Commons Sitting of 3 March 1966

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS

  BRIGHTON CORPORATION BILL (By Order)
  GREATER LONDON COUNCIL BILL (By Order)
  Second Reading deferred till Tuesday, 15th March.

  LIVERPOOL CORPORATION BILL (By Order)
  Read a Second time and committed.
PETITION

  Deeside Railway (Passenger Services)
  Mr. Hendry: I beg to ask leave to present a petition, bearing to be signed by some 577 residents of the Deeside district of Scotland, which shows that in 1963 the British Railways Board proposed to withdraw the passenger services from the Deeside Railway; that numerous objections were lodged to that proposal on the ground of hardship to the travelling public and the welfare of the district; that, in terms of Statute, the then Minister of Transport caused a public inquiry to be held into the proposal; that the Committee which made the inquiry among other things was divided in its opinion but recommended that more buses be provided as an alternative; that subsequently, as a result of a merger, the number of buses providing the alternative services was reduced from 13 to 6 per day; that, notwithstanding this recommendation, in 1965 the then Minister of Transport—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must be brief in presenting his Petition.
  Mr. Hendry: —gave his consent in disregard of the recommendation,
  Wherefore your petitioners pray that legislation be introduced to enable the Minister of Transport to withdraw the consent given by her predecessor in disregard of the advice of the Transport Users' Consultative Committee to the withdrawal of passenger services on the Deeside Railway; and that powers be granted in due course to a suitable public authority or other corporation to operate the Deeside Railway as a light railway or otherwise.
  And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, etc.
  To lie upon the Table.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

    Cancer
    Mr. Leadbitterasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many deaths in Great Britain from various forms of cancer there were in the years 1960 to 1965; what was the expenditure on cancer research for the years 1960 and 1965, respectively; and what steps he will take to increase Government support in relation to voluntary contributions.
    The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. R. E. Prentice): Deaths from cancer in Great Britain from January, 1960, to September, 1965, totalled 652,234. In 1960–61 the Medical Research Council, the main Government agency for the promotion of medical research, devoted approximately £687,000 specifically to cancer research; in 1965–66 the amount is expected to be approximately £1,178,000. Further research supported by Government funds is conducted in the universities and at hospitals under the National Health Service, but it is not possible to give an estimate of this expenditure. The Answer to the last part of my hon. Friend's Question is: none. I am assured that the Medical Research Council has not been hampered by lack of funds in its support of proposals for research on cancer which have commended themselves on scientific grounds.
    Mr. Leadbitter: Is my hon. Friend aware, that although there is some indication of progress, the number of reported deaths arising from this serious disease is such that the concern and

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    anxiety expressed throughout the country are understandable and point to the need for further Government support? Will he therefore keep this matter under strict observation?
    Mr. Prentice: Yes. Government support for the Medical Research Council as a whole has been rising and will rise again next year. The actual allocation of the money between different branches of research is a matter for the Council itself. The Council's spending on this avenue of research has also been rising.
    Mr. David Price: Would not the Minister agree that to state the figures of direct Government support gives a very inadequate picture of the total national effort, both voluntarily and at universities, to deal with the hideous scourge of cancer?
    Mr. Prentice: Yes. I mentioned work at universities and hospitals. Work in other fields, such as in genetics and virology, may also have a bearing on these particular problems as well as on others.

    School Meals
    Mr. Charles Morrisonasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what will be the extra cost of the changes in school meal dietary which he has accepted; and whether the extra cost is to fall on the parents or the State.
    The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. Edward Redhead): £350,000 at present prices to be borne by the Exchequer.
    Mr. Morrison: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether that Answer means that the school meals subsidy is to remain an open-ended subsidy?
    Mr. Redhead: For the moment, yes.

    Universities of London and Manchester (Business Schools)
    Mr. Charles Morrisonasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he is satisfied by the progress being made in the establishment of the business schools at the Universities of London and Manchester; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Prentice: Both schools are now open for students and their budgets have
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    been settled. I hear most encouraging reports of their plans, but it is not for me to comment on the academic aspects. This progress in making the necessary arrangements reflects credit on all concerned.
    Mr. Morrison: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether staff recruitment and student recruitment have been satisfactory?
    Mr. Prentice: I believe staff recruitment has been satisfactory. If the hon. Member wants details, perhaps he will put down a Question to my hon. Friend or to myself after the election. As to student recruitment, this was started in a small way at both centres. There are post-experience courses at both universities, and a post-graduate short course at Manchester. There are considerable plans for the next academic year.

    Royal Shakespeare Company
    Sir Knox Cunninghamasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science, if, before paying any further subsidy from public funds to the Royal Shakespeare Company, he will require the company to stop producing non-Shakespeare plays in London.
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Miss Jennie Lee): No, Sir. It would be quite improper for me to seek to direct the work of the Roal Shakespeare Company.
    Sir Knox Cunningham: Is the hon. Lady aware that the Arts Council tells me that the company is making money in Stratford and losing it in London? Is she further aware that this company is breaking its Royal Charter in producing non-Shakespearean plays outside Stratford and that it is being paid £90,000 out of public funds to enable it to do this? What is the hon. Lady going to do about it?
    Miss Lee: The hon. and learned Member must assume that I have looked into the company's Royal Charter, and I can assure him on the best legal advice that it is not breaking the conditions of its Charter.
    Sir Knox Cunningham: Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter at the earliest possible moment.

    Circular 8/60
    Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if Circular 8/60, addendum 2, applies to women who wish to train as teachers.
    Mr. Prentice: The purpose of this addendum is to authorise the extension of nursery facilities where these will enable married women who are already qualified teachers but have young children, to return to the schools. I would not expect women normally to embark on a teacher training course while their families still include children under school age. But local authorities are free to allocate a nursery place to the child of a woman accepted for teacher training where this is the mother's wish and where there are nursery places available.
    Mrs. Short: May I thank my hon. Friend for that reply and ask whether he is aware that I know of a number of married women with young children who want to take training courses? Will he make it clear to the local authorities that these women are able to take places in nursery schools?
    Mr. Prentice: Yes, Sir; the local authorities may allocate places in nursery schools to women in the position described. The only proviso is that women in this category would not count towards establishing the justification for new nursery schools, because the addendum refers to women returning to teaching.

    Agricultural Buildings (Research)
    Mr. Wingfield Digbyasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how much was spent in research into agricultural buildings in 1964 and 1965, respectively.
    Mr. Prentice: It is not possible to isolate a figure for research on farm buildings alone.
    Mr. Digby: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that modern theory is changing a lot with regard to farm buildings? Will he see that this responsibility is not overlooked by his Department?
    Mr. Prentice: Yes, Sir. The Agricultural Research Council is willing to con-
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    sider suggestions made to it, and a lot of the other work which it does has a bearing on this. So also does the experimental farm building scheme itself and, in a wider sense, the Building Research Station which is the responsibility of the Ministry of Technology.

    School Buildings, Kent (Improvement)
    Mr. Hornbyasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proportion of the capital sums allocated to Kent for the next three years will be available for improvement of existing schools; and how this proportion com pares with other education authorities.
    Mr. Redhead: The proportion of the Kent programme for 1966–67 devoted to improvement projects is 35·6 per cent. compared with the national figure of 37·5 per cent. As the hon. Member knows, the programme for 1967–68 is only partly allocated and comparisons would be meaningless. But three projects, worth £412,000, already in the Kent programme for 1967–68 are wholly or mainly devoted to improvement.
    Mr. Hornby: I am grateful for the point which the hon. Gentleman made at the end of his Answer. Will he not agree that those counties which have had a substantial influx of population from outside in recent years have to a considerable extent fallen behind other authorities where this has not been the case so much? Will the hon. Gentleman do his utmost to see that Kent gets opportunities for improving existing schools as well as building new ones, and also look at the allocation of further works?
    Mr. Redhead: I am sure the hon. Gentleman appreciates that the inclusion in programmes of projects for the replacement or improvement of existing schools depends on the relative merits of the projects submitted by all authorities. These will be taken into account when the next submissions are considered.

    Museums and Art Galleries (Staff)
    Mr. Robert Cookeasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will review the conditions of employment of those who work in museums and galleries in his charge or

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    for which he has responsibility in connection with Government policy for the arts.
    Miss Jennie Lee: Some conditions of employment of staff in museums and galleries are under review, but I would ask the hon. Member to wait for a fuller statement.

    Comprehensive System (Crawley)
    Mr. Hordernasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether, in view of the concern felt in Crawley over the circumstances that influenced the decision to form the Ifield Grammar School and the Sarah Robinson Secondary Modern School into a comprehensive unit, he will now hold an inquiry.
    Mr. Redhead: No, Sir.
    Mr. Hordern: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that there is considerable disquiet in Crawley at the circumstances of this decision which an inquiry would help to dispel as well as help to restore confidence amongst teachers and parents?
    Mr. Redhead: I can only say that it has not been customary to hold a public inquiry into matters of this kind. Normally procedures which allow the views of objectors to be conveyed to the Secretary of State give interested parties a full opportunity to express their views. This was certainly done on this occasion and, in any event, having intimated his approval, there is no power under the Act by which my right hon. Friend could reopen the matter.
    Mr. Hogg: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that under the Statute there is power to hold an inquiry and, whilst I accept that it has not been customary to do so in the past, in view of the widespread nature of this kind of problem all over the country could not the Minister reconsider the practice?
    Mr. Redhead: I was careful to say that it was not customary. I did not say there was no statutory power. I must emphasise that after the very careful review that my right hon. Friend has undertaken, it would not be appropriate to hold a public inquiry in these circumstances.

    Direct Grant Schools
    Mr. Kenneth Lewisasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether, in view of the recent announcement of licensed percentage grants for church schools, he will now give an assurance that the future of direct grant schools will be preserved.
    Mr. Redhead: In my right hon. Friend's statement to the House on 14th February he announced that the Government proposed to widen the scope and increase the rate of Exchequer grant to voluntary aided and special agreement schools. This has no bearing on the future of direct grant schools.
    Mr. Lewis: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that some of these direct grant schools are church schools and are among the best in the country? Can he assure us that they will be preserved and that they will not be affected by the comprehensive blanket that the Government are imposing?
    Mr. Redhead: The Government's wish that voluntary schools should co-operate in the comprehensive policy applies equally to direct grant schools. I would refer the hon. Gentleman to paragraph 39 of the relevant Circular No. 10/65.

    Voluntary Schools (Grant)
    Mr. Gurdenasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the cost of raising the Exchequer grant to voluntary aided schools from 75 per cent. to 80 per cent.
    Mr. Redhead: It is estimated that the annual cost to the Exchequer of my right hon. Friend's proposals for giving additional financial help to voluntary schools will rise gradually to reach a level of about £1·5 million in the fourth financial year after the proposed legislation is passed.
    Mr. Gurden: Will there be any additional grants in special cases where the financial load is heavy as a result of the change to comprehensive education? If the hon. Gentleman does not know the answer, will he table a Question to my right hon. Friend after the election?
    Mr. Redhead: Some part of the purpose of these additional grants is to permit voluntary schools to play their part in the comprehensive reorganisation.

    Standard Intelligence Tests
    Mr. Shepherdasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether, in view of the problems which arise when children are transferred from one education authority to another, he will seek to enforce standard intelligence tests.
    Mr. Redhead: The testing of pupils is a matter for the discretion of local education authorities and schools, but they are in general ready to accept each others' assessments of pupils' abilities and aptitudes. These assessments are not normally confined to the results of intelligence tests. Other factors are taken into account.
    Mr. Shepherd: Does not the hon. Gentleman realise that they are not readily accepted and that the different bases on which these tests are made make it very difficult to accept them? Will the hon. Gentleman go further into this matter?
    Mr. Redhead: Perhaps it would be helpful, if the hon. Member has a particular case in mind, to send me details.

    European Space Research Organisation
    Mr. Martenasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what steps he is taking to urge the European Space Research Organisation to set up an establishment such as an International Radio Astronomy Institute in Great Britain; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Prentice: None, Sir. E.S.R.O. does not at present contemplate the setting up of further establishments. Ground based radio astronomy is not within the purposes laid down for E.S.R.O. in its Convention.
    Mr. Marten: As this country is the main contributor to the European Space Research Organisation and as most of the other main industrial countries in Europe have got E.S.R.O. institutes, have the Government taken no steps to try to get an institute of this nature for radio astronomy in this country?
    Mr. Prentice: The allocation of institutions was settled in 1962. At that time the Government made bids for an institution in this country but were unsuccessful in obtaining one.
    Mr. Hogg: Are not the Government worried by the paucity of international institutes in this country? Is it not a fact that there are about 100 international institutes in the neighbourhood of Paris and is it not time that we got a few?
    Mr. Prentice: Yes, I have great sympathy with that view, but I must point out that the matter was decided in 1962 and, if one is talking of Government responsibility for this failure, the responsibility lies with the Government who were in power at the time.

    Commonwealth Immigrants (Teachers)
    Mr. Goodhartasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what action he is taking to stimulate the recruitment of qualified teachers who have migrated to this country from India, Pakistan, and the West Indies.
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Denis Howell): Qualified teachers from these and other countries who can serve effectively in our schools are already welcomed by local education authorities. But others whose academic qualifications entitle them to qualified teacher status may nevertheless be unsuited for employment in the schools because their command of spoken English is inadequate and they are unfamiliar with our teaching methods. To help them overcome these handicaps, my right hon. Friend has arranged for special full-time courses to be provided in certain areas this year, and he proposes to extend this scheme if it proves successful.
    Mr. Goodhart: Is the Minister aware that many local authorities will hope that this scheme is extended, because a certain number of authorities have access to the scheme which appears to be working well but others have not? It would be well if it were extended.
    Mr. Howell: I entirely agree with those considerations. Apart from one at Bradford which is going well, two more should be started this year, one

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    in London and one in Birmingham and a further one in Nottingham is contemplated.
    Mrs. Renée Short: Is my hon. Friend aware that one has started in my constituency at the teachers' day training college?
    Mr. Howell: I am grateful for that information which I knew but which had escaped me at the moment.

    School for Artistic Administration
    Mr. Goodhartasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what study is being made of the proposal to establish a school for artistic administration.
    Miss Jennie Lee: This is an interesting idea which is well worth pursuing. I will consider it further with the Arts Council.
    Mr. Goodhart: Is the hon. Lady aware that Mr. Ian Hunter, who is one of the most authoritative artistic directors in the country, recently said that very little had been done for the teaching of artistic administrators and that more would be needed if there is going to be a substantial expansion on the cultural side?
    Miss Lee: I am well aware of Mr. Hunter's contribution to the Press and also of his distinguished views on matters of this kind. We are giving this matter consideration.

    London Government Act (Education Review Sections)
    Mr. Hamlingasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he will introduce a Bill to repeal the education review sections of the London Government Act; and whether he is aware that the London Teachers' Association, together with other teachers' associations, is concerned about the delay since last November.
    Mr. Prentice: I sympathise with the views of the London Teachers' Association, but I cannot say when the legislation will be introduced. It will be done as soon as the legislative programme permits.
    Mr. Hamling: Is my hon. Friend aware that we hope after the election to bring in one or two recruits to help him?
    Mr. Prentice: Yes, Sir. I think that the statement made by my right hon. Friend in November should reassure London teachers and others concerned in this matter, and further reassurance will be given to them on 31st March.

    School-Leaving Age and Teacher Supply
    Mr. Hamlingasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he is aware of the growing concern of the teaching profession regarding the lack of plans and financial arrangements for the provision of buildings and teachers to meet the raising of the school-leaving age in 1970; and what machinery he proposes to set up to advise him on the question of teacher supply to replace the committee under the chairmanship of Sir Alan Bullock which has now ceased to function.
    Mr. Redhead: On the first part of the Question I would refer to the reply given to my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) on 3rd February, 1966.
    Since my right hon. Friend's fourteen-point programme is at present the guide to action on current teacher supply problems, and all those concerned are fully engaged in implementing it, I see no immediate need for an advisory body to be active.
    Mr. Hamling: Is my hon. Friend aware that we expect some quick action on this in the next 12 months?
    Mr. Redhead: I note my hon. Friend's observations.
    Sir E. Boyle: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we on this side of the House are dissatisfied with the answer to both parts of the Question? Is he aware that we believe that the provision for extra school building to meet the raising of the school-leaving age is inadequate? Secondly, and just as important, is he aware that it was never our intention that the National Advisory Council on the Training and Supply of Teachers should disappear with no other body to take its place? Will he look at this point again urgently?
    Mr. Redhead: My right hon. Friend takes the view that in this situation it would be premature to talk about machinery to replace the Advisory Council, but he shares the misgivings expressed about the effectiveness of the Council in its present form as an advisory body. Meanwhile, he will keep in touch with educational opinion on all matters relevant to this. On the subject of building I ask the right hon. Gentleman to await a Circular which my right hon. Friend will shortly be issuing in which guidance will be given to local authorities.

    School Places (Cost)
    Mr. J. E. B. Hillasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the estimated current average cost of a primary and of a secondary new school place, respectively; and what would be the estimated cost of providing the extra school places needed for the raising of the school-leaving age to 16 years, respectively, by enlarging the secondary schools with the age of transfer at 11-plus, and by enlarging the primary schools so as to cope with an assumed age of transfer of 12-plus.
    Mr. Lomasasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is his estimate of the cost of raising the school-leaving age on the assumption that local education authorities are allowed to base their comprehensive plans on an age of transfer other than 11-plus; and what is his policy towards local education authorities wishing to follow this course.
    Mr. Redhead: The current costs per place for new primary and secondary schools respectively are £230 and £435. It is not possible to estimate the costs of raising the leaving age by different building plans without also making assumptions about the implied changes in school organisation.
    The relative cost with different ages of transfer would vary according to the circumstances of different authorities. My right hon. Friend gave some advice on school organisation in paragraph 22 of Circular 10/65. This allows authorities to put proposals to him and does not rule out local variations. In considering such proposals he will naturally take into account whether there would be clear advantages in such an arrangement.
    Mr. Hill: Will the Minister say to what extent he is allowing local education authorities flexibility in designing their building plans to take account of ages of transfer other than 11-plus where it is locally advantageous?
    Mr. Redhead: When proposals are submitted in accordance with the Answer which I have already given in which a local education authority indicates its desire, for some good and satisfactory reason, to depart from normal standards, my right hon. Friend will consider the proposal on its merits.

    Audio-Visual Aids (Report)
    Mr. J. E. B. Hillasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what action he is taking upon the Brynmor Jones Report on audio-visual aids in higher scientific education.
    Mr. Prentice: The main recommendations of the Report are being considered by the Department, in consultation with the University Grants Committee and the Scottish Education Department. Meanwhile, the universities and other institutions concerned are taking the Report into account in planning their own development.
    Mr. Hill: While acknowledging the very valuable work that is being done by existing organisations in this field up to date, may I ask whether the time has not come to accept the main recommendation of the Brynmor Jones Report to establish a national centre which will have a complete library of programmes and also a standing exhibition of all the equipment that is available?
    Mr. Prentice: It is this proposal, along with the complementary proposals about service units, which are being discussed at the moment between my Department, the University Grants Committee and the Scottish Office.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: Will the hon. Gentleman take particularly into account the availability of teaching machines which seem specially well adapted to teaching mathematics and science even at the higher level? Is that the type of machine on which he would look favourably?
    Mr. Prentice: We are in favour of the spread of visual aids of all kinds, but

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    without notice I should not like to distinguish between the merits of one type and another. Teaching machines, along with other equipment, are spreading in their use throughout the schools system.

    Local Authorities (University Grants and Technical Colleges)
    Mr. Gresham Cookeasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will introduce legislation to transfer to central Government the expenses of university grants and of technical colleges, so as to reduce the burden of rates.
    Mr. Prentice: No, Sir.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a certain amount of logic in transferring a proportion of the expenditure of university grants to the central Exchequer because university grants in particular are national, and technical colleges also serve a wide area? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in Richmond, a comparatively small borough, the cost of serving these two things is £800,000?
    Mr. Prentice: It depends what the hon. Gentleman has in mind. If he says that there should be no variation in grants when there is local option, the Government have no proposals to meet him. If he is speaking of the problem as one of the financial burden on local authorities, I refer him to the White Paper published on 25th February in which the Government are proposing a new system of grants to take some of the financial burden away from local authorities.

    Comprehensive System (Grammar Schools)
    Mr. Dudley Smithasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what action he takes where a local authority has decreed that all grammar schools in its area should be absorbed into comprehensive units and objections are made by a majority of the parents immediately involved.
    Mr. Redhead: Most proposals of this kind would require my right hon. Friend's specific approval under Section 13 of the Education Act, 1944. The local education authority would need to give public notice of the proposal and objections
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    could be made to him within two months. He would carefully consider all the circumstances, including any objections, before giving his decision.
    Mr. Dudley Smith: Does the hon. Gentleman think it right that the views of parents should be completely ignored by Socialist authorities which always seem to place uniformity above variety?
    Mr. Redhead: My right hon. Friend, in Circular 10/65, has already drawn attention to the importance which he attaches to the fullest possible information being given to parents.
    Sir E. Boyle: Leaving aside the merits of individual schemes, will not the Minister agree that, even in the case of some proposals which do not technically involve Section 13, it is desirable to urge authorities to publish notices and give an opportunity for objections to be heard? Is he aware that in the last Parliament, whenever a proposal of this kind came up, if there was any question of public opinion really being roused on the matter, I always encouraged authorities to publish notices?
    Mr. Redhead: The effect of what the right hon. Gentleman has said is implicit in the terms of the Circular.
    Mr. Armstrong: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind, in thinking about the parents and children involved, that the parents of children attending secondary modern schools are equally involved with those of children attending grammar schools and that, very often, we tend to feel that grammar school opinion represents public opinion?
    Mr. Redhead: The policy to which Circular 10/65 refers is a policy applying to grammar schools as to other kinds of secondary school.

    Undersea Research
    Sir B. Jannerasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science, in view of the plans being made by the French Government to embark on an extensive programme of undersea research, what plans he has for seeking Anglo-French co-operation in this as in other highly technical spheres of common interest.
    Mr. Prentice: Details of the French Government's intentions for research in this field have not been made known to us, but there have been unofficial exchanges between scientific organisations in the two countries and my right hon. Friend is prepared to consider any proposals that may be made. British oceanographers and geologists at research establishments of the Natural Environment Research Council and at universities have co-operated with French scientists in research of this kind and will continue to do so on projects of mutual interest.
    Sir B. Janner: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply, but is he aware that stations for intensive research in oceanography are at present being established in France and the French are making a big move in this direction? In order to avoid duplication and to assist this work, which is very important from our point of view, will he again get in touch with the French authorities to see whether we can co-operate in some way on this venture?
    Mr. Prentice: The Natural Environment Research Council is at present undertaking a review of the future orientation of oceanographic research in this country, and I am sure that it will bear that suggestion in mind.
    Mr. David Price: Will not the Minister agree that, in terms of further knowledge of what is happening under the oceans, the biggest problem is not so much international co-operation as the need to get oceanographers and geophysicists—the two main branches of science involved—to get together and speak the same language? This is an infinitely bigger problem than international co-operation.
    Mr. Prentice: There are several contacts. There is the Inter-Governmental Oceanographic Commission on which Britain and France along with many other countries are represented. There is a good deal of contact on that body.

    Woking County Grammar School for Boys
    Mr. Onslowasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when a sixth form common room is to be provided at Woking County Grammar School for Boys.
    Mr. Redhead: This kind of provision is made as part of the minor works programme. It is, therefore, for the Surrey local education authority to decide whether and when it should be made.
    Mr. Onslow: Will the hon. Gentleman take it that that is a very disappointing reply, particularly in the light of the cuts which the Minister has imposed on these programmes, and the more so in view of the Government's unwillingness to redevelop this school on a new site which is available, a course which would be of great benefit to another secondary school and to a primary school, both of which are in need of premises?
    Mr. Redhead: On the question of cuts, the Surrey minor works programme for 1966–67 is £450,000, compared with a total allocation for 1965–66 of £400,000.

    Children's Theatre
    Mr. Channonasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what steps he is taking to encourage children's theatre in Great Britain.
    Miss Jennie Lee: The committee of the Arts Council set up to study young people's theatre recently submitted an interim report to the Council. This is being considered in consultation with my Department, and I hope for early progress in this very important field.

    Comprehensive System (Birmingham)
    Dr. Wyndham Daviesasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science to what extent it is his policy that the direct grant schools, King Edward VII School for Boys and the High School for Girls, should be planned as part of a comprehensive system like all the other grammar schools and direct grant schools in Birmingham.
    Mr. Redhead: The Government's policy to reorganise secondary education on comprehensive lines applies to all grant aided schools. In Circular 10/65, issued last July my right hon. Friend, asked local education authorities to discuss with the governors of direct grant schools ways in which the schools could co-operate in local reorganisation schemes.
    Dr. Davies: Is the Minister aware that the King Edward School Foundation in Birmingham does exactly the type of

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    social engineering which seems to be the aim of that Circular, and there is no need to do this type of work again by bringing into a comprehensive system a perfectly sound school which has served the citizens of Birmingham and the surrounding areas well?
    Mr. Redhead: I understand that discussions have yet to take place between the Birmingham authority and the King Edward Foundation, and it would, therefore, not be proper for me to comment on the position of the two direct grant schools in which the hon. Gentleman is interested. I can only say that, after the outcome of discussions between those bodies, my right hon. Friend will consider any proposals on their merits in the particular circumstances.
    Sir E. Boyle: Does the Minister realise that the position of the direct grant schools is causing more concern than any other aspect of the secondary reorganisation policy of the party opposite, not least in Birmingham, and will he take it that this is partly because of the particular quality of these schools, the fact that they cover a wide catchment area and they are institutions which have achieved so much both academically and in terms of social mixing?
    Mr. Redhead: I fully recognise the excellent achievements of most direct grant schools. My right hon. Friend is asking them to accept the challenge of a more varied entry so that the advantages they can offer are more widely shared. We shall look forward with interest to what we hope will be the fruitful discussions between the direct grant schools and the local education authorities.

    Comprehensive Schools (Choice)
    Mr. Kenneth Lewisasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will instruct education authorities which intend to offer no alternative to comprehensive education to give parents the opportunity of sending their children to the comprehensive school of their choice where more than one is available.
    Mr. Redhead: A parent's right to choose a school within the public system from among those available is not in any way impaired by the establishment of a
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    comprehensive pattern of secondary education.
    Mr. Lewis: But is not the Minister aware that in most cases children are directed to a particular school in a particular area? Does he realise that the setting up of the comprehensive system is creating a socially divisive influence in the grammar schools because to the grammar schools children come from all classes and all areas whereas, if there is a comprehensive school in one area and a comprehensive school in another, children from the one area go to the one school, and this creates social barriers?
    Mr. Redhead: I would not accept the hon. Gentleman's assessment of the position, and I ask him to bear in mind that for the great majority of parents the present system of secondary organisation does not in practice allow very much choice to parents.
    Mr. Speaker: Mr. Hamling.
    Mr. Lewis: I beg to give notice—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I have called the hon. Member for Woolwich, West.
    Mr. Hamling: Is my hon. Friend the Minister aware that in London, where we have had more experience of comprehensive schools than in any other L.E.A. in England, there has been no such direction as the hon. Gentleman opposite has mentioned?
    Sir E. Boyle: Reverting to the Minister's last answer, is it not a fact that at least one authority, namely, Bristol, in putting forward comprehensive proposals, specifically advocated that comprehensive schools should be on neighbourhood lines, and is it not a fact also that any such proposal must exacerbate class differences between schools?
    Mr. Lewis rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Giving notice of intention to raise a matter on the Adjournment precludes any further questions. I hope that hon. Members will hesitate before doing so too quickly.
    Mr. Redhead: My right hon. Friend is most anxious that comprehensive schools should not develop into purely neighbourhood schools, and on these grounds alone he would support the

    1475
    widest possible range of choice for parents.
    Mr. Lewis: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I intend to raise the matter at the General Election.

    Building Programmes
    Mr. Peter Walkerasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether it is his intention, when asking local authorities to submit their building programmes for 1967–68 and 1968–69, to advise them that, besides putting into their programme plans for new schools for developing areas, a proportion of expenditure can be used for the replacement of old schools.
    Mr. Redhead: The basis on which authorities are to compile their proposals for these building programmes will be made known to them shortly.
    Mr. Walker: Will the Minister confirm that, in his view, the replacement of Victorian primary schools should take precedence over buildings necessary for the imposition of the comprehensive system? Second, in those areas where there are new estates and old Victorian schools, will he see that there is a generous allocation for both types of building?
    Mr. Redhead: In Circular 10/65 my right hon. Friend makes abundantly clear that no extra provision can be made solely for the purposes of comprehensive education.

    Scientific and Technological Information (Storage, Abstraction and Retrieval)
    Mr. J. H. Osbornasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what work his Department, either through the Computer Centre or otherwise, will sponsor during the current year on scientific and technological information storage, abstraction, and retrieval; what discussions he has had with museums, libraries, and publishers; and how much money will be allocated to this work during the current year.
    Mr. Prentice: I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Dr. Wyndham Davies) on 15th February. The
    1476
    Office for Scientific and Technical Information is undertaking a wide range of activities in this field and maintains close and regular contact, both at staff level and through the Advisory Committee for Scientific and Technical Information, with all major organisations that have a substantial interest in its work.
    I shall be happy to provide the hon. Member with a list of the more important activities if he so desires.
    Mr. Osborn: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that reply. Is he aware that the first part of his Answer illustrates the need for an active experiment with the Library of the House of Commons so that we may have readily available and tabulated information about what hon. Gentlemen opposite say by way of statements, Answers and speeches at various times?
    Mr. Prentice: I will look into that suggestion.

    Primary Schools, South Dorset (Sanitary Accommodation)
    Mr. Evelyn Kingasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many primary schools still remain in South Dorset without inside sanitary accommodation; and what would be the cost of installing it.
    Mr. Redhead: Twenty-two. I am unable to say what the total cost would be of providing indoor sanitation for these schools.
    Mr. King: Since the amount of money involved is such a small sum compared with the tens of millions of £s being spent on grandiose propositions in various cities, and since it is not much to ask for a W.C., cannot the Minister speed up this reform and remove this long-standing rural grievance?
    Mr. Redhead: I recognise that the conditions in many old primary schools leave very much to be desired. However, as I have said on an earlier occasion, this is not a creation of 18 months but a legacy inherited from many years.
    Mr. J. E. B. Hill: Is not the Minister aware that these defects could have been put right had he not abolished the mini-minor programmes which we pledge to restore, no doubt to the gratitude of local education authorities?
    Mr. Redhead: Within the allocations made to them, it was always open to local education authorities to apply their own order of priorities.
    Mr. King: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the Minister's reply, I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment.

    National Youth Orchestra
    Dame Irene Wardasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he has yet reached a decision on support for the National Youth Orchestra.
    Miss Jennie Lee: As I told the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark) on 24th February, we are now examining legal difficulties affecting the Department's powers to assist the National Youth Orchestra financially. But I again repeat the assurance that I gave earlier in this House that we are determined to save this orchestra.
    Dame Irene Ward: While thanking the hon. Lady for believing that this is a genuine attempt, may I ask her to explain why it appears to be so much easier legally to get on with the children's theatre than with the National Youth Orchestra, since both seem to be in harmony?
    Miss Lee: I assure the hon. Lady that no one is keener than I am to cut through the red tape, but when we get hold of public money to spend there must be public accountability. There are certain legal difficulties in the Department, but, as I have said, I agree that the National Youth Orchestra should be saved. On the question of the children's theatre, a great deal of preliminary work is being done and, in the next Parliament, we will give the matter high priority.
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: Can the hon. Lady give some idea of the legal difficulties involved? Is she aware that we have been pressing for this for a very long time and that we want to see something done quickly and properly?
    Miss Lee: There are no powers available to the Department at present to give grants for private schools of this nature. This is a genuine legal difficulty which we are trying to get over. I assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no hesitation on the part of anyone in wishing to save this very special orchestra.
    Mr. Shinwell: Would my hon. Friend invite the Leader of the Opposition to join the National Youth Orchestra?

    British Museum (Admission)
    Sir J. Langford-Holtasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science who is refused admission to all or any part of the British Museum; and for what reasons.
    Miss Jennie Lee: The trustees have power under their statutes to withdraw the privilege of admission to the reading room or any department of the Museum at their absolute discretion. If the hon. Member has any particular case in mind, perhaps he would write to me.

    Further Education (Hull)
    Mr. McNamaraasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will give the figures and percent ages for Hull for the years 1960 to 1965 of those children remaining at school over the age of 16 years, and those entering apprenticeships or occupations leading to professional qualifications; and what are the corresponding figures for the Yorkshire and Humberside Economic Region and for England and Wales.
    Mr. Redhead: As the Answer is in the form of two statistical tables, I will, with permission, publish it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. McNamara: I thank my hon. Friend for that Answer and I look forward to seeing the statistics in the OFFICIAL REPORT. May I point out that there is a general feeling of satisfaction in Yorkshire about the state of affairs there, and will he ask his right hon. Friend to keep the matter under constant review?
    Mr. Redhead: I hope that my hon. Friend will take due care to study the

    1479
    statistical tables to which I have referred I have no doubt that, in the next Parliament, he will be able to put more

    THE TABLE BELOW GIVES NUMBERS AND PERCENTAGES OF PUPILS AGED 16, IN SCHOOL IN JANUARY OF THE YEARS STATED:

    1960

    1961

    1962

    1963

    1964

    1965

    England and Wales

    Maintained schools*

    numbers

    97,263

    111,625

    104,640

    143,007

    159,221

    153,048

    as percentage of 13 year olds

    17·2

    17·9

    18·6

    20·7

    21·1

    22·2

    3 years earlier

    All schools

    numbers

    135,893

    152,300

    141,156

    186,584

    204,954

    196,102

    as percentage of 13 year olds

    21·6

    22·2

    22·8

    24·8

    24·9

    26·8

    3 years earlier

    Yorkshire and Humberside

    Maintained schools*

    numbers

    8,839

    10,741

    9,539

    12,990

    14,822

    14,067

    as percentage of 13 year olds

    14·9

    16·0

    16·2

    17·8

    18·5

    19·7

    3 years earlier

    All schools

    numbers

    n.a.

    n.a.

    n.a.

    n.a.

    n.a.

    n.a.

    as percentage of 13 year olds

    n.a.

    n.a.

    n.a.

    n.a.

    n.a.

    n.a.

    3 years earlier

    Kingston-upon-Hull

    Maintained schools*

    numbers

    623

    796

    729

    956

    1,034

    1,048

    as percentage of 13 year olds

    14·7

    17·2

    16·6

    16·0

    15·9

    19·0

    3 years earlier

    All schools

    numbers

    710

    922

    820

    1,057

    1,164

    1,182

    as percentage of 13 year olds

    n.a.

    19·4

    18·2

    17·3

    17·4

    20·8

    3 years earlier

    * excluding special schools.

    n.a.=not available without considerable extension of the time allowed.

    The following table, supplied by my rt. hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, shows numbers aged under 18 whose first employment is an apprenticeship or an occupation leading to a professional qualification:

    1960

    1961

    1962

    1963

    1964

    1965

    England and Wales

    Apprenticeships

    …

    110,312

    120,673

    126,904

    103,434

    116,144

    119,748

    Professional occupations

    …

    6,697

    7,324

    7,090

    7,601

    9,031

    7,935

    All first employment

    …

    486,020

    522,827

    585,891

    520,693

    541,417

    498,543

    Region*

    Apprenticeships

    …

    13,504

    13,652

    17,502

    13,498

    16,160

    15,318

    Professional occupations

    …

    492

    697

    811

    1,167

    1,356

    962

    All first employment

    …

    47,563

    50,823

    70,150

    58,667

    63,603

    53,827

    Hull and Hessle

    Apprenticeships

    …

    n.a.

    n.a.

    1,126†

    1,076†

    1,045

    1,052

    Professional occupations

    …

    n.a.

    n.a.

    92

    112

    All first employment

    …

    n.a.

    n.a.

