Commons Sitting of 2 March 1966

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

    Brambell Report
    Mr. St. John-Stevasasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when Her Majesty's Government intends to introduce legislation to implement the recommendations of the Brambell Committee on the welfare of animals, Command Paper No. 2836.
    Mr. Corfieldasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he is taking to secure the agreement of countries from which animal products are imported to control production on the lines suggested for this country in the Brambell Report.
    The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Fred Peart): It is too soon to say what action may be necessary on any part of the Report.
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: Does the Minister realise that there is profound anxiety amongst animal lovers all over the country about certain forms of factory farming? Will he instruct his civil servants to prepare legislation immediately so that when his Conservative successor takes over next month it can be implemented immediately?
    Mr. Peart: I am aware that there is concern among animal lovers, but there is also concern in the farming world where, if anything was done hastily and drastically, there would be serious difficulties from the point of view of the home food producer. It is for this reason that I believe the Report should be carefully considered before precipitate action is taken.
    Mr. Rankin: Will my right hon. Friend give careful thought to bringing in legislation on this subject of the welfare of animals, which the Tories failed to bring in when they were in power and had the chance to do so?
    Mr. Peart: My hon. Friend will, I am sure, appreciate that there is a Report on this, and that a careful investigation was made. I gave a deadline of 31st January for the views of people who were involved to be made known. I am looking at these carefully.
    Mr. Godber: Will the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge the implications of what my hon. Friend has said? The reference to Her Majesty's Government is purely a generic term, and does not refer to Her Majesty's present Government. Nevertheless, will the right hon. Gentleman inform his hon. Friend that the Brambell Committee was set up by a Conservative Government, and that it was only because it did not report until after we had left office that these matters were not dealt with? Further—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The Question is getting a bit too long.
    Mr. Godber: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. May I come to the substance of my question, which is to ask the Minister to say in relation to the farmers—and I was glad to hear what he said about them—that he will introduce nothing which will harm the British farmer compared with imported food produced in the same way?
    Mr. Peart: It is precisely for this reason—the rôle of imports—that I feel the Report should be carefully examined with a view to taking action where necessary.
    Sir W. Anstruther-Gray: Will the Minister bear in mind that a large proportion of farmers are themselves animal lovers, and let the public not get the mistaken idea that farmers do not love their stock?
    Mr. Peart: I accept that farmers are animal lovers, and this was brought out in the Report itself.

    Pigs and Milk (Profitability)
    Mr. Peter Millsasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) if he will give detailed figures

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    of the level of profitability in the pig industry; and if he will make a statement;
    (2) if he will give detailed figures of the level of profitability in the dairy industry; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Peart: The profitability of producing pigs and milk is being considered, together with all other relevant factors, in the Annual Review which is now in progress. I cannot anticipate the Review determinations.
    Mr. Mills: Will the Minister bear in mind that I have been keeping pigs for 24 years and that, in common with many other pig keepers, I find it virtually impossible to make a profit at the present moment? If the Minister wants pigs, will he say what he is prepared to do now, as he may not have another chance of helping the industry?
    Mr. Peart: The hon. Gentleman knows full well that the Review is on, and we are having discussions on this very matter.
    Mr. Noble: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why, if the Chancellor could anticipate his Budget yesterday, he, as Minister of Agriculture, cannot anticipate the Price Review today?
    Mr. Peart: The right hon. Gentleman knows that it would be wrong of me to anticipate it. The review is on, and for this reason there is a special procedure which is known to everyone.
    Mr. Blackburn: With regard to the price of pigs, is it correct, as farmers claim, that only 40 per cent. goes to farmers, and 60 per cent. to dealers?
    Mr. Peart: As I have said, all the factors will be considered and are now under review.

    Cattle and Sheep (Deficiency Payments)
    Mr. Scott-Hopkinsasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what are the provisional figures for the deficiency payment for beef, mutton, and lamb for 1965–66, and for the increased cost of producing one hundredweight of beef and one pound of mutton and lamb for 1965–66.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Hoy): For cattle, £5·54 million and for sheep, £5·88 million. As the hon. Member knows, by convention the estimates of increased costs of production for individual commodities are not disclosed.
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Surely the hon. Member can say what the increased cost has been during the past year? Unless he does this the House will not be able to assess what should be given to the farmers in the Price Review. Surely he can make some estimate of this? Can he tell us when the Price Review will be announced?
    Mr. Hoy: That has nothing to do with the Question. It will be announced when a settlement is reached. All that I have done is to give the reply which follows convention.

    Annual Price Review Commodities (Wage Awards)
    Mr. Scott-Hopkinsasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the total increase of cost related to Annual Price Review commodities attributable to wage increases in 1965–66.
    Mr. Hoy: It is estimated that in a full year wage awards would increase costs on Review commodities by £14 million.
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins: If the hon. Gentleman is able to answer this Question why could not he have answered the previous one? Does he not agree that this is a considerable increase—much more than has occurred in past years?
    Mr. Hoy: There is some increase. It represents about £750,000 more than in each of the past two years.

    South-Eastern Dairy Farmers (Court Ruling)
    Mr. Godberasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what action he has now taken with regard to the complaint by the south-eastern dairy farmers which was the subject of a recent court ruling concerning his actions in the matter.
    Mr. Charles Morrisonasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement about the finding of the court that he had misdirected himself when he refused to refer

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    a complaint on behalf of 4,800 south-east dairy farmers to a committee of investigation.
    Mr. Peart: I am considering whether to appeal against the order recently given by the Divisional Court, and I hope shortly to announce the action I propose to take.
    Mr. Godber: In view of the fact that the Minister is considering this I presume that he will say that it is sub judice, but is he aware that many farmers think that this is not the only matter on which he has misdirected himself? Will he say whether he has taken advice not only from his own legal advisers but also from the Law Officers of the Crown in this matter?
    Mr. Peart: I am surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman make his first remark, because my predecessor, in reply to an Oral Question on 6th July, 1964, stated that when approached for advice by the south-eastern milk producers on the question of a price differential he had replied that the question of the determination of a regional price differential was properly a matter for the Milk Marketing Board. I do not want to get into an argument about the merits of the case. This is now a legal matter. I am considering whether to appeal, and when I have made that decision I shall certainly answer questions on the matter.
    Mr. Morrison: In the event of an appeal being unsuccessful, who would carry the cost?
    Mr. Peart: We must wait in order to see whether an appeal is made. It depends on my decision.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: Can the Minister say what the position will be if he goes ahead with an appeal and gets into difficulties, and is not longer a Minister?
    Mr. Peart: I am so confident that I will be that I had not thought about that.

    Dessert Apples (Exports to Irish Republic)
    Mr. Gibson-Wattasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what representations he is making to get the tariff removed from British dessert apples exported to Eire.
    Mr. Hoy: The new Agreement, which comes into force on 1st July, 1966, provides for apples of United Kingdom origin to be imported into the Irish Republic free of duty during the months March to July inclusive. There is no immediate prospect of re-opening negotiations on the possibility of duty-free entry for other months.
    Mr. Gibson-Watt: I recognise the increased efficiency of this part of the fruit industry and the amount of capital involved lately, but will the hon. Gentleman watch the tariff position very carefully, especially in view of the benefits that Eire has in our home market?
    Mr. Hoy: We will. Part of the agreement covers that point. As the hon. Gentleman knows, for this part of the industry we have given considerable assistance, and will continue to do so.
    Mr. Godber: I should like to press the Parliamentary Secretary a little further. Is he aware that the months concerned are the ones which are least attractive to the home industry, and that it should have been possible to do more for the home producer, in view of the concessions given to the Eire Republic?
    Mr. Hoy: I think that we have done reasonably well in all the circumstances. At present all importers except the United Kingdom are restricted by quotas. If the 2d. duty is applied to the August-February period, a duty of at least 2d. a lb. must be applied in respect of all third countries throughout the whole year. From the point of view of Northern Ireland we must not overlook the possibilities that they will have during the period that the hon. Gentleman referred to.

    White Fish (Minimum Price Scheme)
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyneasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what progress he has made in his discussions with the White Fish Authority and other interested parties regarding the introduction of a minimum pricing scheme for white fish.
    Mr. Wallasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement about the proposed statutory minimum prices scheme for the fishing industry.
    Mr. James Johnsonasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he has come to a decision about the future introduction of a minimum prices scheme, following his discussions with the White Fish Authority.
    Mr. Peart: The Government accept the principle of a statutory minimum price scheme for white fish. I have accordingly informed the White Fish Authority that, if it promotes a scheme in accordance with the statutory procedure, we shall be prepared to consider it on its merits and in the light of our international obligations. The Government cannot, however, promise a contribution to the cost of a scheme.
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is a pretty unsatisfactory reply? Has it not taken an interminable time even to produce this reply? How can he be in a position to consider the scheme when he will not even be there to consider it?
    Mr. Peart: I should have thought that for the Government to agree in principle to a statutory scheme was right, and I think that it will be welcomed by the industry.
    Mr. Wall: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is uncertainty about this issue and about building grants and many other matters in the industry? Will he tell the House how he expects any statutory minimum pricing scheme to be financed if the Government will not make any contribution?
    Mr. Peart: The industry can do that. There is already a limited private scheme which is to be examined by the Restrictive Practices Court. There is no reason why, given good will, a statutory scheme of this kind should not be acceptable to the industry.
    Mr. James Johnson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this scheme—the first of its kind produced by any Government—is widely welcomed by workers, fish merchants and the industry as a whole? Can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that the White Fish Authority is getting the full co-operation of the vessel owners, whom the aforementioned workers and merchants think are doing well enough to give the scheme full financial backing?
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The questions and answers are getting too long.
    Mr. Peart: I would only say, "Thank you very much." That is right.
    Dame Irene Ward: Is this the first step towards ratting on the white fish industry?
    Mr. Peart: No, it is not. An agreement in principle for the White Fish Authority to consult the industry and go ahead with a statutory scheme is a step forward, which was never taken by my predecessors.
    Mr. Hector Hughes: Will my right hon. Friend state who were the interested parties referred to in the Question? Does he realise that the White Fish industry in north-east Scotland is confronted with new problems arising from drilling in the North Sea? Will he take that fact into account?
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: On a point of order—
    Mr. Hughes: On a point of order. I asked an important question. Surely I should receive a reply?
    Mr. Speaker: The Minister is not bound to reply.
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter at the earliest possible moment.

    Home-produced Beef
    Mr. Wolrige-Gordonasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how he proposes to meet the need in Great Britain now for an increasing supply of home-produced beef.
    Mr. Hoy: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my right hon. Friend to the hon. Member for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills) on 23rd February.
    Mr. Wolrige-Gordon: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I do not have that reply with me, but that it seems basically more sensible to produce the additional beef that we must have from our beef herds rather than from our dairy herds, and that this will require more encouragement both for hill producers

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    and lowland producers than is being given at the moment?
    Mr. Hoy: This is what we hope to do. This matter will be settled in the Price Review. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be delighted to know that the beef breeding herd is expanding and that there has been a large increase in calf retentions over the last two years.

    Annual Price Review
    Mr. Farrasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what yardstick he intends to employ to calculate the element of increased efficiency in the forthcoming Price Review discussions.
    Mr. Peart: There can be no precise calculation of the amount which the industry gains through increasing efficiency. The method used is a broad assessment, taking one year with another and having regard to increases in the physical productivity of farming and in the scale of operations. As foreshadowed in last year's Annual Review White Paper, the assessment is being reconsidered with the farmers' unions at the Annual Review now in progress.
    Mr. Farr: I am grateful to the right. hon. Gentleman for that reply, but cannot he tell us a little more about it? The change to this procedure was foreshadowed in the last White Paper. It means a great deal to all farmers that a more realistic approach is made to the question of increased efficiency.
    Mr. Peart: I accept what the hon. Member says, but he will appreciate that in view of the fact that this matter is being considered with the farmers' unions at the Annual Review now in progress, I cannot add more to my reply.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the Minister aware that farmers who show increased efficiency are rewarded by having increases in their rents, that rents have gone up by 27s. an acre, amounting to 1½d. in the gallon on milk? Is this the way to encourage efficiency?
    Mr. Peart: I accept that this was a very important factor, but this matter is now being considered.
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the figure of £25 million which has been the figure
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    taken into account in previous Price Reviews will also be used in the coming one?
    Mr. Peart: I cannot give the hon. Member a specific reply on that. He knows—he ought to know, as a former Minister in the Department—that this matter is now being considered.

    Rochford Area (Flood Prevention Scheme)
    Mr. Braineasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will state the date upon which the Essex River Authority submitted its scheme for the prevention of flooding in the Rochford area, the date upon which his Department agreed on the technical soundness of the scheme, and the date on which the actual work began; and if he will make a statement on the progress of this project, which is essential for the protection of life and property.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Mackie): The Essex River Board made a preliminary approach in August, 1963, about a grant towards the cost of the Rochford drainage works; but the full information needed to consider the merits of the scheme was not received until March, 1965; and the technical soundness of the scheme was established by the end of May, 1965. The outline scheme was approved in principle on 15th December, 1965. As soon as the Authority has obtained our agreement to its detailed estimates and drawings it will be in order to start work.
    Mr. Braine: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that, owing to the Government's refusal to make an adequate grant, this scheme, which is regarded by everybody as technically feasible and most urgent, will be either delayed or cut, unless the burden is put on the ratepayers? Is not this in conflict with the Government's declared policy on rates, and will he look into the matter?
    Mr. Mackie: The hon. Member raised this matter on the Adjournment some weeks ago. We discussed it fully then, but I am glad to return to the subject as that is his wish. We have a worth-whileness test, of course, which reduced the grant to a certain figure and that test

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    is being looked into. As soon as we come back, we will look into it again.
    Sir R. Nugentasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in view of the fact that the delay in dealing with the Essex River Authority's Rochford flood prevention scheme and with many other such river authority schemes is due to the operation of the worth-whileness test, when he will resume discussions with the Association of River Authorities on a change to a new system without this test.
    Mr. John Mackie: While not necessarily agreeing that the delay has been caused by the worth-whileness test to the extent that the right hon. Member suggests, we hope to resume discussions with the Association shortly.
    Sir R. Nugent: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the delay of two years, which has doubled the cost in the Rochford case, is typical of the delay caused by this system? As the hon. Gentleman has already cancelled his intention to start a new scheme this year, will he say when he will be ready to start talks with the Association of River Authorities?
    Mr. Mackie: As regards the Rochford scheme, if the right hon. Gentleman will carefuly read the Adjournment debate, he will see that the worth-whileness test was not all the cause of the delay. With the worth-whileness test, generally speaking, the cases are dealt with inside of three months on average and, as I have said, we are starting discussions again with the association as soon as possible.
    Sir R. Nugentasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food by what authority he is prevented from giving a grant of more than 45 per cent. to the Essex River Authority for their flood prevention scheme in the Rochford area.
    Mr. John Mackie: We are only able to offer grants towards expenditure incurred by river authorities in accordance with the arrangements sanctioned under Section 55 of the Land Drainage Act, 1930. These arrangements at present include a worth-whileness test, the application of which prevented us from offering grant on the full estimated cost of the scheme which the right hon. Member has in mind.
    Sir R. Nugent: Is the Joint Parliamentary Secretary aware that in the
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    Adjournment debate referred to he told the House that he was prevented by law from increasing the rate of grant of 45 per cent.; and that the House will be glad to know that it now lies within his power to make the schemes whatever he wishes? Will he therefore see that he comes forward with a more generous scheme?
    Mr. Mackie: We are always prepared to be as generous as possible.

    Brucellosis
    Sir A. V. Harveyasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is being done to implement a plan with a view to eradicating brucellosis.
    Mr. Peart: I am unable to add to the first part of the reply given to the hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Kitson) on 22nd December last.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that reply gives no encouragement whatsoever to the farmers? Why does he not tackle this problem on the lines on which previous Conservative Governments got rid of T.B.? Does he not realise the enormous loss to the industry and to the national economy? Instead of window-dressing and false promises, could not this industry have something?
    Mr. Peart: The hon. Member refers to the previous Administration. They did nothing, it is true—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—they did nothing about brucellosis. I appreciate the seriousness of this problem and I am anxious to do something. There are problems here—whether to go in for an immediate eradication scheme, the cost of which I remember giving on a previous occasion, or to work out a gradual scheme, over which there are various difficulties. I make no apology for any delay.

    Milk (Opaque Containers)
    Sir J. Langford-Holtasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in view of the fact that exposure to daylight greatly reduces the vitamin content of milk, if he will take steps to promote the use of opaque milk containers.
    Mr. Hoy: The Cook Committee on Milk Composition in the United Kingdom

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    considered this question in 1960 and concluded that the available evidence on the loss of vitamins from milk as a result of exposure to daylight did not suggest a need for special containers.
    Ultra heat treated milk which has since appeared on the market is retailed in opaque packs in the interests of long-keeping quality.
    Sir J. Langford-Holt: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that publicity has recently been given to this subject and that an assertion has been made in print that, within a period of one hour, about 80 per cent. of the vitamin content of milk disappears under the influence of daylight? Is he also aware that it is absolutely vital, if this sort of publicity continues, in order to preserve the consumption of liquid milk, that he should keep an eye on it?
    Mr. Hoy: I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. I am certain that he, along with me and, I am sure, the rest of the House, would deprecate these gross abuses of opinion about these foodstuffs.

    Agriculture (Investment Incentives)
    Mr. Ian Gilmourasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement giving details of the new investment incentives for agriculture.
    Mr. J. E. B. Hillasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he will announce details of the new incentives to encourage investment in agriculture; what consultations he is having with the industry; and what advice he is giving to farmers who are reluctant to invest further capital before new arrangements have been announced and passed into law.
    Mr. Peart: I would refer the hon. Members to the reply I gave on 21st February to my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Hazell).
    Mr. Gilmour: Why is the grant being restricted to licensed tractors? Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the delay, obscurity and confusion which there has been over this whole matter is thoroughly regrettable and entirely unjustified.
    Mr. Peart: There was no delay on this. When the main scheme was announced, it was stated that agriculture would have to be specially considered. I immediately had talks with the National Farmers' Union and other interests concerned. The scheme itself has been welcomed by the National Farmers' Union and the C.L.A. as well.
    Mr. Hill: Is it not a fact that, rather than have this delay and uncertainty, the industry as a whole would have preferred that the old system was left as it was? Alternatively, if the Minister says that he wants to make these changes to help the smaller farmers and the farms which do not make a profit, should he not have introduced some scheme for second-hand machinery, of which that type of farm is a considerable user?
    Mr. Peart: I cannot accept that. We carefully consulted the interests concerned. I think that, in the circumstances, this is a very good scheme and I am glad that it has been welcomed.
    Mr. H. Hynd: Why is my right hon. Friend so hard hearted? Will he not listen to these pleas for National Assistance from the hard-up farmers?
    Mr. Peart: I do not regard this as National Assistance in any sense. I believe that the injection of capital from the point of view of farming is a good thing.
    Mr. Godber: Can the Minister give us some total figure involved in the benefits of this and compare it with the previous arrangements? If not, would he acknowledge that, like that for the rest of industry, the benefit will be less than it was under the previous arrangements?
    Mr. Peart: I said that it was approximately the same, but it means that there is a greater emphasis within the industry.

    Donkeys (Landings from Ireland)
    Mr. Kimballasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what action he proposes to take about infringements of the Horses (Landing from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland) Order, 1954, on 2nd December, reported to him on 10th January by the hon. Member for Gainsborough with certificates of veterinary examination supplied by the Horses and Ponies Protection

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    Association, showing that they were unfit to travel.
    Mr. John Mackie: I have made inquiries. As required by the Order, the donkeys were examined in daylight by our inspector, and certified fit to continue their journey.
    Mr. Kimball: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that the disturbing thing about this case is that an independent veterinary surgeon gave it as his categoric opinion that these four donkeys were not fit to travel? In view of the general concern about this trade of donkeys from Ireland into this country, will the hon. Gentleman instruct his officers at the ports to examine all donkeys most carefully, to be certain that those with foot sores are not allowed into the country?
    Mr. Mackie: I think that I would agree with the hon. Member, but this was a borderline case. The certificate which the other veterinary surgeon gave was nearly four days after our inspector saw them because the donkeys were moved again. We will look into this. We have, since this case arose, been much more careful.

    Corned Beef
    Mr. Liptonasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for how much longer he plans to withhold from disposal stocks of corned beef withheld from the market since June, 1964.
    Mr. Peart: I would refer my hon. Friend to the replies which I gave on 22nd December, 1965, to him and on 26th January to my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Lomas).
    Mr. Lipton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I did not like the Answer of 2nd December? Will he indicate what his intentions are regarding this ageing and suspect meat which was withdrawn after the Aberdeen typhoid epidemic? Does he realise that, so long as he does not make up his mind, the public will be perturbed and they will heave a sigh of relief if he heaves the lot into the sea?
    Mr. Peart: I made up my mind and I made a public statement on this—that no stocks will be released on the British market.

    Atomic Waste (Dumping at Sea)
    Mr. Wallasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what arrangements are made about dumping atomic waste at sea; what degree of pollution results; and whether this is increasing.
    Mr. Hoy: Dumpings are made by the Atomic Energy Authority subject to detailed conditions prescribed by authorisations issued by my right hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government.
    The radioactivity of the wastes is so small in relation to the natural radioactivity of sea water that no measurable degree of contamination results.
    Mr. Wall: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that reply. Is he aware that there is growing concern at the pollution of the sea by oil, industrial waste and atomic waste? In view of the increasing dumping by European Powers, will he see that the regulations are adequate in an international as well as a national sense?
    Mr. Hoy: I think that the hon. Gentleman will agree that that widens the Question a little. The question of the safety of sea disposal has been considered by a panel of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the conditions which we enforce comply with its recommendations.
    Sir Knox Cunningham: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether any of this waste is dumped in containers? What is the life of those containers? Are we not laying up for ourselves a good deal of trouble in the future?
    Mr. Hoy: I hope not, because the dumpings have been made in selected areas. They are made away from the fishing grounds and, indeed, beyond the Continental Shelf. They have to be at a depth of not less than 1,500 fathoms and we take tremendous care to see that no contamination results from them.
    Mr. Rankin: Would my hon. Friend have another look at this matter in view of the fact that atomic earth, which the United States created in Spain, is not being dumped in Spanish sea waters but is being taken back to America to be buried in the atomic cemetery there?
    Mr. Hoy: I have a sufficient task looking after my own Department, let alone looking after the United States. As I pointed out, we have this international agency to safeguard this matter. It is a serious and important problem and I assure my hon. Friend that we take every precaution to see that no damage arises from the dumpings that take place.

    Early Potatoes
    Mr. Brewisasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is his policy as to the amount of early potatoes to be grown in Great Britain.
    Mr. Hoy: Within the protection afforded by the tariff, it is for growers themselves to decide what acreage of early potatoes they will plant. Production in any season is, of course, greatly influenced by weather conditions. Having regard to experience in previous years, the Potato Marketing Board indicated in its Report for 1965 that there might be room for a reduction in the acreage of early varieties not ready for lifting until July or early August.
    Mr. Brewis: Would the hon. Gentleman say why the Government exempted early potatoes from the quantity restrictions when they made the Anglo-Irish Treaty recently? Is this not certain to have a most undesirable effect on growers in the remote areas of Cornwall, Pembroke, Penrith and the like?
    Mr. Hoy: I do not think it will have an undesirable effect. Indeed, as the hon. Gentleman knows, they come, in the main, from two members of the Commonwealth. Where other potatoes are sought to be imported into this country, there is a considerable tariff to protect our industry.

    Dairy Farmers
    Sir H. Studholmeasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in view of the facts that about two-thirds of British beef comes from the dairy herd, and that substantial expansion of beef is called for by the National Plan, which would be accompanied by expansion in milk production with consequent erosion of the guaranteed milk price, what inducements he will offer to dairy
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    farmers to undertake the required expansion.
    Mr. Peart: I would refer the hon. Member to the Answer I gave to the hon. Member for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills) on 23rd February.
    Sir H. Studholme: Would the right hon. Gentleman agree with the opinion expressed by experts at the farming conference at Oxford this year that the erosion in the guaranteed price of milk, as a consequence of increased beef production, might amount to as much as 2½d. a gallon?
    Mr. Peart: There were a lot of experts at that conference. Sometimes the experts disagreed with each other. As the hon. Gentleman knows, this matter is now being discussed in connection with the Price Review.

    Livestock Farmers (Assistance)
    Sir H. Studholmeasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will seek to extend to marginal farms, which, owing to their nature and locality, do not qualify for hill cow subsidy and cannot grow crops for sale, an extended type of farm improvement scheme, coupled with a subsidy for suckling herds, in order to help them play their part in the required expansion of Great Britain's national beef production.
    Mr. Joplingasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he is aware of the increasing economic hardship to farmers on farms which are close to hill areas, as they do not qualify for hill subsidies; and if he will take steps to improve these conditions.
    Mr. Peart: We are examining with the National Farmers' Unions various suggestions for helping livestock farmers on difficult land outside the hills. The hon. Members will understand that I cannot say anything more while the Annual Review discussions are in progress.
    Sir H. Studholme: Does not the Minister agree that there would be considerable advantage in such a policy as I have suggested in that the erosion of the guaranteed milk price would be reduced?
    Mr. Peart: As I have said, there is a problem here, but it is one that we are discussing with the farmers' unions.
    Mr. Jopling: While understanding that the Minister cannot go far on this matter, may I ask whether he would agree that this group of farmers, who are just below the level of the hill subsidy, are finding things most difficult in the economic circumstances of the industry at the moment?
    Mr. Peart: I accept that, and that is why I said that I wished to discuss this matter. I assure the hon. Gentleman that it is being examined now.
    Mr. Peter Mills: Would the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that these are among the hardest hit farming areas in the country and that it is from these areas that he could obtain the necessary beef stores he wants?
    Mr. Peart: I have said that this matter is being examined very carefully indeed. I cannot go beyond that now.

    Sugar Beet
    Mr. Loveysasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food why there has been a decline in the growing of sugar beet in the south of England over the last few years.
    Mr. Hoy: Since county quotas were abolished in 1960, the growing of sugar beet has shifted more to the eastern counties most suitable for it in respect of type of land and the location of factory capacity.
    Mr. Loveys: Since this has nothing to do with the Price Review, may I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he considers that growers in the south of England who are a long way from the factories should have a reasonable share of the sugar beet acreage? If so, will he encourage this by making provision for special transport allowances, similar to those which have been obtained by the canny Scots growers with similar problems for beet processing in the Cupar factory?
    Mr. Hoy: I cannot comment on the hon. Gentleman's remarks about the canny Scots growers. I must leave them to look after themselves. There is already sufficient processing capacity in those parts of the country where farmers are still keen to grow all the sugar beet that is required. We certainly have the factory accommodation to meet the needs of these farmers.
    Mr. Kimball: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this year much of the sugar beet is not being harvested and that a lot of the crop that has been harvested has been harvested at no profit but because there is a debt of honour in the contract with the industry? Will he bear this in mind during the present negotiations?
    Mr. Hoy: It is not for me to comment at this stage on what will happen. I am certain that the comments of the hon. Gentleman and other remarks will be drawn to the attention of those who are considering this matter in connection with the Price Review.

    Farm Improvement Scheme
    Mr. van Straubenzeeasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what proposals he has for approving applications for grants made at the present time under the Farm Improvement Scheme.
    Mr. Peart: As the money provided by existing legislation is virtually all committed, formal applications under the present Farm Improvement Scheme cannot be accepted. However, we are continuing to examine farmers' proposals in the light of the Government's policy for continuing and extending the Farm Improvement Scheme. Clearly no commitment to grant can be made in advance of legislation by the new Parliament. I intend, however, when new legislation is passed, to deal with applications for grant in accordance with the terms of the Act in all cases where farmers have started work with the written agreement of my Department.
    Mr. van Straubenzee: Would the Minister confirm that the legal basis on which these grants are made has fallen by the wayside in the Agriculture Bill? Is he acting properly in anticipating legislation? How does he expect farmers to make intelligent applications under this scheme?
    Mr. Peart: I think that the farmers will be pleased with my statement. I should have thought that they would welcome what is a sympathetic statement. I am rather surprised at the hon. Gentleman's comments.
    Mr. Godber: I am amazed that the Minister thinks that the farmers will

    1287
    accept this with enthusiasm. Does he not recognise that a serious situation has arisen here, which he created in the first place by putting this matter in a long and complicated Bill, a situation which the Prime Minister aggravated by delaying the process of that Bill? Will the right hon. Gentleman, in the unlikely event of him being Minister after the election, take special action to see that early payment can be made by introducing a small enabling Bill?
    Mr. Peart: I have made my statement and I think that it will be accepted. The Bill was a very good one. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] It was an excellent Measure and had some very good proposals. When we come back after the election we will complete it.
    Mr. J. E. B. Hillasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the recent monthly trend in applications for farm improvement schemes; and by what proportion this differs from the average for the last five years.
    Mr. Peart: Since 17th November, 1965, when we stopped accepting formal applications under the Farm Improvement Scheme, 4,032 people in England and Wales have put to us proposals for consideration under the Agriculture Bill. Over 2,100 were received in January against 1,900 for January, 1965. The January, 1966, figure is very slightly above 100 per cent. of the five-year average for that month.
    Mr. Hill: Nevertheless, has not the uncertainty about the future of the scheme particularly the rate of grant, stopped the rising trend that was apparent, and is not this acknowledged by the Minister in that, even before his cut has been made effective, he has announced his intention to ask Parliament to provide him with power to replace 5 per cent. of the cut grant by a supplement, and—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. There are a lot of good farming Questions to come. I must protect other hon. Members.
    Mr. Peart: I think that the figures are reasonable and satisfactory. At the beginning of the new scheme there was a certain amount of natural uncertainty, but now that its details are becoming
    1288
    better known there is tremendous interest in it.
    Mr. Godber: In view of the Minister's very unsatisfactory reply on timing—it is now acknowledged that these 4,000-odd people to whom he refers will have to wait a very long time indeed for their money unless separate provision is made—does he not think that he should look at this matter again?
    Mr. Peart: Not necessarily. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will look carefully at my reply.
    Mr. Stodart: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any indication when he will be able to pay this grant to this admittedly increased number of farmers, in view of what is admitted all over as a shortage of capital in the industry today?
    Mr. Peart: That is another question.
    Mr. Godberasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what will be the estimated annual cost of the 5 per cent. supplement to grants under the Farm Improvement Scheme; what is the estimated help from public funds that a farmer paying tax at the standard rate will receive now on a £1,000 building qualifying for grant; and what he would have received both in grant and allowances on an application approved before 17th November, 1965.
    Mr. Peart: The cost arising from the supplement is estimated to be about £4 million in the first full year.
    Under the old scheme which ended on 17th November, 1965, the farmer qualifying for investment allowance would have received a grant of £333 and an investment allowance worth about £32 at the standard rate of tax as abated by the earned income allowance. Under the 25 per cent. rate of grant for the extended scheme proposed he will, with the 5 per cent. supplement, receive £300. In addition, of course, he would be able to get grants under the extended scheme on a wide range of equipment which has not been grant-aided hitherto. Had the investment allowance continued he would instead have received a grant of £250 plus an investment allowance worth £36 on the standard rate making £286.
    Mr. Godber: Does not this show that not only is the farmer who pays no tax

    1289
    worse off but that those paying the standard rate of Income Tax will be worse off than under the present proposals—those prior to 17th November?
    Mr. Peart: It does not show that. The example I gave was a fair reply. The scheme itself will be of greater benefit to many farmers paying no tax or less than the standard rate.

    Charollais Cattle (Leptospirosis)
    Mr. Buchanan-Smithasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food why tests for leptospirosis were not carried out on the Charollais cattle recently imported whilst these cattle were in quarantine in France.
    Mr. Peart: It has been common international practice, which in the past we have found sufficient, to rely on tests for diseases like leptospirosis before entry into quarantine. In view of our recent experience, however, we are re-examining our conditions.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Would the right hon. Gentleman accept that it would be more logical to test these animals while they are in quarantine? Would he agree that it would save expense and trouble if the tests were carried out before these animals were brought into the country? Would not this remove the cause for concern to breeders in this country?
    Mr. Peart: I accept that the position is not fully covered, but it is a question of what should be done. We are looking in our discussions for further safeguards, and this is the right approach. I could give the hon. Gentleman details, but my reply would be too long. I will merely say at this point that I should like the animals to be selected only from farms which have good health records, then to be tested on the farm during the weeks of pre-quarantine and then, during the quarantine period to be tested again. Such a series of stages might be the answer.

    Foul-Brood Disease of Bees
    Sir B. Jannerasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many officers administer the requirements of the Foul-Brood Disease of Bees Order 1957; how many of them are engaged part-time; and whether, in view of the limited number of experts who are conversant
    1290
    with the methods of controlling bee diseases including foul brood and of stimulating honey production, he will seek to offer full-time employment to those who are prepared to serve as such officers.
    Mr. Hoy: During 1965, 212 officers were employed for the six months from April to September to carry out the requirements of the Foul-Brood Disease of Bees Order; of these, 55 worked full time, and 157 worked part time on an hourly basis. There is no winter work for these people connected with beekeeping; educational work is the responsibility of local education authorities.
    Sir B. Janner: Does my hon. Friend realise that some of the best honey in the world is produced in this country, particularly in Leicester? It is very sad indeed that only 900 tons out of the 13,600 tons consumed in this country in 1965 was produced in this country. Will he not give some encouragement to these people who are prepared to become experts in this work and teach others, so that we can have the necessary number of experts to deal with the diseases which are killing off the bees?
    Mr. Hoy: I would not dissent from what my hon. Friend has to say about the quality of our own honey, but I would point out, if I may, that 23 county councils in England and one in Wales have beekeeping instructors, and that three county beekeeping instructors also work for the Ministry during the summer as appointed officers for the purposes of the Foul-Brood Disease of Bees Order.

    Bacon Pigs
    Mr. Buchanan-Smithasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the average return per score deadweight for bacon pigs in each quarter of 1965; and what is the estimated return for the present quarter.
    Mr. John Mackie: Comparable figures for the four quarters of 1965 are 41s. 6¾d., 42s. 7¾d., 43s. 6d. and 42s. 8¼d. The corresponding figure for 1966 up to 20th February was 41s. 6d.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, since the Government took office, returns to pig producers have been virtually static in face of costs

    1291
    which have risen considerably? Can he give pig producers an assurance that they will get a greater share of the bacon sharing agreement whilst Government policy appears to be to squeeze the producers in their returns?
    Mr. Mackie: Our policy is not to squeeze any returns from any section of the industry. The question of what is to be done is for the Annual Review and cannot be discussed here now. The whole point is that the returns have gone down because of increased production of pigs. The middle band has gone way up and that is the reason for the reduction.

    Flour (Addition of Chalk)
    Mrs. Joyce Butlerasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the latest expert advice he has received from the Food Standards Sub-Committee about the practice of adding chalk to flour; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Hoy: The latest advice from the Food Standards Committee was contained in the Report on Bread and Flour which was published in 1960.
    Mrs. Butler: Since millers and bakers see no need, at the present extraction rate, for adding chalk, and since it is extremely difficult to get even distribution and consumers would welcome removal of the additive, is there not a case for a fresh look at the Regulations to see whether they can be changed?
    Mr. Hoy: The Regulation concerned is contained in the Bread and Flour Regulations, 1963. The object is mainly to ensure that children and the elderly get enough calcium. Expert advice is to keep on this requirement pending further inquiries.

    Farmers, Dorset (Grants)
    Mr. Evelyn Kingasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much, basing his estimate on 1964 figures, Dorset farmers will receive in respect of his recent announcement in respect of agricultural grants.
    Mr. Peart: I regret that the information is not available.
    Mr. King: When the information is available, will not the figures confirm,
    1292
    when taken in conjunction with all the other figures that we have had today, that the Dorset farmer is far worse off than he was when the Government took office?
    Mr. Peart: The hon. Gentleman is putting rather a strange argument since he has not yet been given the information on which to make his conclusions.

