told that the expansion of our social services would be financed out of greater production and not from general increases in taxation. The proportion of the gross national product which is to be devoted to health and welfare services looks like being slightly smaller in 1970 than it is today.
  The second alternative is substantially to increase National Health contributions so as to offset the loss of revenue involved in the abolition of prescription charges.
  Mr. Arthur Woodburn: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that at the same time as his Government doubled the prescription charges an almost equivalent amount of money was handed back quite unnecessarily to Surtax payers, who did not ask for it? It is clear that other sources are available, without considering the possibility of increasing the contributions.
  Mr. Wood: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will make some of these points to his right hon. Friend. All that I am
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  asking is whether the right hon. Gentleman will tell us from what sources the Government now intend to find the money in order to push on with the necessary development of this Service in the absence of revenue from prescription charges.
  I was in the middle of asking whether it was the intention, if not to impose a massive increase in taxation, substantially to increase National Health contributions. Certainly, to hon. Members on this side such an increase would not seem to accord very closely with past pronouncements of the Labour Party. But if there is to be neither a massive increase in taxation nor a substantial increase in National Health contributions, how do the Government intend to make progress towards the twin objectives of improving the existing services and moving into new medical fields which will become increasingly important in the future? Every hon. Member will agree that these two aims are highly desirable, but they will inevitably be pushed that much further away by the decision which the Government reached at the end of 1964.
  There is apparently no magic short cut out of the difficulties which have been created by this decision. The Government have set their faces against any system of charges, which were thought, by an earlier Socialist generation, nonetheless, to have a certain respectability. The Government seem in no mind to encourage individuals to insure themselves for private medical care, whether in or out of hospital. Whenever this question is discussed—and it was mentioned the other day—there is a confusion of growls behind the right hon. Gentleman. On the last occasion he was kind enough to interpret them as adding up to two words—"queue jumping".
  The right hon. Gentleman kindly interpreted the babble of barking for us. No doubt, as the queues get longer, the barks will get louder. Having decreased revenue and increased costs by the decision of 1964, are not the Government face to face with this straight choice—either to raise higher revenue from taxation or from contributions or from both, or to postpone in some degree the kind of expansion of our hospital building and the improvement in the service generally which I and my hon. Friends believe

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  that everyone in the House would like to see? The purpose of the debate is for us now to hear the kind of choice which the right hon. Gentleman has made.
  4.30 p.m.
  The Minister of Health (Mr. Kenneth Robinson): As the right hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) has done, I propose to confine my speech in general to the Supplementary Estimate which relates to prescriptions and the pharmaceutical services. I would remind the House that, in abolishing prescription charges over a year ago, the Government were redeeming a specific pledge. What fun the Opposition would have had if we had failed to redeem that pledge! This pledge was contained not only in our election manifesto of 1964, but also in that of 1959. I had attacked charges in principle in the House on many occasions and, in particular, in 1961, when we moved a censure Motion when the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, Southwest (Mr. Powell) doubled the prescription charge to 2s. per item.
  During the last election campaign, I referred to this pledge on platform after platform, as did my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and many other Labour candidates. I would remind the House, also, that it was not only the Labour Party, but the doctors themselves, who had, for years and years, opposed prescription charges as a matter of principle. As long ago as 1957, in giving evidence to the Hinchliffe Committee on the Cost of Prescribing, the British Medical Association reiterated its opposition to such financial barriers between the patient and the treatment which he needs.
  The Hinchliffe Committee did not like the charges and said that they were resented by patients and doctors as a tax on illness. The British Medical Association consistently opposed the charges right up to the annual representative meeting in July, 1964, at Manchester, where it suddenly reversed its policy. Certainly, it is perfectly simple and in no way unreasonable for a professional organisation to register a vote reversing its previous policy; but, of course, there was no certainty that the original policy would not have been reaffirmed at a subsequent annual representative meeting.
  However, it was a very different matter for the Labour Party on the eve of a General Election, claiming rightly to be
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  the alternative Government, to abandon, even if it had wished to do so—which was not the case—a specific and many-times-repeated pledge to the electorate. Why did we make this pledge in the first place? I am sorry if the right hon. Gentleman thinks that I am doctrinaire. All Conservatives think that anybody who does not share their political philosophy—such as it is—is doctrinaire, but the Labour Party does not believe that taxing people when they are sick is an appropriate method of financing health services.
  So far as the charges themselves are a source of finance, their abolition amounts only to a method of redistributing amongst the community the burden of a fraction of the drug bill—far less than a quarter—and shifting what was, in effect, a poll tax on sick people to the taxpayer in general. After all, the money has to be found somewhere. I have said many times that the Government believe in a free Health Service at the time of need. These charges, without any question, had a deterrent effect and that, I think the right hon. Gentleman will be honest enough to admit, was the purpose for which they were originally imposed.
  But they had a deterrent effect at: the very moment of need on those who genuinely required medical advice and treatment. I am aware that some doctors believe that the charges deterred the patient with a trivial ailment, but even if this were so—I certainly do not accept it as a general rule—there are plenty of other doctors who are particularly anxious not to deter such patients, on the grounds that only the doctor himself can decide what is and what is not a trivial ailment.
  We were in no doubt that the charges meant hardship for many of those who could not avoid going to the doctor and were forced to pay the charges or, as many of them did, went to the doctor for a prescription and neglected to have it dispensed by the chemist because they could not afford it. Whatever the right hon. Gentleman may say—he was reasonably fair about this—the scheme of reimbursement through the National Assistance Board introduced by the Conservative Government was quite inadequate to meet this kind of hardship.

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  The right hon. Gentleman asked why I did not pursue the investigations which the right hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Barber) was making to try to find a better method of reimbursement. My first reaction to that is to ask why it took 13 years for a Conservative Minister of Health to begin to look for a better method if the existing one was a bad one, which I firmly believe it was. The answer to why I did not pursue this investigation any further, quite apart from the fact that we were pledged to abolition, was that it was not leading anywhere.
  I accept that efforts might have been made to find a better system, but they would have been without success, because there would always have been a grey area of unidentifiable poverty which simply meant that people were either being deterred from going to the doctor when they needed to do so, or were being called upon to pay sums of money—not measured always in single florins, particularly among the chronic sick with multiple prescriptions—which they could ill afford.
  I should like to remind the House that, in trying to calculate the cost of abolition, hon. Members should not forget to deduct the sum of nearly £3 million which, if the charges had remained, would have been spent last year in reimbursement through the National Assistance Board.
  The right hon. Gentleman did not actually say, but indicated that people had not benefited very much from or noticed the abolition of the charges. This is not my experience. A very large number of people, particularly the elderly and chronic sick, have told me how extremely glad they are to have this burden lifted. There is another category, which is not often mentioned, that of the dispensing doctors, those who do the dispensing themselves. Almost without exception, they loathed having to collect the florins from their patients when they had given them medicine and many have gone out of their way to tell me how grateful they are that they do not any longer have this burden.
  The right hon. Gentleman made a good deal of play with the effect, in money terms, of removing the charges. I want to be completely frank here. We always expected that there would be an increase in the number of prescriptions and I
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  freely admit that the numbers which have eventuated are higher than was anticipated and that, in consequence, the drug bill, in money terms, is higher. There are so many factors entering into the cost of the drug bill that it is impossible now—I believe that it always will be—to estimate with any accuracy the cost of the abolition of prescription charges. Certainly, not all the extra costs in 1965–66 are due to abolition.
  I will give some rather later figures than those which the right hon. Gentleman was able to give. I have them for the first 10 months since 1st February, 1965, when the charges were abolished. The number of prescriptions has increased by 18·8 per cent. over that period, which is equivalent to far less than one additional prescription per person in a year. I mention this only to get it into perspective.
  Mr. Bernard Braine: The right hon. Gentleman has given the percentage. Can he give the total increase in the number of prescriptions?
  Mr. Robinson: I could give the hon. Gentleman the figure, but, rather than scramble through my figures here, I will ask the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland to give it later. I would rather not guess. I can, however, tell the hon. Gentleman that the cost of the drug bill in the 10 months has risen by £18 million, or just over 20 per cent. more than in the previous year.
  I believe—I have said this before in the House—that we underestimated the deterrent effect of the prescription charge and, as a corollary, we underestimated the good which abolition would bring about.
  I should like now to try to analyse the possible causes for the increase in the number of prescriptions. I have gone into this very carefully. I believe that there are five possible contributory causes. There is some evidence that prescriptions for items costing less than 2s., which, while the charges remained, would automatically have been bought over the counter at the chemists, have increased in number, but I have made it clear many times to the medical profession, and publicly, that it is not intended that patients should visit the doctor simply to get household remedies which they would

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  normally buy over the counter. I told the doctors that I would always support a doctor who refused such an unnecessary prescription.
  The second factor is that the drug bill has risen year by year since the National Health Service started. Hon. Members may be interested to know that the average cost per prescription has risen from 3s. to 10s. in 15 years. The cost of the drug bill has been going up all the time because there have been advances in medical practice and in the development of drugs. Drugs are very different in their therapeutic effect now from those which were cascading down the British throats in Mr. Aneurin Bevan's day. The development of the new drugs inevitably brings with it higher costs, and contributes to the increasing cost of the drug bill.
  Since charges were abolished in 1965, the actual increase in cost per prescription has turned out to be less than we expected it to be or than we estimated. There is some evidence that doctors are prescribing smaller quantities, which is what I asked them to do when I wrote to them about the time of abolition. In that way the increase in prescription numbers has been partly offset because the cost per prescription has risen less than was forecast.
  The next factor is, or should be, an obvious one. Prescription numbers, and, of course, the costs, reflect the amount of illness that there is about. Compared with the previous year, 1965 was undoubtedly a year of heavier sickness. We have certain statistics from my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, and in the same period that I have been dealing with—February to November, 1965—the number of first certificates for sickness benefit was up by very nearly 5½ per cent. over the corresponding period in 1964. This does not take into account sickness among the old or the very young, who are, of course, the two heavy demand groups who would probably need more prescriptions in proportion than those who are at work and whose numbers are reflected in certificates for sickness benefit.
  Apart from those four factors, the only other explanation for the rise in prescription numbers must be that doctors are prescribing more freely, for whatever reason. As for those who suggest that
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  there is an abuse of the service in relation to prescriptions—I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman did not make this point, but it has been made—this is simply to attack the medical profession, since it is the doctor, and not the patient, who writes the prescription.
  But, whatever conclusions one can draw from these possible explanations which I have given the House, it is certain that the increase is by no means solely due to the abolition of the charge. The other certain thing is that it is impossible to calculate with any accuracy what the cost was of that decision.
  What about the effect on the doctor's work load which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned? It is very difficult to estimate the effect. I think that there was probably some effect. I am not happy to see any increase in doctors' work load in these difficult times, but I think that the increase was a good deal less than many doctors believed.
  What has really contributed to the increase in the work load of the general practitioner has been the falling number of family doctors combined with the rising population and, again, and particularly, the extra rise in the numbers of the very old and the very young—those who, as I have said, make high demands on the family doctor. Nothing contributed more to the falling number of general practitioners than the gross neglect of general practice by successive Conservative Governments over a dozen years; a dozen years in which they allowed discontent to grow without even seeking the causes, let alone looking for remedies; a dozen years when they were content to sit back complacently while fewer and fewer newly-trained doctors chose to go into general practice, and the morale and the self-confidence of the family doctor ebbed steadily away.
  I have reminded them before, and I do so again, that their decision to accept the recommendation of the Willink Committee to cut the intake into the medical schools by 10 per cent. was a blunder of the first order. But, of course, the chickens are only now coming home to roost, seven and more years since the decision was taken, because of the length of time it takes to train a doctor. So by their action, and by their inaction, they managed to create a vicious circle in which too few general practitioners were having

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  to look after too many patients with inadequate support, and that, in turn, led to still fewer entering general practice.
  The right hon. Gentleman spoke about competing priorities. The Government have not been inhibited by the cost of the drug bill from taking action to make good the shortage of doctors that was made worse, as I have said, by the disastrous policies of the Conservative Party. As we announced a week or so ago, it has been decided to undertake, starting this year, building at existing medical schools in Great Britain which will increase the intake of students by 250 a year. We expect by this means to raise the annual intake of British-based medical students from the present figure of 2,283 to more than 2,500. This increase is broadly the equivalent of the intake of three new medical schools.
  That is my answer to the right hon. Member for Bridlington, who seldom misses an opportunity, although he missed it today, of reminding me of what I said on this subject when we were in opposition. Meantime, planning of the new teaching hospital and medical school at Nottingham, which will provide at least a further 100 places a year, is making good progress.
  Mr. Raymond Gower: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will concede that some valuable steps had been taken towards increasing the number of places in medical schools before he took over his Department; in other words, that the policy had already largely been decided upon.
  Mr. Robinson: It had been decided to take some action to get rid of the cut which was imposed by a previous Minister, but the action that was taken and even the action contemplated was totally inadequate to deal with the very serious shortage of doctors which we are facing now and which we will be even more serious during the next few years.
  The right hon. Gentleman suggested that because we had taken this decision we had made it more difficult to honour other pledges we had made, presumably in relation to the National Health Service. I will consider the other priorities in the Service, and I do not think that anyone can complain that the
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  rest of the Service has suffered as a consequence of the removal of charges. Like my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, I am not fully satisfied with the services that we can provide. Still less am I in any way complacent. I will merely say that at least the record of the last 15 months will stand comparison with any similar period in any of the previous 13 years when the party opposite was in charge of the National Health Service.
  Consider the question of staff. All pay increases recommended by any body have been honoured. There have been very many of them and some of considerable size. Consider hospital building. We were able to provide an extra £5 million in 1965–66 over and above what was planned by the previous Government to be spent in that year. The House will not have failed to notice that hospital building was wholly exempted from the general deferment of capital projects announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer last July. I turn to current expenditure in the hospital service. Expenditure in this sphere was held down for a very long time by the party opposite, to an annual increase of 2 per cent. This is now rising at more than 2½ per cent. and hospital boards have been told to plan ahead on the basis of a 2¾ per cent. increase in real terms. These increases provide increased funds to run the new hospitals and to ensure expanded and better services in existing hospitals.
  Nor is this by any means all. I am able to announce a major step forward on the important subject of health education. I have been considering the Report of the Joint Committee of the Central and Scottish Health Services Councils under the chairmanship of Lord Cohen of Birkenhead which has made far-reaching recommendations for the future development of health education.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Samuel Storey): Order. I think that the right hon. Gentleman is getting somewhat wide of the Supplementary Estimates we are discussing.
  Mr. Robinson: I agree, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I hope that it is only the same difficulty in which the right hon. Gentleman found himself.

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  The right hon. Gentleman enumerated a number of things which, he said, because of abolishing prescription charges, we might not be able to do. I am sure that I am able to rebut, if I am allowed to do so, his charges by pointing out some of the things we have done and which the previous Government did not do. I have very nearly come to the end of my list and I hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I will be allowed to deal with this one rapidly.
  I was paying tribute to the members of the Committee and the Chairman for the time they devoted to their task. The Government accept the conclusions of the Committee and agree that increased effort is needed in health education and that the first priority is a new and stronger central organisation. I propose, therefore, to establish a new health education council, the functions of which will be broadly those proposed in the Report. The details are being worked out as quickly as possible, in consultation with the local authorities and other bodies concerned.
  We have done all these things despite the economic difficulties which hon. Gentlemen opposite bequeathed to us.
  Sir Keith Joseph: The right hon. Gentleman is, of course, accepting the Report of the Committee which was set up by the previous Government. It is fairly cheap to accept the recommendations, but would the right hon. Gentleman say what budget he is proposing to allow for the expenditure recommended by the Committee?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Not on this occasion.
  Mr. Robinson: It would obviously be out of order for me to do so on this occasion. Certainly, the Committee was set up by the previous Government, but that Government failed to come to any decisions on its recommendations.
  As I was saying, we have done this in spite of the economic difficulties, and we have said all along that putting the national economy on to a sound footing must be the prerequisite of the advances we intend to make in the health services and the other social services. The National Plan sets out what we hope to achieve and, in the area for which I am responsible, the Government plan to
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  increase total expenditure on the health and welfare services in England and Wales by more than £260 million between 1964–65 and 1969–70, an increase of more than 23 per cent., rising to a total expenditure in 1969–70 of about £1,370 million. That is my reply to the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion that, somehow or other, we will have to starve the National Health Service because of the decision we took a year ago.
  If the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues are so critical of this decision, then I end my remarks by asking them why they did not table a Prayer against the Statutory Instrument which brought this about. Why did they not even seeek to debate it, even if they were not prepared to vote against the decision?
  Mr. Wood: We did not pray against those regulations because we were given wrong information, though I am not suggesting that that was done intentionally. The right hon. Gentleman admitted that he under-estimated the effect of this. We decided to wait and see on the basis of the information the right hon. Gentleman gave. We have waited and we have seen—and we have seen that it was wholly wrong.
  Mr. Robinson: I understand the right hon. Gentleman to be saying that he would have supported the abolition of prescription charges if it had cost only the amount which it was estimated to cost at the time of the decision. It turns out that we underestimated the hardship and deterrent effect of these charges, and, because the cost is greater, the right hon. Gentleman is opposed to the decision.
  I would very much like a clearer answer from the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) than we got from the right hon. Member for Bridlington to this question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill): in the event of the Conservatives forming another Government would they reintroduce these charges? The implication of what the right hon. Member for Bridlington said was that perhaps they would reimpose some kind of charge, but that it would perhaps be at a lower level than that fixed by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell). If that is the policy of the party opposite, we and the country would like to know. We are

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  entitled to a clear answer to that question tonight.
  4.59 p.m.
  Sir John Vaughan-Morgan: It is a matter of some regret to me that the Chair has ruled out of order the matter of health education being discussed at any length, because I am furnished with a cutting from the New Statesman of 15th May, 1964, under the startling sub-heading:
  "The Devil's Orchestra. Kenneth Robinson M.P. writes"
  which deals with the recommendations of the Cohen Report and says that the Committee's recommendations are a little on the thin side. It writes in very contemptuous terms—not the right hon. Gentleman; he is never very contemptuous; he has the perfect bedside manner. It is a little derogatory of the sum which it was decided to spend. No doubt we shall have another opportunity of quoting from "The Devil's Orchestra", or whatever particular composer the right hon. Gentleman chooses.
  In speaking on the matter of hospitals, which I wish to do today, I declare, as I have in the past, my interest as the chairman of a teaching hospital. I trust that nothing I say may be used in evidence against one particular hospital. Perhaps in polite parenthesis I may say how much I personally appreciate the interest that the Minister takes in the teaching hospitals and in my own in particular. This is not quite the place for either brickbats or bouquets for the Minister on this score, but at the moment I have reason to be very pleased with the Minister about two things and absolutely hopping mad with him about something else. I will keep that for a more suitable occasion.
  Before I come on to the question of hospitals, may I deal with the question of charges? As I have already proved to the House, I was always a great student of the right hon. Gentleman when he was in opposition. I always read all his writings with great interest. I have with me a most interesting article published in Socialist Commentary in February, 1964, by the same Kenneth Robinson whom I mentioned earlier. It is an excellent article. It is an anthology of pious aspirations, many of which I think are common ground to us all. It is only fair
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  to say that it contains an absolutely specific pledge about the abolition of charges. I will read the particular passage, because it has some relevance to what I shall say later:
  "All charges to the patient…will be abolished, and the original basic principle of a free Health Service restored. Not only do we regard this principle as the keystone of the Bevan Act, but we agree with the view expressed by the British Medical Association that the prescription charge…represents a barrier between the patient and the treatment he needs".
  That is the pledge which the right hon. Gentleman has defended himself for implementing.
  I must disclose to the House that I have omitted two parentheses. The article really read:
  "All charges to the patient (such as those for prescriptions, dental treatment, dentures and spectacles) will be abolished…"
  The second parenthesis which I omitted read as follows:
  "the prescription charge (and the objection applies almost equally to the other charges) represents a barrier between the patient and the treatment he needs."
  Does not this show a slight anomaly in priorities? Are we not entitled to ask the right hon. Gentleman this question? If the abolition of prescription charges is right and stands in the scale of priorities higher than more money for medical research and hospital building, why does the abolition of these other charges stand lower in the scale? There would have been a reasonable case, on the basis of implementing the pledge, for implementing the whole lot. Why not the whole lot? Are not we going to have exactly the same arguments about the other charges for appliances? We are entitled to ask the right hon. Gentleman where in the language of priorities the abolition of the other charges stands in his scale. All the arguments he used today could have been used equally on the other charges.
  Mr. K. Robinson: I am delighted and very flattered that the right hon. Gentleman pays so much attention to my writings, but if he would look also at the Labour Party manifesto for the last election he will find the answer to his question.
  Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan: I read that, but I prefer the ipsissima verba of the Minister of Health on a subject dealing

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  with the Health Service. In defence of the right hon. Gentleman, it must be realised that he is in fact faced with the same dilemma that faces everybody in dealing with the Health Service—which does come first?
  Today I want to deal much more with the question of expenditure on hospitals. In case I am ruled out of order, I point out that I am dealing with Class VI, 14, Expenditure:
  "Increased rates of pay.
  Provision is made for the whole of the increase in respect of pay awards agreed to date."
  The problem of all hospitals is to get enough money to maintain the services. We must have some sympathy with hospitals generally in their efforts to get their own priorities correct. It is just as difficult inside the budget of a single hospital management committee to get the priorities correct as it is nationally. It is equally hard to find the correct yardstick by which to judge the priorities. Those of us who come from the harsher world of industry sometimes miss the discipline that the need to make a profit imposes when one is deciding which comes first.
  This is something of a dilemma which faces many hospitals, not only with capital expenditure but also with revenue expenditure. I stress this, because it must be realised that 75 per cent. of the average revenue expenditure in a hospital goes on salaries and wages. There is very little scope for economy in the rest. There is very little scope for reduction in that sum. The sums are decided in the main by Whitley Councils outside and the hospital has no choice.
  It therefore becomes essential for hospitals to have more guidance than they get at present on the efficient use of manpower. People think of hospitals only in terms of doctors and nurses. They forget that in a fully established teaching hospital—and, indeed, in any fully established hospital—the ratio of staff all told to patients is anything up to 3 to 1. The ratio of nurses to patients is 1 to 1, the rest being ancillary workers. This is a very large number indeed and a very high ratio. I am speaking of acute general hospitals, not of those where the care is more custodial than medical or nursing.
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  We have not done nearly enough research into some of the major facts, such as the fact that the average length of stay in a British hospital is about twice that in an American or a Scandinavian hospital. I mention Scandinavian hospitals, because probably anyone commenting on this would say that the charges are so high in American hospitals that the patients want to get out as quickly as possible. This does not apply nearly so much in the case of Scandinavian hospitals. In the sphere of the efficient use of manpower there is enormous scope still for a reduction. I cannot but feel that if some of the money which we might have spent had been spent on more work studies it would have brought us very great dividends.
  I move to another question related to the salaries of nursing staff, namely, the question of the Whitley Councils. In that same article, the Minister said this:
  "Possible subjects for investigation would be…the Whitley Council system of pay negotiation."
  This is such an important matter to hospitals that I hope that the Under-Secretary will give us some information as to how far the Minister of Health has got on that.
  Most hospitals could be more efficiently run if they had more of the ancillary staff that they need. I am not talking of nurses and doctors. One of the shortages everywhere is in domestic staff, which means that in many cases the overworked nursing staff have to do jobs which could be better done by unskilled domestic staff. Throughout the hospital service we find the complaint that the Whitley Council machinery operates in general very slowly and the staffs are always miles behind rates of pay and conditions in the outside world. This is quite wrong and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to do something about it.
  Most of us know, for example, that there has been an acute shortage of pharmacists in the hospital service. This has meant very often that out-patient dispensing has been abandoned and the dispensing of drugs on EC10s has been carried out at greatly enhanced cost by outside dispensing chemists. This is only due to the fact that the Whitley machinery worked so slowly that by the time we got round to giving the necessary awards it was almost too late to save the

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  destruction of the dispensing service inside hospitals. Much the same applies to other kinds of ancillary work.
  I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will consider a suggestion which I made in the debate last year when we were faced with the crisis over the doctors. I said, on very much the same point, that I thought it was high time that we looked at the possibilities of having the same kind of review body for the pay of these staffs as the doctors have for their salaries. I cannot but believe that a body like that would act more quickly and at the same time would be more effective in keeping rates of pay and conditions attuned to the outside world. I emphasise again that the efficiency of the hostel depends, of course, upon the doctors and nurses but it depends on the other workers as well.
  After my brief experience inside the Ministry and my now rather longer experience outside dealing with hospitals, I am still convinced that we could get much better value for money provided that the money is made available for modest expenditure on work study and the other matters which I have mentioned. I would prefer to see money spent on these things to make the hospital service as efficient as it ought to be than have it spent on some other things that have been mentioned.
  5.13 p.m.
  Mr. Laurence Pavitt: I was interested to notice that the right hon. Member for Reigate (Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan) started by talking about the common ground on this subject. This has been typical of the last few years, but when the Act was being passed hon. and right hon. Members opposite not only voted against the Second Reading but had 469 Amendments down. Although we have achieved common ground now, it has taken them a long time to get to this stage.
  I should have liked to follow the right hon. Gentleman's remarks about hospitals because I, too, serve on a hospital management committee and on a regional hospital board, but at the moment I would prefer to continue the argument where it was taken up by the right hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood). The basis of his comments or the core of the
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  debate is the question whether the Government kept their priorities right or wrong in making the decision to abolish prescription charges.
  I come out firmly and distinctly on the side that they were right. I bear in mind all the things that the right hon. Member for Reigate has said. I have been demanding from the previous Government and pressing on the present Government steps to meet the many needs of the hospitals, including auxiliary and ancillary workers, the greater needs of the local health authorities, decent pay for porters and engineers to keep the hospitals running, and the whole question of the nursing service, and I have been bearing in mind all the urgent things that the National Health Service needs and which a Labour Government eventually will have to give. But I still say that in the circumstances the decision taken by my right hon. Friend represented the right priority.
  I say this because the sum of money, which unfortunately has been larger than was estimated, affects the people who need it most and affects the most people. My right hon. Friend made the point that the prescription charge was a tax on the sick. It was not only a tax on the sick but it was a tax which meant that the more sick one was the more one had to pay. In terms of equity this was the most unfair tax put on any community in any civilised country.
  On average we see our general practioner 5·5 times a year, but if a person is over 65 or is under five years of age the figure is 11. In other words, the prescription charge meant that mothers of young families and our elderly citizens paid twice as much as people in the middle-age range. Those of us like you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I who are comparatively young and healthy, at least we were before we came to this House, probably spent only 2s. a year, but a person who was chronically sick and had the misfortune to have cancer of the bowel and faced a most unpleasant and difficult situation, and had to live for the rest of his life with part of the bowel taken away, had to have medicine costing 12s. every fortnight whether he could afford it or not. Geographical situation was also a factor leading to unfairness. If one happened to live in South Wales

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  one paid three times as much as someone who lived in Surrey, because the morbidity rate in South Wales is that much greater.
  Apart from the inequity, the fact that we were prepared to tax the sick was a complete negation of the whole principle and understanding on which our late colleague Nye Bevan built the Health Service. The basis of the service is that those who are well are prepared to look after those who are sick, and those of us who are fortunate enough not to need medicine are prepared to pay for those unfortunate enough to need it. To have to take physic is not a privilege, it is a disability.
  On 1st February, 1961, the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) suddenly swung the charges up. The whole House was in uproar during the following three months, and I remember that at that time the British Medical Association reaffirmed most strongly its attitude to prescription charges. It deplored in particular the doubling of the charges and declared that this imposed increased hardship on those least able to bear it and an increased imposition on doctors who were doing their own dispensing.
  There is not only the question of equity. I should like to quote a case very near and very poignant to me. I believe that the person concerned died because of the effect of the prescription charge on his case. Hon. Members will know among their own families and their own circle many people who have had a coronary thrombosis. It is one of the scourges of the 1960s. It is a common complaint which people know all about. One has only to mention coronary thrombosis to call to the mind of one's listeners someone whom they know who has had it or has had to go through the problems associated with it. The usual treatment for coronary thrombosis and the heart condition which remains has been to give trinitrin.
  In the case of the man I have in mind, his usual prescription was for 100 tablets, which lasted him for a week or a fortnight. As a result of the doubling of the prescription charges, that patient was paying 2s. for a commodity which cost 1s. 4½d. if purchased at the chemist. He had had coronary thrombosis many years back and had got his disability so
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  well organised, being able to use the tablets correctly when necessary, that he was able to cope with his condition admirably. Then, on one occasion two years ago, when he was unable to get to his doctor, he discovered on going to his chemist that the chemist would supply the tablets to him for 1s. 6d. In this way, he could get his prescribed tablets quite easily without waiting an hour in the doctor's surgery and paying 2s. for them.
  In these circumstances, he did what many of us would do. He decided that, in future, he would not waste his doctor's time but would go straight to the chemist for his tablets. Unfortunately, as a result of failing to see his doctor, he failed to have regular check-ups, and the consequence was that, having suddenly to see his doctor in different circumstances later on, he was sent at once into hospital for three weeks. Unfortunately, however, he collapsed and died in the street only a fortnight ago.
  I contend that this is one case of many people who may have had a coronary thrombosis but who have not been seeing their doctor regularly because of the 2s. prescription charge. Now, happily, such people will go to see their doctor and receive the right monitoring and the appropriate treatment.
  As my right hon. Friend said, there has been considerable pressure on doctors' time. But no patient has yet issued a prescription. If too many prescriptions are being made out, it is surely up to the doctors to make sure that they do not issue prescriptions unnecessarily. By and large, doctors do not issue prescriptions unnecessarily. In the main, they have attempted to work within the framework of the National Health Service to the best of their ability. But the situation is not helped when successive Conservative Ministers have had no understanding whatever of the basic problems of general practice and its importance in the National Health Service.
  The right hon. Member for Bridlington asked whether we would criticise what was done in the 13 years of Conservative Government. One of my criticisms is that their last two Ministers of Health were chosen not because of their interest in and knowledge of health matters but because they had both at one time been Financial Secretaries to the Treasury.