    6,765

    5,747

    5,703

    5,406

    * The "Region" was, in 1960 and 1961 "East and West Ridings and the City of York"; in 1962–64 "Yorkshire (East and West Ridings and the City of York) and Lincolnshire"; and in 1965 "Yorkshire and Humberside".

    † Reliable classification between the two categories is not available.

    n.a.—Information not available.

    specific questions to me as a result of the information available to him.
    Following are the tables:

    Comprehensive System (Isle of Sheppey)
    Mr. Bostonasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he has received proposals for the reorganisation of secondary education on the Isle of Sheppey as part of the plans being drawn up by the North-East Kent, Faversham, Division of the Kent Education Committee; and when he hopes to be able to approve the proposal to introduce comprehensive education on the island.
    Mr. Redhead: Proposals have not yet been put to my right hon. Friend formally, but the local education authority has submitted its plan informally for discussion with the Department and a meeting will be arranged very shortly. I cannot, in the circumstances, say when and in what form he will be able to approve a reorganisation plan for the Isle of Sheppey.
    Mr. Boston: Is my hon. Friend aware that these moves are warmly welcomed because this is a particularly suitable area? Can he confirm that where arrangements are being made for comprehensive education to be introduced into one area, when other areas are affected they will also be considered and a statement made at about the same time?
    Mr. Redhead: Most certainly consideration will be given to my hon. Friend's point.

  NASSAU AGREEMENT
  Mr. Martenasked the Prime Minister whether he has now proposed the re-negotiation of the Nassau Agreement; and if he will make a statement.
  Mr. G. Campbellasked the Prime Minister what arrangements he has made to start negotiations to alter the terms of the Nassau Agreement.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): I have nothing to add to the Answer I gave on 14th December, 1965, to a Question by the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker).
  Mr. Marten: Does that mean that this particular pledge, which was given at the last election in order to pacify the Left wing, is still the Labour Govern-
  1482
  ment's policy? Or is it, like steel nationalisation, to be dropped?
  The Prime Minister: Of course it is the Government's policy, as I have explained on a number of occasions. [Interruption.] Of course it is—[HON. MEMBERS: "When?"] As soon as we are able to reach agreement with our allies on the form of the Atlantic Nuclear Force. I hope that hon. Gentlemen opposite will not go on pressing us to fall over ourselves to put nuclear weapons in the hands of the Germans.
  Mr. G. Campbell: Is not this yet another non-event? Will the Prime Minister be speaking again at the next election at Plymouth and will he again propose there to pay for an expanded naval shipbuilding programme out of the money saved from a nuclear programme?
  The Prime Minister: We have already made some saving out of the nuclear programme, as has been announced in the House.—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."]—To answer the first part of that supplementary question, this will certainly be an event under the Labour Government in the next Parliament.
  Mr. George Y. Mackie: Would the Prime Minister care to say what circumstances have changed and whether the dangers of proliferation are greater or less than when he took office and when he made his pledge about re-negotiating?
  The Prime Minister: There is on the Order Paper a Question about an anti-proliferation agreement which I shall be answering. The operative part of the Nassau Agreement which requires changing is that part which is based on the pretence that we had an independent nuclear deterrent. That pretence was blown up 18 months ago.
  Mr. Heath: Even that remark does not quite tally with the Prime Minister's statement, because is he aware that on a former occasion he argued that to try to add a Polaris submarine to a Western striking force as a result of the Nassau Agreement was like trying to add a dried pea to the top of a mountain? Is that still his view about it?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. [Interruption.] I thought that I said that it was like adding a pea to the top of a

  1483
  drum, but I will accept the right hon. Gentleman's quotation. It has been for a very long time understood that the nuclear striking power of the West as a whole without any British contribution would be about 95 per cent. or 96 per cent. of the total. That is at any rate the ratio of a pea to a drum, if not to a mountain. We kept the Polaris submarine programme because production was beyond the point of no return, but we said that it must be internationalised as a means—[HON. MEMBERS: When?]—it will be. We believe in negotiating adequate conditions for what we do and not rushing in without conditions, like right hon. Gentlemen opposite. We believe that it has a rôle to play in securing an Atlantic arrangement which does not provide, as many hon. Gentlemen opposite would provide, a separate nuclear striking power in Europe.
  Mr. Heath: Is the Prime Minister aware that we have admired the pertinacity and guts with which he has continued to push this pea to the top of the mountain?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his compliment. He will now understand our difficulties in the light of the pressure, exerted by him and his colleagues, to sacrifice non-proliferation to the speeding up of the nuclear rearmament of Western Europe.

  MOSCOW (PRIME MINISTER'S VISIT)
  Mr. Kershawasked the Prime Minister what conversations about disarmament he had with Russian leaders in Moscow; and whether he will make a statement.
  Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on his discussions in Moscow.
  The Prime Minister: I would refer hon. Members to the Answers I gave to Questions last Tuesday.
  Mr. Kershaw: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the lack of progress that he has reported is disappointing, doubtless also to himself? Is he further aware that he is not likely to do much good in
  1484
  foreign affairs while economic policy makes us the paid servant and pensioner of the United States?
  The Prime Minister: I do not think that anyone expected that, from a short visit to the Soviet Union, I would come back with a multilateral, international, comprehensive disarmament agreement. I remind the hon. Gentleman that such was also the case the last time a British Prime Minister went to Moscow. That was seven years ago and I do not know why a Prime Minister did not go thereafter until my visit. However, on this occasion we did make some progress—in contrast to what happened seven years ago, when what was said and done in Moscow was immediately vetoed by Germany or other allies. The hon. Gentleman's claim about the economic situation was overwhelmingly dealt with in last Tuesday's debate—and I may add that if that is all that the party opposite have for the election we on this side have not much to fear.
  Mr. Allaun: Following these talks, does my right hon. Friend think that the new proposals discussed in Geneva by Lord Chalfont with the Soviet representative could provide the basis for further discussion, either in Moscow or Geneva?
  The Prime Minister: I believe that the proposal made by Mr. Kosygin on 1st February in relation to a nuclear guarantee to non-nuclear Powers carries the argument a little further, and I told him so. However, in our view, it does not carry it far enough forward and we had some discussion about what we think should be done next. My noble Friend Lord Chalfont is going to Moscow within the next few weeks to continue this discussion further.

  SOCIAL SECURITY
  Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Prime Minister if he will now take steps to merge the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance with the Ministry of Health and the National Assistance Board.
  The Prime Minister: I do not think it would be appropriate to merge the Ministry of Health with any other Department. For the rest, I would ask my hon. Friend to await the statement which my

  1485
  right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance hopes to make before the end of the Session explaining our proposals to create a Ministry of Social Security and to replace National Assistance.
  Mr. Hamilton: What does my right hon. Friend think about the latest public opinion poll?
  The Prime Minister: I do not think that it arises out of this Question.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. That is far too wide.

  NUCLEAR WEAPONS
  Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Prime Minister what progress he expects in the next year towards the negotiation of an anti-proliferation agreement on the spread of nuclear weapons.
  The Prime Minister: I explained on 1st February how we are tackling the need for progress on a non-proliferation treaty. We have urged the Geneva Disarmament Committee to get down to the discussion of texts during the present session, and we shall do everything in our power to promote agreement as soon as possible.
  Mr. Hamilton: Will my right hon. Friend consider, when he comes back after 31st March, issuing an invitation to the Chinese leaders to come to Britain to deal with this matter, since we cannot get an international agreement on it unless the Chinese are involved?
  The Prime Minister: I believe the fact that more than one nuclear Power has not accepted, for example, the test ban agreement, creates anxiety for some countries which are neighbours of China—for example, India. This is a new problem which we discussed in Moscow. A comprehensive agreement would have to take account of the factors mentioned by my hon. Friend.
  Mr. Lubbock: Could an anti-proliferation agreement be expanded to include extension of the nuclear test ban treaty to underground tests? What changes have there been in the Soviet attitude to on-site inspection? In view of the advances in seismology in the
  1486
  West, can we moderate our demands for such inspection?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. We had a considerable discussion on this. It is a separate subject although I believe that it may be possible to make progress on the two issues together. The Russians have not changed their attitude in relation to inspections and continually press that the seismological advances make such inspections unnnecessary. We do not go all the way with them in that view, but improvements are being made each year in the ability to check tests from some distance away.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: The right hon. Gentleman said that there had been some progress towards disarmament in the talks on the question of a non-proliferation agreement. Was there any change in the Soviet attitude towards the proposed A.N.F. or the Nuclear Committee?
  The Prime Minister: The Soviet Government maintained their position strongly. The House has been aware for many years of their obsession—and I do not apologise for using the word—about the German position. We were able to get more progress on this occasion in explaining to them the difference between the M.L.F.—which I think we were able to get off the international scene a year ago—and the A.N.F. But they are still very obsessed by the question of any indirect German connection with nuclear affairs.

  FIRST SECRETARY OF STATE (SPEECH)
  Mr. Peter Walkerasked the Prime Minister whether the public speech made by the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs at Church Gresley on 26th January about house mortgages represents Government policy.
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, very much so.
  Mr. Walker: Is the Prime Minister aware that the First Secretary of State said that the Government would proceed with their mortgage proposals when the economic situation eased? As, in the five weeks since then, we have had the worst trade figures since August, sterling

  1487
  has fallen to its lowest level since September and we have heard today that, during the last 12 months, wages have risen nine times as fast as productivity, which of these three features does the right hon. Gentleman describe as easing?
  The Prime Minister: If the hon. Gentleman wants to rehearse his election speech I will reply to it. It was not only my right hon. Friend who said this. I said it in this House as well four or five weeks ago. I stated that I thought that the economic position had improved sufficiently for a statement to be made. The hon. Gentleman has quoted one month's trade figures, but his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition told us, when he was President of the Board of Trade, that we cannot consider them singly. Indeed, the figures for January were far less bad than the figures for January, 1964—when the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) was provoked into saying that the economy had never been stronger.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Answers are getting too long.
  The Prime Minister: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I had five supplementary questions put to me. Would I not be in order in replying to just one more? That reply is that the trade figures for the last three months show a gap only one-third as large as in the last three months of the Tory Government.

  MINISTER OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND MINISTER OF LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenterasked the Prime Minister if he will appoint a Minister to co-ordinate the work of the Minister of Housing and Local Government and the Minister of Land and Natural Resources.
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: One appreciates that any such appointment would necessarily be of very brief duration, but cannot the right hon. Gentleman do some-
  1488
  thing to remedy the absurdity under which, at the same time, the Minister of Housing and Local Government restricts local authorities from saving money by buying land in advance and the Minister of Land and Natural Resources proposes to hand out £45 million for that purpose to the Land Commission?
  The Prime Minister: I agree that there are problems of allocation between these two Departments and the Ministry of Public Building and Works which, in certain respects, were made worse by decisions taken, in good faith, in summer, 1964. I am looking at the need for closer co-ordination but the point put by the right hon. Gentleman is not a problem.

  RATES
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenterasked the Prime Minister whether he will recommend the appointment of a Royal Commission on the system of local rates.
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Is the Prime Minister aware that the Minister of Housing and Local Government spends a great deal of time denouncing the rates as vicious and regressive and that if he wants to be taken seriously it would be a good idea to have an investigation of some alternative form of local revenue?
  The Prime Minister: When addressing the Conservative Party Conference on 10th October, 1963, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) rejected the idea of a Royal Commission and said that this issue raised matters of Government responsibility and would take a considerable time. He said that the then Government considered the matter urgent, but they did nothing about it, as we know. Because of the very criticisms made both by my right hon. Friend and myself, however, the Royal Commission which has been set up will obviously have to consider questions of local finance and rating.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Is the Prime Minister aware that the need for a Royal Commission is now very much greater, as there then was what there is not now—a competent Government?
  The Prime Minister: I am aware of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman went on to say:
  "We think, therefore, that this is a review which we should undertake ourselves as a Government."
  But they forgot to do it. The only difference between that time and this is that we now have two major parties interested in the ratepayers. At that time, it was only the Labour Party, because the Conservatives discovered the existence of ratepayers and mortgage owners only after they got into opposition.
  Mr. Lubbock: Is the Prime Minister aware that now that the Minister of Housing and Local Government has announced the abandonment of the 1968 revaluation, it would take far too long for a Royal Commission to produce results? Will the Minister of Housing and Local Government, or the Prime Minister, condescend to tell us what the policy on rating is, before the General Election?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I do not accept at all that the cancellation of the revaluation has the effect suggested by my hon. Friend—[Laughter.]
  Hon. Members: Withdraw.
  The Prime Minister: I must apologise and withdraw. [Laughter.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The House is getting almost too happy.
  The Prime Minister: I must sincerely apologise, since the hon. Gentleman has led his party into the Division Lobby against us twice for every time that he has voted with us. As for our policy on rating, in addition to the Rating Relief Act, we announced last week our new proposals for relieving local authority finance. We have also announced successive proposals in the form of a Bill and there has been the further announcement about housing finance. In 16 months we have done quite a lot about this matter.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Bowden): With permission, Mr. Speaker, perhaps I may inform the House of the arrangements for next week.
MONDAY, 7TH MARCH—Supply [10th Allotted Day]: Report when, if the House
1490
agrees, the Questions will be put forthwith.
There will follow a debate on an Opposition Motion on Defence, which, subject to the House agreeing to take formally the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill, will be continued on Tuesday, 8th March.
WEDNESDAY, 9TH MARCH—Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill: Remaining stages.
The day will be available for the discussion of topics which private Members may wish to raise. It may perhaps suit the convenience of the House to conclude the proceedings on the Bill at a reasonable hour.
THURSDAY, 10TH MARCH—The House will meet at 2.30 p.m.
Prorogation will follow immediately after Prayers.
Mr. William Hamilton: Can my right hon. Friend say when the Geddes report on the shipbuilding industry will be published?
Mr. Bowden: My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade received this report on 27th February, a few days ago. It will not now be possible to publish the report before the Dissolution of the House. Nevertheless, my right hon. Friend is aware of the interest among hon. Members to see it as soon as possible, and he is making arrangements to lay a White Paper in dummy form. [Laughter.] This will enable the Report to be published and is the necessary procedure if the House wishes to have the Report. If the House does not want to receive the Report, there is no need for it to do so.
Mr. R. Carr: Would the right hon. Gentleman arrange for a statement next week to remove the anxiety which has been caused among all those who work in the aircraft industry and among the communities and the hon. Members of the areas concerned by the suggestion that, after consultation with the Government, B.O.A.C. has firmly decided to cancel its outstanding order for Super VC10s?
Mr. Bowden: I will certainly convey the right hon. Gentleman's comments to my right hon. Friend. I cannot firmly

1491
promise a statement, but I will discuss the matter with my right hon. Friend.
Mr. Lipton: What does my right hon. Friend mean about finishing at a reasonable hour next Wednesday? Assuming that there are no Divisions, can we not go on to an unreasonable hour instead?
Mr. Bowden: I thought that it would be for the convenience of hon. Members, on the last day before Prorogation, that we did not sit beyond, say, midnight, so that hon. Members could get to their constituencies and we could have Prorogation at 2.30 the next day.
Mr. Hugh Fraser: May we take it from what the right hon. Gentleman has failed to say that the double taxation agreement with the United States will not be signed before 31st March, thus avoiding a debate on a most disastrous agreement?
Mr. Bowden: I cannot add to what I said last week to a number of questions on this issue.
Mr. Mayhew: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there has been a general welcome for the Prime Minister's suggestion that before decisions are taken on Britain's rôle in the 1970s, there should be a nation-wide debate? Will not the arrangements suggested by the Opposition for Monday and Tuesday ensure the decision being taken on strict party lines, with a three-line Whip, a way which will not reflect opinion in the country or in Parliament? Is not this attempt to fit these big issues into the framework of party politics lamentable evidence of the lack of good sense in the Opposition?
Mr. Bowden: I note my hon. Friend's lack of interest in party politics. It is quite usual for the House of Commons to debate the Defence White Paper on two days. On this occasion, the Opposition are providing the time out of Supply time. This has been necessary because of the importance of getting Supply to permit the proceedings of the House to come to a conclusion. What the Prime Minister obviously had in mind was that these discussions would take place outside the House after Dissolution.
Mr. Heath: Will not the right hon. Gentleman make it absolutely plain that this was the Government's original proposal and that what the Opposition have
1492
done is just to fit in by providing Supply time? This is not the way for the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) to work his way back.
Mr. Maxwell: Would my right hon. Friend tell the House whether an opportunity can be given to me to introduce a Ten-Minute Rule Bill on Tuesday and Wednesday about fairer compensation to tenant-farmers whose land is being expropriated—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is asking a business Question and cannot make a Ten-Minute Rule speech.
Mr. Maxwell rose—
Mr. Speaker: The question has been asked.
Mr. Bowden: My hon. Friend had better consult the Order Paper. If there is a space on Tuesday or Wednesday, he would be entitled to seek to introduce such a Bill.
Sir F. Bennett: Can the right hon. Gentleman promise a Ministerial statement next week on the threatened bus strike, or have we to wait until 30th March for the Prime Minister to announce a personal settlement?
Mr. Freeson: Can my right hon. Friend assure us that next week he will give us a statement on the business of the House for the week we return?
Mr. Bowden: No, Sir. That is not usual. I have already announced the dates on which Members will be sworn in and I have already announced the date on which Her Majesty will make the Speech from the Throne. I cannot at this moment anticipate its contents.
Mr. Farr: Is the right hon. Gentleman's hint that business will terminate early on Wednesday a suggestion that Opposition Members will be unable to raise certain important matters which they would have wished to do?
Mr. Bowden: I was sincerely of the opinion that this would have met with the wishes of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen from both sides of the House. If the House prefers to go through the night, so be it. I must advise the House that the Government will have to get the Third Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill before Prorogation.
Sir D. Renton: Will hon. Members be given access to the precincts of the Houses of Parliament on Friday of next week so that an opportunity for clearing up and removing papers—[Interruption.]—may be given to those hon. Members opposite who will not be returning.
Mr. Bowden: I am sorry, I did not hear the last part of the hon. and learned Gentleman's question. The arrangement will be as usual. Should Her Majesty see fit to dissolve Parliament on Thursday evening of next week, there will be no Members of Parliament on Friday. Former Members will have the facility of coming within the precincts to collect mail and papers from their lockers, but not to conduct any business.
Mr. Dudley Smith: Would the Leader of the House consider giving time for an emergency debate on rates in view of the Prime Minister's rates proposals, which give no relief whatever to the vast majority of ratepayers this year and places them in a position of expecting at least 5 per cent. increases for the years which follow?
Mr. Bowden: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we were forced to give the last five days, because they were Supply days, to the Opposition. In accordance with custom, it is for the Opposition to choose subjects which they wish to discuss, rates or anything else. They could have raised this subject on any of those five days.
Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the Leader of the House aware that next week we have been threatened with a mass lobby of bookmakers, wanting to put money on the return of the Labour Government. How can we be protected against this?
Mr. Chichester-Clark: Will the Minister of Public Building and Works be making a statement next week about the Building Control Bill? Will the Leader of the House also ask him, in view of the concern which has been expressed, to say something about the overstocking of bricks in February, since the January figures look like being 700 million of overstocking, or enough bricks to build 47,000 houses?
Mr. Bowden: My right hon. Friend the Minister of Public Building and Works will be making a statement on Monday or Tuesday of next week. I will
1494
discuss the second part of the hon. Gentleman's question with him and see what he has in mind.
Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Will the Leader of the House consider publishing in the OFFICIAL REPORT the details of those parts of the Government's legislative programme which will be lost by Dissolution?
Mr. Bowden: There is no reason to publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT the legislation which falls because of the Dissolution of Parliament. If the hon. Gentleman would consult papers already in the Vote Office he will see which Bills will obtain the Royal Assent by Tuesday of next week, and by subtraction, will see those which will not.
Mr. Frederic Harris: Can the Leader of the House say how many more White Papers are to be published in the final week of Parliament and what the subjects will be?
Mr. Bowden: At the moment, I could not answer that question with certainty, but I think that there are no further White Papers to be published before Dissolution.
Mr. Godber: Will the Leader of the House tell us what arrangements will be made for the publication of the Agricultural Price Review? Will there be a White Paper, and, if so, will it be published after the Dissolution?
Mr. Bowden: I answered this last week. The Review will come out at the usual time, mid-March. It is often the case that Parliament is in recess at this time. Parliament will not be sitting when it is published, because of Dissolution.
Mr. Hirst: Can the Leader of the House assure hon. Members that no further "Brown" Papers like "Upswing" will be published, also?
Mr. Channon: Does the Leader of the House recall that his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister gave an undertaking on Tuesday to consult the Minister of Public Building and Works about the Building (First Amendment) Regulations, which are considered by a large number of hon. Members to be ultra vires? Can he say whether the Minister is to make a statement?
Mr. Bowden: No, Sir. I cannot at this stage.
Dame Irene Ward: On the question of the dummy White Paper, can the right hon. Gentleman say whether we are to have an outline of the Geddes report. If so, will this be available in plenty of time for discussion during the election campaign?
Mr. Bowden: May I make it absolutely plain to the hon. Lady that it is necessary to lay a dummy White Paper—
Dame Irene Ward: I understood that, thank you.
Mr. Bowden: I am very glad to note it. Having laid the dummy White Paper, the Report should be printed and available about 20th or 21st March.
Mr. Ridsdale: Can the Leader of the House say whether there will be an interim statement on the Wise Committee's Report on the subject of smallholdings? The Government said that this was received on 16th February and would be published almost immediately. I now learn that it is not to be published until after the General Election. What are the Government trying to hide?
Mr. Bowden: I am certain that the Government are not trying to hide anything in this respect. I am not aware of the reason for the delay in publication, but I will inquire.
Mr. Onslow: To return to the matter of the Super VC10s, will the Leader of the House represent to his right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation the importance of making a statement in a form in which he can be questioned upon it in this House, and of not following the deplorable example of his predecessor by contriving to have it made in answer to a Written Question on a Friday?
Mr. Bowden: I have already said that I will discuss this with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY)
Ordered,
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock, and, in the case of every Question which, under the provisions of paragraph (4) of Standing Order No. 18 (Business of Supply), the Chairman is directed to put forthwith at half-past Nine o'clock, he shall this day put such Question forthwith so soon as the House has resolved itself into the Committee of Supply.—[The Prime Minister.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  SUPPLY
  [9TH ALLOTTED DAY]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir SAMUEL STOREY in the Chair]
  CIVIL ESTIMATES, SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1965–66; CIVIL ESTIMATES AND DEFENCE (CENTRAL) ESTIMATE, 1966–67, VOTE ON ACCOUNT; DEFENCE ESTIMATES, 1966–67, VOTE ON ACCOUNT; DEFENCE (NAVY) ESTIMATES, 1966–67; DEFENCE (ARMY) ESTIMATES, 1966–67; DEFENCE (AIR) ESTIMATES, 1966–67; DEFENCE (CENTRAL) SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1965–66; DEFENCE (ROYAL ORDNANCE FACTORIES) SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1965–66; CIVIL ESTIMATES (EXCESSES), 1964–65

  SUPPLY

    CIVIL ESTIMATES, SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1965–66
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    That a further Supplementary sum, not exceeding £76,519,750, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1966, for expenditure in respect of the following Supplementary Estimates, viz.:—

    CIVIL ESTIMATES

    CLASS I

    £

    2.

    House of Commons

    48,000

    3.

    Treasury and Subordinate Departments

    110,000

    4.

    Department of Economic Affairs

    150,000

    7.

    Customs and Excise

    662,000

    8.

    Inland Revenue

    4,754,000

    10.

    Civil Service Commission

    82,000

    CLASS II

    1.

    Diplomatic Service

    641,000

    2.

    Foreign Services

    1,206,000

    4.

    Commonwealth Services

    2,392,000

    5.

    Colonial Office

    22,000

    6.

    Colonial Grants and Loans

    1,662,000

    7.

    Ministry of Overseas Development

    79,000

    8.

    Overseas Aid (Multilateral)

    2,350

    9.

    Overseas Aid (Bilateral)

    225,000

    10.

    Overseas Aid (General Services)

    287,000

    11.

    Overseas Aid (Colonial Development and Welfare

    1,626,000

    1498

    CLASS III

    £

    1.

    Home Office

    665,000

    2.

    Scottish Home and Health Department

    145,000

    5.

    Police, England and Wales

    4,084,000

    6.

    Police, Scotland

    320,000

    7.

    Prisons, England and Wales

    811,000

    8.

    Prisons, Scotland

    1,000

    11.

    Supreme Court of Judicature

    70,000

    12.

    County Courts

    1,000

    14.

    Law Charges

    55,000

    15.

    Law Charges and Courts of Law, Scotland

    12,000

    16.

    Supreme Court of Judicature &c., Northern Ireland

    12,000

    CLASS IV

    1.

    Board of Trade

    204,000

    2.

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

    2,547,000

    5.

    Export Credits (Special Guarantees, etc.)

    1,000

    6.

    Ministry of Labour

    1,000

    7.

    Ministry of Aviation

    9,300,000

    11.

    Ministry of Transport

    120,000

    16.

    Transport (Railways and Waterways Boards)

    6,250,000

    21.

    British Petroleum Company Ltd.

    15,577,000

    CLASS V

    1.

    Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food

    648,000

    2.

    Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland

    66,000

    10.

    Fisheries (Scotland) and Herring Industry

    80,000

    CLASS VI

    1.

    Ministry of Housing and Local Government

    1,000

    2.

    Scottish Development Department

    1,000

    4.

    Housing, England

    249,000

    8.

    General Grants to Local Revenues, Scotland

    1,289,000

    13.

    Ministry of Health

    280,000

    15.

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

    6,477,000

    16.

    Miscellaneous Health and Welfare Services, England and Wales

    876,000

    17.

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

    1,000

    18.

    National Health Service, etc., Scotland

    1,343,000

    19.

    National Health Service (Superannuation, etc.), Scotland

    1,000

    20.

    Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance

    112,000

    22.

    Family Allowances

    500,000

    CLASS VII

    1.

    Department of Education and Science

    53,000

    2.

    Education: Departmental (England and Wales)

    2,408,000

    1499

    £

    3.

    Awards to Students (England and Wales)

    210,000

    4.

    Scottish Education Department

    619,000

    5.

    Teachers' Superannuation (England and Wales)

    1,000

    6.

    Teachers' Superannuation (Scotland)

    692,000

    7.

    Universities and Colleges, etc., Great Britain

    2,829,000

    9A.

    Natural Environment Research Council

    327,000

    10.

    Medical Research Council

    1,000

    13.

    Social Sciences Research Council

    28,000

    CLASS VIII

    7.

    National Gallery

    6,000

    8.

    National Maritime Museum

    2,000

    9.

    National Portrait Gallery

    19,000

    10.

    Tate Gallery

    25,000

    11.

    Wallace Collection

    1,000

    12.

    Royal Scottish Museum

    5,000

    13.

    National Galleries of Scotland

    1,000

    16.

    Grants for the Arts

    71,400

    CLASS IX

    1.

    Ministry of Public Building and Works

    1,000

    2.

    Public Buildings, etc., United Kingdom

    1,000

    13.

    Rates on Government Property

    165,000

    14.

    Stationery and Printing

    1,072,000

    16.

    Government Actuary

    2,000

    18.

    Civil Superannuation, etc.

    1,600,000

    19.

    Post Office Superannuation, etc.

    1,000

    CLASS X

    2.

    Crown Estate Office

    5,000

    3.

    Friendly Societies Registry

    3,000

    4.

    Royal Mint

    1,000

    7.

    Public Trustee

    1,000

    12.

    Scottish Record Office

    1,000

    14.

    Registrar General's Office, Scotland

    25,000

    16.

    National Savings Committee

    20,000

    CLASS XI

    1.

    Broadcasting

    1,000

    2.

    Carlisle State Management District

    1,000

    4.

    Pensions, etc. (India, Pakistan and Burma)

    199,000

    5.

    Supplements to Pensions, etc. (Overseas Services)

    17,000

    6.

    Royal Irish Constabulary Pensions, etc.

    25,000

    11.

    Miscellaneous Expenses

    32,000

    76,519,750

    THE CHAIRMAN then proceeded, pursuant to the Order of the House this day, to put forthwith the Question necessary to dispose of the Vote under consideration.
    Question put and agreed to.
    The CHAIRMAN then further proceeded, pursuant to the Order of the House this day, to put severally the Questions, That the total amounts outstanding in the Civil and Defence Estimates, as follows, for the coming financial year as have been put down on at least one previous day for consideration on an allotted day, and the total amounts of all outstanding Estimates supplementary to those of the current financial year as have been presented seven clear days and of all outstanding Excess Votes be granted for the Services defined in those Estimates, Supplementary Estimates and Statements of Excess:—

    CIVIL ESTIMATES AND DEFENCE (CENTRAL) ESTIMATE, 1966–67
    (VOTE ON ACCOUNT)
    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, etc.

    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

    1501

    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, etc.

    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, etc., 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)

    15,000,000

    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

    1502

    £

    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, &c. (Hospital Services, &c.), 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, &c.) England and Wales

    100

    18.

    National Health Service, &c. Scotland

    41,500,000

    19.

    National Health Service (Superannuation, &c.), 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, &c.

    41,250,000

    CLASS VII

    1.

    Department of Education and Science

    50,000,000

    2.

    Scottish Education Department

    13,423,000

    1503

    £

    3.

    Teachers' Superannuation (England and Wales)

    100

    4.

    Teachers' Superannuation (Scotland)

    263,000

    5.

    Universities and Colleges, &c., 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, &c.

    82,000

    12.

    National Galleries of Scotland

    75,000

    13.

    National Library of Scotland

    76,000

    14.

    National Museum of Antiquities 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, &c., 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.

    Houses 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

    1504

    £

    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 Register 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 Estimate and Defence (Central) Estimate

    2,127,020,800

    Question put and agreed to.

    DEFENCE ESTIMATES 1966–67
    (Vote on Account)
    That a sum, not exceeding £687,000,000, be granted to Her Majesty, on account, for or towards defraying the charges of the Defence Services, including the expense of the Army Reserve Forces (to a number not exceeding 78,000, all ranks, including a number

    1505
    not exceeding 75,500, other ranks), Territorial Army (to a number not exceeding 169,350, all ranks) and Cadet Forces; the expense of operating the Royal Ordnance Factories; the expenditure incurred by the Army Department on the supply of munitions, common-user and other articles for the Government service and on miscellaneous supply; and the expense of the Reserve and Auxiliary services of the Royal Air Force (to a number not exceeding 21,655, all ranks, for the Royal Air Force Reserve, and 600, all ranks, for the Royal Auxiliary Air Force) and Cadet Forces, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1967, as follows:—

    Defence (Navy)

    £

    1.

    Pay, etc., of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines

    40,000,000

    2.

    Royal Navy Reserves

    1,000,000

    3.

    Navy Department Head quarters

    5,000,000

    4.

    Research and Development and other Scientific Services

    12,000,000

    5.

    Medical Services, Education and Civilians on Fleet Services

    7,000,000

    6.

    Naval Stores, Armament, Victualling and other Material Supply Services

    90,000,000

    7.

    H.M. Ships, Aircraft and Weapons, New Construction and Repairs

    71,000,000

    8.

    Miscellaneous Effective Services

    4,000,000

    9.

    Non-Effective Services

    10,000,000

    Defence (Army)

    1.

    Pay, etc., of the Army

    75,000,000

    2.

    Reserve Forces, Territorial Army and Cadet Forces

    8,000,000

    3.

    Army Department Headquarters

    2,500,000

    4.

    Civilians at Outstations

    48,000,000

    5.

    Movements

    9,500,000

    6.

    Supplies

    8,000,000

    7.

    Stores and Equipment

    52,000,000

    8.

    Miscellaneous Effective Services

    2,000,000

    9.

    Non-Effective Services

    16,000,000

    10.

    Defence Lands and Buildings

    4,000,000

    Defence (Royal Ordnance Factories)

    1,000,000

    Defence (Army) Purchasing (Repayment) Services

    1,000,000

    DEFENCE (AIR)

    1.

    Pay, etc., of the Air Force

    60,000,000

    2.

    Reserve and Auxiliary Services

    500,000

    3.

    Air Force Department Headquarters

    2,000,000

    4.

    Civilians at Outstations and the Meteorological Office

    19,000,000

    5.

    Movements

    8,500,000

    6.

    Supplies

    13,000,000

    7.

    Aircraft and Stores

    107,000,000

    1506

    £

    8.

    Miscellaneous Effective Services

    1,000,000

    9.

    Non-Effective Services

    9,000,000

    Total

    687,000,000

    Question put and agreed to.

    DEFENCE (NAVY)
    VOTE A. NUMBERS
    That 103,000 Officers. Ratings and Royal Marines be maintained for Naval Service for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1967.
    Question put and agreed to.

    DEFENCE (ARMY)
    VOTE A. NUMBER OF LAND FORCES
    That a number of Land Forces, not exceeding 238,700, all ranks, be maintained for the safety of the United Kingdom and the defence of the possessions of Her Majesty's Crown during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1967.
    Question put and agreed to.

    DEFENCE (AIR)
    VOTE A. NUMBER FOR AIR FORCE SERVICE
    That a number of Officers, Airmen and Airwomen, not exceeding 131,000, all ranks, be maintained for Air Force Service, during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1967.
    Question put and agreed to.

    DEFENCE (CENTRAL), SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1965–66
    That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £1,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ended on the 31st day of March, 1966, for the salaries and expenses of the Central Defence Staffs, the Defence Secretariat and the Central Defence Scientific Staff and of certain Joint Service Establishments; expenses in connection with International Defence Organisations, including international subscriptions; and sundry other services including certain grants in aid.
    Question put and agreed to.

    DEFENCE
    ROYAL ORDNANCE FACTORIES, SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1965–66
    That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £500,000, be granted to Her Majesty to defray the expense of operating the Royal Ordnance Factories, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1966.
    Question put and agreed to.

    1507

    CIVIL ESTIMATES (EXCESSES), 1964–65

    That a sum, not exceeding £1,018,284 19s. 5d., be granted to Her Majesty, to make good excesses on certain grants for Civil Services, for the year ended on the 31st day of March 1965.

    Schedule

    Class and Vote

    Excess Votes

    £

    s.

    d.

    £

    s.

    d.

    CLASS I

    2.

    House of Commons

    Excess Expenditure

    28,781

    9

    4

    Add—Deficiency on Subhead Z

    1,003

    5

    1

    29,784

    14

    5

    CLASS II

    5.

    Commonwealth Grants and Loans

    Subhead F.3.—Malawi (Grants in Aid): Excess Expenditure

    188,000

    0

    0

    Less—Net savings available on other subheads

    187,990

    0

    0

    10

    0

    0

    CLASS VI

    1.

    Ministry of Housing and Local Government

    Subhead H.3.—Flood Relief (Grant in Aid): Expenditure not supported by statutory authority

    1,249

    4

    7

    Less—Net savings available on Vote

    1,239

    4

    7

    10

    0

    0

    2A.

    Welsh Office

    Subhead C.—Flood Relief (Grant in Aid): Expenditure not supported by statutory authority

    25,000

    0

    0

    Less—Saving available on Vote

    24,990

    0

    0

    10

    0

    0

    9C.

    Awards to Students

    Excess Expenditure

    7,001

    10

    8

    Less—Appropriations in Aid

    40

    13

    8

    6,960

    17

    0

    12.

    Teachers' Superannuation (Scotland)

    Excess Expenditure

    21,040

    13

    8

    Less—Appropriations in Aid

    21,030

    13

    8

    10

    0

    0

    17.

    National Health Service (Superannuation &c.), England and Wales

    Excess Expenditure

    209,763

    15

    11

    Less—Appropriations in Aid

    209,753

    15

    11

    10

    0

    0

    23.

    National Assistance Board

    Excess Expenditure

    1,047,057

    11

    1

    Less—Appropriations in Aid

    65,588

    3

    1

    981,469

    8

    0

    CLASS VII

    1.

    Universities and Colleges &c., Great Britain

    Excess Expenditure

    153,990

    9

    8

    Less—Savings available on other subheads

    153,980

    9

    8

    10

    0

    0

    CLASS X

    7.

