HC Deb 08 March 1967 vol 742 cc1609-23 (1) The provisions of this section shall have effect where either a person or a person and his spouse enter into a contract to purchase a freehold estate in land in Great Britain and:— (a) the contract is entered into on or after 1st April 1968 and, (b) the person and his spouse intend to make use of a dwelling situated on the land as their home and, (c) the person and his spouse or the person or his spouse have acceptable savings as defined in subsection (2) of this section. (2) For the purposes of this section acceptable savings are the moneys that have been saved in accordance with such conditions as the Minister may by order prescribe, including conditions as to:— (a) the minimum period during which the moneys must have been saved, and (b) the categories of bodies with whom the moneys must have been deposited, and (c) the maximum amount of acceptable savings that any one person may save so as to qualify him to be a borrower. (3) Subject to such conditions as the Minister shall by order prescribe, the Minister may grant to any qualifying lender who has made to that person a loan on the security of that freehold estate a sum of money which shall be equal to one-fifth of the sum of acceptable savings of both the person and his spouse and which shall be credited towards the amount of that loan. (4) The power to make orders under subsections (2) and (3) of this section shall be exercisable by statutory instrument and such an order shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of the Commons House of Parliament.—[Mr. Channon.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Channon

I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

One of the most disappointing features of the Bill has been the Government's failure to give a date for the introduction of the guarantee scheme. It is still my view—I may be wrong; I do not make a pretence to omniscience—that by itself, without the guarantee scheme, the option mortgage scheme will not be sufficient to help the surge in private home ownership which is so badly needed.

To help achieve this surge in private home ownership, two things are needed. Mr. Speaker, you would not allow me to debate the first of them, but perhaps I might be permitted one short sentence. We should like to have seen a revival of the old £100 million scheme under the House Purchase and Housing Act. However, it is not possible to debate it under this Bill, because the Money Resolution will not permit it.

The second thing is also very important, and it is to give people some help with their deposits. Since the Government are not willing so far to introduce their guarantee scheme, my hon. Friends and I have put an alternative on the Notice Paper which I suggest would cost the Government comparatively little money and would help prospective home buyers. It would also provide a great incentive for saving. I take the view that that is very important, and I am sure that hon. Members on both sides will agree.

I admit frankly that the proposal in the Clause, for technical reasons, has been worded in a way which is not precisely as I should have preferred it, but I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will not criticise me too severely on that point because, if fault there be, it lies with the Government for having drawn the Money Resolution so tightly that it has been impossible for me to put down the exact phraseology which would have been appropriate for this capital grants scheme.

I should like to see an incentive for young couples to save. For the sake of argument, let us say that a couple have saved £500. We think that there is then a case for some form of scheme whereby, in one way or another, the Government would grant them an extra £100 towards the deposit for the purchase of the house which they wish to buy.

The Government may say that, in the Clause, I am proposing that the extra grant should be given to the qualifying lender and not to the borrower—in other words, to the building society and not the borrower. It would be out of order for me to argue for grants to borrowers, so I shall not do that, but I am sure that the Government will be quite clear about which I should prefer.

Some building societies argue that, on grounds of thrift and financial prudence, it is unwise to give 100 per cent. mortgages. There is considerable dispute in the building society world as to the wisdom of giving such mortgages. I do not wish to take sides on that issue, but the Clause would avoid 100 per cent. mortgages, would provide incentives for saving and, at comparatively little cost, would help people to put down money for a deposit.

We wish to be helpful to the Government in a constructive manner, as we are always, and we have given the Minister as many discretionary powers as possible so that he will not rule us out by saying that we have been too rigid. Obviously, he will wish to make conditions about the maximum amount, and other conditions will be necessary, but the principle of capital grants for deposits, particularly if the Government are not prepared to introduce their guarantee scheme, is one at which the Government should look.

7.45 p.m.

The Minister will be aware that there is a similar system in Australia which works well. The Australian precedent is the one to which I would draw the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary. Many people have been helped by the Australian scheme, and I hope that the Minister will look at the suggestions which we put to him in a sympathetic way. The Australian system has been of great help, and I am sure that it will go on being so in the future.

Turning to the detailed provisions of the Clause, the House will see that it is divided into four subsections. First, we say that the provisions of the Section shall have effect when a person enters into a contract to purchase a freehold estate. Secondly, we say that the contract should be entered into on or after 1st April, 1968. That is the date which the Government are so anxious to preserve at all costs for the mortgage option scheme.

We make it a condition that a person and his spouse intend to make use of a dwelling situated on the land as their home, and we also provide that they must have acceptable savings, which we define later in the Clause as moneys which have been saved in accordance with conditions which the Minister may by Order prescribe. In particular, he can make conditions as to the minimum period during which the money must have been saved. Another condition which he may lay down is that the money shall be deposited with certain bodies.