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  They were chosen because of their ability to contain within certain limits the amount of expenditure which the Health Service called for.
  It is my conviction—the speech of the right hon. Member for Reigate confirmed this—that the whole House realises that, at last, we have in the present Minister someone who is not only intellectually and emotionally keen on the Health Service but has devoted his life to it. I am confident that he has chosen and will choose the right priorities. He is the last person to make the wrong choice in a service of which he, perhaps, has more knowledge than any other Member of the House.
  For 13 years, we suffered a good deal from sniping at the Health Service by people who, basically, did not like it. Now we face a new danger from sources of sincere good will in the attempt to introduce a cash basis within the Health Service at some point which, whichever way one cares to look at it, will lead to a situation in which, when there is a shortage of doctors and a shortage of time, those with the money will be able to pay for treatment and those without will have to go without. The danger of introducing any kind of cash barrier at any stage of the Health Service is precisely that. We should create first-class and second-class sections of the Service. In general practice, patients who were able to pay would go in at the front door and receive quick service, while those who were unable to pay would go in at the back door and would have to wait in their usual turn.
  Moreover, if we are to move on from the curative service to a preventive service, the same principle, which has been maintained by the present Minister, must be adhered to. The only criterion for treatment is the state of health of the patient. We do not accept the idea that health is a commodity which can be bought and sold in the market-place. We do not accept the idea that people who need glasses, hearing aids or teeth are, in some way, benefiting at the expense of others. Those of us who have the good fortune to have good teeth, good eyes and good ears should thank the Lord that we are able to live without needing these aids, and we should rejoice to play our part in putting something into
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  the community for the benefit of those who happen to be less fortunate.
  I hope that we shall be able to move away from these sterile discussions in February of each year. February 1961 saw the imposition of the double prescription charge. On 1st February last year, precisely the same day four years later, my right hon. Friend, fortunately, removed it altogether. This year, however, we are coming back, like a dog returning to its vomit, to discuss the whole thing again. It is time we moved away from this kind of argument. As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Reigate so rightly said, there is a great deal to be done in the National Health Service. So much needs to be done and there is so much that we can do.
  If the right hon. Member for Bridlington is still worried about how and when we can pay for it, this is my reply. Any civilised community must put as one of its topmost priorities the finding of money for its own health. It is not a payment for something additional in society. Health is fundamental to the well-being of the individual and also of the community. For the economy, the social life and the richness of a civilised society, good health is a basic need, and the Government have a responsibility in meeting it.
  The present Minister and his colleagues have this priority absolutely right, and, as the economy grows stronger, I shall hope to see the Labour Government move on to some of the other things we have promised to do and which will be part of the five-year programme.
  5.26 p.m.
  Mr. John Wells: British institutions have, in the past, tended to grow gradually. I believe it to be unfortunate that the National Health Service had a sudden birth and has since not evolved at all. The only point of evolution has been the prescription charge, one of the two main items we are debating today, and it has been a political bone of contention, having been invented by the party opposite and now abolished by it. The money the Labour Government have saved the patient might well have been spent in so many different ways to the greater advantage of the sick and the community as a whole.
  I deplore the political to-ing and fro-ing over such items as the prescription

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  charge when right hon. and hon. Members opposite might much better have given their attention and their cash—the taxpayer's cash, rather—for the purpose of implementing on a broad basis some of the recommendations of the Porritt Committee; in particular, a closer liaison between the three branches of the National Health Service. This is desperately needed at present. Again, the cash saving to the patient is out of all proportion to what could have been achieved if the prescription charge had been left as it was and the money diverted into the cytology service which both the Minister and other hon. Members have mentioned.
  The remuneration of general practitioners could have been attended to. This also is row desperately needed. We are in grave danger of a total breakdown in the supply of general practitioners not only for salary reasons but for other reasons. There is the impending risk of Indian legislation which may cause newly qualified Indian doctors to complete their training at home and obtain their higher qualifications at home. If this were to happen it would reduce the supply of young medical men further. The Minister should have given his attention to these problems and should have used the cash in these directions rather than for the doctrinaire abolition of the service charge.
  It is also essential that the Health Service should be streamlined. We have the problem of ambulance boundaries, which smacks of the demarcation disputes in the ship-building industry. The ambulance stretcher carrier can take a person to the hospital door but no further.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Roderic Bowen): Order. The hon. Member is going wide of the Estimates under consideration.
  Mr. Wells: I am grateful for your guidance, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I was seeking to indicate some of the ways in which this money might so much more wisely have been spent.
  It is clear that technicians in the hospitals are scarce entirely because of their poor pay compared with their counterparts outside the hospitals. The professions which back up the general practitioners are in equally short supply.
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  The consultants are thoroughly dissatisfied with their remuneration.
  I will turn to the south-east of England and deal with the hospitals there, as covered in the first part of the Estimates. Many members of the administrative staff of hospitals and of the administration which backs the hospitals are spending long hours in form filling. I believe that there is a document S.H.3 which it takes hours and even weeks to prepare. The people who have to prepare it have not adequate office equipment. Could not the figures be sent to the Ministry for the Ministry to service these figures? It is difficult for people in the administrative services to deal with these figures when they lack office equipment.
  There are many demands on the hospital service to supply statistics of all sorts, not only to the Ministry but also to such praiseworthy bodies as the Nuffield Trust. This is the era of the statistics hunter. Yet when I have asked the Minister for statistics relating to these problems in Parliamentary Questions over the last three or four weeks, time and again I have been told that the figures are not available. But if he is going in for statistics hunting, why are they not available? The people locally have to provide them. Why cannot the Minister reproduce them, particularly when an hon. Member seeks information about what goes on in his own area?
  The Minister told me recently that he does not know the population served by my local hospital. I am informed by the people there that they know quite well. It is a population between 120,000 and 140,000, and to cope with that population there are about 146 staffed beds at present. Would not the Minister have been better advised to have spent the money which went for the abolition of Health Service charges on producing a few more beds in my local hospital? I do not want to be bogged down in constituency matters, because that might be boring to the House and I might bring upon my head the wrath of the Chair, but I quote those figures to show that information is available to hon. Members who are diligent. Why cannot the Minister provide these figures for us when, under the Estimates, we are providing considerable sums of money for the hospital service?

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  With the growth of population in the South-East and the fact that hospitals were built sporadically there before the war, it is not surprising that there is an uneven hospital distribution. Yesterday the Chancellor announced that he was to continue a close scrutiny of every detail of expenditure, which virtually I understand to mean a clamp down on hospital expenditure except in the development areas.
  Mr. K. Robinson: The hon. Member must get this right. I repeated in my speech today that hospital building is wholly exempted from any of the special capital development controls introduced by the Chancellor last July, to the continuation of which he referred yesterday.
  Mr. Wells: May I get this clear? This includes minor works in hospitals? This is extremely good news, and I am grateful to the Minister for outlining it.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is beginning to wander once again.
  Mr. Wells: In the South-Eastern Region we are among the highest taxed areas of the country. We have very poor hospital facilities. As the Minister said today, there has been a shift of the burden from the patient to the general taxpayer. The people in my area are the general taxpayers, and we are extremely poorly served with bricks, mortar and equipment. I make no complaint about the staff and the personnel, who do a magnificent job in very difficult circumstances, but I emphasise that within the framework of this Estimate we are the taxpayers and we are not getting value for money. I hope that the Minister will bear the problem of the South-East particularly in mind and not put all his money in the development areas.
  5.38 p.m.
  Mr. Will Griffiths: Before I come to points on which the Opposition will be less inclined to agree with me, let me say that I very much agree with some of the comments made by the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. John Wells) and the right hon. Member for Reigate (Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan).
  They are quite right to point to the shortcomings in the National Health Ser-
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  vice, and, in particular, the right hon. Gentleman was right to criticise the processes of the Whitley Council machinery. He based his remarks on the wage awards referred to in the Supplementary Estimates. I have given the example of pharmacists, who are very scarce in the hospital service and who are very important people. They are able to find much better paid work with multiple chemists outside the hospital service. To take two categories with fewer members than pharmacists, this is also true of ophthalmic opticians and dispensing opticians, both of whom are scarce in the hospital service. One can look at the professional journals every week and see advertisements from all over the country offering jobs for these people which are not taken up because the pay and often the conditions are more attractive outside the hospital service.
  I am glad to see this measure of agreement across the Floor, but this situation cannot be blamed on my right hon. Friend and the Government. I have no doubt that these matters will receive my right hon. Friend's attention in his list of priorities. I do not believe that in any way he would seek to disclaim the sentiments quoted in the article which he wrote in 1964. I look forward to the day when my right hon. Friend and the Government will be able to honour the pledge given by the Labour Party to abolish the remainder of the charges.
  No one should be surprised that the Government were unable to abolish all the charges immediately. In view of the state of the books when they took over, it was perfectly defensible that abolition of all charges should be deferred. However, the Government have announced their intention to do so at an early date. They have not repudiated the pledge.
  The Guillebaud Committee was set up by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod) when he was Minister of Health. It reported in favour of the abolition of charges but accorded a degree of priority. My recollection is that the dental charges were No. 2 on the Committee's list. Certainly they were accorded high priority. The Guillebaud Committee was an independent body set up by a Conservative Minister of Health.
  The fact that the Government are not yet able to announce the date when the

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  charges are finally abolished is not to be construed as a departure from the desire to return at the earliest possible moment to the principle of a National Health Service in which no financial barriers remain between the patients and the services they need.
  Whenever we discuss this kind of thing—and it came out clearly in the speech of the right hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood)—there is a deep ideological difference between the approaches of the two sides of the House—differences of principle or prejudice, according to where one sits. All the time I have been in the House, right hon. and hon. Members opposite have regarded the National Health Service as a service which should operate at a two-tier level. They are not without compassion for those who are worse off, but always they seek for special classes that ought to have things for nothing.
  This is a characteristic attitude arising from the philosophical background of the Conservative Party. Right hon. and hon. Members opposite believe that there is a section of the community who ought to have charity. They cannot see our view—that we regard the National Health Service as being redistributive of wealth. We regard it precisely the same as we regard payments of the family allowances. Of course, anyone with a high income thinks, when looking at his tax assessment, that he could well do without the family allowance, but it is, like the free National Health Service, a social service designed to make the strong contribute to the defence of the weak.
  This is the fundamental difference between the two sides of the Committee. The right hon. Member for Enfield, West once put it very clearly in the House. He said that he supported charges on the National Health Service not only for financial reasons in that the taxpayer had to meet the burden but for social and ethical reasons. He thus put the difference between the two sides very well.
  Right hon. Gentlemen opposite have had considerable experience as Ministers. They seek to argue now that the Government ought to devote themselves not to the general abolition of charges but to seeking ways and means of exempting
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  certain classes. Surely they must have realised the remaining deep-rooted opposition that men and women have, particularly the elderly, to anything which smacks of charity. Successive Ministers have urged hon. Members to do their best to make it clear in the community that National Assistance is not a charity, and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance is engaged upon a new campaign to urge people who think they are entitled to National Assistance to apply for it.
  We all know that there is considerable resistance to making application, and it is my case that while the prescription charges were in operation, many people did not avail themselves of medical services because they could not afford to pay the charges and would simply not go to the National Assistance Board. I am thinking not only of those receiving only the pension but of the very large number of people who, being in receipt of a small amount of superannuation, are just beyond the reach of National Assistance supplementary benefits. These are the people who felt the hardship of charges, which under the last Government were raised to 2s. per item on the prescription.
  Prescription charges became considerable sums to the chronically ill who need regular drugs and so on. I am sure that these people were hurt by the charges, and I am glad that the Government abolished them. The abolition of prescription charges was one of the best things done by the Government, and I am only sorry that they did not take all the opportunities that were perhaps available to them of explaining to the country just what they were doing. They would thereby have got the credit that they richly deserved for this decision.
  There have been allegations of over-prescribing. Some members of the medical profession—I do not come across them in my constituency—say that they are inundated with people who are not really sick and who make frivolous demands for their time and service. Such doctors cannot have it both ways. They are the people who very often in days gone by were always warning the general public against self medication, saying that it was dangerous and that people should consult their doctors.

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  In a service where professional people are custodians of the public purse, it is not in the last analysis, the supplicant patient who is the danger—it is the professional man who does not act up to the highest ethics of the profession. No patient can obtain a prescription unless the doctor thinks that he or she is in need of it. No dental or pharmaceutical service can be obtained unless the professional people operating it say that a patient can have it. Why, if there be abuse, does not the House of Commons pin the blame on those really responsible?
  Dr. David Kerr: My hon. Friend is being persuasive and I think he knows how much in accord with his views I am. But perhaps he will allow me to make the observation that, although a doctor may know what a patient requires, it is sometimes very difficult to resist a patient's knowledge—which is often wrong—of what he requires in the context of general practice.
  Mr. Griffiths: I understand the difficulties of the doctors. If and when we reach that state of social development when the doctors are employed in health centres in full-time salaried service, without the subtle pressures which arise from the system of payment by capitation, there might be more general practitioners with a firmer backbone. Whatever the pressures on the general practitioners, with whom I sympathise, it still remains true that the general practitioner, the dentist and the ophthalmologist are the men and women who decide what the patient can have. If there is over-prescribing, it is because professional people succumb to the demands of the public. Happily, there is only a small minority which does.
  The intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) has reminded me of a quotation from The Lancet, dated 4th December, 1965, commenting on an aspect of this problem. It says:
  "On the reasonable text of a widespread discontent among general practitioners, the British Medical Association unreasonably preached resignation, alternative services, and non co-operation. Doctors who have been listening to this kind of advice find it all too easy to give a patient everything he may need; and some ill-disposed general practitioners may take pleasure in embarrassing the Minister of Health."
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  I do not believe that there are many such doctors, but we have to do everything possible to protect them from these pressures. I think that we shall gradually move towards that.
  I hope that the abolition of the prescription charges will be followed soon by the abolition of the other charges on the National Health Service. To make a quick comment on what my right hon. Friend said about the extra funds which will be made available to the Service if the National Plan turns out as the Government expect; my hon. Friend mentioned the sum of £260 million a year, but I hope that we shall be able to persuade the Government to devote a higher proportion to the Service.
  I welcome the end of the charges and I hope that as the Opposition have had another go at it today they will cease this business of not believing in a Service free from the stigma of charity. Having had the debate, I hope that they will appreciate that the global sum being spent on the Service, including the amount arising from the abolition of prescription charges, is greater than anything which they were able to achieve.
  The right hon. Member for Bridlington spoke about priorities and asked why the Government did not provide hearing aids for those people for whom the present hearing aid was unsuitable. I interrupted him to point out that right hon. Gentlemen opposite took 2s. out of the patient's pocket, the florin for the presscription charges, and did not supply hearing aids. The Government are not spending as much on the Service as I would like, but at least they are spending more in real terms than their critics did and I believe that they are also embarking on an economic policy which leads me to hope that the increase will be considerably more in the not too distant future.
  5.55 p.m.
  Mr. Bernard Braine: I must confess at the outset that I have never been enamoured of prescription charges. I do not think that anybody who has held responsibility at the Ministry of Health could have been enamoured of them. The right hon. Gentleman made great play with his assertion that the charges were a tax on ill health. That, of course, was not

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  the view of the previous Labour Government who in 1951, having imposed a ceiling of £400 million on Exchequer expenditure on the National Health Service, went on to impose charges on dentures and spectacles and made provision—
  Mr. Pavitt Mr. Pavitt rose—
  Mr. Braine: If I do not give way, it is because there is very little time left—and made provision for a charge on prescriptions.
  Mr. K. Robinson: But they did not implement it.
  Mr. Braine: No, they did not have time to implement it. If it is a matter of implementing election pledges now, we shall await with interest the announcement that all pledges of the party opposite in regard to charges are to be honoured.
  Of course, as long as a proportion of our population needs to have its income supplemented by National Assistance, unrelieved charges would by simple definition mean hardship. The House will recall that we met the point by exempting all those who drew supplementary assistance and also pensioners who had their basic pension and no other resources.
  I could have understood the Government when they came into office, having made these pledges, examining the possibility of abolishing prescription charges as soon as possible, or exempting certain classes from payment. What I cannot understand and what it is difficult for my hon. Friends to understand is why they did so before they had formed any clear idea of what the effect would be, and before there had been any study of the priorities.
  The last year has been spent by the Government in examining every conceivable form of public expenditure, scrutinising it carefully, in order, quite rightly, to arrive at proper priorities. They did not do so in this case. I appreciate the force of the argument that pledges have been made. The right hon. Gentleman, whose humanity and knowledge of health matters we all recognise, is the sort of person who would want to honour that pledge, but I hazard a guess
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  that in his heart of hearts he now regrets that he took that precipitate action.
  Mr. K. Robinson Mr. K. Robinson indicated dissent.
  Mr. Braine: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but there are two reasons why he should regret it. First, on 1st April, 1965, he told the House that he estimated that the additional annual cost to the Health Service would be about £25 million in England and Wales, and he added that there would be an offsetting saving of £2,500,000 in respect of refunds to the National Assistance Board. He now knows that he was wrong. I was sorry to interrupt his speech, but I asked him to give the actual increase in the number of prescriptions and found it exceedingly odd that he did not have the figure under his hand.
  Mr. K. Robinson: It was not that I did not have the figure. I said that I did not want to detain the House to find the precise figure. In fact, it is about 40 million prescriptions per year. I said that it was considerably less than one per head of the population per year.
  Mr. Braine: Then the figure is even higher than I have calculated. I understand that in the first seven months after abolition of the charge 23 million more prescriptions were dispensed than in the corresponding period of 1964. If the same rate of increase had continued for 10 months, and my arithmetic is correct, then the increase would have been 30 million more prescriptions. The figure now given by the right hon. Gentleman shows that the rate at which prescriptions are now being issued is accelerating very rapidly. I expressed surprise that the right hon. Gentleman did not have the figure to his hand, because on page 20 of the Supplementary Estimates we are told that the increase in the Estimate is mainly because of the increased number of prescriptions.
  Dr. David Kerr: If the hon. Gentleman consults the record of the pattern of the number of prescriptions which followed the various charges imposed by the previous Administration, he will find that they never followed the upsweep or down-sweep which he is describing. The pattern always was that there was a reduction in the number following the imposition of the charge, followed by the return to where it had been before.
  Mr. Braine: There has been an unprecedented increase in the number of prescriptions this time, and I am going to go into this in some detail. It seems likely that in a full year the total cost of abolition will work out at about double the right hon. Gentleman's estimate, if we take into account not only the increased demand but the loss of revenue. It is astonishing that the right hon. Gentleman was so misled, for all experience shows that it is quite impossible to be precise about the cost of a completely free Health Service.
  I am one of those who believe that the National Health Service has made a great contribution to our national life over the years and I want to see it made more effective. Unfortunately, those who founded the Service assumed that the provision of comprehensive care would, over the years, result in a reduction in the total volume of sickness. They were quite wrong. Since 1951 the cost of medical care has nearly trebled.
  For this there are two good reasons. The first, as mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, is the change in the population structure and the fact that there are now more people, more babies are being born, and people are living longer. The second, and most highly significant in this context, is that the patterns of illness and treatment have changed almost beyond recognition. One of the most potent factors, of course, has been the introduction of the new drugs, the sulphonamides, then penicillin and later the broad spectrum antibiotics which have so dramatically reduced mortality among the young and shortened periods of illness. Then again, the average stay in hospital today has been cut by two weeks since the inception of the National Health Service. Indeed, to get these matters into perspective it is fair to say that the cost of one day in hospital is greater than the average cost of four weeks' supplies of medicine. With the aid of drugs, too, we have made a dramatic break-through in the treatment of mental illness.
  Yet, because people are living longer it is extremely doubtful whether the total volume of sickness in the community has been reduced, if only because there is bound to be more chronic illness and physical incapacity. I mention these matters because with this sort of background it should have been evident to
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  the right hon. Gentleman that the drug bill would go up, and by more than he estimated when he came before the House to announce the abolition of these charges.
  It is very interesting to note that since 1951 the proportion of National Health Service expenditure taken by the pharmaceutical services up to the abolition of charges has remained pretty consistent at about 10 per cent. to 11 per cent. With the awareness that people now have that modern drugs are effective, and with the knowledge, too, that human beings will not pay for things which they can get for nothing, it was bound to be the case that the drug bill would go up even more steeply when the charges were removed. It has gone up by far more than the right hon. Gentleman expected and told the House, and it will go up still further.
  The second reason why I think that the right hon. Gentleman should regret his precipitate decision to abolish the charges is that it must now be very clear to him that it has made matters far worse for the already overburdened general practitioner. On 1st February, 1965, the right hon. Gentleman said, when asked about the effect on the G.P.s:
  "I do not consider that this will cause a considerably added burden on doctors. I have said that their fears, in my view, are very much exaggerated."
  He went on to say of prescriptions:
  "…I do not believe that there will be any substantial increase…".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st February, 1966; Vol. 705, c. 718 and 719.]
  What happened? Every general practitioner to whom I have spoken considers that the decision added considerably to his burden. People are now justifying to their doctors need for tranquillisers, headache and stomach pills and the like. Some doctors put the demand for additional prescriptions up by 15 per cent. to 20 per cent.
  There was an interesting article in the Daily Mail on 22nd October last which brought out the fact that the Ministry of Health does not disclose the detailed analysis of prescriptions which it receives monthly from the National Health Service Joint Pricing Committee. Under its present statistical system today's situation will not be published until 1967. The Daily Mail says:
  "…market research surveys tend to confirm that more people are going to their doctors

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  with trivial ailments now that the charge has been abolished and that doctors are being less discriminating with prescriptions.
  Inter-continental medical statistics, a market research firm widely used by the pharmaceutical industry, report an increase in prescriptions for dressings—bandages, cotton wool, plasters—which often cost less than 2s. They also report a 14 per cent. increase in the number of people calling on doctors with vague symptoms (headache, pain in the stomach) rather than a specific complaint".
  Later the report says:
  "The proportion of prescriptions for tonics, antacids, and other simple medicines has also increased, according to a survey carried out by sales representatives of Aspro-Nicholas."
  One knows this to be the case and one should have known in advance that this is what would happen. That is precisely why the doctors changed their minds about the removal of prescription charges. It was the sudden realisation of what this would mean to their already considerable work load. Certainly drugs are costing more. I was most interested in the figures given by the right hon. Gentleman, but he cannot get away from the fact that vastly more prescriptions are being dispensed—
  Dr. David Kerr: The only thing which the hon. Gentleman has left unexplained is why the doctors came to this realisation six months before the prescription charges were taken off, and not years before. What happened six months before to make them realise this?
  Mr. Braine: The hon. Gentleman is a member of the noble profession and he can aswer his own questions. I would be steering very wide of the mark if I started attacking, criticising or even defending the medical profession in this context. All I would say is that I do not think that even the harshest critics of the Government would argue that 15 months of Socialism have made the nation so sick that it needs this vast quantity of additional medicine.
  I am well aware that this debate is confined but it is proper for one to say that it raises, in the most acute form, the whole question of priorities in the National Health Service. I have never disputed the right hon. Gentleman's sincerity or his knowledge and dedication to the Health Service. But in his sincere desire to abolish charges because of the promises that his party made, can he
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  lay his hand on his heart and tell this House that this ranks as one of the first priorities? He knows that the Health Service is short of money, doctors and staff. He is now facing the greatest crisis ever in general practice.
  Let us take a very brief look at the general picture. Over 90 per cent. of all known illness is treated by the family doctor. There are not enough of them to practise good medicine and every family doctor knows that this is so. I know what the Minister is trying to do in this connection, but he will be the first to acknowledge that the family doctor is overworked and underpaid. He must be greatly disturbed that in relation to the population the number of family doctors is now beginning to fall.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is now getting well away from the particular Civil Estimate which we are now considering.
  Mr. Braine: That is quite true, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I will bear your warning in mind.
  If one had the opportunity of deciding whether to spend money on removing prescription charges or on something else, I have not the slightest doubt what the answer should be, given the present state of the Health Service. For example, preventive medicine is a very poor second to curative medicine. A great deal of illness which could be dealt with by drugs if patients were treated by a doctor is not being treated at all. One in five diabetics die of the disease without ever having gone to a doctor. Many women are unaware that they have cervical cancer until it is too late. Anaemia in vast numbers of women is not being treated at all, and the majority of sufferers from psychotic depression never get near a doctor who might be able to help them.
  I hasten to add that nobody can be blamed for this. I am not trying to throw brickbats at the Minister. The frontiers of medicine, as the right hon. Gentleman knows better than most in the House, are always being pushed back. Because of this, the priorities are always changing, and this is a powerful reason in itself why prescription charges should not have been removed so precipitately.

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  My right hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan) exposed the weakness of the Minister's position. The Government have their priorities wrong in this matter. As the drug bill mounts—and I predict that it will mount ever more steeply—the mistake which the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues made will loom ever larger.
  6.12 p.m.
  Mr. R. T. Paget: If I were faced with a choice of whether we should have the best Health Service or the most free Health Service, my choice would go to the best Health Service. Of course, we should like to have both, but if it be a question of choosing between free drugs or the best drugs, it is important that we should have the best drugs. We have drugs which are both free and the best.
  But when it comes to apparatus it is not so. We are being denied, on financial grounds, in a direction in which I am interested, what is recognised to be the best apparatus. I am particularly concerned with what is referred to generally as the invalid tricycle, which can be supplied under Section 3(1,b) of the National Health Service Act—that is,
  "medical, nursing and other services required at or for the purposes of hospitals".
  That was a bold interpretation of that Section, but when Nye Bevan saw a need he was bold in seeing that it was satisfied. Certainly invalid tricycles have done an astonishing amount of good in terms of human self-respect and human happiness.
  The paralytic was almost a vegetable—confined to his house, a burden on his family, incapable of earning, incapable of independence. The tricycle gave him the capacity to earn. It gave him freedom. Almost in a word, it enabled him to live. But one thing from which it did not save him was loneliness. By being condemned to a vehicle which would take only one person, he was condemned to loneliness and the fear of loneliness.
  I have had a great many very pathetic letters on this matter. One said, "I can get to work on my tricycle". Another said, "There is no other way in which I can be helped. I can never go out with my wife. I am condemned to loneliness." A person suffering from disseminated sclerosis wrote, "You must realise the
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  fear of being alone, never knowing the next muscle which is going to go and condemned to not having somebody with you".
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. and learned Gentleman has gone extremely wide of the Supplementary Estimate which we are considering, which concerns increased hospital pay awards.
  Mr. Paget: I was dealing with Supplementary Estimate 14—
  "…provision of hospital services under the National Health Service"—
  and this is a hospital service.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: If the hon. and learned Gentleman looks at the expenditure involved, he will see that it relates solely to increased rates of pay and the dates of the awards to which the increases relate.
  Mr. Paget: I would much rather see a charge made in this respect than economies effected which mean that the best apparatus is not being used. It is well recognised that in many cases—not every case; in a number of cases the tricycle is ideal—a two-seater car of various sorts is the right apparatus, and—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. and learned Gentleman is returning to his original position, which was out of order.
  Mr. Paget: I have made my point. I have done my best to urge my right hon. Friend the Minister to provide this apparatus. To my astonishment, he has refused the authority which would enable it to be provided on what seems to me to be the curiously despicable ground that if he had the power this House—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman must not strain my indulgence any further.
  6.19 p.m.
  Mr. Paul Dean: The hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), with his great knowledge of the ways of the House, has succeeded in making his point. For fear of incurring your displeasure, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I had better not comment on his remarks. I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will forgive me if I do not do so.
  The theme which has run through the speeches of hon. Members opposite, and

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  indeed through the speech of the Minister, is that the abolition of prescription charges was a correct allocation of priorities. The Minister quite rightly pointed to the fact that the National Health Service has not been starved of resources as a result. But surely the point—and it is the main point that I wish to make—is that if we are to meet the ever-growing demands which new medical methods are creating, we must get in resources to a greater extent than we have been able to do in the past. That, surely, is the central dilemma.
  These two Supplementary Estimates illustrate the point extremely well. The drug bill will continue to grow as we get more effective and more expensive drugs. Certainly it will lead to great long-term benefits in the relief of suffering and in improving the health of the country. But more resources will be required. Equally, in the case of the pay of hospital staff, they are perfectly naturally and rightly going to want increased pay along with other sections of the community, and the real problem is that under present arrangements the overwhelming proportion of these resources comes out of taxation.
  Every Government has met the dilemma that the resources are insufficient to meet the demand, and in my view the present Administration have increased the dilemma by abolishing prescription charges and, therefore, the money which came in in that way. After all, the right hon. Gentleman's own party met the dilemma in a very striking form when they had to put a ceiling of £400 million on Exchequer resources to the National Health Service in 1951 and introduce the charges.
  The central dilemma came out very clearly in the National Plan. Speaking of prescriptions, the National Plan pointed out that it was not possible to plan and to foresee expenditure on this branch of the National Health Service, and it went on in page 184:
  "…expenditure on the pharmaceutical services depends on prescribing by general practitioners, which is influenced by changes in the range of drugs available and in other ways."
  Partly as a result of that, we are now considering an extra £11 million on that account. Equally, total expenditure on pay depends upon the rates of pay, which are subject to change. Here again, we
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  are dealing with an extra £29 million for the pay of hospital staff on that account.
  The National Plan brings out the dilemma in this way on page 185:
  "Although the share of the national resources that can be devoted to health and welfare is the main limit on the development of these services, the number of qualified staff available also inhibits the expansion of some branches of the health services."
  We all know that we shall not get the qualified staff that we require unless their pay reflects the movement in pay in other sections of the community.
  In these two Supplementary Estimates, we are dealing with two factors which must, to some extent, be unpredictable in their costs and therefore raise the central dilemma of inadequate resources. The drug bill inevitably depends on the amount of sickness, the number of prescriptions, the cost of prescriptions and the composition of prescriptions, and therefore also on new drugs, more expensive drugs and more effective drugs coming along. Equally, hospital pay depends upon both the number of staff and the scales of pay.
  On those two counts alone, the original Estimates have been underestimated in England and Wales to the extent of something like £40 million. If the Government are to succeed in keeping the increase in public expenditure to 4¼ per cent. a year, Supplementary Estimates of that order can easily throw the calculations out very badly. So I hope that the hon. Lady who is to reply to the debate will be able to tell us what the Government are doing to try to make estimates in these matters more predictable and, much more important, what the Government are doing to try to ensure better value for the money which is spent in these two connections. We heard nothing on those points from the right hon. Gentleman in his opening speech, and I hope that the hon. Lady will be able to say something about them.
  I should like to illustrate the dilemma to which I have drawn attention in particular by reference to the Estimate dealing with hospital pay, which is the larger of the two. The total net revenue expenditure on the hospital service in 1964–65, which is the last year for which firm figures are available, was £570 million; in other words, something like half the total expenditure on health and welfare