    Public Trustee

    Excess Expenditure

    488

    19

    6

    Less—Appropriations in Aid

    478

    19

    6

    10

    0

    0

    Total, Civil (Excesses)

    £1,018,284

    19

    5

    Question put and agreed to.
    Resolutions to be reported.
    Report to be received Tomorrow;
    Committee to sit again Tomorrow.

  WAYS AND MEANS
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir SAMUEL STOREY in the Chair]
  Resolved,
  That, towards making good the Supply granted to Her Majesty for the service of the year ended on the 31st day of March, 1965, the sum of £1,018,284 19s. 5d. be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.—[Mr. MacDermot.]
  Resolved,
  That, towards making good the Supply granted to Her Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1966, the sum of £77,020,750 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.—[Mr. MacDermot.]
  Resolved,
  That, towards making good the Supply granted to Her Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1967, the sum of £2,814,020,800 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.—[Mr. MacDermot.]
  Resolutions to be reported.
  Report to be received Tomorrow; Committee to sit again Tomorrow.

  WAYS AND MEANS
    ADJOURNMENT
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Edward Short.]

  BROADCASTING POLICY
  3.56 p.m.
  Mr. Paul Bryan: We on this side of the House have asked for this debate for two reasons. First, the public, the broadcasting world and all the firms in the electronic industries dealing with broadcasting have become impatient—indeed, by now I think they must have reached the point of exasperation—in waiting to hear the future of broadcasting.
  Secondly, we have asked for this debate as a gesture of good will to the Postmaster-General. We feel that he has been left out of the pre-election jamboree. For a long time we wondered how the Prime Minister would explain away his broken election promises. Now we know. He has decided to bewilder the public by
  1510
  swamping his broken promises with a lot of new promises. Each day we have seen a Minister coming to the Prime Minister's election party bringing gifts of one sort or another. Last night, the Territorial Army followed the rest. But each time the Postmaster-General is the Cinderella left at home while all his ugly sisters have the election fun. This worries us very much. So we want to give him his last chance in his last days as Postmaster-General.
  Having given this little orbison funèbre, I must say that the right hon. Gentleman's career has gone against all the betting. We always thought that that much-quoted, almost over-quoted, sentence in the Labour Party election manifesto about Labour being "poised to swing its plans into instant action" was written by the Postmaster-General. It seemed to go with his background; it went with his haircut.
  There are two things which we constantly hear in the broadcasting world about the right hon. Gentleman. People say, "This chap cannot really decide anything". When we look at the facts, this is justified. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to tell us one important broadcasting decision which he has made and announced since he has been in office. When he came to office, he found problems on his plate—the fourth channel, the future of the television companies, colour television, the future of programme hours, local sound broadcasting, pirates, B.B.C. finances and the rest. But he has had no appetite for any of these tough titbits. They lie drying up on his plate. We are still waiting for him to deal with them.
  The second thing which we hear is how extraordinary it is that although we have the first Postmaster-General with a broadcasting background he appears to have no influence on broadcasting. Every matter for decision has been given, for some reason, to a committee. This is not necessarily the right hon. Gentleman's fault. The Prime Minister presumably ordains this, but it is poor treatment for a man of the right hon. Gentleman's calibre. We expect it for a dull Minister like the Minister of Power, whose problems are given to the winter fuel emergency committee, which was so effective in its time.

  1511
  But why should the Postmaster-General's problems be sent to a committee? I should like to ask, first, who is on the committee. Is he on the committee? If he is, why has he not had influence on it? When is this committee to report? We have seen a leak through the Press that it will not report until the autumn. This is very serious. Each time we ask the right hon. Gentleman when we are to have this report he becomes a little embarrassed, and goes pink. I do not believe that he realises the damage that this indecision is causing to the industry and to broadcasting generally.
  Let me go through some of the ways in which it is causing this damage for B.B.C. and I.T.V. companies. How can they plan investment when they do not know, from month to month, what is to be the future of the industry? New studios and new orders for equipment all have to be put off. For instance, Granada—one of the big four—was ready, 18 months ago, with big plans for re-equipping studios. Those plans have been put off and put off. We have to take into account the cost of the enforced procrastination. We are talking about plans involving not tens of thousands of pounds, or even a few hundred thousand pounds, but very much larger sums. The example that I have given must have been repeated in every company, and in the B.B.C.
  Secondly, there is the question of careers within the industry. It employs highly-paid staff, and it is not made any easier if the companies cannot tell the people that they are trying to take on what the future of the companies will be, where they are likely to be situated, and so on. The stability of the B.B.C. gives it a certain advantage; we are talking not only about the very highly-paid staff; we are also concerned with the fairly highly-paid staff, including engineers and technicians.
  When companies cannot plan ahead for any length of period similar difficulties arise in their negotiations with the trade unions. I hesitate to expand on this subject, because I see that the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Floud) has just come into the Chamber, and no one knows more about this subject than he. Nevertheless, I am sure that he would
  1512
  agree that the present situation creates difficulties in this direction.
  But it is not merely a question of contract with trade unions. Sporting contracts, for instance, are entered into for five or six years ahead, and they cannot be satisfactorily concluded unless it is known how the companies will be placed. There are also contracts for mechanical and performing rights. All these things have been impossible to negotiate with any confidence.
  I turn to the question of exports. The television industry has had extraordinary-success in exports over the last year or two. There has been a great breakthrough, especially by A.B.C. and A.T.V., in the American market. Now that they are in I hope that they will stay in. Nevertheless, this is a very expensive game. All the films for these broadcasts have to be in both black and white and in colour. It is very difficult to plan costs if one does not know what sort of home market there will be in 18 months. The equipment makers are in the same sort of quandary.
  Once we have a large 625-line market we are in a position for the first time to export sets to Europe. But until we know the size of the market we cannot plan. I list all these difficulties because I want the right hon. Gentleman to take this matter seriously and tell us whether we shall have to wait for the findings of a committee before any guidance is given. If there is to be no White Paper in the near future I do not see why we cannot be told many useful things today.
  For instance, on the question of colour television, the argument still rages. Is the system to be SECAM, NTSC, PAL, or NIR? We do not know which it will be. Nevertheless, it is agreed that, basically, these systems are the same to the extent of 90 per cent. and surely the Government's forward plans on how it will allocate colour television, are not greatly affected by this. I would have thought that the Postmaster-General could say clearly whether or not we are going into colour television. It might be said that he has already said that we are, but we recently had a leak which suggests that the Prime Minister now thinks that this is something that we cannot afford. The Postmaster-General therefore needs to restate the position.

  1513
  Cannot the right hon. Gentleman give us a date to aim at? I realise that technical reasons may operate against that, but other countries such as Italy, Germany and Holland have all given dates, and I do not sec any real reason why we should not do the same. This would give a great fillip to the industry and would indicate; to some extent where we are going. We should also be interested to know what the cost of colour television is in various circumstances. It is difficult to get figures from anybody but the Government.
  We must at the same time, take into account how much the B.B.C. has spent on colour television research. It must be a very large sum. The B.B.C. has done the bulk of the work on this subject. Cannot the right hon. Gentleman give some indication of his plans for Independent Television? It is in a weak position at the moment. Until it gets a fourth channel it does not look like getting a look in at all in colour television. Is there any possibility of its sharing B.B.C.2's colour facilities if developments go that way? There are so many possibilities—that even if the Postmaster-General gave some broad guidance the industry would appreciate it.
  What is the possibility of introducing 625-line television and, hence, colour, into the V.H.F. bands? I hear that there is a system known as "pulse sound in syncs", which may make this possible. I am not technical, and do not understand it, but this suggestion comes from a senior engineer in the industry, so there must be something in it. Should this be a practical proposition, it would make an important impact on the whole shape of television, and alter the colour television pattern. It would provide two channels of development. I should be interested to know the Post Office engineers' assessment of this.
  Must the whole question of broadcasting hours wait for a recommendation from a committee? Surely they can be decided by the right hon. Gentleman? In the days of the Conservative Government it was agreed that the B.B.C. and the I.T.V. each broadcast 50 hours a week. The argument was that a longer period would cost the B.B.C. too much, whereas the I.T.V. would make more money out of it. Whether or not there is any substance
  1514
  in that argument the present situation is very different.
  The advent of B.B.C.2 not only changes the argument; it reverses it. Now we have a situation in which the two B.B.C. programmes together take up much more time than is available to independent television, and have the advantages of alternative programmes. I would have thought that the time had now come to grant more hours, at present unused, to I.T.V. Perhaps we can have an answer on that point.
  Everybody would be interested to hear from the Postmaster-General how he considers B.B.C.2 is faring—what sort of audiences it is getting and what sort of reception of the 625-line U.H.F. broadcasts people are getting. People say that there is considerable difficulty in receiving it in various places and it would be interesting to hear his view on that.
  I turn now to the only White Paper we have been given, that on the University of the Air. I should like to know why it was issued at all, and what it contains which is at the moment of any value to us. One could always see about four great obstacles to the University of the Air. One was the cost, the second was the question of which channel would carry it. If it were to go out at peak hours, once again the question of cost would arise. The cost per student must be colossal, I should think almost as much as putting a Ph.D. through his course. Then there is the very difficult problem of one set per house which will probably be the pattern in Britain for a long time to come.
  None of these difficulties is touched on at all. Until we have solved the practical problems of launching the programme, the rest of the White Paper loses its interest. I must make it absolutely clear that we on this side of the House are very interested in the whole future of the use of television and radio in education. Nobody has written a better summary of its possibilities than appears in the document "Education and Television", by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway). It is the best-informed document I have come across on this subject.
  We see the growth of television and radio in education as a development of what is already happening. What is

  1515
  happening is good, but there is not yet enough of it. It is very promising indeed. The enthusiasm at Strathclyde and other progressive universities is a tonic. This university, that at Leeds and others have accumulated much experience. At the same time, experience has been gained through the school programmes of the B.B.C. and the I.T.V. I see that the B.B.C. is to hold a conference on a university of the air at Sussex University, and Granada had a similar seminar a year ago on closed-circuit television in universities. Experience is building up. That is what we want to build on and not embark on a new centralised experiment.
  I shall not go into the most obvious advantages of T.V. in education; they are well known. They are the enlargement of the subject which is so valuable in medical subjects, physics and so on; the maximum use of the best teachers, the repetition on video tape at any time of the day; the large audience coverage, which saves lecturers' time so that they can spend more personal time with tutorials, and so on. The many beneficial side effects are also obvious—for instance, the tremendous increase in the quality of teaching throughout the university, which seems to go with the establishment of a television department.
  However, as all this experience accumulates, the one thing which it does not seem to recommend is a University of the Air, of the type envisaged in the White Paper. This medium of instruction is greedy in the use of channels. In a normal university, during a morning there may be some 200 lectures. With six channels, there could be 40 on television, which gives some idea of how many channels would be needed to present a number of courses. The proposal for the University of the Air is that there should be 10 courses on one channel.
  When one thinks how the number of lectures would build up one realises that when a four or five-year course, which is recommended, reaches its fifth year, it would not have much to do with a University of the Air It would be a correspondence course with a T.V. lecture occurring about once a week or once a fortnight—I see that the Assistant Postmaster-General shakes his head, but I should be very interested to hear the
  1516
  mechanics of how one gets 10 courses out of one channel. It is almost impossible to envisage even with 50 hours a week.
  Experience has shown the value of teacher-involvement at all levels. Teachers and lecturers want to have some control over their programmes, some hand in their make-up and some connection with their pupils. They at least want to know what sort of people they are. With a regional set-up, there would be far more hope of that element, which is very hard to get in T.V. instruction, than could ever be achieved by way of the centralised set up described in the White Paper—
  The Postmaster-General (Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn): I should like to clear up this point, so that I may understand the hon. Member. Is he urging that this should be closed circuit or transmitted broadcasts on a regional basis?
  Mr. Bryan: I will come to that point.
  The next truth exposed by experience is the great difficulty, with centralised radio instruction, of fitting the actual lesson into the curriculum or the daily life of the person, the university or the school which is to receive it. B.B.C. and I.T.V. school programmes are wasted, not because they are anything but good but because some people cannot have them on. Once again, with a more local set-up, programmes can be fitted into the local curriculum.
  One of the unanswered questions in the White Paper is the question of who are to be the students. This, clearly, is not known and there is no way of knowing it. Will they be people who have failed to get into a university; people who have passed university age, but who would now like to take the course; or middle-aged people? What subjects would they like to take? I consider that the White Paper is extremely presumptive in all these aspects.
  If one talks to somebody with real experience in these matters—say a don at one of the universities who has had some experience of television—one finds that he is much wiser and much more modest. He will say in answer to the questions I have put, "I do not know, but give me a low-powered local transmitter and I will gradually discover what

  1517
  is wanted in Leeds, Glasgow, or Norwich, or wherever it may be". But there has been no such research. I would expect considerable progress once that research is done. I think that the needs of Glasgow, Leeds and Norwich would be found to differ considerably. Probably, the timings of the courses would need to be quite different as well.
  What we would do is build on the knowledge and the enthusiasm which already exists. We would go in for low-powered local broadcasts from existing universities which we would marry in—as is quite possible—with the school television facilities. There are areas like Glasgow, and, soon, London, where hundreds of schools may soon be wired for television, and whose sets will not be in use at night. Many of those people who do not have two sets at home could go to those schools and make use of sets. Not only that, but closed-circuit television could be used in these schools as well. At the same time, unused hours on the B.B.C. and the I.T.V. could be brought in.
  That having been said, I come back to my preference for something far more local and regional than the proposed University of the Air. Superimposed on this must be a T.V. centre, which could have a very big part to play. It would build up a library of tapes, give advice on equipment and share experience all round the country.
  All this is infinitely preferable to the unlovely centralised colossous recommended in the White Paper, based on practically no knowledge and not nearly enough research. There is no knowledge of cost, of subjects required, of the sort of students to be taught or how the project will be put on the air. I should like the Postmaster-General to come back to the question of how much per pupil a course is likely to cost. My hon. Friend the hon. Member for Lewisham, North stated in his booklet:
  "Already, some of the Tuesday Term courses on B.B.C.2 have raised the question as to whether it makes sense, with only four national channels available, and three used to put on programmes of such specialist interest that they can be of value to only a fraction of 1 per cent. of the potential audience. In some cases it would probably have been a good deal cheaper to collect the audience by taxi and provide them with a first-class lecture followed by dinner at the Savoy."
  1518
  I honestly think that these are the true economics of the University of the Air.
  Another thing which fails to recommend the proposal is that one can find no supporters for this university I have yet to find one. People wish it well, but cannot see how it will work. The most truthful reason for it came to me from a Socialist, who said, "Well, Harold insists on having it". That may be a good reason in the Socialist Party, but it is not a good guide to educational advance.
  This is a short debate, and I do not propose to prolong my remarks. As the Postmaster-General will see, I have kept them on a very narrow front. My hon. Friends will speak of some other important aspects, such as sound broadcasting.
  In concluding, I should like, since I am inviting the Postmaster-General to make his declaration of intent, to summarise where we stand and give our attitude to the problems that I have suggested remain on the right hon. Gentleman's plate. I consider that the world-famous B.B.C. is as respected as it has ever been, and that is high praise. We believe that its reputation will persist, and we wish B.B.C.2 well in its future. I.T.V. was introduced against the doubts and opposition of the Labour Party, and judging from hon. Members' interjections, some of those doubts remain. Nevertheless, I think that we can probably agree that it has established a standard which by world standards is a high one.
  In I.T.A. we have discovered a way of controlling I.T.V. in a responsible yet unrestrictive manner. Under Lord Hill, this has undoubtedly been done, and his work is by now widely appreciated. It has established a high enough standard to make it a permanent, useful and essential part of our broadcasting set up. I do not think that anybody doubts that.
  We are in favour of allotting to I.T.V. a fourth channel. We consider that a target date for colour should be announced. We believe that I.T.V. should have more programme hours. We advocate local sound broadcasting on the lines laid down by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Epsom (Sir Peter Rawlinson), in the debate on 13th May. We believe that television

  1519
  and radio in education should be expanded on the lines that I have spoken about today. I now invite the Postmaster-General to tell us at long last what he advocates.
  4.24 p.m.
  Mr. Terence Boston: I ought perhaps to begin by declaring an interest, because I helped to produce the B.B.C. "Current Affairs" programme.
  It comes ill from hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite to complain about the timing of the review of broadcasting. The Pilkington Committee on Broadcasting was set up and the terms of reference were announced on 13th July, 1960. Two years later, in June, 1962, there was a White Paper from the Conservative Government discussing the Pilkington Report. This was followed a few months later, in December, 1962, by yet another White Paper. But very little was heard about policy as a result of the Pilkington Committee Report, certainly by the time of the General Election in 1964. So I feel that it does not lie in the mouths of right hon. Gentlemen opposite to complain about the timing of the review on broadcasting.
  To illustrate this, I will take the example of local broadcasting. The two White Papers to which I have referred make it clear where the previous Government actually stood on this. The July, 1962, White Paper said that the Government would prefer to take cognisance of public reaction about the Pilkington Report before reaching a decision. The one issued a few months later said that the Government did not discount a possible latent demand for local sound services. This is an example—many people might consider it a comparatively minor example when considering the general field of broadcasting—of the way in which the previous Administration failed to deal with the long-term future of broadcasting.
  I am one of those who would like my right hon. Friend to go ahead with local stations. In particular, I feel that a pilot scheme by the B.B.C. could go ahead even before the publication of the review. This would be done by the B.B.C., it would involve no great expense, and it could be carried out. But, like him, I desire, above all, in considering the whole field of broadcasting, that the Gov- 1520
  ernment should get things right rather than that we should have things rushed. This must dominate our thoughts.
  I am glad that there is still time for further discussion of local broadcasting, because there is an aspect of it which, I feel, has not been sufficiently discussed, if at all. I refer to the question of safeguards for maintaining political balance in broadcasts from local stations. I am worried about a purely local set-up run, for instance, by local authorities and other local bodies. I feel that this would be open to local pressures, and might well be open to abuse. There is an obvious risk, too, in having it run by a local newspaper—which was gone into in our debate on broadcasting last May. This is apart from the effect of siphoning off valuable advertising revenue for the local broadcasting station.
  It is far better—this is another reason why local stations would be better run by the B.B.C.—so far as political balance goes to have them run by an organisation which has a well established and reliable system for maintaing balance. There should be local autonomy for local stations as far as possible, but the important thing is experienced machinery to ensure that regular checks are made, that balance is maintained free from local interest and also that the balance is maintained over a period. One is not talking about balancing every programme, far less every item. The important thing is to have it done over a period.
  I do not know whether I am in order in referring to this, but on the "Current Affairs" sound side of the B.B.C. we had regular weekly meetings to ensure that firm checks are made that the balance is being maintained.
  Dr. David Kerr: I am in some sympathy with my hon. Friend's argument, but it occurs to me that local authorities are currently responsible for running education in their schools and that nobody ever raises any question of partisanship arising from current affairs discussed in schools. Would my hon. Friend care to discuss that?
  Mr. Boston: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but would rather not go into that deeply. As to local authorities and their rôle in education, the divisional executives

  1521
  are very widely representative and not confined solely to the local authorities. So I think that one is being fair in distinguishing this from their rôle.
  There have been disturbing developments over the past week or so over the question of political balance in the broadcasting services. In particular, I refer to the postponement of two episodes in Associated Television's programme "The Power Game". I consider this to be an example of something at least savouring of the mast blatant political censorship I have come across so far. It goes to the very roots of the principle that a series of programmes must be balanced over a period.
  This series was designed and written by its script editor, Mr. Greatorex, and accepted by A.T.V. as a series balanced within that series as a whole. It was a programme in which episode 4, given in January, knocked the Labour Party. I do not complain about that—it is all fair and good. It happened also to be an episode that I saw, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. That episode was to be balanced by one to be broadcast last Monday and Tuesday, with a final episode next week—episode 13.
  This week's episode was to knock the Conservative Party, and I understand that part of it was to deal with contributions from the fictional company of "Bligh Construction" to Conservative Party funds. If we had only had the Government's Companies Bill enacted, and if hon. Members opposite had favoured the disclosure of political contributions, this episode might have been less bothersome to them.
  But then we are told that the reason this episode was being dropped, after discussions between Associated Television and the Independent Television Authority, that there was "high speculation about a General Election". But the decision was taken, I understand, after a final run-through last Friday, and before the dissolution of Parliament was even announced.
  I wonder whether we are to have censorship of this kind whenever there is speculation about a General Election. What might have happened when the previous Prime Minister was teasing us before the last General Election with his
  1522
  joke about October, or June, or September? What sort of period is likely to be covered if we are to get into that sort of difficulty?
  Moreover, the programme is now left in a state of unbalance politically. The Television Act itself makes it quite cleat that impartiality must be maintained in programmes overall. Section 3(1,e) states that there is a duty to see
  "…that due impartiality is preserved on the part of the persons providing the programmes as respects matters of political or industrial controversy or relating to current public policy…".
  That paragraph makes the position quite clear, and in relation to this particular incident we have a right to know how that decision was reached against the advice and agreement reached, I understand with Mr. Greatorex.
  Who was responsible for making the decision? It was evidently cleared by the two political advisers—the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Kirk) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, All Saints (Mr. Walden); a politically representative pair. Who was responsible after the discussions had taken place between Associated Television and the I.T.A.? It has not escaped people's notice that one of the heads of Associated Television is Mr. Norman Collins, the Deputy Chairman of A.T.V. He also happens to hold another post—as Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Party's National Advisory Committee on Publicity and Speakers.
  I am not suggesting for a moment that we should not have people in these bodies with political affiliations—while I was at the B.B.C. I was given permission to stand for Parliament. But here we have a chief executive of a television company, a man who holds great responsibility for the entire programme output—a position incomparable with that which other people have been in—and not only a member of a party, not merely an office-holder in that party, but, in this context, the holder of just about the most sensitive office one could possibly have—
  Mr. Anthony Royle: Is the hon. Member implying that the gentleman in question is biasing the programmes in favour of the Conservative Party?
  Mr. Boston: I am coming to that, but I think that in his position as Vice-Chairman of the National Advisory Committee, Mr. Collins ought to be in a good position to speak for himself. If he cannot speak for himself, one begins to understand the position into which the Conservative Party has got itself. However, as I said, I shall come to that point.
  We are entitled to know what this gentleman had to do with this matter. If, as Deputy-Chairman, he was not involved, where does the responsibility lie? This is a question that we are fairly entitled to ask—
  Mr. Bryan: Where does this game end, may I ask? Since in every company, I suppose, everyone has political affiliations of one kind or another, are we to have an inquiry each time A.T.V. decides to make a change of this sort? I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is making a very good accusation.
  Mr. Boston: I have made it perfectly clear that here we have a case where the deputy chairman of a television company, who is in an executive position, having overall responsibility for the entire programme output is, at the same time, holding another post in just about the most highly-sensitive field. That point must be made clear. That is why I think that we are justified in posing this as a question. If a satisfactory answer is given, everyone will be satisfied. A great issue of principle is involved here. In the Civil Service, for instance, there are certain complete restrictions, rightly, at a high level, and this is an analagous sort of case.
  This morning, I spoke on the telephone to Mr. Alan Saffer, General Secretary of the Screen Writers Guild. He said that he is very concerned indeed about the way political censorship seems to be developing within certain parts of the I.T.A. He regards the anticipation of the three-weeks' rule about elections, which has arisen in this case, as an example of prejudice here, and he believes that this case exemplifies that sort of political censorship.
  It seems to me that the sort of consultation that takes place, and which has taken place in this case, leaves much to be desired. Who is consulted? Who is responsible? I am concerned about the shadowy figures behind the scenes—
  Sir Douglas Glover: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for an hon. Member completely to read his speech?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Samuel Storey): Copious use of notes is allowed; I have not noticed more than that so far.
  Mr. Boston: I am grateful to you for your protection, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Far from leaning over backwards to be fair, I am wondering whether someone here is not bent double under the weight of a dual rôle. As my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology, the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh), asked at the weekend: where will it all end? Little did he know, when referring to the programme "Pinky and Perky", the significance of his words:
  "If we are to have programmes censored before the election date is even announced then by the time the programme starts we are in real danger of having our viewing confined to Pinky and Perky."
  Within almost a matter of hours, the B.B.C. cancelled that programme. I am happy to say that last night that aberration was put right, and viewers will see the episode, "You too can be a Prime Minister".
  I do not know whether it was Pinky's colour that was in question, or whether it was the title of the programme, but perhaps in this electoral situation the title of the programme as a general proposition is wholly inaccurate. If we are to ban things on the basis of titles, we have only to look at some of next week's programmes in the T.V. Times and the Radio Times to see what difficulties we might be getting into. We have "The New Industrial Revolution"; "The Grammar of Cookery"—what kind of cookery, I wonder? We have "Crossroads"; "Pardon the Expression"; "The Magic Boomerang"—I can imagine certain political repercussions with a programme like that, not to say those which appear in the Radio Times, such as "People to Watch", "Man Afraid" and—here we have the other counterpart, "Blue Peter".
  Certainly, at election time one must be especially responsible. I think everybody in broadcasting realises that this is important and that is clearly recognised during the period of an election itself.

  1525
  This whole matter should be carefully considered again once the immediate events facing us are out of the way. I do not think that the public very much appreciates the sort of pussyfooting attitude which has surrounded the particular incident over the past week. I think that viewers resent being treated childishly. We look forward to the time when further discussion has taken place—as I said earlier, it is important to get things right rather than to rush them too much—and to the proposals which my right hon. Friend will be making.
  4.41 p.m.
  Mr. W. F. Deedes: I listened with very close interest and attention to the remarks of the hon. Member for Faversham (Mr. Boston) about political control. What he had to say would have come with greater force had he not seen fit to make such remarks about one individual in particular which I hope, on reflection, he will consider were unfair and totally unjustified.
  I was rather close to the scene which the hon. Member described just before the last General Election. The impression I got was that the greatest degree of sensitivity and jitteriness was experienced and expressed by hon. Members of this House. It is the political and parliamentary sensitiveness towards a General Election which makes people in television very cautious and sometimes apt to take decisions which appear unwise.
  This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. It is also very natural. As we approach a General Election, hon. Members on both sides and their partisan supporters look very closely for anything on either B.B.C. or by the independent companies which could appear to influence, benefit, or damage their cause and both the companies in I.T.A. and the B.B.C. exercise very careful control.
  I do not think that it lies with hon. Members where this has been done to be too critical of what is done, still less to suggest that what has been done has been for ulterior motives. In spite of what the hon. Member said about Mr. Norman Collins, I think that the hon. Member has spoken most unjustly. I hope that the Postmaster-General, when replying to the debate, will have something to say about that.
  Mr. Boston: As I hope I made clear in what I said, I feel that it is important to raise and to have answers to these questions. I think that we are entitled to that. I hope that I made that clear in what I said.
  Mr. Deedes: The hon. Member did not make it clear to me. It may have been clear to him. I hope that his right hon. Friend will be able to put this matter into the right perspective.
  I very much welcome the opportunity for the Postmaster-General to tell us what he has in mind. That is due to him. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan) in thinking that the Postmaster-General has had a raw deal. As one responsible for a realm of enormous importance, the right hon. Gentleman has had too little opportunity to share with us some of the ideas and conclusions which he may have reached. Perhaps it does not enter the credit side of the election balance-sheet. That seems very hard luck on the right hon. Gentleman, because I do not think that he lacks ideas about what ought to be done. He has very clear ideas about what ought to be done. What I question is whether his colleagues have the courage to implement them. I think that he has been trying to do a hard job, but alas, his ticket has not attracted the selective machinery of the Prime Minister just now.
  There are a number of matters which cry aloud for decision on which a decision should have been announced before a General Election. I shall refer to only two, which have not been mentioned. One is B.B.C. finances and the other, which hon. Members may think me daft to raise, the question of radio pirates. That is a difficult subject, but we would do better to face it. I think that the pirates have made Governments in general look an ass and to look rather disreputable.
  I am quite prepared to accept a share of the blame. The pirates have been running for a considerable time, but this has not been a distinguished episode in Government. These people appeared on the horizon about 1961 and 1962. They became a problem about 1963. They became a serious challenge about the middle of 1963 and they are still challenging. I have no personal

  1527
  animosity towards the pirates. I would not dare to have. It would cause a rupture in my family circle if I expressed ill-feeling towards them.
  They calculated very shrewdly—we had better face this—that they had got both political parties in a cleft stick. This has been the basis of their business and of their success. They have managed to leave the present Government in a more indecent posture than their predecessors. Our Government started by saying that international agreement would be required to make efforts to deal with the problem effectively, but the right hon. Gentleman has not that excuse for we are now under an international obligation.
  Mr. Benn: The right hon. Member will recognise that we carried through and negotiated the international agreement.
  Mr. Deedes: That is why we are now under an obligation. I think that the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me on this point. I am trying to be fair. We have not acted because of the persuasive but wholly specious argument that the pirates provide what people want. There are people who think that this is sound democracy. It is nothing of the kind. It is bad democracy. It is pandering to populism. We ought not to deceive ourselves about this. The pirates are derogatory to government. I find that very depressing.
  If this is illegal, as the right hon. Gentleman has told us more than once—he has used much stronger words than I have used this afternoon—we are compounding a felony. This is a very bad time for a Government to be seen compounding a felony of this kind, innocent though it may seem. The Stock Exchange Council took a much more scrupulous view about certain activities than we have appeared to take about activities which the Postmaster-General has castigated not only as illegal, but as dangerous.
  I want to add a word about the B.B.C. licence, which, perhaps, is less controversial. Again, I accept that not all the blame can be laid on the right hon. Gentleman. Vacillation over the B.B.C.'s finances has been going on for some time. I admit that the dilemma which the licence fee now creates might have
  1528
  been perceived when the Independent Television Corporation was established. In effect, what we have today is one of the two set-ups financed by direct taxation and the other by indirect taxation. That is a fair analogy. What we failed to recognise—I admit this on our part—is that when independent television came it would be intolerable in a competitive system to have the Government as paymaster of one of the competitors. The B.B.C. has to persuade the Postmaster-General, and through him the Treasury, to take an unpopular step in respect of its licence fee.
  The right hon. Gentleman knows that this has led to great bitterness and very hard feeling on the part of the B.B.C. I have some sympathy with the Corporation. It feels it is denied the means it wants to provide the sort of service it thinks it ought to offer. They have to go cap in hand to the Government for money which may, we think, lose the Government votes if the Government agree to increase the licence fee. The virtues of an autonomous corporation, which in my view are still very strong in any broadcasting arrangements in this country, are vitiated by such a system.
  If we are to stick to the licence system, I think we ought to reflect at this stage whether there ought not to be an independent advisory finance board which should report annually on what ought to be given to the B.B.C. It would in a sense be a neutral report, between the B.B.C. and the Treasury, so that it would not be a wrangle between B.B.C. financiers and the Postmaster-General.
  Failing this, I make this suggestion freely to the B.B.C.: it would be far better for it to go to the prices and incomes Board and put its case. The Corporation knows that it cannot go on as it is at the moment, and the right hon. Gentleman knows this, too. This could be part of a package deal about which perhaps he promises to tell us. It would be far better than to turn it over to advertising—not because advertising in any part of its programmes would in itself necessarily be bad, but because it ought not to be required to advertise simply because politically we find it difficult to increase the licence fee. This is a matter of cause and effect.
  Finally, I should like to say a word about what some hon. Members will

  1529
  recall as the Rediffusion affair, and here I can be a little more generous in my reference to some remarks made by the hon. Member for Faversham about political considerations. I think that the Rediffusion controversy, much of which appeared in the correspondence columns of The Times, raises an important issue, as the right hon. Gentleman may agree. It is, of course, absurd to make too much out of one programme, but I think that some of the criticisms which have been made have some substance, and this particular programme, I think, offered a faint warning signal which it would be foolish to ignore. For those hon. Members who do not recall what the controversy was about, I will explain that the allegations were that material gathered from eminent individuals was edited in a programme which gave, if not a misleading impression in itself, at any rate an impression contrary to the intentions of the individuals who took part. That, broadly, is, I think, a fair summary.
  It is very easy to talk nonsense about this. There must be a great deal of recording in any programme of this kind-No one can expect all these programmes to be done live. There must be editing, and that means scissors and paste. I think that hon. Gentlemen would accept that. That is only a variant on what the newspapers do, as I should be the first to admit, although it must also be stressed that the impact of such a programme is much greater than anything which one newspaper can achieve by itself.
  It is my view—and if the right hon. Gentleman intends to make any remarks on this subject I should be interested to hear them—that the crucial matter is one of motive. It is a matter not so much of method as of motive. The key to motive behind such a programme is having a responsible internal control.
  This brings me to the last thing which I want to say. This is something which I think both the industry and hon. Members will increasingly have to take more seriously. I think that we are perhaps hardly aware of how much depends on effective internal control. I am 100 per cent. behind the Postmaster-General in his invariable refusal to exercise political control, if he can avoid it, over any of the subjects which are raised against him
  1530
  in the House. I say that irrespective of whether they are raised from this side of the House or from the other side of the House. He is absolutely right. I say frankly that on occasions I have admired the attitude which he has taken on this point.
  It is imperative that the right hon. Gentleman is able to maintain this attitude, but my view is that his successful resistance to pressure that he should interfere will depend increasing on the willingness of this industry to manage its own affairs reasonably. I am not sure that the industry has grasped this. I think that the Postmaster-General has grasped it. Unless the industry—and I speak now both of the companies and of the B.B.C.—can evolve a better system of internal checks and balances, then as day follows night we shall have incidents which will bring relentless pressure on the Postmaster-General to interfere politically.
  Both the companies and the B.B.C. declare that they have the necessary machinery. On the one hand they have the I.T.A. which does an admirable job. The B.B.C. has its governors. But this is not the whole story. There is also a very natural, if rather obstinate, attitude about artistic freedom, and this is very important to grasp. There is a reluctance to exercise internal supervision, and there is a strong desire to allow producers to be autonomous, and there is a feeling that they ought to be autonomous and not to have management breathing down their necks too much. I think that if one examines it carefully something of this kind could be said of the controversy about the "War Game" programme, on which I have no comment to make, except that to have a film made at a cost of £10,000 and at the end of it to discover that for certain reasons it is not suitable to be shown indicates a certain lack of control at management level. I may be wrong, but I think that it illustrates the point which I am trying to make.
  The most difficult task for the Postmaster-General is to persuade both the independent companies and the B.B.C., particularly the latter, at which point this internal principle about which they feel strongly can imperil the much more important principle, which is the political freedom of communication. At which point may they fall into errors which