Another most important condition would be the maximum amount of acceptable savings which a person may save so as to qualify to be a borrower. This does not set out to provide someone with a large amount of capital so as to get another capital grant. That would be an indefensible position for us to advocate.

Subject to those conditions which the Minister may prescribe, he will be able to grant to a qualifying lender—since we have to work within the framework of the Bill, although there is a strong case for making it to the borrower—a sum of money equal to one-fifth of the sum of the acceptable savings. That money could be used for part of a deposit towards the purchase of a house.

We go further, because we think that, if there is to be such a power, it should be made by Statutory Instrument. The Minister will have to make a great many Orders when he comes to enforce Part II of the Bill. He will have to make Orders with regard to schemes, for example, and I hope that one of them will bring the guarantee scheme into effect. If he were to accept the idea of a capital grants scheme, he would exercise the power by Statutory Instrument, and we suggest that that should be a negative Order.

I do not pretend that, in opposition, it is possible to draft a Clause which the Government will say immediately is totally acceptable and does not need amendment. As I have explained, the purpose of the Clause is to assist prospective house purchasers, because the greatest obstacle to people buying their own houses is not so much the repayments which they have to make as the actual money which they have to raise in the form of deposits.

My hon. Friends and hon. Gentlemen opposite will recall in "Cathy Come Home" the scene in which she goes to a building society and says, "Can I buy a house? If so, how do I set about it?", and she cannot raise the money for a deposit. The raising of the money for the deposit is the biggest single obstacle to anyone buying a house.

I concede that when the guarantee scheme is introduced, it will help a great deal. Unfortunately, we have been told that we cannot have the guarantee scheme in the foreseeable future. No doubt we shall debate the scheme in some detail later this evening. But, whether or not the guarantee scheme is introduced, there is something to be said for a capital grants scheme. There are many variants of the scheme, of which this is one. Other schemes have been argued which emobdy principles of this kind, and I am not wedded irrevocably to this one if other hon. Members can produce better alternatives.

I move the Clause so that the House can consider taking a small step towards helping people buy houses by assisting them to get sufficient money together to put down in the form of a deposit. It would also have the effect, which the Government's guarantee scheme does not, of greatly increasing the incentive to save.

Anything that does that should be considered very carefully by the Government, because the important secondary aspect is that we would increase saving in the country, we would encourage thrift, and we would make it much more worthwhile for people to save—and that is something which should appeal to the Government and to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

In times of financial crisis it is probably irresponsible of any Opposition to put forward plans that would cost a vast sum of money. Perhaps this is not the moment for their implementation. I would make two points on that. First, if the Minister says, "We are very interested in your scheme and we would like to examine it further and perhaps try to introduce it in a year or two's time", I do not think that we could possibly object to that, because it is a new scheme that we are putting forward.

Secondly, I do not think that the scheme will cost the Government very much money. If they are afraid of it on financial grounds, then they could make the conditions such that it would cost them as much as they want it to cost. They could make the conditions restrictive or unrestrictive, as they felt inclined. The Government would have the power.

I will not go into details of the financial crisis at the moment, but if the economic situation should change for the better during the Government's period of office, they would always be able to make changes in the scheme to make it more generous than they had originally envisaged.

I hope that it will not be thrown out purely on the ground of cost, because this is something which the Government should consider. It is something which my right hon. and hon. Friends have been keen on for some time, but this is the first time that we have had an opportunity—although this is a brief opportunity—to debate it in the House.

Everyone will agree that it is the deposit which is the biggest difficulty for people who wish to set out to buy their own house. If we can achieve some method of helping them with the deposit, and the Government are not prepared to introduce their guarantee scheme at the moment, then they should seriously consider some scheme of capital grant.

There is something to be said for the view, although I will not be dogmatic about it, that this scheme is better than the guarantee scheme on the general principle of deposits and saving in general. I do not wish to denigrate the guarantee scheme, because it will be of help when it comes in.

I hope that the Government will look at the scheme, and will be able to tell us tonight that even if they cannot accept it they will at least be prepared to consider it as a suggestion for helping people to buy their own house. A capital grant of this kind, to help people with their deposits, would not cost very much, and might do a great deal of good in the housing field.

Mr. Bessell

I have not listened with a great deal of sympathy to the Amendments so far moved by the Opposition, but this is one which must demand the serious attention of hon. Members on both sides of the House. The biggest single factor which deters young people and prevents them from securing their own homes is the provision of the deposit. This is something of which we have all had experience. Some of us have experienced it personally, and we have certainly seen it in the case of many of our constituents.

It is desirable that as many people as possible should have the opportunity of owning the house in which they live. This principle is very dear to the heart of anybody who believes in a free society, and is one which we must support by every Parliamentary means at our disposal.