    Temperate Foodstuffs (Imports)
    Sir J. Langford-Holtasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food by how much it is intended to reduce the import of temperate foodstuffs as a percentage of the total United Kingdom consumption of these foodstuffs in the years, 1965, 1966 and 1967.
    Mr. John Mackie: Under the National Plan home agriculture is expected to be able to meet a major part of the increasing demand for temperate foodstuffs. It will therefore save imports which would otherwise be required but it is not expected to reduce total food imports below their present level.
    Sir J. Langford-Holt: Is it or is it not the policy of the Government that we should produce at home an increasing percentage for a growing market?
    Mr. Mackie: If the hon. Gentleman had studied the National Plan, particularly the Chapter in Part II which was put in by the industry, he would have realised, on proper calculations, that the technical possibilities of the industry are just about what we are asking for between now and 1970.

    Horticultural Growers (Grants)
    Mr. Blakerasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement, giving figures up to the latest convenient date, on the extent to which the grants made available to horticultural growers under the Agriculture and Horticulture Act, 1964, are being taken up.
    Mr. HoyThe response to these grants continues to be encouraging. During the 18 months between 1st July, 1964, when the current Horticulture Improvement Scheme came into force, and 31st December, 1965, growers made almost as many

    1293
    applications as they made during the whole of the four years' life of the 1960 scheme. As the statistics of the various grants are complex I will, with permission, circulate them in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Blaker: While the Minister's reply confirms that the growers welcome the aid provided under Conservative legislation,

    SUMMARY OF PROGRESS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM TO 31ST DECEMBER, 1965

    Horticulture Improvement Scheme

    Horticultural Production Businesses

    Horticultural Producers' Co-operative Marketing Businesses

    Total

    Monthly Average

    Number of applications received:

    (i) Under 1960 Scheme to 30.6.64

    7,861

    165

    8,026

    157

    (ii) Under 1964 Scheme from 1.7.64 to 31.12.65

    7,472

    83

    7,555

    420

    (iii) Total

    15,333

    248

    15,581

    Number of applications approved

    12,224

    200

    12,424

    Estimated cost of approved proposals expected to qualify for one-third grant

    £14·2 million

    £1·7 million

    £15·9 million

    Estimated cost of proposals under consideration

    £1·2 million

    £0·4 million

    £1·6 million

    Lettuce, Cucumbers and Tomatoes
    Mr. Blakerasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what percentage of the lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes, respectively, consumed in the United Kingdom in the years 1963–64 and 1964–65, respectively, was imported; and whether he is satisfied with the position of the home producer.
    Mr. Hoy: As the answer to the first part of the Question contains a number
    1294
    is he aware that many of them still experience great difficulties? What proposals has he for dealing with these?
    Mr. Hoy: The hon. Gentleman does not specify the difficulties. In fact, applications are so numerous that they show that the growers obviously appreciate what is being done for them.
    Following are the details:
    of figures, I shall, with permission, circulate details in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I would, of course, like to see the British grower getting a bigger share of the market. To this end, we are offering substantial financial aid to the industry intended to bring both production and marketing to a higher state of competitive efficiency.
    Mr. Blaker: Is not one of the problems the fact that speculative shipments from such places as the Canaries are sent here

    1295
    for sale on commission at whatever price they will fetch? Is not there some means by which such shipments could be controlled?
    Mr. Hoy: I have no knowledge of that. There are protective tariffs on cucumbers and tomatoes during the home season, and on lettuces during the whole year. It is in this way that we seek to protect the home industry.
    Mr. John Wells: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that there has been a serious decline in the home trade, particularly in cucumbers owing to imports from the Canary Islands and elsewhere? Will he look seriously at the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker)?
    Mr. Hoy: I say again that there is a considerable competition from imported cucumbers, particularly Dutch, during the home season. Canary Islands cucumbers are imported in significant quantities at the beginning and end of the home season. This is what we are all trying to correct.
    Following are the details:

    IMPORTS OF LETTUCE, CUCUMBERS AND TOMATOES

    Commodity

    Year

    Imports* as a percentage of total supplies available during home season†

    Lettuce

    1963

    5

    1964

    7

    1965

    7

    Cucumbers

    1963

    23

    1964

    28

    1965

    27

    Tomatoes

    1963

    62

    1964

    60

    1965

    62

    * Including imports from the Channel Islands.

    † The home-season varies from year to year. For the purpose of this table, it has been taken to be 1st February to 30th November for lettuce, 1st April to 30th September for cucumbers and 1st May to 31st October for tomatoes.

    DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS (BOOK)
    Sir C. Taylorasked the Attorney-General whether he has now referred the book handed to the Solicitor-General by the hon. Member for Eastbourne to the Director of Public Prosecutions; and whether proceedings will be taken against
    1296
    the printers, publishers and distributors of it for obscenity.
    The Attorney-General (Sir Elwyn Jones): I have referred the book to the Director of Public Prosecutions, who is considering whether criminal proceedings should be taken.
    Sir C. Taylor: As this is probably one of the most filthy, disgusting and degrading books that anybody could ever write, can we be assured that criminal proceedings will be taken as well as the destruction of copies of the book?
    The Attorney-General: I have told the House that the book has been referred to the Director, and I have no doubt that he will give most careful consideration to all the matters to which the hon. Gentleman has referred.

    NEW INN AND CLIFFORDS INN FUNDS
    Mr. Howeasked the Attorney-General what was the value of the New Inn and Cliffords Inn funds at the time at which they were first comprised in a charitable scheme; what is the current value of such funds; what is the average annual percentage decline in value of such funds; what change has been made in the investment of such funds since the passing of the Administration of Justice Act, 1965; and if, in exercising his official responsibility for these funds, he will apply to the Chancery Division of Her Majesty's High Court of Justice for an alteration in the foregoing charitable scheme, with a view to preserving the value and to increasing the usefulness of such charitable funds.
    The Attorney-General: The value of the funds at the time when they were first comprised in a charitable scheme was £55,215 and £79,302 respectively; their current values are £23,819 and £32,431 respectively; the average annual percentage decline of the funds since 1905 is 1·13 per cent.; no change has been made in the investment since the passing of the Administration of Justice Act, 1965; I am considering, in consultation with the present beneficiaries of the income, whether to apply for an alteration in the scheme.
    Mr. Howe: Do not these funds represent the proceeds of the sale of the old Inns of Chancery? Were they not

    1297
    intended to be used for the creation of a great school of law in which the Council of Legal Education, the four Inns of Court and the Law Society would co-operate? Is not the matter of urgent importance in view of the continuing decline in the value of the funds if they are to be used for a purpose of that kind?
    The Attorney-General: The funds were undoubtedly the proceeds of the sale of New Inn and Cliffords Inn and the scheme devised was that the income from the funds should be used for legal education. As for the other matters which the hon. and learned Gentleman has mentioned, I am, as I say, in discussion with the Law Society and the Council of Legal Education as to whether there should be any alteration in the scheme.
    Sir Knox Cunningham: Does the Attorney-General take advice about such investment, and has he access to the Government Broker for such advice?
    The Attorney-General: I have no doubt that the beneficiaries are in touch with all these sources of advice.

    JUSTICES OF THE PEACE (POLITICAL VIEWS)
    Mr. Robert Cookeasked the Attorney-General how he discovers the political views of magistrates and those whose names are put forward for consideration as magistrates.
    The Attorney-General: I am informed by my noble friend the Lord Chancellor that the Committee which advise him on the appointment of justices of the peace normally ascertain the political views of the candidates either from the candidates themselves or from persons who recommend them for appointment. This is done in order to avoid the appointment of a disproportionate number of justices from any one group.
    Mr. Cooke: The Attorney-General has not answered the Question. This may apply to new candidates, but what about those people who have been appointed for many years? Would he not be better advised to look at the whole scheme, instead of tinkering about with it in this party political fashion?
    The Attorney-General: These records go back a very long time, and the hon.
    1298
    Gentleman will recollect that in respect of the county in which he is particularly interested there was a grossly disproportionate representation of justices who were avowed members of the Conservative Party, and a grossly inadequate representation of those from the wage-earning classes and, curiously enough, from the Labour and Liberal Parties.
    Mr. Snow: Is my hon. Friend aware that this is a very important matter, particularly in county constituencies? Is he further aware that, on the very best authority, I was told that a farmer in my constituency was recorded as a Labour Party member when in fact he was nothing of the sort and never has been?
    The Attorney-General: If there is any complaint with regard to any particular bench, I am sure that my noble Friend will be glad to hear of it.
    Mr. Frederick Harris: Should not the Lord Chancellor seek to appoint local people on the basis of their ability to do the task rather than on political persuasion?
    The Attorney-General: I entirely agree. When I replied to Questions on 2nd February, I pointed out that my noble Friend has emphasised time and again that the paramount consideration in appointing justices of the peace is fitness for the discharge of judicial duties. Nevertheless, if a bench is particularly over-representative of one political persuasion, it seems fitting that there should be some adjustment. What is most important is that all sections of the community should be represented on the bench.

    ADOPTION ORDERS
    Mr. Abseasked the Minister without Portfolio whether he is aware of public concern that in the determination of adoption orders blood ties with putative fathers are taken into account, and that such considerations may result in the interests of children, unmarried mothers and would-be adopters being subordinated to a theory of consanguinity; and whether the Lord Chancellor will appoint a committee to inquire into the jurisdiction and procedure of courts in adoption applications, with a view to considering whether such courts should continue to be composed exclusively of

    1299
    lawyers untrained in child care or whether paediatricians, psychiatrists and children officers should be additionally appointed to determine adoption orders.
    The Minister without Portfolio (Sir Eric Fletcher): The hon. Member is no doubt referring to the recent case in which the Court of Appeal, by a majority of two to one, refused an adoption order in respect of an illegitimate child, and awarded custody to the putative father. I understand there is likely to be an application for leave to appeal to the House of Lords. I will not, therefore, comment on the assumptions in my hon. Friend's Question as to the principles to be applied in such cases.
    There is no reason for the Lord Chancellor to appoint a special committee to inquire into the jurisdiction and composition of the courts in adoption applications, because these aspects of family law are now under examination by the Law Commission.
    Mr. Abse: Is my hon. Friend aware that the application of this blood-tie doctrine is in breach of every canon of child welfare, that it has caused grave anxiety to many adopters and would-be adopters and that its application can lead to serious and dramatic effects upon little ones which could have lasting and maiming emotional consequences?
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Questions must be short, even on important subjects.
    Sir Eric Fletcher: I cannot accept all the statements made by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse). He will know that the learned judge who first heard the case has now published his judgment and I understand that there was a conflict of medical evidence about the matters to which my hon. Friend has referred.
    Mr. Paget: Is not the worrying thing here the fact that this invasion of the principle that the child's interest shall be paramount is a piece of judicial legislation on which Parliament has had nothing to say?
    Sir Eric Fletcher: My hon. and learned Friend knows that adoption cases always provide most difficult decisions for the courts. He will also know that the Law Commissioners, as part of the programme which has been approved for them, are
    1300
    reviewing the whole question of the jurisdiction of the courts on all matters relating to infants, wardships, guardianships and adoption.
    Mr. Braine: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Court of Appeal refused an application to go to the House of Lords? Are we to understand from his reply now that it is possible for a fresh application to be made? If so, we shall be delighted.
    Sir Eric Fletcher: The present position is that application has been made for a legal aid certificate to enable the parties to apply to the House of Lords for appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeal.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Bowden): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a short statement to give the business to come before the House tomorrow, Thursday, 3rd March.
Supply [9th Allotted Day]: Committee, when, if the House agrees, the Questions will be put forthwith.
There will then be the following debates on a Motion for the Adjournment of the House: until about seven o'clock on Broadcasting Policy, thereafter on Technical Education.
Mr. Boston: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether the debate on broadcasting will cover all aspects of broadcasting, and whether it will also be in order to raise the question of broadcasting coverage during the election period?
Mr. Bowden: The debate tomorrow will be on broadcasting policy. As far as my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General has any responsibility for that field, questions will be in order.
Sir Ian Orr-Ewing: Will the Postmaster-General start the debate by making a statement on Government policy? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we have been left in the dark on this for a very long time? Obviously, it would help the debate if we could know where the Government stand.
Mr. Bowden: The debate has been arranged at the request of the Opposition

1301
and I should have thought that it would be for the convenience of the House if my right hon. Friend wound it up.
Mr. A. Royle: Do the Government intend to publish the White Paper on the future of broadcasting before polling day?
Mr. Bowden: No, Sir. I should have though: it undesirable to publish papers of that sort during the twilight period.
Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether it is expected to publish tomorrow the Geddes Report on shipbuilding? Does he recall that it was supposed to be ready by the end of last month? Is it ready? If so, when can we expect it?
Mr. Speaker: Order. Hon. Members can ask questions only on tomorrow's business. This is not an ordinary business question session.

MINISTRY OF AVIATION (PRICING OF GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS)
The Minister of Aviation (Mr. Frederick Mulley): With permission, I wish to make a statement about the pricing of Government contracts.
When my predecessor made a statement on the Second Report of Sir John Lang's inquiry into the pricing of Ministry of Aviation contracts on 9th February, 1965, he said that a number of the conclusions and recommendations about contracts and procedures were in line with views already formed in the Department, and that action on them was in hand.
My predecessor pointed out that others would need a good deal of study; but he specifically welcomed one important recommendation in the Report, which also accorded with the view expressed by the Public Accounts Committee, namely, that there should be equality of information between the Ministry and its contractors up to the time prices are fixed.
Since then the Government have given these matters further consideration, and there have been preliminary discussions with industry. Our view is that equality of information ought, as Sir John Lang suggested, to be secured by means of a contract condition, and that any uncertainties in existing conditions and procedures should now be resolved.
1302
The Government also believe that post-costing, which provides knowledge of the outturn of completed contracts, is an essential part of equality of information—except when contracts are priced by competitive tender. The Lang Report argued that post-costing would conflict with the principle underlying fixed-price contracts, and diminish their effectiveness as incentives. But follow-on orders form a very substantial part of the field for fixed-price contracts, and Departments cannot get full equality of information for such orders unless they have post-costing. Post-costing also provides a valuable check on the reliability of Departments' own estimates and on the pricing information supplied by firms.
It is not of course necessary, nor is it the Government's intention, that post-costing should be used to renegotiate prices for contracts already placed. But post-costing does mean that profits grossly in excess of those allowed for when prices are negotiated—as in the Ferranti case—will be brought to light; and, in such cases, the Government will not be precluded from seeking some reimbursement outside the terms of the contract.
Revised standard contract conditions securing the Government's rights to equality of information—including post-costing—are now being drafted and will shortly be discussed with representatives of industry. Meanwhile, we hope to have the co-operation of all the firms concerned as fresh contracts are placed.
My predecessor also said that the Government would review the profit formula, and would take account of the comments of industry in doing so, as Sir John Lang's Report suggested. The Government are engaged upon their own review, and are now inviting comments from industry. In this review, attention is being paid to the encouragement of efficiency and to incomes and prices policy.
The Government propose to review the situation afresh, in the light of progress in all these discussions, in six months' time, in order to see if further action is needed to secure the rights they require.
Mr. R. Carr: Is the Minister aware that his rejection of the Lang Committee's recommendation on post-costing will cause much concern in industry? Does the Minister accept the recommendation of the Committee that the profit rate

1303
should be kept in line with that generally obtaining in industry and, therefore, the need for urgent revision in view of the position in this matter disclosed in the Plowden Report?
Further, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is now over 12 months since the Lang Committee recommended a review of the profit formula and that the fact that he can only say that the Government are now inviting comments from industry is a sign of extreme dilatoriness and administrative incompetence on the part of himself, and particularly on the part of his predecessor?
Lastly, does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the losses in industrial efficiency and the waste of taxpayers' money caused by current delays in contract procedure are an utter disgrace?
Mr. Mulley: I think we can dismiss the last point in the right hon. Gentleman's comments—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."]—as a foretaste of electioneering. If we want to exchange allegations about incompetence in this field, I should be very happy to do so at any time. The fact is that this is a very complicated matter. Discussions have been going on and we feel that it is only right that industry should have the further opportunity of putting its views on this matter.
Post-costing is widely recognised in the United States as a necessary part of proper incentive and efficient contract procedures. While Sir John Lang deprecated its introduction if it would interfere with the sanctity of already negotiated contracts, he considered that information by this means was very important, and I have said that we are not seeking this power with a view to renegotiating fixed-price contracts already concluded.
Mr. Dalyell: What is the current position about the recruitment of technical costing officers, which concerned both the Lang Committee and the Public Accounts Committee?
Mr. Mulley: One of the difficulties is to get sufficient technical costing staff. The position is rather better now, but we could do with more technical costing officers.
Sir Ian Orr-Ewing: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the aircraft
1304
industry has been completely disorganised now for 15 months since the present Government came into office as a result of widespread cancellations? Is he aware that many thousands of firms are subcontractors on these major projects, and that they have been suffering uncertainty? Is not it deplorable that after the Government have had this Report in their possession for over a year they are only now coming forward and saying that they intend to review procedures and consult industry? This is hardly the "poised for instant action" which we heard about at the last election.
Mr. Mulley: I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not think that no contracts have been placed because the form of the new contract is under consideration. Contracts have been going on in the ordinary way. The question now is whether we have a new form of contract, and it is that new form that is under consideration.
Mr. Snow: Will my right hon. Friend take it that those of us who remember the defensive attitude of the Conservative Party over the Ferranti case will welcome anything he can do to prevent typical Conservative profiteering in industry?
Sir H. Legge-Bourke: In view of the enormous importance of the research and development aspect of this matter, will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what steps the present Government have taken to see that the recommendations of the Gibb-Zuckerman Report, made nine or 10 years ago, were fully implemented, because, if they had been, many of the abuses would have been avoided?
Mr. Mulley: That matter goes rather wider than this, but we are, of course, pursuing research and development as far as circumstances and finances allow.
Mr. A. Royle: As B.A.C. did not build the VC10s on a fixed-price contract, will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House when he intends to announce the decision he has taken to cancel the other super VC10s on order to B.O.A.C?
Mr. Mulley: I do not see how that arises. The VC10 was a civil contract, and I have taken no decision in the matter at all.
Mr. R. Carr: Why has it taken over 12 months to start on this procedure? Will

1305
the Minister at least assure the House that, should he, alas, find himself in the same position in a month's time, he will get on with the job a lot more quickly in future?
Mr. Mulley: I have already made clear that discussions and studies on this very complicated matter have been going on. If my predecessors had spent a little more time on it, we might not have had the Ferranti affair.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. We must go on with the business of the day.

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

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  SUPPLY
  [8TH ALLOTTED DAY]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir SAMUEL STOREY in the Chair]

  CIVIL ESTIMATES AND DEFENCE (CENTRAL) ESTIMATE, 1966–67, VOTE ON ACCOUNT
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That a sum, not exceeding £2,127,020,800, be granted to Her Majesty, on account, for or towards defraying the charges for the following Civil Departments and for Defence (Central) for the year ending on the 31st day of March 1967:—'

  CIVIL ESTIMATES

  CLASS I

  £

  1.

  House of Lords

  127,000

  2.

  House of Commons

  1,085,000

  3.

  Treasury and Subordinate Departments

  1,750,000

  4.

  Department of Economic Affairs

  692,000

  5.

  Privy Council Office

  21,000

  6.

  Post Office Ministers

  5,000

  7.

  Customs and Excise

  9,300,000

  8.

  Inland Revenue

  25,800,000

  10.

  Exchequer and Audit Department

  350,000

  11.

  Civil Service Commission

  370,000

  12.

  Royal Commissions, &c.

  200,000

  CLASS II

  1.

  Diplomatic Service

  16,703,000

  2.

  Foreign Services

  7,967,000

  3.

  British Council

  1,500,000

  4.

  Commonwealth Services

  7,000,000

  5.

  Colonial Office

  2,890,000

  6.

  Colonial Grants and Loans

  8,000,000

  7.

  Ministry of Overseas Development

  880,000

  8.

  Overseas Aid (Multilateral)

  7,973,000

  9.

  Overseas Aid (Bilateral)

  27,319,000

  10.

  Overseas Aid (General Services)

  14,356,000

  11.

  Overseas Aid (Colonial Development and Welfare)

  5,250,000

  12.

  Commonwealth War Graves Commission

  460,000

  CLASS III

  1.

  Home Office

  5,200,000

  2.

  Scottish Home and Health Department

  1,320,000

  £

  3.

  Home Office (Civil Defence Services)

  4,850,000

  4.

  Scottish Home and Health Department (Civil Defence Services)

  190,000

  5.

  Police, England and Wales

  35,500,000

  6.

  Police, Scotland

  150,000

  7.

  Prisons, England and Wales

  8,500,000

  8.

  Prisons, Scotland

  1,070,000

  9.

  Child Care, England and Wales

  2,514,000

  10.

  Child Care, Scotland

  397,000

  11.

  Supreme Court of Judicature, &c.

  76,000

  12.

  County Courts

  300,000

  13.

  Legal Aid Fund

  2,081,000

  14.

  Law Charges

  400,000

  15.

  Law Charges and Courts of Law, Scotland

  200,000

  16.

  Supreme Court of Judicature, &c., Northern Ireland

  35,000

  CLASS IV

  1.

  Board of Trade

  3,175,000

  2.

  Board of Trade (Promotion of Trade, Exports, etc., and Shipping and Other Services)

  3,091,000

  3.

  Board of Trade (Promotion of Local Employment

  15,000,00

  4.

  Export Credits

  100

  5.

  Export Credits (Special Guarantees, etc.)

  100

  6.

  Ministry of Labour

  13,332,000

  7.

  Ministry of Aviation

  92,300,000

  8.

  Ministry of Aviation (Purchasing (Repayment) Services)

  100

  10.

  Ministry of Aviation (Special Materials)

  18,300,000

  11.

  Civil Aerodromes and Air Navigational Services

  5,600,000

  12.

  Ministry of Transport

  1,840,000

  13.

  Roads, etc., England

  68,000,000

  14.

  Roads, etc., Scotland

  10,800,000

  15.

  Roads, etc., Wales

  6,000,000

  16.

  Transport Services

  1,930,000

  17.

  Transport (Railways and Waterways Boards)

  52,000,000

  18.

  Ministry of Power

  1,175,000

  19.

  Ministry of Technology

  9,129,000

  20.

  Atomic Energy

  20,000,000

  21.

  Atomic Energy (Trading Fund Services)

  100

  22.

  British Petroleum Company Ltd

  15,576,000

  CLASS V

  1.

  Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food

  10,000,000

  2.

  Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland

  3,492,000

  3.

  Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Agricultural Grants and Subsidies)

  37,650,000

  4.

  Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland (Agricultural Grants and Subsidies)

  5,702,000

  5.

  Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Agricultural Price Guarantees)

  44,000,000

  £

  6.

  Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland (Agricultural Price Guarantees)

  4,300,000

  7.

  Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Agricultural and Food Services)

  4,760,000

  8.

  Food (Strategic Reserves)

  100

  9.

  Fishery Grants and Services

  1,600,000

  10.

  Fisheries (Scotland) and Herring Industry

  900,000

  CLASS VI

  1.

  Ministry of Housing and Local Government

  8,834,000

  2.

  Scottish Development Department

  1,600,000

  3.

  Welsh Office

  850,000

  4.

  Housing, England

  36,000,000

  5.

  Housing, Scotland

  12,300,000

  6.

  Housing, Wales

  1,875,000

  7.

  General Grants to Local Revenues, England and Wales

  266,000,000

  8.

  General Grants to Local Revenues, Scotland

  35,195,000

  9.

  Rate Deficiency Grants to Local Revenues, England and Wales

  65,300,000

  10.

  Equalisation and Transitional Grants to Local Revenues, Scotland

  12,320,000

  11.

  Ministry of Land and Natural Resources

  870,000

  12.

  Forestry Commission

  5,300,000

  13.

  Ministry of Health

  1,974,000

  14.

  National Health Service, etc. (Hospital Services, etc.), England and Wales

  219,120,000

  15.

  National Health Service (Executive Councils' Services), England and Wales

  102,302,000

  16.

  Miscellaneous Health and Welfare Services, England and Wales

  19,398,000

  17.

  National Health Service (Superannuation, etc.), England and Wales

  100

  18.

  National Health Service, etc., Scotland

  41,500,000

  19.

  National Health Service (Superannuation, etc.), Scotland

  100

  20.

  Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance

  3,000,000

  21.

  National Insurance

  97,800,000

  22.

  Family Allowances

  51,500,000

  23.

  National Assistance Board

  99,250,000

  24.

  War Pensions, etc.

  41,250,000

  CLASS VII

  1.

  Department of Education and Science

  50,000,000

  2.

  Scottish Education Department

  13,423,000

  3.

  Teachers' Superannuation (England and Wales)

  100

  4.

  Teachers' Superannuation (Scotland)

  263,000

  5.

  Universities and Colleges, etc., Great Britain

  71,000,000

  6.

  Social Sciences Research Council

  250,000

  £

  7.

  Science Research Council

  12,785,000

  8.

  Natural Environment Research Council

  1,700,000

  9.

  Medical Research Council

  3,961,000

  10.

  Agricultural Research Council

  3,435,000

  11.

  British Museum (Natural History)

  310,000

  12.

  Science: Grants and Services

  393,000

  CLASS VIII

  1.

  British Museum

  888,000

  2.

  Science Museum

  180,000

  3.

  Victoria and Albert Museum

  400,000

  4.

  Imperial War Museum

  52,000

  5.

  London Museum

  29,000

  6.

  National Gallery

  265,000

  7.

  National Maritime Museum

  62,000

  8.

  National Portrait Gallery

  30,000

  9.

  Tate Gallery

  157,000

  10.

  Wallace Collection

  22,000

  11.

  Royal Scottish Museum, etc.

  82,000

  12.

  National Galleries of Scotland

  75,000

  13.

  National Library of Scotland

  76,000

  14.

  National Museum of Antiouities of Scotland

  22,000

  15.

  National Library of Wales and National Museum of Wales

  250,000

  16.

  Arts Council and other Grants for the Arts

  3,165,000

  CLASS IX

  1.

  Ministry of Public Building and Works

  11,667,000

  2.

  Public Buildings, etc., United Kingdom

  26,900,000

  3.

  Public Buildings Overseas

  2,800,000

  4.

  Works and Buildings for the Ministry of Defence (Navy Department)

  10,900,000

  5.

  Works and Buildings for the Ministry of Defence (Army Department)

  20,200,000

  6.

  Works and Buildings for the Ministry of Defence (Air Force Department)

  13,800,000

  7.

  Works and Buildings for the Ministry of Aviation

  2,650,000

  8.

  Works and Buildings for Royal Ordnance Factories

  300,000

  9.

  Additional Married Quarters for the Ministry of Defence

  100

  10.

  House of Parliament Buildings

  300,000

  11.

  Royal Palaces

  270,000

  12.

  Royal Parks and Pleasure Gardens

  520,000

  13.

  Historic Buildings and Ancient Monuments

  560,000

  14.

  Rates on Government Property

  13,000,000

  £

  15.

  Stationery and Printing

  10,200,000

  16.

  Central Office of Information

  3,750,000

  17.

  Government Actuary

  28,000

  18.

  Government Hospitality

  80,000

  19.

  Civil Superannuation, etc.

  18,890,000

  20.

  Post Office Superannuation, etc.

  100

  CLASS X

  1.

  Charity Commission

  133,000

  2.

  Crown Estate Office

  68,000

  3.

  Friendly Societies Registry

  52,000

  4.

  Royal Mint

  100

  5.

  National Debt Office

  100

  6.

  Public Works Loan Commission

  100

  7.

  Public Trustee

  100

  8.

  Land Registry

  100

  9.

  Office of the Registrar of Restrictive Trading Agreements

  60,000

  10.

  Ordnance Survey

  1,362,000

  11.

  Public Record Office

  83,000

  12.

  Scottish Record Office

  32,000

  13.

  Registrar General's Office

  1,000,000

  14.

  Registrar General's Office, Scotland

  171,000

  15.

  Department of the Registers of Scotland

  100

  16.

  National Savings Committee

  650,000

  CLASS XI

  1.

  Broadcasting

  27,600,000

  2.

  Carlisle State Management District

  100

  3.

  State Management Districts, Scotland

  100

  4.

  Pensions, etc. (Overseas Services)

  4,222,000

  5.

  Royal Irish Constabulary Pensions, etc.

  390,000

  6.

  Irish Land Purchase Services

  485,000

  7.

  Development Fund

  550,000

  8.

  Secret Service

  4,000,000

  9.

  Miscellaneous Expenses

  300,000

  Total for Civil Estimates

  2,117,220,800

  Defence (Central)

  9,800,000

  Total for Civil Estimates and Defence (Central) Estimate

  2,127,020,800

  Whereupon Motion made, and Question, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again—[Mr. Harper], put and agreed to.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

  PACKINGTON ESTATE, ISLINGTON (COUNCIL ON TRIBUNALS' REPORT)
  3.43 p.m.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I beg to move,
  That this House has noted with concern the Special Report of the Council on Tribunals, dated 2nd February, 1966, criticising the handling by the Minister of Housing and Local Government of a planning application relating to the Packington Estate, Islington; regrets the failure of the Minister to afford to people affected by his decision any opportunity to state their objections to the application which he approved; and deplores the Minister's refusal to accept and act on the views of an independent body of the highest standing which was set up for the express purpose of protecting the rights and liberties of individual citizens against the abuses of arbitrary power.
  It is appropriate that we should, in accordance with the tradition of this House, link the redress of grievance with the grant of supply. The grievances which I desire to lay before the House and seek its views upon are based, first, on the facts found by the Council on Tribunals to the effect that objectors to a certain planning application were denied an opportunity to know of certain proposals before they were approved or to state their case upon them. The second grievance is that the Council on Tribunals has itself been treated with a disrespect and discourtesy which, if unchallenged, would be likely to impair its authority and standing.
  These two complaints are founded on the facts embodied in a Special Report by the Council on Tribunals submitted to the noble and learned Lord Chancellor on 2nd February. If I may make one comment on the procedure, I think it an unfortunate precedent that, in a rare case of this kind—for a Special Report of the Council on Tribunals criticising a Minister is an infrequent occurrence—time for this debate has not been found by the Government. It is a bad precedent for the future that it should be left to the Opposition to find the time when this has happened. I appreciate that, in present circumstances, there might be difficulties, but the Report to the Lord Chancellor was made a month ago, when those circumstances did not apply. I mark the point in case, unhappily, there should be a recurrence.
  1312
  As the case against the Minister's handling of this matter is made in a Report by the Council on Tribunals, I shall begin by pointing put what kind of body it is that has made this Report. The Council was set up by Parliament in 1958 as a watchdog in the sphere of ministerial inquiries and administrative tribunals, and, to emphasise its independence, it was provided that the Tribunal should be appointed, so far as England was concerned, by the Lord Chancellor and should report to him, not to any departmental Minister. The Report which the House is now debating was in due form submitted to the Lord Chancellor early last month.
  The Chairman of the Council is Lord Tenby, whom hon. Members will remember in this House as a bearer of the great name of Lloyd George. It includes among its membership, apart from some very eminent English and Scottish lawyers, Lord Collison, former chairman of the Social Services Committee of the Trades Union Congress, a great former public servant in Sir William Murrie, Professor Wade and Baroness Phillips. It is, therefore, a wholly independent and highly authoritative body, and I know that the House will start with the view that any report made by it must and should be taken seriously.
  I think that it will help our discussions if I quickly give the factual framework of the matter on which any view of the Minister's actions must depend. The Packington Estate in Islington was built in the 1840s and was bought by the Islington Borough Council for housing purposes in 1963. The council had immediately to consider the question whether this estate could best be used on the basis of pulling down the houses and rebuilding on the site or whether the houses there could be rehabilitated and modernised. In the first place, the Islington Council thought that they could be rehabilitated, but, after a good deal of technical discussion, it came to the conclusion that the right thing to do was to demolish and rebuild.
  So the Islington Borough Council applied in August, 1964, to the then London County Council, which was then the planning authority, for planning permission. It had no reply. After two months, under the provisions of the 1962 Act, this was treated as a deemed refusal,

  1313
  and the council exercised its right of appealing to the Minister of Housing and Local Government. The right hon. Gentleman arranged for a public inquiry, which took place in February, 1965. At that inquiry one outside association supported the appellant, the Islington Borough Council, and there were eight objectors, including the Manchester and London Assurance Co., which owned adjoining property, and a residents' association consisting of members owning adjoining property.
  The inspector produced a very well balanced and highly intelligent report, if I may say so. He noted that the application for planning permission was for outline permission only, and he came down in favour of redevelopment. That is, he upheld the appeal of the Islington Borough Council. The right hon. Gentleman, as he was perfectly entitled to do, did not accept his inspector's recommendation, and dismissed the appeal.
  What is important, in view of what subsequently happened, is the terms of his dismissal of the appeal in the decision letter, which, it is perhaps important to point out, went not only to the appellant, but to the objectors as a whole. The Council on Tribunals attaches importance to its terms, and the House will, therefore, perhaps allow me to quote it. This is a letter in the usual form sent on behalf of the Minister and signed by one of his officers.
  It says:
  "He"—
  that is, the Minister—
  "is not satisfied, on the details submitted, that the Council's proposals would result in a scheme of the quality to compensate for destroying an estate of the type that many people still find attractive in layout and design. 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 Minister would want to be satisfied that this result would be attained before he would feel able to decide in favour of redevelopment against rehabilitation. He has, therefore, decided to dismiss the present appeal though without prejudice to the submission to him of another application subsequently; and he proposes to arrange a discussion with the Council about how the kind of layout and design which seem to him to be required here might best be achieved. It would be right that the Greater London Council"—
  which had then come into being—
  "should be represented at the discussion."
  1314
  The secretary of the residents' group, which, as I told the House, was one of the objectors, feared, apparently shrewdly, that the procedure forecast in the last words that I read from the Minister's decision letter might have the result of excluding representations of the residents' association in respect of the new scheme. So he took the matter up with the Council on Tribunals, and that Council wrote on 24th August to the right hon. Gentleman's Department, sent his letter and asked for the right hon. Gentleman's comments.
  This is the first important part of the story, for it is clear than on receipt of that Council's letter of 24th August the right hon Gentleman was aware of two things—the desire of the residents' association to be heard in connection with any new scheme and the interest in the matter of the Council on Tribunals.
  On 16th September, no reply having yet been received from the Ministry by the Council on Tribunals, and, therefore, no reply having been sent by it to the residents' association, the association wrote to the Town Clerk of Islington in these terms:
  "in view of our direct interest in this matter, and in the light of the Minister's decision following the last public inquiry, we should be grateful for an opportunity to examine these proposals so that we may consider them at this stage."
  The town clerk replied, with commendable punctuality, the next day, 17th September. It is a very important answer. He wrote:
  "Amended proposals have been submitted to the Minister but as long as they are under reconsideration by the Minister it would not be proper for the council to publish details. I am, however, sure that they will do so as soon as the Minister gives his clearance."
  On 22nd September, in reply to a further letter, the town clerk wrote:
  "I have no reason to think that the Minister will not give full publicity to my Council's proposals."
  It is very important to a judgment of this matter to be aware of the fact that on 21st September the Council on Tribunals sent the Minister a copy of this correspondence between the residents association and the Town Clerk of Islington.
  Mr. W. T. Williams rose—
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I will not give way at this moment, if the hon. and