  1531
  will lead to the wrong sort of pressure on the Postmaster-General. More than once recently, in the view of hon. Members on both sides of the House, they have overstepped the mark, and then we all come baying here on behalf of our constituents to ask the Postmaster-General to stop it. I think that this is the dangerous point.
  The B.B.C. must not ride too high a horse here. We respect its wishes for autonomy and we know that it likes its producers to be independent, but it must not ride too high a horse. I have a great deal of sympathy with the Director-General. He has a very tough job, and it requires a very tough man to sustain that job. But as the power of television increases so will his difficulties increase.
  The B.B.C. and others must not dismiss its critics as cry babies. It must not be too arrogant. It must not dismiss the Mrs. Whitehouses of this world as just "sillies", because they are not. They represent a body of opinion in this country, and my anxiety is that this body of opinion shall not reach the point of pushing the Postmaster-General into a situation into which he ought not to be pushed. I do not think that the B.B.C. and the companies will go on enjoying indefinitely the freedom which they enjoy now, or like to enjoy, internally, as well as the wider freedom which I think is so important.
  I do not want to prolong my remarks, because many other hon. Members wish to speak, but I should like to end with a question to the Postmaster-General. Many years ago Great Britain laid a cable connecting London, which was then the centre of the Empire, with India. John Ruskin was asked to comment on this momentous achievement. John Ruskin said that he was impressed, and he then asked a question which baffled his interviewers. He asked, "What do you have to say to India?". I think that that is a question which television will be asked more and more. It is not for us, certainly not today, to try to find an answer, but I believe that we ought to have a clearer idea in our minds what the answer might be. Perhaps the Postmaster-General has some idea in his mind, and, if he has, I hope that he will persuade his senior colleagues to let him share it with us.
  Sir John Rodgers: On a point of order. I understand that the Postmoster-General intends eventually to close the debate. Would it not be for the convenience of the House if he did so now, or soon, in order that we might comment on his policies. If he does not, we are debating in the dark.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Samuel Storey): That is not a point of order for the Chair.
  4.59 p.m.
  Mr. Arthur Blenkinsop: We have all listened with a great deal of interest and sympathy to the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes). Some of the problems posed by the right hon. Member are very real, and I am pleased that he puts the emphasis where he does. On the question of the political direction of the B.B.C., many of us appreciate clearly the point he has put and the anxiety which very many of us have about how the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. can discharge their responsibilities, maintain the freedom of argument that we want to see and also maintain proper freedom for the producer and yet avoid the mounting pressures of which we are all conscious.
  There are many ways in which this matter can, perhaps, be eased. Many of the matters that are considered in I.T.V. programming—the question of timing a programme is one issue; some programmes are more acceptable if they can be put on after a certain time—could become more fully understood and known. We certainly cannot accept the position that every controversial issue is, as it were, pussy-footed and dealt with in gloves. We must have vigorous and sincere argument and expression of point of view, however bitterly people may be annoyed by it.
  I agree very much with the right hon. Member for Ashford also that Members of this House are very often to blame for a great deal of the difficulties we find ourselves faced with at election time. It is our fault very largely that programmes very often are not as vigorous as many of us would like them to be. I believe that we have established a position where we could trust the authorities on both sides a great deal more in the conduct of political discussions, and I am

  1533
  conscious, too, that if and when—I hope that this time will come—we have television of this House, the arguments will mount still further. Therefore, it is very important that we should, together, work out some more acceptable means of self-control that can be applied now.
  I was very much in agreement with what the right hon. Gentleman said about pirates. Many of us have been putting Questions and urging that action should be taken, having seen that other countries have already acted in this matter. I very much hope that it will not be long before we get the new legislation that may enable the action to be taken which we think is right. Certainly, none of us ought to be deterred from proper action by anxieties about the reaction from certain groups within the community. In so far as their demands are reasonable, they can perfectly well be catered for without the pirate ships. Therefore, I am again very much in agreement with what the right hon. Gentleman said on this matter.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Boston) raised a matter of important principle as to whether it is desirable for one man to hold two posts, as it were, with the very difficult question of taking a position that might be thought to be influenced by the responsibilities that he holds. That criticism is a fair one and it is a matter, no doubt, for the individual concerned as to what he feels about it and what action he should take.
  I was very pleased on the whole at the attitude taken by the hon. Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan), who opened the debate, in strong contradiction to the opening of a similar debate rather less than a year ago by the right hon. and learned Member for Epsom (Sir P. Rawlinson), who expressed himself very vigorously indeed on a whole range of matters and brought into question his own and, indeed, his party's view about the real, true independence of the B.B.C. and his attitude to it. This was a matter in which there was some exchange with the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Gibson-Watt), who is now sitting on the Opposition Front Bench.
  Mr. David Gibson-Watt: Before the hon. Gentleman gets into the same pitfall as he did on 13th May, may I say that he was wrong then and I fear that he will be wrong now.
  Mr. Blenkinsop: I would wish to satisfy the hon. Member that I certainly do not consider I was wrong then. The right hon. and learned Member for Epsom made his position perfectly clear—and repeated it several times—that he believed there were occasions when the independence of the B.B.C. should be sacrificed to the needs of the Government of the day. That was the position. I am not stating it wrongly. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Howden, in opening this debate, did not make this point today and I am, therefore, encouraged to believe that hon. Members opposite do not take that view either and that the view of the right hon. and learned Member for Epsom, who, I am glad to say, did not open this debate today, was not the view of his party.
  Sir Ian Orr-Ewing: I remember that debate very well. I sat all through it. My right hon. and learned Friend the member for Epsom (Sir P. Rawlinson) made one specific case, and only one. His argument related to a time when Britain was committed to a military operation and our troops were on the high seas on the way to that operation. That was my right hon. and learned Friend's opinion. It was given in a narrow and specific instance, and it referred to 1956.
  Mr. Blenkinsop: It is precisely critical occasions of this sort that test the sincerity of our belief in the independence of the channel of communications concerned. This is why I have always believed this to be so vital, because I have had experience of this situation and of its importance in the world at large and the very high standing of the B.B.C. at that time because of the independent position it took up. I do not intend to follow that further on this occasion. I am satisfied that as far as I can see, that is not regarded as the general view of hon. Members opposite.
  I was, however, rather sorry to hear the hon. Member for Howden refer again, presumably, to some commitment of his party to commercial local sound radio. I take it from what was said—no doubt the hon. Member for Hereford, when he speaks later, will develop the point more fully—that there is a commitment by

  1535
  hon. Members opposite in favour of commercial local sound radio. That was made clear in our last debate, when the right hon. and learned Member for Epsom spoke about it in some detail, and it was repeated briefly by the hon. Member for Howden, who opened the debate today.
  I want to make it clear that for my part I regard the proposal for commercial local sound radio to be thoroughly dangerous, for a whole series of reasons. Like other hon. Members who have spoken, I want to see the B.B.C. have the opportunity of developing local sound radio stations, as it has offered to do on an experimental basis. As has been made clear, the B.B.C. has offered to make a start with nine stations and to do this without further charge, although, clearly, if this programme were to be extended at all widely, some increase in licence fee or other means of raising revenue would have to be provided. I cannot see why decisions should not be taken on this matter very quickly. I do not see that it needs to await the White Paper that my right hon. Friend has not yet been able to give us. I hope that he may be able to say something about this before too long.
  I find it surprising that right hon. and hon. Members opposite, who during the last few days have complained about the number of White Papers which have been presented, should complain in this debate of the lack of yet another. I should have thought from their anguish at the number of White Papers which have been presented recently that they would have welcomed the fact that one is not being presented now.
  I believe, however, that local sound radio would be the worst place of all in which to meet advertising. I have said in the past that I can imagine circumstances in which advertising revenues might be made available for television programmes for the B.B.C. as well as I.T.V., although I would not welcome that. I think it is possible. I think it would conceivably do less damage than commercial sound radio. There is also the problem, of course, of the position of the local Press to be thought of.
  There is also the problem of the effect of commercial development on a local
  1536
  programme where the period of time in which the local programme is likely to reach a large number of people is bound to be very small, a relatively short period of time every day. In these circumstances I would have thought that the pressure of commercial interests to have their cut out of that relatively brief period would be bound to be very great indeed—accepting, of course, that their proposals are by no means very clear. They were commented on at the time of the Pilkington Committee. I do not know that they are very much clearer now. At that time, I think it was made clear—as, indeed, it has been since—that the commercial interests were proposing the use of both medium wave and other provisions for the evening, medium wave for daytime transmissions and other provisions for the evenings. There is some doubt as to whether indeed anything other than medium wave provision during the daytime will ever get started. There is some doubt whether the other proposals would be satisfactory. However that may be, I would welcome a declaration from my right hon. Friend that this particular form of proposal is not likely to get the support of the Government.
  With regard to the question of finance for the B.B.C., there are two problems. It is conceivable—indeed, highly likely, and to be welcomed—that local sound radio would play a very considerable part in educational work. When the hon. Member for Howden referred rather cynically to the White Paper on the University of the Air, he did not seem to take account of the fact that any development of that sort is bound to use sound radio as well as television to a very considerable extent. He certainly did not develop that argument at all.
  The hon. Member did not make it clear that if we are really to have developed a University of the Air it would not be purely on television, or that it would not rely mainly on television, unless we are thinking of other new channels and many other provisions of a very costly character. I would hope, again, that there would be very great use of local sound radio in this, and I would have thought that there is a great prospect for it, and if this in fact were done, and if increasingly local sound radio were

  1537
  to be used for normal educational purposes as well—as, of course, it is today, and we have not reached the end of that—I would have thought there would be great value in this and that we should not discount the enormous potentiality of sound radio as well for educational purposes.
  I would have thought it reasonable to suggest some payment might be made by the Minister of Education for a service of this kind—not for advertising announcements, but for the actual service—whose costs would otherwise have to be met in other ways. Part of the cost involved might be met in this way.
  There is a second point I would make on the question of B.B.C. costs. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we have got to face the problem of the need from time to time to raise extra money. The B.B.C. needs that freedom of co-operation, and almost certainly it will need in the future the right to secure more money by increased licence fees. This is a prospect we must face, but I think there is as well a question which we have not cleared up, and that is the question of evasion. After all, when we have reached the point where a sum of nearly £10 million a year is being lost to the B.B.C. by way of evasion, this is no small matter. If indeed we could make any effective progress towards overcoming this that could make a very great difference indeed to the situation of the B.B.C. and might at least delay for a very considerable period of time its need to make any approach for any additional licence fee money.
  One thing I would very much like to hear from my right hon. Friend is what prospect there is of reaching agreement with the renters and others to enable a rather easier method to be adopted—easier, at any rate, in some ways; easier from the point of view of securing the collection. What prospect is there of securing agreement with the renters and others that might help meet part of this problem? Today a very large proportion of the number of television sets, something like 70 per cent. of the new sets coming out, are in fact rented, and I gather it is not impossible to devise a means of securing collection through the renters' channel. Whatever my right hon. Friend is not able to say, I hope very much he will
  1538
  indeed give us some encouragement in this matter because it would help, undoubtedly, very much in other fields.
  With regard to colour television, I quite appreciate there is a need for a decision one way or another fairly quickly on this matter. Whether we should indeed commit a further large sum of money, whether this is justifiable or not, I am very uncertain. I do not pretend to have knowledge available to make a decision of this sort. If we were to decide it upon the desires or the needs of our own community for colour television, I think there are other things we want to secure first.
  I appreciate the commercial argument of the value there might be in colour television development so far as the sale of equipment abroad is concerned, and it may be that that question will outweigh the other factors, but one has to face the fact that a very considerable amount of money will be involved in this investment and, on the face of it, it is very hard to see how we can justify it at the present time.
  Unlike some of those who have spoken, I welcome the publication of the White Paper on the University of the Air. I hope that very soon further details will be given of the discussions which are going on with the B.B.C. and, no doubt, other bodies, and I would hope that, at least for a start, we could accept the fact that we could make very considerable use of B.B.2, accepting the probability that a further channel would have to be delayed for some time.
  Again the question is of the estimate of the value and importance of capital expenditure in this field as against that in other fields. Certainly a start at least could be made on the lines suggested in the White Paper, combining both a limited amount of television time with sound radio services, and also, of course, accepting the need for correspondence provisions, and so on. What I think is quite vital is that we should ensure that there is proper supervision of this work to see that standards are maintained at the highest possible level.
  There is a good deal of sarcasm about what the cost per pupil would be of a service of this sort. We would really be providing a service for those who—they might be few—wish to carry on with a

  1539
  programme of sustained study right through the same field. In addition, the very much greater number who might benefit from a wide range of educational programmes should be included in that work. We should not think exclusively in terms of the value that it would be to the limited number who might carry through detailed study. We should also think of the value to very much larger numbers of the community who would be attracted by the standard of programmes of that sort.
  When we welcome my right hon. Friend back to the House after the brief interruption that we are likely to have, I hope that before long he will be able to give us his views on some of these matters. For myself, I believe that the financial position of the B.B.C. would not be an urgent one, provided that some headway could be made on the question of evasion, and I hope very much that he will be able to make some announcement on that matter, if not on others.
  5.20 p.m.
  Sir John Rodgers: Doubtless the right hon. Gentleman has very good reasons for not doing so, but I regret that he has not spoken earlier in the debate, because it would have enabled us to hear his thoughts and policy plans, especially as we are considering the whole subject, with one possible exception, in a narrow non-partisan spirit.
  Mr. Benn: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, but on the last occasion when we had a half-day debate there were complaints that there were two Front Bench speakers from the Government occupying too much time. This is a debate initiated by the Opposition, and I thought it better to come in at the end and answer points which had been raised.
  Sir J. Rodgers: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for that explanation. I appreciate the reasons. We cannot consider the future of sound and television broadcasting unless we take into account the clear fact that no expansion of TV audiences such as there has been between 1946 and 1964 is likely to continue. If we are going to expand services in sound and television through the public broadcasting system, the very difficult problem of finance has to be faced.
  1540
  Every speech which we have heard so far today has emphasised that hon. Members on both sides feel, with no criticism to anyone, that we are not making enough progress in various directions and ought to be doing more to use these valuable means of mass communication in the sphere of education. I do not intend to comment in detail on the University of the Air. All of us are convinced that there is a great potential for the use of television and sound broadcasting in the sphere of education both by closed circuit and by certain types of educational programmes in ordinary broadcasting. But all that costs money. We are also being pressed to go ahead with local and regional broadcasting stations, and all that will cost money.
  We are wasting valuable assets at the moment by the rather ridiculous rules and regulations governing the hours of television transmission. Hon. Members who have already spoken have referred to the break-through that has occurred in the last year or two in the production of programmes which sell in America and even push out American programmes in other parts of the world. It is a market which we cannot afford to neglect, and I urge the Postmaster-General to look into the possibilities of extending the hours of television transmission both by the B.B.C. and by I.T.A.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan) said, a number of people have advanced the argument that it would make too many demands on people's time, but it would be an advantage to the community if a certain amount of transmission time could be made available for repeat programmes. A great many programmes, which have cost a lot of money to produce, are missed by people because there is no way in which they can be repeated. Time could be provided in the earlier hours of the day for repeat programmes to be transmitted at practically no additional expense.
  We are now moving into a three-shift system of working. As a result, the ordinary peak viewing hours are likely to change. We ought to get as near round the clock broadcasting and televiewing as possible. We have broadcasting, but televiewing is restricted to a small number of hours, purely for reasons of finance. I.T.A. could easily extend

  1541
  their hours, because they would have segments of time which they could sell to advertisers, but it is being clamped down and held back because of the B.B.C.'s financial problems.
  I am sure that there is not a soul in the House who does not believe that one of the things we ought to be going ahead with is the introduction of local broadcasting stations to serve local communities, churches, schools, universities, clubs and provide local entertainment. I venture to say that the services of those stations could be made available to local advertisers. Provided they did not control the programme content, I see no reason to deny that medium to local advertisers.
  In a pamphlet which arrived on my desk this morning, the B.B.C. says:
  "The BBC believes that local radio, like all public service broadcasting, should be paid for out of licence revenue. The Pilkington Committee took the same view. Close on sixteen million people now hold licences. If an extra 5s. could be obtained from each licence for the development of local broadcasting, it would provide an annual revenue of nearly £4 million. This amount would enable the BBC to go a very long way in the implementation of the proposals it put before the Pilkington Committee. Meanwhile the BBC has offered to launch up to nine local stations without increase of licence fee, as a pilot scheme to give local broadcasting on community service lines a trial run and to test its acceptability and usefulness."
  There is the first break-through on the £5 licence fee. The B.B.C. says that even to do such an experiment it would need a five guinea licence fee.
  Mr. Blenkinsop: That is not true. The B.B.C. offered to do the experiment and launch up to nine local stations without an extra charge.
  Sir J. Rodgers: Yes, that is for nine stations. But, since it is operating at a loss already, that does not mean very much. It is only when it comes to add up its losses that it gets an increased licence fee. If it is going to mean an extra 5s. on the fee to get local broadcasting started, it will mean much more to make experiments in colour television, and if the hours of television transmission are to be extended as well, it will mean even more. I want to know categorically from the right hon. Gentleman if he is prepared to tell the House what he needs to provide sufficient revenue for the
  1542
  B.B.C. to go ahead with colour television, increased transmission and the setting up of the local broadcasting stations. I should like to know how much it will cost, and where he is going to get the money.
  When I was a member of the B.B.C.'s General Advisory Council, I advanced the view all the time that there is nothing wrong in the B.B.C. having segments of advertising on certain of its transmissions. I do not mean on all its programmes, and not even on all its channels. But if it intends to go in for popular local broadcasting, I see no reason why it should not collect funds from it. Nearly all the public broadcasting organisations in Western Europe and in some of our Dominions do it.
  I do not believe that the argument can be sustained that if the B.B.C. takes money from commercial sources it will be tainted and be pressed by people to alter its programmes so that they appeal to majority groups. This argument could be advanced about the universities, which take millions of £s from great industrial organisations, yet they are not pressed by those organisations to change the type of instruction which they give. The same is true of newspapers and magazines. There is no evidence to show that advertisers have used any influence on the editorial content of them. The hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) frowns, but he knows that every Royal Commission set up by either side of the House has been unable to prove that any advertiser has tried to bring pressure on the editorial policies of newspapers or magazines.
  Mr. Christopher Rowland: The hon. Gentleman referred to the experience of the Dominions. Does he know of the recent investigation into the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation which has gone through the kind of process which the hon. Gentleman finds so advantageous?
  Sir J. Rodgers: Yes, I have read that Report. It is true that there were criticisms, but it is equally true that nobody wants to return to the licence system as the method of financing the C.B.C. That comes out in the Report. Although the people concerned may not think it is ideal, they prefer finance from advertising revenue rather than going

  1543
  back to the system of licensing fees as we have here.
  I am not going into the rights and wrongs of this matter. I want to stick to this mundane problem. We are falling behind in broadcasting and television, and we shall continue to do so unless we expand in the ways I have suggested. I.T.V. presents no problem. It can expand either on its television channel or on radio if entrusted to do so. It is the B.B.C. which presents a real problem, and I want to know from the Postmaster-General what steps he will take to meet the legitimate demands of the B.B.C. for more revenue. We have a right to be told tonight.
  It is no good the right hon. Gentleman saying, as the hon. Member for South Shields did, that for the moment the B.B.C. is not going to make any more demands. Anybody who knows anything about finance knows that the B.B.C. is in desperate straits. It cannot continue on its present financing system. It cannot make the necessary advances without a lot more revenue. I uphold the view taken by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) when he says that the licence fee is not the right way of getting money and perhaps there should be other ways of financing the B.B.C. if it says, as it is entitled to, that it rejects any form of subvention by commercial interests. This is the question to which I want to address myself, and it is one on which I believe the House is entitled to expect a categoric answer from the Postmaster-General.
  Mr. Blenkinsop: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that there would be great value in pressing the need to overcome evasion? This would help the immediate problem.
  Sir J. Rodgers: Yes, but that is not the long-term solution. Everybody deplores the loss of revenue by fraudulent evasion, because that is what it is. One would like to see it stopped, but that is not the answer to the continuing financial problems of the B.B.C.
  5.33 p.m.
  Mr. Charles Mapp: I have listened carefully to the debate and I am delighted that it has come to the point to which the hon. Member for
  1544
  Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) has now brought it. It is significant that although hon. Gentlemen opposite are asking for the additional services which have been asked for by both sides of the House, no one on the benches opposite has made any observations which matter on the 64-dollar question of how the B.B.C. is to be financed. I am waiting patiently to find out how far right hon. Gentlemen opposite are prepared to commit themselves.
  I propose to deploy a general argument which is perhaps a little new on this side of the House, but which, I am sure, will be accepted before long. The hon. Gentleman talked about the B.B.C. having some segments of advertising. Why should it not get into the field in all its services? Why should the I.T.A. continue the monopoly which it has held for so long?
  I am not fond of advertisements in my dining room, but I do not think that that is what the argument is about today. It has nothing to do with it. When I looked at my telephone directory the other day, I found my undertaker's telephone number, together with a small advertisement. Am I upset about the attitude of the Observer or The Guardian to advertising? Are we upset by the fact that on London Transport and Manchester Corporation buses we see a reasonable amount of advertising? Of course we are not. The objection is to the standards of advertising, and presumably these vary from place to place, and in different environments.
  Who objects to a rugby club displaying an advertisement in its programme? Nobody does. The programme is as delightful as that of any theatre. I therefore must say that at this stage the boardroom of the B.B.C. is of the opinion that the environment of 1955 still exists. Pilkington, too, relies on that environment in its recommendations.
  Perhaps I might quote from a letter dated 26th January which I received from the B.B.C. I had accused the B.B.C. of including some unfortunate parts in certain programmes. I had accussed it of moving more and more to philistine programmes backed by puritan financing. In its letter the Corporation said:
  "Our Board of Governors have recently reaffirmed this view,"

  1545
  —this is in regard to not having advertisements—
  after a searching reconsideration of all the arguments, and I believe that the Board would find strong support for their conclusions among most responsible opinion outside the B.B.C."
  Why was the word "responsible" used? Do the governors take the view that all the knowledge about this sort of thing is concentrated in the B.B.C. and only there, and that by inference those who take another view are somewhat irresponsible?
  I am saying no more than that it is a coincidence that there is marked silence on the part of the B.B.C. about accepting all forms of commercial advertising. There is marked silence by the Press. There is complete silence by I.T.V. The advertising world is equally silent. What is more, in the main, the party opposite has great reservations—or at least it had 12 months ago—on whether this State agency should compete on equitable terms in commercial advertising.
  I hope that hon. Gentlemen opposite are moving forward, albeit slowly. I confess that two or three years ago I was somewhat puritan-minded. I saw no reason why commercial advertisements should come into what I thought was a service which could do without them, and I still take the view that our society would have been much better off had we not brought that kind of service into our homes.
  The B.B.C., and this House cannot put the clock back. Perhaps the House could, but it would do so in the face of strong public resistance. We have to accept that the clock has moved on, and that in 1966 we should be saying to ourselves, "Here is a State agency in grave financial difficulties". We may say that a good deal of the trouble is due to past Tory neglect, but the fact is that the B.B.C. is still in grave financial difficulties. The television trade, in particular, is asking for an extension of services.
  I hope that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong. I do not want an incorrect figure to go out from this House, but I have a feeling that if the B.B.C. were to meet most of the commitments which many people want to put on it we should have to think of licences costing £7 or more. I see from activity opposite that my figure is not accepted by hon. Members opposite. I shall be delighted
  1546
  to hear what the Minister and the B.B.C. think the figure might be in two or three years time.
  Sir J. Rodgers: I do not like to disagree with the figure of £7, but I think that it is a gross under-estimate because it would require a licence fee much nearer £15 if all the demands being made on the B.B.C. were to be met.
  Mr. Mapp: I am reassured, because I was being rather conservative. What are the pragmatic reasons before us? We cannot continue indefinitely the contradictory forms of financing the two bodies. The methods of finance do not compare one with the other. Sooner or later it will be realised that we must be consistent. The sooner this is realised the better. There is a new monopoly in the advertising world. I am sure that the Tories will not be enthusiastic in ensuring that no further monopolies are created, so even from that angle it is advisable that the monopoly be broken.
  Now that we have reached a plateau of licences we must realise the inescapable fact that the B.B.C's. finances are unable to grow with the economy. Equally, it must be recognised that the competing service, being financially hitched to one of the most prosperous parts of the economy, is self-financing and, as the expenditure is under the same control, is bound to be profitable and viable.
  My personally chosen service—the B.B.C.—will be constantly in a financial crisis for two reasons. First, the number of licences has reached saturation point. Secondly, whenever the House, I often think unwisely, sets up a State organisation, it proceeds to trammel it with every kind of inhibiting instrument to prevent it doing this, that or the other. Some part of the rigid management and organisation structure of the B.B.C. is due to the House having inhibited the Corporation, instead of allowing the normal flexible arrangements which exist in the competing service. The crisis point is here, and before long the next Labour Government must face it.
  I ask the Minister a very straightforward question. I want him to answer it so that during the election this matter can be considered pragmatically. I said that the licence might cost £7 or £8. Hon. Members of the House are sophisticated. If we are frank with ourselves, we will

  1547
  admit that we are not always fully representative of the ordinary folk who are our constituents. Is it not fair to consider this problem from the point of view of the family man earning from £12 to £20 a week?
  Apart from moralising, I am unable to convince many of my constituents of the equity of their paying the B.B.C. licence fee because many of the people to whom I talk spend two-thirds of their time watching I.T.V. and one-third of their time, or less, watching news and sporting and national events on the B.B.C. Their question: Why should we have to pay an additional £2, thus bringing the licence up to £7, when we choose either not to watch the B.B.C. service, or to watch it minimally?—is unanswerable in logic. Our job as Members of Parliament, if we come down to moralising, is to deal with such things as licentiousness and not the question of choice.
  Mr. Robert Cooke: If the hon. Gentleman is being realistic, how does he think that his constituents will ever be able to enjoy the benefits of the University of the Air, because they will need two television sets if it is put on at peak time?
  Mr. Mapp: Much of this debate has been synthetic and too sophisticated. A notable exception was the speech by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks. The debate so far has not been concerned with how ordinary people are affected. We have heard about 78,000 university students. The University of the Air is an interesting possibility, but I am not prepared to jeopardise the services required by 15 million people. I put these requirements in order of priority. The University of the Air must take its place in order of priority and, in my view, be submitted to the test of what the public wants most. Minorities must be respected, but we must not become over sophisticated.
  There is nothing wrong in the B.B.C. taking commercial advertising on all its channels, provided that proper standards are maintained. What are the standards? I would not allow either the B.B.C. or I.T.A. to determine advertising standards. The House should set up a body statutorily empowered to decide the standards
  1548
  of commercial advertising for both media. This body should be concerned especially with the variation of programmes, their content, and when and how the advertisements should appear. Most of us would prefer the practice in the theatre of advertisements coming at the end of programmes and not as "breaks". With such a body we could accept commercial advertising on both media. The majority vote on this body should be with lay members to ensure that the advertising is acceptable and that there is honest and open competition.
  If this were done, £100 million in advertising revenue would flow to the two authorities. I understand that the advertising revenue to the I.T.V. is at present between £80 million and £85 million. This figure will grow, because many regional advertising agencies will be able to enter the field, although admittedly not at the highest price at the peak part of the week. Competition may tend to bring top advertising prices down. In the long run, there will be greater diversification of advertising. I would not regard it as impossible for the growth in advertising revenue to be as much as £10 million per annum.
  I do not contend that advertising, going competitively to both services, one privately based in terms of capital, the other publicly based in terms of capital, would provide all the revenue. I believe that a balance would have to be found in some other way. Provided that the extra revenue were equitably shared on a basis of ascertainable criteria, that revenue could rightly be drawn from licence fee.
  I want the public to be stimulated into discussing the pros and cons of this issue. I do not ask the Minister, or the country, or my constituents, to bless my proposition. I contend that it should be studied. The B.B.C. has not done this. The Corporation reached its own conclusions on principles. It did not conduct a detailed study of the financial outcome. I beg the Minister to ask the Corporation to get in an outside team—I would be very cautious about a team supplied by the Corporation itself—to consider the commercial possibilities, the possible revenue to the Corporation, and the possible loss of revenue to I.T.V., as a result of legislation permitting the Corporation to accept advertising on all its channels.

  1549
  Armed with such a report the Cabinet and the Postmaster-General would be in a position to decide on policy.
  5.30 p.m.
  Mr. Anthony Royle: I am very glad that the opportunity has arisen this afternoon to speak on broadcasting. I want particularly to talk about local sound broadcasting, and some of my comments, I think, will follow those of the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop). The other day at Question Time, when I was questioning the Postmaster-General, I got the impression that he might have felt that I had an interest in this subject. Perhaps that impression was wrong, but I should like to make it quite plain that I have no interest whatsoever in local or commercial broadcasting at the present time.
  One of the depressing features of the last few months, watching the Postmaster-General in action, has been his vacillation on so many issues. Not only have some of us found him incompetent at running our local postal and telephone services, but we have also found him quite incapable of making decisions on major issues that face him at the moment in the Post Office. Some of these points were made by my hon. Friend the Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan), in his opening speech this afternoon. One real failure, mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes), is the inability by the Postmaster-General and, indeed, by the previous Government to deal with pirate radio. This worries many of us. The right hon. Gentleman has been pressed many times by hon. Members opposite to take a decision on the future of local broadcasting. The pirate radio stations have shown clearly that there is a strong demand for a new type of radio broadcasting even if different from the pirates who do not provide a local service.
  I should like to suggest to the Postmaster-General a few points which I have picked up during the last two months when I have been personally carrying out a very careful and detailed survey of the possibilities of creating a local broadcasting system. I have talked to many people, including the heads of organisations which are interested in this subject.
  1550
  The first thing to get clear is what do we mean by local broadcasting? The emphasis, I feel sure the Postmaster-General would agree, is that it must be local. It is no good having regional broadcasting. I think that most of us have in mind a local sound radio station serving a community of somewhere around 50,000 people—certainly not less, and not more than 100,000.
  Secondly, is it technically possible to produce local sound radio stations? This is a fundamental question on which I am no expert. I can only answer it as a layman but after discussing it with many people who have studied the problem in great detail both on the commercial side and in the B.B.C. The experts seem to be satisfied that it is possible, and that a plan could be constructed with a detailed allocation of frequencies based on the daytime use of the medium wave, as was mentioned by the hon. Member for South Shields earlier, and the after-dark use of V.H.F.
  The B.B.C., if it was granted the rights to produce and run local broadcasting stations, would, I think, use V.H.F. the whole time both by day and by night. But the growth of the B.B.C. services on these channels has reduced availability, and it would make it difficult for the V.H.F. and the medium wave to be used in the manner that I have stated unless it was very carefully worked out and the allocations issued by the Postmaster-General. The Marconi Company has produced an interesting plan which shows that the country could be covered by 280 small stations each covering a radius of about 50,000 population. This plan would be based on using the medium wavelength during the daytime and V.H.F. at night.
  We must not allow the random use of frequencies to grow up. It is very important if local sound broadcasting goes ahead for the Postmaster-General to prepare a national frequency plan. Indeed, he should prepare it now and issue it. There is not time to discuss networking, this evening, which is another technical aspect of importance.
  The next point which we should try to answer is: how could local broadcasting be financed? It seems to me, after careful study during the last few months, that it is only by the sale of

  1551
  advertising with commercial stations that local broadcasting could be financed without being a burden on the ratepayer or the taxpayer or the licence holder. Why do I say this? It would be impossible for the B.B.C. to operate local broadcasting stations alone unless it could either have a substantial grant from the Treasury and be subsidised by the taxpayer, or by the local ratepayer.
  Alternatively, the licence fee would have to be increased. The estimated figure is about 5s. increase to bring in local radio stations. But although the stations which would be established throughout the country would not cover all licence holders, all licence holders would have to pay the extra 5s. Therefore, people would be paying 5s. for a service which they might not be able to receive in the area in which they live.
  On 27th February the Observer produced what I, having a rather suspicious mind, took to be yet another leak from the Government. There was a long article in that paper which seemed to indicate—perhaps we shall hear more from the Postmaster-General—that some sort of autonomous local trusts might be set up, that the Postmaster-General is coming to the conclusion that the local trusts could be financed by local advertising and that the B.B.C. and the commercial radio stations would be excluded. This seems to me to be an extraordinary suggestion which would only get the worst of both worlds. We should exclude the B.B.C. which technicaly would be extremely competent at running local broadcasting stations, and we should exclude the commercial "know-how" which the proposed commercial radio companies would have at their disposal if they were running the advertising themselves.
  I would welcome the solution which would not only bring in the commercial companies which I mentioned earlier, and which would finance themselves by advertising, but would also bring in the B.B.C. I consider that we could have a "mixed" solution to the problem of local broadcasting. But the B.B.C., if it sets up local stations, must not be subsidised by the taxpayer or by the ratepayer or by the licence holder. There must be some other method of providing the finance, and I shall come to this in a minute. I understand that the B.B.C.
  1552
  reckons the capital cost of setting up a local station to be £30,000 to £35,000. The B.B.C. probably would have a more elaborate station than the commercial radio stations would propose to have, and the latter reckon a capital cost of £20,000 to £25,000.
  The key aspect to local commercial radio on the financial side is the mistaken impression which many members of the general public have that records could be used to an unlimited extent. This is untrue. There is copyright, not only on the content, but also on the record, and one of the difficulties which many of us feel, although I listen occasionally to the pirate radio stations is that they are stealing other people's money. Many of them are not paying copyright and not keeping to the needle time which is an important aspect of copyright involved in the sale of records.
  A broadcasting station, therefore, must pay the correct amount of royalty, which the B.B.C. pays, and also agree to operate only the length of "needle time" allowed by the record company and laid down under the copyright. If the B.B.C. set up local stations it would not be severely affected by this copyright proviso. The plans prepared by the B.B.C. are interesting and original. The authority, clearly, has put a lot of work into them. The plans are mainly for talks programmes and therefore they would not be affected so much by copyright on records. The commercial companies, on the other hand, are confident that they could use pop music on their programmes and provide the mixed type of programme of music and local interest while keeping within the rules of copyright.
  The next question is how the commercial stations should operate and how the operators would be appointed and controlled. This is an important aspect. The frequencies, of course, should be detailed by the Postmaster-General. The station operators should be appointed not by a national authority but by regional authorities on the lines of the I.T.A. But there should be provision for appeal, if necessary, by those who apply for a local station over and above the regional authority to the Postmaster-General. Something on these lines would ensure that we had local people with local interests running local stations, and not

  1553
  regional stations, and they would have the feeling that they could appeal over the heads of the regional authority if they felt that they were not having a fair deal.
  Another important aspect is the position of the local Press. It seems to me that the local Press throughout the country is divided about equally on this subject. Some local Press proprietors fear a loss of revenue if local commercial stations are set up and have advertising time. There are others who feel that this could be another form of journalism and they would want to take part in it. These are two aspects which we must take carefully into account.
  I believe that the local Press must be allowed an investment if commercial local stations are set up, but I do not think there is any need, nor do I think that it would be right, for them to have the controlling interest in a local station, certainly not in the matter of programme and editorial content. I have not gone into this in great detail. Possibly the Postmaster-General has done so, but I believe that there could be some method devised of arranging for them to have financial control, but with control over the programming and editorial carefully excluded.
  Mr. Robert Cooke: My hon. Friend will realise that if the Press were to have a controlling financial interest there would always be a suspicion in the public mind that the same people were running all means of communication. Perhaps it would be better if the Press had a substantial interest but not a controlling interest in any aspect.
  Mr. Royle: I agree that these fears are held. It may be necessary for the Press to have not a controlling interest but a substantial interest only.
  Mr. Kevin McNamara: When the hon. Member talks about the Press having an interest, would he distinguish between the local newspapers controlled by national bodies and those independently controlled by local people?
  Mr. Royle: One would have to make certain that if the local Press had an interest in a local commercial station it would have to be made quite clear that it was a local company that had that interest. If it was a controlling group in
  1554
  London which ran a local group of newspapers it, too, might well have an indirect interest through its local subsidiary.
  Another important aspect of this matter is the question whether the output from these local radio stations would be nothing but endless pop music. This is feared by many people. Many of the pirate radio stations do not abide by the copyright rules and regulations, as I have said, but a local station on land would have to satisfy the record companies on needle time and copyright payment. I believe that a station based on local communities should produce local music and also be an outlet for local market and traffic news, local government news, local entertainment, for dramatic societies, debating societies, social clubs and old people's clubs. The stations could carry local advertising which at the moment has no outlet. The local grocer or the local chain store would have a chance to advertise not only in the local newspaper, but on the local radio station. This is an attractive aspect. I hope that these points might be considered carefully by the Postmaster-General.
  To sum up, I would say that local stations should be allowed to be set up for these reasons. First, there is clearly a demand for the service. Secondly, as I have discussed in detail, it is technically possible. Thirdly, a commercial service can be provided at no cost whatsoever to the listener, and the service can provide a valuable stimulus to local trade, education and community spirit. It will provide an outlet for the small trader.
  Another point which I am sure the Postmaster-General will be taking into account is that in a modern society it is foolish for a Minister with his modern outlook, which I welcome, not to make use of every modern means of communication that is available. There are, however, safeguards which must be incorporated. There is, for example, the use of local musicians for a certain percentage of the broadcasting time. This requirement should be incorporated in any licence that is granted. This would satisfy the Musicians' Union which is very concerned about it. Local pop groups and musicians could come in. This would help to stop the drift of local musicians away from small towns and communities.