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  services. But, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan) pointed out, of that figure of £570 million, rather more than 70 per cent. falls into the category of pay for the staff.
  The position in the mental health field is even more striking, as I observe from a report which has come out today entitled "Progress in Mental Health" from the Office of Health Economics. It points out that in mental health, of the figure of 190,000 or so mentally ill patients in mental hospitals and general hospitals, the cost to the National Health Service is £114 million, about 90 per cent. of which is on nursing and domestic expenses. So we are dealing with what the economists would call a service which is essentially labour intensive.
  That emphasises the vital need for labour-saving devices so that the valuable time of trained staff is not wasted. My right hon. Friend the Member for Reigate has already referred to the importance of efficiency studies, O. & M., work study, ancillary services and the like. They can do something to ensure that the time and therefore the pay of those highly-qualified staff are used to better effect, so that they can deploy their skills in a more effective way than they are able to do at the moment. This is very closely linked with pay, and it clearly raises the whole question of better facilities, including buildings.
  How much of the time and therefore of the pay which at present is going into the hospital service is swallowed up by inadequate facilities and inadequate buildings? No one can say. In my view, the lesson is clear. One cannot divorce Estimates from more effective buildings within the hospital service, and I do not believe that we shall get them until we find ways of bringing in additional resources over and above those provided by the taxpayer and the ratepayer. I believe that we can get these additional resources by encouraging voluntary effort, by encouraging pride in local hospitals, through the League of Hospital Friends and so on, and by encouraging those who wish to do so to take out voluntary health insurance.
  6.30 p.m.
  Mr. J. Bruce-Gardyne: My hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean) said that we were dis-
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  cussing two particular Votes. I hope he will forgive me if I correct him and say that we are discussing three. I want to devote my remarks to the third of these, Vote 18, which deals with Scotland, and I am happy to do so because I think it will help to justify the summing-up of the debate by the hon. Lady the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland.
  I note from this Vote that the pharmaceutical services in Scotland are likely to cost about £14¼ million during the current financial year, or about 23 per cent. more than in 1964–65. This is the gross cost, but the net cost to the taxpayer, after allowing for prescription charges in the previous financial year, is an increase of about 50 per cent.
  Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine), I have never regarded prescription charges as distasteful. On the contrary, I felt that the abolition of them was perhaps a classic example of what the Continentals have come to call the English sickness. A move of this kind, taken at a time when the Government had largely forfeited the confidence of their foreign creditors, was nearly the last straw which broke the backs of our foreign creditors. I say specifically "English sickness" because I believe that a Government in which Scotland was more firmly represented could never have indulged in such frolic.
  What concerns me particularly is the effect of that decision on the general practitioner service, and in particular the general practitioner service in Scotland. In his opening speech, the right hon. Gentleman referred to the gross neglect of general practice by the previous Government. I am sure that he does not know, so I should like to tell him the result of 13 years of "neglect" of the general practitioner service. The total number of doctors in general practice in Scotland was higher at the end of 1963 than ever before, or since. During 1964 it rested on a plateau, and when these charges were removed the number began to decline rapidly.
  In the first half of last year in Scotland there was a net decline of 29, that is, after allowing for the arrival of doctors from the medical schools in Scotland. In the second half there was a net decline of 33, and last week the B.M.A. in Scotland warned that if the drain on the general practitioner service in Scotland

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  continued at the present rate it might be difficult to sustain a general medical service there at its present standard. This is the situation facing us, and I suggest that we have arrived at this situation largely because of the Government's decision to abolish prescription charges.
  In a statement issued last weekend—and I am sure that the hon. Lady has noted this carefully—the B.M.A. calculated that over the past 18 months about 150,000 people in Scotland had been deprived of their family medical service. This is a serious situation, and I cannot see how it can be a coincidence that this decline occurred when prescription charges were withdrawn.
  I wonder whether it is the Government's theory that one can pay for the cost of free prescriptions, at any rate in Scotland, by watching the decline in the number of general practitioners and economising on the rest of the general practitioner service so that in Scotland we shall soon have the situation that it is possible to get free drugs but it is not possible to find somebody to prescribe them.
  Mr. Woodburn: Nonsense.
  Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: I do not believe that a service which is provided free is treated with respect by those who use it. Perhaps I might tell the right hon. Gentleman of an incident concerning a doctor in my constituency. He was summoned urgently by one of his patients. When he arrived, his patient asked him to dress her dog's back—it had hurt itself on a barbed wire fence. When the doctor pointed out that that was not his job, she explained that it would cost money to call a vet. Instances such as that are not unusual.
  We have heard a great deal from hon. Gentlemen opposite to the effect that if there is over-subscribing it is the doctors who are to blame. But, as the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) pointed out, doctors have to consider the impact on their capitation fees of resisting the demand for free prescriptions.
  Mr. Will Griffiths: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the character of Scottish doctors is so inferior that rather than have the courage to tell their patients what they should or should not have they leave the Health Service and emigrate?
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  If he is, it is a serious reflection on the medical profession.
  Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: I am saying no such thing. What I am saying is that the abolition of prescription charges, coming on top of the other difficulties with which family doctors have to contend, has perhaps been the last straw. I do not believe that it is pure coincidence that the drain of doctors from Scotland, which is reaching serious proportions, started when prescription charges were abolished. Doctors there find that their services are being abused, and as a result they feel little inclination to carry on, and I believe that we shall be faced with a serious situation in the family health service in Scotland unless the present trend is reversed.
  6.38 p.m.
  Sir Keith Joseph: Considering the rules of order laid down by the Chair, we have had a satisfyingly wide debate, and we are grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to your colleagues for it.
  At the beginning of the debate, the Minister defended himself on three grounds against the charge made from these benches of wrong priorities. First, he said that over a number of years his party made the most solemn of pledges. Secondly—and this was an honourable acknowledgment by him—he said that he did not realise how much it would cost. Thirdly, he said that anyway he has not felt financial cramp by the cost which has emerged. I should like to deal with these and other points which have arisen in the course of the debate.
  I propose to deal first with the right hon. Gentleman's mistake. He openly acknowledges that it was a mistake, and all I can say, as my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine) pointed out, is that there were a number of reasons available, even to people outside the Ministry, why he should have been somewhat sceptical of a forecast of the order which he made. But he was not the only Minister to make a mistake at about this time. At that time, in the autumn of 1964, the Chancellor of the Exchequer seriously misjudged the pressures on the economy. Historians of the future may say that it was odd that the first time this country had an economist as Prime Minister the

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  economic situation was seriously misjudged during the first months in power.
  So we have two mistakes, interacting upon each other. First, there was the Chancellor's mistake about the pressures on the economy—and the right hon. Gentleman honourably acknowledged this in c. 221 of yesterday's OFFICIAL REPORT—and, secondly, the mistaken assessment by the Minister of Health of how much the abolition of these charges would cost. We are left to wonder what would have happened had both Ministers not made these mistakes. If the Chancellor had got the pressure on the economy right and the Minister of Health had got the cost of the proposed abolition of the prescription charges right, it is probable that the Cabinet would have come to a quite different decision and that we should not be having this debate today.
  Anyway, the right hon. Gentleman does not feel cramped by the priority he has chosen. He justifies this by telling us the amount of money that he has made available for three different medical subjects, all of them important. First, he says, "Look what the Government have done for medical education." That is very necessary and very important, but not yet very expensive. It is not of the same order of magnitude as the sums of money involved in this Subhead of the Supplementary Estimates.
  Then he says, "Look—even today I am able to announce"—he got only as far as announcing it before he was stopped. He then went on to say that the Government had accepted the recommendation of Lord Cohen of Birkenhead's Committee on Health Education. We welcome that. But he did not tell us the cost of this acceptance, and we know from the intervention of my right hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan) that although the acceptance of the recommendations of that Committee involves a substantial sum—£500,000—again it is not of the same order of magnitude as the figures that we are discussing today.
  Thirdly, he says, "Look how generous the Government have been on hospital building. We are providing an extra £5 million." But if they had not provided that extra £5 million the current programme of building would have had to
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  be cut back because of the rise in costs due to Socialist Government policy.
  Hon. Members on this side of the House say that the Minister has not yet shown that he is not cramped by the decision that he has made. We say quite soberly that the test is still to come. It will come when he publishes his review of the Hospital Plan and when the Government face the recommendations of the Kindersley Committee on the award to doctors. I hope that the Minister has noted the sober warning uttered by my hon. Friend the Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) about the beginning of a drain of general practitioners from Scotland. Those are my main comments on the Minister's defensive position.
  I now turn to the substance of the matter. Hon. Members on this side of the House grant all the technical points made by the Minister. We grant that the trend in prescription charges is numerically and financially up because of a more health-conscious population, a larger population, and a population containing more young people and more old people, and also because the therapeutic quality and therefore the cost of drugs has risen. We grant all these points, and go on to say that what is at issue today is not the whole of whatever may be the final cost of his decision—£40 million or £50 million—but simply a question whether the interests of our public health could have been better served by another use of part of this money.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean) put very clearly a number of points involved in this judgment. It is not a question of all or none; it might be a question of some charges to some people who could well afford them to enable the Government to spend more money on hospital building—people who could not, short of eccentricity, be said to be deterred by these charges. In a very interesting speech the hon. Member for Manchester, Exchange (Mr. Will Griffiths) sought to make an analysis of the philosophical differences between the parties. He said that the Conservative Party was always full of compassion for those in genuine need, but that once we went above those people we thought there ought to be a charge. Surely he must realise—and his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) pointed the

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  moral—that we have a choice between everything free on the one hand and providing more things for those in need on the other.
  There is a genuine dilemma in which those who argue for everything free find themselves, because they are ineluctably forced to prevent money being spent on very urgent needs—needs more urgent than those of the better-off people who could afford to pay something for drugs.
  Dr. Sammerskill: May we take it that Conservative policy on this question is that some charges should be paid by some people?
  Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Lady has been sitting most patiently throughout the debate and has now made that point twice. I shall not shirk it. I shall refer to it shortly. The hon. Member for Manchester, Exchange coined a phrase. He said, "When the Tories were in Government they took the florins and did not provide the hearing aids." This struck me as a rather memorable phrase, so I consulted our admirable Library, and our admirable Library referred me to the expert on hearing aids—and who should it turn out to be but the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health!
  I was referred to an article by him in the New Statesman and Nation on 3rd April, 1964. The right hon. Gentleman did not fail to criticise the then Government if he thought that they were failing to do something for the health of the country, but in this article on hearing aids, which runs over three columns, he makes no criticism of the Government at all. I cannot imagine that if it were true he would not have said that the Government of the day were scandalously lax in providing hearing aids.
  In fact, hearing aids have been provided free for all those who needed and wanted them. The right hon. Gentleman's article was concerned with the fact that despite this about 280 commercial companies were cashing in on the market. So the hon. Member's point rather falls flat. Although in the last few years we took a florin, we have, in all the time that they were available, provided hearing aids free.
  Mr. Woodburn: The right hon. Gentleman thinks that the well-to-do should pay by way of prescription charges, but that
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  is only a different method of paying. Would not they also pay through taxation?
  Sir K. Joseph: They are paying in taxation already, because the National Health Service is largely supported by taxation.
  Mr. Will Griffiths: The right hon. Gentleman has referred to me, but when I intervened it was when the right hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) was speaking. It was he who posed the question about the alternative between charges and, in his own words, hearing aids. What I understood him to mean concerned the development of hearing aids other than the Medresco. I thought that he was referring to bone conduction hearing aids—a superior type—and putting a perfectly fair proposition. My reply to that was that the superior aid had not been produced by the former Government although they continued to take the florins from our pockets.
  Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Gentleman must allow me to exploit the coincidence of discovering the hearing aid expert to be the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health.
  I now turn to the question put by the hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summer-skill) about the Opposition's attitude to this subject. We acknowledge that the system of charges which was operated by us had the difficulty of all such things, that some people did not get exemption because they were just outside the exempt groups. We have thought very seriously about this problem. If we find, on our return to office, that the National Health Service is severely starved of resources, either for hospital building or for staff—in terms of numbers or pay—or of resources for apparatus, we shall see, among other things, whether we can evolve practicable methods of exempting all those who could be hurt or deterred by a reimposed charge.
  When I say "all those", I am thinking of groups such as the elderly, the children, low wage earners, the chronic sick and disabled and pregnant and nursing mothers. Even if all these groups were exempted—and any other groups which were justified—there would still be some substantial numbers of the population left. Moderate charges on them would still be available to increase the volume

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  of hospital building or the pay and numbers of staff and apparatus. That is the point which we are making, that it is not a question of all or none—
  Mr. Pavitt: Has the right hon. Gentleman taken into account the policing system, the checking system, which would be needed in order to administer such a scheme?
  Sir K. Joseph: Yes. The hon. Member knows as well as I—the Minister has not interfered with this—that the taxpayer has at the moment to find £1 million for the policing of the dental charges, yet the Government have not so far attacked them. Policing is certainly a factor to consider, but there would still be a substantial net benefit to the Health Service, far larger than the £5 million for hospitals, the half million pounds for health education and the few hundred thousand pounds for other education, to which the Minister referred—
  Mr. K. Robinson: The right hon. Gentleman might have a look at the other estimate, that of staff and pay for the hospitals. That is not negligible.
  Sir K. Joseph: No, indeed. It is not negligible, but the test, as I said to the right hon. Gentleman, will come when the award is made. That is when he may well long for more of the resources which he has conceded.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Reigate and my hon. Friends the Members for Maidstone (Mr. John Wells) and Essex, South-East pointed out very clearly the number of priority needs which the Health Service still has, which the Minister must want desperately to satisfy. My hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East pointed out how rapidly the frontier of medical skill is advancing and how inevitably this must lead to greater demands for greater resources. The hon. and learned Member for Northampton, before he was stopped, clearly showed how important, for the happiness of people, are extra resources in apparatus in the case of his argument for tricycles.
  I thought that the Minister was a little disingenuous in arguing from an absolutely massive figure that the National Plan will be all that beneficial to the National Health Service. Of course, the fact is that the National
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  Health Service took a stable proportion of a rapidly rising gross national product during the 13 years of Tory Government. Despite all the protestations and promises of the present Government, the share of the gross national product which it is plain from the National Plan that the National Health Service will be taking between now and 1970 is slightly lower than it is at the moment.
  The right hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that the National Plan is based on a 25 per cent. increase in the gross national product by 1970. In chapter 20, we find that the increase in resources for the National Health Service is 23 per cent., marginally a smaller proportion of the gross national product than under the previous Government or, indeed, even than now. I hope that the Joint Under-Secretary of State will tell us why health expenditure will fall behind national expenditure between now and 1970.
  We say to the Minister that this indiscriminate abolition of charges for all, whether they need help or not, must reduce hospital building and/or the numbers or pay of doctors and nurses and medical staff, or involve further increases in taxes or contributions. The hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt), whose interest in this subject we all acknowledge, said that so much in the Health Service needs to be done. We agree. That is the burden of what we are saying today. It was true when we were in power, it is true now, and, because of the expanding needs of the country, it will be true in five years' time.
  There will be less hospital building, fewer doctors, fewer medical staff possibly, resulting from the Government's decision to remove all charges wholesale whether the people from whom they were removed needed help or not, unless the Government are telling us that they will raise taxes or contributions even further just to make good this indiscriminate concession. That is the point which we are making against the Minister's policy and that is the point which we hope that the hon. Lady will answer satisfactorily.
  6.56 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mrs. Judith Hart): I shall begin by dealing with one or two of the detailed points made, and then come to what the

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  right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) rightly said was the most important aspect of the debate—the fundamental conflict of principle with which we are concerned.
  I would say to the hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) that he made a singular and extraordinary speech about the loss of doctors in Scotland. His figures were not wholly correct, in that the figure which he was quoting of the loss of doctors quoted by the B.M.A. last weekend in Scotland referred not to any period since the abolition of prescription charges, but to the 18 months to the end of last December. Therefore, it bore no strict relation whatever to the ending of the charges.
  Indeed, when the period is broken down into quarters, a steady decline is revealed right from July, 1963, onwards, culminating, I agree, in the highest number in the quarter ending October, 1965, but related, I suggest—he must know that this is true—not to the abolition of the prescription charges but to the general discussion of general practitioners' discontents during last summer.
  On the supply of medical manpower, I would say that, had there been more extensive plans for the provision of more medical schools, instead of the result of the plans of his own hon. Friends, the output would have been something like 200 doctors more during this period. In justice, he must accept that, in the last year, my right hon. Friends the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland, in the discussions which they have had with the general practitioners, have done more to set general practice on a proper footing in this one year than was done in the whole of the previous decade.
  Because of the National Health Service Bill which we discussed last week, because of the new arrangements which are being made in discussions with the general practitioners and because of the new links with the hospital service, we in Scotland are creating the satisfaction in the job which is the main concern here. It is not, I suggest, worthy of the hon. Member to relate his statistics in this respect to this one isolated point. He can do better than that.
  I will now give the accurate figure for which the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine) asked. There has been
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  some confusion between the annual figure and the figure for 10 months and between the figure for England, Wales and Scotland and that for England and Wales alone. This was confusing the House earlier. In fact, the precise figures for the 10-month period are these—in England and Wales, 33 million additional prescriptions; in Scotland, 3·3 million. This is the clear figure which the hon. Gentleman wanted—
  Mr. Braine: The figure for the seven months was 23 million, which if my arithmetic is correct, would mean that, in 10 months, it would have increased to 30 million. The figure of 33 million, therefore, bears out my contention that the increase in the number of prescriptions seems to be accelerating.
  Mrs. Hart: There is no evidence for this. When one begins to look at a breakdown of the number of prescriptions over different months of the year one has to take into account all kinds of other factors, such as the incidence of different diseases and illnesses. But one cannot reasonably break down the figures any further.
  The right hon. Member for Reigate (Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan) spoke about the Whitley Council system. He asked what investigations my right hon. Friend was making into this. My right hon. Friend tells me that, very much to his surprise, he found when he came into office, that the staff representatives were not dissatisfied with the basic Whitley structure. There were a number of discussions with them over the last year and with the T.U.C. Some suggestions for improvements have been implemented and others are being considered. But my right hon. Friend's own proposal was made because of the frequent failure of the Whitley machinery to reach agreement and, consequently, the frequent recourse to arbitration. This was what worried him. It is worth noting that in the first 12 months of the Labour Government there was not one single reference to arbitration. This is a measure of the fact that the machinery is working a good deal more smoothly than was the case previously.
  Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan rose—
  Mrs. Hart: I think that my reply deals with the point which the right hon. Gentleman made. I can see that many

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  points will arise on every reply which I make, and if I give way each time it will take far too long.
  I want to give a little information about the length of stay in hospital, which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. He will be interested to know the kind of research which is being done into a question of this kind—operational research which is comparatively new in the Health Service. King Edward's Hospital Fund is carrying out research studies which include the study of communications and discovering some factors related to the length of stay. We are proud that in Scotland last year we set up a new research and intelligence division which is dealing with operational research and which is to continue the work study activities already in progress.
  May I turn to the general theme of the debate? I think that I need not go in detail into points which have been covered by my right hon. Friend and by both Front Bench speakers opposite on some of the factors involved in the increasing number of prescriptions and the increasing cost of the drug bill. These include increasing community and hospital care, new drugs, the fact that mentally ill people are treated at home, the increasing number of old people and so on. The right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East covered these briefly in his summing up.
  We must recognise basically that people go to the doctor when they are ill. One can establish this by reference to the analyses which are provided. Any hon. Member who doubts it should look in detail at the health statistics. If he does that he will find that there are seasonal variations in the average daily number of prescriptions issued by the chemists. I will give four examples of the highest peaks which have been reached in the last few years—February, 1956, October, 1957, February, 1959 and February, 1961. In those periods there were outstandingly high peaks in the number of prescriptions dispensed daily by chemists.
  In each case the month of peak prescriptions corresponds with a peak in the number of deaths from acute respiratory illnesses, whether influenza, Asian flu or one of the other virus influenzas or acute
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  bronchitis. In each case there is a steady relationship between what we know about the incidence of illness and what we know about the spread-over of prescriptions. There are no facts to be found to refute the claim that the frequency of prescriptions is related to the incidence of illness.
  The hon. Member for Angus, South talked about the trivial reasons for which people went to the doctor. I think it was he who spoke about the priority which needed to be given to preventive medicine. Does he not understand that if people do what they are advised to do in preventive medicine—consult their general practitioners when they have early symptoms of any illness—then some of the early symptoms may not be symptoms of serious illness? Every general practitioner interested in preventive medicine, as most general practitioners are interested in it, welcomes the fact that patients come to him with early symptoms. This is a reflection of the fact that people go to their doctors when they are ill.
  Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Surely the argument is not about whether patients are being deterred from going to a doctor. We are concerned with whether they are being encouraged to collect prescriptions without any serious regard for the need for those prescriptions.
  Mrs. Hart: To the extent that the hon. Member means what he says, he was answered by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Exchange (Mr. Will Griffiths).
  It is, of course, of the greatest importance within the Health Service that there should be the kind of operational research which allows proper cost control to be exercised. I am surprised that no hon. Member opposite has touched on that, because I should have thought that they would recognise the importance here of the work being done in this respect and of the studies being made by the Ministry of Health and in Scotland into the causes for regional variations and into the patterns of prescriptions to see whether any points are revealed which indicate any further need for cost control.
  We are concerned with a matter of principle, and we are also concerned with the question of which other priorities the Government might have taken. May I

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  indicate, briefly, the example of Scotland? In the course of the next five years—between now and 1971—we shall spend £60 million on the hospital services of Scotland compared with £34 million in the previous five years of the previous Government. This is an indication of the expansion of the hospital services which a Labour Government are prepared to undertake in Scotland. It means that we are to provide over 2,000 additional geriatric beds and over 650 new and replacement maternity beds and to continue with the programme of district and teaching hospitals. This is an indication of the fact that within the context of the National Plan there is a degree of expansion of the hospital services which far exceeds and is almost double that which was achieved by the previous Government in the last five years.
  Sir K. Joseph: Is this expansion significantly different from the expansion forecast: by the Hospital Plan produced by the previous Government?
  Mrs. Hart: The 2,000 geriatric beds and the 650 maternity beds are new provisions which were not in the previous Plan.
  Mr. John Wells: It is interesting to have the figures for Scotland, but is not the south-east of England being robbed to the same extent that Scotland is being well looked after?
  Mrs. Hart: No. I can assure the hon. Member that that is not so.
  May I turn to the basic economic and political conflict of principle? Many of my hon. Friends were most interested, as I was, to hear the replies given to my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) who asked the question twice—what have the Conservative Party in mind? One had assumed from various things said in the past that they supported the reintroduction of prescription charges.
  The right hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) said quite clearly that he and and his hon. Friends would keep the system of prescription charges but remove the inequities in it. The right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East went on to expand that and to define some of the categories which he thought needed help. It is not good enough for hon.
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  Gentlemen opposite to define categories like old people, pregnant women, the chronic sick and those with low incomes unless they are prepared to go on to explain how this fits into a new pattern which presumably they are about to devise.
  There are many questions which they have not attempted to answer. The logic of their argument leads one to ask a number of questions to which apparently they cannot find answers. For example, would they confine their help—or expect us to do so—if prescription charges were kept, to people on National Assistance? Would they have us take account, in those circumstances of the chronic sick? This is one of the categories which the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East particularly mentioned in a speech he made on 29th October last to insurance brokers in Leeds, when he said:
  "There must be more generous help for those with chronic illnesses".
  How would he define "chronic illness", knowing that the doctors are trying to move away from that phrase because of the medical problems involved and the psychological effect of defining someone as "chronically ill"? Hon. Gentlemen opposite must answer these questions if they want to convince us that they have a workable alternative—and I will refer to the ethics of their alternative shortly.
  Would they take account of the lower wage earners? I gather from what they have said that they would, but how, in that event, would they define the people who need help? Would they subsidise everyone whose wages fall below the national average, and so subsidise the employer who does not pay high enough wages? Do they believe in a minimum wage or income? We have not been given any indication of their answers to these questions.
  Let us consider those who certainly need help. Would families who are above the National Assistance level but living on low incomes, to which attention was drawn recently—if we take the figure of 11 per cent. of families with children under 16 whose gross household income is only £10 to £15 per week; there are a lot of people in this bracket—be due for help? The only answer is that, in the long term, one can meet this kind of problem only by the gradual redistribution of wealth and income. One cannot

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  meet it simply by a sort of ad hoc donation to particular categories of people, as the previous leader of the Opposition would have favoured.
  The right hon. Member for Bridlington suggested that one thing which, in his view, should be encouraged, within the context of a society which imposed prescription charges, was insurance for private medical care to reduce the costs and raise more money for the National Health Service. Some years ago the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod) expressed himself as very positively in favour of putting the Health Service into the category of a means test social service.
  At that time the right hon. Gentleman was in full agreement with his hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on Avon (Mr. Maude) and his right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell). I do not know whether they are all three in agreement on a means test Health Service. If so, they are saying—and the right hon. Member for Bridlington and the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East are saying—that health should be treated as a commercial commodity; that there should be—and this has been put forward by Conservative economists in recent years—a free market in medical treatment. They are apparently prepared to apply classical economic theory to the provision of health services and to ignore all the professional standards or medical ethics. Their point of view was put at its most extreme by the American Medical Association's Research Economist, Dr. Dickinson, who said not long ago:
  "The doctor is essentially a small business man. He is selling his services, so he is as much in business as anyone else who sells a commodity."
  This kind of private medical market place is the thinking of Conservative economists and is what lies behind the tenor of what we have heard from hon. Gentlemen opposite today. As Professor Titmuss put it some time ago, to apply this kind of analysis to consumer demand is to equate mink coats with Caesarian operations in childbirth.
  Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mrs. Hart: I will not give way, because I am making the fundamental point that
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  the logical extension of the means test Health Service, in which the right hon. Member for Enfield, West believes—of giving help to those within the Health Service who are in special categories, about which the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East spoke, and the need to retain charges but to remove some of the inequities, about which the right hon. Member for Bridlington spoke—leads, although perhaps some of their hon. Friends have not yet understood this, to the concept of a free market place, something which has been advocated by many leading Conservative economists, notably Dr. Lees in the pamphlets which he has published in the last two or three years.
  In our view the individual has the fundamental right in a good society to a free health service and we believe that there should not be a tax on illness. It is a matter for ethical judgment and—[Interruption.]—
  Sir K. Joseph: Before the hon. Lady proceeds, would she answer two points? First, is she aware that her attitude is inevitably preventing the Government from spending money on urgently needed priorities and, secondly, will she say why, with this attitude, the Government are reducing in their five-year plan the share of the gross national product going to the National Health Service?
  Mrs. Hart: The answer to the second question is that we are concerned—and I take it that the right hon. Gentleman is equally concerned to have a rapid expansion of the Service in terms of hospital building and everything else. This we are going to achieve, as our figures show. Within the context of the National Plan we are achieving much in the sphere of pensions and education that hon. Gentlemen opposite utterly failed to do—[Interruption.]—and while I hear an hon. Gentleman opposite saying that we are merely reducing the slice of the cake, as he knows, the share of the gross national product which goes fundamentally to the people in the form of education, the Health Service and pensions—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady is getting a little wide of these Estimates.
  Mrs. Hart: I was provoked, Mr. Speaker. I will end by saying that we are concerned with ethical judgments, with fundamental political attitudes and relative judgments. I can only believe, from

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  what has been said by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, that their judgments are either irrelevant or wrong.