  1315
  learned Gentleman will forgive me. I am trying to give the facts. I will give way when I get to the comments.
  On 21st September the Minister was not only aware of the residents' desire to be heard but he was aware of the fact that, to its credit, the Islington Borough Council had no objection to the residents being so informed.
  On 24th September the Ministry replied to the Council on Tribunals' letter which I have already mentioned of a month earlier, setting out a number of arguments as to why the residents' association's request should not be met. The most significant of those in this connection was the one headed (d), which read:
  "The objectors would have preferred that the properties be rehabilitated, but that issue had been decided against them."
  It is not clear when it had been so decided. In the decision letter of 23rd July the Minister had come down in their favour. Since then they had been, despite their efforts, entirely uninformed of the details or effect of any other scheme, and if it had by then been decided against them, it had been decided against them without their knowing of it, and still less having an opportunity to put their point of view.
  This is particularly unhappy in view of the fact that the decision letter, which I have quoted, referred and, if I may say so, referred rightly, to the importance in any such scheme of the effect on adjoining areas. That is, of course, the effect on the interests of those living near. So the Council on Tribunals was highly dissatisfied with this reply, and, therefore—I ask the House to note the date—on 29th October it arranged for a meeting to take place with officers of the Ministry.
  The meeting was to take place on 24th November. The arrangements were made oh 29th October. On 23rd November, the day before the meeting was due to take place, and three weeks or more after it had been arranged, a letter was received by the Council dated 22nd November, and also sent to the people concerned, saying that the Minister had approved a new scheme submitted by the Islington Council.
  1316
  That is the factual background. Now I shall make a limited number of comments since I am sure that the Minister, who has expressed his willingness for us to have a debate on this subject at the earliest moment, will want to follow me immediately and deploy his argument, which he has told us he has been longing to put forward. I therefore put the points to him so that he can do so immediately without difficulty, knowing the case that he has to meet.
  Apart from the inexcusable discourtesy to the Council by rejecting its views and allowing the new application, by letter reaching it one day before a meeting that had been fixed with his officers for three weeks to discuss this important matter—apart from that, which is a discourtesy unusual in Whitehall—there are more serious questions of substance.
  The first question is whether the second application which the Minister approved was substantially the same as the first or substantially different. The Council on Tribunals did not feel it necessary to come to a conclusion on that, and the House may well feel that either way it is arguable. But either way, I suggest to the House, the Minister's handling of it should be subject to criticism.
  If it was substantially the same as the earlier scheme, then the decision letter rejecting the earlier scheme was highly misleading. It set out various conditions which would have to be satisfied before the Minister could approve a redevelopment scheme. If the second scheme was substantially similar to the first, which the Minister had rejected, then not only was the decision letter somewhat misleading, but the Minister's decision was completely inconsistent.
  Or it was a substantially different scheme, in which case one must ask the question why the objectors, who had been given the opportunity by the Minister's inspector to put, their objections to the first scheme and who had ultimately seen those objections succeed, should be denied an opportunity even to know of, never mind put their objections to, the scheme. Therefore, I take the same view as the Council on Tribunals—whether the first scheme and the second scheme were substantially the same or substantially different, the method by which the decision was

  1317
  arrived at to approve the second was one which should be subject to very severe criticism.
  Secondly, why the secrecy about it? The right hon. Gentleman's Ministry knew two months before its second decision letter issued that the residents' association wanted to know the details of the scheme and knew, too, that the Islington Council, to its credit, had no objections whatever to its doing so. Indeed, in the words which I have read out the council indicated that it assumed that the Minister would give his clearance and allow these people at least to know of the scheme. Why was this kept in secrecy until the decision had in fact been reached and promulgated in a new decision letter?
  On these points the Council on Tribunals understandably took a critical view and on 2nd February submitted a special report to the Lord Chancellor to which I have referred. In it the council made it clear—and I, too, must make this clear, for I accept the council's view—that it was not saying, and nor do I, that the right hon. Gentleman had exceeded his legal powers. Indeed, if he had, the remedy of those affected might well have been found in the courts. What we are suggesting is that in the exercise of those powers he has treated these people with unfairness.
  On that, I should like to quote the very clear and emphatic words which the council on consideration put in its report in paragraph 25:
  "But the real grievance of the complainants is, as it appears to the Council, that they were denied the opportunity of taking any part in the proceedings on the second application. They were rightly allowed to contest the first application and secured its rejection; and the second application was so closely connected with the first that it was, in substance, a further stage in the same proceedings. By being excluded at that stage altogether the complainants were, as the Council think, less than fairly treated."
  In paragraph 27 the Council went on to say:
  "Whatever the truth of the matter, there has been apparent unfairness to the complainants. Openness, fairness and impartiality—the hall-marks of good administration—are not enough, if they are not all apparent."
  The Report was published, as the House will remember, on the morning of 9th February and the right hon. Gentleman,
  1318
  who, with courtesy, sent me a copy of it, made a statement that day.
  I have two comments on his statement. First, throughout the statement he dealt with the matter as though the complaint of the Council on Tribunals was that he had not ordered a second public inquiry. That is to say, he made a powerful defence against a criticism which had not been made against him, in lieu of making a defence against the criticism which had.
  This point was made very clearly the following day by the Chairman of the Council on Tribunals in a letter which he sent to the Press saying:
  "From what was said by the Minister of Housing and Local Government in the House of Commons yesterday it could appear that my Council were at one time of the opinion that there ought to have been a public inquiry into Islington's revised proposals."
  In the final paragraph of that letter he said:
  "How any representations the objectors might wish to make on the second application could best be taken into account has always seemed to us to be a matter for the Minister to decide. In the event the objectors were excluded altogether from the proceedings on the second application."
  That, for the avoidance of doubt, as it is said in statutes, is the criticism which the Council on Tribunals has made of the right hon. Gentleman and which I repeat this afternoon.
  The method by which these people could have been heard was certainly for the right hon. Gentleman. He may have thought that, in view of their numbers, a public inquiry might be the best method, and I do not think that anyone would have challenged his judgment if he had. But it was not the only method open to him. He could perfectly well have accepted written representations from them, which would not have taken time. He could perfectly well have allowed them to take part in the discussions taking place between his Ministry and the other parties to the application, the promoters, the Islington Borough Council. There were quite a number of methods which he could have used and, above all, apart from that, he could have not denied them knowledge of the contents of this application.
  It is the utmost nonsense to suggest that to have allowed them to have known

  1319
  of this, and therefore to make representations which he could then consider, would have caused the slightest delay. I therefore want the right hon. Gentleman to realise that the charge against him is not that which he rebutted so skilfully on 9th February. The charge against him is the more serious one of failure to give these people any opportunity to make their point.
  The second comment I have on his statement refers to his attitude to the Report. He will recall that I asked him whether in the light of the Report he would in future cases follow the suggestions laid down by the Council on Tribunals and adapt his methods to the lines which they had recommended. The right hon. Gentleman firmly said, "No". That adds to the general seriousness of the matter, because it takes us beyond the handling of one particular planning application. If the right hon. Gentleman has said, "I am a very busy Minister; I here made some error of judgment, perhaps; the Council having reported—not my political opponents, but the Council on Tribunals—and having criticised me, I see the point and I will do my best to right the wrong I have done and in future I will follow those lines", no doubt he would not have heard very much more of the matter.
  But the fact that the right hon. Gentleman has quite clearly indicated that he intends in future to ignore the recommendations of the Council, and that he would again deny what seems to us to be the elementary right of allowing people affected by decisions to have a chance of saying something before decisions are made, and that he persists in that attitude, makes it necessary for us on this side of the House to make it clear that it is an attitude and an approach with which we profoundly disagree.
  4.10 p.m.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: I am pleased that we are having an opportunity to debate the extremely important question of planning procedure, and, in particular, the delays which so frequently occur and frustrate those who wish to get on with development. A very distinguished builder, Mr. Neil Wates, referred to those delays in a speech reported in the Press this morning. I am sure that
  1320
  every hon. Member of the House would wish to take all possible steps, by way of debate and discussion, to minimise those delays.
  What I regret is that in dealing with so important a subject as planning procedure we should do so in the atmosphere of a Motion of censure of the Minister on this issue. One cannot be surprised that the Opposition should have found it necessary to scratch around in the way in which they have in order, in this pre-election period, to find subjects for censuring the Government, and that they should have fixed this subject as something likely to appeal to the innermost hearts of the electors of Durham, Northumberland and the farthest West.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman mean by that that he doubts whether a sense of justice and fair play exists in those parts of the country?
  Mr. Silkin: Of course I do not doubt anything of the kind. What I am suggesting is that the Opposition are short of Aunt Sally's and have found it necessary to have a go at "Uncle Dick".
  When one looks at the facts one finds that the procedure which has been so strongly criticised is neither wrong nor novel, and I shall be coming to the novelty part later.
  Mr. F. V. Corfield: If the hon. and learned Gentleman is right, then he is arguing for an opportunity for the House to hear the Minister's defence of the censure by the Council on Tribunals, a very distinguished body. If we are not to have that, how are we to discover whether the criticisms are well founded or not?
  Mr. Silkin: If the hon. Gentleman would allow me to continue with my speech I am sure that he will understand that what I have to say is that it is very unfortunate that on a matter of this kind, in which different points of view can be expressed from both sides of the House and not on party lines, it has been found necessary to move a Motion of censure on my right hon. Friend. I say that the Motion is wholly unjustified.
  The facts of the matter are that an application was made by a landowner in relation to the landowner's own land. The owner happened to be a local

  1321
  authority, but that was beside the point. That application eventually went to appeal and the appeal lasted for six days, during the course of which all those who had any objection whatever, and they were not owners or tenants of the land concerned, but the people who lived in or owned land adjoining and nearby, were able to express their points of view forcibly and clearly.
  The view which they sought to express was not as to any details of the proposed scheme of redevelopment, but as to the principle of whether the land should be redeveloped or whether the existing properties should be rehabilitated. That was the issue, over six days of argument, which was put before the inspector. As a result of that argument the inspector very firmly came to the view that it was right that the area should be redeveloped rather than rehabilitated.
  The inspector came to that conclusion on a number of grounds. It is absolutely clear, whatever the right hon. Gentleman may say, reading the Minister's letter of decision on that inquiry, that the view of the Minister was certainly not to uphold the point of view of the objectors who had contended that rehabilitation was the right answer. He could not possibly have come to that conclusion and in the same breath have said, as he did, in his decision letter that he wished to consult with the appellant local authority and the Greater London Council about the details and the sort of scheme that was specified for the redevelopment of the area, as this was better than rehabilitation. The two things are quite contradictory.
  The complaint now being made is set out in paragraph 25 of the Report of the Council on Tribunals to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred. This says:
  "But the real grievance of the complainants is, as it appears to the Council, that they were denied the opportunity of taking any part in the proceedings on the second application."
  This is the substance of the Council on Tribunal's comments.
  "They were rightly allowed to contest the first application and secured its rejection; and the second application was so closely connected with the first that it was, in substance, a further stage in the same proceedings. By being excluded at that stage altogether the complainants were, as the Council thinks, less than fairly treated."
  1322
  What is being said is that this was a second stage of proceedings, in which the objectors were heard at first, and, therefore, ought to have been allowed to be heard a second time. It is not suggested for one moment that if it were a perfectly fresh application there would be any duty—and there would not have been any such duty—on the Minister, taking the place of the local planning authority, to consult with persons who are not landowners of the land affected. It is said that because this had reached a second stage the objectors were entitled, in fairness, to be consulted.
  In my submission, it is entirely wrong and contrary to the practice which has been adopted, not only by this Government, but by preceding Governments. Preceding Governments have gone even further than this and I could tell the House of a case in my own experience. I will not name the area concerned, because it was a case in which I was professionally engaged but I can vouch to the House that the facts are correct. It was a case in which an application was made for development for housing purposes of land which, up till that time, had been used for private open space. The local planning authority refused the application, the applicant appealed to the then Minister—one of my right hon. Friend's predecessors from what is now the other side of the House—and after an inquiry in which there were a number of local objections, the Minister dismissed the appeal.
  About six months later an entirely fresh application was made for exactly the same development, with no difference whatever. In both cases it was outline application for housing purposes. The application was again refused by the local planning authority and an appeal was again made. When the appeal was made, the Minister sent the appellant a letter suggesting that written representations by the appellant and the local planning authority would suffice to enable him to deal with the case. Those written representations were sent, no written representations were sought from the people who had objected at the previous inquiry, and on the basis of those written representations the Minister of the day allowed the appeal.
  Sir John Hobson: Can the hon. and learned

  1323
  Gentleman say whether, in the case which he has just quoted, there were any people who asked to be allowed to make written representations? That is the point.
  Mr. Silkin: They were not given the opportunity. They were not told and they did not know. The Minister of the day did not tell them. The opportunity certainly would have been taken if it had been given. This was quite clear from the strength of their opposition on the previous occasion. That was the view taken by a member of a Government of the party opposite.
  The contention of the Council on Tribunals cannot be accepted on any basis. There is again and again the procedure of an application for outline permission which may be refused, which then goes to appeal and on appeal there is a public inquiry and a number of people object. The appeal may be allowed or not. Later, there is very often an application for detained consent. Sometimes there is an application for detailed consent after a refusal without prejudice, as in this case. Sometimes there is an application for detailed consent after the outline application has been approved in principle.
  If the Council on Tribunals is right, then, whenever this happens, whether it be the Minister or the local planning authority to whom the detailed application is made, it would be necessary for all the people who might be affected to be consulted. How is it possible to know who are likely to be affected? The people concerned are not landowners. Anybody in the locality who thinks that he has an interest may believe that he is affected. In these circumstances, how is the Minister and the local planning authority to find out who these people are and who would wish to be consulted? In fact, this is not done. So far as I am aware, it never has been done, certainly not in my experience of planning applications.
  There has to be some limit to the time spent in dealing with these matters. There has to be some limit to the amount of consideration given to them. After all, the point of these inquiries is to enable the Minister or the authority concerned to be acquainted with all the material facts—that is what the Minister is doing—and if, as a result of six days of argument
  1324
  between developers represented by lawyers and residents represented by lawyers, the Minister believes himself to be fully acquainted with all the material facts, if he has in mind a decision in principle, as in this case, and is concerned simply with the details, it seems to me perfectly absurd to prolong the procedure and to cause more expense to everybody concerned by having yet a further inquiry or further consultation.
  Since the Report of the Franks Committee has been referred to by the Council on Tribunals, I would commend to the House some very wise words used in the debate in 1957 on the Franks Report. Having dealt with the criteria of openness, fairness and impartiality, which everybody in the House would support, the speaker said:
  "The Franks Committee itself volunteered the view that its recommendations are unlikely to contribute towards the speedier dispatch of business. But the delay in settling cases is one of the main subjects of public complaint. We do not want, as a result of our findings and conclusions, to enlarge on what Shakespeare wrote about 'the law's delay' by the delays of tribunals, inquiries and other methods which influence the life of the ordinary man and woman."
  Later, the same speaker said:
  "I must, however, return to a point I made at the opening of my remarks, that we must not complicate the procedures more than we can help. The great majority of objectors and appellants are small people."
  Indeed, no doubt many of the people concerned in this inquiry were small people—local residents, and so on.
  "Quite a few present their own cases without professional assistance and for most people It is essential that the procedure should be simple, intelligible, quick, and cheap, as well as fair."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st October, 1957; Vol. 575, c. 403–409.]
  The then Member of the House who spoke those words was the noble Lord, Lord Butler, who opened the debate on that occasion. I commend those words to the Oposition and to the House.
  In these matters we must invariably strike a balance between the utmost dictates of fairness, impartiality, hearing every point of view and the need to go forward quickly so that public confidence in planning is not destroyed. In this case the Minister heard the very fair report of an inquiry which had lasted six days. He came to a conclusion on that report, and then consulted those concerned on

  1325
  the details which followed. I do not see what more he could have done.
  I cannot agree with the opinion of the Council on Tribunals, which is a very distinguished body, but the House, the Minister and indeed myself are entitled to disagree with it if we cannot find ourselves in agreement with it. Above all, I feel that the suggestion that this matter calls for censure of the Minister is wholly misguided and wholly misconceived.
  4.25 p.m.
  Sir David Renton: The hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) quoted what the noble Lord, Lord Butler, said in a debate in the House in 1957 on the Franks Report. It so happened that I was with the noble Lord at a later time, and I think that it might be appropriate, as we are considering the function of the Council on Tribunals, if I were to refer to what was said by the present Lord Privy Seal when he spoke from the Opposition Front Bench on the Third Reading of the Tribunals and Inquiries Bill, 1958.
  The right hon. Gentleman said:
  "Speaking for myself I still feel a little anxiety as to whether the functioning of the Council may not be a little too weighted on the side of the tribunals as distinct from the inquiries."
  That is significant, because even though he thought that the Bill was weighted towards supervision of the tribunals rather than the inquiries, still to the extent that it supervises the inquiries the Act has been found by the Council on Tribunals to be appropriate for comment in this case.
  The Lord Privy Seal also said:
  "If it is not disrespectful to the future membership of the Council to do so perhaps I may use the adage that the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. We hope that practice will show and experience will demonstrate that the Council is in a position, in its constitution and in the circumstances in which it works, to exercise the general supervision over inquiries and over the proceedings of tribunals which we hope it will be able to exercise."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th July, 1958; Vol. 592, c. 831.]
  The Council has taken the unusual step of making a special Report upon an inquiry. The Minister thought that this was a serious matter. He made a statement in the House and said, in answer to the first supplementary question put to him. "I consider this to be a
  1326
  serious matter". I therefore say to the right hon. Gentleman that I think it regrettable that he did not reply at once to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter). The House is generous when personal honour or efficiency are involved. None of us like these occasions, I least of all. I have always had an admiration for the rugged vitality of the Minister, even though some obstinacy goes with it. He came to my constituency during the winter and made an enchanting speech to the Parish Councils' Association.
  However, the fact that I have some personal regard for the Minister does not prevent me from feeling that on this occasion he has fallen short of the standards at which all political parties were trying to aim when the Tribunals and Inquiries Act, 1958, was passed. Indeed, I think that he has fallen short of the standards which his Ministry and the legal profession and others concerned in such matters have, to their very great credit, built up over the years in which the planning procedures have been evolved.
  The planning procedures contain a number of technicalities, but it is the experienced view of nearly everybody who has dealt with those applications, especially where anything of importance and a matter of public local controversy is involved, that "the powers that be" should not hide behind the technicalities of procedures, but should try to look at the substance of the matter and do everything possible to see that justice is done and appears to be done.
  I should like to know, if I may have the Minister's attention; he has spent a good part of the debate in what, I am sure, is an interesting conversation with his next-door neighbour, but I should like to have his attention. I should like to know when he proposes to speak in the debate. I will give way to him if he will say.
  The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Richard Crossman): I thought that it would be convenient to the House, since this is only a short debate, if I were to listen to all that is said in censure and to reply at the end.
  Sir D. Renton: In other words, the Minister is determined on this occasion to have the last word.
  Mr. Crossman: On the contrary. What I said was that there had been a decision to censure me. I said that I would listen to the censure and, having heard all of it, give a reply. That is a very reasonable thing to do.
  Sir D. Renton: Well! The Minister has, no doubt, taken this course deliberately. If he turns back over previous debates, he will find that that is an unusual course. He realises, of course, that it will preclude any comment being made by any Member of the House upon his answer.
  Mr. Crossman: I have already made a statement to the House and objection was taken. I presumed that the matter was being debated on censure. I have put my position absolutely clearly and it has been discussed at length by the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter). What more does the right hon. and learned Member want me to say until I have heard the arguments, when I will rebut them?
  Sir D. Renton: My recollection is that when the Minister made his statement he said that he would not deploy his reasons fully because he felt that he should do so when the matter was debated in the House. However, it is no good my bandying words further with the right hon. Gentleman. He has made up his mind. All I can say is that it is both unusual and, in this case, regrettable. As I have said, the House is not ungenerous on these occasions.
  What the Minister did in this case in the procedure he followed was not one of those things that were done incautiously or by minor officials doing their best, but, perhaps, making a mistake. What was done was done deliberately, because it is clear from paragraphs 9, 10 and 11 of the Special Report of the Council on Tribunals that the Ministry was alerted and warned in advance. Therefore, having been warned in advance, there is even less excuse for the action which the Minister later took in defiance of the Tribunal.
  The reasons that were given for that action were set out at the time in a letter dated 24th September from the Ministry to the Council and they are set out in paragraph 12 of the Report. I do not propose to comment in detail upon every
  1328
  one of those reasons. All I can say is that there is a reliance upon a technicality in every one of the five reasons that were put forward and it seems to me that each of the points that were made was in itself a bad one to which there is an answer.
  I refer, however, to the last point of all, because it has a bearing upon the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich. I hope that the hon. and learned Member will forgive me as a member of his own profession in saying that I do not agree fully with the description of the procedures which he has put forward. My disagreement can best be summarised with reference to—
  Sir Kenneth Pickthorn: On a point of order. The Minister has chattered almost continuously throughout every speech except that of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin). Is it in order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for him to make it so difficult for the rest of us to listen to the debate?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Samuel Storey): I have not noticed that the conversation made it difficult to listen to the debate, but all conversation that does interrupt the debate is to be deprecated.
  Sir D. Renton: Paragraph 12(e) of the Special Report states:
  "A discussion of proposals with a prospective applicant was not itself a part of the appeals procedure, but was a proper part of planning."
  I do not dispute that discussion between the Ministry and the applicant—in this case an important local authority—was proper; of course it was proper. That does not mean, however, that the results of the discussion should remain secret until after a final decision has been reached, so that any people who might have had helpful, useful representations to make about the subject matter of the discussion had no hope whatever of making them because they did not know what was being discussed.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: Is the right hon. and learned Member putting it forward as a general proposition that whenever there is a planning application which may affect a wide variety of people, they should be consulted and brought into the matter? If that is the general proposition, why was this not incorporated

  1329
  into the Town and Country, Planning Act, 1962, which was passed by his own Government?
  Sir D. Renton: What was incorporated into the procedure under that Act was a discretion, first, to hold a public inquiry when it comes to light that people have representations to make, and secondly, at that public inquiry, a discretion to allow people other than the planning authority and the applicant to put forward evidence, to make representations, and so on. In the present case, there had already been the public inquiry on the first application, and what had been said by the people who, at the discretion of the inspector, had put forward representations was obviously helpful to the Minister.
  That is not denied. What is so extraordinary is that, that being so, and their deep interest and anxieties being known, they were not given a further opportunity of making any representations and that a final decision was reached without their being told what would be in issue other than the very broad proposition as to whether there should be redevelopment or rehabilitation.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: Does it follow from that, therefore, that what the right hon. and learned Member is saying is that if objectors have had a full opportunity, of which they have taken full advantage, of making representations against a scheme, they should be allowed another opportunity, but that if they have never had an opportunity of doing so, they should not be allowed any opportunity at all?
  Sir D. Renton: The hon. and learned Member must not insult my intelligence! I did not say that, I did not imply it and nobody in his senses would have thought so. The hon. and learned Member's intervention has not added very much to the opinion of the House as to whether or not the Minister was at fault.
  I move on to paragraphs 17 and 18 of the Special Report, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames referred in his temperate speech. Those two paragraphs show that the Ministry and the Islington Borough Council between them concluded their decisions and agreed the application behind the back of the Council on Tribunals. That, I must add, was after they had received the warning from the Council to which I have referred.
  Mr. Albert Evans: Will the right hon. and learned Member give way?
  Sir D. Renton: No; I have given way too much already in a short debate.
  Worse than the discussions and application being behind the back of the objectors, the Minister reached a decision and announced the decision while the Council on Tribunals was still considering, with some anxiety, the procedure which he had so far adopted, and, of course, it did not know that he was going on to make things worse by concluding the matter before the Council on Tribunals had had an opportunity of further thoughts on the matter. In other words, the right hon. Gentleman deliberately snubbed and affronted an impartial tribunal established by Parliament with the enthusiastic agreement of all parties, and established by Parliament to secure greater justice in the performance of ministerial powers, and to do so by scrutinising the procedures, especially the inquiries, under which those powers are exercised.
  The Times had a brief but valuable comment to make about this matter on 10th February. It said that these procedures of public inquiry
  "have been evolved to protect people's interest, and to give the citizen a voice in administrative decisions closely affecting him. They should be respected."
  It is well known and accepted that it is not only the applicant and the planning authority who are the citizens closely affected. It is now an established practice, as I mentioned earlier in answer to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin), to allow others, tenants of the land in question, owners and occupiers of adjoining land, parish and district councils, and a host of others with a real interest to be heard on a planning application.
  What the Minister has done is contrary to the whole spirit of the Franks Report. He sheltered behind the technicalities of planning procedure instead of doing all in his power to see that justice was done and appeared to be done, and that no unfair advantage was taken of the rules of procedure.
  I would say this, in conclusion. The doctrine of ministerial responsibility is

  1331
  still part of our constitution today. As I understand that doctrine, it means this, that the Minister is responsible to Parliament for everything done by him, or by his Department in his name; and that if a serious mistake is made by him or by his Department he should resign. He does not resign necessarily because of his immediate personal handling of the matter, but because he is the responsible Minister. For example, we all remember that in the case of Crichel Down Sir Thomas Dugdale, now Lord Crathorne, resigned because of something which had happened even before he became Minister, and while Mr. Tom Williams, now Lord Williams of Barnburgh, was the Minister. But it was a mistake made in his Department. It happened to be a mistake which he condoned, although it referred to matters before his time, and he, quite rightly resigned. He resigned not because he was to blame therefor, but because he was responsible.
  In the present case, so far as one can tell, the Minister was personally involved at some stage before the finality of the decision. I think that the House should be told, although I think that he honourably will stand by what his Department did, whether he was personally involved in the handling of this application or not. I think that it is material for the House to know. Of course, if he was personally involved, the question of ministerial responsibility is very much simplified.
  Mr. Crossman: Throughout the whole of the case I was personally involved in every detail of the inquiry.
  Sir D. Renton: I am most grateful. That is what we would have expected of the Minister—to be forthcoming in that way. I am sure that the House is grateful to him for that.
  The hon. Gentleman the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) enhanced his reputation last week as a man of honour by resigning on a matter of disagreement—[HON. MEMBERS: "About policy."]—and he will step on to the hustings as a man with a clear name and a good conscience. All I would say is that I hope that as a result of this debate the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Housing and Local Government will still have a clear conscience. But
  1332
  we shall want a very good defence from him.
  4.45 p.m.
  Mr. Albert Evans: The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) has made some very serious charges against my right hon. Friend. He opened by saying that there were no politics in this case and that he had no intention of dealing with it upon any political basis but he went on to accuse my right hon. Friend of acts of omission and likened the case to something which happened at Crichel Down. He drew a parallel between what happened in this case and what happened at Crichel Down, but we know very well there is no comparison between what happened in this case and what happened in the other.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that my right hon. Friend had ignored and flouted the Council on Tribunals. I am sure that he has done no such thing.
  Mr. Corfield: Read the Report.
  Mr. Evans: Indeed, he came to the House immediately—
  Mr. Corfield: Whatever else the hon. Member can say in defence of his right hon. Friend, if he reads the Report he cannot say that the evidence is not that the right hon. Gentleman snubbed the Council on Tribunals.
  Mr. Evans: My right hon. Friend flouted the Council on Tribunals? Indeed, I doubt very much whether any hon. or right hon. Member of this House would flout that body. We know it is a body composed of eminent and distinguished persons; we know it has a valuable function to perform in our constitution; we know it acts as a watchdog of what we may call bureaucratic intolerance, or injustice; I am sure that every Member of the House respects that body and hearkens to its advice.
  But let us look for a moment at what that body decided on this occasion. Listening to the right hon. and learned Gentleman one would think that the Council on Tribunals in this case and come out with a damning indictment of my right hon. Friend. What, in fact, did

  1333
  it say? At the end of its Report it said that
  "there has been apparent unfairness".
  Apparent unfairness. That is as far as the Council goes. It says, in relation to my right hon. Friend, that because of the way he handled this matter there is apparently some unfairness. That verdict of the Council does not justify the language used by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Huntingdonshire. He was making a lawyer's speech, and a political lawyer's speech, this afternoon. There is no substance in the charge that my right hon. Friend has been guilty of anything more than causing apparent unfairness to somebody.
  On the basis of this statement of the Council on Tribunals that there is apparent unfairness 40 Members of the Opposition put down a Motion on the Order Paper—
  Sir D. Renton: I think that the hon. Gentleman must have overlooked one of the Council's conclusions set out in paragraph 21 of the Special Report, where it says:
  "Nevertheless, they consider that the complainants have real reason to feel aggrieved."
  If that is not a criticism of the Minister, I do not know what is.
  Mr. Evans: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is shifting his ground.
  What were the words that he used about my right hon. Friend in his speech? He told him to resign. He likened his action in this matter to what happened at Crichel Down. But now there has been a climb down, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman talks about a grievance on the part of the objectors. The right hon. and learned Gentleman should not have made the speech that he did. It was unworthy of his profession, because it was a political speech. It was unjustified, and there is no basis for what is said in the Council's Report.
  The Motion has been put down by 40 Members of the Opposition solely because the Council on Tribunals found that there was apparent unfairness to the objectors. Even the ex-Attorney-General put his name to the Motion of censure on the basis of a document which merely said that there was some apparent unfairness.
  Mr. Mark Carlisle: Is the hon. Gentleman seriously telling the House that an accusation of unfairness to private individuals by a Minister and his Department is not a matter of importance?
  Hon. Members: "Apparent" unfairness.
  Mr. Evans: No one is saying that it is not a matter of importance. I said at the beginning of my remarks that the Council is an important and distinguished body and that every Member of the House will harken to its advice. But what we have seen today and in recent days is an exaggeration of its Report, on political grounds, and the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire went further than he should have done in making the accusations that he did and likening the matter to the Crichel Down case.
  The entire Opposition Front Bench have put down the Motion of censure on the Minister because there was some apparent unfairness. I am quite prepared to agree that, in the minds of some of the objectors, there was unfairness. When the Minister made his decision following the public inquiry, he turned down his inspector's recommendation and disallowed the appeal. He may have been right or wrong in that, and perhaps some of the words used in his decision were open to more than one interpretation. Perhaps they did give the impression to objectors that their case had been accepted. Frankly, I do not understand that, because it seemed to me that the inspector turned down rehabilitation, and, therefore, the objectors who were standing on the ground of rehabilitation were out of court.
  However that may be, the Minister disallowed the appeal against his inspector's advice, and, in the letter in which he stated the reasons why, it may be that there were phrases that could be interpreted in more than one way and, as a result, some of the objectors felt that they would still be listened to in future considerations.
  The objectors have had a fair deal. They objected, as they have a right to object. At his discretion, the Minister granted an inquiry, which he need not have done. That inquiry lasted six days so that all parties should be heard. He

  1335
  need not have done that. He could have dealt with the matter himself, without a public inquiry. But he granted an inquiry so that objectors could state their individual cases at length and be represented by counsel, and for six solid days they had an opportunity to state their various points of view.
  The Minister and his inspector went further. At their discretion, they allowed every person who wished to lodge an objection to be present at the inquiry and state a case. What right hon. and hon. Members opposite are saying is that the Minister should not have been content with exercising his discretion in favour of the objectors on two occasions, but should have gone further. They say that after the inquiry he should have called in the objectors again and asked them their views upon a revision of the layout of the redevelopment.
  There is a limit to the loss of time resulting from planning applications and planning inquiries. In some parts of the Borough of Islington, housing conditions are rather appalling and require immediate action. I will not cite cases, which come to my mind quite readily, but young people get into crime, sexual troubles and devastating social evils because of the housing conditions in some parts of the borough, and we cannot wait indefinitely before clearing away the slums there.
  If my right hon. Friend wastes much more time on it, I shall be opposed to him. I shall be one of those who will criticise him. He has delayed long enough already. I should have liked him to deal with the case without an inquiry. However, he waited, and, because he did not extend his discretion in the way that I have described, the Council on Tribunals says that there was some apparent unfairness to the objectors. As a result of that statement, right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite try to blow up the case into a political issue.
  4.56 p.m.
  Mr. F. V. Corfield: I am bound to say that I share the surprise of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) that the Minister has not risen earlier in the debate. It seems to me of importance that we should have an opportunity to comment on whatever
  1336
  he is going to tell us. He told us that he relies on the fact that he made a statement on 9th February, but, as my right hon. and learned Friend has already pointed out, that statement did not advert to the issues with which the Council on Tribunals are concerned. It was a statement, the arguments of which were directed to the suggestion that there should be a second inquiry.
  As far as I am aware, no one has asked for a second inquiry. Certainly, it is not the core or even part of the criticism of the Council on Tribunals. It is a complete red herring.
  The hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) gave us what I would regard as almost the standard arguments for not causing further delay. I entirely agree with him, and I have probably said it myself on many occasions. But, with due respect, that is not the issue before us. No one is suggesting that one should inquire indefinitely into the same facts, and no one suggests that there should be no limits to the number of neighbours who have some sort of veto over planning appeals on other people's land.
  I do not believe that those are the issues. The issues before us are very much more important than that. The most important matter is not so much the Minister's original statement as the manner and timing of its making.
  The Council on Tribunals, as my right hon. and learned Friend has reminded us, was set up as a watchdog over administrative actions and particularly administrative actions such as those involved in planning inquiries, which involve a discretion and which therefore can only be subject to the supervision of the courts in a very limited sense. The function of the Council in that sphere is precisely the same as the function that the Government wish to impose upon their new Parliamentary Commissioner. That was the whole principle of the Council on Tribunals. It was the same principle as that lying behind all the arguments about an Ombudsman.
  I happen to think that the Parliamentary Commissioner Bill will produce a pretty weak and negative creature. I do not think that he has enough powers or that his sphere of action is wide enough, but I shall not go into that at the

  1337
  moment. But it is very difficult to place much store on the sincerity of the Government in wishing to establish a safeguard for the individual when they treat an existing ombudsman in this outrageously cavalier fashion.
  The hon. Member for Islington, South-West (Mr. Albert Evans) said that the Minister had not ignored the Council on Tribunals, that he had not ridden roughshod over it, or whatever words he used, but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) pointed out, the Council had considered the complaints of the objectors. It had made known its concern with this case to the right hon. Gentleman as early as 24th August. It had no reply until a month later, and as a result of further inquiries and complaints it had asked that representatives of the Ministry should meet the Council.
  Mr. Ivor Richard: Is the hon. Gentleman advancing the general proposition that in a planning appeal in which the Minister has a discretion as to whether an inquiry should be granted, if an outside body like the Council on Tribunals indicates that it is interested in the matter, it must follow automatically that the Minister should exercise his discretion to grant the inquiry? Is he putting it that high?
  Mr. Corfield: No, I am not, and if the hon. Gentleman would do me the courtesy of listening to what I am saying he would realise that. I am saying that the Council on Tribunals made it clear to the right hon. Gentleman as early as 24th August that it was concerned that things were not going quite right. It got no reply for a month, which in itself does not indicate—
  Mr. Albert Evans rose—
  Mr. Corfield: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to complete my argument. As I was about to say, that does not in itself imply that the Minister held any great respect for the Council. But however that may be, the Council had further cause for concern—whether as a result of its own inquiries, or as a result of further complaints matters not—and it again got in touch with the Ministry, when it was mutually agreed that the Council should meet members of the Ministry on a certain date.
  1338
  If the Minister really has this easy defence which he is holding to the end until the bell goes, it may well be that had he allowed his officials to meet the Council and explain what was going on we should never have had this Report. If the Minister has this easy defence about which he tells us, to a large extent this debate arises out of his discourtesy, and, I am bound to say, arrogance, because here was a body which was set up with the particular function of watching the procedural fairness and openness of this type of inquiry, and in particular planning inquiries, and it was disregarded.
  This is my first criticism of the Minister, and it is very serious indeed, because it inevitably weakens the authority of the Council, and weakens the standing in which it ought to be held by the public and the confidence which the public ought to have in it as a genuine safeguard in these procedures.
  My next criticism, which is allied to that one, arises from the fact that under the Statute a special report from the Council is made to the Lord Chancellor. It is made to him in his capacity as head of the British judiciary, and not in his capacity as a party politician. I know that the Lord Chancellor's function is an unpleasant and difficult one—but it is inherent in his office—when he is required to take a judicial view of the actions of a political colleague. It is an unfortunate jurisdiction, but there it is.
  We have had no word at all from the Lord Chancellor. All that we have had is a statement in The Guardian that he read the Report with interest, and then we had an arrangement by which, whatever, in fact, happened, all the appearances are that the Lord Chancellor and the right hon. Gentleman got together and arranged that this Report should not be made public until the same day as the right hon. Gentleman was able to get the opportunity to make a statement before anyone in the House, with the exception of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames, who had half an hour's notice or so—I do not know what it was—had a chance to see the Report, let alone study and consider it.
  This, to say the least, is treating the House with discourtesy, and I would put it stronger than that. It shows once