  1555
  Copyright must be safeguarded. The local Press must be allowed to take an interest in the system. I mentioned earlier the B.B.C. and the idea of a mixed solution. The B.B.C. has made an impressive study of the problem and it should be allowed to operate stations, but the provision of stations should not entail any extra charge on the general licence or upon the taxpayer or ratepayer. To enable the B.B.C. to finance its stations without being a burden on the licence holder, the taxpayer or the ratepayer, the authority should be allowed to trade its programmes with the commercial stations.
  In other words, the B.B.C. would be allowed to sell national programmes which it was running on its countrywide network to the local commercial radio stations as fillers in for a profit, which it could keep to help finance its own stations. Also, it would be allowed to enter into financial arrangements with local organisations such as universities, charitable trusts and other representative bodies, excluding local authorities—I do not think anyone would want local authorities to control local broadcasting stations; it could lead to a lot of misunderstanding and difficulty—in this way local stations could be established by the B.B.C. if there were a demand, with the backing of local trusts and representative bodies.
  We have waited a very long time for a decision from the Postmaster-General on this question, and we waited quite a long time under the previous Administration.
  Mr. Harry Randall: Much longer.
  Mr. Royle: I admit that we have waited a long time, but it is time now that we had a decision.
  The right hon. Gentleman ought to reach one quickly. A mixed solution along the lines I have suggested would not be impossible. Such a solution would have the support of the B.B.C. Naturally, the B.B.C. would prefer to run the all local Radio, but it would, I am sure, work in with the system I have proposed. Such a solution would certainly have support from many commercial companies which are interested throughout the country.
  1556
  I believe that the local Press, while not being enthusiastic, perhaps, would be prepared to accept and work with such a solution. I do consider that it might be acceptable to people such as the Musicians' Union, the National Union of Journalists and others interested. I beg the right hon. Gentleman swiftly to make up his mind.
  6.12 p.m.
  Mr. David Gibson-Watt: I am glad to be able to take part in this debate, and I am particularly glad to follow that very thoughtful contribution on the subject of local sound radio from my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Surrey (Mr. A. Royle). I shall add a few points about local sound radio later in my speech.
  When winding up the last debate on broadcasting on 13th May last year, the Leader of the House said:
  "The Opposition are entitled to credit for using a Supply Day for this purpose. It has already been suggested that there should be a debate on broadcasting each year. I think that is right and, as Leader of the House, I shall bear it in mind on a future occasion."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th May, 1965; Vol. 712, c. 828.]
  The Opposition have not disappointed the Leader of the House, and we are taking up the matter again to pose once more the questions which we posed nine months ago and a few extra ones as well.
  The problems in television and broadcasting have grown and, I freely admit, the difficulties for a Postmaster-General in making a decision have grown. On the many points which have been itemised by hon. Members during the debate, the industry as well as the B.B.C. and the independents are urgently requiring answers, and those in the industry whose livelihood relies on television may be forgiven for saying, somewhat forcefully, "Why are we waiting?" I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to tell us when he winds up. Although a debate in this House has not taken place for nine months, it has been a continuing debate in public, in the Press, on television and radio and among all those who are interested.
  I list now under a series of headings eight questions to which this Government have not so far given answers. I

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  have chosen eight, and there may be more, but these are the most important. They are: colour, the pirates, local sound broadcasting, the future of the fourth channel, extra hours for television, B.B.C. finance, transmitter applications and the contract extension for independent television. That is a fairly long list, and I put the straight point to the Postmaster-General that, at this late hour, he should be able to give us answers to a great number of those questions.
  First, colour. In the debate on 13th May last, I urged the Postmaster-General to hasten slowly. We could all see that this was a difficult problem, and I am sure the House in general will admit that we on this side have not pressed the right hon. Gentleman too hard on it at Question Time. But time is running on and, although we have not led the way with a British prototype, it is not right that we should trail in our inability to say whether we are going in for colour or not. This point was made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan) and others. Clearly, both Germany and Holland are saying that they are going in for colour in the autumn of 1967, and probably France and Italy will do the same.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Howden said, 90 per cent. and more of the systems which have been produced, NTSC, PAL, SECAM, NIR, are the same. I freely admit that I am no technician, but that is what I am told. Would it not be possible, therefore, for the Government to say that they will go in for colour in 1967?
  I come next to the much debated question of the pirates. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) was particularly good on this. It is true that, although no decision was taken by the previous Government, the present Postmaster-General has huffed and buffed at the pirates but done very little else. Very likely, he is in a difficult position, but the longer this situation continues the more of them there are likely to be. Already, across the North Sea from Yorkshire, there are sails bearing down on us. This is 1965, not 1066, and off Scarborough there is yet another pirate ship. As my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, said, a view must be taken on this question.
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  Next, local sound broadcasting. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Epsom (Sir P. Rawlinson) had a good deal to say on this subject in the last debate. What my hon. Friend the Member for Howden said today contained the kernel of what we on this side of the House would like to do about local sound broadcasting. We want the Government of the day to carry out an experiment, an experiment not confined to either the B.B.C. or the independents. We should like to see both of them have a go. Furthermore, if we are to avoid the rather random efforts one has seen in the United States, the Postmaster-General should make quite certain that he has a rigid national frequency plan. Otherwise, the thing will not work in the long run.
  I urge the party opposite to be more adventurous about this. During the last few years of our Administration, we allowed the experiment of Pay-Television, although it was very much criticised, at the time.
  Mr. Alfred Morris: The hon. Member for Richmond, Surrey (Mr. A. Royle) made the ill-informed statement that no one is interested in giving local authorities a say in local sound broadcasting. Manchester Corporation, together with Manchester University and the College of Science and Technology, are extremely interested. Will the hon. Gentleman carry his spirit of adventure to the point of including the local authorities in the experiment?
  Mr. Gibson-Watt: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for encouraging me to be adventurous. I was coming to the question of local authorities and the aspect of education in this matter.
  Mr. A. Royle: The hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) did not hear exactly what I said. I referred to local authorities having a controlling interest and not just an interest in local radio broacasting.
  Mr. Gibson-Watt: My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Surrey, went further and said, in answer to an intervention by the hon. Member for Gates-head, West (Mr. Randall), that the Press should not have a controlling interest in

  1559
  the setting up of local sound broadcasting, although they should have a part in it.
  We need to experiment with this matter and when we consider conducting experiments we must take into account the record companies, which are a major commercial interest, in addition to the Musicians' Union. Has the Postmaster-General discussed this matter with those two organisations? If he is seriously thinking in terms of local sound broadcasting he must have done so, and, if he has, have those discussions been helpful and satisfactory? If we are to get this experiment off the ground we shall need the co-operation from those two bodies.
  We believe that if local sound broadcasting was properly organised—and was not a monopoly of either the B.B.C. or the independent companies, of national Press interests or local authorities—it could cater for local communities. These communities differ throughout the country. A Welshman would far sooner hear a programme in Welsh, if he is Welsh speaking, or with a Welsh intonation rather than a Scots or North Country one. We are all a little different and we are all immensely proud of our local communities. I am glad to see that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. John Morris), a famous Welshman, has come into the Chamber. It is important to foster the local communities and the differences which exist in language, accent, outlook and culture. We get far too much Londonisation throughout the country these days. With respect to hon. Members who represent great London constituencies, things go on in other parts of the country which are equally important as those which happen in London.
  The degree to which the B.B.C. should take part in local sound broadcasting is a matter for debate. I have said that the Corporation should not dominate the scene, a point which was made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Epsom in the debate on 13th May. We believe that experiments should be made and we hope that the Postmaster-General will say tonight that it is his intention to make them.
  Mr. Hugh D. Brown: Is the hon. Gentleman not
  1560
  aware that way back in 1961 or 1962 a tremendous number of studies were carried out in the West Country into local sound broadcasting? Would he explain why the then Postmaster-General who must have had enough information from those studies to make up his mind on this issue, did not do the things the hon. Gentleman is asking the present Government to do?
  Mr. Gibson-Watt: With respect, that is not particularly relevant to this part of my argument.
  I turn now to the question of the extension of the licences of the independent companies. This serious matter has caused a great deal of upset in the television industry. I cannot see why the Government did not, as they could have done, extend the licences of the independent companies. Surely the Postmaster-General could have given a decision by now. After all, the contracts could have been renewed and the Government could have given that assurance to the companies, remembering that such an assurance is essential to any commercial enterprise. I therefore ask the right hon. Gentleman to explain why he left this job to the I.T.A. which, under the terms of its charter, has the power to extend by one or more years these licences if the Government of the day do not take any action.
  Several of my hon. Friends have referred to the question of extending the hours of broadcasting of the I.T.A. Considering the amount of shift work that is done nowadays, we have got to the position where more hours of broadcasting are necessary. We already have B.B.C.2 and I suggest that it would be reasonable to allow the independents to extend their hours of broadcasting. We appreciate the difficulties—financial ones and so on—facing the B.B.C. in this matter, but it would not be impossible for the Postmaster-General to allow the independents to extend their hours by a reasonable amount, which would be extremely worthwhile.
  The subject of the finances of the B.B.C. has been mentioned by many hon. Members. No one can fail to have heard the insistent calls that have been made by the B.B.C. to the Government to get this matter dealt with. I have asked the Postmaster-General why it is not possible

  1561
  to tighten up on the evasion of licence fees. On 23rd February, in answer to a Question from me, in which I said that £10 million a year could be saved if we could avoid this evasion, the right hon. Gentleman admitted that this was a serious matter.
  I trust that the Postmaster-General will comment on this subject because until we can be certain that the evasion is being stopped, all concerned will continue to be unhappy about the B.B.C.'s finances. It should be remembered that it was left to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke) to introduce a Bill on this subject. It may be that what Bristol, West says today, we hope that Bristol, South-East may say this evening.
  I pass to the question of transmitters. How many applications has the Postmaster-General received from the B.B.C. and the I.T.A.?
  Mr. Mapp: The hon. Gentleman said that he was going to deal with the question of the B.B.C.'s finances. Do I take it that his only contribution will be to dilate upon the £10 million being lost, remembering that most of it was being lost when his party were the Government, and is that his only contribution on the basic question of the Corporation's finances?
  Mr. Gibson-Watt: I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not think that £10 million is an inconsiderable amount, because it is clearly accepted by the Post Office and those with knowledge of these matters that it is a most serious issue. He will agree that 2 million people at £5 each might make a considerable difference to the future of the B.B.C.'s finances. I was about to ask the Postmaster-General what further steps he is taking to deal with the evasion of licence fees.
  I want to deal now with the subject of transmitters. How many applications have been been put in by the B.B.C. and I.T.A. for transmitters? Why has there been such a long delay in some cases in granting applications? I will quote my local experience. Reception is very bad both in my constituency and where I live in Wales. There is a big hole in reception in Mid-Wales. Why have the extra transmitters asked for not been agreed to by the right hon. Gentleman? For
  1562
  example, in Llandrindod Wells, in Radnorshire, there has been a hullabaloo. The people there want I.T.V. but can only receive B.B.C. they cannot get an I.T.V. extension to the transmitter, why not? I put this point only as one instance of the demand in the country for good television reception.
  We thus have a very long and conclusive list of questions which the right hon. Gentleman should answer tonight. I think sometimes that the right hon. Gentleman is the most frustrated member of the Government. I do not suppose that he is the only Postmaster-General to have been in that position. It may be that, on the advice he has received from his technical advisers, he has put up paper after paper to the Cabinet only to see them turned down one by one. He may have found the Chancellor with granite-like rigidity standing in his way. What is much more likely is that he has had the hand of the Leader of the House upon his shoulder.
  I remember saying in the last debate that the Leader of the House had far more power with regard to television matters in the party opposite than anyone else, and there is no doubt that he has had considerable influence in preventing the Postmaster-General from making decisions which, in the national interest, he should have made. The Leader of the House has been chairing his Committee for a very long time. He has been looking into the crystal ball long enough. One cannot shelter behind a review for ever. If, as has already been said—there has been some sort of leak to the newspapers—the Committee is to report in the autumn, then, whichever Government are in power, it will be far too late. The many points raised in the debate should be answered by the right hon. Gentleman tonight.
  When the right hon. Gentleman came to office, according to his statement in a debate on 13th May:
  "…I discovered that there were many problems which had to be decided."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th May, 1965; Vol. 712, c. 732.]
  I ask him now which of the many problems he found he has decided upon and which decisions he has announced. If only he had said "No" we could at least have understood it. We do not

  1563
  expect him to say "Yes" all the time, but I wish we could have a decision because it can truly be said that the hares have been running through the field of broadcasting just like the Waterloo Cup, only to finish up in a sort of March madness with nobody knowing which way to jump next, least of all the right hon. Gentleman.
  Tonight may be his last chance as Postmaster-General to make a deathbed confession. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Whatever the result of the election, I cannot possibly imagine the right hon. Gentleman wishing to be given the post of Postmaster-General again. He has this chance tonight—he owes it to the many thousands of men and women who are determined to see that this young and exciting industry can play its part in putting Britain right ahead. We have waited in vain for far too long for the Government to make these vital decisions.
  6.35 p.m.
  The Postmaster-General (Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn): It has been an exceptionally good debate and if there were no other justification for having delayed the White Paper on broadcasting, I think the fact that we have had a year to think about these problems has been very well worth while. Hon. Members opposite showed a deep concern for my own welfare. They have pictured a situation in the relations between me and my colleagues which is so inaccurate as to confirm my confidence in Government security. But it is very nice that they should care about it so much.
  The main demand has been for decisions, but it was interesting to notice that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan), who spoke for the Opposition, forgot to mention the B.B.C.s finances—the central problem confronting any Government. The hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Gibson-Watt) did refer, en passant, to some tightening up on evasions, which is very important and I shall have something more to say about that in a moment. But the debate is confirmation of what we suspected when we came to power, and what we have suspected even more strongly since—that the Conservative Party has never really applied its mind to the problem of paying for the developments on which they want decisions. This does not, however, apply
  1564
  to two hon. Members on the back benches opposite who made useful, detailed and valuable contributions on this question.
  Before I deal with the central point, I shall deal with some of the small ones that were raised. The hon. Member for Howden talked about the pulse sound in sync as a way of getting 625 on to the V.H.F. network. This system might offer possibilities. It is being studied. But it will involve clearing 405 off before bringing 625 on. It does not offer the prospect of immediate change, but it opens up a longer-term possibility that we shall look at.
  Another small point raised was about the establishment of transmitters, particularly in rural areas. This is principally a matter for the B.B.C. and I.T.A. They bring forward proposals for me and I approve them. There are proposals for 10 more U.H.F. stations for B.B.C.2 and for V.H.F. for B.B.C.1 stations. Applications from the B.B.C. are before me. This is a matter in which I have a general overall responsibility, of course, for approving transmitters, but the applications come from the broadcasting authorities. If any hon. Member has particular points to put, I will look at them.
  The next point in this category concerns the contracts of programme contractors. This is a matter for the I.T.A. The I.T.A., of course, works within general policy in allocating contracts and, since the fourth Channel decision is unresolved, it decided to extend existing contracts for a year. The policy aspects may stem from the Government, but the decision is for the I.T.A.
  Now I come to the central problem, with which the House would do well to concern itself. This is the problem of the B.B.C.'s finances. In view of the very friendly atmosphere of the debate I do not want to make too much of things that might be thought partisan. But the simple truth is that the last Government reached wonderful decisions about the B.B.C. but made no provision to pay for them.
  When the B.B.C. asked me for a £6 licence in October, 1964, its deficit was rising at the rate of £40,000 a day on the expectation of funds which had not been forthcoming. The one decision I took—not a very pleasant or easy decision—was to raise the licence fee by £1

  1565
  to finance the developments of the B.B.C. authorised by the previous Government. This was a very important decision to keep public service broadcasting afloat in this country. But, at the same time, this problem of B.B.C. finance was so serious that we thought it right to begin a review of broadcasting matters generally and of B.B.C. finances—and it is this on which we are engaged. As the House knows the problem is basically twofold.
  First the B.B.C. can no longer rely on increased revenue from a rising number of television licences. Indeed, the latest figures I got two days ago showed—perhaps this was a quirk or an accident—that in January the number of licences actually fell. Certainly, the B.B.C. has reached a plateau and if, therefore, it is to finance further development, or even finance a competitive position in relation to I.T.A., the increased revenue has to come from an increased licence fee.
  The second problem stems from the framework of the 1954 Act which left the B.B.C., dependent on a fixed licence, expected to compete with programme contractors granted a monopoly of advertising revenue and for whom expansion was not only self-financing, but highly profitable. It is all very well for people to say to the B.B.C., "You hold tight. You hold still", for this is the position in which the B.B.C. finds itself. That, of course, the programme contractors or local commercial radio companies can come along and apparently offer to provide services for nothing. I thought that the phrase of the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) about the difference between direct and indirect taxation was very profound. The fact is we are working here in a situation where, by definition, there is not fair competition between the B.B.C. and I.T.A. This is the nature of the problem and I make no comment on the solution at this stage.
  The position which faced me at first sight when the financial review began, appeared to be that, in addition to the £1 increase in the licence in 1965, it looked as though the B.B.C. would require a further £1 increase in 1966, followed by another £1 increase in the next four years; in addition, if the B.B.C. were to undertake a comprehensive system of local broadcasting, a further 5s. would
  1566
  be required; more money still would be needed if the hours of broadcasting were to be extended. In addition, the B.B.C. and the Government accepted that licence evasion amounted to the equivalent of an extra 10s. licence.
  Taken together, the prospective scale of these increases was alarming, to say the least. Few people would dispute that the licence fee gives very full value for money, but it suffers from the same defects as the rating system, which bears equally on everybody regardless of means. Looked at as a tax, it is, of course, very regressive. In these circumstances—and this consideration has occupied a great deal of the time of the year and has not yet been completed—every alternative has to be considered. One was the obvious alternative—a drastic cut in B.B.C. services. But who seriously, looking at the record and reputation and contribution of the B.B.C., could honestly contemplate such a solution? Another was that the B.B.C. should tide over the problem by more borrowing. But, unlike a commercial firm, which may recoup its borrowing by its earnings, the B.B.C. has no earnings in this sense. It has only its current licence revenue, and this alternative contributes nothing.
  Serious consideration was obviously given to the possibility of an Exchequer grant, but the difficulties about this the House will well understand. The B.B.C. did not and does not want to lose its independence to the Treasury or the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Chancellor would find it hard to justify priority for B.B.C. expenditure over the many other claims made on him and the Treasury. This alternative has, therefore, been excluded.
  During the debate last May, some Members proposed that the B.B.C. should be allowed to advertise. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Mapp) made this point again most powerfully today, and writing in the Sunday Telegraph last Sunday Donald McLachlan said that this was actually proposed and discussed, I gather by himself, at a meeting with the B.B.C. General Advisory Council. All this has led to an immense amount of speculation, most of it contradictory. I have many of the cuttings of what has been said in the Press and the most extraordinary stories have

  1567
  been appearing. I have to remind the House that the legal position is quite clear. The B.B.C. is not allowed to carry advertisements unless it asks for permission and this permission is granted by the Postmaster-General. The B.B.C.'s view of this is very well known.
  But I want to bring home to the House today—and the debate is very useful for this if for no other reason—the nature of the financial problem which faces us and the relationship between B.B.C. finance and almost every other issue that we have to face. During the past year, there have been many discussions with the B.B.C. on finance. It has now put before us proposals which it believes could, or might, maintain stability of the licence fee for another two years, or possibly longer, without cutting the services. These proposals reached us only this week and deserve most careful consideration. In these circumstances, we think that it would be quite wrong to rush out the White Paper on broadcasting just because of the impending dissolution of Parliament, and we do not intend to do so. In one respect, the Government are ready and anxious to help. I refer, of course, to licence evasion.
  Mr. Gibson-Watt: The right hon. Gentleman has made a very important statement to the House. He has just told us that he has heard from the B.B.C. that it thinks that it will now be possible to carry on with the existing £5 licence for the next two years. All the information that the House, and anybody interested in this subject, has had up to now leads them not to believe this at all. Will the right hon. Gentleman reiterate that this is a fact? Has he, in fact, told us the whole story? Will he be frank with the House and tell us that this is the only thing which the B.B.C. has told him?
  Mr. Benn: If the hon. Gentleman is asking me to convey the full nature of the proposals which are in the process of going backwards and forwards, the answer is that I cannot do that. I want to get this absolutely clear. The B.B.C. has put proposals before us, covering a wide range, which it believes could maintain the stability of the present licence fee for, say, the next two years. I, too, had in mind the questions which the hon. Gentleman posed to me. We thought it
  1568
  right to have a very careful look at these proposals, but I cannot go beyond this except to say that discussions with the B.B.C. are proceeding.
  Mr. Gibson-Watt: I quite understand what the right hon. Gentleman has said, but can he tell the House what these conditions were? It is one thing to say that the licence fee is not going up to more than £5 for the next two years, but he must tell us far more than that.
  Mr. Benn: It is exactly because I myself want to know a lot more that I am not telling the hon. Gentleman a bit more than that. I have presented to the House what the position was at first sight about the licence fee and I have explained why it has been necessary to have this long review. A situation has now arisen in which the B.B.C. has sent us proposals with this object or possibility in mind. Therefore, we think it right, for exactly the reasons the hon. Gentleman rises to his feet and presses me, to press the B.B.C. and discuss the proposals with it. This alone certainly justified us in not coming out with our broadcasting policy at this stage.
  Sir J. Rodgers: Could the right hon. Gentleman just clarify one point? We have agreed that there should be diminution of the services provided by the B.B.C. It is losing money already and is not to put up its licence fee for two years. Is this to be done just by increasing the indebtedness?
  Mr. Benn: The hon. Gentleman had better take it as I have left it—that the questions he has put are very much in our minds and that it is not possible to say more than that negotiations are going forward.
  The alternatives which I mentioned earlier, the alternatives which confront us, are basic alternatives and there is no basic escape from the fact that the B.B.C. is financed by licence revenue and is competing with an organisation which is not financed in the same way. The nature of the competition between them in terms of the payments of artists and everything else, arises from the character of the 1954 Act.
  All broadcasting debates would be better if every Member devoted some time,

  1569
  as the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) did, to the study of this particular problem, because it is very difficult.
  Mr. Gibson-Watt: I am sorry to keep pressing the right hon. Gentleman. He will see, I think, that it is not quite good enough to say quite baldly and blandly, in the face of all the evidence in the newspapers and elsewhere about B.B.C. finance over the past weeks and months, that he has now suddenly found, at this late hour, at the end of this Government's tenure of office, that the B.B.C. says that it will not be necessary to raise the licence fee to more than £5 during the next two years. Can he say whether there are any conditions of any kind which he could tell the House?
  Mr. Benn: I have said this twice. The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood it. I said "which the B.B.C. believes…" It is this which we want to study. I have not made any comment on these proposals, and I do not intend doing so.
  What I am saying is that if the B.B.C. comes forward with anything which contains within it the possibility that the licence fee might be held for a period, we will not fix it exactly, but for a period of two years or so, obviously the Government will have to look at it. Let is be perfectly clear that this is not my opinion. These are proposals which we are now studying.
  The hon. Gentleman may have a suspicious mind, but in circumstances that were much more difficult than they were in 1963–64, this Government had the courage to raise the B.B.C. licence fee. I do not think that it falls from his lips to make any hint or suggestion that we are doing more than examining this proposal from the B.B.C.
  Mr. Robert Cooke Mr. Robert Cooke rose—
  Mr. Benn: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to proceed—I do not want to avoid a difficult question. If the hon. Gentleman has an important point—
  Mr. Cooke: Does the B.B.C. proposal contain any suggestion of a substantial subvention from the Treasury to finance the University of the Air and other services like that?
  Mr. Benn: It contains no proposals for a subvention from the Treasury. I have already dealt with that.
  May I now deal with the question of licence evasion. This is at an unacceptable level, as has been said. The Post Office has strengthened its organisation. It is doubling the number of detector cars and considering putting the licence records on to computers. We are having discussions with the dealers and rental companies to see what else can be done. We are very grateful to the dealers and the rental companies, whose rôle in this has been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop). They have kindly been ready to discuss this problem with us. As the hon. Gentleman the Member for Hereford has said, no one could regard a possible £10 million of evasions as anything but serious.
  The next point concerns hours of broadcasting. It will be obvious to the House than an extension of broadcasting has a direct bearing on B.B.C. costs and on the nature of the competition between it and the I.T.A. Therefore, a final decision on this is bound to await further talks with the B.B.C. There are two possibilities which I ought to mention, both of them important to those who care about the future of education. One is the point referred to in the White Paper on the University of the Air, describing the discussions going on between the B.B.C. and the University of the Air about the possibility of finding an outlet for University of the Air broadcasts.
  The other is a provision in the 1964 Television Act under which the I.T.A. can arrange to provide, otherwise than by programme contractors, educational broadcasting services of an experimental nature, to be broadcast in addition to the educational programmes provided by the programme contractors under the so-called Eccles Amendment. The programmes under this Section of the Act would carry no advertising and would be financed by the I.T.A. out of the rental payments received from the contractors.
  This might open up outlets for universities such as Strathclyde, and independent institutions and units, which have no access to the television screen at the moment. For my own part, I

  1571
  think that the rôle of publishing in broadcasting, making outlets available for independent experimental educational programmes, is an important one. A public service element of this kind is already provided for by Statute. I am discussing this possibility with the I.T.A. in connection with the question of hours.
  We come now to the pirate radio stations.
  Mr. Bryan: Before the right hon. Gentleman finishes with the University of the Air, can he say who pays for this? I have not quite got it yet. Does the I.T.A. pay? Secondly, may I ask for his ideas on the possibility of providing universities with a low-power transmitter of their own for local broadcasts?
  Mr. Benn: On the latter point, the Strathclyde University did ask whether it could have a transmitter. We considered this, but it is contrary to what the hon. Gentleman urged earlier, that we should have a national wavelength plan, particularly for television, into which one can visualise the whole of future television development fitting. On this basis, one cannot license experimental television transmitters in that way—much as one might like to do so. I found myself sympathetic to the Strathclyde people, but I do not think that this proposal meets the need.
  On the other point, the hon. Gentleman was talking about something quite different, namely, the development of closed-circuit television. This is something everyone welcomes and I am delighted to see that it is now going well.
  To return to the pirates. The Opposition had a little bit of gentle fun with us over this. Certainly, no one could have been more shocked, and I believe genuinely shocked, or distressed about the pirates than my predecessor, Mr. Bevins. He warned against them, he deplored them, he sought the co-operation of the advertising industry, he said that he was considering a technical study of the possibility of jamming them. But nothing effective was done, and it was we who signed the European Convention. We intend to bring in legislation, and nothing could be clearer than that. Anyone who thinks that the pirates prove a demand for local radio of that kind—
  1572
  and I think that this view would be shared by hon. Members opposite—is deceiving himself.
  What are the pirate ships? They are hulks with big masts carrying microphones, gramophones and seasick disc jockeys. This is the nature of the pirate. If anyone thinks that by mooring Radio London in a berth in Barking one has pioneered a local radio station he had better have another think. If it is thought that by towing Radio Caroline up the Manchester Ship Canal one has somehow met the deep need of that great conurbation for a sense of communication between different people in that area it is a mistake.
  This idea is a bit ridiculous and this is why it has been worth while awaiting this debate. The House has come to see that local radio has greater potentialities than that. If one listens to the pirates one is listening to a gramophone which one does not have to own, and to records for which one does not have to pay. This is nothing to do with local radio.
  I had a letter from a man purporting to speak on behalf of the three biggest pirates. He warned me that unless I licensed those three pirates, they would launch a great campaign against the Labour Party at the next election. He promised, as a by-product of this, that if I did license the three biggest pirates, those pirates would undertake to crush the little pirates, so that there would be no more left. It is a sort of radio cannibalism which gives a new dimension to the problem. I did not check the gentleman's credentials to see whether he carried the authority of the companies concerned, but it was a warning of what unregulated broadcasting could amount to, and it would be a great tragedy if we were to allow it to go that way.
  Local broadcasting, which is a separate point was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields, and by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Richmond, Surrey (Mr. A. Royle) in a very thoughtful speech. As someone who is deeply interested in broadcasting, I think that the awakening of public understanding as to what local radio can give us is one of the most significant developments of the age. Anyone who thinks that it is only the "goggle box" that has any future in broadcasting is missing the development of the closed-circuit

  1573
  television, its teaching possibilities and the potentiality of local broadcasts.
  There are three main groups of candidates interested in licences for local stations. First, there is the B.B.C., with its long and distinguished record, and a high sense of public responsibility. No one could doubt, particularly anyone who has the privilege of knowing Mr. Gillard as well as I do, that it would offer programmes of rare quality, of which any community would be proud. On the other hand, the use of a national licence fee to provide something which is, by its very nature, local, and which cannot be heard by all who pay for it, raises a new issue of finance. We also have to see this against the background of the B.B.C.'s financial problems.
  The second candidates are the commercial radio companies. I do not mean the pirates ashore. I mean the commercial companies with whom we are familiar. This raises the question of the local Press. Sometimes the local Press is afraid that local radio would destroy it and so it says that the local Press ought to run local radio. If this is done then one could have a monopoly of local communication.
  The third group of claimants is much less easy to define. They are advocates of genuine community stations, including the go-ahead local authorities who are anxious to improve local communications, and the educationists who see in radio untapped opportunities for direct teaching. There are those who want to give a new lease of life to local arts, drama and musicians, who tend to struggle on, drift to London, or give up altogether.
  I have had talks with the Musicians Union. It is often unfairly criticised and thought to be opposed to gramophone records for their own sake. Actually, it is made up of people whose interest is to keep live music going, especially in the regions. Now that the regions are beginning to acquire new hope and vitality, might not some sort of community radio play its part?
  The White Paper on the University of the Air contains a reference to the rôle which local stations might perform. I find this heterogeneous group of advocates of community radio very exciting people to meet. They are not supported by big organisations or big money, but
  1574
  they have a faith and a belief in what they would like to start.
  These are the alternatives being considered. This is linked with the problem of B.B.C. finance, which is the main reason why it is not possible to produce the White Paper at this juncture.
  The fourth channel is obviously a matter of great interest and has a great bearing on the future of television. I was much impressed by the quotation from Ruskin about the telegraph cable to India. Few people who speak about a fourth channel devote nearly enough attention to what we want to see on a fourth channel, or on any other channel about which they have ideas to put forward. But the use of the channel, particularly the possible rôle of the channel in educational broadcasting, deserves and requires a great deal of study. I do not come today in a white sheet apologising for having taken a lot of time on this matter, because it is most rewarding that we should all take time on it.
  We also have to consider, if we are a responsible Government, the cost of the fourth channel. We have costed this. We estimate that the capital cost would be about £30 million for the fourth channel with many millions of pounds a year to run it. These are sizeable figures. A Government believing in priorities, as we do, must consider the logic of them. Things which are urgent will be done first. Those which are less essential may have to be postponed. The credibility and integrity of a Government will be judged as much by what they decide to postpone as by what they decide to bring forward as a matter of urgency. This is one reason why we have taken some time about considering the fourth channel, because to make a decision without weighing these factors would be frivolous.
  I come now to the question of colour television, which has aroused a great deal of interest. In Vienna last year the British delegation was briefed to support the NTSC system, which is in use in America and Japan, as the only system capable of offering the possibility of world standardisation. Our efforts failed. The French stood by their own system of SECAM, with indirect Russian support. Now the Russians have claim that NIR improves SECAM.

