SIERRA LEONE (NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENT) (Hansard, 19 July 1966)

§ Mr. Evelyn King
On a point of Order. I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the imprisonment in Sierra Leone of a British subject, Mr. David Loshak, and the preferment against him of criminal charges based not on anything he did in Sierra Leone, but on what his newspaper published in London. It is relevant that although Mr. Loshak, who is staff correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, was yesterday in a Freetown prison, I have learnt within the last hour that he has now been released on £200 bail, that his passport has been confiscated and that he must report daily to the police for the next seven days, when his case will be heard.
Owing to your kindness yesterday, Mr. Speaker, I was able to ask a Private Notice Question. At the time I asked it my information was that he was being detained pending deportation. Had that hope been fulfilled I would not have troubled the House further, but it is my case, having learned other facts at nine o'clock last night, that an entirely new and, I suggest, a most serious position has arisen in that Mr. Loshak is now charged under Part 5 of the 1916 Public Order Act, Sections 32, 33 and 46, and that as a result of that charge he could be sentenced to three years' imprisonment. The charge against him is of making a false statement and sedition.
I say frankly that in my view—and I spent the watches of the night studying the matter—those charges are completely bogus. But whether or not they are bogus they are certainly definite. I suggest that they are definite within the meaning of Standing Order No. 9.
391 The second question which you will wish to consider, Mr. Speaker, is whether they are of public importance. I suggest that when the liberty of any individual is at stake that in itself constitutes an issue of public importance and one to which, traditionally, the whole House is tender, where a man's freedom is endangered.
But this is a question of public importance for yet another reason. The origin of this matter was that the Minister of Overseas Development was discussing financial aid to Sierra Leone. This correspondent thought it his duty—and I submit that it was his duty—to publish in his newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, sufficient political and economic background to inform public opinion in this country.
It was published on 11th and 13th July. Many hon. Members will have read it, and few will have noticed in it anything of any particular consequence. No one could have conceived of it as the basis of a criminal charge. Might it be that the Sierra Leone Government took the action they did because such articles are influential—that they sought to charge Mr. Loshak in order to silence him so that neither public opinion nor this House could be influenced or properly informed? If that were to be so—if so misconceived an idea were to exist—it would be doubly dangerous, and, consequently, it is doubly a matter of public importance.
There remains the last question: is it urgent? When a British subject is in danger of imprisonment in a foreign clime that matter, to him, is urgent. I hope that it is no less urgent to us. It is doubly urgent because his fate will be decided within the next seven days. During that period this House may have some hope of exerting influence, but once those seven days have expired and the sentence is pronounced we may be too late in anything we say.
It is three times urgent because Her Majesty's Government are at this moment negotiating financial aid for Sierra Leone, under whose aegis these things are being done. I am not now suggesting that that aid should be withheld, but I suggest that the matter should be debated, and it can be debated only 392 now. It is, therefore, urgent, it is definite, and it is of public importance—and it is in accordance with the tradition of the House that it should be discussed.

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Evelyn King) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the imprisonment in Sierra Leone of a British subject, Mr. David Loshak, and the preferment against him of criminal charges based not on anything he did in Sierra Leone, but on what his newspaper published in London. I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving me notice of his intention to raise this matter again. The House will remember that a Private Notice Question to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations on this subject was answered yesterday, when the Secretary of State said that Her Majesty's Government had the right, if they felt there was injustice, to make the strongest possible representation, and that they had indeed made representations in this case, and that the action taken was legally for Sierra Leone under the Non-Citizen (Registration, Immigration and Expulsion) Act.
That being the case, I have to consider whether the application to move the Adjournment of the House can be met, and on this I am guided by precedent and not by the merit of this matter. I find that on 19th July, 1911, a Member raised the case of a British subject—a woman—who had been in prison for more than 15 weeks in a Warsaw gaol. The Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs replied that inquiries were being made and that our Ambassador was being instructed to take action with the Russian Government, who then exercised sovereignty over Warsaw, and the Speaker ruled that the matter could not be raised again the next day under the terms of the Standing Order.
Various arguments were put forward by the hon. Member who sought leave to raise the matter under Standing Order No. 9 that the case had become more urgent since the previous day, but the Speaker resisted all such submissions. I think that the precedent must guide us again this afternoon.

§ Mr. Hogg
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is not seeking to question the decision which Mr. Speaker has made.

§ Mr. Hogg
Accepting implicitly your decision, Mr. Speaker, and the extent to which you are bound by precedent, is it not abundantly clear that nothing except the Last Trump would be treated as a definite matter of urgent public importance?

§ Mr. Speaker
As the right hon. and learned Gentleman will know, the whole question of Standing Order No. 9 has gone before the Select Committee on Procedure., before which Committee it will be in order for him to make the observation he has made now, and others wise, witty, or grave ones.