  LONDON TRANSPORT
  7.19 p.m.
  Sir Anthony Meyer: May I turn the House's attention for a few minutes to Class IV, Vote 15 (K), Grant to London Transport Board, an increase of £3,850,000. This Supplementary Estimate relates to London Transport's need for additional subsidy on account of the previous Minister of Transport's insistence on delaying the fare increases which were asked for by London Transport last year.
  The reason why London Transport has to seek an increased subsidy is, I submit, not merely because it was not allowed to raise fares when it wanted to. Indeed, increased fares are likely in due course to require still higher subsidies, because the level of fares is already acting as a deterrent to potential bus travellers. This is particularly true in areas of relatively low housing density such as my own constituency of Slough which, to its misfortune, comes within the London Transport area; or, to be more exact, half of it does, and the other half is in the Thames Valley area. There are restrictions on the extent to which one operator can make incursions into the other's territory, which is very inconvenient for those who live in the London Transport area where one of the biggest housing estates is.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot discuss on this Bill the relations between the London Transport Board and other operators, unless this Question is related to the Supplementary Estimate.
  Sir A. Meyer: I am very much obliged, Mr. Speaker. To return to the Estimates which are before us, already the single fare to the main shopping centre from the surrounding housing estates is something more than 1s., and sometimes a good deal more than 1s. This is certainly beginning to have a deterrent effect on potential bus users. This was brought out by the results of a poll which was carried out by the Slough Junior Chamber of Commerce.
  I take leave to doubt whether, if London Transport had been able to secure permission to raise the fares when
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  it wanted to, it would in fact have avoided the necessity to seek an additional subsidy. There is, however, another reason why London Transport has to come to the House again and again for increased subsidies. This reason stems from the nature of London Transport and the nature of the task laid upon it as the monopoly undertaking for the London area. In order to deal with the very heavy pressure of passengers at two brief and widely spaced periods of the day, London Transport needs a very large number of buses and crews and a very large administrative body to look after them.
  As regards the crews, there is almost certainly room for many more economies in the way of single manning of buses, fixed fares, standee buses, and so on, than the transport unions have been willing to allow London Transport to make on any very extensive scale. But, even if economies could be made on these lines, London Transport would still be faced with the difficulty that it needs large resources for two brief periods during the day and that for the rest of the time these resources are largely idle.
  The consequence of this is bound to be bad for London Transport's finances, because this is clearly a most uneconomical way of using labour. It also leads to a still more unfortunate result. This pattern of traffic compels London Transport, as it does any other very large transport undertaking, to make extensive use of the split shift system. This is intensely and very naturally unpopular with those who have to work it. I must say that I would not like to have to do it myself. Indeed, I have been told by a senior member of London Transport in my area that it is the split shift system rather than the level of wages which makes it so difficult for London Transport to recruit the staff which it needs, particularly in areas of high employment.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot discuss the virtues or vices of the split shift system, except as linked to the fare increases which the grant in the Supplementary Estimate prevented the London Transport Board from making.
  Sir A. Meyer: I am very much obliged, Mr. Speaker. I was trying to show that this was one of the factors which caused

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  London Transport to have to raise its fairs and seek an increased subsidy. If London Transport has difficulty in recruiting crews, it has to cut down the schedules or, worse still, is unable to stick to its advertised schedules. This is the sorest point of all, because a man who has waited on two days for an advertised bus which does not come thereafter makes other arrangements to get to work and London Transport has lost his custom, money and goodwill. We in this House have to put the subsidy up again. The upshot is that a more and more expensive service is becoming less and less satisfactory. I know that it is bad in central London, but I assure hon. Members that in outlying parts of the London Transport area, such as Slough and other areas like it, it is very much worse.
  This vicious spiral of higher fares and higher subsidies, few passengers and fewer buses, will get us nowhere. I am convinced that a remedy can and must be found. Surely the aim should be to even out the load on London Transport so that it can operate at roughly the same level throughout the day. Something towards this end can be achieved by staggering hours of work. I do not believe that we have anywhere near reached the maximum which can be achieved in this way, though we may have achieved the maximum which can be brought about by exhortation and it may be that the need now is for incentives and deterrents.
  There are two other ways in which something can be done to even out the load. The first is to allow firms to provide their own transport facilities for getting some of their people to and from work, for these by definition are the people who travel in the rush hour and so bring about this intolerable peak load. At present, London Transport will not give the necessary consent to firms to operate their own buses, unless they provide the service free. Firms cannot do this, because it produces intolerable inequalities in remuneration between those employees who can use the firm's transport and those who cannot.
  The other thing which can be done is to allow private operators to operate along London Transport routes or, if this is quite unacceptable, between
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  London Transport routes. I know the argument to the effect that this creams off the best of the traffic—the profitable traffic for London Transport, but surely this is nonsense. This heavy peak hour traffic is precisely the traffic which is causing London Transport to operate uneconomically.
  So it may well be asked how a private operator stepping in to cream off this traffic can make a profit where London Transport cannot. The answer is simple. If it is a private operator operating on a small scale—a garage proprietor with five or six buses—he sends his buses out in the morning to take the peak load along a route which has been allotted to him. In the middle of the day, the drivers return to the garage and repair customers' vehicles and do ordinary engineering work. Out they go in the evening again for the evening rush hour, and at night the buses are used for excursions. In this way a small enterprise can make 100 per cent. use of the capital and labour which it employs, in a way which London Transport, through no fault of its own, cannot possibly do.
  If we just stick at the point of saying that we cannot accept any kind of competition with London Transport because this will make its finances even worse than they are at present, the only result which will be achieved is still higher subsidies, still fewer buses, and a still worse service. I appeal to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to urge his right hon. Friend to look again at the whole philosophy behind London Transport and see whether the time has not come for a radical new approach to this problem to enable people at last to get to work on time.
  7.28 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Stephen Swingler): Mr. Speaker, I understand from your Ruling that our discussion tonight is a very narrow one. Therefore, I cannot go into all the problems afflicting the London Transport Board. The hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Sir A. Meyer) referred once or twice, I think, to increased subsidy. I should like to make it plain that what we are discussing is a special grant to the London Transport Board which had never previously been made, on account of a special decision by the Government that the Board

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  should not make fare increases, for which it had proposed to apply to the London Transport Tribunal, in the particular situation existing in the middle of 1965. This was a special situation, as I think the hon. Gentleman said. Subsequently the Board has been permitted to go ahead and make fare increases in the London passenger transport area.
  My right hon. Friend the previous Minister of Transport took this special step, with the agreement of the Government, so that there should be a pause for investigation of the affairs of London Transport which were at that time being examined by a Select Committee. The Select Committee on Nationalised Industries chose in the last Session to scrutinise the affairs of the London Transport Board.
  The Government decided, because of that situation, that it was necessary to make a particular examination of the situation of London Transport, and because my right hon. Friend was engaged in discussion with the Greater London Council and other authorities about measures of traffic restraint and control in the Greater London area this special grant of £3,850,000 to the London Transport Board is included in the estimates to cover the Board against this loss.
  No doubt, Mr. Speaker, you will direct me if I transgress outside the rules of order, but this brings up for consideration the causes of the situation which impelled the Board at that time to ask for another run of fare increases in addition to the regular annual fare increases which have been going on for a decade. There has been a regular annual loss of traffic by the Board and there has been a regular transfer from public transport to private transport in the peak hours during a decade, or even longer.
  I cannot go further into these questions, which were probed somewhat in the debate arising out of the Select Committee's Report on the London Transport Board when this grant then also fell for consideration. But in reply to what the hon. Member for Eton and Slough has said, I should like to say that we must make up our minds whether we want to have an adequate and efficient public transport system or not. It is no good
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  arguing against these measures, or other measures which are under consideration, for the assistance of the public transport system and at the same time arguing, as the hon. Member has done, that we should deliberately organise the subtraction of traffic and passengers from the public transport system by other means.
  We know that there are a number of causes of this situation, one of which is the increasing number of private vehicles being used, causing buses to move less efficiently, less regularly, and less punctually and causing the Board to be less financially viable or to apply for more and more fare increases.
  One of the things which we have to do, therefore, is not only to consider for the future how to reconcile the two aims put forward, that we should have a London Transport Board operating in an area that includes part of the hon. Gentleman's constituency, and has done so for many years—that is the aim of providing an adequate public service—with, at the same time, a service that is paying its way.
  This was one of the problems inherited by the present Government which fell for urgent consideration in 1965 and which impelled my right hon. Friend, with Government support, to make this grant and which we now also continue urgently to consider. There are two parts of this. One part, which my right hon. Friend is pursuing energetically at the moment, consists of discussions with authorities like the Greater London Council on the reduction of traffic congestion, the better control of parking policy and the better disciplining of private transport in the area. The other part consists of measures to improve and make more attractive the London Transport services to attract more passengers.
  Under that heading we certainly have to consider the question of fare increases. A number of points mentioned by the hon. Member for Eton and Slough are, as he knows very well, matters of the managerial responsibility of the London Transport Board. They are the subject of discussion between the Board and the trade unions—on the increase of productivity, ways and means of improving the service, and ways of exercising administrative economies to make the system more efficient.

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  In spite of criticisms made about the reduction of services and the difficulties about recruitment of manpower for the bus services, the hon. Member will know that during the recent period, as I have had cause to tell him in correspondence about his own constituency, some improvements have been made. Some improvement has been made, for example, in Slough. At the request of the Slough Borough Council, the London Transport Board, in conjunction with Thames Valley, has recently brought into operation a new cross-town route. The Board has also recently introduced an express coach service from Windsor to London with a new, more comfortable type of coach. I simply give these as an illustration of the fact that the story is not all on one side about declining and deteriorating services.
  London Transport Board has been making efforts to improve its techniques and to increase its services, in some cases for the benefit of the citizens represented by the hon. Member. We admit straight away that this situation confronts us with great difficulty and all those who believe that this great city must have an efficient and attractive public transport system. Those concerned are confronted especially with financial difficulties today.
  We know that in spite of the fare increases which have taken place it is still likely that the Board may require financial help in 1966 on current levels of fares and costs. My right hon. Friend will have to consider that situation and she may have to bring forward in due course proposals to the House on how we are to meet it. This will depend on what progress we make in the twin effort to get better traffic management in and around the London area, a better deployment of traffic generally which, as my right hon. Friend said, is bound to mean some additional restraints upon the use of private cars, which create more congestion and therefore make more difficult the movement and the efficiency of public transport. We propose to combine with these urgent measures to improve the public transport system itself.
  We know that this is not an easy matter because of the Board's difficulty in recruiting the manpower which it needs in a situation where there is a very high level of employment and where it is often
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  difficult for busmen to find homes convenient to their places of work, and because the job of driving and conducting the buses has been made so much less attractive over many years now by the build-up of traffic congestion and the difficulties of organising an efficient system.
  I can make no further announcement tonight. My right hon. Friend has recently had urgent consultations with the Greater London Council about better traffic controls and she is in continual consultation with the London Transport Board in an effort to assist the Board in the improvement of its services and the reorganisation of its financial structure. I therefore believe that my right hon. Friend was justified last year in deciding on the postponement of the fares increases in order to give more time to the consideration of these measures, in spite of running the Board into the red. We hope in the very near future to make an additional announcement under the two headings which will avoid this sort of situation cropping up in the future.
  Mr. David Webster: Has the Minister accepted the Select Committee's recommendation that there should be a stronger financial element on the London Transport Board? Can he tell us anything further about that?
  Mr. Swingler: No decision has yet been taken upon that point, but the recommendations of the Select Committee are being discussed between my right hon. Friend—who has not had too much time but has had many crises in the few weeks she has been at the Ministry—and the Board, and she hopes very shortly to make announcements about these recommendations and about other proposals which she has in mind.

  AIRCRAFT INDUSTRY
  7.42 p.m.
  Mr. Cranky Onslow: I am glad that this opportunity has arisen to put to the Minister, who I hope we shall soon see in his place, some points and anxieties which are felt here and in the country about the research and development work of the aircraft industry and particularly about the Concord project. I believe that my hon. Friend

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  the Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey) may want to make some reference to the cancellation of the P1154 and the HS681, if he catches your eye, Mr. Speaker, and to the unexpected increase in spending on other projects, but I wish to concentrate on the Concord and, in particular, on its costs. In doing so I have no wish to disparage the project in any way. We all want to see it succeed. We on this side of the House do not regard it as a prestige project but as a business venture which must be run on sound and profitable lines.
  Sir Arthur Vere Harvey: On a point of order. I apologise for interrupting my hon. Friend, but this part of the debate was due to start at 7 p.m., it is now nearly 7.45 p.m. and there is no Aviation Minister or Government Whip to listen to the debate. I think that the Opposition are being treated with the greatest discourtesy. We are talking to Front Bench representatives who are not responsible for this subject.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Stephen Swingler): We had expected the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) to raise the subject of railways and we are fully prepared to deal with that subject. The hon. Member is, however, absent.
  Sir A. V. Harvey: The Minister of Aviation did me the courtesy of telephoning me—I was in Cambridge—and I told him that we expected this debate to begin at about 7 p.m. He understood the position. Could someone approach the Leader of the House to give us guidance? This is the greatest discourtesy to the Opposition.
  Mr. Speaker: It is very difficult. These days of miscellaneous debates are very difficult to timetable. I had intended to call next the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) to raise a subject of which he has given me notice. He was not here. But the point which the hon. Gentleman raises is not a point of order for me. It is a point of argument between the Opposition and the Government.
  Mr. Onslow: We all understand the difficulty in which you may be placed, Mr. Speaker, by the absence of the hon.
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  Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel). If blame is to be attached to anyone it lies with him, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield comments, with the Liberal Party, as usual.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. May I say that the Chair is in no difficulty.
  Mr. Onslow: I was merely trying, for once, to exculpate the Government.
  From all we hear, the development of the Concord project is going very well. The development programme is on schedule, no component is more than two weeks behind time, and the first engines have been delivered ahead of their schedule. The first aircraft is due to fly from Toulouse in the spring of 1968 and the second protoype from Filton in the autumn of the same year. Meanwhile, supersonic flight testing with the BAC221 is continuing and the programme to test the Olympus engines in a Vulcan flying test bed is well advanced. The hopes are that the aircraft will be ready to be put into service by the end of 1971, and a total of 50 options has been placed with the manufacturers.
  This is an extremely encouraging picture, and great credit is due to the efforts of the British and French manufacturers. Half the credit for this project goes to our partners in France for their cooperation and for the smoothness with which it is all working out.
  But the rising costs must worry us. A figure of £400 million has recently been quoted as the cost of research and development to the point of production of Concord. Probably a more responsible estimate would be nearer to £350 million. But the increase in cost and the amount of money involved must cause concern unless we have all the facts at our disposal, particularly in view of the threat presented by the possibility of the American supersonic transport coming forward as a serious contender.
  It is possible to understand that there are good reasons why there has been this considerable increase from the originally quoted figure of about £175 million for Concord R, and D which was made four years ago. This is a rise of 100 per cent., but I estimate that 45 per cent. of it is probably due to the rise in the cost of labour in that period and that 40 per

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  cent. of the remainder is due to the greater size of the aircraft now to be built. The original specification has been changed twice, largely to meet the expressed needs of the customers in world airlines, to provide more seating, to improve the operational cost and to increase range.
  This leaves 15 per cent. as an element in the cost increase which is not accounted for, but possibly this is not an exceptional increase on an estimate originally made four years ago, particularly when we bear in mind that precise definition became possible only when the project had been under way for some time and had reached a moderately advanced stage and that no definite figures could have been assessed much before January of last year.
  We hope that the costs which have now been established will not be subject to any further uncertainty, with the single remaining exception of what must be called the Brown factor—in other words, the forecast or unforecast escalation of man-hour costs in the industry. I recognise that this factor is not the direct responsibility of the Minister for Aviation or his Parliamentary Secretary, but there are a number of points affecting the cost of this project on which the Minister has a direct influence and I should like to put certain points concerning them to him and to ask for certain assurances about them.
  The first point is the cost of delayed decisions. We have seen in the past the effect of this on other projects. A complete technical reassessment of Concord is due very shortly, after which it will fall to the Government to make the really crucial decision to go ahead with the tooling up for production. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary can give an assurance that this decision will not be put off or delayed.
  The second point concerns the costs arising from some remaining uncertainty concerning the aircraft's design, with particular reference to the importance of the noise factor. The tolerable limits within which Concord's noise can be defined still, I believe, remain to be set. I understand that some airport operators are concerned with the noise that the aircraft is likely to make while still on the
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  ground, while others are chiefly worried about the noise that it will make when climbing after take-off, if not also when it is approaching to land.
  To a certain extent I believe that it lies within the Minister's power to speed up definite decisions on these issues. I should like to hear tonight that he is prepared to take every possible action to get these questions settled, and if international negotiations have to be undertaken I hope that we shall be told tonight that he will undertake them, and with all speed.
  Thirdly, there are the costs inherent in the existing procedures of the Government. Many people associated with the aircraft industry hold the view that the system of cost control operated by the Ministry is frequently time-wasting and sometimes downright niggling. The hon. Gentleman may remember that this drew some quite severe criticism in the second Report of the Lang Committee, published about a year ago—on which, as far as I am aware, no remedial action has yet been taken. I hope the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that, when the time of the men who control a project of this kind is wasted, big money is wasted as well. I recognise that, in referring to this point, I am also raising the problem of how to establish an effective Parliamentary check on spending and I shall return to that later.
  Fourthly, there is the cost of false economies. I think it is agreed that good use could have been made of the completed TSR prototypes to try out some of the equipment which will be needed when the Concord reaches a stage where it is ready for flight test. I seem to recollect that the last Minister of Aviation was asked to sanction a programme of work which would have taken care of this. The request was turned down, particularly unfortunately since the cost originally assessed by the contractors for a limited programme of 100 flying hours was quoted, quite firmly, as far as I recall, at £1½ million. The Minister, in turning it down, appeared to do so on the rather specious ground of inflating the figure to between £2 million and £3 million.
  The right hon. Gentleman may have wanted to turn the programme down and have chosen that argument as the reason

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  for doing so, but the fact that he used it does not argue that there is any great mutual trust between the Department and the manufacturers in the aviation industry on the question of what a project will cost. The net effect is unfortunate.
  The fifth point concerns the uncertainty surrounding the aircraft industry. Manufacturers are experiencing great difficulty in attracting and holding qualified technicians. Few young men at this point in time can take the brave decision of regarding aircraft manufacture in Britain as a career to which they can dedicate their lives. That is a bad situation. It lies largely within the Minister's hands to remedy it by making it plain that the Government agree with the Opposition in the certainty that we can and must have a healthy aircraft industry, one that will attract young men with the certainty of a worth-while career.
  In the context of the Concord project, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate how absurd it would be if a stage were reached where jobs and money were available and customers were waiting to buy but the project increased in cost because men could not be found to take on the work.
  The hon. Gentleman may remember that my right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) put, in a recent debate, an impressive list of constructive points and suggestions for action to remedy many of the problems facing the aircraft industry. I recall that the Minister responded to this in a most encouraging way. He did so before he had had the opportunity to hear the final point that my right hon. Friend wanted to make—possibly the most important point—concerning the need for greater Parliamentary control over public expenditure in this sphere by the extension of the Select Committee system.
  No one suggests that in the Concord project, there are manufacturers who are free-loading or getting away with public funds or making excessive profits. I do not believe it. But this project would, I believe, make an excellent test case for such an extension of the system. It would be the most satisfactory way of controlling or attempting to control the spending of very large sums of money on a project of this kind, rather than that
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  we should have to resort to such opportunities as are afforded to us by the chance composition of the Supplementary Estimates before us now.
  Half the money involved is not ours but French, but our 50 per cent. share adds up to many millions of pounds. Although we here must believe—and I do believe—in the fundamental soundness of the Concord project, that belief would be still firmer, as would the public's, if the Minister now agreed to take whatever steps are necessary to secure the setting up of a specialist Parliamentary committee to keep this great but expensive venture under strict and public control.
  8.0 p.m.
  Sir Arthur Vere Harvey: The House is glad to see the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aviation here to listen to the debate. I want to refer quite briefly to expenditure under subhead C.1, that is, research and development in the aircraft industry, dealing mainly with the cancellations of the P1154 and the HS681. The Government are asking for another £11,500,000. The paragraph at the bottom of page 12 of the Supplementary Estimates says:
  "The provision made at this stage represents approximately 50 per cent. of the increase likely to be required."
  It can, therefore, be assumed that at any rate some £23 million will be required to meet these cancellation charges. This is a little vague, because the paragraph also says that the money is to meet expenditure which for a number of other projects is higher than expected.
  During the General Election, the Government assured the electorate that the aircraft industry would be prosperous and given every encouragement to go ahead. However, in the intervening year four major projects have been cancelled. The industry has been placed in a most precarious position and when an industry is run down to this extent, it is ripe for taking over, even if only 50 per cent. of it is taken over, as was suggested in the recent debate on the Plowden Report. I sometimes wonder whether, not having the courage or the facilities to nationalise steel, the Government are now telling their supporters on the Left wing that if they get hold of part of the aircraft industry that will be better than nothing. I hope that it will not happen.

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  The cancellation of these projects was a tragedy, although I am the first to admit that if a Conservative Government had been returned in 1964, one of the projects would have had to have been cancelled. I do not think that the industry would have been capable of going ahead with all four, but the P1154 was one project in which Britain was leading the world—vertical take-off—and it should have been kept going. We were well ahead of the Americans when we developed the P1127. Incidentally, about a year ago we were told that there had been an order for about 100 P1127s. In the Press in the last few days I have read—I do not know whether this is so, but it was a responsible newspaper—that there is not to be an order for the P1127. In view of the cancellation of the P1154, I should be interested to hear what is in fact to happen with the P1127. At least it would have kept us in the vertical takeoff business and would have given the Royal Air Force experience of this type of flying. The HS681 and the P1154 were both being manufactured by the Hawker Siddeley group. The HS681, a vertical take-off transport, has been replaced by a good, but out-of-date, transport aircraft, the American Hercules, for which British taxpayers will have to pay in dollars.
  When these projects were cancelled, we were told that the men concerned would go into export industries and so help to contribute to exports. I read in The Times some 10 days ago, however, that 103 aircraft workers, many of them from the TSR2, had gone to work in Germany and had settled in extremely well. That is very alarming, for those men have been lost not only to the aircraft industry, but to the country's economy as a whole. I well remember the Labour Party talking about the brain drain two or three years ago, but my reports are that men are going not only to Germany but to South Africa and the United States of America in greater numbers than previously.
  Only last week, we read that an American consortium is to set up an organisation in Britain consisting of about 500 experienced technicians who will be recruited from the British aircraft industry and offered about one-third more than they are getting now. I am alarmed at the prospect of the Americans invading
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  Britain to this extent. Not only do they want to kill the British and Western European aircraft and electronic industries, but to employ our people in our country. The House must have an explanation.
  The men who have left the aircraft industry are not going into export trades. They are not in a position to move from Weybridge, for example, into a job in the export trade, because they cannot buy another house or get a mortgage for another house, and so they have to get another job in Weybridge which is probably not in an exporting trade and which pays considerably reduced wages. We have got ourselves into quite a pickle over the whole business. I hope that the Minister will explain how these cancellation charges are brought about and what is involved.
  In a few years, if not sooner, the British people will have to pay between £400 million and £500 million, on my estimates, if these orders are placed in America, and we shall have to pay in dollars. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer is introducing these semi-Budgets every so often and when the country has just borrowed £1,000 million—and I do not quarrel with that—I cannot understand why the Government should now be contemplating orders in the United States costing hundreds of millions of pounds in dollars. This does not begin to add up and we are laying up trouble for ourselves.
  I want to refer to the Concord. I have always been a supporter of this project, but of course one has reservations about whether it will sell, whether it will meet its performance requirements and whether it can be afforded. It is not easy to get information about a project like this and I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to confirm the information which I have been given. I understand that the option list for the Concord is now about 50 aircraft, that is to say, that 50 airlines have taken up options and that recently Sabena and the Japanese airlines have also taken up options. I understand that an airline which orders the Concord pays a deposit of about £100,000 which is not returnable if the option is not proceeded with.
  I am told that the potential market is regarded by the French and British companies making the aircraft, assuming the worst about the sonic boom and assuming that the Americans come in within

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  three years, as 200 Concords by 1975. That figure is based on recent market surveys. The Americans, who are watching this project very carefully, as we watch theirs, think that the sales of the Concord could be about 170, so that there is very little between their estimate and that made by the British and French.
  The prototype was discussed with the customer airlines last May and as a result modifications have been introduced bringing about a 15 per cent. reduction in operational cost, so that the aircraft is now competitive with any subsonic airliner. We were originally given the figure of £140 million as the overall cost to be divided between Britain and France, but that figure has grown to about £350 million. In view of the growth of the costs of the TSR2 and other projects, not only in this country but abroad, one can understand that figure, even though it is enormous. The project has been changed twice, almost redesigned twice, to make it more competitive and to give it extra range.
  The first prototype should fly during the first half of 1968. I am told that work is only two weeks late. The testing programme is on schedule. Contributing to this there is the BAC221 which is doing considerable high-speed flying on behalf of the Concord project, and later the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough will continue to fly the 221.
  One of the most interesting things—and I should like the Parliamentary Secretary's confirmation of this—is that all the structural drawings have been issued to the workshops, which is quite a feat, and that in the last year so much progress has been made that 50 per cent. of the accessory drawings have been issued.
  The aircraft is to have the Olympus 593 engine. Experimental work has been undertaken with 17 engines and three have been delivered ahead of schedule. These engines develop the equivalent of 35,000 lbs. thrust with a possible 10 per cent. reserve, so that they are capable of producing about 40,000 lbs. thrust. The engine programme is, I believe, estimated to be £115 million. It is an enormous sum of money and I should like some information on the cost. I am told that at present the figures are under-spent by £1 million and that is encouraging. It would be interesting to know what the
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  country is going to get for this £115 million. My information is that 17 engines will be delivered, with a tremendous amount of spares, the flying test bed of the Vulcan, which will carry two of the engines for flying and also 52 engines ready for flight for the production line. If one takes the figure of £350 million as the total overall cost of the project, and subtracts the £115 million for the engines, that leaves £235 million for the airframe, for the two prototypes and two production models which would be delivered. All of the development flying would be carried out.
  I am told that the cost of the development flying on this is something like £1,000 per hour. The bill is therefore enormous when one thinks in overall figures. The weight of the Concord has gone up from 130 tons to 170 tons, which gives one some idea of the growth of this aeroplane since the design started. This is not unusual. Normally when an aeroplane is being built over a period of seven or eight years the engine gets 30 per cent. or 40 per cent. more power at the end of the development, which enables the pay load to be increased accordingly. The estimated selling price of a Concord is approximately 16 million dollars. The makers are quoting in dollars because they are dealing with international customers. I do not know why they did not quote in £s but that is approximately £5½ million for each Concord. The Americans, who are three years behind Britain and are doing development trials through two firms, and preparing designs and drawings, estimate that their costs for the plane, should they go ahead, would be between 20 million dollars and 27 million dollars. So the French and British have still a bit in hand on the final selling price.
  The Concord should be in service by 1971. Its range would be Paris to New York comfortably and could well be stretched later on. If this project is to go ahead, how much enthusiasm has B.O.A.C. shown? I do not want another Super VC 10 situation when it was said that B.O.A.C. was pushed into buying by the Minister, so that eventually the taxpayer had to pay. Let us see B.O.A.C. doing a bit of research, like Pan American, which looks 15 to 20 years ahead into its airline requirements. B.O.A.C. must accept responsibility. It and Air France are at the top of the list of those

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  options with six, plus two each. That makes 16 aircraft between the two airlines. This needs clarifying, because if this aircraft is to be successful and the extra money that is being voted is to be well spent, then the aircraft must have the real backing of the two national airlines of the countries behind the project. No one wants to see B.O.A.C. landed with an aircraft which will not earn revenue, but the fact that other airlines are interested shows that there is something to it.
  What is worrying us is the problem of noise. The Parliamentary Secretary has made himself well informed on this subject and if he could tell us something about it, this would be very reassuring. Noise is a difficult problem to estimate, because the definition by the authorities in various countries varies enormously both on the ground and on the climb. I am told that, as far as investigations go, the noise effect, as at present estimated, satisfies 50 per cent. of the countries concerned. The remainder are not very far adrift.
  We are lucky that this project has gone on. I well remember the present Home Secretary, when he was Minister of Aviation, in the early weeks of the present Labour Government, being put in a most invidious position, going backward and forward to Paris trying to get out of the contract. But General de Gaulle outsmarted the Prime Minister and held him to the contract and I am very glad, for Britain's sake, that he did. There have been many people saying that we cannot afford to do these sort of things, but if we are going to drop right out of technological development where is this country going to end? If one can build this type of aircraft and engine one is training men to a very high standard. If we fail to do so the loss of technological fall-out in metallurgy, hydraulics and so on would be enormous. A value cannot be placed upon the effects of such a failure to the engineering industry. We cannot afford to drop out. In many respects we lead the United States and we ought not to have a complex about competing with it. Our weakness is the smallness of the home market. Had a little more prudence been shown by the air Corporations in working out their specifications, so as to be in line with what other air-
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  lines required, we might have sold more Tridents. Instead they were tailored for B.E.A.
  I am sure that this project is right. I understand that the new specifications are to be examined in the coming months and by midsummer the companies concerned will have to be given the green light. I should like an assurance from the Minister that, as far as he knows, the project is going to go ahead. It would be very satisfying to the men and women employed in this great industry to know where they stand and to know that their efforts are not being wasted, that they are not going to wake up in the middle of a financial crisis in a few months' time and find that we are opting out and leaving it all to the French. The Minister will be doing a great duty to Britain and the industry if he can give that reassurance.
  8.18 p.m.
  Mrs. Shirley Williams: I do not intend to be very long in what I have to say, and I do not intend to follow the hon. Gentleman the Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey) in some of the technicalities of the Concord project. There are three brief points I would like to make on the Supplementary Estimates concerning the Ministry of Aviation. The first concerns the additional Supplementary Estimate for the costs of cancellation, which, we gather, account for the main part of the £11½ million additional Supplementary Estimates under the heading of research and development. It is worth going back a little way to see what was the source of these cancellations. I would like to quote the Financial Times for 3rd February, 1965, which said:
  "The Tory Government's last years were marked by dangerous indecisiveness over aircraft defence and prestige…The result was that labour was left a mixture of policies, development contracts, half-built aeroplanes and undertakings which satisfied nobody and put a huge burden on the Exchequer."
  Those remarks are very accurate and apposite to our consideration of the burden on the taxpayer. There were undoubtedly far too many projects spread thinly over the aircraft industry. When one looks back, there has been a far too desperate attempt on the part of the Opposition to off-load the political blame for the cancellations on to the

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  Government. We have to recall that the source of the cancellations pre-dates the coming into power of the present Government.
  Looking back, one has also to bear in mind that the economic cost of a cancellation is quite distinct from the social cost to the community. Here I would agree with the remarks made by hon. Gentlemen opposite who referred to the amount of skill as well as investment in plant which is sunk into the aircraft industry. That is not entirely reflected in the cost of any particular cancellation. When we look at the social cost over and above the budget cost of cancellation, I do not believe that hon. Gentlemen opposite have very strong grounds for their argument. In my own constituency there were substantial redundancies in 1962 arising from an earlier cancellation which also led to a Supplementary Estimate—the cancellation of the Blue Water missile. On that occasion, many hundreds of men were put out of work without any prior consultation with the firm involved. Only three weeks before the cancellation a statement was made in the House by the then Government to the effect that their intention was to continue with the contract.
  The three cancellations which have been mentioned today and which are part of the sum concerned in the Supplementary Estimate we are considering were all made after due consultation with the firms involved, after full consideration had been given to the redeployment of the labour involved and after a far greater effort had been made to reinvest the skill and experience of the men involved in producing the aircraft.
  Mr. Onslow: If this is the case, I wonder whether the hon. Lady can explain the steady trickle of the most skilled men in the industry to employment in South Africa, America and Germany? Is this redeployment?
  Mrs. Williams: The numbers involved have been considerably exaggerated.
  Mr. Onslow: No.
  Mrs. Williams: If the hon. Gentleman looks at the numbers involved, he will find that they are not great. In the case of those who have gone to West Germany, this is a parallel with what
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  happened in earlier years when people in, for example, the shipbuilding industry took up employment in West Germany, many of whom have returned. I do not regard this as being particularly relevant. The hon. Gentleman will find that this is a feature of medicine, science and of many industries and professions which arose just as much under previous Governments as it has under the present Government.
  I should like to consider a different aspect of the cancellations which are being debated. I should like my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to refer to the question which I want to put to him, when he winds up the debate. He will be aware that as a result of the cancellations under consideration 1,850 men in one plant near my constituency, at Luton, have been declared redundant. Although most of them are likely to be re-employed—and indeed there are signs that they will be rapidly re-employed—it is necessary to make sure that the redundancy arrangements associated with these men shall not only meet the needs of the men but the need to retain their skill so that it can be used in industries where an equivalent degree of experience is required. I should be obliged if my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary would comment on this when he replies. I have discussed this matter with my hon. Friend the Member for Luton (Mr. Howie).
  Turning to the question of the costs of aircraft cancellations and the way in which they have flowed from an overextended industry in the past, I should like my hon. Friend to comment on the possibility of introducing greater diversification to ensure the maximum retention of skilled teams and skilled men in the industry, even though the final product may be something other than aircraft, and the retention, as far as possible, of the money which the taxpayer has invested in plant in this industry. I hope that my hon. Friend will bear that in mind as the industry engages in the contraction which has been taking place since 1959.
  I turn to the Concord project to which the hon. Member for Macclesfield referred. We have seen a Supplementary Estimate which is clearly, together with the original Estimate, far below the final cost of the research and development