  1339
  again the contempt which the Government have for the Council on Tribunals, and, what is more important, the principles for which it stands.
  There are one or two other matters on the more technical side connected with the planning procedure which ought to be mentioned. The most important is that when the inquiry opened it was mutually agreed on all sides that this should be an application, or it should be considered as an application, for outline planning permission only. This means, if it means anything at all, that the details of any particular scheme are not in issue at the inquiry.
  I have always maintained, and I probably have as much experience as the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich in these matters, that this is a silly way of proceeding, because in matters of this sort—and here I find myself in full agreement with the Minister—one can judge the issue whether or not an area like this should be rehabilitated or redeveloped only if one can judge the quality of the proposed redevelopment, and this is what the Minister found. But finding, for some reason or other, that he was not satisfied with the detail—though the detail was not before the inquiry as it was an outline application only—he dismissed the appeal outright, though subject to the proviso that the dismissal was without prejudice to a later application, and so on.
  We then move forward to another matter which is a serious criticism, though I would not put it in the same category as the other, and that is that the Minister allowed a further application to come forward direct to him through the accident of the fact that the London County Council had in the meanwhile been cut out as the intervening planning authority. He was aware not only that the local people were intensely interested—he must have been from the first proceedings—but that the Council on Tribunals had written to him to the effect that it was still interested, and from the letter written by the town clerk, which was forwarded to him by the Council, presumably he was aware that the local authority was willing to make public the second application and the details of it.
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  I have always maintained—and I have said this in the House on many occasions, and I thought that this was a matter on which we were agreed across the Floor—that wherever possible local authorities should give maximum publicity to plans, particularly hard and fast plans, which will affect the whole character of the area, as this proposal must do. I understood that the right hon. Gentleman—and I hope that he will give me his attention—was in support of the principle that local authorities ought to make their constituents aware of what they were doing in their name.
  Here we have a situation in which, whatever the willingness of the town clerk may have been, he felt, for some reason, that he had to get the approval of the Minister to make these matters public. The Minister never gave that permission, and the result was that the whole of the second application went through in secrecy.
  Mr. W. T. Williams: Does the hon. Gentleman, in this part of his argument, now resile from the position that, from the point of view of dealing with the application—leaving aside for the moment the question of the Council—the Minister did something different from what the hon. Gentleman did when he was in the same Department? What I am putting to the hon. Gentleman is that this procedure is the same as was followed by the previous Government.
  Mr. Corfield: The hon. and learned Member must qualify that. The procedure—yes, but in this case there has been an earlier inquiry. I am not suggesting that the procedure has ever been to have two inquiries on the same facts, if that is what the hon. and learned Gentleman is implying. But in this case the Minister was fully aware of the interest of the objectors in the matter and, indeed, to a large extent his original decision must be deemed to have resulted from the valuable help he received from the objectors, because it was only the objectors' evidence which brought before the Tribunal the facts on which he decided he must dismiss that appeal namely, that the quality of the redevelopment was not sufficient to justify the destruction of what many who know Islington would regard as an area of considerable charm. I agree about that.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: Surely if, in the course of the first inquiry, the representations of the objectors were very valuable to the Minister, in that they enabled him to decide the kind of redevelopment which was appropriate, all that was necessary afterwards was to ensure that the fresh plans were in accordance with that idea. Was not that precisely what was done?
  Mr. Corfield: That is what we would like to know. If the Minister had spoken earlier we might have known it.
  It is extraordinary that the second application, which must have been substantially different—because the Minister came to a different conclusion—should have been allowed by the Minister, or indeed apparently encouraged by him, to go on behind closed doors. I have an idea that the Minister issued a circular on the subject recently, stressing the desirability for local authorities not to conduct their business in secrecy, behind closed doors. This is not a matter for censure, but it is still important from the point of view of public relations and administration.
  The local planning authority—the Islington Borough Council—said, in its reply to the objectors, that the second application had gone forward after full consultation with the Minister's own advisory officers, and with their help. There is no objection to that. The Minister has some very good advisers, who can be very helpful elsewhere. But it emphasises—in a case like this where an inquiry had been held and the Minister knew that there was a lot of public feeling, and that the public had the support of the local planning authority in seeking publicity—the enormous importance of public relations to ensure that these matters are considered objectively and quasi-judicially at the top.
  In other words, that justice is seen to be done, because, right from the start, the Minister can be assumed—because his own Department is involved—to have a bias one way or the other. This, as a matter of ordinary prudence, is something that he ought to be very careful about. We have also had in our constituencies, over and over again, cases where planning officers are allowed to do this, that or the other and there are all sorts of allegations solely because things do not come out into the open.
  1342
  Finally, the Council on Tribunals was unable to say whether, in its details, the second application was substantially different from the first. We can only assume that it was unable to say so because it was unable to see it. If this is so, it provides yet another proof of the contempt with which the Government and the Minister regarded this body. If this was not so, surely we should have been told, because, on the one hand, we are told in the Report that there are allegations that they were not substantially different and, on the other, we are told that there are allegations that they were substantially different.
  This is the simple question which should have been answered so as to clear up a lot of the feeling of grievance that this case has aroused. Like so many other aspects of this case, a great deal that is obscure might well have been a very different look had the Minister waited till his officials could meet the Council on Tribunals.
  5.17 p.m.
  Mr. W. T. Williams: This is a deplorable Motion, and it was followed by a more deplorable speech by the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton). The picture painted in the Motion is one of great injustice being done to the rights and liberties of individual citizens and an abuse of arbitrary power. The Motion talks of the Minister's
  "failure…to afford to people affected by his decision any opporunity to state their objections to the application which he approved."
  Both allegations are quite unjustified by the facts, and the invitation given by the right hon and learned Gentleman to my right hon. Friend to resign—the course that was followed by a former Minister in the Crichel Down case—suggests that far from an anxiety to deal with this matter in its proper perspective the Opposition have been driven, in a pre-election period, to make the greatest fuss they can about something that it not justified by the circumstances.
  The position is not that the Minister failed to give objectors an opportunity of stating their objections. That is not true. The fact is that those who are objecting to the development of the area of the estate, are not people living on the estate or having any legal interest in it. They are people either living around the estate

  1343
  or concerned to protect its appearance, like the assurance company that had some interest in the rehabilitation of the estate for business reasons.
  When this matter was first raised these strangers to the estate were given full opportunity, of which they took full advantage. There was a six-days' hearing at which all the matters were canvassed relating to the appearance of the estate and to its amenities as it affected outsiders. The questions that were eventually left to the Minister were thoroughly thrashed out by the objectors and their representatives at that hearing. No new matter was before him at the time of the second application and the second appeal to the Minister.
  In those circumstances, it is straining language and using what may be legitimate grounds for argument as a bit of political pamphleteering, to talk as though the Minister had refused anybody any opportunity of expressing his objections. One may go round and round arguing about whether or not there might not be new propositions to be advanced, but at the time when the Minister rejected the first application the only grounds upon which he proceeded were that he needed to be satisfied, first, that there was no reduction of amenity by redevelopment, and, secondly, that such change as would be made would be justified by the increase in housing, of which there was urgent need in Islington, as we have been told. In his letter to the objectors he made that quite clear. About this there can be no real argument by any fair-minded man. Once those two matters had been satisfactorily resolved, there was no other matter which the objectors could raise. Once the Minister had been satisfied on those grounds, there was no justification for reopening an inquiry on precisely those grounds.
  The whole object of town and country planning procedure is that, once the Minister has sufficient grounds to come to a decision, he should get on with his job. His job in these circumstances was to provide planning permission which would enable the Islington Council in turn to get on with its job, that of providing houses for people who would otherwise be prevented from having decent houses.
  1344
  The second objection of the Opposition and the second attack on my right hon. Friend is akin to the first in the extravagance of its language and the excessive-ness of its demands upon him. The suggestion has been made that the behaviour of the Minister in doing what he was legally authorised to do, in the manner in which he was legally authorised to do it, is somehow an abuse of arbitrary power. It is a pity that, if the Opposition want a serious debate, they do not word their Motions in measured language.
  This Motion is quite unjustified. This is not Crichel Down. There is no comparison between what the Minister did in this case and what the Minister of Agriculture was involved in on the former occasion. This is a case of a council seeking to deal with its own estate. There is no suggestion that improper pressure has been put on anybody to sell. The people who make the objections have no legal interest in any of the issues which are involved. They are concerned about appearance and amenity, because they live in and around the area.
  The opportunity was given them fully to express any objections which they might have had to the redevelopment. Once those objections were dealt with, once the Minister had evidence which satisfied him that these amenities were not being improperly interfered with, he was entitled to take the action which he did and they had no further grounds for complaint. Nobody was subjected to a loss of his legal rights. Certainly, nobody's rights and liberties as citizens of this country were attacked by anything which the Minister did.
  What the Minister did was to follow the procedure which had been followed by his predecessors in other Governments than this. This is a pattern which anybody with any familiarity with the procedures followed under the Town and Country Planning Act has met time and time again. If, every time a Minister exercised his discretion not to hold an inquiry, an absurd attack of this kind is made on him, the life of any Minister would be utterly impossible.
  The other criticism is one which, again, has been blown up like a balloon. This is the criticism of the Minister on the grounds that he has treated the Council on Tribunals with offensiveness.

  1345
  that he has behaved towards it as though he were riding roughshod over it and that the way in which he treated the Council was so offensive to its dignity and to the liberties of the citizens of England that he should therefore be required to resign. The problems of town and country planning are real problems. The conflict between the interests and needs of different citizens puts a heavy burden on Ministers whose task it is to resolve them.
  The position becomes not difficult but impossible if, when one citizen feels aggrieved about a procedure which has been properly followed, he is entitled, by making an appeal to some other tribunal, to bring the machinery grinding to a halt. I said that the Minister had his job to do. If it appears to the Council on Tribunals, whether on sufficient or on insufficient evidence, that something has been done to which the Minister's attention ought to be drawn, I make no criticism of the Council if, on such evidence as it has, it draws his attention to it.
  However, once the Minister's attention has been drawn to something which, in his judgment is not a matter in which he has abused his power, it would be an impossible situation if he then had to drop everything and take no further procedure lest the Council on Tribunals brought some criticism to his head which may or may not be justified—
  Mr. Corfield: That is not a question of bringing everything to a halt. The Minister had to wait only two days and he might have been able to save all this trouble.
  Mr. Williams: Let it be so. If one is talking about the problems raised by the conflict of duties between the Council and the Minister and one were to say that perhaps the Minister or the Council should have done something different, this would be a very different matter. It would be very different from the way in which this subject is being discussed today, with a pistol held at the Minister's head, when the Minister was guilty, even on the hon. Gentleman's own showing, of nothing more than a discourtesy. We are talking at a different level.
  If, every time a person feels a sense of grievance against a decision of a
  1346
  Department—even though no injury is done him and no attack made on his rights or liberties as a citizen—he can by making a protest bring the whole machinery of Government to a halt, the situation is intolerable. It is one which no Minister, obviously, could be expected to endure—[Interruption.]—if the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. William Yates) has in intelligent intervention to make I will give way.
  Mr. William Yates: We will try to be as helpful as we can. This is a grave problem for many hon. Members with planning problems in their own constituencies. The hon. and learned Member for Warrington (Mr. W. T. Williams) said that the expressions used by hon. Members on this side of the House have been extravagant. He is now proceeding to further extravagance by suggesting that, every time the Council on Tribunals writes to the Minister, the whole machinery of Government should come to a halt. Nobody said that and nobody means it on this side of the House.
  Mr. Williams: The logical end of the arguments advanced by hon. Members opposite is precisely that. I am not being in the least extravagant. Did the hon. Member hear the speech of his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire?
  Mr. William Yates: Yes. That was very exciting.
  Mr. Williams: I do not want to labour this point ad nauseam. My point is a simple one. If any complaint to the Council on Tribunals by any objector on any grounds were to have the effect of stopping the administrative process, clearly, that machinery, which is already in some ways too slow and laborious, would proceed as it did in a past age. It would go at steam engine speed. In this sense, the protests about his rights and liberties by one individual could do grave harm and danger to the rights, liberties and privileges of another citizen.
  This is sad, because this is a matter on which there could be serious and valuable discussion. The whole question of land development and the problems and difficulties which a Minister faces in trying to balance the weight of one objection against the needs of another are matters

  1347
  on which the time of this House would well have been spent. It is deplorable to think that such an occasion should have been taken to attack the Minister for having to make a difficult decision while having to conduct his affairs within his rights and to do what he thought was proper in the light of the information available to him.
  Because my right hon. Friend disagreed with the Council on Tribunals—as I do, because I believe that it took a decision on insufficient knowledge and so one which it was not within its province to take and so it was a wrong decision—and because the Minister thought that the Council was making a judgment on a matter on which his judgment differed, he is being pilloried in this way. I regret that an opportunity which might have been used for a better purpose has been thrown away and, instead, extravagant attacks which are quite without justification are being made.
  5.31 p.m.
  Mr. Mark Carlisle: Having listened to the remarks of the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) and the hon. and learned Member for Warrington (Mr. W. T. Williams), presumably in their capacity as counsel for the defence of the Minister in this case, I still believe that every word of the Motion is justified.
  I am in no way doubting the eminence of the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich, but on certain matters on which he spoke on behalf of the Minister one might reasonably say that he had not fully mastered or prepared his brief. And powerful though the remarks of the hon. and learned Member for Warrington were, they were really in the form of mitigation in suggesting that the terms of the Motion were stronger than they should be. Certainly, nothing he said amounted to a defence of the charge against the Minister.
  The hon. Member for Islington, Southwest (Mr. Albert Evans) made great play of the fact that the criticism was not that the Minister had been unfair to the objectors, but that there was apparent unfairness to the objectors. As I understand, the Council on Tribunals is clearly saying, in the use of the words "apparent unfairness"—one might use the phrase "prima facie unfairness"—that it is
  1348
  unfairness until it is explained and cleared up by the Minister. Therefore, like my hon. Friends, I regret that the Minister has not already seen fit to speak in this debate and answer the charge made by the Council on Tribunals of apparent unfairness.
  It may be that when we hear the right hon. Gentleman it will appear that there was no apparent unfairness, as the hon. Member for Islington, South-West suggested, but until we have heard him—until the Council on Tribunals has been given an opportunity which, apparently, it was not given, to consider his side of the case—we are bound, as is the Council, to conclude that apparently he had been unfair, which is the criticism that is made. I will merely say that the attitude displayed by the Minister throughout the earlier speeches in this debate hardly indicated that he will give us a proper and serious explanation of the accusation made against him by the Council on Tribunals.
  The charge against the right hon. Gentleman is twofold: first, that he has deliberately chosen to refuse to take into consideration the views and opinions of people who would be affected by the application which he granted; and, secondly, that he has deliberately chosen to snub the Council on Tribunals.
  On the first ground of complaint, the hon. and learned Member for Warrington made great play of the fact that the Motion stated that people had not been given an opportunity to state their objections. He said that this was an example of the totally misleading wording of the Motion. I urge him to study the words of the Motion, particularly those which state that the House
  "…regrets the failure of the Minister to afford to people affected by his decision any opportunity to state their objections to the application which he approved…"
  There is no doubt that, although the right hon. Gentleman may have allowed their observations to be made on an earlier application, which he dismissed, he refused to allow them to be heard on this occasion.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: May I put to the hon. Gentleman a question which I put to his right hon. Friend earlier, but which was not answered? Is he suggesting that, whenever a planning application

  1349
  is made which affects people other than landowners or others with interest in the land, people who may be in any way affected, directly or indirectly, by the application should be given an opportunity to express their objections to it? If so, why did not his party—although he was not an hon. Member of the House at the time—incorporate that in the 1962 Act?
  Mr. Carlisle: I was saying, with respect, that I believe that the Ministry should continue the conduct which, in practice, to my experience does occur; that where a public inquiry takes place on an appeal against a refusal—and the hon. and learned Gentleman no doubt has more experience of this than I have—the Ministry's inspector almost always exercises his discretion, as he did in this case, in allowing the people who feel that they are likely to be affected by the decision time to have their views heard.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: The hon. Gentleman is missing my point. I am not concerned at this stage with the inquiry, but with the terms of the Motion, which
  "…regrets the failure of the Minister to afford to people affected…any opportunity to state their objections to the application which he approved…"
  I understood the hon. Gentleman's point to be that an application was made and that the people affected had no opportunity to say what they thought about it. It was in that context that I put my question.
  Mr. Carlisle: In the context of this case, the answer to that question is, "Yes". The hon. and learned Member for Warrington said that it was unfair to say that an opportunity for people to state their objections was not applied for when the inquiry was granted. I said that the complaint was not quite that, but rather that on the application that was approved time was not allowed for them to state their objections. That still stands.
  I turn to the second point, that the Minister has deliberately chosen to snub the Council on Tribunals. I remind the Minister that the Council is a statutory watchdog specifically set up for the purpose of safeguarding the rights of individuals against the powers of Ministries. This is an example—I hope an isolated one—of one month of delay after the
  1350
  first request for information. If the fact that eventually the Minister's decision was announced, within 48 hours of the request by the Council on Tribunals to meet it to discuss its complaints in this matter, is an example of the type of attitude and respect which, apparently, is to be shown by the Government towards tribunals in future, it augurs badly for the likely respect which will be shown to the much-heralded ombudsman, and it brings the cynical attitude that the desire and love of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite for such an ombudsman is no more than a pre-election gimmick.
  I wish to concentrate on some of the arguments which the Minister has at different times advanced and I will show that they are fallacious and—though perhaps not intentionally—misleading. The first argument is one which the right hon. Gentleman used in a letter of 24th September to the Council on Tribunals in which he advanced the theory that no harm had been done because if the L.C.C., as the planning authority, had approved the application, these people would have had no opportunity to be heard. I will come to that in a moment.
  The second argument is the one to which my right hon. Friend has already referred; the fact that in col. 403 of HANSARD of 9th February last the right hon. Gentleman stated that he had come to the conclusion that it was reasonable to dispense with a second inquiry, and he went on to say—and this, I believe, was wholly misleading—that it was this decision which the Council on Tribunals had criticised.
  I come back, as the hon. Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard) apparently wishes me to, to the comment that if the London County Council had approved this application no inquiry would have been heard. The Minister will accept that if a person makes an application to a local authority for planning permission, the local people have the opportunity, by approaching the councillors concerned, to make their representations. If, in the face of those representations, the planning authority still allows the application, I agree that there is no right of appeal, but they have had the opportunity to make their representations to the people representing them on that body.

  1351
  But if the application is refused and an appeal to the Minister takes place, it is then right that those people, who have no direct access to the Minister as such, as they have to their local councillors, should have the right to be heard through counsel, solicitors, or in person, in order to present their views to the Minister.
  The position in this case is that the London County Council was deemed to have refused this application. An inquiry was appointed by the Minister on an appeal to him. I fully accept that at that stage the residents were heard, but whatever the Minister may have said in the House, or whatever he may have said in his letter to the Council on Tribunals, he cannot possibly, with respect, get away from the fact that that appeal he dismissed and, whether he likes it or not, in dismissing that appeal he gave the impression that the objectors had won.
  This is where I suggested that the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich had not read his brief. What was the appeal that was made to the Minister? It was an appeal against a refusal to redevelop. So the question the Minister had to ask himself was: would he or would he not allow redevelopment? What, in fact, he said, was:
  "The Minister would want to be satisfied that this result will be obtained"—
  referring to environment, and things of that nature:
  "before he would feel able to decide in favour of redevelopment against rehabilitation."
  In other words, asked to come down on the side of redevelopment, he specifically refusal to do so—
  Mr. W. T. Williams: As did his right hon. Friends before him, the hon. Member talks as though this were the whole of what the Minister said. Let the House and the country know that it was not all he said. The Minister said that he had
  "…therefore decided to dismiss the present appeal though without prejudice to the submission to him of another application subseqently; and he proposes to arrange a discussion with the Council about how the kind of layout and design which seemed to him to be required here might best be achieved."
  This was also a partial dismissal.
  Mr. Carlisle: But in dismissing this appeal as he did, the Minister specifically chose to remain seized of the application and invited further plans but, with respect, it is wholly misleading of the Minister to have stated in his letter of 24th September to the Council on Tribunals:
  "The objectors would have preferred that the properties be rehabilitated, but that issue had been decided against them."
  It is quite clear on the letter he wrote about the decision he made, that that decision had not been made against the objectors. Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman said exactly the opposite, and he was at the least misleading the Tribunal in that letter.
  Then we have the position that when the second plan was presented—which, according to someone writing in the Spectator who claims to have seen it, was very little different from the first—he chooses to change his mind. We do not know until we hear him all the grounds on which he made that decision; what pressure, right or wrong, was made against him in regard to that decision; what pressure by means of representations. What we do know is that the Minister chose to change his decision without in fact giving an opportunity if I may put it in this simple way, for the other side of the argument to be heard. If he says that the plans were wholly different, there was even more reason why he should have allowed comment on them by those people who had commented by way of expert advisers on the previous plans submitted.
  Turning to another point, I do not deny that the Council on Tribunals made clear in its Report that that which the Minister did he was strictly legally entitled to do, but let us make clear how strictly legal it was, and how technical his argument that he was intra vires rather than ultra vires in his action. Hon. and learned Members opposite cannot deny that if any of those 425 resident objectors had had a legal interest in any one of those houses, and had the Minister chosen, as he did, to hear further representation in private without informing those people what those representations were, in those circumstances, as the House knows, and as the Minister must well know, they would have come under the terms of persons aggrieved, and the

  1353
  court could have refused to uphold the Minister's decision on the basis that it was taken ultra vires. So the Minister's defence that he was strictly entitled to do what he did is based on a very technical distinction.
  What I believe the Minister has done is against the spirit of the law and against the spirit and purpose of public inquiries, and I believe that he has relied on legal technicalities so as to prevent an otherwise entitlement to representation by individuals. I remind the right hon. Gentleman of a saying that has already been quoted today, and a saying that is still true and of great importance in this country. It is that justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done.
  I shall not attempt to go into the merits of the architectural arguments on the plans or suggest that justice was not necessarily done, but I do suggest that justice was not seen to be done; that the Council on Tribunals was right in saying that the complainants had real reason to feel aggrieved. I believe that the attitude portrayed by the Minister in this case is in many ways typical of the attitude of the party in Government now. It smacks of the Socialist attitude that "the man in Whitehall" knows best, and that no individual should have the right to question or criticise that which that man does.
  This is the second censure Motion that I have heard debated in this House. On both occasions there has been considerable similarity in the matter debated, because on both occasions it has been the Minister's quasi-judicial functions that have been questioned. I shall not go into the merits of the previous Motion, which referred to the previous Home Secretary's making a decision after a public inquiry and then, as a result of private approaches, changing that decision. But there is the obvious similarity that on both occasions there has been a public inquiry which has come to one decision and then, apparently as a result of further information put to the Minister concerned, an immediate change of that decision. It is not necessarily the case, but if that type of thing is happening one cannot blame people if they feel that somewhere there has been some dirty work in the background.
  The Minister's conduct throughout this matter has shown discourtesy to the Tribunal,
  1354
  lack of frankness and lack of openness with the House. It has shown arrogance and unwillingness to admit that he has made a mistake. It has shown unwillingness to "come clean" with the House. It is conduct which, unfortunately, the House has become used to expect of the Prime Minister, but not of the Minister of Housing and Local Government.
  5.50 p.m.
  Mr. Ivor Richard: It became clear during the last five minutes of the speech of the hon. Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) why we are debating this Motion. His speech had nothing whatever to do with town planning nor with the difficult and delicate balance that always has to be struck on occasions like this. I am sure that, in a saner, wiser and perhaps more humane moment, the hon. Member would admit the difficulty of striking such a balance. A Minister faced with this sort of decision is torn between the desire to see that redevelopment is not unduly held up and the desire—and I am sure that this is shared by both sides of the House—that the rights of the individuals who may be affected are protected and their objections fully heard.
  It is a very difficult balance to strike, and I am sure that right hon. Gentlemen opposite who have had to do this sort of work, unlike some of their colleagues, will at least appreciate the difficulties of taking such decisions. They would not, unlike the hon. Member for Runcorn, make speeches so invincibly ignorant of town planning law and, may I say, equally ignorant of the character of my right hon. Friend. This Motion is extravagant, unnecessary and excessive. It is a deplorable Motion and we have heard at least two deplorable speeches—one from the hon. Member from Carlisle and the other—perhaps more importantly—from the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton).
  I was astonished by the extravagance of the language used by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, particularly in view of what had been said by the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) in opening the debate. The right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames made no call for resignation; he did not mention Crichel Down; he made no suggestion of bad conscience or good name, or of my right hon. Friend's honour being involved. All

  1355
  he said was that my right hon. Friend had made a mistake, had been rude to the Council on Tribunals and should have come to the House and admitted it. That was the analysis of the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames but not that of the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that the House is not ungenerous in matters of this sort. But his generosity seems to be confined to calling upon the Minister to resign and, in the event of my right hon. Friend respectfully accepting the right hon. and learned Gentleman's mistaken advice, to providing flowers upon the coffin.
  Sir D. Renton: This is the first time I have heard it suggested in this House that it is deplorable to expect the very highest standards of Ministers.
  Mr. Richard: If that is the best that the right hon. and learned Gentleman can do I do not think that my right hon. Friend has much to fear. What is deplorable is that the Opposition have chosen to further what, in essence, is a planning procedural difficulty, on which the Council on Tribunals has reported, into a pre-election frolic in the hope of smearing the name of my right hon. Friend. I have little doubt that, when it comes to the test, such muckraking will get them nowhere.
  What are the facts behind the Motion? If I understand his argument correctly, the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames believes that the Minister should, in some unspecified way or another—for it has not been specified either by the Opposition or by the Council on Tribunals—have re-consulted those people who for six days had put their objections before the Ministry's inspectors at a full inquiry on precisely the same set of facts. Before deciding whether or not that action of my right hon. Friend was culpable or unworthy, it would be a good idea for right hon. and hon. Members opposite—particularly the hon. Member for Runcorn—to read the Minister's letter of 23rd July, 1965, and not just the selective portion quoted in whatever document the hon. Gentleman has before him.
  Mr. Carlisle: The document I have is the Report of the Tribunal on inquiries.
  1356
  I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has that document or a party handout.
  Mr. Richard: I am in the more fortunate position of having read the whole letter and not just the sentences quoted in that document. Before launching his strictures on my right hon. Friend, it would have been wiser of the hon. Gentleman to get the document. In paragraph 8, the letter says:
  "The Minister has noted the views of the Inspector. He recognises that redevelopment to the density proposed would result in a greater housing gain than rehabilitation, and also that rehabilitation might well prove a difficult and perhaps not entirely satisfactory business in view of the poor condition of some at any rate of the houses. But he is not satisfied, on the details submitted, that the Council's proposals would result in a scheme of the quality to compensate for destroying an estate of the type that many people still find attractive in layout and design."
  Further on, my right hon. Friend uses the sentences quoted by the hon. Member for Runcorn and by the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames. Of course, one must put great weight on what the Tribunal on Inquiries says in matters of this sort, but—
  Mr. William Yates rose—
  Mr. Richard: I hope that the hon. Member will forgive me but I have undertaken to sit down in order to allow the right hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir J. Hobson) to begin his speech at 6 o'clock.
  Mr. William Yates: On a point of Order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Where an hon. Member or a Minister relies on a document which is not fully available to the House, as far as I know, is it in order to quote the whole document or should the document be laid before the House?
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. James MacColl): Further to that point of order. This is a public letter. It was published and sent to the interested parties.
  Mr. Richard: Since this is a public letter, and was sent to the interested parties, it is a pity that some hon. Members opposite did not read it. It is clear to any honourable man who reads it honestly and not in a muckraking spirit that my right hon. Friend was saying that

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  he had come to the conclusion, on the facts before him at that stage, that he was in favour of redevelopment as against rehabilitation. He went on to say that he was not prepared, on balance, to say then that this was the precise way in which the matter should proceed. He was not prepared at that stage to allow redevelopment to proceed on the basis of the proposals then before him. He then spelt out the sort of Amendments which would be needed. Later, certain other proposals are made for redevelopment of the site and upon those he expresses satisfaction and gives his permission.
  I would remind right hon. and hon. Members of what my right hon. Friend said last month:
  "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.
  …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."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th February, 1966; Vol. 724, c. 405.]
  On the documents I have seen, it seems to me that the matter had indeed been discussed ad nauseam and that the local residents had exercised their right to protest at length. It is a pity that a matter which could have been the subject of a sensible and helpful debate on the details of planning procedure should instead have been used by the Opposition for a wretched and deplorable attack on my right hon. Friend.
  6.0 p.m.
  Sir John Hobson: It is very regrettable that the usual procedure has not been followed on this occasion in the order of speeches and that we have had to have a debate in the absence of any opportunity of discovering at the beginning what it is that the Minister of Housing and Local
  1358
  Government wishes to say in answer to this Motion of censure.
  It will be remembered that when the former Home Secretary was the subject of a censure Motion he answered the debate immediately and then had the right to wind up the debate. It is true that on that occasion he did so through the mouth of the Attorney-General. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney-General is sitting here, but if the Minister chose not to be represented by him I am sure that the House would have granted him permission to reply by making a second speech.
  The procedure adopted has only produced an extraordinary debate in which we have no idea at all of what the Minister's answer may be and, therefore, have been deprived of any opportunity of debating it. That is what we ought to have been debating. As we have been unable to do so, I intend to confine myself to stating again what it is we are complaining about. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) stated it very moderately and clearly and I hope that I can do it quite shortly, too.
  First of all, we say that this was a situation in which a Socialist Minister was acting in and about the matters of a Socialist Government and, of course, we would expect him to, and I know that he would, set himself the duty of behaving in that context in exactly the same way as though the interests under consideration were those of a private property company, a private citizen, or any other person whose property was due to be dealt with in the course of planning procedures.
  We know that in this matter the Minister acted personally, for he was brave enough, as one would have expected him to have done, to tell the House that he was in close and personal contact with the matters throughout. Our first complaint is that in that situation he proceeded behind the backs of interested parties and deprived those who were genuinely interested in the result of a second application of all information of what was afoot, and in particular of the opportunity to take any part at all in the administrative procedures and especially to make any private representations or to make any public protest before the right hon. Gentleman took the final decision.

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  This, we think, fully justifies the condemnation of the Council on Tribunals not that there was apparent unfairness, but, as the Council says at the end of paragraph 25 of the Report, that it thought that those who had been excluded from the procedures to the last had been treated less than fairly.
  Secondly, in his approach to the Council on Tribunals we say that the right hon. Gentleman acted as though he owed that Council no duty of any sort or description and that the Council had no public duty to perform of the slightest purpose, or which he ought to assist. We say that he hid from the Council on Tribunals, which he knew to be interested, the processes started under his direction and carried on between himself and the Islington Borough Council and that he took his decision two days before a meeting which he knew was due to take place between his officers and that council. And we say that he then successfully deprived the Council on Tribunals of an opportunity to investigate, discuss or protest before the final decision was taken.
  Thirdly, we say that in this situation the right hon. Gentleman has expressed neither regret nor repentance. He has not done so to the Council on Tribunals, he has not done so to the interested parties, and he has not done so to the House, and indeed he does not appear even now to be ready to acknowledge that he has made the slightest error of judgment or the slightest mistake.
  Perhaps more important than all, we say that the view of the Council on Tribunals that these procedures should be fair, impartial and open is not one apparently to which the right hon. Gentleman accedes for the future, for he has given no undertaking, if he remains as Minister, to heed and follow the advice which that Council has given in this case.
  May we consider for a moment the position of the Lord Chancellor who, after all, is the Minister with the statutory duty, not only as head of the judiciary, under the Tribunals and Inquiries Act—and he once said in another capacity that Governments never blush. It would be perhaps too much to expect the present Minister, in his vigorous and efficient bustle, to permit himself a blush. One might perhaps have expected the
  1360
  Lord Chancellor, however, as the guardian of the interests of the citizen and of fair treatment by the Executive to have broken his silence, even if not permitting himself a blush.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: On a point of order. Is it in order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for the right hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir J. Hobson) to discuss the conduct of the Lord Chancellor on this Motion, which is solely concerned with the Minister's conduct?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Roderick Bowen): At the moment, the right hon. and learned Gentleman is in order.
  Sir J. Hobson: All that I was going to say was that not the conduct but the silence of the Lord Chancellor was perhaps the most eloquent thing that this House could have been blessed with, for if he had felt it proper to deny the conclusions of the Council on Tribunals it would have been all too easy for him publicly to say so, because he has the statutory right of commenting on reports of tribunals. He has not done so. He has remained in silence, and we may imagine an embarrassed silence, feeling himself to be unable to support the Council on Tribunals and thus stick a knife in the back of his colleague.
  May I address my remarks on the basis that what happened after the conclusion of the first inquiry and the Minister's original decision was that a new and different application was made, that it was a substantially different application from the first, and that it was something which was not merely a reopening of the original inquiry? I take that line, and I think that the Minister may find it the correct one, because one finds from the Report of the Council on Tribunals that it is the attitude which the Minister's officials took when they had discussions with the Council.
  One finds from paragraph 26 of the Report that the Council has assumed that the Ministry's officials were correct in suggesting that the second application was substantially different from the first. Therefore, at any rate in their contacts with the Council, the Minister's officials—he being closely interested in these matters—were saying that the second application was substantially different from the first.