  1575
  Meanwhile, my Television Advisory Committee has recommended that the PAL system offers the best prospect for common use in Europe and that it should be adopted. There is to be another meeting this summer in Oslo, where the Government hope that European agreement can be reached. Some people asked us to fix a date for a start before we had decided on the system we meant to use. This would have been a meaningless decision. The world suffers from many difficulties imposed by different technical standards, and it would be foolish to introduce and perpetuate a new technical anomaly for the sake of making an announcement a little earlier than would have otherwise been possible.
  We were determined to wait until we got it right and then to announce it, but not before. We have had time to consider the recommendation of the Television Advisory Committee that colour television should be introduced on the 625-line standard, using the PAL system of transmission. The Government have decided to accept this advice and to opt for PAL. If the Oslo conference in June were to show that another system, against general expectations, found general acceptance we should, naturally, take this into consideration.
  The next question is that of the date for a start. We have been heavily pressed on this in recent months. Nobody wants to see this country, which pioneered television, trail behind the world. Colour adds a new dimension to television. Producers, directors, creative people, have always seen fresh scope through colour. No one who has seen colour television can doubt that it would bring enjoyment to those who watch it. As a Government, we believe that these factors alone would not be decisive. We would want to look at the matter in the context of the economic situation of what demands this would make on resources in terms of manpower and money, and what benefits we could expect to receive from it. A very great deal of detailed work has gone into this, and I want to say something about what we have done.
  The B.B.C. estimates that the cost to it, of colour transmission, would be from
  1576
  £1 million to £2 million a year, against which it has made provision. Estimates of the cost of sets suggest that they would start at about £250 each, and on the basis that 150,000 would be in use two years after a start was made, with a more rapid build-up later, consumer expenditure might well rise to £100 million on sets over the three or four year period beginning with the year in which colour television started. Much of this additional cost would amount to a switch in consumer expenditure from other items to colour television and receivers. The industry believes that qualified engineers would be available for the necessary work, switching from other aspects of television engineering. A number of technicians would have to be recruited. Some thousands in the manipulative grades would be needed—mainly girls, many of them in the development areas.
  All this began to look quite reasonable. But the decisive factor in our mind was the export possibility. We estimate that between now and 1970, given an early start, there is the prospect of a net gain of £10 million in exports over imports through colour. Sale of sets in America is rising so rapidly that the industry there is unable to meet the demand. In a few years it will have caught up. Unless we start our industry going now in colour television, when it does come it could simply lead to imports of foreign components. In addition, colour television offers some prospects for the export of British colour programmes, although it is difficult to give a figure for these.
  It was our intention to announce our decision as part of the broadcasting review. However, as this is taking longer than we thought—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] That is perfectly true and fair—the decision on colour television had either to be deferred further or treated as a separate issue. For the reasons which I have given the Government thought it right to make their decision known now, and I am in a position to announce that colour television will be authorised to start on B.B.C.2 towards the end of next year, using the PAL system, subject only to the reservation I mentioned about the Oslo conference.
  This decision raises the question of a special or supplementary licence for

  1577
  colour sets, which was referred to in the debate last May. We think that it would be quite wrong to ask those who cannot afford, or do not wish, to acquire costly colour television sets to meet, through the payment of their own ordinary licence, fees for the provision of programmes which they will not be able to see in colour. Discussions about this will go on with the B.B.C. and a further statement will be made about it when the broadcasting review is complete. But I must make it clear that there will be a supplementary licence.
  The B.B.C. aims to begin with about four hours of colour television a week, rising to about 10 hours within a year. Since colour television will be available only on B.B.C.2 in the first instance, programme contractors would not have an outlet for their own colour programmes. However, it is possible that an arrangement might be made under which the B.B.C. bought from the programme contractors colour films to be shown by it on B.B.C.2.
  This might lead to a home market for colour programmes and increase the number of colour programmes which those with colour television sets would be able to see. It will be possible to view all colour programmes transmitted on existing sets capable of receiving B.B.C.2 in black and white. The supplementary colour licence would be for colour set owners only. This does not affect what I said earlier about the proposals for keeping the basic B.B.C. licence fee stable for a prolonged period.
  Having made that important announcement, may I be allowed to say a word about its significance. Not only do I hope that the British decision to go ahead with PAL will help to bring Europe to a decision which permits standardisation and compatability, but I hope that it will lead to a full exchange of colour programmes between different countries. The satellites, like Early Bird and our own microwave system from the Post Office tower, can transmit colour, and a world colour link will soon be possible. But like all scientific developments colour television can be a good or bad influence according to the use we make of it and the motives of those who control it. It therefore imposes an
  1578
  even heavier social responsibility on us all for the future.
  I am sorry if I have detained the House for longer than I intended, but these are complex issues. There is one other subject which I wish to mention, and that is accountability in broadcasting. This point was raised by the right hon. Member for Ashford, by my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Boston) and others. Every Postmaster-General is regularly invited to take over responsibility which has been placed upon the Governors of the B.B.C. and I.T.A., and every Postmaster-General has warned the House against the far greater dangers which would flow from the political control of broadcasting, however well intentioned.
  But, having said that, it is not the whole story. Quite aside from criticism of individual matters of programme content, certain clear and general issues arise in broadcasting which deserve serious study and thought, not perhaps by political Ministers. Some of them have been mentioned—the issues raised, for example, by the hon. Member en passant about "The War Game," the reference by my hon. Friend to "The Power Game," the question of the editing of film and tape interviews and, an example which was not mentioned, is it right or wrong to show, or what should we do about the showing of X films on television or pay-television, which permits anybody, whatever age, who can pick up a florin and put it in the box to see something which he would not be entitled to see in a local cinema? These are not individual matters of programme content. They are general questions, some of them of intense, academic and general interest.
  The right hon. Member for Ashford said that the problem of editing of programmes was one of motive. It is more than a matter of motive. The problems raised here concern the quality and intelligence of the producer, because he may not know, if he cuts out what somebody said, that he has altered the balance of the argument because he may not have read what that particular person has been writing for years in letters to The Times which reflect his general views.
  These are very big questions, and with new outlets the problem could become

  1579
  much more serious. That is why my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council said last year that we were ready to think of the possibility of some sort of council. We are looking at that. We want to discuss it with the B.B.C. and I.T.A. and, if I may say so, with other parties, because this is an area in which one needs to explore the problem together even if we come to the conclusion that nothing could or should be done about it. We are weighing up the need against the dangers. This is something which I believe is worthy of study. Let us say no more than this. We shall include it in the review.
  I have completed what I had to say, and I apologise for detaining the House for so long. This is a subject of intense interest. I believe that the debate today, though conducted on the eve of a General Election, has contributed something towards the thinking of many people about broadcasting. I very much hope that shortly after the election we shall be in a position to give our decisions on the remaining questions which are before the country.
  7.12 p.m.
  Mr. Evelyn King: It may well be for the convenience of the House, whether it be by intuition or luck, that you, Mr. Speaker, have called me to speak after the Postmaster-General. I have enjoyed the debate—which has been a happy debate—and I have enjoyed the right hon. Gentleman's speech. The temptation is very strong upon me to comment on what he said, because it is a subject in which I am greatly interested. I shall, however, confine myself to one subject.
  We have been talking about entertainment and about instruction, which is the normal task which the B.B.C. seeks to perform. I want for a moment to direct the attention of the House to a matter which I think is more grave. I refer to the nature and the quality of broadcasts which are beamed to Rhodesia from Zambia, in some cases from London through Zambia, and in other cases, it is alleged, from within Rhodesia, making use of equipment which is British supplied.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I want to help the hon. Member, as he knows. In this
  1580
  Adjournment debate he may refer only to matters for which the Government have administrative responsibility. He must direct himself to show the House that that is what he seeks to do.
  Mr. King: I thought that that point might be raised, Mr. Speaker. If you refer to the Licence Agreement, Article 14, I think you will find that there is Government responsibility at any rate for a major part of these broadcasts—and that it is the responsibility of Her Majesty's Government.
  Mr. Benn: The hon. Member indicated that he intended to raise this matter. I certainly have no responsibility in it, and from my understanding of the points which the hon. Member intends to raise, and without anticipating him, I would say that I do not believe that there is British Government responsibility in the matter.
  Mr. King: The right hon. Gentleman has not yet heard what I am about to say. It must therefore be difficult for him to say that he has no responsibility.
  Mr. Speaker: If the Minister has no responsibility and no other Minister has responsibility, then the subject cannot be raised in the debate. Perhaps the hon. Member will show in some way that there is administrative responsibility upon Her Majesty's Government.
  Mr. King: May I quote from the Licensing Agreement:
  "…the External Services from such stations as after consultation with the Corporation the Postmaster General may from time to time in relation to those Services respectively in writing prescribe."
  I was about to refer to the External Services, and I think that that makes the point crystal clear. I could add one other quotation:
  "The stations and apparatus shall not without the previous consent in writing of the Postmaster General…".
  I propose to refer to the use of apparatus.
  I believe that there can be no doubt about the responsibility of the Government. It is a matter for the Government and not for me how far the Postmaster-General in his wisdom is guided by the Commonwealth Secretary or the Prime Minister. That is not for me to know. But I submit that there is no doubt that

  1581
  there is Government responsibility for what is said on the B.B.C., relayed to Zambia and passed on to Rhodesia.
  Mr. Speaker: So far so good. I question nothing which the hon. Member said in his last remarks. What he may not do is to speak about the broadcasts which come from Zambia and for which Her Majesty's Government do not seem to be responsible.
  Mr. King: With respect, there is an arrangement between the B.B.C. in London and the Zambia Broadcasting Corporation under which material issued by London is relayed from Zambia. London is directly responsible for that material if it is so broadcast, as I shall seek to show. If I may therefore return to the point at which I started, I should like to deal briefly—and I shall be brief—with what is said, secondly with how far the Government are aware of what is being said, and thirdly—a point which we have discussed today—where responsibility lies and how this responsibility is best exercised.
  Mr. Benn: On a point of order. May I, through you, Mr. Speaker, in order to clear up a question of order, ask the hon. Member whether the quotations which he intends to give the House purport to come from B.B.C. sources or not? This is the test. On programme content I would not comment anyway, but the point of order depends on whether these are allegedly B.B.C. programmes being re-broadcast by anybody else. That is the decisive question.
  Mr. King: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is trying to be helpful. I understand his difficulties and I have sympathy with him. I know that the responsibility is not his personally. I will seek to answer his question, Mr. Speaker, if you wish. The responsibility is two-fold. This distorts my speech, as I had intended to deal with the point at the end of it. The point which arises is how far British apparatus is being used and has been lent or supplied by Her Britannic Majesty's Government to the Government in Zambia for a purpose which I hold to be wrong. If that purpose is wrong, then it is wrong for the Government to supply that apparatus.
  Mr. Benn: On a point of order. The hon. Member is now raising quite a separate question about the alleged
  1582
  supply of apparatus. I can confirm that this is not the case and, unless I misunderstand the hon. Member, I think that he is trying to raise a matter in which there is no Government responsibility.
  Mr. King: The right hon. Gentleman cannot help misunderstanding me if he does not allow me to finish.
  My second point, which I was about to raise when I was interrupted, is the suggestion that material supplied by the B.B.C. and relayed to the Zambian Broadcasting Corporation is there interleaved with Zambian material of a highly offensive character. It is within the capacity of the B.B.C., to which, unfortunately, some of this offensive material is attributed, to cancel its agreement with Zambia to supply the material or, alternatively, to refuse to supply such a programme when it is used in these circumstances. That is the burden of my case.
  The tendency to which I am referring is growing, and it is one for which, I suggest, not only the Government but the House of Commons is responsible. The sort of material which is being broadcast in Africa tells or advises that chiefs be killed, crops be destroyed, and that Africans who do not join in strikes or stoning cars—
  Mrs. Shirley Williams: On a point of order. Are the quotations which the hon. Member is giving the House from material supplied by the B.B.C. or not?
  Mr. Speaker: I understand the hon. Member to be alleging that B.B.C. material is sandwiched between items of which he is complaining and that he is arguing that this is a matter of Government policy, which he seeks to change. If that is his argument, the hon. Member is in order.
  Mr. King: Yes, Mr. Speaker; that is my argument. To continue, I will give as few quotations as possible. Two are enough to show how offensive this material is. The quotation which I first give, and upon which I have checked, was broadcast at 11.45 hours on 25th November, 1965, the speaker being Mr. George Nyandoro, speaking in Shona, he said:
  "At the farms which are occupied by the Europeans, you who surround the farms, we

  1583
  ask you, children of Zimbabwe, to enter those farms…. You must not be troubled by one person and three or four of his children who are on the farm. Take that farm."
  That is an incitement to maltreat children.
  The second quotation, which is worse, was broadcast at 11.15 hours on 28th November, 1965, and the speaker Mr. Chikerema:
  "take your bows and break the Government of Ian Smith and all his robbers…Take your bows, your axe, your spear and smash that Government. If blood spills, even if blood is shed, the Government must be broken".
  I do not seek to go on with these quotations. I have said enough—I will come presently to the connection of the British Government—to show that this sort of quotation is an incitement to indiscriminate murder. I do not use those words lightly.
  There is in this House, I have no doubt, disagreement upon Rhodesia, and I respect the views of right hon. and hon. Members opposite. I do not expect them to share my views; I do not share theirs. There may well, however, be unanmity within this House, in all parties and by every Member, that incitement to murder can be a part of nobody's policy. In so far as there is any kind of even remote contact with British Government policy in this matter, it is a point which should be raised and and must be discussed in this House.
  My third quotation has special point. On more than one occasion, the Prime Minister has said that it is no part of the policy of the British Government to use force in Rhodesia, unless, he added, law and order collapsed or broke down. The right hon. Gentleman has used both of those last two expressions. I am sure that he said it in good faith, and I am sure that he meant it, but it is extraordinarily relevant to the next broadcast which I quote. It was given at 11.45 hours on 10th December, 1965, and the speaker Mr. Moyo. Speaking in Sindebele, he said:
  "The English troops will come if there is terrible disorder in our country. That is when they can come."
  One sees there incitement to provoke the very disorder which constitutes the only condition upon which the Prime Minister has said that British troops could be used. I could give many more examples,
  1584
  but I do not wish to weary the House. That is the basis of the sort of thing which is being said.
  I now turn to the point where the British Government—I do not attribute this particularly to the Postmaster-General—have a measure of responsibility. Up to 1964, the date when Zambia became independent, the B.B.C. had, I am advised, an agreement with the Zambian Broadcasting Corporation under which Zambia would broadcast British information. If I may ask a question rather than make a statement, I should like to know whether that agreement ceased when Zambia became independent. I ask the Postmaster-General, further, whether that agreement was not renewed at the point when Rhodesia made her unilateral declaration of independence and whether from that time the B.B.C. has been in collaboration, in normal circumstances, quite properly, with the Zambian Broadcasting Corporation for dissemination of British information and talks.
  Mr. Ivor Richard: Will the hon. Member give way?
  Mr. King: I have been very good at giving way. I want to complete what I am saying.
  To that material, I am advised, the Zambian Broadcasting Corporation has added the sort of observation which I have quoted. Neither has Zambia made it clear whether the sort of observation which I have quoted is distinct from broadcasts which have been obtained from London or whether the two are mingled together. My submission to the Postmaster-General and to the House—it is one which can hardly be controverted—is that the B.B.C., or it may be the Government acting on behalf of the B.B.C., should now tell Zambia quite firmly that if her Broadcasting Corporation seeks to use British material it must be used in such a way that it is not open to misunderstanding. Clearly, that is something which only Her Majesty's Government, perhaps represented by the Postmaster-General, can say. That is my first question to the right hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Richard: I have been following the hon. Member's argument as closely as I could. Will he underline that the

  1585
  House and the country realises—and therefore, I hope, he realises it himself—that the quotations which he has given have nothing whatever to do with the B.B.C., that they do not emanate from British Government sources and that the sole complaint that the hon. Member is making against my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General and the Government is, I understand, that somebody in Zambia, not the B.B.C., is using B.B.C. material interspersed with this sort of comment for which the B.B.C. is not responsible? Will the hon. Member be kind enough to make this clear?
  Mr. King: I entirely assent. I thought that I had made it clear. If I have not, I make it crystal clear now. The charge is in no sense a charge against the B.B.C. for responsibility for this material, except in so far as the Corporation is responsible for it by collaboration and could stop it if it wished.
  There is one other question which I must question the Postmaster-General. It has been stated that transcripts of the Zambian Broadcasting Corporation were sent to the Director-General of the B.B.C. in December 1965 by the Director-General of the Rhodesia Broadcasting Corporation. It is also stated that they were sent to the Government. Here I am quoting a pamphlet on which I place no particular trust. I simply ask the Postmaster-General whether that is the fact. If it is, what action did he take? If he was so informed and the statement was true, he should have instituted an inquiry and taken action. Did he do so?
  My last point is an allegation, not a question. There is evidence that there are two medium-wave transmitters in the neighbourhood of Livingstone. They have been identified. One of them is a new double side-band amplitude-modulated transmitter with an estimated 2 kW output. In other words, it is a relatively sophisticated instrument. My impression—I put it no stronger than that, though I think I could—is that these machines are of British origin. If they are, I ask the Postmaster-General, since he possibly and certainly the Government must surely have a responsibility, were those broadcasting machines—call them what you will—supplied to Zambia by the British Broadcasting Corporation? Were they supplied by the Post Office? Were they
  1586
  supplied by any British Service Department? Were they supplied by any British private firm? I understand that because of the sanctions imposed by the Government even an import into that country is itself illegal. Therefore, these are all questions in which the Government have a measure of responsibility.
  I apologise if I have taken a few minutes longer than I intended—if so, it was due to interruptions. But I want to make one matter clear to the hon. Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard). I am perfectly well aware that this may have happened through inadvertence and not through any fault on the part of the Government, but what I do suggest is that where any broadcast constitutes incitement to murder—and, beyond doubt, this is what has happened—even the remotest and most shadowy connection between that incitement and any action which the Government have taken or might start taking is a matter in which every Member of this House ought to be vitally interested.
  7.31 p.m.
  Mr. Robert Cooke: Perhaps while the right hon. Gentleman is collecting his thoughts in order to reply, as I believe he may, with the leave of the House, to the observations made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Evelyn King), I may just very briefly make some observations on the right hon. Gentleman's speech. I shall not deal with all of his speech, because that would take a deal of time, but there were many statements in his bustling, hustling speech on which I should like to question him.
  He is a very skilled Parliamentary performer, is the right hon. Gentleman, and by wading straight into this difficult world of B.B.C. finance he managed, I think, to distract the House's attention from some of the other things about which we should have liked to have been told more and with which we should have liked him to have dealt at some length. Indeed, he left the House with no very certain information as to just what was to happen about the B.B.C. licence fee. He held out this hope. He almost said it was not necessarily his hope, but it was a hope, that the £5 licence would be maintained possibly a couple more years. But he did not tell us how it was to be done.

  1587
  He said that it was not right that we should know because he had not really time to consider it.
  It seemed to me that what the right hon. Gentleman told the House was really only another of those kind of statements we have had from the Prime Minister almost daily—holding out a hope to the electorate without telling them very much and leaving a bolt hole through which to escape should he find himself in office again after the election when he might easily say that the suggestion was made by the B.B.C. but it was wholly unacceptable, it was totally unacceptable—to use the sort of phrase he uses in this House—but it was unfortunate that the fee would have to go up, although it was nothing really to do with him and in any case he had made no promise.
  I come now to a subject in which I have a considerable interest both as a Member of this House who has tried for some nine years now to take an interest in broadcasting and as a Member for a university city some part of which the right hon. Gentleman represents. I have been trying to find out for some time just what this University of the Air is all about. It was broached at the last election by the Prime Minister who took a great interest in it; it was certainly one of his pet projects. I just wondered how this could be worked out. When I heard the phrase "University of the Air" I wondered how it could be done.
  We have at last had a White Paper from the Government. It took them a deal of time to produce it. I tried to find out which Minister was working on this project. We suddenly discovered it was the "Minister for the Arts" who was devoting half of her time to it. Now we have this White Paper from the Secretary of State.
  I think that anyone who reads this document will come to the conclusion that the University of the Air is a completely bogus institution. It will not even work within the requirements set out in the White Paper. There is the question of air space, on which the White Paper says:
  "The project requires peak viewing time on a television service with national coverage."
  The right hon. Gentleman told us that this was to be provided either by B.B.C.2
  1588
  or by a fourth channel. If it is to be provided by B.B.C.2 it will take the place of other things which the mass audience will like to see. If it is to be provided by a fourth channel in the peak hours on the fourth channel it will kill any possible viability of the fourth channel by taking away the very best of the fourth channel's air space. So we should like to have an answer to that one.
  The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that of course it has to be by a television service with national coverage, but the whole point is that neither B.B.2 nor a fourth channel will have national coverage for a very considerable time.
  So it seems to me that a false hope has been held out to the electors about an easy way to get that much prized object, a university degree. A university degree is something worth having even though we are getting a proliferation of universities and although many people are getting degrees. Of course, when everybody can get them they are not worth as much as they were before; there must be an element of competition to get them, and then they are things worth striving for. But here is held out the hope of that much prized object, a university degree.
  One cannot be convinced by the White Paper that a service can be provided which will enable people to sit for their degrees. We cannot even be sure there will be the sets on which they can receive the service, because certainly in each household two sets will be required—in every household where somebody is studying for a degree. This is made clear by this business of the peak hours, because at the peak hours the household want to watch the popular programmes, while the university student of the air has to hide himself or herself away with another television set, and one doubts whether there are very many people who will be able to afford this. We should like to know whether fees are to be charged for examinations.
  We have heard of this central organisation, but not very much about it, and it is going to be a very costly service to provide, and unless the Treasury is to finance the whole thing we shall have to collect some of the money through fees from the students. Although the Postmaster-General dismissed out of hand

  1589
  any suggestion of a Treasury subvention for the University of the Air to get the B.B.C. out of its financial difficulties, I think we ought to consider the debate in the House of Lords in which the right hon. Gentleman's noble Friend, Lord Snow, a Minister who has responsibility in this matter, was pulled back into his seat by the Earl of Longford before he went on to explain how educational broadcasting would be financed without embarrassing B.B.C. finances.
  The right hon. Gentleman and I represent a great university city; we were both at the same university in another city; we know a little bit about universities. So I would put it to him that the services of broadcasting can be most useful to university circles, but would it not be much better to allow the functions of individual universities to expand rather than try to impose some new national structure? This country is bedevilled by these national structures. They seem to be put up every day by this Government—and even the previous Government, in my view, took too much of a hand in people's individual affairs. This is a growing tendency. It would be better to make it Government policy to expand the activities of individual universities and help them with broadcasting services.
  That brings me to the question of local radio. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Surrey (Mr. A. Royle) dealt with this. I know he has given much thought to it. I have no quarrel with what my hon. Friend said about it, except this. In deciding how local broadcasting shall be developed, it must be made plain that the position of the local press should be safeguarded. It should be allowed to have a financial interest, although I agree that it would be fatal if it were to have a controlling interest in a local radio station. Local newspapers themselves, on reflection, would not want it, provided that they had a sufficiently large interest to ensure that any loss of revenue in advertising in their papers was made up with the profits from advertising on local radio stations.
  The right hon. Gentleman and I know Mr. Gillard of the B.B.C. and have had the pleasure of talking to him about local radio stations being developed in partnership with the B.B.C. The West Region is skilled in the matter of local programmes.
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  My hon. Friend talked about the establishment of 250 small local radio stations, but it will be a very long time before we get that many. However, in our great cities the areas covered by local stations will cater for a greater number of the population than my hon. Friend mentioned and, if the right hon. Gentleman finds himself in the same Department after the election, or whoever else is there—and I speak as a Member of the House of Commons to the House of Commons here—T hope that the partnership between the B.B.C. and local interests will be preserved.
  In our big cities there might be two stations in competition, because that would be good for both of them. As opposed to the B.B.C. station, the independent station should be run by a trust or consortium representing the interests of private persons, the Press, commerce, the local authority, the university, if there is one, the churches, sporting interests and all other local interested people. Everyone should be brought in. No doubt there would have to be a regional authority, some national authority or even part of the Post Office to keep a general eye on it to regulate its activities, but, so long as it did not offend against a code of conduct, it should be left to get on with the job on its own and make sure that it is providing a local public service. It should be public service broadcasting that we seek to introduce there.
  I could be very unkind to the right hon. Gentleman and go on at some length about the insufficiencies in his speech. I challenge his White Paper on the University of the Air, though perhaps it is not his fault that it has been produced at this time. He is the victim of circumstances, and it may be that the Prime Minister was breathing down his neck. We should like to explore further many of the issues, but I hope that he will bear in mind that there is a great deal of public concern about the delay in getting local broadcasting going. People have had to wait far too long. I repeat that the University of the Air, as set out in the White Paper, is an absolutely bogus project.
  7.43 p.m.
  Mr. Michael English: I am beginning to have my doubts about the virtues of a debate of this

  1591
  character on the Adjournment. In opening the debate, the hon. Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan) started off with what can only be described as a piece of electioneering. It then became a good bipartisan debate from both sides on the subject of local radio, but since then we have had an attempt to link the Zambian Broadcasting Corporation with the B.B.C. I would like to try to put it back on to the subject of local radio and our broadcasting policy, and I shall try to be as bipartisan or non-party as I can be.
  Quite frankly, Governments and parties on both sides have been responsible for a large part of our present difficulties. If one looks back over the history of broadcasting, one sees that at one time there was a struggle to have radio at all. The central Government seemed dubious of the new institution of mass communication; they seemed dubious of the thought that one should be able to broadcast to the whole population things which had hitherto been the preserve of a relatively small number of people. We are still making rather heavy weather over broadcasting.
  The hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke) was the first speaker in the whole debate to mention the possibility that we might have more than one local station in a given area. It is an extraordinary fact that, with the exception of my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General, nearly every speaker has said that we must link it with the local Press, that it must be run by the B.B.C., or that one can only obtain revenue from advertising. They have all made the implied assumption that there is only one possible system. Surely the point about local broadcasting is that it should be local and varied.
  It has been said in the debate that a population of 50,000 is sufficient to provide the basis for a local radio station. Many populations would be larger, but, on that basis, in a city like Nottingham—which is not part of a conurbation—one could have as many as seven local radio stations and not just two or three. That excludes the population in the country area around. One could be run commercially, one by the B.B.C. and one by the local authority, for that matter, because a lot of the arguments against
  1592
  a local authority running a local station disappear if there are competitors, just as a lot of the arguments against the local Press running a radio station disappear if there are competitors. There is the possibility, such as occurs in the United States, of variety in local broadcasting.
  There are three levels of communication. Based on the capital investment that one requires, the cheapest is a local radio station. The next most expensive is a local newspaper, which is rather more costly to set up than a local radio station would be. The level above that is that of the television station, and I do not think that that can ever be truly local. It can never be anything other than regional.
  But I would ask my right hon. Friend to look at the possibility of television areas having some regional basis in the society that they are supposed to serve. At the moment, it seems to me that television areas are chosen purely for technical reasons. It is convenient to put a television mast in the middle of the Pennines because it can serve Lancashire and Yorkshire, whereas the natural regions would be two in number, one each side of the Pennines. We have allowed the machine to determine our society rather than say, "This is the society, and this is what we ought to have." That is a point which ought to be looked at.
  For the purpose of creating viable television systems, we cannot have regions much smaller than the economic regions. On the other hand, we should not go much larger than those regions. We ought to consider whether technical requirements should govern us or not. I would put in a plea for as big a variety as possible in local radio and for some consideration of regional requirements in local television.
  No one in the debate has yet argued the true position of local authorities in this sphere. I would not personally advocate a local authority running a local radio station, and certainly not it it were a monopoly in a small area. But, if it were competitive with something else, it might be practicable. However, one position which a local authority could justifiably claim to fill is that held nationally in regard to broadcasting by the Government and by the House. Let us consider the question of advertising.

  1593
  We seem to be assuming that throughout the country we should permit local broadcasting stations based on advertising, or non-commercial stations not based on advertising. Why not permit a local authority to decide for itself? One might decide that it did not like advertising. Why not let it go ahead? Another local authority might decide that it did not mind advertising. Why not let it go ahead, too? The elected local authorities represent their local people in the way that we here represent the country nationally.
  Furthermore, there is the question of the content of advertising. It seems to me that if we lay down national rules of advertising for the whole country, we may lead ourselves into difficulties. Let us consider, for example, the question of advertising drink. I cannot think that a Welsh county—or certain Welsh counties—will take the same view on the question of advertising drink on local radio stations as most English counties would take, but why not let them decide these issues for themselves? I hope that when my right hon. Friend is laying down rules—as I presume he will be—for the government of local radio, he will leave as wide a scope as possible for local decision on a variety of issues.
  It seems to me that a decision on the sort of issue which I have been discussing is a legitimate function of the elected local authority in the area. This is not a question of political control. Usually, both parties in a local authority agree on the issues to which I have been referring. They represent their local people, and if they do not know what is required it is difficult to see who does. I therefore ask my right hon. Friend to go in for local radio, but to make it truly local in as many aspects as possible.
  Mr. Evelyn King: On a point of order. Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I have your guidance? I know that you were not in the Chair at the time, and I appreciate your difficulty, but after the Postmaster-General had spoken earlier, another point of grave significance was raised, and I have no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman is most anxious to reply to it. The difficulty is that he has spoken once. Is there any way, under the rules of order, by which he can be enabled to speak again?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Roderic Bowen): The right hon. Gentleman can ask for the leave of the House to speak again, and then it will be for the House to determine whether it wishes to give him leave to do so.
  Mr. Benn: I do not wish to speak again. It may be that I cannot even intervene now without the leave of the House. I tried to establish at the beginning that Government responsibility did not exist in the form in which the hon. Gentleman suggested. A Question on this matter has been put down by the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Mawby) for the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to answer on Monday. In those circumstances, it would not be right to seek the leave of the House to speak again.
  Mr. Evelyn King: I thought the right hon. Gentleman said that he had no personal responsibility, which I understand, but he suggests that responsibility lies with the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
  Mr. Benn: I am not trying to distinguish between myself and one of my colleagues. I am saying that there is a Question—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman should ask the leave of the House to speak again. Unless he does so, I must rule that this interchange is out of order.
  Mr. Robert Cooke: On a point of order. Surely the House is now in midair? The right hon. Gentleman was about to reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Evelyn King), and, I hope, to myself, because I made observations on which I expected him to comment. The right hon. Gentleman was halfway through his speech, and then he sat down. We do not seem to be in order at all.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Evelyn King) raised a point of order, with which I dealt. He then proceeded to raise a point of substance, which he is not entitled to raise under the guise of a point of order.
  Mr. Robert Cooke: I was not quarrelling with, or commenting on, anything that my hon. Friend had done. The right hon. Gentleman was in the middle

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  of making a speech when you called him to order and said that he should ask the leave of the House to speak again, whereupon he sat down and lapsed into silence. I was wondering whether we could get him on his feet again.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order. That is not a matter within the control of the Chair.

  TECHNICAL EDUCATION
  7.53 p.m.
  Mr. David Price: We now move from the ionosphere to the ground, because I wish this evening to raise the whole subject of technical education. On looking round these somewhat sparsely populated benches I realise that technical education does not raise the same political heat as secondary school reorganisation, which we discussed last night, but before the final curtain falls on this Parliament, and on this Government, it is right that we should have a debate on technical education. There are many questions which we want to put to the Government before we finally part with them.
  I am sorry that the Secretary of State cannot be with us tonight. This is a particularly awkward time for a Member to be ill, and we on this side of the House wish the right hon. Gentleman an early recovery, and an early return to this Bench and this Box.
  Technical education covers a vast field, everything from degree courses to instruction in specific manual skills, and the development of technical education is a matter about which we on this side of the House are deeply concerned. The Government received a great inheritance from us. The 1956 White Paper on technical education was a landmark in the history of the development of our public education, and I believe that it can be put in the same class as the 1944 Education Act.
  I should like to remind the House of the sort of improvement which took place consequential on the 1956 White Paper. If one looks at Table 8 of the Statistics of Education, Part 2 for 1964, one discovers that between 1956 and 1964 there was a 44 per cent. increase in the total number of students at all grant-aided
  1596
  establishments. The figure rose from 1,904,000 in 1956, to 2,747,000 in 1964. But when one gets into these educational figures one gets into a difficult problem of definition, because, clearly, somebody doing an evening course, attending one evening a week, is of a different order from somebody doing a sandwich course, or somebody attending full time at a technical college.
  Therefore, I think that one of the most important figures is that for the increase in the number of full-time students which, according to the Department's finances, increased from 63,000 in 1956, to 167,000 in 1964, which I calculate represents an increase of 164 per cent. I know that the Minister of State is as interested in sandwich courses as I am. In 1956 there were 4,000 students attending such courses. By 1964 the number had increased to 22,000. I know, too, that from the time when the Minister was on these benches, talking about labour matters, he has had a considerable interest in day-release courses, and here again the figures are impressive. In 1956 there were 378,000 day releases, and by 1964 this figure had risen to 574,000, an increase of 57 per cent.
  It is also useful to remind the House that the number of students taking advanced courses leading to recognised qualifications at grant-aided establishments rose from 90,000 in 1958 in this case, because the tables do not give us the figures for 1956, to 158,000 in 1964. I calculate that to be an increase of about 75 per cent. These are considerable achievements, and they are part of the inheritance which right hon. Gentlemen opposite received from us. Indeed, one of their Ministers in another place, Lord Bowden, recognised this in a speech which he made at Peterborough on 19th March, 1965, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle) referred in a debate earlier last year.
  What have the Government done with that inheritance, and what are their plans for the future? Quite naturally one seeks guidance from the National Plan. It tells us that between the academic year 1964–65, and the academic year 1969–70, the student population receiving further education will increase by 36 per cent. in

  1597
  England and Wales, and 37 per cent. in Scotland. Current expenditure is expected to increase by 50 per cent., and total capital expenditure is planned to increase from £23 million in 1964–65, to £46 million in 1969–70, in both cases for Great Britain.
  One of the difficulties when discussing these matters is that we are apt always to talk about England and Wales, because they are the responsibility of the Department, and to forget about Scotland until it has its separate debates, and then Scottish Members forget about England and Wales. The National Plan gives us the total figures.
  I personally would like to have seen a much greater breakdown of these figures, because the meagre three pages in the National Plan, which is not exactly a concise document, on the whole problem of further education seem to me to be a bit thin. I want to be fair to the Government. As far as I can gather, the Government's projections are based on the following factors. First, 70,000 places in the colleges for higher education by the academic year 1970. This is 20,000 more than the Robbins Committee estimate of 50,000 by 1973–74. Secondly, an acceptance of the recommendation of the Henniker-Heaton Report on day release of an average increase of 50,000 boys and girls a year obtaining day release over the next five years; a similar type of recommendation had come from the Scottish Technical Education Consultative Council.
  I hope that this is right. I want to be fair to the Government, because the wording in the paragraph of the National Plan is not absolutely precise and is capable of more than one interpretation. I assume that the phrase
  "modified to take into account the proposals postulated by the Henniker-Heaton Report on Day Release"
  means that the Government have accepted the 50,000 a year increase in day release. I hope that the Minister of State will confirm that my interpretation of the wording is correct.
  The third factor is that for the remainder the Government have taken the
  "projections of the percentage of the population participating in the different forms of further education over the last eight years, applied to the Government Actuary's population projection".
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  Is the projection based on a continuation of the rate of growth of increasing participation in higher education? In other words, is the improvement factor which has taken place over the last eight years extrapolated into the future at compound interest rates? Is it progressive, or is it done at simple interest? Is it done simply by taking the mean average of the distribution of students between these various factors over the last eight years? Is this simply a mean figure just increased by the factor of the Government Actuary's forecast?
  The Minister of State will appreciate that there is a very considerable difference between those three different interpretations. I hope that it is the first, that it is a continuation of the rate of growth progressively which we have experienced over the last eight years. If it is anything other than that, I warn the hon. Gentleman that we will be very distressed, because part of the inheritance that the Government received from us in education was a very substantial growth rate; not only the simple figures I gave for 1956 to 1964, but a continuing rate of improvement one year over the next. I know that the Minister of State, as a graduate at his university, will fully appreciate that the rate of improvement is what is germane in these matters. It is not just the improvement from one year to another. It is getting on to a good growth curve and sustaining it.
  I also observe that no account is taken in these figures of any further increases which may result from the establishment of the industrial training boards and the consequences of implementing the Industrial Training Act, 1964. In small print the authors of the chapter on Education in the National Plan say this:
  "it is not possible to estimate this element with any precision at this stage."
  Possibly not. We realise that these are early days, but at least some provision should be made. As far as I can discern it, no provision has been made, either on forecasting student population, or on forecasting increased expenditure, or on forecasting capital expenditure.
  I need not remind the Minister of State of this comment in the Willis Jackson Report:
  "The newly established industrial training boards will have a major rôle to play in technological manpower."