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  for Concord. The figure given in the Supplementary Estimate together with the original Estimate is £14 million. I should like to deal with one or two aspects of joint projects, not with particular reference to Concord, but in a general way.
  I wish to refer to a remark made by the right hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) in a recent debate on the aircraft industry when he pointed out, absolutely correctly, that there is very little economy to be gained from a joint project if it involves dual production lines rather than a single production line. I should like to ask my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary whether he will look at this problem of budgeting for joint projects in terms of whether it is better to diversify the work on them as between different parts of an aircraft or between different aircraft, which, it seems to me, makes greater sense to the taxpayer, rather than have a sharing out of what is almost certainly too short a production line in view of the overheads which need to be carried.
  Here I refer to a point which was made very well by the Director of E.S.R.O., an organisation under consideration in this Supplementary Estimate, Mr. Auger, who said about joint projects:
  "The best way of selling the scheme to the Chancellories of Europe originally was by emphasising that there would be valuable feedbacks from E.S.R.O. contracts to the national economies".
  In saying this he made a point which all of us here are aware of, namely, that often the only way in which a joint project can be made acceptable to each national economy is by suggesting that there will be the greatest return to each national economy. Clearly this is not possible by the very nature of joint projects.
  Therefore, it seems to me that the Ministry of Aviation needs to give very great attention to the costing of joint projects, to the way in which, as far as possible in advance, the work on such projects can be specified, to the ways in which overheads can be spread in the widest possible way over the production run and the absolute necessity to be clear about specifications so that there is as little interference as possible with the specification as the project unrolls. I do not claim to be as expert as most Mem-
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  bers who are in the Chamber at present, but it is clear to a laywoman like myself that the continual interference with projects as they get off the ground is something which most rapidly escalates their cost and thus has a disastrous effect on sales.
  I hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will deal with the points which I have raised when he winds up the debate.
  8.26 p.m.
  Mr. Robert Carr: I support what has been said on this important subject by my hon. Friends the Members for Woking (Mr. Onslow) and Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey). The House should be grateful to them for having taken advantage of this opportunity to raise these matters. Aviation is of great importance not only to the industry and general welfare of the country but to us in Parliament because of the large amounts of taxpayers' money involved.
  Like my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield, I begrudge—indeed we must all begrudge—money spent on cancellations. Surely what we want to see is money spent on producing something. In the last 18 months far too much money has been spent, or at least committed—because we have not heard the end of the story yet; there is no mention of TSR 2 in this Estimate—on the negative business of cancellations. We on this side of the House protest against that in the strongest possible terms.
  I was surprised to hear the hon. Lady the Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams) say some of the things which she said. It is true that cancellations are not anything new. It is true that there were cancellations when we on this side of the House were in power. But I do not think that it ever happened that there were three major cancellations which formed the backbone of the industry's future programme as there have been under this Government. They have created a vacuum, and it is evident that they have as yet no idea how it should be filled.
  However, that is not a matter into which we can go tonight, though, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and others have made clear, it is almost certainly a matter about which we shall have more to say before very long.
  Mrs. Shirley Williams: I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that within a period of two years there was first the cancellation of Blue Streak, followed by the cancellations of Blue Steel and Blue Water, which, together, went a very long way to weaken confidence in one section of the aviation industry.
  Mr. Carr: I am very well aware of what the hon. Lady says, and I do not deny the bad effect of any cancellations. But I do not think that the particular cancellations that she has mentioned can be compared, either in scale or in their effect on the whole industry and the industries associated with aviation, with the cancellation within a matter of a few months of the three major future projects which the industry had before it. It is going to take us very many years to recover from that disastrous action.
  As I say, tonight is not the occasion when we can go into that at any length. But there is one other comment that I want to make about it in support of what my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield said, and that is the evil effect which those cancellations have had on our skilled manpower.
  The hon. Member for Hitchin said that full consideration had been given to the redeployment of the labour involved. I wish that she had enlarged on that a little more, because I am not aware of what that consideration was
  Watching the answers to Questions which have been put down over the last months to the Minister of Labour and other Ministers, one of the points which emerges is that we have no idea of what has happened to the bulk of the skilled labour. We know that some of it has gone abroad, but we do not know how much. We have evidence here and there of where labour has actually gone abroad which, I should have thought, we could ill spare. We suspect with very good grounds that the amount that has gone abroad is actually greater than that about which we know, but we have no idea whether one of the objectives which the Government have claimed for their actions, namely the redeployment of skilled labour into the export industries, has taken place. I cannot accept that full consideration was given to it or that we have any knowledge whether the can-
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  cellations have had any beneficial effect on our export effort. Certainly we have seen none that can be identified.
  I turn now to the Concord project. I want to urge the Parliamentary Secretary and his right hon. Friend to have primary regard in their control of the project to the market needs for this aeroplane. After all, what we are producing in the Concord is a commercial plane to operate on the civil air routes of the world. If we are to get a reasonable, direct return on the huge amounts of money which are inevitably being invested in it, then above everything else we must ensure that the plane supplies what a large number of world airlines will want.
  The redesign of the plane which has taken place since its early days has greatly improved the project in that respect. The market survey results which my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield mentioned seem to indicate that there is now a substantial potential demand for the plane.
  I want to suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that whether that potential demand becomes a real one depends primarily on a matter of timing. Getting the plane into the air on time is the most critical factor. The Americans have not yet made a decision what to do about a supersonic civil transport, but we know that they are going into the matter with their usual energy and thoroughness. Apparently they are not going to enter a direct competitor for the Concord, but we know that if they come into this field they will try to go a jump ahead of it with a still faster aeroplane.
  Whether or not there is a reasonably large market for the Concord depends, I suspect, on how many years before the American project arrives the Concord can be got into the air. If it can be got into production and into commercial flight a reasonable number of years ahead of an American project, I think that there will be a good market for it. But if the development times spin out, so that eventually it comes on to the market only a year or two ahead of an American project, I shall not feel very optimistic about its chances. From the information that is available so far, progress on the production of the Concord seems to be most encouraging The companies concerned seem to be keeping

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  on schedule, and it is most important that this progress should be maintained.
  If that is to happen, there are no doubt many factors to be considered, but I would mention only two which seem to be important. First, both the British Government and the French Government should be prepared to allow a sufficiently great rate of spend of money. I am not thinking now of the total. I am thinking of the rate of annual spend. We could destroy the return which we hope to get from this amount of money involved in total if we were to ration the money out over too long a period, and hence delay the coming into service of this plane. As I said just now, the date at which it comes into service is crucial in this project.
  The second factor to which we must pay regard is one which I mentioned in our debate last week on the Plowden Report, namely, having the courage to prevent the best from becoming the enemy of the good. In highly technological projects of this kind one gets terrified of our brilliant scientists and engineers coming along with better and better ideas; which no doubt are better, but which sometimes have to be resisted. One of the most difficult decisions to make is the stage at which we should go firm on a highly technical project, but that time must come, and I am sure that this is another important factor affecting both overall cost, and the time at which this plane will fly and be available to the airlines of the world. I am not suggesting that I have any evidence that the best is being allowed to become the enemy of the good, but I think that this warning note should be sounded very loudly in case such a situation should tend to arise as the development goes forward.
  My last point is to support the plea made by my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) about the possibility of having a Select Committee to look at this project. It seems to me that there is a widespread desire in Parliament—which I am glad to say has nothing to do with party divisions—that our ability as Members of Parliament to take a full part in understanding, and therefore, as we hope, in helping to control, the expenditure of moneys on this sort of project should be extended and
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  made more effective than it has been in the past.
  We want to do that not just from the negative point of view of spending less public money, but from the positive point of view of seeing that when we do spend public money we get something concrete to show for it, and that we do not have cancellations, whichever Government is in power, which we then throw across the House at each other with varying degrees of justification and accuracy. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will give this matter considerable thought.
  We realise that neither he nor his right hon. Friend is in a position to say "Yes", because it is not within their province to do so. But we would like to feel that he will consider the views which I am sure are held on this point by many hon. Members, regardless of party. If, after it has been considered, the request cannot eventually be granted—at least in connection with this project in this Session—as a rather poor substitute but nevertheless as one that is better than nothing, will he present Parliament with regular progress reports on the Concord, as it develops? By regular progress reports I mean printed papers that we can study, setting out what is happening. We should not be so bedevilled by the cloak of security in this matter as we are in military matters. There is an element of commercial security, but we also suspect that our friends across the Atlantic know a great deal of what is going on, and at least we should not be afraid to publish to the very limit of what we judge they will find out in any case. If we cannot have a Select Committee, as we would like, let us at least have regular papers presented to the House giving detailed progress reports.
  8.41 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aviation (Mr. John Stone-house): I apologise to the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) for not being in my place when he began his speech. I understood that there was to be a debate preceding this, but it did not take place. I believe that it will follow this one. I did not expect the hon. Member to begin his speech at the time he did. I have been most interested in what he has had to say, and I hope that I can give him some of the information that he seeks.

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  First, however, I want to deal with some of the questions raised by the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey). He referred to the Supplementary Estimates and to the HS681 and the P1154. The Supplementary Estimates do not cover all the compensation charges that have been made in respect of these two aircraft. The breakdown of the figures is approximately as follows: for the HS681, £2 million, and for the P1154, £6 million for the engine and £2 million for the airframe.
  Those are the Estimates before us now, but, overall, there will be a similar amount which the House will be asked to consider in due course. There is no problem that we cannot resolve in connection with the cancellation charges that have been made in relation to these two aircraft. We are in touch with the firm concerned about them.
  The hon. Member made some general remarks about the loss of skilled staff from the British aircraft industry. My hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams) struck the right note. There has been a great deal of exaggeration about this. We have lost a few skilled men in the last year, but hon. Members, will probably agree that even if the Opposition had won the election in October, 1964, there would still have been a loss of skilled men, because it has been clear that our competitors, especially in the United States, have for many years—going back long before the last election—conducted a campaign to recruit skilled staff here.
  Sir A. V. Harvey: The hon. Member's explanation is quite reasonable and understandable. What I was complaining about was the fact that two or three years ago the present Prime Minister attacked the then Government because of the brain drain. He did not put forward the explanation that this had been going on for 50 years. From what was said then we were led to expect that the present Government to stop it. We never thought that they could, but they said they would.
  Mr. Stonehouse: I am sure that we have stemmed it, because we have given our young professionals in this country a much better hope of a real career here than was given before the last election during 13 years of rather depressing administration.
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  I should like to deal with some of the points made by the hon. Member for Woking about the Concord project. As he rightly said, the rising costs which are associated with a venture of this kind must give the country and this House some concern. I cannot, however, confirm the figures which have appeared in the Press about these increased costs. They have increased to some extent, however, and this is due to reasons which, I am sure, the House will appreciate.
  First, there has been a certain inflation in cost since the estimates were last presented to the House. Secondly, the specification for the aircraft has been changed. The size of the aircraft is being increased from 118 seats to about 130 seats dependent on the configuration. In fact, if they are all tourist or economy type seats, the number to be carried in the revised Concord could be appreciably more than 130. It depends on which configuration the airlines chooses.
  This partly answers what the right hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) said. We must, of course, be aware of the market requirement. Airlines need more seats in the aircraft than was originally thought, but the seat-mile cost must not be increased. A greater range is also necessary: they want to be able, understandably, to fly non-stop from Paris to New York, and this involves increased costs.
  Thirdly, the estimates have been revised by a new system providing a more accurate appreciation of the costs involved and this has meant greater accuracy in identifying those costs. Fourthly, we are now including in the assessment which is being made the post-certificate of airworthiness costs, which will be quite considerable. I am sure that the House will agree that the Concord project is the most exciting adventurous project in which this country has ever been involved. We are breaking a completely new frontier here, providing supersonic transport for civil airlines. Of course, this has been done militarily, but never in civil air transport.
  This is a greater revolution than anything which has been done before. Even that revolution which took place when we converted from largely propeller driven fleets to jet fleets was not so great. We must make sure that the aircraft are fully tested before they go into airline service. We must have no shadow of doubt about

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  the safety of this aircraft. This, of course, means increased costs and considerable expenditure. We want to make absolutely sure that we deal with the safety aspects.
  We shall have a ground test programme of unprecedented scope. We shall have airframe testing with the research facilities at Farnborough. We shall go through every possible process to ensure that, when this aircraft comes into airline service in 1971 and 1972, nobody need have any concern about flying in it.
  The hon. Member for Woking asked about the impact of delayed decisions on the cost of the project. I should like to make it crystal clear—he did not make this point in his speech, but is has been raised elsewhere—that there has been no delay on the technical front, nor has there been any increase in cost as a result of the review which my right hon. Friends conducted into the project between October, 1964, and January, 1965. Any suggestion that there has been any delay as a result of the review is quite inaccurate. In fact, it is quite the reverse; the project was kept up to date throughout that review and we lost no time at all. As the right hon. Member for Mitcham said, the programme is going very well. We are up to date and we hope that the first prototype will be flying early in 1968. But in order to keep up with that we have had to take more staff on the design side at Bristol, and this is partly the reason why some of the costs have had to be revised.
  The hon. Member for Woking referred to the noise factor. We are very conscious of the importance of this point and a great deal of work has been done on it. We have in mind not only the noise on the ground and the noise on take off but the sonic bang problem, of which we are very well aware, and much work is being done on this question. We are very conscious of the need to solve the sonic bang problem if this aircraft is to be permitted to fly over land masses, and that is required if we are to reach the sales figures to which the hon. Member referred.
  Mr. Onslow: May I make a distinction. I imagine that little could be done to change the design to eliminate the sonic bang. But I stressed that some uncertainty may remain before the design
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  is finally fixed with respect of the conflicting requirements by certain authorities at or around airports into which the Concord would operate. Is the hon. Member certain that everything possible is being done to eliminate those conflicts and to fix a definite requirement for the aircraft?
  Mr. Storehouse: We are very much aware of the need for that and we are in touch not only with our French partners to co-ordinate with them but we have been in close touch with the United States authorities. I met them a few months ago when we had a conference to try to tackle some of these problems. They have as great an interest as we have in the certification of this aircraft when it is flying, and we want their co-operation at an early stage to ensure that if they see any snags at the beginning of the development, we are made aware of them.
  The hon. Member referred to the use of the TSR 2 in development experiments. We looked at this proposal and we were satisfied that it would be uneconomic to use the TSR 2 in the way suggested, and that is why the proposal was turned down.
  The hon. Member for Macclesfield raised a question about engine costs. I cannot confirm the figure of £115 million which he used. It may be slightly less than that. When I check on the accurate figure I will write to him about it. These costs are very considerable. They are a sign of the great pioneering job which is being done. We are all very glad that the Olympus has been such a success story so far. There has been successful testing and we are reaching very fine results indeed in the development of Olympus. I do not think there will be any snag on that side of the project, although it is costing an enormous amount of money to develop.
  Figures were given about the engines to be supplied in the course of the programme. I can confirm that 52 engines are being considered. The eventual number may be somewhat less; this is still being examined. But a great number are required not only for testing but for spares for aircraft as they go into flying service.
  It will not surprise hon. Members to hear that on this project, with which we and the French are very much involved, we are in constant touch with our French

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  friends about the programme. The conference which I am about to describe to the House will, therefore, not be considered in any way exceptional. This conference, on the costs of the project, is of a routine nature, and I hope that the House will not take any particular note of the fact that we will be meeting with the French to have a full-scale conference on the subject towards the end of this month to discuss the progress of the Concord on the financial side.
  The right hon. Member for Mitcham spoke about the need for the House to have effective control over expenditure. Our French friends are also very much aware of this. Between us we have devised methods of cost control which I am sure will help to make certain that on both sides of the Channel we have rigorous control of expenditure to ensure that this development takes place at the least cost to the taxpayers of France and the United Kingdom. As I say, the conference which will be held towards the end of the month will help us along that road.
  We are anxious to achieve the best possible results for any cost-control system that is used. I confirm one point mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin. She said that a joint development arrangement increases costs. This is undoubtedly the case. The Concord project would have been less expensive if the development had taken place completely on this side of the Channel or completely in France. Nobody disputes that.
  I am sure that the House will agree, however, that it would have been impossible for either France or Britain to have "gone it alone" on this project. As the right hon. Member for Mitcham said, it is important that we get the market right with Concord. We can do that only if it is a collaborative project. We could not have expected to have achieved the market of the size we have in mind for Concord if it had not been a joint project.
  On the production side, we hope that the cost can be kept as low between the two of us as it would have been had Concord been developed on only one side of the Channel. One of the problems which will have to be considered by the firms is this. If the Concord development is as successful as we all hope it will be
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  —if we can reach the sales we hope to achieve—every airline in the world will want the aircraft to be delivered within months and not years. That means that the production programme will have to be considerable and that we will need the maximum use of production facilities in France and Britain to meet the demand placed on us.
  I will summarise the responsibilities we have for the Concord under five headings. First, we have a responsibility to make sure that it is technically feasible and safe. We have already come to the conclusion that it is technically feasible. We know that this job can be done. Our scientists, engineers and design staff are doing a first-rate job and are breaking new frontiers all the time to devise an aircraft which will fly at 1,400 m.p.h., which will travel between London and New York in just over three hours and which, flying at this tremendous speed, will be 100 per cent. safe. That is the responsibility of the Ministry with which I am connected.
  Secondly, we have to ensure that the air traffic control procedures at our airports can cope with this aircraft. We must ensure that time that is saved in travelling at supersonic speeds across the Atlantic is not lost when the aircraft comes into the air traffic control network.
  Thirdly, we must ensure that the sonic bang is acceptable, otherwise the aircraft will be restricted to flying across the wastes of the desert or the sea, and that will restrict its operating appeal to many airlines.
  Fourthly—this is a most important point—we must ensure that the huge cost of research and development on this aircraft, reaching hundreds of millions of £s, is justified to the taxpayer. We must ensure that the return we shall get from this massive investment will be sufficient to justify this huge expenditure. In this we have a common interest with the French, because they are spending a like sum to ourselves and we are in constant touch with them. As I have said, in a few weeks' time we shall have another review of the financial implications of the Concord development.
  Fifthly—this was touched on by the hon. Member for Macclesfield—there is the responsibility of B.O.A.C. to bring this aircraft into airline use. That is also

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  partly the responsibility of the House. We must ensure that the Air Corporations, and B.O.A.C. in particular, are run commercially and we want to ensure that they operate aircraft that can bring them an economic return. So we have this responsibility to add to the other four I have described.
  I refer now to some of the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour is well aware of the problems of the redundancy at Luton and is dealing with them. We have every confidence that the men, particularly the skilled men, will be redeployed in useful and constructive jobs within a very short time. I should be very pleased to meet my hon. Friends the Members for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams) and Luton (Mr. Howie) to discuss this problem if they feel that there is any useful information that we can give to them and their constituents. I take note particularly of my hon. Friend's point about the importance of maintaining the skilled teams.
  My hon. Friend referred to the costing of Concord and of other projects. We take note of the suggestion that there should be a Select Committee. I am sure that my right hon. Friends concerned will consider this proposal. Quite apart from their consideration of the proposal, I know that my right hon. Friend is very anxious to provide all the information he can in the House in response to any direct question which may be raised about the Concord programme and its development.
  I agree with those who have said during this short debate that it is essential that the House and the country should know how this project is developing. They have a very big stake in it; a very great deal of public money is involved. They are excited by the prospect of our scientists and our industry helping to break new frontiers, as they are doing, and I am sure that it is in their interests, as it is in the interests of the House, that the fullest possible information should be made available about the progress of this very exciting venture.

  CHANNEL TUNNEL
  9.5 p.m.
  Mr. Geoffrey Wilson: The subject I wish to raise is very different from the one we have just debated. I wish to refer to the Channel Tunnel, which is mentioned on page 14 of the Civil Estimates, Class IV, 15, where there is a reference to £845,000 being spent on expenses for a geological survey and other preliminary expenses.
  I am glad that this item is included. For too many years the Channel Tunnel has been talked about without any action being taken, and here we have evidence of action. It has been talked about for at least 100 years, and for the greater part of that time, owing to the very favourable nature of the strata of the chalk below the Channel, it would have been quite easy for engineers, even with much more primitive equipment than we now possess, to have completed the tunnel long ago.
  The project was held up for a long time by political considerations, and there were for a long time military objections. In the early numbers of Punch, there were frequent references to the possibility of French soldiers with fixed bayonets marching through the tunnel. There were many cartoons of that sort, but that proposition was always absurd, because it is easy to destroy a tunnel, especially one under water. The proposition has been specially absurd in rencent years when invasion would have been not through a tunnel but by air or by sea. The military objections had been long abandoned, but the project still hung fire and the joint decision of the British and French Governments to go ahead was made only on 6th February, 1964. It is from that decision that the geological survey to which the Estimates refer originates.
  I believe that that decision was right. Whether we join the Common Market or not, it is obvious that there will be an increased flow of trade and traffic across the English Channel, not only a traffic in goods but in passengers. I hope that that traffic will be both ways, because the growing prosperity of Europe increases the number of people who are able to take holidays abroad, and with a permanent link we would get a larger proportion of foreign visitors to offset the number of British people who like to take their holidays on the Continent.

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  A number of arguments are put forward claiming that expenditure such as this in the Estimates is wasteful and unnecessary. It is said, for instance, that air transport and conventional sea transport—and no doubt in the future hovercraft—could provide for the additional traffic we are expecting, but all these forms of transport require the double handling of freight, except in the case of roll-on, roll-off motor lorry ferry services on ships and private car ferry services in aircraft. In the case of passengers there is a double transference.
  There is nothing that can beat the train for medium long distance travel. This is a point which is not always appreciated by people who are interested in transport. For travel over very long distances the advantage of speed compensates an aeroplane travel for somewhat uncertain timing, which is still the case, and for considerably more expense, and for very short distances the motor car or lorry has the advantage because of the greater convenience of travelling from door to door. However, over medium long distance the train still has it, and it will continue to have it for a considerable time because a train can carry a greater density of traffic over a comparable area of ground at a greater speed than any other form of transport, and it can do it in any weather. No doubt there will be an increase in these other forms of transport.
  Before I pass from the question of weather, I want to mention the Hovercraft. I and a number of other hon. Members recently made a trip in a Hovercraft from Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight, and we did it in extremely bad weather, when the sea was very choppy, there was very strong wind and the visibility was very poor. There is no doubt that a Hovercraft in such circumstances was much more satisfactory than a ship. It made a much smoother passage, and at greater speed than a surface craft could have done. Nevertheless, it remains a fact that the Hovercraft was certainly not on schedule. It was going at very much less than its scheduled speed. Also, it was not able to make the trip back again; at any rate, it did not. So there is a certain degree of uncertainty in the Hovercraft still and it cannot have the same certainty in bad weather as a train.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Stephen Swingler): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Geoffrey Wilson), especially because I am lost in admiration at his breadth of vision about forms of transportation across the Channel. But, in view of previous Rulings given by Mr. Speaker, I should like to know about the subjects with which I shall be permitted to deal in reply. I understand that we are dealing with a section of the Supplementary Estimates on the Channel Tunnel, which provides for the expenses of the geological survey and other preliminary expenses which are provision for the care and maintenance of assets. I should like to know whether, under that, I am entitled to discourse on the merits and demerits of the Hovercraft and various other methods of transportation.
  Mr. David Webster: Further to the point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If the Hovercraft were to be a regular service, all this expenditure would not be necessary at all. I draw that to your attention.
  Mr. Wilson: That was the point I was trying to make, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Perhaps the Joint Parliamentary Secretary did not understand that. I was defending the expenditure which has taken place for the geological survey. Many people say that a geological survey is unnecessary, that the Channel Tunnel is completely out of date, that other forms of transport are becoming available, that to go on talking about about a Channel Tunnel in this day and age is stupid, and that to spend £845,000 on a geological survey for a service which is totally unnecessary is a waste of money to which the House should object.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Roderic Bowen): The hon. Gentleman is in order in making a passing reference to alternative projects, but he cannot develop them.
  Mr. Wilson: I think, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I have said enough to cover those points.
  Perhaps I might be allowed to say that if the money is not spent on a survey for a Channel tunnel, very large sums of money will have to be spent on the improvement of other facilities across

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  the Channel with regard to seaports or airports, or even ports for Hovercraft. It is a mistake to suppose that the Hovercraft can run up on any beach it likes. It needs a prepared platform if it is to be used commercially. Otherwise it wears out the skirt beneath it and becomes a very expensive craft to maintain. So, if the expenditure on this survey was not incurred and the Channel Tunnel project was avoided, we should still have to spend a large sum of money on other forms of transport. If the money which has been spent is not to be wasted, the next stage will have to be proceeded with fairly soon. Otherwise the money which has been spent on a geological survey will be just so much money thrown into the sea.
  The group that has been conducting this study cannot undertake to carry out the next stage—the preparation of plans for the tunnel and putting them out to tender—unless it has some sort of assurance that it will at least be partially responsible for the building of the tunnel. The group has already expended £750,000 of private funds on studying the project and if it cannot get this assurance, it cannot go further and the £383,000 spent on the geological survey will have been wasted.
  A number of hon. Members have seen the results of the geological study which are at present at Dover Castle. They are impressive even to a layman who cannot possibly hope to understand all the technicalities. A most detailed study has been carried out of the sea bed and the strata underneath it to find the best routes for either a submerged tunnel or a bored tunnel. Both borings and echo soundings of the seabed have been taken.
  It is understood that no substantial engineering difficulties were discovered which would interrupt or make difficult the building of a tunnel. But if the group does not now proceed with the preparation of the design and specifications for tenders the ultimate cost of a tunnel, if built, will be increased.
  It has been pointed out that the project has been long delayed. If the tunnel had been built in 1930 it would have cost only £30 million. Now it will cost four or five times as much. The sooner the matter can be completed the less likely will there
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  be an increase in cost and the more valuable will be the expenditure already laid out on the survey.
  It is necessary to decide, therefore, if all this money is not to be wasted, in what way the financing of the tunnel should be carried out. One understands that the French Government have always indicated that they think that it should be privately financed. What the British Government think is not quite so clear. The study group bankers are confident that the tunnel could be privately financed within the framework of a mixed economy operating under reasonable Government control. The group recognises that a tunnel would be a public utility and that the Government should retain a considerable measure of control. But it believes that private capital could be raised in the world financial markets if private enterprise had sufficient freedom of action to take decisions and to control costs and ensure a reasonable return on investment.
  It is believed that about 50 per cent. of capital could be obtained from places other than Great Britain and France. I mention that because it may be thought that there must be some delay on financial grounds in proceeding further now that the survey has been obtained. In any case, even if this project is financed largely by private enterprise, the British Government will gain not only substantial benefits from taxation but from profits of companies which are part of the group and in which the Government or British Railways hold substantial interests, such as the Suez Financial Company and the Channel Tunnel Company.
  The group has given details of its suggestions about finance, but it would not be proper for me to go into them now and nor would I be competent to do so. However, I hope that these matters can be considered and that decisions on them can be reached as soon as possible, or the money which has been spent on the survey will be wasted. We know that it will take about six years to construct the tunnel. The impact on the British investment programme would be small during the first four years of construction, especially if the greater part of the outlay were raised in countries outside the United Kingdom. However, if a Channel Tunnel were not built and if nothing

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  were done, long before the six years were up the country would be faced with very heavy capital expenditure to improve other forms of transport and we should be in a desperate position to meet the necessities of expanding airports and ports and so on. The existing facilities will have reached saturation point in six years at any rate, so that it is not a question of the Channel Tunnel being an additional expenditure, but of its being a substitute for something else.
  It would be tragic if after so much useful work had been done it should prove to be abortive and merely money thrown into the sea.
  9.21 p.m.
  Mr. A. P. Costain: According to the tradition of the House, I think, although I am not absolutely certain, I should declare my interest in this matter. I am not certain, because the company with which I am financially connected did some original surveys, but I understand that certain of them have been bought by the present team. I cannot say with certainty whether they come under these Supplementary Estimates, but for safety's sake I declare an interest if there is one.
  It speaks very highly for the versatility of the House that at one minute we can talk about an exciting aircraft and the next about an exciting tunnel under the sea. They have something else in common in that they are both Anglo-French projects. What interests the House at the moment is that both are the cause of additional expense because of delays and lack of decisions.
  I realise that the range of debate on this occasion must necessarily be very narrow. My hon. Friend the Member for Truro (Mr. Geoffrey Wilson) has developed the main argument for the tunnel and, as an engineer, I should like to develop some of the points which directly arise from these Supplementary Estimates.
  Those of us who have constituencies in the south-east of England and who have seen the surveys carried out week by week can well realise how these additional costs have been incurred. Those of us who went in an all-party group to see the results of the surveys at Dover Castle quite recently know
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  how thoroughly they were done, and I am sure that it would be the wish of all who were there to pay our tribute to those who carried out the surveys so thoroughly.
  In passing, I should like to make a suggestion to the Parliamentary Secretary. We now know that as a result of these surveys we have an extraordinary historic collection of bores—[Laughter.]—geological bores for the Channel Tunnel and not in the sense which has caused hon. Members some amusement. They are of such historic value that when the engineers have finished their work with them, instead of being thrown away, they should be sent to museums not only in this country but in the Commonwealth, because the English Channel has such a worldwide importance.
  The survey has shown beyond all engineering doubt that the Channel Tunnel is now a possibility. If there were to be any doubts cast at all, the survey has shown that the strata on the French side of the tunnel make it possibly more difficult to define where the tunnel exit or tunnel portal should be on that side. We have been assured by the engineers in charge that there can be a great deal of versatility about the siting of the portal on the English side. I want to make this plea to the Parliamentary Secretary that, as these facts are now known and a great deal of development is being held in jeopardy in my constituency at Folkestone and in the surrounding areas, a decision should be made, even at this time, as to the possible outlet of the tunnel. It is indirectly holding up housing development.
  In passing, I would say that a decision on the whole matter is vitally important. My hon. Friend has developed the problems in the ports. In the Channel ports we have reached saturation, not only in port facilities but on ships. I have had letters of complaint from visitors to this country and residents about the poor facilities, not only at Folkestone Harbour but on the boats themselves. I have taken this up with British Railways. The St. Patrick is a ship operating at the present time which has been diverted from the Irish Channel trade, and to say the least it is no credit to this country and does not give the right impression. Whenever I take this matter up with