  1361
  I agree with that. The first one was only the outline proposals. The second was the substance of the thing where a real judgment could be made as to whether or not the nature and quality of the total scheme was on balance sufficiently good to justify the development of the area and the destruction of houses which many people think ought to be preserved.
  The Minister may say that this was exactly the same, that there was no difference, that it was the same proposal, and, therefore, he had nothing new to do except give approval. If he does, the right hon. Gentleman is faced with a difficulty, for he has already dismissed the original application. He is faced with the dilemma, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames put to him, that either the application is the same and he should not have changed his mind, or that he and his officials were faced with a situation where, one inquiry having taken place, a new application being made, that application is to be regarded as a wholly new proposal.
  In that situation, what the Minister did was to deprive those who were vitally interested, and had been from the first, of the opportunity to know what was the nature and substance of those new proposals. I quite agree that there was no statutory right. I am not arguing about that. There is no suggestion here, and we have never put forward the case on such a basis, that there was breach of some statutory duty. We should not be arguing about it here if there had been. It would be in the courts and there would be no doubt about it. But what we say is that fairness and square dealing demand and good and sensible administrative fairness requires that those who are known to be deeply interested in a major project for redevelopment should at least have some knowledge of what is contained in the proposals.
  Persons who have a genuine interest in a planning application are entitled by customary administrative concession to appear and to be heard at any inquiry. But there is an important preliminary step before one comes to the inquiry. Is everything to be kept dark unless or until it happens that someone with a legal interest objects? If that is the rigid ground on which the Minister
  1362
  stands, it is a poor look-out for the interests of many societies and civic trusts and all those who are interested in the development of their own towns.
  One would hope that the Minister takes the view that good administrative practice requires that persons with a genuine interest in a planning application who have reason to think that a major development affecting a wide area is under consideration should be given some information about that proposal—not necessarily at the first stage, but certainly long before any decision is taken—by the borough council or planning authority which is considering it or, if it has reached him, by the Minister himself, so that, even if there is not an inquiry, they may exercise the right to send in a representation, to write a letter, to make a private representation to the person who is dealing with the matter, or to make, if necessary, a public protest.
  This is what these people were deprived of on this occasion. They were prevented from having any knowledge whatever of the processes being gone through between the Minister and the borough council which was interested.
  Let us suppose that it had been not a borough council, but a property developer. Would it have been right and fair that neighbours who would be directly and adversely affected by development by such a property developer should be refused all information about what was going on and about how they might be affected? The hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) said that there was no right for anyone to know. But, of course, when there is an appeal to the Minister, at least a notice must be put up on the land affected. Interested neighbours will see that notice, become aware that there is an appeal to the Minister, that there is an application in, and then make an inquiry of the local authority or, if it has gone to the Minister, make inquiry of the Minister to know what is going on so that they may see what the project is.
  The real complaint here is this. How came it that these objectors and the insurance company through its surveyors were prevented from discovering what was going on until they received the second decision letter on 23rd November? The town clerk wrote that he was very

  1363
  willing that they should be informed once the Minister had considered the matter, but he said that he was unable to give them any information at a time when the Minister was considering it. We learn from the Council on Tribunals that, at the meeting which took place on 24th November, the Minister's representatives told the Council on Tribunals that the Ministry would have had no objection to the objectors being informed of the revised scheme which the Islington Borough Council proposed to submit to the Minister.
  Thus, we have the town clerk saying that it is all right for them to see it. We have the Ministry telling the Council on Tribunals that the Ministry would be perfectly willing for them to see it. How came it that the objectors did not see it? I suggest that it was solely the Minister's responsibility. The request for information came from the secretary of the residents' association on 16th September, when he asked the town clerk of Islington for information and for an opportunity to examine the new proposals. Will the Minister tell us whether the town clerk referred that matter to the Ministry before he sent the reply next day? On 6th September, the Minister had agreed with the Islington Borough Council that it should have joint discussions about what was to be done. Therefore, the Islington Borough Council and the Ministry were at that stage considering the matter. We would like to know whether the town clerk wrote his letter without consulting the Ministry at all saying that he could not give any information so long as it was under reconsideration by the Minister?
  Mr. Crossman: He certainly did not consult us.
  Sir J. Hobson: I thought that that might be so. But what happened next was that, within the week, the letter from the secretary of the residents' association and the reply of the town clerk were sent to the Minister by the Council on Tribunals. This was done on 21st September, and it was then perfectly plain to the Ministry that the town clerk was willing to give the information but was taking the view that the fact that the Minister was considering the matter was some inhibition against doing so.
  Mr. Crossman: Just to have it clear, the second letter was not received by us. We have never seen it.
  Sir J. Hobson: The second letter by whom?
  Mr. MacColl: The one from the residents.
  Sir J. Hobson: I am sorry, but there seems to be some confusion. The first request for information was from the secretary of the residents' association to the town clerk on 16th September. On the next day, the town clerk replied that
  "Amended proposals have been submitted to the Minister"—
  that was not quite right because they were amended suggestions under discussion—
  "but as long as they are under reconsideration by the Minister it would not be proper for the council to publish details. I am, however, sure that they will do so as soon as the Minister gives his clearance."
  That reply and the request for information were sent on 21st September to the Council on Tribunals and the Council sent them both on to the Minister. Not only that. In his reply of 24th September, the Minister acknowledged receipt of the Council's letters, not only the one of 24th August which he dealt with in his reply but the Council's letter of 21st September, also. But neither in that letter nor in any subsequent reply did he make any mention at all of the point which was being raised by the Council on Tribunals, namely, "Here is the residents' association asking for information. Why is it not getting it?".
  The result was that the Ministry, neither on that nor on any subsequent occasion, not even at the meeting of 24th November, put forward to the Council on Tribunals any reason why this information should not have been given by the Minister to the objectors. The right hon. Gentleman knew perfectly well that the town clerk was refusing to give the information. Why did he not tell the town clerk that it was all right by him if he handed it over? Why did he not himself arrange for the information to be handed over to the residents? Why did he not reply to the Council on Tribunals and say, "I note that the residents' association wants this information. I am perfectly willing for it to be

  1365
  given, and I am instructing the town clerk"?
  Mr. Albert Evans: The town clerk of the borough was asked by the objectors whether they could see the revised proposals. At that stage, the town clerk had sent: these proposals to the Minister. Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman feel that it was perfectly proper for the town clerk, having placed the proposals before the Minister, to say at that stage, "These matters are before the Minister and, therefore, I do not feel free to give you access to them"?
  Sir J. Hobson: I am not criticising the town clerk. We have not had a discussion about him and we certainly do not want to. But I would hope that most local authorities, even though they had submitted proposals to the Minister, would take the view, in a matter which vitally affected large numbers of their people in the area, that there was no harm whatever in allowing people to know what was being proposed.
  I should have thought that this would have saved all the trouble. But when the Minister discovered that the town clerk had taken this view, rightly or wrongly, he did nothing whatever to assure the Council on Tribunals that the people who were requiring information should and would have it either by sending it himself or by telling the town clerk that it was certainly all right for him to hand it over to those who were anxious to know.
  This is what has been the cause of all the trouble, and this is why the objectors, until the very last moment, had not the faintest idea what was afoot, had no idea of the discussions which were going on and had no opportunity to see, know about, consider, object to, or produce any representations about the new proposals, of which they had never been allowed to be aware.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: The right hon. and learned Gentleman says that they were not aware of the discussions which were going on. They were expressly told in the letter that was sent out by the Minister that he would be discussing the new proposals.
  Sir J. Hobson: Of course, but what they wanted to know was what the proposals were. Their request was to be
  1366
  allowed to examine the new proposals. That is what they wanted, and that is what they were deprived of. They might have liked them very much when they saw them—who knows? They might have objected to them.
  But this is where the Minister failed entirely to give people who he knew were likely to object any information on which they could base a new objection. No one else except the Minister, the Islington Borough Council and the Socialist-controlled G.L.C. was allowed to consider or know about the new proposals which were being put forward, and none of them was given the slightest opportunity to express any opinion.
  As to the ordinary citizens, I should have thought that the Council on Tribunals was right when it said that in those circumstances they were treated with less than fairness, that it was arbitrary, authoritarian and thoroughly objectionable. As far as the Council on Tribunals was concerned, it is even more surprising that from the time that it first wrote, on 24th August, until the meeting on 24th November it was never told by the Minister or any of his officials anything about the processes which they were then embarked upon. Despite the letter of 24th August and the subsequent letter of 21st September, it was given no information and knew nothing of what the Minister was up to until it received the decision letter on 23rd November.
  I should have thought that that was underhand, arrogant and a denial of the authority and importance of the Council on Tribunals. After all, it does not barge around Government Departments every day of the week. The times when it approaches a Minister and suggests that perhaps there is something that ought to be inquired about must be rare indeed. But on this occasion it received neither assistance nor information from the Minister, and for this, also, we think that the House should condemn him.
  6.23 p.m.
  The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Richard Crossman): I said during my statement that I would welcome a day's debate on planning, and I would still say so, and, of course, if we had had one I should have been delighted to formulate our policies first for discussion. What we have had is a

  1367
  personal vote of censure on a semi-judicial decision by a Minister. This is very different.
  I shall try, as succinctly as I can, to answer the elaborate web of arguments put up by the Opposition. I will start with a simple point. The right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) said in starting that I had said that I would take no account of what the Council on Tribunals had said. This was not true. The right hon. Gentleman asked me a question, and I replied. I must ask him to read my statement. I said that I had carefully considered the view of the Council on Tribunals, and that on reflection, though I understood its motive, I still thought that I was right in thinking, as I gathered it now did, that no second inquiry was necessary. I made it clear that we on this side of the House who are Ministers take seriously the work of the Council on Tribunals. Indeed, I take it seriously enough.
  Immediately Lord Tenby wrote his letter in the Daily Telegraph, I wrote to him saying that I should like to hear very much what he thought I should have done, and asking whether I could see him, and whether we could arrange a meeting and have a discussion of the Packington case and the issues arising out of it. I rather suspect that that discussion will take place in an atmosphere of somewhat greater impartiality than we have had in the last three hours. I say that because it is ridiculous to say that there is any question of our not taking the Council's criticism seriously.
  I have reflected on it, and studied it ever since. In what I have to say I shall obviously be partly agreeing with it and partly disagreeing with it, but, above all, I shall be saying, and repeating, that I think that the question of the semi-judicial status of the Minister is one of the most difficult that he has to face. Any Minister will tell one that he will sometimes be right and sometimes wrong. Having listened to a collection of lawyers, as we have done this afternoon—my hon. Friend and I have been the only non-lawyers who have spoken—discussing and arguing the rights and wrongs here, I feel grateful that I am instructed to do my job alone, with nobody to advise me.
  1368
  This is the position that any Minister has to adopt.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter rose—
  Mr. Crossman: I cannot give way. I have been given very much less time to reply than I had expected. The right hon. and learned Gentleman took five minutes of the time that he had promised me. If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to intervene, I shall not be able to give a full account of the case.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: But the right hon. Gentleman insisted on speaking last, and he must at least give way. He said that I had misrepresented him in saying that he did not accept the recommendations of the Council. I would remind him that just after the passage to which he referred the report says on page 405:
  "But I am very clear in my own mind, after taking into consideration what the Council said, that the decision that I took was the right one."
  He was completely impenitent.
  Mr. Crossman: This is what the Council has never rejected. It has never said that the decision was not right. It has argued that there are certain points, to which we shall come, about whether objectors had been given their full rights or not. This is the only issue between me and the Council.
  The second issue—this is one about which I feel distressed—was the Council's sense that I had committed an act of discourtesy in taking a decision two days before my officials were due to meet it. I should like to start with that, because that is one of the things that I took most seriously when I heard about it. I should intensely dislike to feel that I had been discourteous to the Council. I reflected—with hindsight I can see—that it was bound to think that I had been intentionally discourteous in doing this. All I can say is that it was not intentional. Decision letters go out. I had already signed the letter about a week before, and it came out two days before that meeting. What is true—I emphasise this—is that it was a deliberate action. I will explain to the House why this action was taken by me in this case.
  I wonder whether the Council realises that, while it certainly put me in a position where I seemed deliberately discourteous, it by its own action put the

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  Minister in an extremely difficult position. It is one thing when the Council on Tribunals comments on procedure adopted when a decision has already been taken in a case. This process enables the responsible Minister to have the benefit of the Council's advice and to consider with it whether the system needs improvement, and how. No one can say that this post-decision examination of cases—this post-mortem on dead cases—is valueless. For example, the post-mortem on the Chalk Pit affair, which right hon. Gentlemen opposite have cause to remember, led to a tightening up of the rules governing the taking of fresh technical evidence after a local inquiry. That is the normal way in which the Council can be most helpful to us.
  It is quite another thing for a Minister to be faced with a complaint which the Council on Tribunals is taking cognisance of while he is still considering his decision on the case. This is a very different position for the Minister. I do not say that it does not often happen. Much depends on the nature of the complaint. If it concerns a trivial matter, it can probably be disposed of one way or the other without much difficulty. If, on the other hand, it is a matter of some gravity—if, for example, the Council were to draw my attention to some clear error of procedure, or some blatant injustice—I would, of course—any Minister would—take steps that were reasonable or practicable to put matters right.
  In this case, the Minister had neither something trivial, nor something blatant. The Council on Tribunals did not tell me in precise language what I should have done, but said, " We were worried that the objectors did not have a fair hearing". The Council did not suggest a way, but left it to me to think out some way in which the objectors could put their case. I shall later come to the point of what way, because everyone has to reflect on whether this could have been done in fact without a second inquiry. I will foreshorten the argument by saying that on my considered view it is quite unrealistic in this case to imagine that I could possibly have had either private conversations with some of the objectors or a semi-public discussion, because whatever I had done I would have unloosed a process which would have had to have ended in a public inquiry. The choice
  1370
  was between having a second inquiry or not. That is my personal view. I will substantiate it a little later.
  The difficulty was that while we were still proceeding the Council on Tribunals took cognisance of the objectors and began to take a keen interest and to question my officials. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warrington (Mr. W. T. Williams) pointed out, if this were to happen often, if it were the regular thing for a kind of interim injunction to be applied to a Minister by the Council, all any objector would have to do would be to put his case to the Council and the Minister would automatically be banned from proceeding with the case. That would be very serious, and I am sure that nobody wants that. In this case, the objection had started weeks before and if I had done what was asked of me, I should have had to have suspended the case pending clearing it with the Council.
  However, on reflection it is quite clear to me that issuing the judgment as we did two days before the Council was meeting my officials was something which could be interpreted as discourteous. I regret that it happened and it certainly will not happen again in that form as long as I am Minister. It was discourteous and we should not have done it. When Ministers make mistakes, they ought to say so. I admit the discourtesy, but a difficult issue was raised in which the course of a Minister's decision would have been held up because the Council was examining a case.
  I now turn to the second charge which is levelled by the Council and which concerns the drafting of the vital sentences in the decision letter. Perhaps I can let out a secret of Ministries. I do not disguise the fact that this part of the letter was written in my own fair hand and I bear full and total and personal responsibility for those sentences which I believe one could almost recognise to be mine by the fact that it was not a lawyer but a layman who wrote them—they were so intelligent, they were so intelligible, they were so sensible. They were blatantly those of someone trying to be, using the Council's own words, fair and impartial and above board.
  What they did was to spell out precisely what was in my mind, to say that this was not a simple issue and that

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  Islington Council, which saw nothing but the redevelopment of council houses, must not lose sight of what rehabilitation could make of Canonbury. Equally, the developers, the property companies and the residents said that they wanted Packington to be like Chelsea or Canon-bury, which must mean de facto that not one single person among the residents could live there, because the rents would be raised.
  An important social issue is thus raised in Islington. The social issue is simple. In Islington there are thousands of people on the housing list and there is very little room for houses. The council's job is to build houses for those on the housing list, and every time a part of Islington is turned into Canonbury, the area on which to build for those on the housing list is reduced. That is the real issue. It has not been thought about outside of the House, as here, by lawyers. It has been thought about by people who care passionately, by the preservationists and the amenity groups, on the one side, who want to save these Victorian houses at any cost and to transform them—and that can be done, for there is no slum which cannot be made beautiful if enough money is spent—and on the other side is Islington Council which, rather late in the day, has been converted—and I am glad to know of any such newly converted council—to the need for building council houses.
  The issue was sharp. Nobody would deny that rehabilitation would have meant that 100 fewer housing units could be built, and, as that means accommodation for 400 or 500 people, that means that one-third more people could be housed by the council's scheme than could be housed by rehabilitation. With more housing by redevelopment, more people on the council's housing list are housed, and not those who would be able to buy when the houses had been improved by the property developers.
  That was the issue which I tried to express when I wrote these words into the letter:
  "Any scheme which is to be acceptable must produce an environment which would justify the loss of the existing buildings."
  That was to say that the council should redevelop, but must not be ruthless about it, must not put into the area the iron
  1372
  edifices of industrialised building, but must build so that the environment of the area could be a proper mixture between redevelopment and rehabilitation and not be hopelessly one sided.
  I added on the other side:
  "The Minister would want to be satisfied that this result would be obtained before he would feel able to decide in favour of redevelopment against rehabilitation."
  Those are the key sentences which the Council on Tribunals selected to describe as badly drafted.
  With hindsight, I now understand what the Council meant. The right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames knows the problems of Ministers. Of course, it is true that if I had simply taken the inspector's report in favour of redevelopment and had signed on the dotted line and had told Islington to go ahead, no one could have challenged me. There would have been no debate today if I had been completely one sided and safely black and white and if I had not tried to indicate that this was a genuinely finely balanced judgment. I would not have had any problem and the Council on Tribunals, which asks me to be fair and impartial and open, would not have accused me of failing to be those things if I had just closed my mind and suppressed by own doubts and had simply told the objectors that Islington Council was to go ahead and not told Islington Council that it would have to be careful.
  Perhaps this is something about writing letters which I shall have to consider. Why did I write the letter in that way? I did so because I did not want to give Islington Council a blank cheque. I was not sure that it would undertake the redevelopment as well as it could unless I took special precautions to make it do a good job. Instead of doing what I normally would have done, which would have been to say, "You can have the planning permission as outline permission and we will look at the detail later", which would have given the council the go-ahead, I said, "I shall be even more careful and refuse Islington Council this plan on the ground that I do not have good evidence that it will undertake the redevelopment well enough."
  I decided to let the council draw up a new plan as fast as it could, and to be

  1373
  absolutely above board and overtly to write into the letter that I should be having private conversations with the G.L.C. and with the Islington Council, mentioning nobody else and making it clear that I did not think that we wanted another inquiry but that we wanted a decision and that once we could get what we wanted out of the council to make sure that it had considered the problems of redevelopment and the issues which my architects had listed, we could consult about the plan which it would put up to me, so that after six years—and this matter has been going on for six years—we could go ahead.
  This was all spelled out absolutely clearly in the letter. If it had not been spelled out in the letter, I would not have been hauled over the coals by the Council on Tribunals. If I had written the routine letter, which conceals the difficulties and which makes the issue black and white, there would have been no danger. One has to be careful when thinking about being helpful and impartial, and I may learn my lesson and not get into trouble again, because it is easy not to get into trouble by making the issues black and white. I honestly faced the difficulties and tried to do something rather difficult, which was to refuse Islington Council on its first application in order to get a better plan.
  What happened after that? Exactly what I said would happen. The council had the plans rejected and I said we would have consultations and we did. We only had one meeting with the G.L.C. Some complication occurred here because the dispute started between old Islington and the old L.C.C. By the time the planning inquiry took place, old Islington existed parallel with new Islington and the L.C.C. still existed parallel with the G.L.C. There was a new Minister, not parallel with the old one. Everything had shifted by half and by the end of the process we had a new Islington, the planning authority meeting a new G.L.C. of different powers with a new Minister.
  If there is a certain amount of fluffiness I do not deny that some of it is due to the shifting of the authorities. I was dealing with different people representing different things at different stages. I was now dealing with an Islington which had its own planning powers by which to enforce its own decisions if it wanted.
  1374
  The G.L.C., when approached, said that we did not need to talk because it did not now object. When the first inquiry took place a remarkable document was produced, and I wish that more Members would read the Inspector's report. It is a very good document and contains everything which one wants to know. In the first inquiry the fact that the L.C.C. was against the council was important. I had to take cognisance of the fact that the L.C.C. planning authority was against redevelopment. When it was reconsidered the G.L.C. said that it was not against redevelopment in any way and it waived its objections.
  What was the second thing I had to do? I had listed a number of things which had to be done to the plan to make it worthy to take the place of rehabilitation. I will not go through them all because there is a long list. I had to make sure that this was carried out. My officials went down and talked to the authority. Up till now we had not seen any plans or models so I had them brought into my office. We had our architects in and we made absolutely sure that all that we would require in Islington would be incorporated in the new plans when they were put up to us. There was a wonderful moment in the discussion when I was being challenged from the Opposition benches. Was this second plan a new plan or an old plan? It was new and it was old. It was the old plan revised precisely in the way I asked for it to be revised Every single point I had made was carefully covered. The reason I rejected the application at the beginning was to make the authority produce a plan which had everything covered. That is how we got it.
  Perhaps I have dealt sufficiently with the quotation, but here I disagree with the Council. Maybe it is author's pride, but I think that sentence is surprisingly clear and frank, open and impartial, and that is why it shocked the authorities so much, because it is unusual to see sentences of that sort in letters of this kind. I turn now to the substantial question of the right of the objectors. We had had a six-day inquiry in which thousands of words were spoken and which produced a report of some 25,000 words. The inquiry had been conducted extremely well. The case for rehabilitation was put by the insurance company and by the

  1375
  residents in an extremely able fashion. I have no doubt that they know much more about rehabilitation than Islington Borough Council. The case was powerfully put and there were no further facts for me to learn. They had all been established in the first inquiry.
  The facts were out. The second question was, if the facts are out, is there a right for the objectors to have a second round of protest and delay? Let us be honest about this—it is delay. I had to decide this. Nobody said that I had to give it to the objectors, everybody said it was within my discretion to give it to them. Now nobody says that I ought to have held an inquiry.
  I return to the point, if there is to be no inquiry, what do I do? If I choose the main objectors and exclude others I should be violating every kind of principle. I cannot pick and choose. If I have any objectors then the borough council must be allowed to come in and give its case, and before one knows it, one has an inquiry. This is the central point. I have been thinking about this ever since. How could I have done what the Council asked?
  Directly I saw Lord Tenby's letter I wrote to him and said that I wanted to hear from him, because it would be valuable for everyone if he could find a way of letting objectors have their say in a second inquiry without causing the appalling protractedness of the full inquiry process. I said that if he could find a way of enabling me to do this without violating all the rules, which are very narrow for a Minister, who cannot go on seeing everyone, I would certainly consider it.
  Mr. Eric Lubbock: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that if the town clerk had permitted objectors to have sight of the proposals they could at least have written to the Minister, so that their views could have been placed before him while he was considering the matter?
  Mr. Crossman: The hon. Gentleman has not been in the Chamber for long, but I am grateful because he has raised the point which a number of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen have also raised. It is my view that many local authorities
  1376
  would have put up a model of this thing in their town hall so that everyone could see it. I was angry when I saw that the town clerk had told the Council on Tribunals that he had no right to do it. He certainly was not told that by us. Old traditions die hard and this is, perhaps, part of a very old tradition which I hope the new Islington will get out of—secretiveness. Let us be candid. It is something it should have done, but this is not what the Council on Tribunals was talking to the Minister about. The Minister's job is to consider how, and I was not told precisely how, I could enable people to make recommendations and objections.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter rose—
  Mr. Crossman: If I could just finish a sentence before I am interrupted.
  One can certainly put up a model in the town hall, but the next question is what does one do when somebody says that they do not like it? How many people have to say that they do not like it before one suggests another inquiry? Generally, this is a sensible practice and I welcome councils doing it. In the case of Lavender Hill, in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod), the council took elaborate precautions to make objectors aware of what was going on. I do not think that that is what the Council on Tribunals was telling the Minister.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Is it not a fact that there was sent to his Department on 21st September the correspondence between the objectors and the town clerk at Islington on 16th and 17th September? In this correspondence a specific request was made to allow the objectors to be aware of what the proposals were. These were sent to his Department two months before the Minister took his decision. His Department is aware of this, but his Department, and himself, did not allow the objectors to be informed of the proposals, although they knew of the request.
  Mr. Crossman: It is completely untrue that we did not allow objectors to be aware of anything. What is true is that we made it clear [Interruption.] I do not conceal things from the House, unlike some hon. Members. We have made it clear that in the new and second planning permission we would have consultations.

  1377
  with the G.L.C. and others and we have not offered anyone else access. We had thought that there could be no inquiry. I have been spelling this out. We did not see how we could let the objectors come in and start arguing this without setting up a formal inquiry.
  This is the issue which I hope to discuss with the Council on Tribunals. I want to discuss with it how it thinks that this; can be worked out. I want to get this for a very special reason. It is because I sympathise with the objectors, on the ground that third parties sometimes genuinely represent the general public. If all appeals are just between the applicants, the council and the developers, the general public is sometimes squeezed out.
  I am very much aware of that. Not all third parties are like that, but there are some. I agree with the Council that these cases should be considered. We want to try to improve our procedures. All I would say as Minister is that no one has yet found a practical way of doing so. The Council is not able to tell me how I could do it. It is a bit harsh to be told that I have given the appearance of being unfair and non-impartial when all I have done is to carry out the procedure as best I can. Nobody has shown how, in fact and in practice, it could be done any better than I did it.
  These were the three points made. First, the question whether we should have published our decision letter two days before meeting the Council. I say that we should not have done. It was discourteous, and I should not allow it to happen again. Secondly, should I have written the piece in the letter. It was perhaps a little reckless and a little foolhardy of me as a layman to write something as frank and honest as that, but I feel rather hurt that I have been accused of lack of honesty in having done it. Thirdly, should we have allowed the objectors some unspecified way of objecting without an inquiry? The answer is, "Yes, if I knew one," but we did not know one and I do not think, since nobody else has discovered one, we can be blamed too much for not knowing one.
  In conclusion, I repeat what I said in my statement. When all is said and done, it was 1960 when this land first came on the market. It is now 1966, and still
  1378
  no stone has been laid—after six years. There must be a limit to the amount of time which we spend in these matters. I have listened to the debate for three hours and I am amazed that there has been virtually no reference by hon. Members opposite to the social issue involved. We were concerned with the issue of how to get houses and homes built in London. Whatever one thinks of Islington Council, that is what it cares about. That is what made it mad and feel frustrated by the other side.
  A Minister has not to be a preservationist on the one side or a council house builder on the other. In so far as he does this semi-judicial job, this is the part of it which he takes out of party considerations. I resent the fact that no fewer than three hon. and learned Members opposite implied that my decisions should be taken as expressing a general dictatorial view in the Labour Party.
  If this procedure is to work at all, the Minister's decisions must be removed from party matters. He must try to do his job. He lives in a very difficult world, surrounded by lawyers and a vast mythology of planning procedures. He has to be fair. Certainly I have tried to be fair. I am a preservationist. I am emotionally on the side of people trying to preserve if they can. But I know that I have to get the houses built as well. My bias is in favour of inquiry. I have a passionate belief in inquiry and discussion. But there comes a time when the inquiry must be brought to an end and a decision taken.
  The real lesson of Packington is that the planning inquiries took far too long. The procedures stretching over a period of six years were unbearably protracted. I want to ensure with the Council on Tribunals that the rights of third parties and of the general public are maintained. But there comes a point when the Minister has to balance the advantage of affording them a little more discussion and opportunity for protest with getting on with the job.
  I had no doubt in this case that when I obtained from the council the assurances for carrying out everything I ask, the time had come, at long last, when we had a workable plan for redevelopment and to say, "Let us go ahead with it". That is the reply which I would make to this Motion of censure.
  6.56 p.m.
  Mr. Eric Lubbock: I should like to make one or two comments on what the Minister has said. I wish to begin by apologising to him for not being present throughout the debate since I have been engaged on other business in the House. I was present, however, when he made his original statement to the House and I think I have listened to practically every word he has said this evening. There is one point which seems to be of great importance which I should like to raise before the debate concludes.
  The Minister has tried to lay the blame on the Islington council for not—
  Mr. Crossman: I made no effort to lay the blame on anyone. I was asked a direct question, and I had to give the factual answer.
  Mr. Lubbock: In answer to my intervention, the Minister said, quite rightly, that the council was at fault in not allowing the plans to be shown to the objectors and that in its letter of 17th September, 1965, which is quoted by the Council on Tribunals, it was incorrect in saying that because these fresh plans were under consideration by the Minister it was improper for them to be shown to the objectors. But the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) has pointed out that the Council on Tribunals forwarded copies of this correspondence to the Ministry as early as 21st September, 1965, whereas the Minister's decision on the second application was not notified until 23rd November, 1965. Therefore, he had plenty of opportunity to notify the Islington Borough Council that it should at least make available the plans so that
  the objectors could make written representations.
  While I think no one could disagree with the Minister when he says that this has been a very long drawn out matter and that it should be brought to a conclusion at the earliest possible moment, there is no excuse whatsoever for the Minister, first, to say that the initial plans did not satisfy him in respect of a number of criteria, which he said were much too long to read out to the House, and then that the objectors were not—[Interruption.] No; that is what the right hon. Gentleman says.
  Mr. Crossman: There were one and a half pages of foolscap setting out the criteria which we discussed before the hon. Gentleman entered the Chamber.
  Mr. Lubbock: I agree that there were too many things in this list which he objected to in the first scheme for it to be possible in a short debate to read them to the House. That is all the more reason why the right hon. Gentleman should have given objectors an opportunity to see whether these criteria were satisfied.
  I think that the Minister has given a very unsatisfactory explanation of his conduct. I hope that some hon. Members opposite who believe in freedom and who believe, as I believe, that planning procedures have to be made acceptable to the public—I do not think that everything done by local authorities should be done under cover of secrecy; everything should be open to the public so that they can make their views known—will come into the Lobby with me tonight.
  Question put:—
  The House divided: Ayes 285, Noes 290.

  Division No. 38.]

  AYES

  [6.59 p.m.

  Agnew, Commander Sir Peter

  Berry, Hn. Anthony

  Bryan, Paul

  Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)

  Bessell, Peter

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick

  Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

  Biffen, John

  Buck, Antony

  Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Bullus, Sir Eric

  Anstruther-Gray, Rt. Hn. Sir W.

  Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel

  Burden, F. A.

  Astor, John

  Black, Sir Cyril

  Buxton, Ronald

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Blaker, Peter

  Campbell, Gordon

  Awdry, Daniel

  Bossom, Sir Clive

  Carlisle, Mark

  Baker, W. H. K.

  Box, Donald

  Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Balniel, Lord

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. J.

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward

  Channon, H. P. G.

  Barlow, Sir John

  Braine, Bernard

  Chataway, Christopher

  Batsford, Brian

  Brewis, John

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Beamish, Col. Sir Tuffon

  Brinton, Sir Tatton

  Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

  Bell, Ronald

  Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

  Brooke, Rt. Hn. Henry

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos. & Fhm)

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Cooke, Robert

  Berkeley, Humphry

  Bruce-Gardyne, J.

  Cooper, A. E.

  Cooper-Key Sir Neill

  Hogg, Rt. Hn. Quintin

  Page, R. Graham (Crosby)

  cordle, John

  Hooson, H. E.

  Peel, John

  Corfield, F. V.

  Hopkins, Alan

  Percival, Ian

  Costain, A. P.

  Hordern, Peter

  Peyton, John

  Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

  Hornby, Richard

  Pickthorn, Rt. Hn. Sir Kenneth

  Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame P.

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Crawley, Aidan

  Howard, Hn. G. R. (St. Ives)

  Pounder, Rafton

  Crosthwaite Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

  Howe, Geoffrey (Bebington)

  Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

  Crowder, F. P.

  Hunt, John (Bromley)

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Cunningham, Sir Knox

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Prior, J, M. L.

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

  Dance, James

  Jennings, J. C.

  Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

  Davies, Dr. Wyndham (Perry Barr)

  Johnson Smith, G. (East Grinstead)

  Redmayne, Rt. Hn. Sir Martin

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

  Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

  Dean, Paul

  Jopling, Michael

  Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

  Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

  Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Robson Brown, Sir William

  Dodds-Parker, Douglas

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

  Doughty, Charles

  Kerr, Sir Hamilton (Cambridge)

  Roots, William

  Drayson, G. B.

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Royle, Anthony

  du Cann, Rt-Hn, Edward

  Kilfedder, James A.

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Eden, Sir John

  Kimball, Marcus

  Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

  Scott-Hopkins, James

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

  Kirk, Peter

  Shepherd, William

  Emery, Peter

  Kitson, Timothy

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Lagden, Godfrey

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

  Eyre, Reginald

  Lambton, Viscount

  Smith, John

  Farr, John

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Smyth, Rt. Hn. Brig. Sir John

  Fisher, Nigel

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles (Darwen)

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Speir, Sir Rupert

  Fletcher-Cooke, Sir John (S'pton)

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Stainton, Keith

  Forrest, George

  Litchfield, Capt. John

  Stanley, Hn. Richard

  Foster, Sir John

  Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

  Steel, David (Roxburgh)

  Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford & Stone)

  Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Stodart, Anthony

  Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Longden, Gilbert

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

  Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.

  Loveys, W. H.

  Studholme, Sir Henry

  Gammans, Lady

  Lubbock, Eric

  Summers, Sir Spencer

  Gardner, Edward

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn

  Talbot, John E.

  Gibson-Watt, David

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)

  Giles, Rear-Admiral Morgan

  Mackenzie, Alasdair (Ross & Crom'ty)

  Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

  Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, Central)

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

  Teeling, Sir William

  Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

  Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain

  Temple, John M.

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  McMaster, Stanley

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  Glyn, Sir Richard

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick

  Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)

  Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.

  Maddan, Martin

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Conway)

  Goodhart, Philip

  Maginnis, John E.

  Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)

  Goodhew, Victor

  Maitland, Sir John

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hn. Peter

  Gower, Raymond

  Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

  Thorpe, Jeremy

  Grant, Anthony

  Marten, Neil

  Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

  Grant-Ferris, R.

  Mathew, Robert

  Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Maude, Angus

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Grieve, Percy

  Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

  Mawby, Ray

  Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn, Sir John

  Griffiths, Peter (Smethwick)

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Vickers, Dame Joan

  Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

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

  Walder, David (High Peak)

  Gurden, Harold

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Walker, Peter (Worcester)

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Mills, Peter (Torrington)

  Wall, Patrick

  Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

  Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

  Walters, Dennis

  Hamilton, M. (Salisbury)

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Hamilton, Marquess of (Fermanagh)

  Mitchell, David

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)

  Monro, Hector

  Webster, David

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  More, Jasper

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

  Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

  Whitelaw, William

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Williams, Sir Rolf Dudley (Exeter)

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

  Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Murton, Oscar

  Wise, A. R.

  Harvie Anderson, Miss

  Neave, Airey

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Hastings, Stephen

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

  Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

  Hawkins, Paul

  Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

  Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

  Hay, John

  Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel

  Nugent, Rt. Hn. Sir Richard

  Wylie, N. R.

  Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Onslow, Cranley

  Yates, William (The Wrekin)

  Hendry, Forbes

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Younger, Hn. George

  Higgins, Terence L.

  Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian

  Hiley, Joseph

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

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

  Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

  Mr. Martin McLaren

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Page, John (Harrow, W.)

  and Mr. Francis Pym.

  Hobson, Rt. Hn. Sir John

  1382

  1383

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Freeson, Reginald

  Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield. E.)

  Albu, Austen

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Manuel, Archie

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Carrett, W. E.

  Mapp, Charles

  Alldritt, Walter

  Garrow, Alex

  Marsh, Richard

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Ginsburg, David

  Mason, Roy

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Gourlay, Harry

  Maxwell, Robert

  Atkinson, Norman

  Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice

  Gregory, Arnold

  Mellish, Robert

  Bagier, Cordon A. T.

  Grey, Charles

  Mendelson, J. J.

  Barnett, Joel

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Mikardo, Ian

  Baxter, William

  Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)

  Millan, Bruce

  Beaney, Alan

  Griffiths, Will (M'chester, Exchange)

  Miller, Dr. M. S.

  Bellenger, Rt. Hn. F. J.

  Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.

  Milne, Edward (Blyth)

  Bence, Cyril

  Hale, Leslie

  Molloy, William

  Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Monslow, Walter

  Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Binns, John

  Hamling, William (Woolwich, W.)

  Morris, Charles (Openshaw)

  Bishop, E. S.

  Hannan, William

  Morris, John (Aberavon)

  Blackburn, F.

  Harper, Joseph

  Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick (Sheffield Pk)

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Murray, Albert

  Boardman, H.

  Hart, Mrs. Judith

  Neal, Harold

  Boston, Terence

  Hattersley, Roy

  Newens, Stan

  Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

  Hazell, Bert

  Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

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

  Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

  Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby. S.)

  Boyden, James

  Heifer, Eric S.

  Oakes, Gordon

  Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

  Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret

  Ogden, Eric

  Bradley, Tom

  Hobden, Dennis (Brighton, K'town)

  O'Malley, Brian

  Bray, Dr. Jeremy

  Holman, Percy

  Oram, Albert E. (E. Ham, S.)

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Horner, John

  Orbach, Maurice

  Brown, Rt. Hn. George (Belper)

  Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Orme, Stanley

  Brown, Hugh D. (Glasgow, Provan)

  Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)

  Oswald, Thomas

  Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch & Fbury)

  Howarth, Robert L. (Bolton, E.)

  Owen, Will

  Buchan, Norman (Renfrewshire, W.)

  Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

  Padley, Walter

  Buchanan, Richard

  Howie, W.

  Page, Derek (King's Lynn)

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Paget, R. T.

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Palmer, Arthur

  Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

  Carmichael, Neil

  Hunter, Adam (Dunfermline)

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Hunter, A. E. (Feltham)

  Park, Trevor (Derbyshire, S. E.)

  Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Parker, John

  Chapman, Donald

  Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

  Pavitt, Laurence

  Coleman, Donald

  Jackson, Colin

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Conlan, Bernard

  Janner, Sir Barnett

  Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Pentland, Norman

  Cousins, Rt. Hn. Frank

  Jeger, George (Goole)

  Perry, Ernest G.

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Popplewell, Ernest

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)

  Prentice, R. E.

  Cronin, John

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Crossman, Rt. Hn. R. H. S.

  Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)

  Probert, Arthur

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  Dalyell, Tam

  Jones, T. W. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

  Randall, Harry

  Darling, George

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Rankin, John

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Redhead, Edward

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Kelley, Richard

  Rees, Merlyn

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Reynolds, G. W.