  1599
  Indeed, the Minister of State, speaking from this box when he was in Opposition, said this in the debate on the Third Reading of the Industrial Training Bill:
  "The Bill is a step in the right direction, but by itself it will not produce an additional skilled worker or an additional trainee. Everything depends on the way in which it is implemented and on the kind of Government policies followed, both in relation to the Bill itself and to related problems."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st January, 1964; Vol. 687, c. 992.]
  Those were very sound remarks.
  Possibly the Minister of State had no hand in writing the chapter on further education in the National Plan, because I am sure that, if he had, provision would have been made for the implementation of the Act. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree that there are five essential features which fall under the province of his Department and of the L.E.A.s. The first is the provision of courses. The second is the provision of the necessary buildings. The third is equipment. The fourth are training officers. The fifth are craft instructors. We have all seen Administrative Memorandum 5/65 which the Department sent out to help L.E.A.s to meet the needs of the Act. It is a sound memorandum. Yet no allowance has been made in the National Plan for the consequences of implementing the Act and of carrying out the many highly sensible and intelligent suggestions that the Department itself recommended in the memorandum.
  What type of planning is this? Yet the Government—the First Secretary of State and all the rest of them—go about swanking about the National Plan, saying, "We are going to stick to this. We shall be courageous. This is the plan. Everyone knows what the work is". But no allowance has been made for this extremely important side of education. No doubt this is what the Prime Minister means by "purposive planning". It sounds to me more like Circular 10/65 all over again, which we debated last night, in which the Government tell local authorities to reorganise their secondary schools on comprehensive lines but do not give them an extra penny—or should I now say an extra cent—with which to do it.
  I am seeing the consequences of the failure of the Government to make financial provision to implement the
  1600
  Industrial Training Act, 1964, in my own technical college at Eastleigh. However, I do not want to make a constituency point. I am sure the Minister of State could give examples from his own constituency. This is typical of the contribution that the Department of Education and Science, under its present management, has been making to forward thinking in the nation. Its contribution to the National Plan has been singularly poor. It is the Department of Science as well as of Education, yet the words "science" and "scientific research" are barely mentioned in the Plan.
  On 16th December I asked a Question about this of the Secretary of State. He was able to give me a figure for the current year, but said:
  "No decision has been taken on expenditure for future years."
  When I asked the right hon. Gentleman why not, he said this:
  "…the Council for Scientific Policy was set up comparatively recently with the precise task of advising the Government on what future expenditure would be and how it might be divided, but it would be wrong to press the Council to give its long-term view on the question before it was ready to do so."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th December, 1965; Vol. 722, c. 1447.]
  I remind the Minister of State that the Council for Scientific Policy was only the phoenix risen from the ashes of the old Advisory Council on Scientific Policy. It is not as if thought had been given about it. To produce a National Plan without putting in anything about what the Government were intending to do about scientific policy—a Government who got themselves elected on the basis of being able to put more impetus behind the implementation of a scientific and technological thrust into our affairs—seems to me singularly delinquent.
  I move on from the National Plan to the July cuts. The plan was published in September, 1965. Two months earlier we had the July cuts of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which saw educational light of day in Circular 12/65 on 24th August. I quote from the circular. Under "Other Educational Buildings" which is a polite way of referring to further education and technical colleges, it says:
  "…the Government's intention is that until further notice projects should not be started until six months later than they otherwise would have been…"

  1601
  That is clear enough. They were presented to us as deferments.
  On 9th December the Secretary of State told us that further projects to the value of about £9 million which would have been started in the period August, 1965 to January, 1966 had been deferred. As I calculate it—and I speak subject to any correction that the Minister of State likes to make—£9 million is about one-third of the total programme for the technical colleges for 1965–66. With students in the colleges increasing at the rate of 70,000 a year this was a very serious blow.
  We come to this year when we had Circular 6/66 which tells us:
  "To the extent that the level of new work authorised to be started in 1966–67 now has to include projects deferred from earlier programmes, some projects in the 1966–67 programme announced to education authorities will have to start after the end of that financial year."
  This to anyone who has been in Whitehall means that the deferments have become a cut, and have been gradually absorbed into the unknown of the future. It is not surprising that one read in Education, a work with which we are all familiar, of 25th February:
  "Mr. Crosland has sent out a Circular of almost imponderable obscurity which shows clearly that the moratorium cuts in further education are being formally carried forward into the ensuing periods, but that beneath the cloak of opaque officialese a bit more has been squeezed in than at one time looked likely."
  I would be grateful if the Minister would be not opaque but precise. I know that his aim is the same as mine, to be numerate as well as literate.
  As I said to the House, these deferments which became cuts are clearly severe. Some of them I have managed to identify. In London there are cuts on the capital programmes in such places as the Borough Polytechnic; the College for the Distributive Trades; Regent Street Polytechnic—here I understand that it is a new building for the College of Engineering and Science; Brixton School of Building and Vauxhall College of Further Education—new buildings; Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts; North London College for Further Education. In Birmingham the cuts affect New North Birmingham Technical College; and in Manchester the Fielden
  1602
  Park Further Education College, and so on.
  Only today one read in the Daily Mail, as no doubt the Minister of State would read, of the sad plight of the West Ham College of Technology. I very much hope that he can show that the author of this report has got his facts wrong, but there is this comment in the Daily Mail on a report relating to the West Ham College of Technology:
  "Hopes for new buildings have been constantly frustrated…because of the Department of Education's decision to place a total ban on all building expansion in regional colleges such as West Ham. The ban is a result of a policy move and not of the six-month building freeze put on higher education last summer."
  I hope that when the Minister of State replies he can show us that this is completely wrong and false. If it is not, it is extremely serious.
  I must make passing reference to the dispute that has gone on over our system of higher education, the division between the public and the autonomous, the binary system. I refer to the speech by the Secretary of State at Woolwich Polytechnic on 27th April, 1965. I would agree entirely with much of what he said, but there is one point in it on which I would like him to comment because I know that it has been misinterpreted or misunderstood in certain educational institutions and universities that I have visited recently.
  When the right hon. Gentleman was outlining his four basic points for defending what we call the binary system, he said:
  "…it is desirable in itself that a substantial part of the higher education system should be under social control, and directly responsive to social needs."
  I hope that he did not mean it—I am sure he did not—but some people interpreted that as meaning that the autonomous sector is not responsive to social needs. I can assure the Minister of State that I have come across this interpretation in circles as high up as vice-chancellors.
  I am sure the Minister of State will agree that not only our brand new universities but many of our older civic universities which are carrying the heat and burden of the Robbins expansion have made many efforts to be responsive to identified social needs. To give one case

  1603
  in point, a few weeks ago I was at Imperial College and I found in the Department of Mechanical Engineering that a postgraduate course in design engineering had been laid on directly and consequently upon the Fielden Report.
  I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree that it would be wrong if the idea got about that the autonomous sector was not interested in social problems and did not try to respond to them. At my own university in Southampton, where I was the other day, I saw on the extramural side a course being run for Service officers in what I suppose one would call broadly strategic studies. It was extremely good.
  I believe, too, that the answer to the charges made by the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, against binarism lays in the success of the Council for National Academic Awards. The information that Lord Kings Norton has give us is that after as little as a year there are nearly 4,000 students a year on 83 courses in 31 colleges. I am sure the Minister of State will also agree that we do not want the public sector so to develop that some of the best institutions are regarded as rival universities.
  This is a fear which I certainly noted on the part of one distinguished vice-chancellor. I am sure that there is no danger of this, but one danger which has arisen comes from the comment of the Secretary of State that he did not intend having any more new universities within the next 10 years, a decision with which most of us on this side of the House would be inclined to agree. But I think that it has been interpreted in certain circles as being "never", and I am sure that the Minister of State will take the opportunity of saying that his right hon. Friend meant 10 years and did not mean "never". The hon. Gentleman may think this to be a trivial point, but I have come across this misunderstanding in university circles.
  Another point, in passing, which is relevant is that I believe that there is a move in quite a number of universities, particularly the older civic ones to try to get closer with industry, not by the methods tried hitherto but in a move, rather important and in a way radical, to put on the academic boards distinguished people from industry. In other
  1604
  words, if one is running in a university a department of electrical engineering, one might go to one of the great electrical engineering companies and get the director of research as a member of the faculty board, not necessarily with full rights but rather like a visiting fellow to an Oxford or Cambridge college. I hope that the Minister will tell us that the Government will support and encourage that sort of development. In getting together in an association there is a tremendous difference between a meeting, as it were, of separate clubs formally and being members of the same club.
  I pass to the question of management studies in technical colleges. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Handsworth and all of us on this side of the House would congratulate Mr. Platt and his colleagues on their work. He identified three roles. The first was the need for more functional management courses. Secondly, there was the supply and training of management teachers, and, thirdly, the implications of the Industrial Training Act. I would go a little wider, and say that, as I see it, management studies in technical colleges for the established manager need to be of three types. There is first the general type of course which should be aimed especially at the established manager of possibly some years whose educational background was rather poor. If one gets not too late in life somebody who has been shown to be competent in management on the shop floor a great deal can be done to raise his potential and horizon by the right type of course. This is what in the early days the staff and director of Henley tried to do.
  Secondly, there is the matter of keeping current management in touch with new management thinking and techniques. On the whole, this would involve a short course because of the problem of getting away. Thirdly, there is instruction in particular techniques. This can be quite precise and should be in the form of instruction rather than necessarily understanding. For example, there is no need to understand how a computer works to be able not only to use it but to programme it. One thinks of such varied techniques as advanced techniques in work study, on the one hand, and studies in discounted cash flow on the other.

  1605
  My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Charles Morrison) was right when he said on 25th March, 1965:
  "In the past, we have concentrated our efforts on the education of the child. Now we must concentrate on an entirely new approach to education—education from childhood to retirement."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th March, 1965; Vol. 709, c. 794.]
  This is an enormous challenge to us in further education.
  I read with interest Administrative Memorandum 8/65, but I was not happy on one point. When the right hon. Gentleman spoke of admissions he said that exceptionally students of 27 years of age or over without the necessary academic qualifications should be admitted. I believe that we should allow students much older than 27 who have had a pretty thin academic background, provided the company is able and willing to sponsor them, and that is a pretty good certainty, and provided, of course, that they are willing to come and learn. Those of us who have worked in industry know many men for whom, with their practical experience, an enormous amount could have been done to fill in what they lacked in academic training.
  They may have lacked academic training, not because they did not have the academic opportunities but, as in some cases one knows of, because they did not want to take the opportunities. I know of one man—this is a very good case to make the point—who, when a lad, was pretty "duff" at school, although he was a great footballer. He went into the R.A.F. in the war and flew as a sergeant pilot. He became so interested in the machines he was flying that, when he came out, helped on release by the R.A.F. in the way we all remember, he went off and took an external B.Sc. in mechanical engineering. He would never have done this if he had not had the experience of flying aircraft. That is a simple example, but there will be many more examples in the experience of all who have worked and managed in industry.
  One of the biggest problems in the whole of management training is the problem of industry, whether public or private, being prepared and able to release managers for further education and training. On the whole, it is my experience that companies today are much
  1606
  more involved in the idea of apprenticeship training, with day-release, and so on, at that sort of age. They may even be quite good with their young staff who may be going on to take higher national certificates, or even external degrees, and so on. But the idea of their 40-year-olds and 50-year-olds needing either further education or further instruction evokes this sort of reaction, "That is a very nice idea. It is all right for the National Coal Board, or I.C.I., but for us, in our little company, when could we have the time to do it?"
  We must get across to industry, to commerce and to the public service the idea that one is not properly staffed unless one has allowances in one's staff quota for people being away. This can be planned in one's staff development programme. To put it in this way, one should be overmanned by, let us say, a factor of 5 or 6 per cent. We have seen this momentarily in many of the courses which the universities and the senior technical colleges are laying on at postgraduate level. At Imperial College, for example, one will see some of the postgraduate courses laid on to respond to identify British needs. But what does one find there?—60 or 65 per cent. of the students are not British. No doubt, this is grand in helping to educate people from other countries, and we thereby fulfil a social purpose in the world. But these courses were not aimed specifically at the under-developed countries. They were aimed at our own under-developed management here.
  Under the general umbrella of the same theme, I ask the Minister of State whether any decisions have been taken about a new medical school. Since the announcement on 27th July, 1964 by my right hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Barber) that Nottingham should have a new medical school, nothing has happened. Yet on the same day, 27th July, 1964, the right hon. Gentleman who is now Minister of Health, speaking from this Box, promised that a Labour Government would set up four new medical schools. On 13th May, 1965, I pressed the Secretary of State and the only reply I received was:
  "The claims of all possible sites for new medical schools will be considered at the appropriate time."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th May, 1965; Vol. 712, c. 685.]
  When is the appropriate time?

  1607
  It may be said that we must await the Report of the Royal Commission looking into medical education which was set up last June. But the Prime Minister, when he made the announment, made quite clear that this would not preclude decisions being taken upon new medical schools. I am sure that all those who take an interest in the matter recognise this as an urgent problem. If, for financial reasons, the Government do not feel that work should start on them, I seriously counsel the Government that, at least, the decision should be announced. There is a great deal of uncertainty, which I share, on this issue, but I will not deploy the arguments affecting my hospital region and the University of Southampton because I will do that in the Adjournment on Tuesday. I will, therefore, leave the matter there for now.
  Again on the general theme of technical education, a number of questions need answering about the Government's support of the Flowers Committee Report. This was accepted by the Secretary of State on 21st December last and it is on the acceptance of the recommendation that some very large computing machines should be acquired from the United States, and that they should be hired rather than purchased, that a number of questions arise. The machines suggested were the C.D.C. 6800, which it was thought would probably be available in 1967, and the IBM 360/92, which would be available somewhat later.
  I have heard these decisions questioned in university and British computing industry circles. Is C.D.C. going ahead with the C.D.C. 6800, because I have heard that it is not? It would be useful, if the information I have is wrong, for the Minister to make the position clear and to say whether or not that company is going ahead with that machine. Perhaps more important, am I not right in saying that IBM has abandoned its previous policy of hiring in favour of selling? If that is the case, it makes the economics of that Flowers Committee recommendation look rather different.
  I have already detained the House for too long. I hope I have said enough to show that the present Government's record in maintaining the advance in technical education has not been up to expectation. They received a rich inheritance but they
  1608
  have been content—and I am being generous to them—at best to coast along and at worst cut back. I wonder what the Minister will have to say about the 1964 Labour Party manifesto pledge on further education, in which it was stated:
  "As the first steps to part-time education for the first two years after leaving school, Labour will extend compulsory day and block release."
  What action has been taken other than carrying on with the provisions of our Industrial Training Act, 1964, without making any financial provision for it in the National Plan? And as for the phrase "As the first steps", what are the first steps in the view of hon. Gentlemen opposite? They Minister cannot use the excuse that he has not had enough time because that card was trumped in the very same 1964 Labour Party manifesto; and hon. Gentlemen opposite must be regretting that they stated:
  "Labour is ready…poised to swing its plan into instant operation…impatient to apply the New Thinking that will end the chaos and sterility."
  Where, now, is the Prime Minister's promise to
  "…forge a new Britain in the white heat of the scientific revolution…"
  —so hot it did not even get into the National Plan?
  Indeed, where have all the promises gone? They have gone into the deep freeze to be brought out for the Prime Minister's last appearance before polling day. But I grant the right hon. Gentleman this. The Prime Minister has made one unique contribution to the advancement of science and technology in Britain. It has been his personal performance in demonstrating the proposition that P.M. = P.R.
  8.34 p.m.
  Mr. William Hamling: The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. David Price) gave us a preview of one of his minor General Election speeches, and, to that extent, I shall not follow him too far.
  Mr. Eric S. Heffer: Minor? Was it not one of his major ones?
  Mr. Hamling: It was a minor one because it was in a minor key. One need only look at the sparseness of attendance on the benches opposite. Had the hon. Gentleman been making a major speech

  1609
  he would have had his hon. Friends applauding their heads off.
  I would like to follow the hon. Gentleman in one respect by saying something about the so-called "rich" inheritance that he mentioned. He referred to "our" Industrial Training Act. How many training boards did the last Government set up? The Opposition do not believe in making plans. What provision did they make in any of the technical colleges for the implications of the vast expansion of technical education that should have followed from the Act? Right hon. and hon. Members opposite drew an arbitrary distinction between training and further education, although anyone with experience of technical education from the practical point of view knows that there is no such distinction. They made no provision for co-ordination between the two Ministries responsible. There was no discussion of the implications of day release.
  I remind the House of what my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour did in July 1965. He laid it down as a condition of grants being paid for industrial training that there should be compulsory day release. He said that he would approve the proposals of industrial training boards only if they made it a condition of grant that day release or the equivalent was provided for the young people in occupations requiring a substantial amount of training. That is not an example of inaction. In the 16 months of the present Government, ten training boards have been set up and there are plans for others. This is hardly the sign of a Government doing nothing.
  One might ask, with all the extrapolations for the next five years, what was done in this by the last Government. We know that they accepted the Robbins Report in 48 hours without understanding its implications for higher education. We know, too, that the Estimates Committee severely criticised them because the programme was inadequate. I have been engaged in education for a long time—not only the education of some hon. Members opposite but in the more formal type of education, in primary schools, all-age schools, senior schools, secondary modern schools, universities and, more latterly, technical colleges. In the technical col-
  1610
  lege where I worked I was concerned with what is called "general education".
  I have always been concerned with the general educational aspects of the work of technical colleges. It has been borne in on me over a number of years that many students at technical colleges lack general education. The hon. Member talked about the lack of general education among people taking management courses. I would describe it as very often a failure to communicate, an inability to do so. This is especially true in the lower reaches of management, in the training, for example, of foremen and supervisors. To me this is clear evidence that their education at school was incomplete, that they went into industry too soon.
  One of the jobs of technical colleges is to make good these omissions, and this is often the job of the teacher in the general education department. I want to make a plea for a new look at the concept of general education in technical colleges. Those who teach in these departments in technical colleges are doing a rescue operation. They are concerned not so much with the general aspects of the technical courses as with making good the deficiencies of those who may have missed out in earlier life. So often it happens that one of our functions is educating people for, say, a G.C.E. course as a prelude to leaving the industry with which the college is primarily concerned and going somewhere else.
  Before I came to the House, one of the students in my class was to go to a college of education at the end of the year to train to become a teacher. I regard that as a splendid example of the work of that technical college, but it is not the job for which these colleges are primarily designed. There were other students being trained to take A-levels, and surely the idea behind that, is not purely technical education.
  In our debates on teacher supply and the part which technical colleges can play in finding people whose general education has been lacking we have discussed what opportunities might be taken in technical colleges to provide general education courses in order to repair the deficiencies so that the students concerned can later go to colleges of education. I have asked several times for special

  1611
  provision to be made in technical colleges for preparatory courses such as we have at Bromley. My hon. Friend the Minister of State knows about them, for he has seen the correspondence. I want more of this development.
  I am reminded of a sixth form student at the London College of Printing whose main ambition was to become a surgeon. He had left school at 15 and had not had the necessary further education, but I have no doubt that if he had had the opportunities he could have become a surgeon, for he had the mental capacity and the character. Here was a young man of 21 who regarded himself already as a failure in life. That is an indictment not so much of technical education as of the country heritage of our ordinary system of education.
  The hon. Member for Eastleigh referred to the criticisms of the speech at Woolwich by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. If his research in HANSARD had gone a little further, the hon. Gentleman would have discovered that Questions specifically about the Woolwich speech were answered on 24th February by my hon. Friend the Minister of State on behalf of the Secretary of State. My hon. Friend referred to the correspondence with the Chairman of the Governors of Woolwich Polytechnic when the Secretary of State went into some detail and corrected some of the misapprehensions. To further correct some of the misapprehensions, I would refer to a letter in the current issue of The Teacher, written by Eric Robinson, the General Secretary of the A.T.T.I., which is the recognised trade union in this realm of technical teaching. In his letter Mr. Robinson defends the Secretary of State. The hon. Gentleman will see that the teachers in technical colleges are not deceived, as much as some other people seem to be.
  What is true is that technical education is a very wide subject. It is difficult to talk even of two or three sorts of technical colleges, because they vary so widely. The one in which I worked, the London College of Printing, fits into none of these categories satisfactorily. There are courses in management studies, in which people are trained to become top managers in the printing industry. They are very often the sons of chairmen
  1612
  of boards in the printing trade who will ultimately take dad's place. There are full-time students, many of them university graduates. At the other end of the scale there are day-release courses for apprentices from the various trades in the industry who attend for one day a week during their apprenticeship. There are students taking the diploma in art and design, many of them already university graduates, the products of public schools and of schools abroad.
  In the general education department there are people taking G.C.E. courses over a wide range of subjects. There are block release courses made up of students drawn from all over the country. There are also full-time courses in purely technical subjects and courses for overseas students. In all of this, there is a tremendous overlap with further education. When looking at a college of this sort, with 7,000 students, it is very difficult to say just where it fits into a set pattern of technical education.
  I have never liked day-release. I always regard it as a most unsatisfactory method of industrial initiation. I also regard its general educational aspects as grossly unsatisfactory. How can one in one hour a week lightly repair the damage done over the years? I often think that this is cheating young men and women to whom a door is opened and then slammed before they get through. This is not my idea of what education for young men and women should be. Why are there these educational deficiencies among young men and women? This brings me to some of the things which were said last night, and which have a strong bearing on technical education. These deficiencies are the direct product of the tripartite system—or should I call it the dual system—of education.
  There are grammar schools for the few and other schools for the others. We have schools described as secondary modern schools which frequently should not be described as modern or secondary, or schools based on the selective process which writes off young people as failures at eleven and condemns them to soldier on for another four years after which they fly from the coop like a bird from an open cage. They fly into industry to liberate themselves only to find that they have flown into another cage.

  1613
  It is no wonder that so many young people are disgruntled and have a chip on their shoulder because they have never realised their capacity. They find in the apprenticeship system which proliferates throughout industry something which is old-fashioned, absurd and an insult to intelligent people. They spend perhaps two or three years doing simple operations which they could learn to do in a month.
  What we need is a radical transformation of the apprenticeship system. I have been calling for this as a trade unionist and as a teacher for many years. The ironic thing is that it is not the trade unions which object so much to this as a great many employers, because they feel that they would lose cheap labour. This explains the reluctance of so many employers to allow their young employees to attend technical colleges for day release and why I often found that certain students did not arrive at college; their firms kept them back. This is particularly true of the five-year apprentice who is doing a man's job and receiving a boy's wage. I deliberately put it in that graphic form. In fact, they receive a wage which is a bit better than that of a first-year apprentice, but they still do a man's job and do not receive a man's wage. My hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence), who is from the engineering industry, knows all about this; he has suffered from it.
  Mr. Cyril Bence: I worked in Birmingham for many years. The apprenticeship schemes in many of the best firms are of the highest order. Many firms send the best of their apprentices to technical college and even on to university. Would my hon. Friend agree that some of the institutions he is quoting and the backward institutions do not reflect the position in the country as a whole?
  Mr. Hamling: I agree. It is frequently the small firm which is the bad firm. My hon. Friend knows the founding industry very well. It is an industry with which I have some connection in that I used to do some of the teaching work of the Amalgamated Foundry Workers Union. My connection with that union showed that in this industry also there is an immense number of small
  1614
  firms which do not believe in training or in giving youngsters opportunities.
  I was coming back to the old conception of the failure of our education system to give young people a square deal. We will begin to educate our youngsters properly only when we abolish selective secondary schools. We will give them the opportunity of a proper education only when we carry out the education policy of the Government, which was under fire last night. The failures of our education system are being sent into industry. These are boys and girls who are labelled by their parents often as failures because they failed to pass the 11-plus. There can be nothing more insulting or degrading than to label a youngster a failure before he has started on life.
  We all know that the selective process means that the gap between children widens as the years go on, and this explains why in industrial areas, as my hon. Friend said last night, the boys who go into industry and the boys who leave the primary school and go to a grammar school drift apart and cease to have any common language or any common experience. This is an indictment of our social system. It does not happen in Wales, as you know very well, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There they have a much more civilised approach to education than have we English.
  Mr. Bence: And in Scotland.
  Mr. Hamling: I know less about Scotland than about Wales. In England we have these gaps, and it is the Government's intention to wipe them out. I am reminded of my old grammar school. It is ironic that many hon. Members from these benches who advocate comprehensive education are themselves products of grammar schools. Indeed, this is why we are advocates of comprehensive education, because we know what we are talking about. We attended these selective schools and went through the social mill.
  I am reminded of a friend of mine at grammar school whose father was a Liverpool docker, for many years unemployed. I was with the boy on one occasion when his father passed in his overalls. The boy, in his college cap, did not recognise his own father.

  1615
  This is the kind of social attitude, very fresh in my memory, which we still have in our society, and it disfigures our society. We shall never solve this problem of the deficiency of our students in technical colleges and further education until we have put the basic questions right, abolished this segregation at the lower levels of our educational system and brought about social and educational harmony.
  In the next few weeks we shall be discussing some of these questions at the hustings. The House knows very well that when I speak on education I speak not as a party politician but as a teacher and as someone who believes profoundly in the virtues of education. Both my parents left school at the age of 11. They were determined that their children would have a good education as part of a good start in life. I bring to the discussion of technical education the same kind of criterion—that it is our job as teachers to give all our children, not just some of them, the best that we can afford.
  8.59 p.m.
  Mr. Harold Walker: I cannot lay claim to the relationship with technical education which my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling) showed at the outset of his speech. Mine is rather different. Instead of having teaching experience, I am a product of technical education. Perhaps for that reason I am aware of its tremendous importance and the great problems that confront us. Because of this, I came in to the debate not to participate, but to listen and learn and to expect a dispassionate and objective examination of this tremendously important subject.
  I concede that that was what the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. David Price) in large measure did during the major part of his speech, but I deeply regret the partisan bitterness which he introduced in his peroration. I hope that this important subject does not, like so many other things, become yet another football of party politics.
  The hon. Member referred to management studies and their growth in institutes of technical education. My hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West, drew attention to certain features of our apprentice training system. This is a subject of frequent criticism, both inside and outside
  1616
  this House. Perhaps, in some respects correctly, we deplore certain features of industrial training—for example, the "sit next to Nelly, watch Bill" approach which has characterised so much of our industrial training in the past. We are correct in deploring this. It has seemed most curious to me, however, that at the higher levels of industry, where it is even more important for people to be properly educated and trained, but where precisely the same thing applies, there is no criticism whatever.
  I speak from experience as both an industrial worker and a participant in industrial management. In the great majority of cases in industrial management, not in the large firms to which my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) referred, but in the typical unit in industry, employing about 800 people, the hard fact is that the man doing the administrative or managerial task is the man who picked it up by rule of thumb, basically the "sit next to Nelly and watch it" technique, and who has even less understanding of the scientific and technical aspects of management. For this reason, the debate is extremely useful in focusing attention on this shortcoming of industry.
  Not many years ago I was put in a responsible position with one of the largest manufacturers of electrical equipment in Britain, with whom I had been a shop steward. When promoted to that responsible position, I was told that the courses which I had undertaken to prepare for it at Manchester College of Technology were so much scientific waffle that was irrelevant to the practical needs of the factory.
  The department for which I was made responsible had over many years experienced regular outbreaks of sporadic strikes and short stoppages, which, I confess, as a shop steward I was unable to control. Because of the responsible position I then occupied and the training which I had undergone in the department of industrial administration at the Manchester College of Technology, I was able to do what I had been unable to do previously and, in the first 12 months of my responsibility for the department, eliminate any loss of time due to strike action. That is one aspect of the problem.

  1617
  My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has rightly drawn attention to what can be achieved with our nation and its resources if we apply to it the new techniques and scientific developments of the last few years. The average industrial manager, if asked which new machine or machines he would like to boost his output, would much prefer to given a new production control technique or a new stock control system. These things, if not more important, might be equally important in boosting our industrial output and harnessing the resources of the State. Clearly, this development can only properly be achieved as a result of extension of the study of managerial techniques in technical institutions.
  I hope, therefore, that when my hon. Friend the Minister of State replies to the debate, he will be able to tell us what new developments in this direction are proposed to ensure that this aspect of our industrial life and our technical education system is given the kind of attention that it deserves.
  I want to draw attention to what seems to me the effect on the standards of technical education of the technical institutes. The typical apprentice, when he chooses his career or vocation in industry, sets his sights on the ultimate goal, as a participant in industrial management, or as a technician, and he hopes to acquire the ultimate qualification, which is invariably associate membership of the appropriate institute. He pursues his education in the technical institution, following the steps which will take him to his goal.
  There used to be a preliminary course to the Ordinary National Certificate course, and the National Certificate course, and then there was the Higher National Certificate course. This has been rejigged a little in recent years, but, fundamentally, it is still the same, orientated to ultimate membership of the appropriate technical institute. Therefore, to qualify, a person taking the Higher National Certificate course has to be set at the level which will give the successful candidate ultimate admission into the appropriate institute. With the growth of education generally this quite clearly has meant that the number of people who
  1618
  will be passing the standards set by the institutes will grow in number.
  The institutes, because they represent the interests of their members and associate members, clearly have a vested interest in the standards which are set, and the hard fact is that with the passage of the years—the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle) seems somewhat sceptical, but I can assure him that this is the view of lecturers and teachers in technical institutions—the standards have gone progressively higher so as to control the numbers of people qualifying for associate membership of the institutes, and we have the ridiculous situation where people with associate membership qualifications acquired several years ago are now, in order to prepare people for the ultimate qualification, having to teach at higher levels than they are capable of doing. They are teaching something they have not learned themselves, so as to qualify persons for associate membership of their appropriate institute.
  This seems to me entirely wrong, and a classical example of a restrictive practice, a restrictive practice which, because it is prejudicial to the national interest, should be dealt with, and dealt with very firmly and quickly. I think that the accepted standards for the ultimate technical qualifications should be taken out of the hands of the institutes, and that we should have standards stemming from the Department, in the same way as in other fields we have divorced from the standards the interests of the people setting them. This is of tremendous importance.
  Finally, the point which my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West made seems to me fundamental to this whole question. We accept that the greatest problem confronting the nation is how to raise our levels of production and productivity, but integral with this is the need to expand this area of our education so that more and more people with the capacity for and understanding of industrial management, and the control and application of the new techniques, may qualify. But we shall not get the volume of entrants of the right quality in this field till we accord to them that parity of esteem which is denied to them at present. So long as we continue to treat this kind of

  1619
  education as inferior to the academic education which is obtainable through universities, we shall not get the right kind of people in the right numbers.
  When discussing the subject of technical education, I do not care on which side of the House I sit. I hope that whichever Government are in power in the near future will see that technical education is of vital and increasing importance in grappling with the tremendous problems which confront us today and will do so for many years to come.
  9.10 p.m.
  Sir Edward Boyle: I agree entirely with the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Harold Walker) about the enormous importance of the subject that we are discussing tonight. It is of very great importance to the nation, for three reasons.
  As the hon. Gentleman said, the first reason is the fact that we are dealing with the sector of education which, arguably, is of more direct economic importance than any other. The National Plan says in page 197:
  "The long-run increase in productivity in Britain must depend heavily on the greater skill and technical proficiency of the labour force".
  I would go rather further and say that we need to pay more attention in Britain not just to expanding the labour force, to making it more productive and more flexible, but to the whole question of professional education. I believe that we need to pay much more attention to professional training and to the whole professional infrastructure of our national life. One of the best statements that I have seen on the subject was made by the Government's economic adviser, Dr. Balogh, in a speech with much of which I could agree.
  We want in Britain to have rising standards of general education that will fit young people to take their place in more complex patterns of production. But, following that general education, we need to pay attention to more specialised forms of professional education as well.
  I was interested to hear the hon. Member for Doncaster speaking about the relationship between the technical colleges and the universities. I should have thought that today there was a real overlap in standards between the best tech- 1620
  nical colleges and the university institutions, both of learning and of research. But I should have thought that it was also true—and I quote some words that I used recently in a lecture—to say:
  "The centre of gravity of the technical colleges, compared with the centre of gravity of the universe, is not so much learning as professional training."
  I would only say that in our concern that a larger proportion of our young people should have an opportunity of attending institutions of learning, do not let us make the mistake as a nation of devaluing professional training. In almost all spheres, industry, marketing and, not least, administration, it is something of greater importance today than ever before. That is why I was so pleased when I was asked if I would be a member of the Fulton Committee which is to inquire into the Civil Service.
  The second reason why we are discussing a very important subject tonight is because of the direct interest not only of the nation but of our young people themselves. Today, more and more young people are seeking qualifications, and more and more qualifications are being offered all the time.
  I will not try and debate last night's subject with the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling), but I feel that he painted the picture a little too gloomily when he laid so much stress on what he called the waste and frustration of our present system. I cannot help feeling that the hon. Gentleman's speech overlapped to a remarkable extent some of the things said and written by the extreme Right in educational thinking. For one awful moment when listening to the hon. Gentleman, I thought that I was hearing one of the less persuasive lectures of Professor Bantock. It is curious how extremes meet in this subject. I put it to the hon. Gentleman that if one looks at the statistics put out by the Department—I went to look them up, which is why I discourteously left the debate for a few minutes—one sees that all the time more young people are getting into a better position to be qualified for a good job after leaving school.
  I recognise that the hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Mr. Armstrong) was right to pull me up last night for laying disproportionate stress on G.C.E.

  1621
  results. If one is talking about schools, one needs to think not just about G.C.E. but also about educational values—the capacity for education which one notices among young people today, and the serious discussion and thought amongst school children on many subjects. But if one looks at G.C.E. results over the last 10 years, one sees that the proportion of the relevant age group getting at least five O-level passes has gone up from 11½ per cent. to 18½ per cent. More and more young people are becoming qualified to seek a good job after school, and this is another reason why the expansion of the technical colleges and the expansion of further education generally is so important.
  Thirdly—and here I do agree with the hon. Member for Woolwich, West—there is one other important aspect of technical education, namely, that it provides a second chance, a further avenue by which people can make good the deficiencies of their schooling earlier on. However much I may sometimes wish to dispute matters with the hon. Member for Woolwich, West in the House, I am sure that I should have learned a great deal from him if I had experienced his tuition.
  For those reasons—the national interest, the desire of increasing numbers of young people to become qualified for good jobs, and, thirdly, the fact that further education provides a second chance—this large sector of our education system is, I believe, one of great importance.
  I should like to put two points to the Minister of State. First, are we really making sufficient financial provision for further education? Secondly, are the Government and the National Plan setting their sights high enough with regard to their forward estimates of prospective student numbers. I propose to deal first with the amount of money that is being made available, and here I would put an important question to the Minister of State about building.
  I have seen this rather remarkable document, Circular 6/66, and I shall be sorry if I learn—I do not think I will—that any circular worded quite like this one was sent out during my own period as Minister. The only sense that I can make of it is that owing to the postpone-
  1622
  ments, last year's further education building programme will turn out to have been £9 million less than originally anticipated, that the programme for 1966–67 is going to be no larger than originally authorised—that is to say, it will remain at £27 million—and, therefore, that over the two years added together, the total value of projects started will be only £42 million instead of £51 million.
  On the subject of planning, I would say to the hon. Member for Woolwich, West that at least in 1956 Lord Eccles introduced a White Paper containing a clear planning target for technical college building which we fulfilled as a Government. He also set a planning figure for a rapid increase in the total number of scientists and technologists over 10 years, and we fulfilled that target one year early. Further, having brought in the Industrial Training Act, we provided for substantially larger capital investment programmes, both for 1965–66 and 1966–67.
  Mr. Hamling: Is that why the previous Government kicked Lord Eccles, as he now is, upstairs?
  Sir E. Boyle: I think that with his White Papers of 1956 and 1961 Lord Eccles made two outstanding contributions to the education service, and I also say that I do not think any Conservative Minister, or ex-Minister, has ever made more impressive speeches critical of the present Government than Lord Eccles has made since he went to another place.
  I should like to ask the Minister of State about the building programme figures. Just as in the case of the universities, I do not doubt that the prospective student numbers will be able to be fitted in next year and the year after. That is not in question. But surely, in view of the expansion in the numbers of these colleges which there is likely to be, the time is not far off when there may be a very acute problem of providing roofs over heads.
  I therefore hope that the Minister of State will be able to tell us that if local authorities can undertake a larger quantity of building of technical colleges, this £9 million will be made up to them at the earliest possible moment. I know that there are often difficulties for local authorities in actually fulfilling the programmes which have been authorised.