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  British Railways I am always told that until there is a decision on the Channel Tunnel it can do nothing much about it. One point of explanation which I seek from the Parliamentary Secretary on the Estimates themselves relates to the second item:
  "Other preliminary expenses…£10,000."
  and then:
  "Additional provision required for the care and maintenance of assets."
  There does not seem to be a figure against this. I would have thought that this was the most important part of this debate, because the assets are not the cores which have been bored from the tunnel but the engineering team which has carried out this survey. I know that already the engineers have taken work in other parts of the world. If we allow the team to be dispersed this expenditure will be partly wasted, and if we do not go on with the tunnel there will be further wastage. I would very much like to develop an argument in favour of the tunnel, but I realise that it would be out of order in this debate.
  The fear has been expressed by some residents in Kent that the tunnel will bring industrialisation to Kent. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary can put these fears at rest. I am certain that connecting the Continent with the United Kingdom by rail provides a better opportunity to spread industry throughout England. By having a Channel Tunnel every factory will have direct rail access to their clients all over the Continent. With the present Government's policy on diversification, I would have thought that there was a stronger argument for the tunnel.
  I would also remind the Parliamentary Secretary that a number of hon. Members of this House, an all-party delegation, waited on the Prime Minister earlier this year, and put forward the argument for continuing the survey and for the early building of the Channel Tunnel. We were assured by the Prime Minister that it was his intention to press on with this work as a further link between England and France. I hope that within the scope of this debate the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to give us some indication on the important aspects of the problem.
  9.29 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Stephen Swingler): I am very glad to have this opportunity of explaining our position over the Channel Tunnel—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has spoken once in today's debate. He can speak now only by leave of the House.
  Mr. Swingler: I am sorry. By leave of the House and with your permission, Mr. Speaker, I will reply on the Supplementary Estimates for the Channel Tunnel, and will make a statement on our position.
  I am lost in admiration of the wide-ranging character of the speech of the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Geoffrey Wilson). He referred to 100 years of delay in considering the project for building a Channel Tunnel. I hope that I shall not be held in any way responsible for that 100 years of Tory, and even Liberal, misrule. I can merely answer for the Government, with, like the hon. Member for Truro, only passing references to the matters apparently not in order. I shall endeavour to reply to the points raised by the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain).
  May I deal with the expenses for the geological survey and the other expenses for the care and maintenance of assets—engineering equipment, and so on. I remind the House of the statement made by the Minister of Transport on 6th February, 1964, about the Channel Tunnel project, which I think was generally agreed. He said:
  "As a result of studies undertaken jointly. Her Majesty's Government and the French Government consider that the construction of a rail Channel tunnel is technically possible and that in economic terms it would represent a sound investment of the two countries' resources."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th February, 1964; Vol. 688, c. 1351.]
  Since that time the surveys and researches have been proceeding according to plan. There was, first, the geological and geophysical survey of the Straits of Dover which was put in hand as a result of the Minister of Transport's statement and in agreement with the French Government in an endeavour to prove the best route for either a bored tunnel or an immersed tube and to test

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  their feasibility; and, secondly, the discussions between officials of the British and French Governments on how future stages of a Channel Tunnel project might be organised and financed and how the juridical problems necessarily raised by the construction of such an international link might be overcome.
  These have proved to be difficult and complex operations, and that is why the House is confronted with the necessity to approve these additional expenses of the geological survey and other expenses, very largely due to bad weather and its effect on the operations. The geological and geophysical survey has proved to be a very complicated and difficult job, including the sinking of 73 boreholes in the bed of the Channel in the face of very difficult winds and waters, land borings, sampling of the floor of the Channel, measurements of current and weather studies.
  In relation to the expenditure involved, which some hon. Members may think is a fairly substantial sum, I should like to take the opportunity to put on record some of the operations which have been necessary in the site work—which was completed in October last year—which cost £2,100,000, to be shared between the two Governments.
  The works involved include 73 marine borings, as I have said, several hundred miles of geophysical survey, 10 land borings in England, 9 land borings in France, measurements of currents and tides in the Channel, many varieties of new tests in the boreholes, and laboratory tests on samples of rock. For the purposes of the marine borings, two special platforms and four drilling vessels were employed, supported literally by an armada of support ships. It involved the energies of five firms of consulting engineers and specialists in geophysics, calcimetry and paleontology, and has generally been carried out under the direction of the Channel Study Group.
  Mr. Webster: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his excellent pronunciation of those words. I noticed that in his speech he has referred to two drilling rigs. As far as I can see, the Estimate refers to an additional hiring of a drilling platform. Was there one drilling rig before, and have we now gone on to two,
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  or are the French now contributing a drilling rig?
  Mr. Swingler: As I said, the expenses are shared on a fifty-fifty basis between ourselves and the French. That has been the essence of the whole undertaking. I have been describing a few of the technical engineering features that have been involved.
  As I said at the beginning, owing to especially difficult weather conditions, the Anglo-French consortium of engineers encountered the need to employ additional apparatus and to make some additional borings. What is found in the Supplementary Estimate is our 50 per cent. share of the additional costs which were involved in that extremely difficult operation.
  The total summation for the surveying work is a cost of £2,100,000, equally shared between Her Majesty's Government and the S.N.C.F. on behalf of the French Government. There is no delay at all in the carrying out of the work. The consultants employed are now putting the finishing touches to their report on the survey, and the two Governments hope to receive that report within the next month.
  I am able to say tonight that the first indications are that the report is likely to show the feasibility of the project. But both Governments will require to consider the evidence of the geological survey in depth before they reach a firm view on the future of the project. At the same time, they will require to consider the results of the official studies on all the problems of the kind of organisation required, the financing and the jurisdiction.
  It has been of the essence of the whole project that the British and French Governments should act in concert throughout and, therefore, the decisions on the next stages of the project, about which I well understand the eagerness and impatience of the hon. Member for Truro, are matters that we must consider together and announce together.
  I would not wish to say anything that was not in accordance with the arrangement by which the two Governments together are considering all aspects-technical, engineering, juridical, organisatonal and financial—in regard to the future of the project.

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  Hon. Members can take it from me that within the next month or so, when the two Governments' have had a little time to consider the report of the geological and geophysical survey, they will get a statement, agreed between the two Governments, about the feasibility of the project, and no doubt together with that they will get some view from the two Governments about the future economic, financial, and organisational possibilities.
  Mr. Costain: Before the hon. Gentleman sits down, can he deal with the point which I raised? Would not it be possible, even while the two Governments are considering whether it is an economic proposition to go on with it, to make some announcement that if it goes on, as we hope it will, the portal of the tunnel will be at a known point, and so eliminate the planning blight which exists in the area at the present time?
  Mr. Swingler: I am prepared to consider any points which the hon. Gentleman cares to put before me. The hon. Gentleman, more than anyone else, is technically qualified to realise that we must not prejudice any judgments which are to be made. The two Governments must consider the technical geological and geophysical findings of the survey. They must consider the views advanced by their experts about the economics and organisation of the project, and a statement will be made as soon as possible setting out the result of their considerations.
  9.42 p.m.
  Mr. David Webster: I thank the Joint Parliamentary Secretary for what he has said. He has been very good to the House tonight.
  We are dealing with an increase in expenditure which, according to what the hon. Gentleman said, is due to a considerable extent to bad weather, and to having to change the drilling arrangements from using boats to using drilling rigs, and in a way I am an interested party, because I had the privilege of getting a Bill through the House for the safety of life at sea. Recently, the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) sponsored the Anchors and Chain Cables Bill.
  It may not be possible for the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to answer the
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  points which I intend to put to him tonight. How are these drilling rigs secured? This is an important point, and one which I raised in Standing Committee when we were considering the Anchors and Chains Cables Bill. Are they secured by anchors? If they are, have the anchors been certified by the Admiralty Yards? What is the safety factor? I ask this because people are employed at great personal risk, and after the collapse of the Sea Gem morale will not be as great as it was before.
  We had the same kind of trouble in the Severn Estuary where a drilling rig collapsed due to a sudden change of current. My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) talked about bores. Near my constituency we have the Severn Bore, which is one of the biggest in the world. We experienced the collapse of the drilling rig which was concerned with testing the regime of the bottom of the estuary for a possible jetty for Messrs. Richard Thomas and Baldwins.
  Mr. Geoffrey Wilson: Perhaps the Minister can confirm this, but I believe that the Sea Gem was the rig which was used on the Channel project.
  Mr. Webster: I leave that to the Minister. I am not answering a debate, I am asking questions. [Interruption.] When the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) is in opposition, as he soon will be, he will realise the opportunities for, and the beauty of, asking questions in this House.
  As a result of the considerable amount of work that has been transferred from boats to drilling rigs—I am not sure how much it is—I should like to know what factor of increased safety the Parliamentary Secretary expects there to be; what increase or reduction in crews there may be; whether these are four-legged rigs, as I imagine, and what type of anchors are being employed—because we are dealing here not merely with a current variability of the type in the Severn Estuary but a very considerable variability in the Straits of Dover. I realise that this is a complicated and difficult matter, but we are concerned with the safety of the men carrying out these very arduous and dangerous tasks.
  I note that 19 boreholes have been made on territory, and that there have

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  been 73 marine boreholes. I should like to know how many of these have been made from vessels and how many from rigs. If the Parliamentary Secretary cannot give me an answer tonight, I would appreciate a note at a later date.
  What is the difference in cost between drilling from a rig and drilling from a vessel? The House has a duty to check the expenditure of public money, and we also have a duty to our constituents. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe has many constituents who are employed on this project, and I am sure that he, like all of us, is concerned about the safety factor.
  9.46 p.m.
  Mr. Swingler: If I may speak again, with the leave of the House, I can only say that had I been given notice of those questions I would have sought the best possible technical advice and answered them. It would be quite irresponsible of me to answer them now, without careful consideration. I have given the House some details of the technical operations which have been safely carried out. We all deplore the terrible tragedies which have recently occurred, but perhaps some part of what I have said tonight can be set against them, in showing the success—under very difficult circumstances—of the technologists and engineers. The increase in expenses indicates the very great difficulty which exists today in estimating what techniques are required to be employed and what cost will be involved. We must always take those factors into account. I can assure the hon. Member that I will seek the answers that he requires and if a Question is put down they will appear in the OFFICIAL REPORT at the earliest date.

  BRITISH RAILWAYS
  9.48 p.m.
  Mr. David Steel: I want to move from a consideration of the Channel Tunnel to a consideration of Class IV and, in particular, to the
  "Increased provision of £16 million in respect of the 1965 deficit and of £4 million for grant payments in respect of the first eight weeks of 1966"
  to the British Railways Board. My main point is a constituency one, of which I have given the Minister notice. Before coming to that, however, I want to comment on the general policy of the Government in running the finances of British Railways.
  This afternoon the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) put an interesting Question to the Minister, asking whether the Government would change their policy and give a direct Exchequer subsidy to British Railways to run lines for social rather than commercial purposes. The Parliamentary Secretary said that this was more or less the existing practice—but it is not.
  Tonight, among other things, we are considering a Supplementary Estimate to British Railways in respect of their deficit, but this is not a specific subsidy agreed by the Government in connection with particular services. It is merely the annual accumulation of the loss which British Railways sustains. I believe that it would be very much better if the Ministry of Transport were to undertake a survey of those lines which it believes should be kept open, although they are uneconomic, and that a direct Exchequer subsidy of a stated amount should be given to British Railways for those purposes. British Railways should not be expected to be run as a completely commercial concern sustaining the loss on certain services which the Government have decided to retain and of increasing charges to other rail users.
  Twice, I think, in recent months, there have been increases in freight charges which, if they go on, will tend to nullify the Government's attempts at regional planning and to move industry and people into the remoter parts of the country. These increased freight charges fall very heavily on the more remote parts of Britain—the rural parts of Scotland, the

  531
  south-west corner of England, Wales and so on. At the beginning of this Government's period of office, the then Minister of Transport made a very important statement in the House on 4th November, 1964, about railway closures. There was an important change in policy from that of the previous Administration, a change which my colleagues warmly welcomed.
  The Minister said:
  "I shall accordingly consider all closure proposals against a background of future economic and population trends, taking fully into account the possible economic and social consequences."
  He went on to outline the new procedure for submitting consideration of proposed railway closures and the withdrawal of passenger services to the regional economic councils. He finished:
  "In these ways, we shall ensure that no irrevocable action is taken which might prejudice the development of policies of economic and transport planning…".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th November, 1964; Vol. 701, c. 195, 196.]
  It was in the light of that statement that, on 1st December this year I raised the question of the Waverley-Carlisle railway line.
  I should explain to hon. Members that, in the first Beeching Report in 1963, there were 51 proposals for the withdrawal of passenger services in Scotland. Of those, 50 have had their fate decided. Some have been retained and others have closed in the normal course of events, but one of the 51 is still awaiting a decision. That is the main line through the borders of Scotland, the Waverley-Carlisle line. When I asked on 1st December what the latest position regarding the future of the line was, in view of the Minister's earlier statement, I was told:
  "My right hon. Friend is considering, in consultation with the Secretary of State for Scotland, whether to agree to the publication by the Railways Board of a proposal to withdraw passenger services from this line."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st December, 1965; Vol. 721, c. 1428.]
  Mr. Speaker: I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman. He was probably not here when I gave my Ruling at the beginning of the debate. He must link his present plea somehow with the Supplementary Estimates which we are discussing.
  Mr. Steel: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am sorry if I have travelled a little wide. I hope to link my remarks to the requirement of making a contribution to the deficit of British Railways. I submit that part of the deficit is obviously sustained by this line and the fact that no decision has been reached about the line is contributing to the deficit which we have to make good. I accepted that the Government's policy was one of considering the economic future of the area before a decision on the line could be taken.
  Mr. David Webster: The hon. Member is talking very much about Scottish affairs, which I am following with a great deal of sympathy, but will he notice that there is no Scottish Minister on the Front Bench?
  Mr. Steel: This may well be so, but this matter is the responsibility of the Minister of Transport, and the Parliamentary Secretary for that Ministry is here.
  As some hon. Members are aware, the Scottish Economic Plan was published the other week. This is why I decided to raise the matter tonight. Now that the future economic plan of Scotland has been settled, and a decision has been reached by the Government to increase the population of the Border region, through which this line runs, by 25,000 people by 1980, I expect a decision on this line to be reached fairly shortly. This afternoon I had a Question down to the Minister on the point of when a decision would be reached about the future of the line. The Question was not reached in the House and I received a reply in writing that the Minister is reviewing these proposals with the Secretary of State for Scotland and hopes to give her decision shortly. I hope that it will be the correct decision, because the line has been running down since the first Beeching Plan of 1963.
  I stress that I do not blame the Railways Board or the local railways administration, because as far as they were concerned the line was to close. They felt that they would be criticised if they went on increasing their deficit by spending money in reviving this line and improving the service when, so far as they were concerned, the line was due for closure. The proposal to withdraw the passenger services has been in the hands of the Secretary of State, the Minister of Transport

  533
  and the Scottish Economic Planning Council for some time and during that time, naturally, the services have deteriorated.
  May I ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether consideration has been given to using the Waverley-Carlisle route as a route to Edinburgh for the main freight service? I could not quite understand why the Carstairs-Edinburgh route was chosen, since it is clear that if that line were developed—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member cannot argue the relative merits of various railway routes in this debate. If he had been here earlier this afternoon he would have heard the Chair's Ruling that speeches must be linked with the Supplementary Estimates which we are providing for by the Consolidated Fund Bill.
  Mr. Steel: In that case I sum up briefly by saying that I am concerned, as I am sure are all hon. Members, that we should not have to vote annually such a large amount for the deficit of British Railways. We are all anxious to see the deficit removed as soon as possible. In this line, which is at present losing money, there could be a great opportunity to restore the service properly, to inject whatever capital expenditure is required, to streamline the service and to allow the economic development of the area—which was the Government's original intention when they came into office—to go ahead. The Government should announce the decision as quickly as possible.
  9.58 p.m.
  Mr. A. E. P. Duffy: I have considerable sympathy with the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel), because I, too, have a local line which I am anxious to preserve. Indeed, few hon. Members have not been placed in that position or are not in that position today.
  I have considerable sympathy with the sentiments which the hon. Gentleman expressed, in that we all want to get rid of the huge deficit which British Railways have to carry. But if we were honest we should ask ourselves how we could reconcile these two objectives or how we could reasonably pursue both of them. On the one hand, we want to get rid of the deficit and, on the other hand, we
  534
  want to keep our local lines open. Given the present policy of the Railways Board, which they inherited—and I am not sure that I can see an easy alternative policy—I do not think that we can have both these objectives.
  Mr. David Steel: The line to which I referred is not a local line but a main line. Like other hon. Members, I have had the problem of branch lines. The hon. Member said that we cannot have both these objectives but I explained at the beginning of my speech a method which I should like to see adopted whereby British Railways, instead of suffering a deficit, would be given a straight Exchequer subsidy for those services which the Government decide should be kept open although they are not economic.
  Mr. Duffy: I was using the word "local" with a small "1". My local line is also a main line, the trans-Pennine line.
  I feel keenly interested in the subject of subsidies, particularly when the topic is raised by hon. Gentlemen opposite, because I would like to get rid of them wherever possible. That is mainly why I am speaking now, and I am grateful for this opportunity to discuss the matter. In view of what has been said earlier, I will do my best to keep in order.
  I am particularly concerned about this issue because we are discussing what amounts to a 16 per cent. increase, quite the biggest grant before us, and is itself only 75 per cent. of what is needed. This is disappointing because it reverses the trend of the last three or four years. It reverses the trend which was established in 1962 and maintained in 1963 and 1964. One suspects that the reason for the present move is that the present Government are doing precisely what the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles wants them to do. They are meeting the hon. Gentleman's local needs and the needs of the constituents of many hon. Members. However, I am wondering whether this is not going too far in meeting those needs. That is why I am so concerned about this grant.
  I hope that I am in order in saying that this calls into question certain policies on which the long-term reduction of the deficit has been based. In the last two or three years British Railways have

  535
  been getting their finances into shape. The operating deficit by last year was more than one-third below the 1962 peak. The Chairman of the British Railways Board was saying not long ago that he believed that this deficit could be entirely eliminated by 1970. I do not know if he still believes that. In view of the grant we are considering, I do not know if the timetable for eliminating the deficit still applies.
  Mr. Webster: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the speech of the Chairman of the British Railways Board of 4th January last in which he felt, apparently due to the decisions of the present Government, that it was no longer possible to reduce the deficit because of the delay in the closure of lines, the delay in implementing liner trains and so on.
  Mr. Duffy: It is my clear recollection of the last public statement of the Chairman of the British Railways Board that he still believed that the timetable could be kept and that the deficit could be eliminated, but only if the Beeching Report of 1963 was implemented. [Interruption.] That is quite different from what the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Webster) said the Chairman had said. The Chairman said that that could be done if the Beeching Report were implemented and the National Plan for 1965 was observed.
  This brings me to my second point. If the Joint Parliamentary Secretary does not believe, in the light of what I have said, that the expectations of the Chairman of the British Railways Board are feasible, does this grant not represent a serious reversal of railway policy? Thirdly, does it not mean that the considerable improvement in railway finances which has been evident in the last three years in particular arises because the same difficulties do not apply? Is it not so that some of the factors which have made for these improvements recently do not apply as much in 1966 as they did in 1963–64?
  I have in mind in particular the industry's productivity record. It is well known that the productivity record of the railway industry in recent years has been astonishing. In the period I am thinking of—1962–64—it was of the order of 26 per cent. This was principally because
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  of the reduction in manpower, which last year amounted to 8 per cent.—well above the 5½ per cent. called for by the National Plan. Does this grant now mean that this potential is being squeezed, that manpower cannot any longer be run down as rapidly as formerly, and that productivity is therefore considerably reduced?
  Whilst I am on this tack, and whilst expressing my appreciation of the difficulties that the Board may now be running into, may I ask whether these difficulties are arising because of the question of closures? In the light of what was said by the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles, and in the light of what I myself acknowledge due to conditions in my own area, I ask whether the Board is finding it difficult now to make as many closures as it formerly made. Were not many of the early closures the easy decisions to make? Because the Board cannot make such decisions as easily now, it must ask for this money. Do not these two references to closures that formerly made for savings and manpower rundown, which also made for savings and led to increased productivity, point to the dilemma in which the Board finds itself, that its best opportunity for savings lies in the reduction of costs? But how far can the potential for cost savings at this rate or at the rate obtainable in recent years be sustained?
  I do not doubt that this will bring a response from the Opposition Front Bench, but I believe that the fact must be faced that this cannot be achieved unless Lord Beeching's second Report proposals are implemented. I was very concerned at the appearance of this grant, working as I do on the Estimates Sub-Committee, where we consider the details of Supplementary Estimates. I was very sorry to see the appearance of this grant, because I thought we had got beyond this stage now. What I want to see in the shortest possible time is the reduction of the operating deficit of the B.R.B.—not through a reduction in costs, but through higher receipts.
  I recognise again that this is not easy. How can it be easy, in view of the reduced production of coal in this country, which means a reduced demand for the transportation of coal? I was heartened, as I was sure all hon. Members were, to

  537
  notice during the last year the successes of the B.R.B. in securing a considerable oil contract. One hopes that the Board will have similar successes in the field of bulk transportation.
  I also recognise—this no doubt is a further reason for the grant—that it is not easy for the Board to win more traffic and so increase the demand for its services and increase its receipts, unless it goes in for more modernisation. More modernisation calls for higher investment. It is easy to argue that the Board should have that. Nevertheless, in the early days that increased investment would mean a request to the House for a grant, which would in fact enlarge the deficit. The high interest charges would hang, as indeed is in some respects the case now, like a millstone round the Board's neck.
  This is why I think that hon. Members ought not to attach too much importance to some of the possibilities that have been mentioned in the last two years for bringing about the railways' solvency, notably liner trains. The theory of liner trains is an attractive one, but it is questionable whether they can earn a reasonable return on the capital involved. Liner trains are not necessarily the panacea of all the railways' troubles. Even if they were, that involves more investment than has taken place. It involves what I am proposing in spirit this evening, namely a grant.
  British Railways have not been frustrated only in respect of liner trains. They have been frustrated in their attempts to introduce the merry-go-round trains, and not just by the unions. I am opposed to the grant but I have tried to show some awareness of the need for it. I suppose that if there is anything to be said for the grant at all it can be said that it represents a spare capacity on the railways. I would accept spare capacity a good deal more readily if I thought that it would eventually make for a rational transport policy.
  To end, as other speakers have done, on a constituency note, when I pass through my constituency high up in the Pennine valleys I notice how the roads wind and climb, with high land on both sides of them. The roads are choked with traffic which creates great danger for people who because of the high land and the resultant scarcity of building
  538
  space have to live on the sides of the road. I am thinking especially of the road from Huddersfield to Oldham, and other roads going sharply down to Lancashire. Heavy lorries carrying minerals have run away down these steep hills. In Saddleworth in recent years drivers have been killed and the lives of local residents endangered.
  I ask myself whether some of this traffic could not have been carried on the railway line which runs parallel with the road but does not climb the hills. It runs through tunnels down in the valley and is considerably under-utilised. It could take much of this traffic. If I thought that some attempt was being made by the Government to work out this kind of policy, to transfer some of this traffic from the road to the rail, not on a welfare basis but on a realistic pricing basis—and it is not easy—I should feel happier about this grant.
  I want a pricing policy which will take into account road as well as rail usage and which will make for a marginal social costing so that local people as well as the House will know the true cost of going over the hills by road and travelling along the valley by rail. If I were assured by my right hon. Friend that the Minister was engaged on this kind of policy, despite all the difficulties that face her, I would settle more easily in my mind for this grant.
  10.13 p.m.
  Sir Richard Thompson: I had not intended to intervene in the debate, but when I looked at the figures in the Supplementary Estimate and saw that the original Estimate was £105 million and that we were now being asked for a further Supplementary Estimate of £20 million, which is nearly one-fifth, it seemed to me that something ought to be said before the House agreed to grant this additional money.
  Many of our transport debates revolve around the question of local branch lines, and there has been some reference to them by both the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) and the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Duffy). I do not propose to refer to them, because our local branch line in Croydon, I am glad to say, has been saved. British Railways must be rather glad about that, because one of

  539
  their main problems is getting commuters in and out of London. Here is a case where a branch line has been saved not for sentimental or social reasons but because it serves a vital transport need.
  There are many instances where, simply by using existing facilities a little better, British Railways could enormously improve the image of the whole operation. It is very easy to say that if one relaid all the track or made all the goods wagons of a kind which could go at 70 m.p.h., everything would work much better, but this involves vast capital expenditure, and that is not easy to come by. But many small and marginal improvements could be made almost within the existing Estimates, and if they were applied they would do a great deal to improve the image of British Railways and induce more people to go by rail. I am very much attracted by the remark by the hon. Member for Colne Valley that what is wanted is a better pricing policy. We do not want to pretend that British Railways should be made attractive simply for social reasons. If the service is made satisfactory enough people will support it, particularly in commuter areas, because it is costly, expensive and troublesome to travel to work in any other way. I believe that with a little more effort we could make the service more attractive, and I do not think it would cost very much money.
  I have a commuter constituency, and all the time I get one complaint which I am sure could be rectified with a little effort and with hardly any money being spent on it. This is the question of communication and information. Every railway station of any importance that I know, especially in the suburban area, is fitted with a public address system. The sort of information put out over it, when one can hear it—they always seem to get very strange chaps to broadcast—is usually what one can read in any timetable, which nobody really wants to know. The information that commuters require is when trains are late, when connections are not going to be met and why trains are late. But we never get that. We get connections missed, trains arriving late, and fuming commuters milling about on the platform, and they do not know why the service is not operating.
  540
  I am certain that those who run the service know why something has gone wrong. If only there were some means of broadcasting this to people, it would enormously mollify passengers, who recognise that no system is perfect, that sometimes the service breaks down and that it may not always be able to run smoothly. But this never happens. We do not have a proper use of the public address system on stations taking the public into the confidence of British Railways and saying, "We are very sorry but something has happened and the 4.15 will be 20 minutes late. Those who want to go to certain destinations had better do this or that." But that never happens.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I am very interested in this, but the hon. Member must link what he is saying with the Estimates on, which he is basing his speech.
  Sir R. Thompson: I humbly ask your pardon, Mr. Speaker. I had not realised that I had transgressed the rules of order. I was relating my argument to various means by which, without very much expenditure of money, British Railways could improve their image and service to the public in such a way that it would not be necessary, one hopes, to ask for a Supplementary estimate of £20 million.
  Another way in which I would have thought this could be done was by reference to the cleanliness of the rolling stock. We always heard that when steam was abandoned—it has practically gone now—the trains would be much cleaner. We always heard that cleaners were very difficult to obtain because they were at the bottom of the wages scale. But the fact remains that the dirtiness and un-cleanliness of much of the rolling stock must have led to a falling off in receipts which has resulted in part in the request for a Supplementary Estimate.
  I also wonder whether it would not be wise to look at the fare structure in the following way. In Croydon, believe it or not, we have 24 railway stations, and the fares from practically every one of them in and out of the Metropolis vary. The ticket that one buys at one station is not valid if presented on return at another station. We should get away from this national structure, with its precise relevance to miles travelled, and introduce flexibility so that in Croydon,