§ Mrs. Joyce Butler (Wood Green)
I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for the labelling of food and toilet preparations, the display of notices in relation to food, and matters connected therewith. There is an increasingly large number of people, who are not cranks but ordinary consumers like ourselves, who are worried about the large number of chemicals that are added to food. At least 400 such chemicals are today being used in the manufacture of food to give it flavour, taste, smell and colour; to make margarine, butter and cheese spread more easily; to make salt flow more freely, and to give longer life to some perishable foods.
The amounts of these chemicals in any one food are small, but we must be concerned about their cumulative effect in all the things that we eat and drink—because, of course, the products we drink are not exempt from this chemicalisation. Increasing numbers of people are asking to have the facts about these chemicals printed on the labels of the foods they buy.
Like many other households, my own family is very fond if eating jelly, mousse, blancmange and other types of sweets, but it worries me a great deal when I have to prepare these things from a packet, because when I look at the packet—and this that I hold is typical—and all I can see is that in addition to some of the ingredients are flavouring and colouring, with no indication at all whether the flavouring and colouring are natural or synthetic, or harmful in any way.
Some manufacturers are voluntarily putting more facts on the labels. I have here a soup packet which specifies that it contains no artificial preservative and also that its colouring is natural. The fact that some manufacturers of repute are doing this indicates that they recognise that it is also good business to give customers what they want in the way of information. If some of them can do it, I believe that we should make it mandatory on all to do it. If manufacturers are putting on a label 395 such as I hold, the information that it is …a condensed soup with extra goodness and flavour they can also, in addition to stating the ingredients, put in exactly the nature of the colouring and the flavouring they put into that soup—information which they at present do not include.
The Bill would provide that no person shall sell any food or confectionery which contains additives, except when their presence is disclosed. It defines additives as being colouring matter, flavouring or preservative or any chemical substance used for the purpose of manufacture. It goes further, and provides for vegetables and fruit on sale which have been sprayed with arsenic or any other chemical to have an accompanying notice stating "Treated with —", followed by the name of the chemical. There have been many comments from manufacturers about my proposed Bill, and from retailers, too, but I have had none commenting on the provisions about fruit and vegetables, which a number of greengrocers with whom I have discussed them regard as eminently reasonable.
One Clause deals with meat. Its purpose is to indicate as far as possible where meat has been produced by factory farming methods. I have discussed this with the meat trade. The difficulty here is that while it is perfectly feasible to make a legislative provision for a person who injects proteolytic enzymes or other substance at the point of slaughter to mark the carcass and invoice it right through to the retailer, it is very much more difficult to trace meat to the retailer which has been produced by factory farming methods.
Nevertheless, there are many people who would like such information when they buy meat or poultry or eggs, and who do not wish to buy products that have been produced by factory farming methods. Since there is also a possible health risk from food produced in this way, it has seemed desirable to keep in the Bill a Clause relating to this matter, although the powers given to Ministers to make regulations have been somewhat modified without, I think, weakening the Measure in any way on this point.
These qualifications have also been applied to the Clause dealing with toilet 396 preparations and cosmetics—again, following discussions with the cosmetics trade. However, while I fully accept the care taken by the greater part of the cosmetics trade with its preparations, I am concerned on two points. The first is that unless there are labelling regulations of general application to cosmetics, firms which are not so careful in their choice of materials may constitute a hazard. I am also not convinced that the very small number of skin complaints directly attributable to cosmetics is an assurance that some cosmetics may not produce more indirect reactions that may be harmful.
A particular concern relates to colouring, because considerable amounts of colour are imbibed through lipstick, and the reactions to lipsticks which may have the carcinogenic properties found in some American lipsticks when tested would not necessarily show on the mouth. I ask manufacturers: why should women not be given on the label the name of the colour? However small the package, it seems to me to be just as easy to print, for example, "Ponceaux SX"—the name of the chemical—as it is to print "Coffee Ice", "Regal Pink", "Tender Mauve", or "Tempting Touch", which are names printed on lipsticks at the present time.
For a long time I have myself used only lipstick with a vegetable colouring, and judging by the large number of letters I have received from women, some of them doctors' wives, there is a demand for more information about the chemicals used in cosmetics, and especially about some of the special secret formulae used in their manufacture.
I have indicated the scope of the Bill. It is an important contribution in that it seeks to bring our regulations up-to-date to meet modern needs. We are still using, in some of the products I have mentioned, the six food colourings which the Food Standards Committee recommended a year ago should be discontinued.
The Bill would remind the two Ministries concerned, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Ministry of Health, that the pressure from the public to bring the regulations up-to-date on these lines is extremely strong and that an increasing number of people want the facts on 397 the labels so that they can judge for themselves when they shop. I hope, therefore, that I will be given leave to bring in the Bill.