  1623
  None the less, I recall well that in 1964 when the programme for 1965–66 was announced the £24 million which I announced, had to be compared with total bids of £69 million; in other words, there were many more projects which local authorities wished to have approved. I therefore hope that the Government can tell us tonight that the £9 million will be made up to local authorities as soon as possible.
  As to the figures in the National Plan, are we setting our sights high enough and providing realistically for the numbers there are likely to be in technical colleges? I was pretty startled to see in the National Plan last September exactly the same figures, with one exception, as I remembered well from my own time as Minister. The exception is full-time students. For sandwich students, part-time day students and evening students, the figures in the National Plan are exactly the same figures as those we were working on as a projection during my time as Minister, and of which I still retain a copy. As the Robbins projection became out of date within a year of the publication of the Robbins Report, I find it quite unbelievable that the right projection for the early part of 1964 remained the right projection for the second half of 1965.
  I hope that the Minister of State will confirm that every effort will be made by the Government to keep the figures in the tables in the National Plan suitably up to date. On many occasions I have expressed my own disappointment with this chapter. I do not think it is up to the standard of a Department which, when all is said and done, in its statistics has achieved one of the finest steps forward in applied science of any Government Department. I hope that these figures will be kept up to date in terms of reality. If the figures produced by U.C.C.A. for the numbers seeking university places are right, we know that the trend of school leavers seeking entrance is running far more strongly than was anticipated. And similarly I should have thought that the numbers of those wishing to go on to technical colleges are likely to be considerably higher than those on which the Government are basing their present plans.
  In my last few minutes I wish to go over two or three special aspects of tech- 1624
  nical colleges and ask the Minister of State some questions. First, can he tell the House anything tonight about the rumours that the Government will shortly schedule about two dozen institutions, mainly regional technical colleges, as polytechnics or super-polytechnics? I have for a long time realised that there would have to be some rationalisation in the institutions doing degree level work outside the university sector. Obviously, too much duplication in research would inevitably be wasteful.
  It must be remembered how much more ground courses have to cover nowadays as compared with 20, or even 10, years ago. I think it was Lord Bowden who made the very fair point that chemistry, as a subject, has more than doubled in volume since the war. And much the same is also true of many aspects of applied science. Courses are getting more elaborate all the time and covering a wider range. There is an overwhelming case for some rationalisation. None the less, I hope that the Government will hesitate before making too sharp a distinction between the new range of technical institutions and all the others. I can understand the anxiety of those who do not want to see part-time advanced diploma level work devalued. I can also understand the anxiety caused by any suggestion that only a small number of institutions should have a monopoly of approval by the C.N.A.A. for degree level work. I am in favour of a measure of rationalisation, but I hope it need not involve too sharp a distinction between this new group of institutions and other technical colleges of proved worth and importance.
  The other point concerns control. I welcome the news that we are probably going to have greater freedom for the governing bodies of these new institutions, just as I am glad to learn that the working party on college of education government has been going successfully. But I do not believe we shall be able to keep the present administrative system intact. I am sure that in this part of education we shall have to move to a pattern of organisation that crosses local education authority boundaries. While, in general, I am in favour of education continuing as a local government service—I do not want to see it develop into decentralised central government—in the higher education field we have got to think in terms of grouping

  1625
  and this is something about which my own party expect to have a good deal to say during the following months.
  I wish to say a word next, on the subject of industrial training, and then on management education. With regard to industrial training, I have always felt that it is not good enough simply to pass an Act. I know that firms are looking at their syllabuses much more closely, which is a very good thing, but I wonder how the technical college principals themselves think the Act is going.
  I would also stress the importance of members of boards, both industrial and educational members, giving sufficient time to their work. There is a very real danger with regard to the training boards that too much will fall on a very small number of people. Too much responsibility will fall simply on the technical staff on the boards and I hope that the industrialists and the educationalists will play their full part. I believe we are only at the beginning of something very important indeed. We are, as somebody said, only at the 1870 stage of industrial training in this country that corresponds to the 1870 Education Act and we have got much further still to go.
  I now wish to touch on management education. This is a very neglected field. I think the National Plan referred to management education and to qualified managers as our scarcest resources in this country. I hope the Minister of State will take note of what my hon. Friend, in his remarkable speech this evening, had to say on the subject of management education and the types of course that we need. It seems to me that there is probably a need in the new business schools for a good two-year postgraduate university course in business education of a high intellectual level, although I believe this course should not be too academic. Surely those in charge of it need to have had some operational experience themselves, and to have some knowledge of operational research.
  I would also emphasise the importance of more specialised post-experience courses in the technical colleges. I should regret any suggestion that the universities should concentrate on the highest level course and the technical colleges only on the lower level courses. Surely the right
  1626
  approach is that it should be the task of the new business schools to give the more general postgraduate courses of a high academic standard, and that the technical colleges should provide the more specialised courses—the post-experience courses.
  The only other point I wish to make concerns the link between the technical colleges and the provision of facilities for teacher training I was a little disappointed by the hon. Gentleman's answer on this subject to me this afternoon. He told me:
  "Two of the annexes brought into use at colleges of education last September involved the uses of facilities in establishments for further education: as these annexes counted as part of the parent college of education it is not possible to give separate student numbers for them."
  If we want to see a broad-based supply of teachers, I believe that there will be a strong case for closer links between a number of colleges of education and technical colleges and the provision of more teachers by this means. It will, of course, involve institutional difficulties. This is a subject on which the A.T.C.D.E. has approached me privately and they will be concerned, of course, about uniformity of standards. Nevertheless, I hope that the Minister of State will re-emphasise that we want to see in this country a broadly-based pattern of teacher training and that, quite certainly, technical colleges have a contribution to make in this field.
  To echo my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mr. David Price), despite the fact that this subject naturally attracts at the present time less attention than the subject which we debated last night, I am certain that from the point of view of the country this is a subject of the highest national importance, and that greater attention to professional training and standards of professional performance is vital to our nation's future. Many of us feel that there has been a sharp contrast in this Parliament between the speeches that the Prime Minister made on this subject before the last election and his speeches and performance during this Parliament. He presented himself to the nation, as we know, as the protagonist of the view that we needed to develop a new science-based British industry, active and energetic and technologically skilful. We are deeply disappointed that one cannot point to one major speech that the

  1627
  Prime Minister has made on technical education during the present Parliament.
  I want to make plain that to this aspect of the education system we as a party shall continue to give priority; and I do not believe that, whatever controversies there may be on other aspects of education, anyone will doubt the effect on our nation of the initiative taken by my noble Friend Lord Eccles, which has revolutionised our system of technical education and vastly increased the supply of trained manpower in Britain.
  9.32 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. R. E. Prentice): I should like to begin by thanking the House for the references made to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. He is disappointed at not being able to attend today's debate, as, indeed, he was disappointed at his absence from last night's debate. I am sure that he will be glad that so many hon. Members wish him a quick recovery.
  We are in a somewhat intriguing situation. We are on the eve of a General Election, before which the Opposition on successive Supply days have had the choice of subjects. Many of us had expected, and commentators in the Press had forecast, that in some way or other the Opposition would take the opportunity of these curtain-raising debates to express their policies on matters on which there were great clashes of principle between their side and ours.
  The result has been rather curious. It was not clear tonight, and it was not clear last night, whether or not they were trying to convey any kind of message to the country. They appeared to be approaching the election in a very bemused and defeatist frame of mind, which is rather a pity—we were looking forward to a good scrap and we hope that they will buck up a little.
  Here and there in this debate the election has crept in. A great deal of the matter has been of a nature where there is a bipartisan approach. Speakers on both sides of the House have expressed views that would be accepted on the other side, but here and there hon. Members opposite have brought in this business, as the hon. Member for East-
  1628
  leigh (Mr. David Price) put it, of the wonderful inheritance which we have had from them and their disappointment that we are to expand provision for education by only one-third in five years.
  I shall try to reflect the pattern by being fairly non-controversial most of the time, although I cannot resist two partisan comments to start with. If hon. Members opposite want to make education an election issue—it is not quite clear whether this is part of their intention or not—we are delighted to take them on. We are delighted to talk about the inheritance. We are delighted to talk about the appalling state of our school buildings shown in the school buildings survey. We are not delighted by the situation, but we are glad to take them on in an argument about who was mainly responsible.
  The country will not be impressed by propaganda to put on us the blame for a situation over which they presided for so long and until so recently. Similarly with the over-size classes. Similarly with the very small proportion of our young people who go on to higher education, compared with many other countries. Similarly with the small proportion of our young workers who are given day-release, and all the rest, which we are striving to put right—
  Sir E. Boyle rose—
  Mr. Prentice: No. I intend to be a bit ruthless. Both tonight and last night, there were two Front Bench speeches from the Opposition—I do not complain about that, though I suspect that some back-bench Members who wanted to speak might complain—but we have had only one speech each time, and there is a great deal of ground to be covered.
  I must resist the temptation to talk for too long about last night's debate, but the subject has crept in today and the right hon. Gentleman himself referred to it just now. One comment I must add is that, if this is to be a subject of public discussion in the next few weeks, it is time that the right hon. Gentleman and the Opposition Front Bench got off the fence. In all the debate last night, there was no indication at all of whether the Conservative Party is in favour of getting away from the 11-plus or not. As far as one could

  1629
  interpret anything in the speeches one heard from the right hon. Gentleman and others, they were saying, "Yes, there are faults in selection, there are faults in separatism, the 11-plus has been proved wrong, but we do not approve of the Government doing anything about it".
  The light hon. Gentleman seemed to have one eye on the education world where, as he knows, if he were to defend 11-plus selection, his reputation, which is deservedly high in many ways, would suffer, and another eye on the reactionary fuddy-duddies in his own party who do not understand education and who have been attacking him for months for not being aggressive enough on the subject. I resist the temptation to take that matter further, but, as I sat throughout the debate last night, I felt inclined to get it off my chest.
  A good deal of the speeches today, from the two Front Bench speakers opposite, at least, has denigrated the National Plan. I put the matter to the House in this way. This is the first time that any Government of this country have engaged upon a realistic exercise of long-term planning, looking first at the national economy, assessing the growth potential of the economy, working out and defining the steps which ought to be taken to get a reasonable rate of growth, and then relating the social services, including education, to the expansion which the country could afford.
  People will not be impressed today by comparisons between figures in the plan and the kind of figures for expansion produced by right hon. Members opposite in the last few months of the Conservative Government when they were in their death-bed repentance period just before the General Election. It was in that period they decided that the school building programme should go up, the major programme from £60 million to £80 million a year. It was during that period they decided that the further education programme should go up from £17 million to £24 million a year. It was during that period they accepted the Robbins Report in a flash, with all the implications for capital investment.
  It was the biggest programme of education expansion ever, but it was all on paper. It had not been carried out during the 13 years when they were in office, and neither during those 13 years
  1630
  had the Conservative Government ever led the country to an economic rate of growth which could afford the promises which they made during that last-minute conversion.
  The public will not be impressed by either side bandying comparative figures about during the next few weeks. I look forward to the time—in, say, 1970 or early in 1971—when hon. Gentlemen opposite will get up at that Dispatch Box—and I emphasise "that" Dispatch Box—to initiate a debate comparing five years' achievement, the period covered by the National Plan, with the previous five years under a Conservative Government. We look forward to that time and to being judged by the results.
  That brings me to another partisan reference, although I shall become less partisan as my speech continues. Both Front Bench speakers opposite referred to the alleged differences between the speeches of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and other Labour spokesmen before the last election about moving towards a science-based economy, and so on, and the achievements since.
  I could speak for a long time about the economic planning that has gone into the last 15 months. There have been the policies behind the D.E.A.; the prices and incomes policy, the formation of the Ministry of Technology and all that has gone into that—and we are still looking forward to hearing hon. Gentlemen opposite talk about the Ministry of Technology in terms of policy and not personalities—and, coming to my Department, there have been improvements particularly in relation to further education.
  In our responsibility as the Department of Education and Science we have regrouped the research councils, set up the Council for Scientific Policy, which is a different body with a different rôle than the one referred to by hon. Gentlemen opposite. We have started two new research councils, one concerned with natural environment and the other with social science and we have increased the research grants to the research councils by 20 per cent. in the current year.
  There has been an impetus for science research and in the university sphere there has been acceptance of the Flowers Report, which was debated yesterday in another place. There have been special

  1631
  grants to institutions of higher technology and there has been much impetus given by the decisions of this Government in that sphere in recent months.
  When considering further education, it is agreed on both sides of the House that in the years ahead this will be the fastest expanding part of an expanding education system. And here, for the convenience of the House, I divide the subject into two parts, what is sometimes called the "higher courses"—although that covers not only degree courses and the rest of further education.
  On the higher courses, I remind the House that our figure in the National Plan is to achieve a total of 70,000 students taking higher education courses within the further education sphere by 1970. The Robbins recommendation was for 50,000 by 1973. We are already, by the number of students in these colleges, ahead of Robbins. We intend to stay ahead, and that is without subtracting in any way the expansion in the universities themselves. That will happen in addition to this.
  There are one or two special parts of the higher education sphere within the technical colleges to which reference has been made. With regard to management education, the position for some years was that an expansion of management courses was taking place in the technical colleges without the demand from industry following suit in a satisfactory manner. This is, to some extent, still true, but demand is catching up. All sorts of influences are coming to bear on management, as a result of which more and more of them are prepared to take advantage of this provision.
  Many hon. Members have expressed some criticism of management and I am sure that those criticisms apply over a wide sphere. However, we have seen, for example, that the United Kingdom Diploma in Management Studies has been a success story as part of this provision. Enrolment this year is 20 per cent. up on last year. The approximate number of enrolments was 3,300 in the current academic year, spread over about 36 colleges providing these courses.
  Sir Peter Roberts: The hon. Gentleman's Department could help in advertising to managements the
  1632
  advantages which are available in these courses.
  Mr. Prentice: A number of people can help to advertise, including the Department. Indeed, we have recently appointed into our public relations branch a new officer specially concerned with further education, including this aspect, and many other things can be done. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that publicity is an important part of this work.
  There are about 5,000 students taking more specialised courses in management—office management studies, personnel management courses and a number of others—and we estimate that about 8,000 are taking other professional examinations which include management as part of the course in a number of industrial and commercial activities. In addition, there is a very wide range of short courses of the type to which the hon. Member for Eastleigh referred as being needed for different grades of management in different parts of the country.
  The right hon. Gentleman asked me to say something about reports in the Press about the higher part of further education and the proposals that we have for concentrated higher work, together with reference to what are being called "polytechnics". The Press reports were not altogether accurate in detail, but it is true that we have been working on this subject for some time.
  I was chairman of a group which studied this matter. It contained people with experience in related fields who advised me. But I must point out that this is not a report from any particular group. It is a policy statement from my right hon. Friend as representing the Government's view of future development. The report is now with the representative bodies—the local authority associations and the teachers' unions—and other interested parties for their comments.
  The report recommends a measure of concentration. I cannot go into details, but we have been much aware of the points raised by the right hon. Gentleman. We do not want to create divisions between further developments nor in any way to devalue the part-time courses. Yet there is a need, when thinking of a very large expansion of higher courses in the technical colleges, for concentration. This is partly to conserve resources, partly

  1633
  so that highly qualified staff, who are scarce in some categories, should teach viable numbers, and partly for educational reasons in that it is a good thing for those studying in depth to be in institutions of a size in which they can meet others studying other subjects at higher level and, therefore, gain, as one does in university, from the interplay of disciplines instead of being spread out into too many small courses throughout the country. However, there are many complications—the distances that people are prepared to travel, for instance—and we are trying to achieve a balance.
  I want to make a brief reference to the C.N.A.A. One of the keys to the success of this sector of further education is the reputation that the C.N.A.A. is rapidly achieving. It was set up in September, 1964, as a result of a Robbins recommendation, to award degrees and other awards in those institutions which have not degree-giving powers of their own.
  Over 80 courses are in operation which the C.N.A.A. has approved. It should be emphasised that its degrees are of university level and in no sense second-rate. Indeed, in a few years the C.N.A.A. will be the largest degree-awarding body in the country, with the possible exception of London University. Its work deserves to be better known and it deserves fully the respect that it is earning. I hope that hon. Members will do their best to sing its praises whenever they get the opportunity.
  Sir E. Boyle: Can the hon. Gentleman confirm my recollection that it is false to say that Robbins regarded the C.N.A.A. simply as a sort of means of last resort? An article in the New Statesman recently suggested that the Robbins Report proposed that everyone should as far as possible get degrees through the universities and that the C.N.A.A. should be a kind of long-stop. But that is not what I read in the Robbins Report and I hope that the Minister of State will confirm my view.
  Mr. Prentice: I do confirm that. This is a very important point to get across. The mistaken impression to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred is too widespread and should be countered wherever possible.
  1634
  In the argument about the binary system, I welcome what was said by the hon. Gentleman, and certainly my right hon. Friend wants to correct any misinterpretation put upon his Woolwich speech. My right hon. Friend took the opportunity in the recent debate on universities to talk about his Woolwich speech and to make it clear that he was not saying in any way that the universities were not responsive to social needs.
  If the hon. Gentleman also wants to go to the pain and trouble of reading the speech which I made in winding up that debate, he will find that I gave a number of examples of the way in which the universities were coming closer to industry, were taking part in regional planning and in the solving of local social problems and many other things of that kind which should be better known and which are a growing part of their work.
  It is sometimes suggested in reports which one reads about this that the binary system is something on which there is a sort of unholy alliance between the Government and the Opposition against opinion outside. That is not true. The concept is supported by the U.G.C., the A.T.T.I., the local authorities and a great many representative bodies and by the majority, although not all, of those who have taken a view of the subject.
  I have just one other comment about the higher part of further education. I was interested in what was said about the contribution which technical colleges could make to teacher training. In the 14-point speech which my right hon. Friend made to the National Union of Teachers' Conference last year he said that he saw the technical colleges first making a direct contribution to teacher training itself—this is in addition to the kind of things I was talking about in the answer which I gave to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle) earlier today—providing premises for annexes and services of one sort or another.
  We are planning to make a start on this, probably next year, and we feel that there is a contribution which some of the technical colleges can make. They have a special kind of expertise and experience which will contribute to the system of teacher training and be of great value. We are working towards that, but there

  1635
  are several problems to sort out. I am not surprised to learn that the A.T.C.D.E. has had a word with the right hon. Gentleman. It has had a word with us, too. It naturally takes an interest and it is proper that we should discuss these matters with it. We expect these developments to take place next year.
  I feel a little guilty that I have not left myself as much time as I would have liked to speak about the other parts of further education, but, again, the need is expansion and expansion particularly geared to the Industrial Training Act; geared to it not as though that was the only part of further education—there are many other parts—but to show that we regard the Industrial Training Act as being an essential part of the modernisation of Britain, an essential part of raising the efficiency of British industry, and an educational reform which will bring wider educational opportunities to young people and in some cases also to older people.
  The right hon. Gentleman said that it was certainly not enough just to pass the Act. I cannot resist saying that that is about all the Conservative Government did. They got it passed just in time after years of delay and procrastination and now we have the job of carrying it out. Eleven boards are in operation. Three more will be appointed very soon and another batch will come along later and the terms of the boundaries of that further group of boards are now being discussed.
  We expect, hope and believe that this will have a revolutionary effect on day release. It is fair to say that it has not had that effect yet, that the expansion which the Henniker-Heaton Report envisaged has begun in only a very small way. In November, 1964, the latest date for which I have complete figures, there were about 276,000 young people getting day release, about 31 per cent. of the boys and 7 per cent. of the girls. The figures for November, 1965, are not yet processed, but there will not be a very substantial difference. When we say that, we should recognise that by November, 1965, the Industrial Training Act was just coming along. It is true that four boards had issued their training proposals in the summer, but probably not in time to have much effect on the programmes of individual firms.
  1636
  I hope that there will be a much more noticeable effect, which will grow in the period ahead. I would draw the attention of the House to the statement of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, that normally he would only approve training schemes for grant purposes if they include, for young people under 18, either day-release or the equivalent in terms of block release. This is an important statement of policy.
  The question is asked whether the F.E. system will be able to take this big expansion, as and when it comes. Here, we rely mainly on two things. First of all, the building programme, which is going up. In answer to what the right hon. Gentleman said, the main factor during the current year has been the failure for a number of reasons of many local authorities to get on quickly enough with the programmes for which they had asked and been granted by the Department.
  This is a disturbing fact and we are following it up. As I told the House the deferment policy was announced last summer. We did not think that it would have that much effect upon the F.E. programme. Because of this factor the way in which the right hon. Gentleman put the questions to me does not really apply, and our difficulty is to get the local authorities along more quickly than they have been moving.
  We do not regard the programme announced in the National Plan as being cut. There was a deferment, but what had been happening, superimposed on the deferment, was the slowing-down to which I have referred. Our task is to achieve the programme by prodding as much as possible. The programme for 1966–67 stands at £27 million, and I would like to announce a figure which has not yet been announced—the figure for the programme 1967–68 will again be £27 million. That is a large programme, larger than ever before, for the coming year and the following year. It will be our task to jolly along the authorities to achieve these figures.
  The other part of our task is to be found in the more intensive use of resources in order to achieve this expansion. The National Advisory Council on Education for Industry and Commerce under Sir Harry Pilkington's chairmanship has been making four studies relevant

  1637
  to this. There has been a study into the size of classes, into the use of buildings, of administrative methods and procedures and a study of the organisation of courses. These are at different stages, but the first one is completed and the report, with a draft circular commending it, is being discussed by the local authority associations and others concerned.
  There is a good deal of slack to be taken up, a good many undersized classes, which if these problems are dealt with, can help us towards achieving the concentration we need. I make no apology for repeating that one of the things wrong with our educational system is that far too many of our young people still leave school at the age of 15 and go into jobs offering organised training quite divorced from the education system.
  The Government and the local authorities and both sides of industry are now committed to a number of reforms that should alter this position by the 1970s. There is, first, the raising of the school leaving age, to which we are firmly committed. It seemed that last night doubts were cast by hon. Gentlemen opposite on this. But we are firmly committed to it. Secondly, there is the impact of the Industrial Training Act at work, not in the narrow sense, but in the shops offices and farms, and employment of all kinds.
  Thirdly, there is the expansion of the further education system, in tune with the Industrial Training Act and fourthly, the expansion in the improvement of the Youth Employment Service, in accordance with the Albemarle proposals, in order to give more specific, detailed and constructive advice to every young person in the transition from full-time school to full time work.
  By these methods we hope that there will be a continuation of education, which many young people will see as something it would be a wise thing to follow for the rest of their lives. This will need drive and determination from all concerned in these matters.

  ROAD VEHICLES (LICENCE EVASION)
  9.59 p.m.
  Mr. Frederic Harris: I am very grateful for this opportunity—
  It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Charles R. Morris.]
  Mr. Harris: I am very grateful for this opportunity of raising the vitally important subject of the scandal of unlicensed vehicles which, understandably, has created nation-wide interest.
  When in the main Budget last year the Chancellor of the Exchequer increased the road fund licence for cars from £15 to £17 10s., I had many letters from constituents bitterly complaining of the vast number of car owners who were not paying their road taxes and were literally getting away with it. I immediately contacted the Treasury and subsequently received a letter from the Financial Secretary stating that the unlicensed vehicles were estimated by the Government at only one per 100 of licensed vehicles. But, as I will be able to prove, the Minister was completely wrong in his estimate, for the truth is that this is a very extensive and outrageous evasion.
  I have been running a kind of one-man campaign on this issue which my local Press in Croydon has fully supported and to which the national Press, on a very broad basis, has also drawn attention. Naturally, this has brought me letters from all over the country confirming that this is a very serious abuse indeed which calls for immediate and stern action.
  The Greater London Council, covering the whole of the Greater London Area, is advised annually of about 80,000 unlicensed vehicles. I stress that those are only the ones reported to the Council. They must be only a portion of the number of unlicensed vehicles. But of the 80,000 reported only about 16 per cent. are subsequently found to have complied with the law in that the owners requested licences; 84 per cent. have not. Following the actions of the Greater London

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  Council, approximately 30 per cent. of the owners sent for licences. Some of them paid mitigated penalties.
  In about 7½ per cent. of the cases proceedings are taken, but a mystery surrounds the remaining 46½ per cent. These cases are described, in correspondence anyhow, as being under investigation. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell me something of what is happening to this 46½ per cent. My investigations confirm that the system is virtually breaking down. I think that this is because of shortage of staff, for in many cases this evasion cannot be followed up by correspondence; it means many personal visits. The forgetful, honest people subsequently pay the penalty, including, often, mitigated penalties. But those who set out to defraud seem, in the main, to get away with it. This must mean that our system is out-dated, out-moded and antiquated and that some urgent rethinking by the Ministry is surely necessary.
  The Greater London Council's figures confirm that in Greater London at least 67,000 car owners a year are running their cars without road fund licences. I stress that these figures are conservative, because they are based only on the reported cases. This means that throughout the country at least 400,000 car owners a year, and possibly even half-a-million, are running their cars without a road fund licence. I am told in much of the correspondence which I have received—and I believe this to be a fact—that in some suburban areas the situation is even worse than in the London area.
  There are nearly 9 million cars on our roads. If my conclusions are even approximately correct, as I claim they are, then about 4½ per cent. and maybe more of the present car owners do not pay their road fund licence fees. This is a very different story from the 1 per cent. suggested by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. From the correspondence which I have received I realise that this 1 per cent. has come from a general answer to many letters which hon. Members have sent from their constituents.
  Until recently this has been the Ministry's thinking, but presumably the Minister will tell us tonight what is the
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  Government's estimate of the loss to the Exchequer. Any reasonable calculations, even on the most conservative basis, suggest that it must be about £5 million a year or more. How galling this is when the Minister of Transport two or three weeks ago announced in the House a cut in the road programme for 1966–67 of £19 million at a time when, as we all know, road deaths are tragically at the very highest and we need the best possible roads to help combat this problem.
  There are two kinds of offender. The first is the honest person who forgets, unfortunately, to take out a road fund licence. The second is the dishonest person who will get away with it as long as he or she possibly can. I submit that if the present out-of-date system is retained, then administrative action needs to be taken quickly. If reminders for driving licences can be sent to us and reminders about licences for wireless sets in our cars, surely some system could immediately be put into operation to deal with the much more substantial problem of road fund licences. Forget-fulness is often genuine, as I found for myself when I looked once or twice in the House car park. Confirmation, too, that a reminder would be extremely helpful has been provided by advice received from many quarters that since the Press gave so much publicity to the matter, road fund licences have been taken out that much more quickly.
  The real problem is the number of those who are deliberately defrauding. For them the present out-of-date system is a gift. Our overworked police note the unlicensed cars and then go through a detailed rigmarole of paperwork when passing the details to the local authority. Meanwhile the frustrated policemen are constantly badgered—as I found out for myself—by local people who, understandably, feel that nothing is being done about the car owners who have been reported, often when their cars are standing outside their houses all the time. Until we in Croydon were swallowed up by the Greater London Council, we had a most efficient local taxation office which has now been transferred very inconveniently to Wimbledon. I ask the Minister, if he has not already been there, to be kind enough to go to this Wimbledon office and see the situation for himself. He would then appreciate how easy

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  it is under our present system for anyone to get away with it.
  Why do not the Government insist that all the police who operate on this kind of work are fully issued with stick-on labels for car windscreens? By use of stickers car-owners could be asked to report to the local police station within seven days to produce evidence that they have a current road fund licence or eventually face the penalty. This is only partially done at present.
  Why are so many cars, for instance, able daily to be on our roads without displaying a licence? This in itself is an offence. Why do not the Government look again at the penalties, which are far too kind for deliberate fraud? Why do they permit each local authority to operate its own separate mitigating penalty scheme? Surely, this could be standardised on a tougher basis.
  Why do not the Government use all the full facilities of publicity on radio and television to put over this whole problem? Why does not the Minister arrange a spot check in a certain town to appreciate the extent of the problem? I would not mind if he chose Croydon for this purpose, because regrettably, I am sorry to say, the police are reporting something like 300 cases a month to the Greater London Council. Why does an honest taxpayer have to pay £2 on the spot for wrongly parking his car or pay a heavy penalty if he crosses the yellow line while others can get away with this major abuse? How unfair can the law be?
  When the Chancellor last increased the road fund duty, he made it clear in his statement that it was a stop-gap move. If eventually he increases the tax further, the abuse will be the greater, because the honest pay for the dishonest. The Government should ensure that taxes are properly paid before extracting more money from the honest taxpayer.
  Road users with no road fund licences are, regrettably, invariably without insurance. Many insurance companies will not honour insurance cover if the road fund licence is out of date at the time of an accident. Anyone who is at the receiving end of an accident from a defaulter of that kind—and I have had many personal friends who have been so placed—is in a serious position. In my submission, the law should protect such innocent victims.
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  Another major issue, which is linked with this one, is that of cars which are abandoned. Here, again, I can quote the alarming figures of Croydon, which in 1962 had 40 cars abandoned; in 1963, 124; in 1964, 300; and in 1965 the number jumped to 716. I know that an hon. Friend of mine tried to introduce a Private Bill to draw attention to this matter and to deal with it. None of us wants to be a snooper, but the unfairness irritates the people beyond measure. Snooping is obviously repugnant, but the avoidance of such taxation is even more repugnant.
  This debate limits any serious alternative suggestions. In any event, it is up to the Ministry to tackle the job, and to do it quickly. Nevertheless, we have an overburdened police force. We simply cannot afford the large number of civil servants who would be required to tackle the task properly. Indeed, as a country, we can ill afford the tremendous administrative costs involved in the handling of the problem, let alone the loss of the tax itself. From knowledge of the cost of the former taxation office in Croydon, I estimate that the handling of the matter must be costing at least £2 million, and possibly more. It would be much more simple if we could cancel the present system and get rid of all these encumbrances and just put another 6d. on petrol or something like that.
  However, whatever the solution is, no one can deny that the present situation is really quite disgraceful and most unfair, and, in justice, it really is up to the Minister to try to find the answer, for this is indeed a fast-worsening problem. I can only hope at least that this very short debate will really pinpoint the problem, and that immediate action will follow.
  10.15 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Morris): I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving me, very courteously, advance notice of the very detailed points he has raised in this debate. I appreciate very much that he has been running, as he said, a one-man campaign. Perhaps this debate will be useful, so that we can meet some of the points which he has raised.
  He has referred to the existence of unlicensed motor vehicles as a scandal.

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  I suppose any infringement of the law could be considered a scandal, but the hon. Member has made it clear that the scandalous nature of the position as he sees it is the extent to which vehicle owners can or do neglect to pay the vehicle excise duty and get away with it. So I think that I should first of all say a few words about the machinery for enforcing this particular part of the law, and then talk about what evidence there is of unlicensed vehicle use.
  Under the relevant Act of 1962 all mechanically propelled vehicles, with few exceptions, when used or kept on public roads are subject to excise duty. Various rates are laid down according to the vehicle or its use, and licences must be obtained. The law lays down penalties for unlicensed use. The maximum penalty is £20 or three times the annual rate of duty chargeable in respect of the vehicle, whichever is the greater. This is, in fact, a pretty severe penalty. Even for a private car taxed at £17 10s. the maximum penalty is over £50. It is, of course, for the courts to determine, in the light of the circumstances, the penalty appropriate to any particular case, and it would be quite wrong of me to attempt to pass any opion on the level of fines which are in fact imposed by the courts.
  Coming to the collection of vehicle excise duty and the enforcement of the law in this regard, this rests under Statute with the county councils, and it is these councils which are empowered to take action against defaulters. The first step in enforcement of the law is, of course, observation of the suspected offender. That is, perhaps, the first difficulty. In this the councils rely very considerably on police observation of vehicles on the roads, but it must be accepted, of course, that the amount of effort which the police can devote to this particular activity must depend upon the resources they have available, and, of course, these vary in different areas.
  My Department is in continuous touch with both the Home Office and the councils on this matter, and I am quite sure that the closest possible links are maintained at local level between councils and police. Apart from regular routine reporting, special spot checks are often arranged. As well as using information
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  supplied to them by the police, councils may, and do, apply their own staff to observe and report cases of the use of apparently unlicensed vehicles on the roads. Incidentally, I was very surprised and somewhat shocked to see newspaper reports last week which suggested that checks on unlicensed vehicles which Durham County Council proposed to carry out, using its own staff, were somehow underhand or un-British. "Spying" was the word used. I say quite firmly, and I am sure the hon. Member will agree with me, that action of this kind by a county council is no more than the proper exercise of the duties imposed on it by Statute. How this can be regarded, as apparently it was by some people and organisations, as being reprehensible, or as some kind of infringement of liberty, passes my comprehension.
  The mere noting of an apparently unlicensed vehicle is not, of course, the end of the matter. It is the beginning. Investigation is necessary to establish the true facts. I shall give some figures which will go to show that the amount of time and effort put into this aspect of law enforcement is quite considerable. Establishing the fact that an offence has been committed, and the responsibility for it, calls for a significant amount of preparatory work. I must make the point that the mere fact that a vehicle is not displaying a licence does not necessarily mean that a current licence has not been obtained. Indeed, the investigation of many reports of apparent unlicensed use has shown only a failure to display the licence. I shall give some figures later. Non-display in itself, of course, is an offence, but not an excise one. There is no loss of revenue on that score. It is commonplace for members of the public to write to us saying that they have observed many unlicensed vehicles in a particular street, amounting to as many as 25 per cent. of the total number of vehicles seen, and then to assume that all those are unlicensed. It is that kind of apparent situation which the hon. Gentleman has in mind. He has been quoted in the Press as suggesting that there are between 300,000 and 500,000 unlicensed vehicles on the roads. I do not know whether the reports are accurate. He gave a figure of about 400,000 in the course of his speech. I cannot disprove that, any more, I suggest, than anyone can prove it.

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  I have myself had a count made in streets not very far from here to see how many apparently unlicensed vehicles could be found. A count of that kind has only a limited value, of course. Out of the 342 vehicles checked, we found 14 with no licences or expired licences. Of those, five were found on inquiry to be properly licensed. In other words, only 2·6 per cent. of the vehicles in this check were not properly licensed.
  Spot checks in other parts of the country also reveal situations which are considerably better than the one suggested by the hon. Member. For example, in Birmingham a check last September showed one unlicensed vehicle in 225; in Blackpool, 1,665 vehicles were checked, and none was unlicensed; in Wolverhampton, 29 unlicensed vehicles were found out of about 7,000 checked—that is 0·4 per cent. Obviously, there is some evasion of the vehicle excise law; and by definition, no one can really know how much undetected use of vehicles there is—if we knew, it would not be undetected. But I suggest that the figures I have quoted show that it would be quite wrong to suppose that evasion is as widespread as is often said. Still less would it be true to suppose that the authorities concerned do nothing about it.
  I hope I can help the hon. Member a little more on this. There are now 13 million vehicles on the roads. Enforcement of the excise law, and the reporting of apparent offences, is a continuous process. The most recent complete annual figures, those for 1964, show that there were 137,847 reports of proved unlicensed use in a vehicle population then of just over 12¼ million. This represents one report for every 89 vehicles on the roads, or unlicensed use to the extent of 1·1 per cent. of the vehicle population. These were the ones who were caught. It cannot be denied that some offenders are not detected, but the extent of reporting of unlicensed use continues to increase steadily, and shows, I am sure, that both councils and the police are fully aware of the need for continuing vigilance.
  Offenders against the vehicle excise law, provided that they can be traced or sufficient evidence obtained, are dealt with in one of three ways at the discretion of the council. Where there are special or extenuating circumstances, or where the offence was committed unintentionally or
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  through genuine forgetfulness, and provided that the duty has been paid, the council usually administers a caution. This offence is recorded and, if the offence is repeated, a more drastic punishment would be meted out on subsequent occasions.
  In cases of ordinary carelessness, where there is no reason to suspect intention to defraud, offenders are often offered the opportunity of paying a mitigated penalty in lieu of proceedings being taken against them. Many factors, related to the particular case, are reflected in these mitigated penalities, and a national scale as suggested by the hon. Member would not be appropriate. In the remaining cases legal proceedings are normally undertaken by the councils but where, in the course of their investigations, the police find that offences other than the excise one have been committed, they include the excise offence in the prosecution they undertake.
  The hon. Gentleman may be interested to know that of the 137,847 reports of unlicensed use dealt with in 1964 throughout the country, cautions were administered in 17,500 cases; 45,000 mitgated penalties were imposed and just over 56,000 offenders were prosecuted. Eighteen thousand cases sould not be proceeded with because the offenders could not be traced or the evidence was insufficient to take action. A mere handful of cases were still in various stages of investigation at the end of the year.
  As he made clear, the hon. Gentleman is specially concerned about unlicensed vehicles in the area of the Greater London Council. As he knows, this Council took over the registration and licensing functions of the former London County Council together with similar work from the whole or parts of eight other authorities, including that carried out by the former Croydon County Borough Council.
  In the Greater London area there are now nearly 1¾ million vehicles, about one-seventh of the total number throughout the country. Between 1st April and 31st December, 1965, the Greater London Council dealt with some 57,000 reports of unlicensed use. Of these, some 3,000 were at various stages of investigation by the former authorities and were inherited by the Council. Of the total, 9,365,

  1647
  or just over 16 per cent., were found, on investigation, to disclose no excise offence. These were the ones where the only offence was a failure to display a licence, where an application for renewal was actually in the post at the time of the alleged offence, or where the report was made during the extra-statutory 14 days' "period of grace" permitted at the end of each month.
  Of the remaining 47,000 reports, 8,436 were dealt with by cautioning the offenders; mitigated penalties were paid in more than 7,000 cases, and prosecutions were undertaken in just over 4,700 cases. Of these latter 2,486 have been completed. At 31st December more than 17,000 reports were at various stages of investigations. Ten thousand, four hundred and four could not be proceeded with for various reasons. Of course, in 3,000 cases the offender could not be traced or responsibility established. In another 3,800 cases licences had been taken out by the time the reports had been checked. The remaining 3,600 had to be abandoned as, on legal advice, too much time had elapsed between the date of the reported offence and the prospect of laying information.
  These abandoned cases are, it must be said, unfortunate. But it is only fair to say that the Greater London Council was beset by many difficulties and staff shortages in setting up the new licensing organisation which came into being in April last year following the London Govern-
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  ment Act, 1963. Some priority necessarily had to be given to keeping the registration and licensing service in operation and implementing the changes in duty introduced in last year's Budget. The back-log of work has been reduced, and it may be of interest that, whereas in July, 1965 it dealt with 657 offences involving penalty action, the figures for October, November and December were 1,782,2,156 and 2,042 respectively. Another interesting comparison is that, during January and February, 1965, the former Croydon County Borough Council received from the police 232 reports of apparent unlicensed use, whereas the South Western Office of the Greater London Council, which is about three times greater than and includes the former County Borough area, received during November and December, 1965, 2,362 reports—ten times the number.
  Outside London, many police forces, after observing cases of apparent unlicensed use, make enquiries to establish the facts and then report the results to the taxation authorities. In the Metropolitan Police area, which covers the whole of Greater London, the procedure is somewhat different.
  The hon. Gentleman made—
  The Question having been proposed at Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at half-past Ten o'clock.