  541
  for example, a man could buy a ticket at one of the stations in the knowledge that he could return to another. This might be a little complicated and when the Railways Board is asking for another £20 million—one-fifth of the original estimate—it is these marginal considerations which perhaps cause great headaches. But surely, with the aid of computers, such a system could be organised.
  Do not let the Joint Parliamentary Secretary lose heart in these matters. I know what a beating his colleague gets in some of these debates. But it is not the case that it is impossible to run a public railway service on an economically viable basis. It is done in Holland and in Switzerland. It is even done in some suburban areas.
  Only the other day I was reading that the Chicago and North-Western line-built by the British many years ago—has now returned to a dividend-paying basis. It serves a tremendously built-up area with a very sophisticated car-owning population. Nevertheless, by applying itself to the principles of transport operation in the twentieth century, by reorganising its stock and fare structure, it has been able to pay its way.
  I feel that British Railways is not very far removed from a considerable breakthrough but unfortunately, every year, any progress that is made is promptly swamped by wage increases which put it in the red again. Everyone feels that railway employees are as entitled as anyone to a decent living and over the past few years there has been a tremendous rationalisation and reduction in staff.
  But I believe that if the Railways Board were to look at the small things that could be done—cleanliness of carriages and better public address systems on stations, for instance—it could start a movement in favour of going back to the railways which does not now exist.
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  It is on that kind of consideration that I hope the hon. Gentleman will be able to say some encouraging things. Those who are, like myself, railway enthusiasts, believe that there is a great future for the railways if only they can make a breakthrough at this time by becoming a bit more human, a bit more sensible to the needs of the commuter, which have to be filled and which at present are not quite being filled.
  10.23 p.m.
  Miss Harvie Anderson: We are discussing a considerable deficit. I am in the unfortunate position of having received a letter today from the Chairman of the Railways Board pointing out that a station in my constituency has contributed considerably towards that deficit. But I put it to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary that if he were to see fit to keep open the very important station of Elderslie on a different basis from that at present, it would become a paying proposition and cease to contribute to the deficit.
  Fortunately for me, I suspect, unless I get away from this building within three minutes, I shall fail to be able to catch a long distance train to my constituency in order to discuss further this very important problem from a different angle, but since I have had considerable correspondence with the hon. Gentleman I am sure that he will forgive my almost immediate absence.
  I should like to stress to him that a very considerable factor in the deficit is that it is impossible for the average hon. Member to get through the point that was put by the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Duffy)—that some drastic reorganisation of the structure of some of the railway stations would result in their becoming viable propositions and no longer a burden upon the nation.
  10.25 p.m.
  Sir Douglas Glover: The House must view with alarm this Supplementary Estimate to cover this increased deficit on the railways. But having said that, I must say that I rise tonight not in a very critical mood, because I understand and sympathise about many of the problems which the Railways Board has had to face in recent years. I might make one or two suggestions for reducing this deficit so that next year the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to say that he is reducing the £20 million which was borrowed in excess this year.
  To digress for a moment; in 1954, when discussing the same subject, I put forward the idea of the merry-go-round trains. It seems to take a long time for the idea to come into operation. In the same speech I said that I saw a great future in the commuter services. Even under the Beeching Plan, I have always opposed the closing down of commuter services. One has only to consider the way in which traffic is moving in the big cities to see that there is a very good chance of a break-through of commuter services in the immediate future as we begin in the cities more economically to price the land on which people park their cars. That will drive people back to the railways.
  But to encourage that the railways themselves must provide much better services. Two lines in my constituency, from Ormskirk to Liverpool and Southport to Liverpool, were under threat. Both were lines which I would have thought essential in the future of commuter services. Those threats have been withdrawn—I will not say permanently—and with the new thinking about the big cities they are probably fairly safe for the future. But what is being done on those lines to encourage travel by rail?
  There are little stations at Aughton and Maghull. Neither station has a long enclosed platform, but there is a little waiting room and a ticket room. The remainder of the platform is open to the winds which blow from the North, the West, the East and the South. In recent weeks—and this is not the first time I have had to complain as a result of the constituents taking up the matter with
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  me—there has been a roaring fire in the ticket office while the waiting room has been stone cold. I do not complain about the chap in the ticket office having his roaring fire, but I am complaining about the people in the waiting room not having any fire at all. The chap who goes by rail in circumstances like that and who finishes up in the cold decides that it is more economic to continue to use his car to go to and from Liverpool.
  In Formby there is a recurring problem with a level crossing which is un-policed and where there are constantly fatal accidents. That sort of thing presents an adverse picture of the railways and does not encourage people to use them.
  Between Southport and Manchester there is one of the most important commuter lines in the North-West of England. I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary has had voluminous correspondence about it not only from me but from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) and many others. For some reason, British Railways—and I am told that this is a technical matter—somewhere along the line have closed the four-track route and are trying to run the service on a two-track route, with the result that the commuter trains from Southport to Manchester in the morning and from Manchester to Southport in the evening are so unreliable that it is no exaggeration to say that many people are leaving Southport in order to live nearer Manchester.
  This is a permanent policy. People are not just complaining, they are selling their homes and going back to the Manchester area because the railway service is now so appallingly undermanned. It is dirty, unheated and, much more important from the commuters' point of view, it cannot be relied upon. If British Railways is to recover this commuter traffic it will only do so, and bring in a large revenue, if it will provide a service which the public have a right to expect.
  Mr. Charles Mapp: Is the hon. Member aware that in practically every country, in every major town and city, the commuter traffic, where it is noticeable, is inevitably uneconomic, however the furniture is arranged?
  Sir D. Glover: I am glad that the hon. Member has intervened. Perhaps he was not in the Chamber when my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Sir R. Thompson) cited the example of the city of Chicago, which is paying a dividend upon its commuter traffic? These are services which are going to be run into the future and that is why we have to spend a little more time in making them efficient, in trying to increase revenue.
  It would not be a bad idea if some of the people on the Railways looked at the air services. They are competing services and if one is competing with a service it might be a good idea to give some thought to the way that service is run. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South was talking of the public address system. I think that the airways over-do it, but they look after the passengers as if they were half-wits. Every five minutes there is an announcement asking passengers for Manchester to proceed to Gate One and someone almost gets hold of one by the hand and takes one there and makes certain one gets on the right plane, and not the wrong one, whereas British Railways do not mind if one travels to Edinburgh when one wants to go to Glasgow. I am not asking that the railways should adopt exactly the same procedure. But I never get on a plane and find the previous passenger's lunch on the floor. I frequently do when I travel by rail. These are competing services, and if British Railways is going to get the people to use its services, then it should provide the same quality and standard as its competitors, and I do not think that it is.
  We have to face the fact that if the railways are to get rid of its deficit it will only do so by 1). carrying out a great deal of the Beeching programme, however unpopular it may be in this House. I know that everyone collectively in this House is willing to support the Beeching programme, but we are all prepared to oppose it when it affects our constituencies. This is one of the programme's great problems. As I said in my speech in 1954, there are certain services which the British Railways can provide which are going to be profitable, particularly on the long, narrow spine from Scotland to the South of England. There are services which it will never be able to run at a
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  profit. This House has to make up its mind.
  If these services are so socially desirable, then British Railways should be paid something by the State for running them. British Railways should not be running at a deficit because we insist on its providing services which, commercially, it does not want to run. The House has to face the issue.
  I am probably just as guilty as anyone else. We say, "Efficiency", but when it comes to efficiency which affects our constituencies we are against it. I am not in any way hostile to the views of the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel). He has a sparsely populated constituency and probably wants to keep various lines running there.
  Mr. David Steel: Only one.
  Sir D. Glover: I am not criticising the hon. Member for wanting to keep that going. But if it is not commercially viable, the House ought to decide whether it should stay open for social reasons, and, if by keeping it open British Railways will lose £100,000 a year, we should reimburse British Railways. But do not keep hitting British Railways on the head when we will not allow it to do what it wants.
  There is not very much party division on the subject. Hon. Members on both sides repeatedly say that they want British Railways to be efficient and support all the ideas for increasing its efficiency. But, when it comes to the crunch, individually we change our minds.
  I would not be opposing the Government if they began to think along the lines of what I am saying, but it is a farce to bring in a Supplementary Estimate for a deficit of £20 million when part of that is probably due to deliberate decisions made in the House rather than, as they ought to be, in the British Railways boardroom, based on commercial criteria. If the Parliamentary Secretary will bear that thought in mind, the House of Commons itself might get a very much more cogent attitude towards the problems of the railways.
  It is no good the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Duffy) talking about everyone going back on to rail in the valleys between Lancashire and Yorkshire. One of the great troubles that

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  British Railways faces is that the country is not large enough and, as a result, the bulk of the goods that we would all like to see carried by rail go by road. If they go by rail, there is inevitably a double handling of those goods compared with when they go by road. If a consignment is being carried over a thousand miles, that double handling is probably worthwhile, but if the average load is carried only 70 miles, that double handling adds enormously to the cost of transportation.
  The hon. Gentleman talked about putting traffic back on to the railways in the valleys, but at any moment now we are going to produce a Lancashire/Yorkshire motorway—or we were, although it seems to have disappeared further into the future than seemed likely two years ago. If we are to have the motorway, that again will add to the problems of British Rail.
  Mr. Duffy: I did not say that I wanted everything to go back on to the railways by any means. What I called for was a planned distribution between road and rail, or a national transport policy, so that the real cost could be established of what went by road compared with what went by rail.
  Sir D. Glover: I think that the hon. Gentleman was out of the Chamber when I said certain things before. I was saying that I would like to see more traffic going back to the railways, but it involves double handling. When, as so much of it is, it is to be transported over an average distance of only 70 miles, that double handling means an enormously increased on-cost. If it was to be carried for a thousand miles, that double handling would not matter.
  If I may be slightly critical of my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South, I think that this is why the railway problem in the United States is so different from the problem in this country. In the Middle West, where there are long-haul trains, covering distances of 500 or 1,000 miles, the on-costs of double handling disappear, but that situation does not exist here. We are dealing tonight with the problems of British Railways, and we are dealing with a Supplementary Estimate to cover a deficit of £20 million.
  We have to accept that the railway system with which we are dealing is one
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  which Dr. Beeching, now Lord Beeching, tried to make a coherent entity for a railway system in the second half of the twentieth century. We are dealing with a railway system which covers the country more widely and more densely than any other railway system in the world. When people complain that if this line, or that station, is closed they will be denied transport, they should realise that nowhere else in the world are people so near to a railway station, and so near to a communication centre by rail.
  The country was a rash of railways in the last century, and the wealth of this country was built on that machine, but it is not possible to have 10 million or 12 million motor cars, plus all the commercial lorries, which inevitably are a new form of transport, and in addition have 3 million to 4 million people travelling by air, and still say that we need the same pattern of railway lines, and the railway system which we had 100 years ago when that was the only means of transportation.
  I still think that the railways have a great deal of rationalisation to do to find out which lines and which services are viable in a country shaped as ours is, and of this size. The only time when double handling ceases to matter so much is on the long haul down the spine of the country from Scotland to London. That, plus the commuter services, is the kind of service that we ought to build in the second half of this century. It is only by doing that that we will get the railways viable, and thus save the hon. Gentleman having to come back to the House time and again to ask for more money because the railways have run into difficulties.
  Mr. Will Griffiths Mr. Will Griffiths (Manchester, Exchange) rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Samuel Storey): Order. The hon. Member has exhausted his right to speak in this debate.
  Mr. Griffiths: With respect, this is a different Supplementary Estimate.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: It is the same Motion, the Motion for Third Reading of the Bill, and the hon. Member cannot speak again.
  10.43 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Morris): We have had an interesting debate. It has gone on for some hours, and I shall try, to the best of my ability, to deal with the points which have been raised.
  I think that we all agree on the importance of having a good public transport system, and I think that the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) put his finger on the nub of the difficulty when he said that we all want to rationalise, we all want to modernise, we all want a first-class railway system, but when it comes to one's own constituency, then the difficulty arises. This has been my experience in the short time that I have held office.
  I have received a number of letters from hon. Members on both sides of the House, and I have seen a number of hon. Members. In each case the hon. Member concerned has pleaded forcefully, energetically, and strongly, the case for the railway system in his constituency. Perhaps I might say that in a different capacity I have done that myself, so none of us can stand in a white sheet on this issue, but hon. Gentlemen opposite under the leadership of the right hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) have trooped into the Division Lobbies in support of the Beeching proposals. They have a special responsibility in this matter. I have looked curiously at some of the protestations made by hon. Members opposite from time to time. I think it was the hon. Member for Renfrew, East (Miss Harvie Anderson) who supported the right hon. Member for Wallasey when these proposals came before the House.
  A number of useful suggestions were made by the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Sir R. Thompson) and the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover), none of which I can deal with in this debate since they are matters of management. But they will have been heard and noted by the Railways Board. No discourtesy is intended on my part if I do not answer them tonight.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Duffy) made some very pertinent observations. I understand that he is a Member of the Estimates Committee and that the Ministry of Transport was examined in detail by the
  550
  Committee, in connection with its Supplementary Estimate, last December. I understand that the Ministry has not yet replied to its substantial observations, but that a detailed reply is being prepared. It would therefore be wrong for me to go into any detail now, before that reply is put to the Chairman of the Estimates Committee.
  The hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel), who raised this issue, dealt with two main points. The first concerned the railway line in his own constituency. I have little to add to the Answer given to him this afternoon. No decision has yet been reached on this matter, but we have indicated that it will be decided as soon as possible.
  The predecessor of the present Minister made the position quite clear, and we adhere to the statement made by him in November, 1964. The present procedure is that there should first be an early sift of proposals by the Railways Board, and then the Minister must decide this preliminary question: should the Board defer still further the putting in hand of the statutory procedure for considering the proposals? This is the first part of the present procedure. This is the decision which the hon. Member now awaits.
  The Government are well aware of the need to consider the future of this line in relation to the proposals for the development of the Scottish borders, as outlined in Cmnd. 2864, The Scottish Economy, 1965–70. It is precisely the timing of the full examination of rail closure proposals in relation to the study by the planning consultants referred to in paragraph 232 of the White Paper that is now being considered. The real question is: how and when can we best consider the future of this line and decide what services, if any, have a real part to play in the future transport system of this developing area. This is why we are taking some time to consult fully the Secretary of State for Scotland, to ensure that the Government are not doing with one hand what their other hand does not know about. It is therefore important to marry this decision with the recently published Report.
  Mr. David Steel: I am grateful to the Minister for the reply which he is making, and I understand his position, but will he bear in mind that in January, 1964, the previous

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  Government set up a study, as they did in other regions of Scotland, of the economic future of this region? This study ought to have included a consideration of the Borders. The rôle of this railway line in the economy of the region is repeatedly discussed, and it is unfortunate that another two years should have gone by before the adoption of this correct procedure.
  Mr. Morris: Fortunately, I have no responsibility for any studies or views of the previous Government. The Secretary of State for Scotland has made it clear that this type of study is important, and that there should be the planning consultations referred to in paragraph 232 of the White Paper to ensure that all the consequences to and transport needs of the area are fully examined in the shortest possible period.
  This is what we intend, and this is what my right hon. Friend is now considering. That is the first stage, the decision as to whether this proposal should or should not go through statutory procedures. When that decision is taken, the matter will then go before the T.U.C.C, and they will consider the questions which lie within their responsibility—initial hardship. The procedure after that is that they make their report to the Minister. We shall also seek the views of the planning council, because my Minister attaches great importance to their rôle.
  In the last few weeks, the chairmen of the planning councils met my right hon. Friend to discuss the transport needs of their areas. They were encouraged by her remarks about the importance she attached to their views and to their getting down to the job of working out, in as detailed a fashion as possible and as early as possible, the transport needs of each of their areas. These are the changes which have taken place under this Government: there is, first, the early sift and then the views of the planning councils, to which we attach importance, are obtained.
  Mr. Webster: The hon. Gentleman has explained that there have been differences between the treatment of this problem by the last Government and that given by the present Government. Bearing in mind the views of Mr. Raymond of the disadvantages which this new sifting technique presents for the Railways Board,
  552
  and the fact that we are today discussing an extra £20 million in addition to the £45 million suspended debt and an increased deficit, how much will be paid off by the people in the area if this change is to result in social benefit?
  Mr. Morris: I was not aware of any difficulties over the early sift proposals: I thought that they were generally welcomed. I thought that it was important that, if the Minister thought that any proposal was a non-starter from the word "go", it would be a waste of everybody's time to have a detailed and thorough investigation into initial hardship caused by a closure which would never take place. This is the importance of the early sift proposals and I have never understood that there was ony criticism of it.
  If the hon. Gentleman tells us that he does not want this kind of investigation and wants proposals put forward which are non-starters in any event, he is welcome to do so. We consider that it is important that every kind of non-starter scheme which is regarded as detrimental to a region should be dealt with at the earliest possible opportunity. There is nothing worse than uncertainty for any region faced with the problem of an eroding population. It is important that one should eliminate every element of uncertainty.
  I am sure that the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare, above all, as he represents a constituency in the West of England, should be aware of the importance of this point.
  The British Railways deficit for 1965 has risen to an estimated £132 million. In 1964 it was £121 million. The reason for the rise in the deficit is a decline in traffic, mainly coal, and a rise in labour costs which could not immediately be offset by increased fares and charges. But in 1966 we expect to see a resumption of the downward trend. Increases in fares and charges were announced on 29th December and they took effect in the earlier part of this year. These were estimated to yield about £10 million.
  The Board have absorbed the greater part of the increased costs, and we should give the Board credit for that. They absorbed costs to the extent of £20 million by way of increased productivity and they are to be commended for that. The remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley were on those lines.

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  He queried the figure of 75 per cent. in the Estimates. The present Estimate covers 75 per cent. of the expected need because the Supplementary Estimate was put in during November before an entirely accurate forecast could be made. I am given to understand, by those who know more about this than I do, that this is general practice.
  One should look at the Supplementary Estimate against the whole picture of the turnover of British Railways. It is a Supplementary Estimate of £20 million which must be looked at against a turnover of £500 million.
  Sir D. Glover: It is £20 million on top of £120 million—about £139 million deficit on a £500 million turnover. It is almost 25 per cent. of the total turnover, which is fantastic.
  Mr. Morris: I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's percentages. The turnover is £500 million a year and this Supplementary Estimate of £20 million should be set against that total turnover.
  We have had an interesting debate. I am sure that the matters relating to management which have been mentioned will be heard in the right places.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

  COMMONWEALTH TEACHERS
  10.59 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Overseas Development (Mr. Albert E. Oram): I beg to move,
  That the Commonwealth Teachers (Extension of Financial Authority) Order, 1965, a draft of which was laid before this House on 26th November, be approved.
  The purpose of the Order is to increase the limit of £6 million for expenditure on Commonwealth Educational Cooperation imposed by the Commonwealth Teachers Act, 1960, to £11 million. The British Government, after the Commonwealth Education Conference held at Oxford in 1959, undertook to be responsible for the award of a total of 500 scholarships and fellowships in United Kingdom universities, colleges of technology or other appropriate establish-
  554
  ments. The Commonwealth Scholarships Acts, 1959 and 1963, established the Commonwealth Scholarships Commission in the United Kingdom and authorised consequent expenditure incurred by Her Majesty's Government to be defrayed by monies provided by Parliament. The Commonwealth Teachers Act, 1960, provided for expenditure on co-operation in educational matters between Britain and other Commonwealth countries and territories, including the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Scheme, the further training in Britain of teachers from the Commonwealth and the supply of teachers. Charges have also been incurred under this Act in respect of graduate volunteer teachers in Commonwealth countries and in other kindred activities.
  The Overseas Development and Service Act, which we passed last year, includes provision for technical assistance in the form of British expatriate staff serving overseas. Teachers now provided and financed under the Commonwealth Teachers Act will normally be financed under the Colonial Development and Service Act, save in exceptional cases where, with the agreement of the Treasury, it is wished to conclude arrangements with an overseas Government which it is not possible or practical to make under an agreement of the kind contemplated under the Act. The special schemes of Commonwealth educational co-operation involving expatriate staff, such as short-term advisory or instructional visits, will continue to be provided under the Commonwealth Teachers Act.
  Subsection 1(3) of the Commonwealth Teachers Act, 1960, limits expenditure under this Act and the Commonwealth Scholarships Acts, 1959 and 1963, to a total of £6 million. Subsection 1 (4) provides that Her Majesty may, by Order in Council, substitute a limit of such larger amount as may be specified in the Order and that no Order shall be made so as to come into force before 1st April, 1965.
  At that time about £1 million was unspent from the total of £6 million to which I referred earlier. This was due mainly to a considerable amount of teacher supply expenditure allowed for under the Commonwealth Educational Co-operation programme eventually being provided under the Overseas Service Aid Scheme. Therefore, what was anticipated under the provisions of the 1960

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  Act was, in the event, paid for in another way.
  The Order would increase the limit from £6 million to £11 million, an amount sufficient to cover expected expenditure in the financial years 1965–66 and 1966–67. It is our intention to introduce legislation during the present Session to amend the Commonwealth Teachers Act so as, among other things, to obviate the need for further Orders in Council, but the present Order is necessary to authorise sufficient funds to be available until that legislation is passed.
  The main reason for the rise in expenditure from £5 million in the five-year period 1960–65 to a further £6 million in the subsequent two years is the increased volume and level of current activity in respect of the various schemes as compared with the build-up period of the first five years.
  The Order extends legislation brought in by the previous Government and, just as under that Government the Acts to which I have referred received the support of the whole House, I am confident that this extension of the financial provisions of this Measure will equally receive the unanimous support of hon. Members.
  11.5 p.m.
  Mr. Christopher Chataway: I welcome this Order. We might even have expected it to be introduced sooner. When Commonwealth Educational Co-operation was started in 1959, it was envisaged that about £6 million would be expended in the first five years of its operation; that is, from 1960 to 1965. In the event, as the Parliamentary Secretary has said, only £4,900,000 has been spent.
  I am grateful to him for the explanation—partial explanation—he has given about this shortfall. A part of the expenditure that would have fallen on this Commonwealth programme has, in fact, fallen on the Overseas Service Aid Scheme. Yet, in the first five years, we must recognise that the scheme has been slow to build up in certain respects. There are now one or two questions about the working of the scheme that I should like to ask, and also about action taken on programmes started in 1964. I have given notice of some of these questions
  556
  and I hope that we may have a little more information than has so far been published.
  At the Commonwealth Educational Conference in Ottawa in 1964, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle) came forward with a number of new initiatives and I think that the House would like to hear what progress has been made with these. I assume that expenditure on all of them would, in fact, fall on moneys requested under this Order. My right hon. Friend laid emphasis, as have others, on the importance of the teaching of English in a number of Commonwealth countries, and announced in Ottawa that the British Government proposed to double the number of posts under the Aid for Commonwealth English Scheme for the next five years. I hope we may have an assurance that progress is being made along these lines.
  Secondly, we announced at the Ottawa Conference that we should like to see some increase in the Teacher Training Bursary Scheme, particularly in the training of college lecturers, teachers of science and mathematics, and teachers of craftsmen and technicians. These are some of the most valuable forms of educational aid for the developing countries, and the target was a rise from 450 such bursaries each year to 550 as soon as possible.
  Thirdly, a new scheme was introduced at Ottawa known as the study and serve scheme. Under this scheme, graduates are able to go out to universities and other institutions of higher education in Commonwealth countries, do a year's post-graduate study at these institutions, and then continue giving a year's service after they have finished their research. It was a condition of their being sent out under this scheme that they would give that service after their research was finished. We said at the Ottawa Conference that we expected a build-up of the numbers in the study and serve scheme to about 1,000 over the next five years.
  The other commitment entered into by the British Government in 1964 about which I should like to inquire is a rather more important one. This is the scheme, which was agreed at the Prime Ministers' Conference in 1964, for capital assistance to universities and institutions of higher education in the Commonwealth. My

  557
  right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) announced at that conference that the British Government were prepared to offer to increase capital assistance to Commonwealth universities to an average of £5 million a year. I think it would be a fair estimate to say that previous capital assistance had probably been running at an average of about £3 million a year; that is the best figure at which I can arrive anyway. It would seem, therefore, that it is an additional £2 million a year of capital assistance to Commonwealth universities that the Government are now required to give. I have not been able to find in the Estimates any head under which this capital assistance is to be given, and I am not sure whether the scheme falls within the terms of the Order, but I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to enlighten the House about that and give us an assurance that this very important scheme for Commonwealth universities is being carried through.
  The only point I would make here, in parenthesis, is that I think it would be fair for us to concern ourselves with the cost of some of the university places being provided in Commonwealth countries. It is absolutely natural that new Commonwealth nations should wish to have well-designed universities of which they can feel proud, but one or two of us may know of instances where the capital cost per student of new universities in some of the developing countries is very high, and if we are to give this increased assistance, as I believe we should, to the development of institutions of higher education in the Commonwealth countries, I think we should also offer some advice on costs, as we in this country over the years have had to pay very close attention to the cost per place of providing higher education.
  My fifth, and last, inquiry to the Parliamentary Secretary—I am afraid that I have not given him notice of it, and I shall understand if he prefers to give the information later—relates to the Centre for Educational Television Overseas which is to receive a grant of £40,000 in each of the next two years as a result of this Order. It was said in the Overseas Development Ministry's White Paper published in August of last year that there would be increased assistance for the
  558
  Centre for Educational Television Overseas, and this seems to be a grant of £40,000 for 1966–67 and 1967–68, which is the same as for the previous year. I should like an assurance that the future of C.E.T.O. is assured. I understand that some covenants and other sources of revenue may not be too certain after the next two or three years, and I think that everybody concerned with educational aid will want to be certain that the very valuable services of C.E.T.O. can be continued.
  I should be glad to know whether the scheme that was mooted for moving C.E.T.O. to Sussex University in order that it might be a part of the new television complex there and situated close to the new Institute for Overseas Development is likely to materialise.
  This short debate on educational aid will be the first since the Ministry of Overseas Development has taken on the responsibility for Commonwealth education co-operation. It was, of course, previously the responsibility of the Department of Education and Science. I think that the arguments were very evenly balanced as to which Department was better able to look after this project. I know that some felt strongly that it would be better for it to remain with the Education Department because that was the Department with the greatest expertise in education. But the move is not one to which I object.
  Although the Ministry has taken over a very large part of the responsibility for educational aid, however, it has not taken over all of it because perhaps the largest single contribution that we make towards the education of the developing countries is by means of the subsidy we give to the education of overseas students in this country. It is not always realised how large it is. It probably amounts to about £9 million a year. It is not always realised by overseas students who come here and perhaps pay their own fees or have them paid by their Governments that this amounts to only a fraction of the real cost of the education they receive.
  I hope that, in time, the Ministry will begin to look comprehensively at the educational assistance we are giving to the developing countries. It would be hard to say whether the manner in which

  559
  we are now spending this very substantial sum of money on educational assistance is the best way. I am simply posing questions today; I am not arguing a case. But it is by no means self-evident that there is no more effective way of spending £9 million than in subsidising in a fairly random fashion overseas students who happen to come to this country.
  It may be that it would be better directed towards teacher training in the developing countries themselves. Certainly one is struck, in any discussions with those concerned with education in the developing countries, by the lack of really reliable information as to the relationship between education and economic development. The Indian Education Commission today is faced with the problem of trying to determine which set of educational priorities will yield the greatest economic return to India in the years immediately ahead.
  Is it better to give high priority to primary education in the belief that this will change attitudes, particularly rural attitudes, and is likely to improve agricultural practice in the near future? Is it better to invest heavily in technical education, in higher education or in adult education of the more general kind, hoping to produce in the population as a whole an attitude that is more conducive to economic growth and the acceptance of modern techniques?
  There is very little information on which the planners can go at the moment. I realise that some of these are problems to which there can be no very clear answer but I believe we ought, over the years, to try to gain more certain information and try to come to more definite ideas as to the relationship between economic development and various kinds of educational investment. I hope that now that the Ministry of Overseas Development is concerned with a large part of the educational assistance programme it will turn its attention to some of these questions.
  I welcome the Order. I believe that the Commonwealth educational cooperation scheme has been one of the most successful post-war initiatives within the Commonwealth, that it has been of assistance to many developing countries in the Commonwealth, and that it has
  560
  helped to forge links between those countries and ourselves and to maintain friendship among the very diverse countries which now go to make up the modern Commonwealth.
  11.21 p.m.
  Dame Joan Vickers: I welcome the fact that the Ministry of Overseas Development has taken over this work, because, being a new Department perhaps it will have fresh ideas and in addition will not have so much work on hand as the Department of Education and Science. I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in this debate, because I have recently been overseas and seen much of the work of various teachers in different countries. I should like to know first whether there are waiting lists of teachers or whether all the vacancies are filled, because I know that further demands will be made on the Ministry in the not-too-distant future.
  I should like to pay a special tribute to the many people who are working overseas, some of them in very difficult conditions. In Aden I found two women teachers, one of them the head of a teacher-training college who was working with what I regarded as a United Nations of teachers. She had teachers from India and many other Commonwealth countries. Another woman was the headmistress of a girls' school many of whose pupils had been stopped from attending school by riots. In fact, young men had smashed the school's windows. These teachers were carrying on their work despite the difficulties and they were doing a first-class job.
  I went also to Sabah. There are certain difficulties about Sabah to which I have drawn the hon. Gentleman's attention and I know that he is taking them up with the government concerned.
  I went to Fiji where we have a number of people working and I pay tribute also to the New Zealand teachers there who are doing a first-class job.
  From there I went to Tonga which, while not within the Commonwealth, comes under the scheme. There is an excellent head of the teacher training college there, but he will need further assistance, which I hope to have the opportunity to discuss at another time, with equipment and so on if he is to do his job as enthusiastically as he wishes.