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter & Chatham)

  Rhodes, Geoffrey

  de Freitas, Sir Geoffrey

  Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)

  Richard, Ivor

  Delargy, Hugh

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Dempsey, James

  Ledger, Ron

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Diamond, Rt. Hn. John

  Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick (Newton)

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Doig, Peter

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Robinson, Rt. Hn. K. (St. Pancras, N.)

  Donnelly, Desmond

  Lever, Harold (Cheetham)

  Rodgers, William (Stockton)

  Driberg, Tom

  Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)

  Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

  Duffy, Dr. A. E. P.

  Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

  Rose, Paul B.

  Dunn, James A.

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Ross, Rt. Hn. William

  Dunnett, Jack

  Lipton, Marcus

  Rowland, Christopher

  Edelman, Maurice

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Sheldon, Robert

  Edwards, Rt. Hn. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Loughlin, Charles

  Shinwell, Rt. Hn. E.

  English, Michael

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Shore, Peter (Stepney)

  Ennals, David

  McBride, Neil

  Short, Rt. Hn. E. (N'c'tle-on-Tyne, C.)

  Ensor, David

  McCann, J.

  Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N. E.)

  Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.)

  MacColl, James

  Silkin, S. C. (Camberwell, Dulwich)

  Evans, Ioan (Birmingham, Yardley)

  MacDermot, Niall

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Fernyhough, E.

  McGuire, Michael

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Finch, Harold (Bedwellty)

  Mclnnes, James

  Skeffington, Arthur

  Fletcher, Sir Eric (Islington, E.)

  McKay, Mrs. Margaret

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)

  Small, William

  Fletcher, Raymond (likeston)

  Mackie, John (Enfield, E.)

  Snow, Julian

  Floud, Bernard

  McLeavy, Frank

  Soskice, Rt. Hn. Sir Frank

  Foot, Sir Dingle (Ipswich)

  McNamara, Kevin

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)

  Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W.)

  Ford, Ben

  Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

  Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael

  Fraser, Rt. Hn. Tom (Hamilton)

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Stonehouse, John

  1384

  1385

  Stones, William

  Varley, Eric G.

  Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)

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

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

  Stross, Sir Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)

  Walden, Brian (All Saints)

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Willis, George (Edinburgh, E.)

  Swain, Thomas

  Wallace, George

  Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

  Swingler, Stephen

  Warbey, William

  Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

  Symonds, J. B.

  Watkins, Tudor

  Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.

  Taverne, Dick

  Weitzman, David

  Woof, Robet

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Wellbeloved, James

  Wyatt, Woodrow

  Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  White, Mrs. Eirene

  Zilliacus, K.

  Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)

  Whitlock, William

  Tomney, Frank

  Wigg, Rt. Hn. George

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Tuck, Raphael

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Mr. Sydney Irving

  Urwin, T. W.

  Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  and Mr. George Lawson.

  COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOLS
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Grey.]
  7.12 p.m.
  Sir Edward Boyle: Before I say anything else this evening, I am sure that the whole House would like to say how much we regret the absence of the Secretary of State for Education and Science owing to illness, and how much we all of us here wish him a speedy recovery.
  The subject of secondary reorganisation is, I would say, attracting more attention than any other aspect of educational policy at the present time, and I think this is understandable, because, after all, the history of education in Britain has been in considerable part the history of these educational institutions which have earned for themselves a high standing by achieving traditions of excellence, and it is natural that very many people should ask whether those traditions will survive if the institutions themselves are all to lose their identity.
  There are two points I should like to make at the start which, I think, have been too often neglected in this whole controversy. The first is this. The National Plan shows clearly that the expansion of the education services over the next five years will be limited by an acute shortage of money for many essential tasks, and this especially applies to schools. The Government's plan for education, as stated in the National Plan, assumes that the expenditure on schools will rise less rapidly than that on education as a whole. I think the figures are 27 per cent. for schools between 1965–70, and 32 per cent. for education as a whole. This lower figure for schools is put in the National Plan despite the rising school roll, major shifts of population, and, of course, the commitment which the present Government
  1386
  have taken over from their predecessors to raise the school-leaving age. Well, this means that there must be a clearly established order of priorities; and we on this side of the House say—and we shall make this quite clear during the General Election—that the two foremost priorities must be, first, to increase teacher supply and, secondly, to devote more resources to the improvement and expansion of primary education.
  The right hon. Gentleman made a widely publicised speech on teacher supply last April. Since that date he has imposed a six months' moratorium on college building starts and taken credit for a college building programme for the next financial year which is actually rather smaller than the programme which I authorised for 1964–5. There has been no progress announced in this House regarding the all-important superannuascheme for part-time teachers.
  We heard a great deal at the last election, as my colleagues will remember, about the school building survey and the state of the primary schools. The National Plan states that there is going to be no money at all for primary improvements during the next five years. I should like to make it quite plain that we on this side are dissatisfied, as we shall show in the election, with the provision made in the National Plan for improvements to the primary schools.
  What are the other priorities? I will briefly mention three. I would say they are, first, restoration of the university and technical college building cuts and the provision of substantially more money than is provided for in the National Plan to cater for those who choose to stay in full-time education beyond the compulsory school-leaving age. We shall return, of course, to technical education tomorrow. Secondly, I would say there is the need to expand the special school sector to which the whole House

  1387
  agreed last Friday week; and, thirdly, the need to do more for the Newsom sector—the children in secondary schools of average and below average ability whose real interests have been largely overlooked and ignored in current controversies on secondary reorganisation.
  To imagine that we can have all these things and also achieve a new system of comprehensive secondary schools comparable with the best elsewhere in the world is just a piece of humbug. We in this country have a number of excellent purpose-built comprehensive schools, and I would say that all of us on this side are proud of them, particularly when they exist in our own local areas. I welcome the fact, for example, that in Birmingham, as the Joint Under-Secretary of State well knows, we have what I think is beyond any question just about the most successful purpose-built comprehensive school anywhere in the West Midlands. But even if there were no other considerations we would not ourselves on this side give anything like such high priority as the party opposite does to secondary reorganisation in those areas where existing schools already make adequate provision for a full range of educational opportunities. We just do not see how, on the priorities of the Party opposite, the primary schools are ever to get their proper share of resources.
  My second initial point is this. Let us remember that all over Britain during the past 10 years secondary opportunities have been steadily widening. It is quite true that in the past—I have often said this myself—many local education authorities, and, I think, public opinion generally, under-rated what many children were capable of achieving. Those of us who regularly visit secondary modern schools will know the growth in the numbers of children who can cope with algebra and achieve O-levels in subjects like general science, or gain from learning the use of a modern language. I think that in the past we very largely underrated the numbers of children who could do at any rate a part of the traditional academic curriculum, and that is very important when we want to make a reality of "secondary education for all."
  This, of course, has been happening, and it is really just absurd for people like
  1388
  Professor Townsend—and indeed, frankly, the present Secretary of State—to say that secondary education has been organised on the assumption that only a fixed proportion of children are capable of attempting G.C.E. Those who use that line of argument simply cannot have looked at the figures in the Department's current statistics. Between 1956 and 1963, not a very long period of seven years, the total numbers of G.C.E. O-level passes very nearly doubled, from, I think, 645,000 to 1,242,000. The total number of G.C.E. O-level passes very nearly doubled at a time when numbers in secondary schools went up by a third. That is a complete disproof of the idea that when we were in power, secondary education was organised on any assumption that the proportion of children who could do academic work was fixed.
  In Birmingham, the proportion of children in secondary moderns staying on until the fifth form rose from 3 per cent. in 1956 to nearly 20 per cent. in 1964. Those figures represent a number of influences: advice from successive Ministers, encouragement from Her Majesty's Inspectors, enthusiasm among local education authorities and also the growing aspirations of parents for their children.
  The point is that secondary education has not been at rest since 1944. In a real sense, we have been reorganising and setting our sights higher all the time, especially during the past 10 years. Think, for instance, of the tremendous task of getting rid of all-age schools, which was a particularly large task for the country authorities. I could not help feeling sorry for the County Borough of Salford, Lancashire, which was celebrating the reorganisation of its last all-age school on the very night that the right hon. Gentleman's circular arrived. It was a case of "back to the drawing board" with a vengeance.
  Certainly we agree that opportunity in secondary schools needs still further widening, and it is no part of our policy that the needs of a small minority of children should be satisfied at the expense of the rest. It is in line with that view that my own party will fight in Birmingham next May at the municipal elections on a policy advocating that every secondary school in the city should offer G.C.E. and C.S.E. courses to all children capable of attempting them.

  1389
  Having said that, where we differ sharply from the party opposite is over their belief that the only way to extend opportunity to every type of child is to compel every secondary school to provide for the whole range of normal ability. Let me speak clearly about this so that there is no question of a misunderstanding. The policy of the present Government on secondary reorganisation is based on an objective, namely, the complete elemination of all separate grammar and secondary modern schools, which is completely unacceptable to those of us on this side of the House.
  We believe that there are areas of the country—for example, scattered country districts and areas of new and expanding housing—that seem particularly well suited to a pattern of organisation that does away with the need for selection between different kinds of schools. I believe that the pursuit of any uniform pattern of organisation, and even any uniform age of transfer from primary to secondary, must be wrong. I disagree with those, like Professor Pedley, in Exeter, who take the line that ultimately the Government should not merely compel all authorities to get rid of all existing grammar and modern schools, but that only one type of comprehensive organisation throughout the country should be allowed.
  There is every reason for thinking that a great deal of flexibility and variety is the right course. There is really sense in the word "flexibility" when one is considering the different needs of different areas. We on this side are not committed to selection between schools as a principle. When there is selection, we want to soften its impact by putting off until the last possible moment any final decision as to what kind of course a boy or girl is capable of achieving. But we are committed to bearing in mind the performance of good existing schools and the esteem in which they are held. I am on record as having said, as I believe, that the fight to prevent the total abolition of selective schools, especially in our big cities, will be prolonged and bitter.
  I want to deal with two aspects of the controversy between us. First, I shall explain to the House why we oppose the Government's policy and, secondly, I shall deal briefly with some
  1390
  of the arguments that the Secretary of State has used in his speeches to justify it.
  We oppose the Government's policy because, in the first instance, the schemes of supporters of the party opposite for the big cities so often involve what I would call "botched-up" schemes, or in a more toned down Parliamentary expression, what directors of education have referred to as "excessive improvisation". A good school must normally be purpose-built. It is no substitute to take a group of existing schools, often separated by wide distances, and give them one head. As the House will no doubt remember, one of the most respected figures in the education service. Sir Alec Clegg, the Director of Education in the West Riding, just over a year ago referred to
  "the deplorable business of agglomerating a group of widely separated buildings and calling them a comprehensive school".
  He said
  "I have spoken to the heads of some of the best comprehensive schools I know, heads who have themselves run schools in separate buildings, and what they say is that it is almost impossible in such circumstances to develop a sound corporate spirit, that staff and pupils tend to develop allegiance to buildings, rather than schools."
  Mr. Ernest Armstrong Mr. Ernest Armstrong (Durham, North-West) I have followed the right hon. Gentleman's argument very closely. Would he not agree that at least 40 per cent. of secondary school children in the country today are having secondary education in schools that are not purpose-built?
  Sir E. Boyle: But not in schools which are the sort of agglomerations Sir Alec Clegg had in mind. In the first place, many of them, even if not purpose-built from the start, became purpose-built as the plans went along. One example is the Martineau comprehensive school in Birmingham, which was not exactly purpose-built from the start, but which was planned as a whole by the time that it was completed. I know relatively few secondary moderns which are agglomerations in the sense that a number of proposals have been put forward for big cities. I would have said to the Secretary of State had he been here that I hope that he will deal at least as severely with the Manchester plan as he dealt last year with the Liverpool plan.

  1391
  The truth is that the Secretary of State has asked local authorities to reorganise, but has not been in a position to promise them the money to do the job properly. It is important to remember that the cities which put forward plans that do not involve "botched-up" schemes nearly always fall into the opposite trap, or misleading exercise, of assuming quite unrealistic building programmes. The Birmingham plan, so far as it affects my own constituency, assumes six forms of entry being provided to build up existing schools, while two three-form schools are to be discontinued as county secondaries. The National Plan makes that expectation completely unrealistic and, anyway, the proposal of Birmingham ought not to have priority over more resources for the hard-pressed primary schools, bearing in mind especially the immigrant problem in Birmingham.
  The second reason why we oppose the Government's policy on secondary reorganisation is that we believe that the complete and unconditional abolition of all selective grammar schools involving the loss of identity of all those established schools of real quality, is bound to prove educationally damaging. I would link what I am saying to our Robbins objective. We have set our sights, rightly, on a larger proportion of young people going on to higher education. How can it be right to make it harder for a number of children to reach that objective than it is already?
  The Minister of State will agree with me that we want to see more sons and daughters of manual workers getting to university, but surely he must recognise the part that many grammar schools, both aided and maintained, have played in enabling children to overcome the handicaps of a poor district. It is no good pretending that an all-through comprehensive in a poor district will offer them the same opportunity. One of the curious illusions that persist, and it is a point which was made by the noble Lord, Lord James in a previous Session, is the belief that, if we have a comprehensive system, everyone will go to the same school. They will not. It is naive to suppose that comprehensive schools will all achieve "parity of esteem" in the way that secondary schools have not up till now. Some are bound to be more
  1392
  successful than others and to be more highly regarded by parents concerned with the future of their children.
  What bothers us on this side of the House is that in the absence of any selective schools, when a parent of young children is allotted a council house, its location in the city may well play a large part in limiting their educational future no matter how gifted these children turn out to be or how ambitious their parents may be for them.
  My third criticism—which is the most fundamental one, and I put it seriously to the Government—is this: do we really want an educational system in which there is no school provision save, on the one hand, completely non-selective State secondary schools, and, on the other, completely independent schools? I shall deal later with the question of direct grant schools. But let me make it clear that we on this side instinctively oppose any action by the central Government which says that "certain types of institution ought not to go on existing, not because they are bad, but because they are too good or because all children cannot benefit equally from them".
  In this context, although I did not agree with everything in it, I was interested in the article by Dr. Koerner in the Daily Telegraph. I agree with two of his points. First, he said:
  "There is a strong case to be made in Britain for maintaining multiplicity in types of schools, for avoiding massive standardisation, for leaving room for heterodoxy and choice and dissent, even within the State system. And surely there is an even stronger case to be made for the survival of those many schools, both independent and maintained, that have earned over many years a reputation for excellence, some of them the envy of half the world."
  That is exactly our case.
  What are the arguments—because I should like to try to meet them—which have been put by the party opposite? I think that the Secretary of State has relied in the main on three arguments. First, he says—and I believe him here—that he feels deeply that "separate schools exacerbate social division". I think that this is by far the least convincing of the arguments used by the Secretary of State, and I do not think that it carries a great deal of conviction.

  1393
  Dr. Koerner says:
  "First, comprehensive schools, because they are comprehensive, serve relatively small catchment areas precisely in those parts of the country where the problems of inequality are greatest—in and around cities…The social effect of such schools is to re-enforce rather than combat class consciousness.
  One can debate the causes and cures for this condition, but the immediate point is that neighbourliness between classes is not a function of the comprehensive school where neighbourhoods are themselves homogeneous."
  I find it impossible to believe that a policy of encouraging the provision of nothing but comprehensive schools will of itself cause our nation to become less socially divided.
  The Secretary of State's second argument is that separate schools involve a waste of human resources. Let me concede at once that if we had in this country, as it were, sharply divided separate schools—if there were no overlap at all between the standards at the bottom of the grammar, and the top of the secondary modern school—there would be substance in this point. It is very important indeed that the secondary modern, or county secondary school, should be sufficiently ambitious for those in the higher forms, just as it must never neglect those lower down—those who may need a different kind of curriculum and who must receive a proper secondary education also. But there is no reason why separate schools need involve a waste of human resources, so long as we recognise the need for an overlap in standards demanded of the lower forms of grammar schools and the upper forms of secondary moderns.
  The published statistics do not bear out the Secretary of State's assertions. If anyone does the exercise of grossing up the percentage of all children in separate grammar and secondary modern schools taking G.C.E., he will find that it is about 28½ per cent. The percentage of children in all comprehensive and bilateral schools taking G.C.E. is about 30 per cent. In other words, there is no sign from the figures as published, separate schools as we have them today are leading to a great waste of human resources, though I would be the first to insist that in many areas country secondary and secondary modern schools ought to be more ambitious than they are—and I have no doubt that it would be easy enough to find a number of comprehensive schools
  1394
  which are not sufficiently ambitious either. At any rate, on the figures available there is nothing to justify disrupting those sixth forms in the best grammar schools which are the envy of many parts of the world.
  Incidentally, I should like to answer the point which the senior Minister of State, if I may put it that way, made when winding up the debate in January last year. He said that if there was an overlap at all, it was really a sign that we ought to go all the way. I cannot see this point. I would rather put it the other way, and say that if we have separate schools—if we are going to maintain, as I believe we should, a number of selective schools as separate grammar schools—it is important to have an overlap. I cannot see anything wrong in the belief that secondary modern schools should provide G.C.E. opportunities for all those who can take advantage of them, while none the less disagreeing with the proposition that all our schools should try to cover the whole range of normal ability.
  The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. R. E. Prentice): I found two things wrong with that argument, and I still do. First, the logic of saying that there should be an overlap is that we go towards the comprehensive system if we believe that there should be equality of opportunity for those boys and girls who overlap in ability, as we know they do.
  Secondly, if we do not go all the way towards the comprehensive system, we are saying that we accept for a long time ahead two categories of school, one of which will be superior to the other, for which there will be a selection, with all the evils of the 11-plus and the effect on primary education, and so on, with which the right hon. Gentleman has not dealt.
  Sir E. Boyle: I am coming to the point about primary schools. Perhaps I might briefly reply to the hon. Gentleman on his first point. It seems to me reasonable to think that secondary modern schools today should be more like comprehensive schools than they were in the past, without believing that it is the right policy to eliminate grammar schools completely. That still seems to me a reasonable view to hold.
  I come now to the third of the Secretary of State's arguments—and I concede that

  1395
  this is the most persuasive one—where he says that he wants to lessen the early sense of failure. How far, in the areas of the country where secondary modern schools provide good opportunities, children in the schools—and their parents—think of themselves as failures is, I think, open to argument. But I would not seek to deny that this is an argument for a comprehensive approach, rather than for separate schools, in areas of new or expanding housing where one can plan ahead with a good deal of elbow room. I think that most of my hon. Friends would agree with that. Most of us these days would doubt whether it was sensible to plan in this sort of area on the basis of a bipartite system.
  But what bothers me about the Secretary of State's speeches on this subject is his apparent belief that if we advance towards the complete elimination of all separate grammar and modern schools everywhere there will always be, in social and educational terms, a net gain and never a net loss. It is this belief which we on these benches emphatically do not share.
  I think that the difference between the two sides of the House becomes focussed most sharply when we come to the direct grant schools—though a number of their characteristics, including their wide catchment areas, are also shared by a number of London aided grammar schools. We on this side of the House feel disturbed at the future of these schools. The direct grant schools are as important to the nation as the more publicised public schools, and they are faced with a far more immediate threat. The best that I can say about the party opposite in connection with the direct grant schools is that, however much we disagree with the Secretary of State, at least he has a clear knowledge of what is a direct grant school. One cannot say that with equal confidence about the winding up speech recently in another place. What are the characteristics of many of these direct grant schools? First, they have very high academic standards yet admission is in no way dependent on the accident of birth. The best of the direct grant schools—especially in the north of England—are good enough to attract a number of children who would otherwise go into independent
  1396
  schools, but they are also accessible to the poorest people. Secondly, they are schools within the State system, with representatives of a number of local education authorities on their governing bodies, yet they feel free in a way that a maintained school cannot feel free. Thirdly, these schools achieve a social mixing in a way in which a neighbourhood comprehensive school would not.
  Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that he could add to the list of advantages the fact that in the north of England, especially in industrial towns, teachers can be attracted to that part of the world, away from the lush pastures of the South, who would never go there unless they had the opportunity of teaching the very agreeable material which the direct grant schools attract.
  Sir E. Boyle: I am coming to the question of teachers. My hon. and learned Friend gives me an opportunity of saying that we in the South tend to forget that there are not all that many independent schools of high prestige in the North, and that direct grant schools play the part of the best known independent schools in the South.
  Most people would surely feel that a school which provides opportunity, on merit, for the poorest, brings State education and private education closer together, and achieves true social mixing, is a type of school to foster. It must seem crazy to observers from overseas that it is these schools that the Secretary of State has described as having had a "warning shot across their bows". Of course, I am not against some measure of compromise. I should certainly advise a direct grant school to come to terms with a local education authority which preferred to take up places at 13 rather than 11. My impression of direct grant schools is that they are very ready to reach a reasonable settlement on their methods of entry.
  But how can an outstanding academic school select without employing selection? And if a direct grant school feels that it cannot accept the terms of a local education authority obedient to the wishes of the Government, and decides to go independent, what possible social or educational purpose will the Government have served? Is it not obviously

  1397
  better that some children should get publicly-provided free places at these admittedly very good schools than that none should?
  Anyway, as my hon. Friends and I shall make clear during the election campaign, we would far rather see a number of first-class independent schools become direct grant schools than the other way round. More generally, are we really to regard "choice" and "selection by merit" as dirty words? I know that relatively little choice exists at present for many parents, but why on earth should that be regarded as a reason for eliminating such choice as we now possess, can retain, and can extend? I expect that many Members have read a very interesting report on school selection in London, which appeared in yesterday's Guardian. It said:
  "Last summer the parents of all children transferring from primary to State secondary education in the Inner London area chose a school. Eighty-five per cent. of the children went to first-choice schools."
  [Interruption.] I said in 1963 that I thought that the London decision had dealt the old-fashioned 11-plus examination a mortal blow.
  "Moreover, now that the scheme's ramifications have been studied in depth it is clear that comprehensive schools have not lost out at every turn to London's remaining grammar schools. The continuance of grammar schools does, of course, pose problems for administrators attempting to avoid the concentration of too much talent; but under free choice the comprehensives generally fared better than expected."
  In that case, why should not London grammar schools and comprehensive schools be allowed to exist side by side? Many of us know both types of school. I have no time for anyone who wants to run down London comprehensive schools as a category. I have been honoured by being invited to present prizes in a number of them, and have visited a number of London grammar schools. They are different types of school. I warmly admire the work done by the London grammar schools. But I have been no less impressed—and no less attracted—by some of the finest comprehensive schools and I am thinking especially of some of the assessments of values I have heard made by the heads of these schools at speech days in their school reports.
  I believe that there is room for both types of school in a city the size of
  1398
  London. I have little doubt that in 20 years' time we shall have considerably more comprehensive schools than exist today, and rightly, but that we should also be regretting any decision that had been taken earlier to limit the categories of school that can find a place in our system.
  As for "selection by merit", I am impressed by the number of people I meet—sometimes supporters of the party opposite—who want to see rather more social equality in education than in the past, and yet, equally decidedly, do not want to see all the grammar schools disappear.
  The fact is that we are short of educational resources. We need to use our existing resources as economically as possible and we need to attract first-class brains not just into teaching but into school teaching. It is no good revolutionising maths teaching and science teaching, as we are doing, unless schools can also recruit first-class staff who will want to spend at least some of their time teaching viable sixth form groups to the highest level. We simply cannot afford any let-up in the quality of our sixth form education, and the danger to sixth form standards is one of the most serious risks inherent in the drive to eliminate all selective schools.
  It is for these reasons that we find the objective of the present Government—the complete elimination of all separate grammar and secondary modern schools—unacceptable. We fully agree that any pattern of secondary organisation must extend opportunity to every type of child and not just to a minority, but we do not believe that a totally comprehensive system, in which no other type of school is allowed is the only method of extending opportunity to those who should have more of it, and we think that it will positively reduce opportunity to many children who have hitherto enjoyed it. It is our view that a system of priorities in the education service, and of putting first things first, need not impair social justice nor forbid an expansion of good comprehensive schools; but not everywhere, and above all, not on the cheap.
  It is for those reasons that we have asked for this debate this evening, and we find ourselves sharply differing from the policy of the Government as laid down in the preamble to their Circular 10/65.
  7.49 p.m.
  Mr. Trevor Park: The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle) will forgive me if I do not immediately follow him in the matters of which he has spoken, although I hope to touch upon them later. I want to begin with a declaration of interest which is also a statement of my qualifications for intervening in the debate. Prior to becoming a Member I spent the whole of my adult life as a teacher, first of children and then of adults.
  I was educated in a direct grant boys' grammar school, and after graduating from university I became a teacher in a local authority mixed grammar school for several years. After a spell as a W.E.A. tutor, I was a lecturer for four years in the extra-mural department of the University of Sheffield immediately before being elected to the House. It is against this background of educational experience that I speak tonight.
  I want to make a confession at the outset. I have not always been a supporter of the comprehensive principle. I was a Socialist and a member of the Labour Party long before I became an advocate of comprehensive education. My conversion to it was not so much an expression of political conviction as the result of educational experiences. It was a conversion reached as a teacher first and a Socialist second.
  As a grammar school teacher, I soon became aware of the substantial number of children who were not primarily suited to the rather narrow academic form of education which grammar schools provided about 10 years ago, children who would have been much happier and whose achievements would have been much greater if the opportunity had existed for them to take courses of a more technical or practical bent. Such opportunities did not exist at that time in the school in which I taught, although I understand that the situation has changed since. They still do not exist in many of our grammar schools.
  At the same time as I was becoming aware of these problems on the part of a not insubstantial number of grammar school children, my secondary modern teacher colleagues were telling me of their awareness of the problems of late developers—of children who had not been
  1400
  selected for grammar school education at the age of 11, but who later showed a great aptitude for that form of education which had been denied them. As a tutor in adult education, my impressions and experience were immensely reinforced. I had among the students in my classes coal miners, steel workers, housewives and shop assistants. I suppose that the vast majority of them could have been labelled 11-plus casualties, yet many of them showed a capacity and an enthusiasm for study which, if they had been given the opportunity earlier, would have led to the highest academic honours. The frustrations, the unhappiness, the monstrous waste of talent in these cases were the results of an unfair and ineffective selection system.
  We must recognise that this is what is at stake in the subject we are debating tonight. It is a basic conflict between two different educational principles, I might almost say between two different philosophies of life—the separatist principle, which is enshrined in the tripartite system, and the comprehensive principle, which seeks to eradicate and to overcome weaknesses of the system as it has been known in many areas since 1944.
  The separatist view, as Dr. Pedley rightly says, is dominated by the philosophy that life is a race with limited prizes for a fortunate few. It is a philosophy of restriction and limitation. Its conclusions are that the weakest must go to the wall and it is based essentially on applying the precepts of jungle law to the lives, experiences and opportunities of school children. That is the basis—hon. Members opposite cannot escape it—on which the tripartite system lies. We, by contrast, think that all children and, for that matter, all adults are basically of equal worth and are equally deserving of such aids to personal growth as we can give them.
  I hope that hon. Members will forgive this brief return to first principles. The party opposite increasingly appears to be trying to evade them whenever the question of comprehensive education arises. Hon. Members opposite are no longer willing to stand up and be counted as being opposed to comprehensive schools on principle. They seek instead to prevent their being introduced by means of a highly devious and somewhat discreditable rearguard action."Yes",

  1401
  hon. Members say, "you can have your comprehensive schools, but we must preserve the grammar schools intact."
  As a former grammar school teacher, I believe that all that is best and most worth while in grammar school education can not only exist within a comprehensive system, but can, indeed, flourish and take advantage of opportunities which today's grammar schools do not possess. The great thing about grammar school education is not the possession of a school badge or a school cap, but a particular outlook on or an attitude to the matter of learning. That can exist within a wide, comprehensive umbrella just as well and can extend itself so that its advantages can be: claimed by more and more people than if it is restricted as it is at present. I believe that the child matters more than the school. It is to the needs of the child that our educational institutions, be they grammar, secondary modern or comprehensive schools, ought to be shaped.
  Another argument which the Opposition sometimes put forward is that we can have comprehensive schools, as long as we do not interfere with the freedom of local authorities to decide their own forms of educational organisation. Of what freedom do they speak? Judging by their record in office, it appears that the party opposite champions a very one-way type of freedom.
  Local authorities, they would say, are free to keep things as they are, but if the local authority wants to change the system and to develop a comprehensive approach then, on their record when in power, the attitude of the party opposite would seem to be that that freedom ought to be withdrawn—[HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."] Yes, Conservative Governments time after time placed difficulties and obstacles in the way of local authorities who wished to develop the comprehensive principle—
  Mr. William Hamling: The Opposition Front Bench apparently denies what my hon. Friend just said. Is it not within his recollection that a previous Conservative Administration denied the freedom of London to incorporate a grammar school into a comprehensive school? What freedom was that?
  Mr. Park: My hon. Friend is right and other examples could be given from other parts of the country—
  Sir E. Boyle: As we are on the subject, I would say that, if the hon. Member would look at the record he would find that the present Secretary of State has had considerably more disagreements with local authorities on their comprehensive plans than ever I had between 1962 and 1964. Let me make it clear that I do not disagree with his decision in regard to Liverpool and Luton, but I do not recall one single occasion during my whole two years when I had a sharp disagreement with a local authority over reorganisation.
  Mr. Park: I think, then, that the right hon. Gentleman's memory is not as accurate as I thought it might be. Many local authorities could tell a very different story.
  I will turn to another of the arguments deployed by Conservatives on this question. It was deployed by the right hon. Member for Handsworth earlier this evening. He said that one can have comprehensive schools, but that they should be purpose-built and not take the form of the reorganisation of existing school buildings. There are many schools, not comprehensive schools, but secondary modern and technical schools, which were never purpose-built.
  If we are to wait until such time as we can build in every local authority area, a comprehensive system of purpose-built schools, the right hon. Member knows very well that we should have to wait a long time. What is happening again is that, not daring to make a frontal assault on the comprehensive principle, not daring to put themselves forward as the champions of selection and segregation, the party opposite is seeking to use more devious means. It would be more honest and courageous of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and I would have more respect for them, if they said what they really mean; that they want to preserve inequality and privilege in the world of education because they also want to preserve inequality and privilege in the world outside the schools.
  Circular 10/65 leaves to local authorities very wide degrees of discretion in the forms of reorganisation which

  1403
  they choose to adopt. Paragraph 46 states:
  "The Government are aware that the complete elimination of selection and separatism in secondary education will take time to achieve. They do not seek to impose a destructive or precipitate change on existing schools. They recognise that the evolution of separate schools into a comprehensive system must be a constructive process, requiring careful planning by local education authorities in consultation with all those concerned."
  This is not an attempt at revolution by compulsion, but an endeavour to obtain reform by agreement. If hon. Gentlemen opposite really seek a bipartisan approach to this issue—and many of the speeches made by hon. Gentlemen opposite, including that of the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg), in the debate last year, expressed that wish—they can achieve it on the basis of this circular. If we can obtain this approach, all well and good and we will be satisfied. But if we cannot, then the responsibility will lie where it should lie; with the party opposite, on its representatives on local authorities and in the House.
  On 21st January last year the then Secretary of State for Education and Science declared his wish to proceed in this matter by agreement. I am sure that all hon. Members accept that this is infinitely the better way of going about it. But if the negative and obstructionist tactics of some Tory-dominated local authorities make it necessary, I trust that the present Minister will not hesitate to ask for legislative powers.
  Mr. Angus Maude: It strikes me as a somewhat odd bipartisan policy which the hon. Gentleman is representing to the Opposition. What sort of bipartisan policy is it which says that so long as we agree with changes to the comprehensive principle, even when we believe they are wrong, that is all right, but that in no circumstances must his party yield an inch in the comprehensive system, even when local authorities want to?
  Mr. Park: It is no different from the bipartisan approach which was being put forward by the party opposite 12 months ago.
  Mr. Maude: Answer.
  Mr. Park: I hope that the more responsible elements in the party opposite—and I include the right hon. Member for Handsworth among them, although in view of that last intervention of the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) I do not know whether I should include him—will exercise all their influence to make legislation in this field unnecessary. However, if they do not do that, and if legislation must be brought in, the House and the country will know where the responsibility lies.
  8.4 p.m.
  Mr. Harold Gurden: What we have just heard from the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Park) about bipartisan policy follows closely on the ideas of the Prime Minister about unconditional surrender in other spheres. That and nothing else, is the sort of bipartisan policy the hon. Gentleman understands.
  The tragedy of the policy of the Government today is that the all-party agreement which we have experienced for so many years in education has to go. This was stated in wiser terms by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) in January of last year.
  Mr. Park: Would the hon. Gentleman explain how he distinguishes his concept of bipartisan policy from a Tory policy?
  Mr. Gurden: My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle) clearly said that he is not a biggot in these matters and that he is prepared, where they are absolutely justified, to have comprehensive or any other types of school as long as they are good for education. That I consider to be bipartisan policy. The hon. Gentleman's argument, on the other hand, was for the further and continuous improvement of secondary modern schools and—
  Mr. Park rose—
  Mr. Gurden: That was the logic of his argument, although he defeated himself when he said that he deplored the fact that children could not get into grammar schools.
  Mr. Park rose—
  Mr. Gurden: I have given way enough at this point in my speech. The hon.

  1405
  Gentleman may have an opportunity to intervene later.
  When he was opposing the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth he seemed to forget what most hon. Members recognise—that my right hon. Friend probably has better knowledge and experience of the subject than any other hon. Member. I should have thought that my right hon. Friend's policy was acceptable to the vast majority of enlightened people and that it should form the basis of the only truly acceptable policy on this issue.
  The best forms of education are, I believe, those which offer advances for each child according to his ability and not simply those which adjust a child's opportunity to the advancement of others who may be limited in capacity. This is what the comprehensive system means—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—and the basis and strength of our system in the past has been that it has been administered by local authorities. Our whole educational system and policy has been interpreted by local authorities and we have not had doctrinal direction from Whitehall instead of local advice.
  There is abounding evidence in some situations to show that comprehensive schools could do harm to the existing schools. This is the strength of my right hon. Friend's argument, for there is equally evidence to show that, in some situations, comprehensive schools would do no harm to the existing schools. As has been said, in certain areas one type of school could gain from another.
  All hon. Members will surely agree that a good comprehensive system needs a vast building programme. In that case it would be ideal. Yet, as we see in the Birmingham proposals now put forward in response to the circular, that is completely out, and Birmingham has been driven to proposing a system which would not include any great building programme. Further, if we are not to have purpose-built schools for comprehensive education, the problem of staff movements and requirements will be aggravated.
  We now know that money is the trouble—it always is in education. On these matters, the National Union of Teachers agrees with what I say. I would not consider the N.U.T. to be exactly a 100
  1406
  per cent. Conservative organisation, but its spokesmen have said the same thing. If it is finance that stands in the way of the policy of the party opposite, what are the priorities? The Government have so often told us in this Parliament that with them priorities count more than anything else, so perhaps they can tell us what their priorities are for this change of policy in secondary education.
  Is secondary education the top priority? If so, what about other things? Where does primary school building come in? We must all recognise at once that that aspect ought to be high on the list. What about further education? What about teacher-training colleges? The universities, too, have suffered a severe blow. What about the technical schools on which, surely, the Government's plans must depend very much if their National Plan means anything at all? What about the money that will be required to expend on the capital equipment necessary to take care of the higher school-leaving age to which, I believe, both parties are committed?
  We have now reached the point where we can no longer ignore the fact that we are up against political ideology. It is argued on a false premise that selection at 11-plus produces an absolute necessity for comprehensive schools. That is nonsense. Because the present selection system has been found to be faulty in many respects it does not mean that we can be rid of selection. Selection comes to all of us in life, whether we like it or not, and no political party can remove it from life, nor remove it from education.
  The question is, at what age and in what form do we have selection? Selection need not be considered harmful at all. We know from experience that it can be a challenge to a child, even at the age of 11, as is proved by the late-developers. Those children have accepted their late development as a challenge, and have shown that they can meet it.
  There is no reason to suppose that a reasonably satisfactory system of selection cannot be evoked, perhaps not at the age of 11, but at some other age. [HON. MEMBERS: "how?"] I will tell hon. Members. I recently went to a secondary modern school in Birmingham, where I found that several children had been taken into local grammar schools after

  1407
  the age of 11 simply because the headmaster had found them to be late developers. They had come along very well, and by some arrangement, about which I did not ask, the headmaster had been able to get them into grammar schools. That is only an example of what can be done.
  Accepting that selection is the way of life and cannot be taken away by any political ideology, let us realise that some children never will, and will want never to, join the intellectuals. They do not want that way of life. They are happier doing the more moderate jobs. This goes on throughout the world, and always will. Some children do not want to be intellectuals. They have no desire to do more than learn the ordinary things.
  I am sure that if there were more debates on educational matters during elections, we would then find this dictatorial imposition of the party opposite turned down. The public at large do not want to see this direction from Whitehall. It has been shown in local government elections that local electorates want their locally-elected people to decide whether or not they should have x number of comprehensive schools, or more direct-grant schools, and the like.
  The real aim of the party opposite is to get rid of grammar schools and direct-grant schools, and ultimately to do away with any form of independent school. After all that I have read, seen and heard I am convinced—and it was supported basically by the hon. Member for Birmingham, All Saints (Mr. Walden) when I debated the subject with him in Birmingham, when he convinced me, if I ever needed convincing—that this is the hidden threat about which we are talking immediately prior to the election.
  8.18 p.m.
  Mr. Ernest Armstrong: We all have different views of what we mean by it. I was surprised that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle) should have concentrated so much on the achievement of the secondary moderns in the O-level sphere, because I know that he agrees with us that when we talk of education we are not just talking academic attainment.
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  The argument about the comprehensive principle and the development of secondary education has been concentrated far too much in the narrow academic field. We tend to compare the different schools on the basis of their achievements at O-level and in external examinations. I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman when he claims that all is well because in secondary modern education every school in the City of Birmingham has to offer O-level to all its pupils. This is a waste of talent. It is a good argument for the comprehensive school. My hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Education and Science, in Durham on Saturday, said categorically that we believe that the local authorities must retain their freedom and their independence and that we do not envisage a centralised system of education with direction from Whitehall. That is not in our minds at all.
  I remind hon. Gentlemen that education is not carried out in Curzon Street, or even in the office of the local director of education. It is carried out in the school, in the classroom, through the confrontation between the teacher and the taught. Here we are dealing in a sense with the framework of education and not with its essence when talking about the reorganisation of secondary education.
  The right hon. Gentleman talked about opportunities for the children of manual workers in the system of direct grant schools and State grammar schools. When I was a small boy, I heard about the common land system and enclosures not at school, but in a class to which my father, who was a miner, took me. That class met each Thursday and read journals like Hibberd's Journal—which has gone out of existence—and John O'London's Weekly.
  These men worked very hard in the mines. They had a culture of their own and they knew about their heritage. In a sense, modern education, through the grammar schools, has taken such men out of the community. They now go into the professions and are divided, whether we like it or not, from their fellows.
  This is my main reason for criticising the system that has existed in this country. We call it a tripartite system, but it is really a bipartite system. We must remind ourselves, first of all, that

  1409
  the system is unjust because it selects and that however we select—and we have given great care to the process—we select some who should not be selected and leave out others who should be. We all know that, in our grammar schools, there are a tremendous number of youngsters who are in the wrong type of school. Crowther reminded us that 48 per cent. of children with an I.Q. of 120 and 87 per cent. with an I.Q. of between 108 and 120—that is, above average intelligence—left school by the age of 16. There is a waste of potential under the present system and no one can deny it.
  We all pay tribute to the grammar school, but, in a sense, it is a closed school and entry is by what we call "measured intelligence". But what are we measuring? We know that, however much care is taken in the preparation of the tests and the recommendations by the teachers, which are the best forecasts, it is very difficult to decide. I was reminded by the right hon. Gentleman that if people believe in grammar schools they believe in selection. Parents are against selection. I have not heard anyone on an election platform defending it.
  Whatever criteria one uses, if one selects, those who are not selected feel that they are rejected. If we have a grammar school we must also have some other kind of school to which those who are not considered good enough academically can go—and with the best will in the world this is really the issue we must face when talking about selection and the grammar schools.
  Mr. Christopher Chataway: The hon. Gentleman is making a most persuasive speech and is setting out what he considers to be the central issue. Does he really think that the youngsters who go to comprehensive schools in London all feel themselves selected because they do not happen to be in grammar schools? Does not his argument conflict with the statistics given by my right hon. Friend, showing that 85 per cent. of London children are able to go to schools of their first choice?
  Mr. Armstrong: I accept that there are varying degrees in different parts of the country and that in London, in certain parts, apparently, there are those who choose comprehensive schools. I am equally certain that in other parts of the
  1410
  country many parents choose grammar schools which are regarded locally as being schools where those of the top ability range attend. But even if 85 per cent. are satisfied, that still leaves 15 per cent. In many parts of the country, the selection involves only 15 per cent. and the other 85 per cent. are not accepted for grammar schools.
  Mr. Hamling: Is my hon. Friend aware that many of the parents of children in grammar schools in London are objecting because they do not want the children to mix with what they call "failures" who have gone to other schools?
  Mr. Armstrong: I want to come to that issue soon.
  First, however, I want to deal with the so-called measuring of intelligence. Whatever we measure has nothing to do with the human qualities that go to make mature men or women. We are not producing all that we ought to produce, if I may put it that way. We are not the sort of society that all of us feel we should be—not because our people have not the "know-how" and not even because we fail in intelligence. It is because of the system we have had of trying to identify the elite and to give them a superior education while not caring too much about the sort of education the rest receive. Fortunately we are getting away from that attitude to some extent now.
  Sir E. Boyle: I apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman again. He is, I agree, making a very attractive speech on this, but I think that we on this side would agree that the advantage of having a number of separate grammar schools is precisely that we do get away from that situation. We fully accept that separate grammar schools only make sense morally provided that we extend opportunity in the widest way to all children in the modern schools according to their abilities. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the Newsom sector is important, but it has to be proved that they really get on better in comprehensive than in good modern schools.
  Mr. Armstrong: I accept that we have had arguments about priorities and the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) talked about them. John Vaisey,

  1411
  in a recent article, said that, on average, a boy or girl in grammar school gets 185 per cent. of the resources allocated to the boy or girl in the modern school. We like to talk of equality of opportunity, but in fact, down the years, the grammar schools in most local authority areas have had the majority of the resources.
  In the pamphlet "Secondary Education for All", which was published by the last Administration, I remember that it was indicated that in certain rural areas, and certainly in the new towns where there was not a long-established grammar school, a comprehensive school might be accepted. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Handsworth. In Sunderland, when I was chairman of the education committee and he was the Minister, the right hon. Gentleman authorised a comprehensive school which is now so successful that we are going all comprehensive without very much opposition from anybody. We are grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for blazing the trail.
  I should have thought that we could offer some limited kind of choice. In education, whether we like it or not, when we talk about choice we cannot have every parent in the country having complete freedom of choice as to the location and the type of school. A good deal of nonsense is talked about freedom of choice. I thought that the right hon. Member for Handsworth was not his usual self tonight. He is so eminently fair on most occasions, but I know that an election is coming. The fact is that no two schools are alike. I do not know the London comprehensive schools well, but I have visited a number of others and I know some very intimately and I find that the truth is that a school depends far more on the headmaster than it does on the name given to it.
  I see comprehensive schools developing strongly in one direction and another school strongly in another direction and I cannot see why, particularly in the conurbations, there should not be some choice—and I think that this is coming. In one borough one will have one school where the classics may well be the forte of that school because of the influence of the headmaster and certain outstanding members of the staff. In
  1412
  another school engineering may well be the strong subject. In Sunderland, there is a school where nautical engineering is taught. There can be interchanges, and why should there not be? There can be flexibility and local experiments. I am sure that I speak for the Department when I say that this will be encouraged. There is no question of Curzon Street sending a circular and saying that a comprehensive school will be organised in such and such a way. Headmasters will retain their freedom and we shall have greater flexibility than has been suggested tonight. In the past, our schools have had much too narrow a purpose in their outlook.
  The grammar school, after all—and this is certainly true in the area where I live—was a remarkable gateway of escape. It was the only gateway of escape in that area from the pit. It was a preparation for the professions, and so on. I read with great care the book on preparatory schools which I suspect has been sent to all hon. Members. The preparatory schools are a preparation for the public schools. I do not suggest for a moment that they do not do all sorts of other things as well. I look forward to the time when all our secondary schools will be open schools, in the main neighbourhood schools, and will be involved in local life.
  This is what schools should be. They should not have a narrow purpose with sights fixed on particular universities, and so on. There can be local experiment and flexibility within the comprehensive principle, and I hope that the local variety in English education, which has been its strength, will remain its strength in the new system.
  I know that the Department would not follow me here, but I believe that until all our children come within the State system we shall continue to have the sort of conditions which we now have in State schools throughout the country. This is why I believe that the Department has been right to make known now what it believes should be the organisation of secondary schools. I think that the right hon. Member for Handsworth knows, and I suspect that the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway) who is to wind up the debate for the Opposition knows, that the decision will have to be made by the

  1413
  local authorities, whatever Curzon Street says.
  One factor hindering comprehensive school development today is the number of new three-form and four-form entry modern schools which have been built since the war. Local authorities must make up their minds now. We know that it will not happen overnight, but every building coming forward in the next few years will have to fit into some sort of scheme. Whatever is built, we are either moving towards the comprehensive system or making it more difficult.
  So long as people, for any reason, be it measured intelligence or the ability to pay, can contract out of teacher quotas and the evils of an inadequate supply of staff—surely, the most important thing in education—or the restrictions which seem to come upon education from time to time, from both Front Benches, if I may say so, then those who are able to contract out tend to be less concerned and less passionate about the state of the rest of the system. This is why I am in favour of an all-in system.
  I support comprehensive schools because I believe that we must, somehow, turn our backs on an education system which has always envisaged success as getting to the top of the ladder and winning one of the few prizes available. We have to remind ourselves that all our children, wherever they will work and whatever their talent or lack of it, must, somehow or other, co-operate together, and their education must be a broad highway along which all of them will travel. We must get away from the idea of advancing or getting beyond one another simply because some of us seem to have more intelligence than our friends. This is why I feel so strongly and passionately on this matter.
  I am sure that the Government are on the right lines. I hope that educationists throughout the country will argue this question on an education basis, not a political basis. Our system of education is the most important part of our government; indeed, it determines our system of government.
  8.38 p.m.
  Mr. Anthony Berry: With the aims which the hon. Member for Durham. North-West (Mr. Armstrong) expressed for our children in his concluding
  1414
  remarks I am in full agreement, but I did not follow him in the ways which he suggested for attaining those aims.
  Looking round the Chamber now and remembering that it is 14 months since we last debated this important subject, I cannot help noticing that there are several hon. Members present who took part in that debate. It was a momentous day in English political history. Earlier that day, I made my maiden speech, and, later on, my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Buxton) was elected to the House. I was followed on that occasion by the hon. Member for Wrexham (Mr. J. Idwal Jones), who paid me the usual courtesies and, as a fellow Welshman, made them sound very genuine. Today we have had words from the Midlands and from the North, and I think that it is time now that we had a word from London. I hoped that I would evoke a "Hear, hear" from the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling) at that, but perhaps it was too much to hope.
  In that debate, I followed the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Bagier), who must be a near neighbour of the hon. Member for Durham, North-West, and he had said that his area had just adopted the comprehensive system. In following him, I observed that, although I though that in a great city like Sunderland there must be excellent grammar schools, Sunderland, no doubt, had good reasons for adopting the comprehensive system, but in other parts of the country there were equally good reasons for not adopting it.
  The main reason for my wishing to intervene in the debate today is to reiterate remarks which I made that evening about my own constituency which are again pertinent at this moment. My constituency of Southgate, is part of the London borough of Enfield. Last night the education committee approved a plan to impose the comprehensive system in the borough. The background to that decision is that nearly two years ago a Labour majority was elected to the council—by 31 to 29. The number of Labour representatives was quickly made up to 43 as a result of the Labour Party taking all 12 aldermanic seats, and it was that majority which imposed the decision last night.
  The proposal is that the system should start in September, 1967. In May, 1967,

  1415
  there should be the local elections, but if the Labour Party has its way those local elections will be put off for another year, in which case the electorate of the Borough of Enfield will have no opportunity of expressing an opinion whether they think the system is good or not. I cannot believe that hon. Members on both sides of the House who have education at heart would take very seriously the imposing of such a system in what can only be described as an extremely undemocratic way.
  In changing over in this way, we are dealing in something which is far more important than goods, manufactured products and so on. We are dealing in human lives, and I do not think that they ought to be treated in this way. It is true that over the past year there has been an examination of the whole secondary education system in the area, but just because the headmasters and masters of the schools gave their opinions in answer to questions that they were asked, it is wrong to claim that they were necessarily in favour of the new system, which is what is being suggested. I should have been much happier if I had felt that the parents had been properly consulted, but I know that they were not.
  If the system is imposed, where will the comprehensive schools be? They will be in the existing buildings of the present grammar and secondary modern schools in the area. There is no question of new buildings because there is no money for them, and, anyway, there is no space. What money is available should, I think, be used for improvements to the old schools, of which many are in considerable need. To join together these schools, some of which are a mile or a mile and a half apart, and call them one comprehensive school is a complete negation of our approach to education. Other arguments are used to suggest that the comprehensive system is a very good one. Social equality is mentioned. I think that some of our American friends, who are far more knowledgeable about what has happened there than we are, have destroyed that argument fairly successfully.
  Recently a school mistress friend of mine in London made some inquiries of
  1416
  teachers living and working in the London area as to what types of school they sent their children. In the case of the 60 teachers questioned, nine of the children were going to comprehensive schools and 51 to grammar schools and other types of school.
  Mr. Hamling: What does that prove?
  Mr. Berry: It proves that the teachers themselves think that the grammar schools are better.
  I am glad that the hon. Member for Woolwich, West interrupted me, even from a sitting position, because it gives me a chance to say a word to him. I remember that in the course of my maiden speech I referred to a mock election held in Southgate during the last General Election campaign, and during my remarks I said that the result of that mock election had been the same as in the General Election. The hon. Gentleman then said "Hear, hear", which rather puzzled me, because what I was intending to refer to was the result of the General Election in Southgate, with the Conservatives coming first and the other parties well behind. I take this opportunity to correct him and to assure him that what Southgate thought at the last General Election the whole country will think at the next one.
  Mr. Hamling: Wait for it!
  Mr. Berry: It has been a long time, but it will be worth it.
  I have intervened in the debate to give what I can only describe as an up-to-date example of the way in which the comprehensive system is being imposed. I respect the views of hon. Members opposite, many of whom have far more experience of education than I, but there are many aspects of the problem and many parts of the country which are suited in different ways. At this time, we are still waiting for the Plowden Report, and various fact-finding surveys, which the Ministry originated, are going on. There are also what my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle) described as the growing aspirations of parents. All these are reasons for not imposing but for examining the system further before we make such a major change in the lives of our children.

  1417
  The hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Park) said that it was the child who mattered. It is precisely because it is the child who matters that we cannot afford at this time to tamper with his future in this way.
  8.46 p.m.
  Mr. J. Idwal Jones: By a strange coincidence, I have the privilege once again of following the hon. Member for Southgate (Mr. Berry). It is nearly 40 years since the publication of the Hadow Report on the Education of the Adolescent, and we are still waiting for a sound system of universal secondary education. Twenty years have gone since the 1944 Act and it is time that the country made up its mind on this all-important issue. We have had an experiment lasting over a period of 20 years and I am bound to say that in some fundamental respects that experiment has broken down.
  After the 1944 Act, we had the tripartite system, which some called the bipartite system, with the new school—the secondary modern school. If allowed to develop in its own way, the secondary modern school might have been a success, but, unfortunately, it was not given parity of esteem with the grammar schools. Consequently, its image was debased and we are now facing the problem of having to evolve a new system of universal secondary education.
  We hear people, and hon. Members opposite especially, championing the cause of the grammar schools. I was a pupil of a grammar school which was founded in 1575, and of which I am proud. I am glad to say that it is to be a comprehensive school in the near future. Had those championing grammar schools been so ardent in championing the cause of the secondary modern schools in the last 20 years, we might have had a different story, but the secondary modern schools were not championed. It was the children of the secondary modern schools who had the rawest deal, and let us not forget that they represent 75 per cent. of the adolescents.
  They were taught in Victorian buildings never meant for secondary education. Since 1945, 75 per cent. of the adolescents of this country have passed through buildings of that kind, with
  1418
  inferior equipment, inferior classrooms and inferior school buildings generally. The greatest indictment came from the Crowther Report, which admits quite clearly that these children had the worst deal in our educational system. I know the work of secondary modern schools and I have a high regard for the work which the teachers in them are doing.
  As a nation, we have committed two errors in the system of secondary education during the last 20 years. The first was that of trying to economise on the education of our children. This was particularly so in the case of the secondary modern schools.
  Mr. Maude: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not overstate his case. He was talking about 75 per cent. of all children going to schools like this. That may be so in Wales, but has he never been in one of the hundreds of post-1945 secondary schools in England?
  Mr. Jones: I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman does not know the facts. The position in Wales is better than that in England. When I am championing the cause of secondary schools, I am championing the cause of these schools in England much more than in Wales.
  We have also laboured under a mistaken educational theory in the same period. We have sought to divide children into two types, academic and non-academic and we have further thought that we could divide them into 25 per cent. academic and 75 per cent. non-academic. The children have suffered under this mistaken educational theory. I know that all children are not of the same educational ability. I have been in schools for far too long to think otherwise. But the all-important point which we too often forget is that while children vary in ability they also vary in the rate of development.
  That is why the 11-plus examination has broken down. I have seen very bright children who have begun to slow down after a period in adolescence and other children who are slower at the start, but develop with great rapidity later. We have thought that by a system of selection and the 11-plus we could decide which were the academic types and which the non-academic types. But it did not take into account the

  1419
  varying rate of development; and so the system has broken down.
  Because of the breakdown of this system, because of the fallacy of this educational theory, we find our secondary modern schools trying to correct the situation by preparing children for the G.C.E. Had the 11-plus been a success then there would be few failures in the grammar schools, and it would not have been necessary for the secondary modern schools to prepare courses in G.C.E.
  Mr. Maude: What a futile argument.
  Mr. Jones: As one who has been in the schools, I think that I know what I am talking about.
  Mr. Hamling: The hon. Member opposite does not.
  Mr. Jones: But I do.
  Today, the grammar schools prepare their pupils for the G.C.E. The pupils who do not make the grade will in the future prepare for the Certificate of Secondary Education. The secondary modern schools are also preparing their pupils for the G.C.E. and the C.S.E. The result is that the middle wall of partition between these two types of school is being eroded. There is only one answer to that, and that is the comprehensive system.
  The whole conception of education needs to be revised and reconsidered. Segregation at the age of 11 is wrong. A school should be a reflection of the community in which it is situated, and the school itself should be a community. There are different abilities, interests and achievements in a community. In a school which functions properly there is room for all types of ability. One boy may not be able to do his Latin or French, but he might be an excellent gardener, and that is an achievement in itself. Other boys may do well in the woodwork department or the metalwork department. Some girls may do well in needlework or domestic science.
  They may not get their G.C.E., but they have their part to play in the school community. In a school which is a community every child is respected and has a place, because he is regarded by his fellow pupils as a fellow pupil. It is by creating the community spirit in the
  1420
  secondary schools that we shall establish the basis of a sound democracy for the future.
  8.58 p.m.
  Mr. John Astor: I listened, I hope attentively, to the hon. Member for Wrexham (Mr. J. Idwal Jones), and indeed to previous speakers, but I have not heard any educational advantages put forward for the comprehensive system in practical terms of the type of courses offered, the staffing, and so on.
  Mr. Hamling: I could give some.
  Mr. Astor: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity, if not tonight at some other time, to put them forward.
  Like my hon. Friends, I agree that comprehensive schools can perform a very useful function in certain places. But I am not persuaded—and this is a rash assumption for hon. Members opposite to make—that their claims are so superior to the existing system that they justify jettisoning a single good grammar or modern secondary school, let alone the whole system of education as it has developed.
  I hope that the Minister who answers the debate will enlighten us a little on the educational advantages of the comprehensive system. I suspect that he may be a little light on information, because the Secretary of State recently set up a research project to evaluate the qualities of different types of comprehensive systems. My first point, therefore, is that before any Government are justified in imposing a comprehensive system throughout the country they should prove their case on educational grounds, which I do not believe has been done.
  I am very concerned with certain aspects of Circular 10/65, because it will result in a diminution of standards, at least among the schools in the better areas. The hon. Member for Wrexham said that the secondary modern schools in Wales were very good. I assure him that we have some very fine modern schools in Berkshire which I should be delighted to show him.
  The results of the circular to which I have referred will be bad in two ways. First, it will throw up many unsatisfactory interim schemes and a substantial

  1421
  number of unsatisfactory long-term schemes based on types of organisations which the circular admits are inferior. I know that the circular is only a request to local authorities, but I believe that quite a lot of them are interpreting it as an instruction to produce a scheme of some sort. They feel that they must produce a comprehensive plan willy-nilly, whether it is good or bad.
  I can quote an example of a recent case. A working party which was presenting its proposals for an area was asked whether it was satisfied that the educational advantages of the scheme which it was putting forward outweighed the educational advantages of the existing facilities. The somewhat surprising reply was that the working party had not given serious consideration to this aspect of the problem. It is a serious matter that people are going ahead producing schemes which may be thoroughly injurious.
  In general, therefore, I hope that the Secretary of State will discourage interim schemes. They are most likely to be unsatisfactory makeshifts. They will cause two upheavals, very often quite unnecessarily, because the population in many places is increasing rapidly and if an area decides to go comprehensive, it can go over to the orthodox comprehensive system in a few years' time by showing a little patience and omitting the interim period, in which, I am sure, there is no need for haste. I hope that the Secretary of State will not insist upon undue haste in his desire to abolish separatism.
  Bearing in mind that there will be no extra money specifically for going comprehensive, it seems necessary that many local authorities will have to adopt a two-tier system. Unless the Plowden Committee recommends a change in the school transfer date, it is inevitable that a two-tier system would involve a two-year course either in the junior or in the senior school. Most people would agree that that is thoroughly undesirable from the point of view both of the pupils and also of the staff in those schools. We have heard very little about the staffing of these schools this evening. It will be extremely difficult to attract good quality teachers to go into a school which is, in effect, only a staging post in children's careers.
  1422
  The fact that some working parties utterly reject the two-year course in a junior school and others equally emphatically reject it in a senior school shows that the very concept of a two-year course is unacceptable on educational grounds. It is true that the Plowden Committee may reduce the disadvantages of a two-year system, and, incidentally, if it suggests an alteration in the school transfer date, it will make nonsense of many of the schemes which are being prepared.
  Direct-grant and aided grammar schools have a special difficulty, even those which are prepared, as some of them are, to co-operate as far as they can with the local authorities. With a two-or three-form entry, it is virtually impossible for a grammar school, which is geared to a particular range of courses, to adapt itself to take in the full range of ability over the full period from 11 to 18 years of age. Naturally, these grammar schools are reluctant to see their sixth-form standards in any way lowered. The only way in which many of these schools could co-operate is by vastly increasing their intake, which requires additional money.
  I should like to ask the Minister of of State a specific question about which there seems to be doubt in the minds of many local education authorities. It may be that an aided school would be willing to adopt controlled status so that the local authority could finance it. If, however, such an aided school had recently undertaken a building project of its own, partly on borrowed money, would the local authority be within its legal rights in assuming responsibility for the indebtedness which was still outstanding?
  The quality of existing grammar schools has often been emphasised and it does not need re-emphasis. Not enough attention, however, has been paid to the very much changed standards of the secondary modern schools. They are often ignored and usually underestimated.
  Mr. Albert Murray: Will the hon. Member be sending his child to a secondary modern school? If not, which school will he go to?
  Mr. Astor: Where I send my child is my own affair. I am one of those people who defend the right of anybody to do what hon. Members on either side are

  1423
  perfectly willing to do—to spend their money on their children's education rather than on bingo or anything else. I think that that is a perfectly good right.
  A great deal of harm has been done to the secondary modern schools by the way in which they have been denigrated—partly by the public, who may not be aware of the facts, but still more reprehensibly by hon. Gentlemen opposite who are always criticising them. In fact, in the areas where we have new secondary modern schools the reputation which they have gained locally, and the degree of confidence and pride which they have established among pupils and parents, is quite amazing. Great credit ought to be given to the staffs of those schools who have built them up in this way.
  Authorities who provide for overlap in the standard of their secondary modern schools—overlap between the secondary modern and the grammar schools, coupled with arrangements for transfer from one to the other, are already providing a comprehensive education and ensuring, what is important, that every single child has the opportunity to develop his or her talents to the full.
  Where these arrangements are working satisfactorily, as they are in many parts of the country—I agree, not everywhere, but in many parts—I would plead with the right hon. Gentleman not to try to impose a series of botched-up schemes which would inevitably have the effect of reducing the standards of education for all those children.
  9.7 p.m.
  Mr. Christopher Chataway: My hon. Friends on the back benches have argued—quietly, I think I may say, and persuasively—some of the difficulties which have become apparent in their own areas as a result of the Government circular. I wonder whether the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Park) really believes that those who have reservations about a policy of 100 per cent. comprehension are simply motivated by a desire to retain inequality and privilege.
  Mr. Park: Yes.
  Mr. Hamling: Yes.
  Mr. Chataway: "Yes" says the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling).
  1424
  Well, he must find an awful lot of evil around him, because there is no doubt that there has been growing anxiety over Government policy. The Guardian, which, perhaps, hon. Gentlemen opposite will accept is a paper which is not always hostile to their point of view, and which certainly has over the years argued very consistently for the comprehensive cause, supporting a large number of comprehensive schemes, on 8th January this year, in a long and important leader, had this to say:
  "There is surely a developing case for pausing, rethinking, drawing up a more co-ordinated, more carefully evaluated programme, based on detailed economic assessment".
  I believe that as a result of the months which we have had to watch the working of the Government's circular this is a view which is becoming more and more widespread.
  I think there is anxiety on three grounds. First, about the educational objective of that circular an objective which, I think, may fairly be described as a 100 per cent. comprehensive system in which the only selective schools to be tolerated would be schools for the educationally sub-normal and the handicapped. Secondly, I think there is anxiety about the timing of Government policy, and the time scale which has been laid down by it. Thirdly, there is some anxiety and even some rejection of the rather grandiose talk that Ministers are continually producing to accompany a Government policy which is giving a lower priority than their Conservative predecessors to the expansion of educational expenditure.
  I want to deal first with the point about resources, because it is absolutely crucial to the debate. In the National Plan, the Government look forward to a 32 per cent. increase in educational expenditure over the five-year period. That compares with an increase of more than 40 per cent. in educational expenditure over the first five years of the 1960s, the five years for which my right hon. Friends were responsible. At the same time, during their first 17 months of office the Government have had to cut back on the building of teacher training colleges and universities. That is at a time when the Government have made it clear that they consider that there will be slower rate of growth

  1425
  in education than previously. It is a time of scarce resources.
  By urging a universal comprehensive reorganisation at a time when the Government are giving a lower priority to educational expenditure, inevitably they are providing an incentive to local education authorities to produce unsatisfactory schemes—the botched-up schemes to which so many of my right hon. and hon. Friends have referred. I hope that the Minister of State may be able to tell us something about one or two of the more unsatisfactory schemes that are under consideration at the moment in the Department. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle) referred to the Manchester proposals. They are, as I am sure the Minister of State will agree, as unacceptable as was most of the Liverpool scheme, and I hope that he will be able to tell us that they will be rejected as well. I know that there is anxiety in London about the proposals that have been put forward by the London borough of Brent, which again is an unsatisfactory scheme if ever there was one. I hope that he will be able to give us some information about that.
  That, then, is the first ground of anxiety about Government policy. They are full of exhortation to local education authorities but are not producing the funds to go with the kind of policy that they are urging upon them.
  In the same leader in The Guardian it was said about the speech of the Secretary of State at the North of England Education Conference earlier in the year:
  "Mr. Crosland was long on moral principles and painfully short on both basic essentials for a truly coherent national policy; that is to say, long term guidance and financial resources."
  The second set of reservations, to some of which my right hon. and hon. Friends have referred, relate to the timing of the scheme. If one is going to carry through a major reorganisation of secondary education, with all the upheaval that it is bound to produce, it is essential that one should at the end of the day have a relatively stable arrangement that will last for some time. I believe that many of those who are the most passionate believers in a comprehensive system would not want to see carried through now a reorganisation
  1426
  which has to be altered again in a few years' time.
  It is for that reason that the Government were wrong to insist that local education authorities should draw up their schemes at the present stage, before the Plowden Committee has reported. If Plowden recommends that the age of transfer be changed to 12 or 13, which is what all the information that we have suggests is quite likely, local education authorities will be required to change their schemes once again.
  There is also, I think, a growing realisation that it may not be possible to raise the school-leaving age in 1970–71. If one looks at the capital figures in the National Plan, I believe that one is bound to entertain serious doubts about whether this Government, if they were in power then, would be able to raise the school-leaving age in 1970–71. The Minister of State shakes his head, but the facts as set out in the National Plan are that on the capital side, for school building, over the five-year period there is to be an increase from £105 million in 1964–65 to £138 million in 1969–70.
  At first sight that may seem a reasonable figure, but when one looks at the way in which it is divided, I believe that one may well come to the conclusion that raising the school-leaving age in 1970–71 will be almost impossible. Out of the £105 million for 1964–65, £30 million was for school replacements, and hon. Gentlemen opposite know that during 1964–65 they felt that there were many schools which ought to be replaced, but which did not find a place in the programme, particularly primary schools.
  When we come to the programme for 1969–70, we see in the National Plan that £99 million will be required for basic needs, and £33 million for raising the school-leaving age. This will leave nothing for replacing old and inadequate schools. Is it really conceivable that for most of the period from now until 1969–70 the public, the schools and the local education authorities will be satisfied not to have any old schools replaced? Is it really conceivable that in 1969–70, for that one year alone, one could have a situation in which virtually no old primary schools could be rebuilt or replaced? I believe not. In that circumstance, there is inevitably a good deal of speculation about the certainty of

  1427
  the date on which the school-leaving age will be raised.
  Mr. Park: I am following the hon. Gentleman's argument very closely. I would be grateful if he would make it clear whether he is now saying that a Conservative Administration would not raise the school-leaving age as planned, or whether he is saying that a Conservative Administration would be prepared to raise taxation in order to provide more money?
  Mr. Chataway: What I am saying is that on the basis of the National Plan I find it difficult to see how the school-leaving age can be raised in the year that we plan, and I believe that if those figures are adhered to, and the reduced rate of increase in educational spending is maintained, there must be serious doubts about this.
  With those doubts, and particularly with the doubts about the age of transfer, it seems to be the gravest mistake to require local education authorities to produce their full plans for reorganisation by July of next year. Many of my hon. Friends know that local education authorities have found it an appalling burden to have to divert resources and staff to the preparation of these plans when, in many cases, they simply have not the evidence on which to work.
  Most of the anxieties and misgivings which have been expressed today relate not to timing, or even to the resources which have been made available for this policy, but to the policy itself, to the objective of a 100 per cent. comprehensive system in which the only selective schools to be tolerated are the special schools. I have yet to hear any convincing educational arguments for doing away with all the grammar schools.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth gave the House some statistics about London. He showed that at the moment 85 per cent. of children in London were able to be placed in schools of their first choice. Some hon. Members said, "This still leaves 15 per cent. who are rejected." Surely, if we have a 100 per cent. comprehensive system there is likely to be a fair number of children who will want to go to a comprehensive school that is already full. There must be a fair number of
  1428
  those who have to accept a second choice, even in London, who at the moment put down a comprehensive school as their first choice.
  In this situation, what are the arguments against co-existence. I have in my constituency two excellent aided grammar schools—the Prendergast Grammar School for Girls and the Colfe's Grammar School for Boys. I do not believe that many comprehensive schools in the area would argue that if those two schools were to be maintained it would be impossible for the comprehensives to have adequate sixth forms. That is an argument against having 20 per cent. or 25 per cent. of children going to grammar schools. I understand this argument from the comprehensive point of view. If there is that kind of proportion it may be impossible to run adequate sixth forms in comprehensive schools.
  In New York City, where a largely comprehensive system exists, 7 per cent. of the children go to selective schools. I wonder whether, if hon. Members opposite had the task of running the education system of New York, they would seriously set about abolishing the Bronx High School for Science, or the Stuyvesant High School. Those are two of the outstanding schools in the United States, just as some of our selective schools are outstanding here.
  It is very odd for those who believe in the comprehensive system to argue that no grammar schools can remain. One of the arguments that we have heard tonight for the comprehensive system is the inaccuracy of the 11-plus examination. If hon. Members opposite believe in the inaccuracy of the 11-plus examination or in any later system of selection, it is not open to them to say that if we have 10 per cent. of children going to grammar schools they would be selected with such deadly accuracy it would not leave enough able children to give the comprehensives a large enough sixth form.
  If there is an argument against the retention of grammar schools in this situation, I hope that the Minister of State will put it forward. I shall be grateful if he can tell me why direct-grant grammar schools should not remain in an area where they are taking perhaps 5 per cent. or 7 per cent. of the children and

  1429
  why, in my own area, every grammar school must go, despite the fact that we have comprehensives which are gaining in popularity and acquiring an excellent reputation.
  My right hon. Friend has spoken about the direct-grant grammar schools. It was most unfortunate of the Secretary of State to say that he had "fired a warning shot across the bows of the direct-grant grammar schools". I suppose that we can forgive this descent to the type of Walter Mitty language that we normally associate with the Prime Minister when it comes from a member of a Cabinet that is busy reducing the Navy—so we gather from the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew)—to the status of a sitting duck. I suppose that is a form of compensation. But it is hardly surprising that the direct-grant grammar schools are deeply disturbed about the prospect facing them.
  My right hon. Friend has spelt out in some detail the advantages of those schools. They are a bridge between the maintained and the independent systems. Nobody will deny that many of the direct-grant grammar schools are institutions of the higest academic excellence, or that they have been responsible for giving opportunities to young people from all social classes. In the article by Dr. Koerner to which my right hon. Friend referred, this American educationist, who is certainly no opponent of the comprehensive schools, describes himself as shocked and horrified by the Secretary of State's cannonade against the direct-grant grammar schools. He makes the point which ought to be understood and considered by the Government Front Bench—that, in the United States, with a totally comprehensive system, there are many comprehensive high schools with a narrower social range than is contained in the direct-grant grammar schools.
  None of us on this side of the House has sought to argue that comprehensive schemes are always wrong. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hands-worth has, I believe, a reputation for impartiality in this sphere. He has never pretended that all the arguments are neatly stacked on one side or the other. There are some good arguments for comprehensive schools and there are some bad arguments. The only
  1430
  thing which can be said about most of those arguments is that they do not apply to every part of the country.
  But the worst argument of all is the argument of social equality. There is very little reason to believe that we should have a more equal society if we had a 100 per cent. comprehensive system. One has only to think of most of our major cities to realise that, if we had only neighbourhood comprehensive schools, our educational system would be likely to resemble that of the United States. The United States, after all, is almost alone in having a long experience of comprehensive schools and one is bound to look at its experience.
  I believe that many, of the comprehensives which we have developed in this country are better than the majority of high schools in the United States, but one thing which they are bound to have in common in the big cities is that they will be primarily neighbourhood schools, drawing from their own neighbourhood. I doubt whether many hon. Members opposite who advance the simple, extreme case for a totally comprehensive system have really envisaged the difference which would be likely in social composition between the comprehensive school in the poor area and the comprehensive school in the rich area—
  Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: Surely it is exactly the reverse. Should it not be driven home very plainly that the Shoreditch comprehensive draws entirely on Shoreditch, whereas, if one had a comprehensive school in Chelsea which drew entirely from Belgravia and Chelsea, this would present the reverse of the picture. The people in Chelsea and its neighbourhood are middle-class and upper middle-class type who would be delighted to send their children to a comprehensive school because it would enable them all to come from the same neighbourhood. Those coming from Shoreditch would represent exactly the reverse picture. The reverse will be achieved. I am with my hon. Friend, but he ought to take this to its logical conclusion, which is that hon. Members opposite will get the reverse of what they think.
  Mr. Chataway: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. There is, of course, a danger