  561
  Another excellent scheme to which we have sent a teacher is the South Pacific Community Training Centre. This is one of the most interesting things I have seen. Young girls come from all the small Pacific islands and learn domestic work, needle work, first aid and general housecraft as well as receiving further education. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to see that this scheme is well supported, because when these girls go back to their small Pacific islands they are an enormous asset to the island communities.
  In their communiqué of 17th May, 1960, the Commonwealth Prime Ministers said that
  'they trusted that employers in Commonwealth countries—whether Governments, statutory bodies or private companies—would be ready, wherever possible, to encourage members of their staffs to undertake a period of public service abroad and would do their best to ensure that their prospects in their home countries would not thereby be prejudiced"
  I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman could tell us whether there is full cooperation and whether teachers are able to return to their jobs and also get their pensions and superannuation carried on. I met several young women, one in New Zealand, who were having to return to their jobs in this country rather more quickly than was perhaps wise because of superannuation, retaining their jobs here and probably not getting promotion if they stayed abroad too long. I should like to know how the scheme is working.
  I should also like to know about extra money for salaries. I quote from the speech I made on 17th May, 1960, in which I said that a report of the Commonwealth Educational Conference stated:
  "It became evident that there is considerable variation in the recognition given by different countries for service abroad. Some countries give only partial credit: e.g. two increments for three years' service. The Committee sees little justification for giving less than full credit for relevant service."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th May, 1960; Vol. 623, c. 1174.]
  I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would let us know if these difficulties have been ironed out and if his Ministry has been able to get satisfactory conditions in the various countries to which we send our teachers.
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  The reason why I welcome their scheme is that I think that if we are to get peace in the world and settle unrest it is essential to get an educated population. With an uneducated population it is all too easy to put over all forms of propaganda by poster, wireless and so it is essential that people can themselves read and write and assimilate knowledge.
  I should like to know how the National Council for the Supply of Teachers Overseas is working, and the placing of bursars through the Commonwealth Relations Office, the Colonial Office and the British Council. I understand that all three have a hand in placings. Is there overlapping between these bodies? How do various teachers know to whom to turn for full knowledge and information about the organisation and or country to which they should go? This is very important. Especially in my visits abroad I have seen a great improvement in the work of the British Council. I have been very much impressed by the standards of its officers and the work which its officials are doing overseas.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Samuel Storey): Order. The hon. Lady is getting away from the Order we are discussing.
  Dame Joan Vickers: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but the British Council provides some of the people who are supervising the teachers and this was mentioned—I looked it up carefully in HANSARD—under the Act. They are one of the organisations which looks after teachers when they arrive in this country or when teachers go overseas from this country.
  Does the money which is being voted tonight include the pre-training of teachers concerning the countries to which they are to go or, if they are coming here, about our country? This point was raised—the need to have pre-training of teachers who went overseas.
  Section 1 (l,a) of the Act refers to bursars coming from overseas who are not actually Commonwealth citizens. Have such persons taken advantage of this scheme? Have teachers from Tonga, who are not actually within the Commonwealth, although we have a treaty with that country, been able to come here under the scheme? What proportion of women are in the scheme? In

  563
  what numbers are women teachers going overseas, or is it mostly men who go? If the Parliamentary Secretary can give the numbers, I shall be grateful.
  I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway) said about the teaching of English. One finds that although a great number of teachers teach English, it is not the English as we speak it in this country. I am referring not to New Zealanders, who, I know, have a different accent, but to people who might be recruited, for example, from Sweden or Holland, who speak good English, but not as we speak it in this country.
  What facilities exist for teachers of the blind? It would be unfair, without notice, to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to give the number of teachers of the blind who are sent overseas, but I should like him to bear in mind the new system for teaching blind children. In many Commonwealth countries, instead of having separate homes for the blind, blind children are integrated in the sighted children's schools. This is working extremely well, for example, in Nigeria. What facilities are given to teachers who may be going to these countries to obtain knowledge of these methods of teaching the blind before they go overseas?
  I refer next to the teaching of the deaf. I believe that Manchester is recognised as being the outstanding university for the teaching of teachers for the deaf, but there do not seem to be enough vacancies to meet the demand. In my recent trip overseas, I found that this was a type of education that we need to look into.
  Hitherto, deaf children have often been considered not to be mentally sound. As they could make only sounds, because they were unable to hear, they were considered not to have any intellect. Recently, I am glad to say, that attitude has been contradicted. When I was in Singapore and visited the excellent school there for the deaf, I found that several hundred children under the age of 14 were registered as deaf. In some instances, there were as many as five in one family. I should like to know how many teachers in this category of teaching are included in the number who are being sent overseas.
  How many teachers who go overseas are encouraged to study the Pitman
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  method of teaching English? I have been very interested recently in a book which has been presented to me, which was specially illustrated for African children, showing how much easier it is to teach children English with the Pitman method of spelling. Are the teachers who go overseas encouraged to become familiar with this before they go?
  I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, North that economic aid is wasted unless people are sufficiently trained and educated to make the best use of it. Education can help to reduce poverty, and it is the only satisfactory method of raising the standards of the people in this very technical world in which we live. Even farmers need now to be taught how to make the best use of their land. Thus, by sending teachers overseas we are doing an excellent job, and it is one in which every encouragement should be given.
  The extra money which is now being made available is welcome. Nobody will grudge money being spent on teachers, because they are the best form of insurance to achieve a prosperous and more peaceful world. It is well recognised that no emergent nation can attain a standard of efficiency unless at least 4 per cent. of the population of each generation has a secondary educational standard.
  It is for these reasons that I particularly welcome this Measure tonight. I hope that during the coming year the Parliamentary Secretary may have time to consider some of the points which I have raised and that when teachers are sent overseas some of the qualifications which I have suggested might be included in their curriculum. I would like on this occasion to pay a special tribute to those I happened to meet during my recent tour for the really excellent work they are doing.
  11.35 p.m.
  Colonel Sir Harwood Harrison: I, too, welcome this aid to education. All of us who travel about the Commonwealth, as does my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers), know how important it is. Very shortly, I make just three points.
  First, I would underline what my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, North

  565
  (Mr. Chataway) said about education for agriculture. This is very near my heart, and I stress it wherever I go in the Commonwealth, and I do so particularly because of the big increase in population in those countries. However much urbanisation there may be, and however much manufactures increase, there will still be at least as many, if not more, people earning their livings on the land, and if they do not learn modern methods of doing it, there will be little hope of their living standards being bettered. We in this country learned this lesson some hundreds of years ago.
  Secondly, the present Minister of Overseas Development, when Secretary of State for the Colonies, last summer very kindly invited me to visit St. Helena. There are only 4,500 people there. We considered education there very carefully. They occasionally send a teacher to this country. After a course here, usually for three years, the teacher has to fulfil the undertaking to go back to St. Helena and teach for a year there. The trouble is that wages there are very much lower than they are in this country, and the teacher knows that, if he can save his passage money, he can come back here and provided of course, that he has the necessary qualifications, be welcomed by any of our education authorities in any of our counties or cities. Much as we would welcome him here, I am certain he would be even more useful in his own country. I believe that wages and salaries there have been increased since the right hon. Gentleman left the Colonial Office, and that may help to avoid this sort of situation arising. I am sure it applies not only to St. Helena but to other parts of the Commonwealth, too.
  Thirdly, can the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that, whatever has happened about money and grants for teachers and students, and despite what has happened over the last three months in Rhodesia, there is no intention of discrimination in Rhodesia in this particular field of education in the coming months?
  11.37 p.m.
  Mr. Oram: I very much welcome the tone of the contributions which we have had from the other side of the House, and the welcome they have expressed for this Order. In a short time a vast number of questions have been asked. Of
  566
  some of them I have had notice, and I am grateful for that; there have been others of which I have not had notice. I shall do my best to answer as many as I can. I am sure that, at this late hour, the House would not wish me to go into too great detail.
  I begin with a point raised by the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway). It is true, as he says, that there has been a slower build-up in expenditure under the Act than was anticipated, but the hon. Gentleman will have gathered from my opening statement that it is anticipated that in the next two years considerably increased expenditure will take place, and I am sure that both of us welcome this.
  There were specific questions he asked about progress. On Aid for Commonwealth English, I can report that we are up to schedule. The original 30 A.C.E. posts have been filled; people are in those posts; and the new batch of six, the first contingent of a further 30, are at present under training. The hon. Gentleman asked about progress under the Commonwealth Teacher Training Bursary Scheme, with regard to the additional places mentioned at the Ottawa Conference. Here again I can report good progress. Half of the additional 100 bursaries have been taken up in placings for the current academic year. It is hoped that the additional number will be filled by October, 1966.
  Study and serve has not got off to as good a start as we might have wished but the signs are not unpromising. In the first two years some 150 places have been taken up at Makerere College. This means that if we are to fulfil the 1,000 places which he rightly says was the original hope, the next few years will have to see a stepping up in the pace. We have some hope that as the scheme gets under way our target will not be too unrealistic.
  The hon. Gentleman also asked about capital expenditure, and about the overall £5 million announced at the Ottawa Conference. This does not fall under the financial provisions of this Order, but the hon. Gentleman is right in thinking that the present level is about £3 million plus. He complains that it is not easy to find out what these amounts are, that he needs to look around under various headings to get the total. We are considering whether some form of exposition of the

  567
  amounts in a more convenient way might be possible.
  He made a valuable point about the danger of the high cost per student place. I agree that this is something which needs watching. He will recognise that with a new institution, a comparatively small number of students are coming in in the early years and per capita costs sound higher than they will be when greater intakes of students are possible. We are keeping our eye on this and are willing, whenever possible, to provide technical assistance to make sure costs are kept as low as possible.
  Mr. Chataway: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves capital aid for higher education—the British Government made an offer, which I understood had the support of the Opposition, that capital aid to higher education would be increased to an average of £5 million a year over the five years starting 1965–66. The Government have not been able to fulfil that target. Is it now the intention to raise it to £5 million a year in 1966–67?
  Mr. Oram: This is an average over a period of five years. I should not like to say that in the next year it would necessarily reach £5 million. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of certain offers we have made in respect of universities in Malawi, Zambia, British Guiana and elsewhere. This kind of offer, when it is taken up, will increase the amount of expenditure. The average over the period may reach the £5 million mentioned.
  I was about to refer to the point about the Centre for Educational Television Overseas. The hon. Gentleman is probably aware that our Ministry has had discussions with representatives of the scheme about the amount of the grant. He is right in thinking that it is to be £40,000 in the next two succeeding years, and we look forward to the possibility of increasing it in future years.
  We are aware of the Centre's hopes to go to Brighton. I have a personal interest, since I live in that town, that that development should take place. But we are not able at present to promise that those facilities can be made available to it. However, it is an interesting possibility that we are hopeful of fulfilling one day.
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  I am grateful to the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) for the various examples that she gave from her own travels, particularly in South-East Asia. I am glad that she recognises the value of the work that has been financed under the various schemes.
  I share with her the tribute that she paid to teachers from other Commonwealth countries, such as New Zealand. Some years ago I saw in Borneo the valuable work which New Zealand teachers were doing. So I am glad to have an opportunity of paying tribute to the work in developing Commonwealth countries of not only our own people but of those from other Commonwealth Countries.
  She asked whether we are able to fill all the vacancies for teachers. I should not like to say that we are able to do that because, as she knows, the demand for teachers is tremendous. But we are reasonably happy with the number of teachers coming forward who are prepared to do a period of service overseas. The last year's figures reached 1,000, and we are increasingly interesting teachers in the work.
  She quoted from the Conference communiqué the important hope that employers would recognise more and more the value of overseas service. This is most important. I can say that local education authorities are coming to recognise that a teacher who goes overseas for a period is a more valuable teacher in our own educational system on returning than one without such experience.
  There may still be some difficulties about superannuation and so on, but there is a code of secondment which covers this sort of problem, and more and more local education authorities are operating the code. It was drawn up by the body to which the hon. Lady referred, the Council for the Supply of Teachers Overseas, and these are satisfactory dvelopments.
  I am afraid that I have not got answers to some of her detailed questions. I have no figures of the number of women teachers, for instance, but it is plain from groups of potential recruits that women form a good proportion of those who are going overseas. I think that she can be satisfied with progress in that respect.

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  Then she referred to the Pitman system—the Initial Teaching Alphabet. Again, I cannot say how many teachers are qualified in the technique, but the hon. Lady will be interested to know that my Ministry is supporting a very useful experimental scheme, in conjunction with the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, into the effectiveness of the system in the teaching of English as a second language. The hon. Lady can be assured that we have it very much in mind.
  The hon. and gallant Member for Eye (Sir H. Harrison) asked a number of questions, and the one with which he opened was the need for education in agriculture. I share the hon. and gallant Gentleman's view that development in agriculture in developing countries is most important. These countries have a thirst for industrialisation, but it is true that however rapid it may be, many millions of their people are peasants, and will go on being peasants for the rest of their lives. We should not, therefore, put all our eggs in the basket of industrialisation, and our Ministry is fully cognisant of the importance of agriculture.
  I know that I have not answered all the points which have been raised by the three hon. Members, but I hope that I have been able to give some additional information of interest to them. I share the view, which has been expressed strongly, that the money provided under the Act, and now to be provided increasingly under this Order, is money very well spent for a very good cause.
  Sir H. Harrison: Can the hon. Gentleman comment on what I said about Rhodesia? If he cannot reply now, will he write to me on the subject?
  Mr. Oram: I think that it would be better if I read what the hon. Gentleman said and then wrote to him, and this I undertake to do.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Commonwealth Teachers (Extension of Financial Authority) Order, 1965, a draft of which was laid before this House on 26th November, be approved.

  HIGHWAYS (STRAYING ANIMALS)
  11.51 p.m.
  Sir Barnett Janner: I beg to move,
  That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the payment of compensation for injury or damage caused by animals straying on the highway.
  How many more lives of innocent people are to be sacrificed, how many thousands are to suffer serious damage to health and to limb, how many breadwinners are to be taken from their families for ever, or for protracted periods, as a result of injuries received through animals straying on the highways before an Act of this nature is passed?
  My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdare (Mr. Probert) introduced a Bill many years ago, and I have introduced Bills on a number of occasions to deal with this problem, but without success. The problem is a serious one, and I propose to persevere in an attempt to provide a solution until an appropriate Act is passed to this effect.
  Since my last attempt, the case for such an Act has continued to be demonstrated by the growing number of accidents caused by the straying of animals. In November last year, Mr. G. J. Lewis published a document entitled, "Stock Trespass and Straying in the Townships of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire", an area which I am sure is well known to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In the chapter headed "Road Accidents", he says:
  "Straying stock are a constant source of danger to motorists on the heavily trafficked highways of Glamorgan and Monmouth. This is yet a further reason why all resources should be brought to bear to combat straying.
  With the co-operation of County, Borough and City Constabularies it is possible to give below accident figures for the year 1962".
  and he sets them out. I propose to quote some of the more glaring and serious examples which support my case.
  In Glamorganshire, in Gelligaer there were 81 accidents involving sheep. In Merthyr Tydvil there were 121. In Neath there were 90. In Rhondda there were 292. In Ogmore and Garw there were 98. In Penybont there were 116. In Cardiff there were 10 accidents involving horses. In Gower there were 22 accidents involving sheep, and 20 involving horses. In Monmouthshire, in Tredegar

  571
  there were 54 accidents involving sheep. In Abertillery there were 43, and in Nantyglo and Blaina there were 35. In Glamorgan there was a total of 1,105 accidents due to sheep straying, and in Monmouth a total of 229, with 15 accidents arising through straying horses.
  I do not know why we live in this peculiar world which pays no regard to accidents of that nature. Learned judges, time after time, have categorically emphasised the need for remedying the law, but no notice has been taken of their request. I have quoted from their judgments on previous occasions, and I venture now to repeat the words of one judge which describe the situation in very clear and unambiguous terms. Lord Greene, then Master of the Rolls, said:
  "The rule appears to be ill-adapted to modern conditions. A farmer who allows his cow to stray through a gap in his hedge on to his neighbour's land, where it consumes a few cauliflowers, is liable in damages to his neighbour, but if, through a similar gap in the hedge, it strays on to the road and causes the overturning of a motor omnibus, with death or injury to 30 or 40 people, he is under no liability at all."
  It is a question of a cauliflower compared with possible death or injury to 30 or 40 people. The learned judge went on to say:
  "I scarcely think that that is a satisfactory state of affairs in the 20th century."
  Nor do I, and nor would any intelligent person.
  It has been said in this House that the law requires remedying, and yet when attempts have been made to remedy it obstructions have been put in the way. The question is becoming more and more serious every day. The learned judge continued:
  "If it should prove not to be open to the House of Lords to deal with the rule, the attention of the legislature might be directed to considering the whole position with a view to ensuring the safety of His Majesty's subjects when they are lawfully using the highway."
  Time after time hon. Members have tried to bring this matter to the attention of the House, but no one has taken any notice of them. For some reason or other there is a reluctance on the part of the powers that be, whoever they are, to deal with this position. It is a scandalous thing, because accidents occur day after day.
  The matter has been brought to the attention of the public, and some time ago
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  I had a deputation from hundreds of people on this issue. Clergymen and goodness knows who else have protested—all to no avail. The judge continued:
  "On any view we think it desirable that the rule should be modified to meet modern conditions of traffic where a road runs through enclosed country. It is remarkable that, whereas Section 25 of the Highway Act, 1864, imposes a penalty on the owner of cattle found straying on or lying about any highway or across any part thereof or by the sides thereof except on such parts of any highway as pass over any common or waste or unenclosed land' the law gives no remedy to a person who is injured as a consequence. As already stated, we think liability should depend on negligence, and accordingly recommend that an occupier should be under a duty to take reasonable care that cattle or poultry lawfully on land in his occupation do not escape there-from on to the highway, and that the occupier should be responsible for all damage caused to persons or chattels (damage to realty being already covered by the action of cattle trespass) by cattle or poultry which escape owing to a breach of that duty whether or not acting in accordance with their ordinary nature."
  I should have thought that anybody examining the position would come to exactly the same conclusion as the learned judge.
  The law at present is that there is no obligation on the owner or occupier of a field adjacent to the highway to maintain a fence on the border of the highway. This is an opinion given by a lawyer in my own constituency with which I entirely agree. This is founded on ancient social conditions and is in no way related or liable to be qualified by such matters as the level of fields or highways, the nature of highways or the amount of traffic on the highway, save in the case of animals fierce by nature. There is no general duty on the owner of domestic animals to prevent them from straying on the highway and thus causing risk of accidents to the users of the highway.
  As there is no liability to have a fence, liability does not arise if a fence is not properly maintained or a gate not properly closed. This is an invitation to animals to stray and an invitation for damage to be done. In an age like ours, when traffic is so heavy, it is a ridiculous invitation and one which should be prevented. A person should have a duty to prevent it. It is high time that a Bill of this nature was introduced, accepted by the authorities and allowed to pass.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir B. Janner, Mr. Probert, Mr. Palmer, Mr. Steele, Mr. Ensor, Mr. Lipton, Mr. Alan Williams, Mr. Manuel, Mr. Coleman, Mr. Winterbottom, and Mr. Boston.

  HIGHWAYS (STRAYING ANIMALS)
    HIGHWAYS (STRAYING ANIMALS)
    Bill to provide for the payment of compensation for injury or damage caused by animals straying on the highway, presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 18th February and to be printed. [Bill 67.]

  CANAL, LIVERPOOL (DANGER TO CHILDREN)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mrs. Harriet Slater.]
  12.4 a.m.
  Mr. Walter Alldritt: I am glad to have the opportunity to raise a matter, which is of deep concern not only to my constituents but to those of my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Mr. Simon Mahon). The subject is the Liverpool and Leeds Canal, otherwise known locally as "the cut". I wish to draw attention first to the deaths, between May and 2nd October, 1965 of two boys aged three, two aged nine and four respectively and a girl aged six. Four of these deaths were in the Liverpool coroner's area.
  In the past few years, at least 19 lives have been lost in the same area. I know that at least 15 of these victims were under 11 years of age. In the same period there have been numerous rescues, most of them unreported, with all the attendant risks to the rescuers. I know of men who have caught pneumonia or serious colds and have not been able to attend to their employment for some weeks afterwards.
  Arising out of the tragedies of 1965, a conference was held in Bootle on 19th October which comprised local authorities, the British Waterways Board and Members of Parliament. I thank my hon. Friend's noble Friend for the cooperation which he gave us in this matter. The important point is what that conference resolved. There were two resolutions. The first read:
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  "That action being urgently required to reduce the number of fatalities and other incidents in the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in the Merseyside area, this meeting recommends—

  (a) that the British Waterways Board and the local authorities concerned take immediately all appropriate steps to prevent children from obtaining access to the canal banks and to secure the provision and maintenance of adequate life-saving equipment;

  (b) that the local authorities concerned approach all owners of land adjoining the canal in the Merseyside area and request them to take such steps as may be necessary to prevent children from obtaining access to the canal banks across such land."

  I should like my hon. Friend to take particular note of paragraph (c), which reads:
  "(c) That the British Waterways Board and the local authorities concerned consider the establishment of water-borne and other patrols.
  (2) That the local authorities concerned and the British Waterways Board be requested to allow their appropriate officers to serve on a Working Party to be convened by the Town Clerk of Bootle with the object of preparing a report on the present use and the future of the canal in the Merseyside area and that such report be submitted as soon as possible to a meeting of two representatives of each local authority concerned and the officers of the Board."
  What of the implementation of these recommendations? I can speak only of what I know has happened in the County Borough of Liverpool; I know for certain that recommendations 1 (a) and 1 (b) and recommendation (2) have been carried out.
  It will be noted that the concentration was purely upon preventing further accidents in the canal as it now exists, but in December, 1965, the British Waterways Board issued a document called "The Facts about the Waterways" which shows quite clearly and conclusively that this stretch of the canal between Liverpool and Wigan has no potential as a cargo carrier and, further, that that stretch which passes through my constituency from the mouth of the canal and through the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle not only has no cargo potential but has no amenity potential. It is a fact that it has become more or less a stagnant pool and I and my colleague receive constant complaints about the smells which are emitted from this canal.

  575
  it seems to me that the main concern on this stretch would be the cost of filling it, and I want to draw my hon. Friend's attention to the fact that the second tunnel crossing is to be provided—indeed, the pilot bore has started—within about 200 yards of a stretch of this canal. It seems to me that the opportunity should be taken by the British Waterways Board to exploit this situation, as spoil from the tunnel should be available on the Liverpool side at perhaps no cost at all. It would also release to industry valuable land which flanks each side of the canal. It might also have the advantage of reducing the cost of the second tunnel crossing.
  Having said that, I want my hon. Friend to do two things. First, he should draw the attention of the Liverpool County Borough to recommendation No. 1 (c) of the conference held in Bootle on 19th October and, once again, to the fact that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government issued a Circular, No. 52, on 6th July, 1965, clearly indicating that the local authority has power to introduce waterborne or other patrols. Second, my hon. Friend should direct the British Waterways Board to take immediate advantage of the opportunity which is offered by the tunnel works to fill that section of the canal which passes through the two constituencies to which I have referred. Even if the spoil is not available, this section should be closed.
  I do not think that the City Council of Liverpool would take objection to its attention being drawn to recommendation 1(c) of that conference. I recall that my good friend, the leader of the City Council, commented in the Press in October that once the ball had been placed at his feet, it would not be kicked around. We cannot continue to allow life to be lost in this way. Our children—the pride of their families, the flower and future backbone of the nation—should not be allowed to lose their lives in this way.
  I beg the Minister to recognise the urgency of this problem. I hope that in his reply he will not say, as some misguided people have suggested, that there should be greater parental control, for that would be only begging the question and would show a complete lack of
  576
  understanding of the conditions which exist in the populated areas alongside this dirty, polluted and useless killer which is a nightmare not only to parents but also to industry.
  I also hope that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will not hide behind the answer of non-Ministerial responsibility in this matter, because if action is not taken I certainly intend, if another child's life is lost in this canal, to see to it that either the Ministry or the Board bears the legal responsibility. I am not prepared any longer to allow this state of affairs to continue.
  Time is short so I will conclude my remarks by making a comparison which my hon. Friend could clearly say he is not prepared to countenance. It is, nevertheless, worth while making. If the Joint Parliamentary Secretary could tell me of any stretch of road of equal length to this canal on which the same number of deaths involving child pedestrians had occurred, I would perhaps not be so emphatic. However, if such a comparison could be made and the death rate were the same, the Order Paper would be full of Questions from hon. Members. In such circumstances, I am sure that the Minister, whether or not he had Ministerial responsibility, would direct the responsible authorities to eliminate the problem completely.
  12.14 a.m.
  Mr. John Smith: The Leeds and Liverpool Canal is far from my constituency and the fact that I rise to speak about it emphasises, I hope, that this is a matter of national as well as local concern.
  To close a small part of a canal means, in the end, to close it all. The Leeds and Liverpool Canal is, since the closure of the Rochdale and Huddersfield Narrow Canals, the last water route across the Pennines. Liverpool has always been orientated westwards, but the Common Market and the North Sea gas have changed all that. The Humber is the Mersey of tomorrow, and Liverpool would be most unwise, as Manchester has been unwise, to cut herself off from it. Does Liverpool want to be like Manchester?
  All deplore the deaths of 11 children in 10 years. They drowned because this canal was disused; but if it is to be filled

  577
  in—and I happen to have great experience of this because I served for three years on the Ministry of Transport's Inland Waterways Redevelopment Committee—there will be a long period of dereliction which will be far more attractive to children, and far more dangerous. In addition, whatever is done on a short stretch, it will mean abandoning 30 miles of the canal from Liverpool North Docks to near Parbold, and it may reach a cost of £100,000 a mile.
  Mr. Alldritt: Nonsense.
  Mr. Smith: This can be compared with the cost of doing exactly the same thing in Nottingham. The site cannot be used for a road, because bridges over the canal make it impracticable, and the money would be better spent—
  Mr. Alldritt: I have never suggested that it should be used for a road and if the hon. Member had read the Report, he would know that his costing is quite a bit out.
  Mr. Smith: On the Committee to which I have referred we received many estimates. They were always made in good faith, but they were often exceeded. As I was saying, the money would be better spent on safety measures to save more lives. For example, there are more children killed in Stanley Road, Bootle, and indeed the money could be better used on playgrounds to take children away from the canal.
  British Waterways have prepared, after great labour, a Report which includes this canal. This Report is to be debated in this House in a few days' time, and surely this matter should wait until that debate has taken place and the Government have taken decisions in the light of it for the system as a whole, and for this canal in particular. I hope, therefore, that the Government will not commit themselves tonight to any hasty and piecemeal action.
  12.19 a.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Morris): I am grateful for the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Scotland (Mr. Alldritt) and the remarks of the hon. Member for the Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. John Smith). I am grateful, too, for the restraint which my hon. Friend showed in
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  putting his case, although he put it so forcibly.
  I have read most carefully the correspondence which has taken place between my hon. Friend and my predecessor, and I can tell him that never have I been so horrified as I was when I read of the grim tragedy at this particular spot as it unfolded itself. It is a horrifying picture which words cannot fully convey, and, while it is easy to me to express sympathy from a distance to all connected in any way with this grim series of tragedies, that is of no help to them now.
  I want to make abundantly clear at the outset that if, in the course of what I say I seem to set up legal and physical problems, I do not want to give the impression that I am merely putting up obstacles. My intention—I say this as sincerely as I can—is to be as helpful as possible, and anything that I can do by way of encouragement or persuasion I will do. If at the end of the debate we can think of a way to avoid a repetition of the ghastly spectacle which has taken place over the years at this spot, we must ensure that it is done. I invite my hon. Friend to have a further talk with me after the debate, and perhaps we may then go into this in detail and wrack our brains to find a way by which, be it by persuasion, be it by encouragement, we can ensure that the good work which has been started in recent months, in the conference arranged through the good offices of my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Mr. Simon Mahon) and my noble Friend, does not remain where it is but continues. I wanted to say that before. I began the other matters to which I wish to refer because I think that our aims should be the same, and while there are undoubtedly very great difficulties which I should deal with in fairness to my hon. Friend, we must seek some way to avoid a repetition of these tragedies.
  I should like to divide what I have to say into three parts. First, I want to try to define the responsibilities of the British Waterways Board and the Minister in the matter. I should then like to deal with the question of what immediate remedial measures can be, and have been, taken to safeguard against further loss of life. Thirdly, I should like to say something about the long-term future of the canal. It is in the last part that I can best deal

  579
  with the very real difficulties of closing even a small section of the canal.
  There is no need for me to repeat the details of the description of the canal. We are now dealing, on the specific matter which has been raised by my hon. Friend, with a rather small portion of it, not the whole length extending to 127 miles. The ownership of the canal has been vested since January, 1962, in the British Waterways Board. The canal was originally constructed under a private Act of 1770, which was followed by amending Acts. I must tell the House that the only legal liability on the owners of the property is to fence against cattle and sheep, and even then only on the towpath side, and the Board has no responsibility for fencing the other side of the canal, which for the most part is not in its ownership. Having said all this, I must make it clear that the Board has never stood on its statutory position. It has already gone a long way beyond what is demanded of it in law, and is prepared to go a great deal further where it is satisfied that fencing can serve some useful purpose.
  Where does my right hon. Friend the Minister stand in all this? It might be suggested that she might give a direction to the Board as to the exercise and performance of its functions in relation to matters which affect the national interest. We have been advised that the Minister's powers to give such general directions would not enable her to direct the Board to fence particular lengths of the canal. As I understand it, it has to be a direction to fence all the Board's canals or none of them. This is the position in law, and this is what makes a general direction so impractical. There are other problems connected with the riparian owners and their rights of access to the canal.
  All these problems are familiar, I know, to my hon. Friend, but I wanted to set out the Minister's position and the difficulties of tackling the problem in that way. What my hon. Friend would far prefer to know, I am sure, is what immediate remedial measures can be, and have been, taken. At both management and operational levels the British Waterways Board has maintained a humane and practical attitude towards the problems created by this largely disused stretch of water running through a densely popu-
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  lated area. We all know that children are always fascinated by water. I was born and bred on the edge of a river and as a child was fascinated by water.
  Fencing in itself is not always a solution. We see fences round property which is disused and that in itself creates a challenge for children. My hon. Friend has long experience in local government and knows a great deal about this problem. I want to set out the difficulties about fencing but I do not deny altogether the merits of fencing and perhaps it is the best solution on many stretches of our canals.
  Last year, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents promoted a national water safety campaign with the theme "Watch your child—where there's water there's danger." The object was to prevent drowning accidents, especially those involving young children. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government at the same time circulated local authorities asking them to review their areas and make sure that everything possible had been done to deal with existing sources of danger and drawing their attention to the statutory powers of local authorities to deal with dangerous places and promote water safety.
  My hon. Friend invited me to draw the attention of the local authorities to the results of the conference called last year. Perhaps we might wait for the report of the working party, which has not come to my hand as yet, but at the same time I am sure that what he and I have said in the debate will be heard in the right places.
  With this object in mind, I am particularly pleased that the local authorities in the Liverpool and Bootle areas have formed this working party, on which the various local authorities and police authorities concerned, together with the British Waterways Board, are represented, to see what can be done to minimise the danger in the "black areas" of the canal. I am told that the report of the working party has not yet been finalised, but that it is expected shortly. Meanwhile, action to restrict access at danger points has already been taken as a direct result of the deliberations of this group. For example, I understand that Liverpool Corporation has started work

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  at Lightbody Street and that the Bootle Corporation has completed work at Ceres Street. The British Waterways Board is taking action at Litherland Bridge and Ranelagh Avenue and work at these two points is about to start.
  I know that all hon. Members will join with me in welcoming both the initiative of the local and police authorities in the area in tackling this problem so energetically and the willing co-operation of the Board. This is essentially a local problem which can best be solved by people with an intimate knowledge of the area and its needs and I am confident that, if necessary, owners of private property abutting the canal will co-operate with the local authorities in carrying out any recommendations made by the working party.
  I turn now to the question of the long-term future of the canal. The British Waterways Board Report was referred to by my hon. Friend. It is a factual Report and contains a number of individual studies. The problems of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal are dealt with very fully. The Government are studying the Report carefully with a view to formulating a sound waterways policy and my right hon. Friend hopes to say something about waterways in the White Paper on Transport which she hopes to put before the House shortly.
  My hon. Friend dealt with the issue of the beginning of the construction of the tunnel. I understand that it was begun in January. This is a very useful sugges-
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  tion. I do not know what difficulties might arise, but this is something which my hon. Friend might discuss with me in order to consider the practical possibilities.
  I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Scotland and my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle have concerned themselves with this problem. I assure the House that what has been said in this debate will be brought to the attention of the British Waterways Board which, as I have explained, is working in the closest co-operation with the local authorities to do everything possible which can make for safety along this stretch of water between Bootle and Liverpool. I sincerely hope that adequate steps will be taken in time to ensure that danger is minimised in this terrible stretch of water. I am sure that it will take time to provide a proper solution but that everything must be done to minimise the danger of a recurrence of the grim series of tragedies which we have experienced in this part of the world.
  Mr. Alldritt: It is not a matter of minimising. We want to eliminate and we are determined to do that one way or the other.
  Mr. Morris: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend; there has been a grim series of tragedies and I agree with everything he has said.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes to One o'clock.