  1431
  that, with their present policy, the Government will defeat their own objects in this respect. This was the point to which I was coming. If we are to have a 100 per cent. comprehensive system, if the direct grant schools are to be required to conform to that policy, what will be the result? In the State sector there will be neighbourhood comprehensives. Of the direct grant grammar schools, some of them, will be drawn in to become neighbourhood comprehensives. More will go out into the independent system and there will be an absolute cleavage between independent schools, on the one hand, and State secondary schools on the other.
  The Government will almost certainly give a great impetus to private education and the number of independent secondary schools will expand. There should be five major objectives in this sphere. First, one should encourage comprehensives where they make sense. This is our view, we did this when we were in power and we will do it again. Secondly, one should broaden opportunity for all children. The hon. Member for Wrexham (Mr. J. Idwal Jones)—who has, unfortunately, left the Chamber—seemed to take it as generally accepted that comprehensive schools were always the right answer for Newsom children, but it is significant that the Newsom Committee came to no such conclusion and, at various points, suggested exactly the opposite. There is a fair measures of agreement about the kind of policies that are needed to widen opportunities for children of average and below average ability. We have got some way, but only a small way, in this matter. The most important objective of all in relation to the Newsom child is more staff and better staff to expand the supply of teachers.
  Thirdly, we want to widen choice. Of course, we all accept that the area of choice is limited for a lot of parents, but this is no argument for saying that one should, therefore, do away with what choice remains. To widen choice is, I believe, not only democratically right but educationally right. All research is tending to show that educational improvement is due as much to the parent as to the child. If we are to involve the parent more in his child's education, we must give to the parent a greater measure of
  1432
  choice in regard to that child's educational future.
  Fourthly, we want to enable local education authorities to keep the best of their selective schools, to keep their best grammar schools, and I believe that there is no valid argument against that course. This will certainly involve keeping those direct-grant grammar schools which have made such a great contribution to our secondary education. I also believe that, in time, many of the independent schools will wish to become direct-grant grammar schools.
  Fifthly, the Government must accept the mixed system. Whether or not we like it, we are going to have the mixed system of secondary education for some time to come. We believe that the best of the grammar schools should be accepted—that we should recognise that in this country, as in the majority of countries of Western Europe and North America, a mixed system of secondary education is the right answer.
  It is because we have the gravest reservations about a doctrinaire policy which regards only the comprehensive school as capable of providing suitable secondary education in this country that we have initiated the debate today.
  9.33 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. Edward Redhead): I am sure that the House shares the regret expressed by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hands-worth (Sir E. Boyle) that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science is unable to be here by reason of illness. I am sure that he would have been delighted to have taken part and that he would have dealt with the matter more effectively and in other than Walter Mitty language, which, no doubt, would have been more effective. I acknowledge with gratitude the expression of good wishes to my right hon. Friend by the right hon. Gentleman, which I shall be happy to convey.
  I will, first, attempt to clear up one or two apparent misconceptions that seem to underlie so much of this debate. Circular 10/65, which was issued in July of last year, requested local education authorities not, as the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Astor) said, to submit any kind of scheme—that they must present

  1433
  a scheme good, bad or indifferent; which would suggest that the hon. Gentleman should take the trouble to read the Circular before venturing into such a debate—but to submit by July of this year—and this answers the point raised by the hon. Member for Newbury about timing—with the opportunity to ask for extensions of time which would be conceded where there were exceptionally good reasons for so doing, schemes for reorganising secondary education along comprehensive lines. This was, of course, in accordance with the Resolution of this House of 21st January of last year.
  I should like to make abundantly clear, because it does not appear to be appreciated in so many quarters, that this Circular did not initiate the movement towards comprehensive education but gave it impetus and direction. The Circular was not, either in form or intention, an arbitrary imposition of some new and untried principle or, indeed, as some have suggested, a preface to some kind of rigid control over secondary schools or a limitation on their initiative and potential for experiment.
  The hon. Member for Newbury asked me to advance the educational advantages of comprehensive schools. I would suggest that as well as reading the Circular he might at some time be good enough to pay a few visits to comprehensive schools when, perhaps, he might share the limited enthusiasm shown even by his own Front Bench for those comprehensive schools from which they cannot withhold their praise and admiration.
  The hon. Member for Newbury says that, when research is to be instituted, it is premature to take this step before we know the results of that research. Once again, the hon. Gentleman has misconceived the object of the research that has been instituted. It is not to determine the principle, but to determine, as in other fields of education, what help and advice can be given to make the comprehensive schools as fully comprehensive as possible; to assess the variations they are capable of introducing.
  This, then, is not in any sense an arbitrary imposition. The policy is quite clearly, for any one who will read the Circular with any objectivity, a practical, realistic and flexible approach. It is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire,
  1434
  South-East (Mr. Park) rightly said, a Circular which gives the widest measure of discretion to local education authorities. It postulates various methods by which they may achieve the objective, and paragraph 46, which my hon. Friend quoted at length but which I do not propose now to repeat, makes it abundantly clear that discretion exists.
  The Circular lays down a common objective to be achieved by a variety of possible methods at different rates according to local circumstances. But we do take the view, and take it very emphatically, that it would not be right to postpone the very substantial advantages that can be made now simply because it is not practicable to do everything at the outset. Had that been the principle in education in the past, no advance would ever have been possible at all.
  Of course, there are difficulties about this. No one will deny that there are difficulties in the way—
  Sir E. Boyle: The Minister has emphasised that this Circular is not a directive with the force of law and, if I may say so, I am glad that he has done that, because there is still some misconception about it. But he will agree, I think, that in its introductory paragraphs the Circular says, in effect, that it is the Government's declared objective that there should be no separate modern and secondary grammar schools. This is an important new departure in policy, and contrasts sharply with the policy we have stated tonight which is that certainly over the years we expect to see more comprehensive schools, but not nothing but comprehensive schools.
  Mr. Redhead: I am afraid that I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman in his interpretation in this respect, and I beg of him to study the Circular in a little more detail. In every aspect of any proposal for educational advance there have always been difficulties to be apprehended, but in the past these difficulties have not been regarded as an excuse for abandoning the objectives but accepted, as we believe they should be accepted now, as a challenge, and as difficulties that can, in our judgment, be overcome.
  Running throughout this debate has been the suggestion—and the right hon.

  1435
  Gentleman used the term—of "botched-up" schemes. It is an implied suggestion that my right hon. Friend is giving approval to "botched-up schemes". I repudiate that at once. I want to insist not only that every scheme is meticulously examined to ensure the points about which the right hon. Gentleman is anxious—the safeguarding of sixth forms and the position of children already in selective schools—but that the whole organisation is geared to ensuring that there shall be a most careful and meticulous examination of every proposal.
  It is not our purpose or desire merely to approve a scheme because it happens to bear the label "comprehensive" upon it. We desire to be satisfied that the scheme is demonstrably capable of bringing about the advantages envisaged in the comprehensive principle. The local authorities, far from being imposed upon in this matter, are being encouraged to seek informal discussions with the Department before putting their full plans. They are being given every facility of advice and guidance and, indeed, numbers of them have already been asked to think again as a result of our detection of weaknesses or doubts in the plans they have submitted.
  The hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway) expressed hopes about certain schemes now under consideration. He asked me in particular to comment and to say that certain schemes such as those of Manchester and Brent will be rejected. It would be highly improper for me to do any such thing at this stage, when the schemes are under consideration in the Department.
  Mr. Chataway: But surely no more improper than the Chancellor's speech yesterday on the Budget.
  Mr. Redhead: That kind of intervention is not worthy of the hon. Gentleman. I want to take the House back to the basic considerations which lie behind the conception of comprehensive education. First, the 11-plus examination, whatever form it takes—and I acknowledge the varieties—is demonstrably unsound in its assumption. It assumes that it is possible to assess an immutable degree of ability in a child at the arbitrary age of 11-plus. We know that even intelligence tests are impossible in that respect.
  1436
  The examination is deleterious in its effects upon many children and parents, distorts the pattern of primary schools and fails, to a very considerable degree, in its ostensible purpose.
  The second basic consideration is that selection and separatism—the separation of sheep and goats in this respect—of which the 11-plus examination is the fallible instrument, is educationally unsound, unjust in its results and wasteful in practice. When hon. Members quote the example of the secondary modern school in repudiating the case for comprehensive schools, I wonder whether they have thought this one out deeply enough. I do not deny the great achievements that have been made at secondary modern schools. I give all praise to the teaching staffs who, in some cases, have achieved the well nigh impossible. It is true that these schools have proved the ability of many children to qualify in O-level G.C.E. examinations.
  But in extolling the virtues of secondary modern schools, I wonder how many hon. Members realise that, in fact, they are substantially conceding the case for comprehensive education. Who are the inmates of secondary modern schools? They are the children who were judged to be failures by the 11-plus examination. By the very character of that choice, they were sent to secondary modern schools. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] The hon. Gentleman says, "No". I do not know what answer he would offer today, but clearly the child who goes to a secondary modern school is the child who does not pass the 11-plus examination.
  Sir E. Boyle: Not final.
  Mr. Redhead: The right hon. Gentleman says that it need not be the final decision. Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that an opportunity at 13-plus is the complete answer to the point? Does he believe that every child at 13-plus who proves in that period that a mistake was made at the 11-plus examination gets the opportunity of transfer to a grammar school?
  Sir E. Boyle Sir E. Boyle indicated dissent.
  Mr. Redhead: If the right hon. Gentleman does not say that, he must not advance that argument in response to the aspect of the secondary modern

  1437
  school to which I drew attention just now.
  When hon. Members opposite try to deny that a system of selection and separatism is socially undesirable and then try to get out of the argument by referring to the fact that the comprehensive school in a given area, drawn from much the same social class, will only intensify social inequalities I would ask them to look again at the Circular. Paragraph 36 makes it abundantly clear that the Secretary of State is prepared to take consideration of this factor wherever it arises. He asks the local authorities to bear this in mind and he directs their attention to the desirability of so determining their catchment areas as to mitigate those difficulties.
  Hon. Gentlemen opposite must make up their minds where they stand on this basic aspect. It is not at all clear as a result of this debate. Both the right hon. Member for Handsworth and the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway) seem to be trying to ride two horses at the same time, and they express a point of view quite different from views expressed on the back benches opposite and certainly very different from those of many Conservative speakers in the constituencies. If they want to make an election issue of this, I ask them whether they want to perpetuate the 11-plus examination.
  Mr. Chataway: The hon. Gentleman must realise that one does not have to be for or against comprehensive schools in this country, any more than one has to be in the United States or anywhere else. If we have selective schools we shall have some selection forward, but we do not have to retain the 11-plus. It have been abolished in London.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. An intervention is an intervention.
  Mr. Redhead: But hon. Members opposite have still to answer the question to the electorate—do they want to perpetuate the 11-plus examination and the system of separatism with all that flows from it? If that be the desire and intention of hon. and right hon. Members opposite, let them say so, and if they want to make an election issue out of that we shall be only too glad to meet them.
  Mr. Henry Brooke: rose—
  Mr. Redhead: No, I will not give way. I have little time.
  If hon. Members opposite want to abolish the 11-plus and get rid of separatism they must face the implications and not pose, as many of them do in that fashion which says very piously, "We are not opposed to the principle of comprehensive education but" and then go on to argue, as we have heard them argue tonight, "Yes, by all means have comprehensive schools but let us preserve the grammar schools". That is an utter inconsistency which cannot be supported logically. [Interruption.] So manifestly is that so that I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman should ask his question. Hon. Members opposite want to preserve various devices for maintaining selection in part or for privileged sections, and they then tell us that they want to abolish the 11-plus examination. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I called the Government Front Bench to order last night. I will not have running commentaries from the Front Bench on either side.
  Mr. Redhead: Some play has been made of the fact—
  Sir E. Boyle: May I make this clear in answer to the challenge which the hon. Gentleman has thrown out? The whole case which we put, which has not been answered, is that one can extend opportunity to children of all ranges of ability without having to do away with all first-class selective schools in this country. We stand both for recognising the qualities of the finest existing schools and realising that the comprehensive school has its part to play and for extending opportunities to all children at the secondary stage.
  Mr. Redhead: I understood the right hon. Gentleman's argument at an earlier stage. It has been pointed out to him repeatedly that what he is saying is this: secondary modern schools have been doing very well—no one denies their tremendous achievements—they should be encouraged to do even better, and greater facilities should be accorded to them in respect of O-level examination courses. But he will not recognise that this is tantamount to saying that we ought to strive to make the secondary modern school

  1439
  more and more like the grammar school. If that be a desirable objective which he supports, then I again put the question: why preserve all the paraphernalia of the 11-plus examination and all that that involves in order to perpetuate two kinds of school of different standards, generally speaking, with different labels and all the other implications?
  Play has been made of the inadequacy of buildings but, when we hear plaintive pleas, as we did tonight, for the primary schools and references to the deplorable condition in which many of these schools undeniably still are today, I find it a little plaintive that these pleas should come from the other side of the House. These deplorable conditions were not the creation of the last 18 months. They are the inheritance of years of neglect. This is part of the problem with which this Government have had to grapple.
  It is true that the Circular advises local authorities not to plan on the basis that their individual programmes will be increased solely to take account of the need to adapt or remodel existing buildings on a scale which would not have been necessary but for reorganisation, but, notwithstanding that, the National Plan provides for much larger building programmes in the future—£120 million in 1967–68 and £138 million in each of the two succeeding years, compared with £105 million in 1966–67.
  I say quite honestly that I wish that the allocations could be greater. There is a need to be satisfied. But this Government have tackled a job which has never been tackled before, an objective assessment of this country's economic resources and an attempt, for the first time—derided by hon. Members opposite—to determine a sensible order of priorities within the assessed character of our economic resources with a view to settling those priorities and allocations in accordance with the various demands upon resources for equally socially desirable ends.
  In any case, new projects where justified on other grounds in submissions from local education authorities for their building programmes can be recast; they can be included in the current programmes to the same end, and authorities will have discretion to use their minor works allocations for smaller-scale improvements
  1440
  to existing buildings in order to facilitate reorganisation at an early date. We shall look at every proposal which comes up in the building programme in order to ensure that, if it is possible, the new buildings will be consistent with whatever the authority's plans may be in the direction of reorganisation on comprehensive lines.
  This is not an untried principle. Hon. Members opposite have spoken a great deal of the desirability of waiting until we have more experience and more knowledge, as if there has been no test of the principle at all.
  I would refer hon. Members opposite to a publication from the University of Birmingham Institute of Education in which Dr. T. W. G. Miller, an Australian and thus an impartial observer, after very thorough and critical examination of the historical and philosophical backgrounds of the comprehensive idea, undertook a very careful review from three regions of comprehensive schools. It will be useful for hon. Members opposite to study it and discover that the conclusion to which he came is that comprehensive education can achieve something not gained in grammar and modern schools. He came definitely to the conclusion that the moral interests and sense of belonging are enhanced in the academically less able pupils in comprehensive schools, and that this is done without lowering the standards of attainments of abler pupils. This is the answer as a result of an impartial survey.
  In conclusion, we are determined to move forward believing that our objective is a sound one, to move forward as rapidly as we can but consistent with an objective assessment of every scheme that is submitted, for while the need to achieve the complete elimination of selection and separation in secondary education, in our conviction, is urgent, it is equally important that the change to a comprehensive pattern should not be a destructive process, and that is the approach that we are making.
  The rate at which authorities are able to advance will vary according to individual circumstances, particularly in so far as existing buildings lend themselves to the new pattern of organisation. Just as it would be wrong to ignore the opportunities to reform, so it would be unwise—and we acknowledge it—to impose

  1441
  changes where conditions are as yet unsuitable. But, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in the speech at Harrogate to which reference has been made, what is important is that we should move as quickly as we can but as slowly as we must. But as to the objective we have no doubts at all.
  Hon. Gentlemen opposite challenge that objective. I beg of them, instead of trying to find excuses and justifications for their attitude by saying "It is too soon, we do not know enough about it, and there are difficulties", and presenting all kinds of specious arguments, to be courageous and come out openly and tell the electorate precisely where they stand. Their position is that they believe in separation and still want to perpetuate selection, and the only honest thing for them to do is to say so and let the electorate judge, not least the parents of the 75 per cent. of our children who, by implication, are judged to be failures and are condemned, by and large, to an inferior standard of education, a condition which this side of the House is not prepared to tolerate.
  9.59 p.m.
  Mr. Henry Brooke: The House has been waiting to hear from the hon. Gentleman the reasons which he said he would give us in favour, on education grounds, of a universal system of comprehensive education. He has utterly and lamentably failed to give us that. He rested his case exclusively on the weakness of the 11-plus examination, as though he had never heard of any other systems of selection. I believe in selection by merit in the education system and throughout life. I do not believe that one can wish it away by Circulars.
  In particular, the hon. Member gave no answer to the powerful point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle), that the abolition of the direct grant schools under his scheme will deal a heavy blow to the able children in the poorer areas where the comprehensive schools will not have, whatever he says, the same prestige as those in—
  It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

  STRENGTHENING OF MARRIAGE
  10.1 p.m.
  Mr. John Parker: I beg to move,
  That leave be given to bring in a Bill to enable a further marriage to be contracted by either spouse when a separation has persisted for five years.
  This is the third time that I have introduced under the Ten-Minute Rule a Bill for the strengthening of marriage. I hope and trust that in the next Parliament it will have a chance of becoming law.
  There is a very strong need for reform, as is certainly shown in the many heartrending letters which I have received on this subject from those who suffer from the operation of the present law. I am certain that the law on this matter is rejected by public opinion. This is shown by some interesting facts. First, everybody is upset by the very large increase in recent years in the illegitimate birth rate, but what is not fully realised is that 40 per cent. of the illegitimate births nowadays are to stable families where men and women are living together as fathers and mothers of these families, and that two-thirds of the illegitimate children born to women over 25 are to such stable families.
  The effect of my Legitimacy Act, 1959, has made it possible, when marriage subsequently takes place between persons to whom a child has been born out of wedlock, for the child to be legitimated, and very many children have been legitimated under that Act. If it were possible for a marriage to be terminated after five years' separation, and for the partners living together then to marry, a greater proportion of the children now called illegitimate, though living in stable families, could be legitimated under the 1959 Act. I am certain that that would be of enormous advantage to the spirit of those families and the children being brought up in them.
  Another interesting point is that the number of children in these de facto marriages is very large. It appears that the number of children of divorcees is very much smaller. In its studies of marriage and divorce, the Royal Commission was asked to study the number of children of divorcees. Unfortunately, it did not do

  1443
  this, but it is not disputed that the number of children of divorcees is fairly small in many cases, fortunately. Perhaps it is because sexual incompatability is one of the reasons which leads to the breakdown of a marriage.
  Many arguments are advanced against the proposed change in the law. First, it is suggested that it would weaken the position of a wife. Various safeguards have been introduced into my proposed Bill which are very important. The Bill would lay down that a divorce on the ground of five years' separation should not be agreed to by a court unless the court is satisfied that adequate arrangements have been made to safeguard the financial interests of the wife and any children of that marriage.
  It is further suggested that the children in these cases particularly would suffer. I would have thought that at the present time, the financial needs of fatherless children, whether fatherless as the result of divorce, or desertion of the wife, or because the wife has been widowed, were very much the same. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is carrying out an inquiry into our social services, and I suggest that there is a strong case for looking at the whole position of fatherless children as a single problem and making suggestions for dealing with this problem as a whole. It is alleged that the morals of our country would be weakened if such a change took place. It is very much better to bring our laws into line with the present-day facts. It is better that the law should be alive to what people think is right and reasonable if one is to have a strong moral feeling in the country.
  It is also said that there are many religious objections to such a change. It is interesting to note that the Archbishop of Canterbury has suggested that there might be a case for examining the position to see whether divorce by consent should be arranged in certain circumstances. With due respect to the Archbishop, that is not the problem. If two people want a divorce they can easily have one nowadays. They can arrange adultery, or take action which the courts will think to be adultery and get the divorce. What is required is a change in the law to allow remarriage without the consent of the other party.
  1444
  It is important that the law should meet the needs of all sections of the population and not those of any one section. The law has to make sense, not only to Protestants, but to Roman Catholics, Jews, Mohammedans, humanists, and agnostics. Unless the law does make sense to all sections of the population it is not adequate to meet the needs of today. It is alleged frequently that the main objections to allowing a partner of a marriage which has broken down to remarry are religious. Far more often the real ground is revenge to prevent the other partner have a second chance of a happy marriage. That is thoroughly wrong.
  The various Protestant Churches have had various rules allowing divorce at different times. I agree with Archbishop Cranmer, who took the view that if a marriage had broken down and one partner had been long absent from the other, the sooner the marriage ended the better. That is not the view of the Roman Catholic Church and many other people who agree with the Roman Catholic Church in this matter. There is no reason, however, why our law should allow one partner to limit the freedom of the other.
  The person who takes the view that marriage is for life can follow that rule. Any Church can make rules for its own members and expel them if they are not carried out. But no partner has a right to lay down rules governing the partner, when they do not belong to the same Church, or hold the same views on marriage. This is a form of religious persecution. The law in Australia allows people to remarry after five years of separation. In 1959, Australia decided, after full inquiry to have a federal law on marriage and divorce. This had been the law in Western Australia for many years previously and it had worked successfully. It was, therefore, adopted into the law of the Commonwealth, and has worked well.
  The time has come when we should adopt a similar law here. It is necessary to safeguard the financial rights of a wife and the children of a marriage, but that is no reason why, if that is done, there should not be an opportunity for either party of the marriage to make a fresh start after five years' separation.
  Why five years? Previous Bills have been introduced into the House suggesting

  1445
  seven years as a reasonable period of time for a separation and then remarriage. My hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) brought in such a Bill in 1950 which was passed by a majority of the House before the matter was referred to a Royal Commission. I think that now, in view of the Australian experience, five years is a much more reasonable time. Five years is a long time if a marriage has broken down and if people wish to make a fresh start. It is one-tenth of a person's adult life. I should have thought it desirable that if a marriage had broken down the sooner people could make a fresh start and try to make a success of a second marriage, the better.
  I therefore commend to the House that we should make a change in the law to allow a divorce after five years' separation, it being a bona fide separation and there being no likelihood of the parties coming together again.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. John Parker, Mr. Michael Foot, Sir Barnett Stross, Mr. Taverne, and Mr. David Weitzman.

  STRENGTHENING OF MARRIAGE
  Bill to enable a further marriage to be contracted by either spouse when a separation has persisted for five years, presented accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday and to be printed. [Bill 81.]

  RETIREMENT FROM WORK (TRAINING)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Charles R. Morris.]
  10.11 p.m.
  Mr. Alfred Morris: I thank my hon. Friend the Minister of State for being present, at short notice, to reply to what I hope will be regarded as a very important debate.
  I have selected the topic of training for retirement from work, first, because of my experience in industry among people facing the problems of retirement. In the electricity supply industry I had
  1446
  knowledge of courses which were prepared on the initiative of local joint consultative committees and in co-operation with the University of Wales for employees of the industry who were nearing retirement. Working men were enabled to attend arts and crafts courses so that when they retired they had some interest outside the home. I regard the electricity supply industry as a very good employer and these courses as having been exceptionally important from the social standpoint.
  My second reason for introducing this debate is that I have been approached by a number of my constituents, elderly people who are extremely apprehensive about their position when they retire. Recently, I had a particularly moving letter from a constituent in his late sixties who felt able to continue in employment, but who is faced with compulsory retirement. It was obvious to me that he would be helped greatly if it could be agreed by the House that there was need to look again at the question of compulsory retirement and, also, at the question of training for retirement.
  It is a new experience for a community to face the fact that 12 per cent. of its population is fit and lively, but over the retiring age. Every month, people are having to give up work and are losing status and drifting into loneliness and isolation. Happy are those with money, interests and outlets to keep them occupied. Many, however, soon find that life has lost its meaning when they have to retire.
  This new development arises from the current trend towards retirement at 60. Indeed, in a world of modern technology, many people, from management to machine-tool operator, are unable to hold their own after 55. The farewell handshake may come suddenly or according to schedule, but unless it is planned for it can be disastrous. It is only just being realised that retirement raises entirely new problems and responsibilities for individuals, the firm for which they used to work and the community.
  We still know very little about the adjustments involved If the social and economic stability of the community is to be maintained, there is urgent need for research and advice on this problem. To prepare for other phases of life, we go

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  to primary and secondary schools, training colleges, technical colleges and universities. Advice is sought from career advisers, prenatal clinics, citizens' advice bureaux and even from the anonymity of correspondence columns. We attend courses, seminars, symposiums and conferences, but a beginning has only just begun to be made in regard to this new chapter in life in which high-powered executives no less than hourly paid workers, men and women alike, have to come to terms with themselves as persons.
  Preparation for retirement is essentially an individual responsibility. No man can tell another what the rules are. Each one must decide according to his own needs and desires. There is, however, a responsibility on the part of those concerned with the well-being of society, at all levels and at all stages, to see that help can be given to those who seek it and that a climate of public opinion is developed in which it is as natural to train for retirement as it is to train for work. This involves the Government, both sides of industry and the education authorities as well as the voluntary organisations.
  In the words of the First Report of the National Advisory Committee on the Employment of Older Men and Women, dated October, 1953, Cmd. 8963,
  "The community has not only an economic need of the contribution of the older worker but a positive obligation to safeguard the right of every worker, young or old, to play his full part in the life of the community."
  An excellent statistical survey was recently undertaken by the Workington College of Further Education. The results of this survey show that of 149 men between the ages of 50 and 55, 93 did not know what their retirement income would be; 99 had not considered how they would manage on their retirement income; 104 did not know what benefits they were entitled to; 94—and this is the figure in which I am particularly interested in this debate—had no new interests or activities to take up; and 133 found the act of talking things over with the college extremely helpful.
  I should like now to refer to the Pre-Retirement Association, which was
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  established as recently as 6th February, 1964. Its purpose is to enable people to make the most of their retirement, to prepare for a completely new pattern of living, and to understand the limitations of and to provide interests against loneliness and the sense of uselessness which engulf so many in their later years. Perhaps I may be allowed to pay tribute to Miss L. M. Hubbard, the Secretary to the Pre-Retirement Association. She has been profoundly helpful to me in preparing for this debate. Miss Hubbard is a dedicated worker in this field and is, in my view, worthy of every tribute.
  The Pre-Retirement Association, despite not having been in existence very long, has given rise to pre-retirement advisory courses, more than 200 of them run by the voluntary organisations. The Association also meant that 13 regional committees have been set up in addition to the councils in Birmingham and Glasgow. It has been responsible for the fact that the current B.B.C.1 programme, "Forward to Retirement" is the most successful of the Corporation's adult education programmes with as big an audience on Thursday afternoons as on Sunday mornings. The problems of retirement and preparation for retirement are to be discussed at a summer school of the Central Council for Health Education, and it is hoped it will be the subject of the major session of the 1968 World Congress on Mental Health.
  I am sure that the Pre-Retirement Association will agree with me that preparation for retirement should not be regarded as old people's welfare. There is often an air of condescension about the approach of people who speak of the problems of retirement. The men and women I am speaking of tonight represent a vital section of the community who happen to be in their sixties and want to enjoy life and to continue to make a useful contribution to society. Moreover, keeping people happly in their own homes certainly would save some of the public resources now devoted to medical care.
  There was an excellent paper give by Professor W. Ferguson Anderson, Cargill Professor of Geriatric Medicine in the University of Glasgow. Professor Ferguson Anderson was in fact the first professor of geriatrics in the world. He was speaking only on Thursday of last

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  week to the National Association for Mental Health, at its annual conference, on the preventive aspects of mental disorders in the elderly. He pointed out that the most interesting part of work with older people is the endeavour to keep them happy and healthy in their own homes. His interest in mental disorder in the elderly started 14 years ago at Rutherglen Consultative Health Centre where he was working with Dr. Nairn Cowan. At that centre people of 55 and over, with no complaints, or only minor ailments, are referred by their own general practitioners for complete medico-social assessment.
  The outstanding impression of the work there has been the amount of mental ill-health discovered among older people. I understand from Professor Ferguson Anderson's paper that analysis showed that one important factor responsible for emotional disturbance was compulsory retirement, which he discussed in some depth in his paper.
  Professor Ferguson Anderson was utterly convinced of the value of pre-retirement training starting, from perhaps five years before retirement from work, and that applied not only to men, but also to women. He pointed out that in Glasgow, since 1959, some 1,000 people had attended courses in pre-retirement training, the course consisting of day-release classes, one day a week for seven weeks from work, and during that period a comprehensive series of lecture/demonstrations is given on topics such as health, finance, hobbies and interests. There is ample time always for question and answer, and that is the best part of the education and training that is provided.
  Professor Ferguson Anderson summed up his paper by saying:
  "There is need then for a dynamic and active approach to the preventive aspects of mental health in old age. Ascertainment, prevention, supervision and retention in the community summarise the methods of attack."
  I am happy to say that in Manchester, the city that I have the honour to represent in the House, there are some of the most successful courses in preparation for retirement. At Holly Royde College, in South Manchester, an excellent course has been devised for men and women nearing retirement, and perhaps I might pay a tribute to Mr. Donald
  1450
  Garside, the warden of Holyroyde. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister of State is aware of the excellent work that he is doing and of the very high regard in which he is held by those who know of the course that he has introduced. At Lower Mosley Street Adult Education College, excellent courses are provided, also.
  Perhaps I might mention some of the comments that have been made by elderly people about the courses that they have attended. A man from London said:
  "Preparation for retirement should be made at least five years beforehand if possible. Unfortunately for me, I was advanced in age before attending these very helpful lectures."
  A man from Manchester said:
  "I used to be afraid of retirement. Now I'm looking forward to it; in fact, I can't wait for some of the things I want to do."
  An elderly labourer in Glasgow said:
  "I have been amazed by the course and the good it has done me. I would have been lost after I had retired. Now I am not afraid."
  There are still many people nearing retirement who are afraid of the effect that it will have on their lives. I have mentioned the case of my own constituent who has written to me in such moving terms about his own personal problem.
  There are many employers who are doing excellent work by giving day release to their employees. There are employers who have introduced phased retirement and who pay the fees of educational institutions attended by their employees. I should like to think that, as a result of this debate, more employers will consult their employees with a view to developing further activity in this field, because we need to encourage a growing appreciation of the need for an increase in education and training for retirement.
  We are not behind other countries in dealing with many aspects of this problem. In the United States considerable resources are devoted to research into this problem, but we are in advance in our developments in the field. The United States may be ahead of us in precept, but I understand that we are ahead of them in practice. But we are not going fast enough, and I think that there is much more that we can do.
  There is a need for considerable rethinking about compulsory retirement. People do not grow old at the same rate. There are as many types of elderly people

  1451
  as there are elderly people, and we should not regiment them as we do at the moment. I am profoundly against the idea of lumping people together and regarding them as though their problems were the same.
  They feel that they should be allowed to carry on working while they are able to do a job, and it may be that we shall be able to reconsider this problem of compulsory retirement. Perhaps I might remind the House that the National Plan points out that by 1970 we shall require 4½ million retired people working part-time, and this points to the need for reconsidering the question of compulsory retirement.
  It also points to the need for more research in this field. Peter Townsend, who is no mean authority on the problem of elderly people, said:
  "The belief that services for the elderly should not be given as much priority as those for other groups is widespread, and leading politicians continue to delude themselves that voluntary organisations can cope with problems and needs which have long since outstripped their resources. They are also perhaps lulled into inertia by the lack of organised pressure groups among the elderly."
  I do not feel that that stricture applies to my hon. Friend the Minister of State. I hope that he will be able to encourage his and my right hon. Friends to try to help the Pre-retirement Association, which might have to go out of existence if some help is not forthcoming. I hope too, that he will agree that this is a topic which is worthy of much more discussion than it has received so far, and that it is one of considerable importance.
  10.33 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. R. E. Prentice): I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) has earned the gratitude of the House for raising this topic, and for his humanitarian approach to the problem. This is a subject which the House ought to debate at greater length, when other hon. Members can take part, and when perhaps more than one member of the Government can take part, because so many Departments are involved.
  I should like to refer briefly to three aspects of what my hon. Friend said. I
  1452
  propose to deal, first, with the question of compulsory retirement. It is clear that the practice of retirement in many spheres of employment is far too rigid at the moment. This is a matter to which the Government are giving considerable attention.
  There is here a piece of jargon with which perhaps we shall become familiar, the "activity rate" as it is called, of people over retirement age, which refers to the percentage of them still in employment. It is lower in this country than in many others. For men it is 25·6 in this country, compared with 29·2 in the United States, and the much higher figure of 42 per cent. in Switzerland.
  It is the view of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and the Government that they would wish to encourage more employers to do what some enlightened employers are doing at present—to review the working conditions and progress of elderly workers sympathetically; to encourage by stages the transfer to less exacting duties and shorter hours, so that retirement is a gradual process and is not the sharp break it is in too many cases at present. But conditions must vary with the job. There are particular circumstances in particular kinds of job which dictate a firm retirement age, but the whole system should move in the direction of greater flexibility. That is the view of the Government.
  As for the provision of courses, my hon. Friend referred to the courses with which he has been associated in South Wales, and to courses in Glasgow and in Manchester at the Holly Royde College. I had the pleasure of attending the 21st birthday celebrations there a few months ago and I join in his tribute to that college. It is typical of what is happening in many parts of the education system at present. Courses are being run, particularly in local further education colleges. In London, the I.L.E.A. is organising courses on a day-release basis in nine different institutions. Courses take the form of one afternoon per week for 10 weeks, each session being of two hours' duration.
  I understand that at the moment the size of class varies from 30 to 50. The people attending these courses are approaching retirement and are released by their employers, who co-operate in

  1453
  this matter. The subjects taught include availability of voluntary work and paid work; the economic problems of retirement; health problems and psychological problems of retirement; and leisure activities and many other aspects of the problem.
  In Birmingham, arrangements have been made between the further education institutions and the City of Birmingham Retirement Council for courses in some of the further education institutions there, for one afternoon a week for six weeks on a day-release basis, in co-operation with local employers—and I could give other examples. But it is not confined to civic and further education institutions. University extra-mural departments and the Workers' Education Association are organising courses of this kind.
  We need not think exclusively of elderly people taking part in courses in preparation for retirement. Some of them—and there are signs that their number is growing—are taking advantage of the general provision of adult and further education in their localities. There was an excellent article in last Friday's New Statesman by a 68-year-old steel worker who has been experimenting in taking G.C.E. English for the first time. It is a humorous article, describing how the 16-year-olds with whom he was associating assumed that he had been trying to pass the examination since he had been 16. He hoped eventually to take his university external degree.
  I am informed by the Ministry of Labour that the pattern varies. It is aware of cases in which employers are releasing people for a day a week for a number of weeks—sometimes a whole day and sometimes an afternoon. There are other examples of courses laid on on a residential basis—two days or three
  1454
  days, up to five days. There are many other examples of evening classes attended by people preparing for retirement. This is one more example of the way in which further education in particular responds to national needs and local needs, and stimulates interest by laying on courses in advance of demand and advertising them and getting people interested.
  The Ministry of Labour takes the view that day release is to be encouraged, but it is not something that the Ministry can require of employers at the moment. Nor can it be put in the context that firms are expected to give it as a right always. The Government hope that progressive employers will want to take part in day-release activities, but it is not in the category of matters that they can be required to do.
  The Government are pressing employers to do more by way of day release for young workers. We hope between now and 1970 to double the provision of day block-release courses for young and it is in this direction that the Government are putting pressure on employers, rather than for those in the older age groups, although that is not to say that we do not want to see an extension of day release for older workers.
  I have virtually no more time available to comment further on the matter. There are many other aspects which I hope the House will discuss at very great length in the future. I am sure that all hon. Members are grateful to my hon. Friend for introducing the subject in the way that he did tonight.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.