I recognise the difficulty which the hon. Gentleman had in drafting this Clause, and I would like to pay tribute to his ingenuity in getting round the difficulty. It may well be that the Parliamentary Secretary or the right hon. Gentleman will say that in its present form the Amendment is not acceptable, but the House would, I think, be satisfied if it could have an undertaking that the principle is accepted. If, perhaps in another place, a suitable Amendment could be introduced which would enable this point to be covered, it would provide the incentive which we all want to see provide for young people to save with the intention of purchasing their home, especially if, at the same time, they knew that at the end they would receive direct assistance in finding that always difficult-to-find deposit money.

The Government would then have done something today which would have earned the sympathy, the understanding, and the appreciation of people in all parts of the country as well that of hon. Members on both sides of the House. I hope that the Amendment will be pressed to a Division, in which case I will be happy to support the hon. Gentleman the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) in the Division Lobby.

Mr. MacColl

When the hon. Gentleman the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) puts forward, in such a thoughtful and contemplative manner, a constructive approach to this problem, I would be the last person to want to make any debating point or to write it off on any quarrel about drafting.

My difficulty is not that I understand clearly what he is trying to do and disagree with it, but that I do not fully appreciate all that he is trying to do. Therefore, I find it rather difficult to know what is the best advice to give the House about it.

One of my difficulties on reading the new Clause was to get clear in my mind what was the order of priority in which the hon. Gentleman and his party put the three main proposals, namely, the option mortgage, for which we have fixed a date when it comes into operation, secondly, the guarantee, which we want to get done as soon as we have been able to agree with the insurance companies and other bodies that there are adequate resources to do it, and thirdly, this system of capital grants.

I feel that both the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bodmin (Mr. Bessell) were trying to run two very difficult horses together. On the whole, the hon. Member for Bodmin came off one and rode the other. These two are, how best do we help people with deposits and how best do we encourage savings. I do not think it is easy to do the two things with one proposal.

The hon. Gentleman said that it would not cost very much, but the difficulty in costing is that unless one knows exactly how the scheme will work, it is difficult to make an assessment. I would not like the hon. Gentleman to think that I am trying to write it off, but I would sit my brief on this point and give him the advice which I have received, which is that if the scheme is operated in conjunction with existing arrangements for guaranteeing loans in excess of the normal by insurance companies, which normally leaves a 10 per cent. deposit to be found by the borrower in the case of existing houses and 5 per cent. for new houses, the average Exchequer grant would be at least £30 for new houses and something like £50 for existing houses. This would cost the Exchequer more than £20 million in the first year unless the scheme is to be limited. That is doing it the strict way, but if it were done in a general way it would cost a great deal more.

The hon. Gentleman says, "Oh, well, that is a very shifty argument, because you could make conditions so strict that it would not cost you as much."

8.0 p.m.

We have been scolded for not having fixed a day for the guarantee scheme. What would the House and the hon. Gentleman say if we were to fight an election, or even a by-election, on the issue that we were going to have capital grants, and then we came along and tied the whole thing up so tightly with Statutory Instruments that hardly anybody got them and the scheme cost us very little? Indeed, if that happened the scheme would be of very little value. If it cost as much as £20 million, it would cost more than the option mortgage scheme is expected to cost in the first year.

The hon. Gentleman today showed himself to be on a very hot seat, and he shifted a good deal on it. He was quite a different hon. Member from the one that we had in the Standing Committee when we heard his rollicking speeches about Clause 29. I said then that the building societies, and in particular the insurance companies, had reservations about the scheme and were not satisfied that they had the resources for it. The hon. Gentleman denounced us as dishonest, evasive and unprincipled.

The hon. Gentleman said: I ask the Government to re-think the matter and to accept the Amendment"— that is to bring in the scheme at once— because I believe that this would do more to help the worst off people—whom the Bill is designed to help—than anything else in the Bill. I accept, of course, that the mortgage option scheme will help a little. It may increase the amount that building societies are willing to lend …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 21st February, 1967; c. 508.] I then quoted what the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, had said when he moved the Second Reading of the Hire Purchase and Housing Bill, and I think that the House would like to know that he said: It has been suggested in some quarters that the Government should support the giving of mortgages of up to 100 per cent. Most building societies are wholly opposed to any general rule of advancing 100 per cent. The Government believe that it is, in general, in the interests of purchasers that they should have something in hand before they start buying a house."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th December, 1958; Vol. 597, c. 794.] The hon. Gentleman, who had been studying my speeches so much, began to study Lord Brooke's speeches and he suddenly had a blinding revelation that he was out of touch with the party, that he was wrong on real basic Conservative doctrines. I turned to Corfield and Rippon, a leading work on the subject, which says: There is no case for directly subsidising house purchase. On the one hand, Lord Brooke is saying that we cannot have 100 per cent. guarantees, and Corfield and Rippon are saying that we must not have a direct subsidy for house purchase. The reason why the hon. Gentleman has had to wriggle so much this evening is that he cannot decide what he really prefers. He said that he would not say. He was not going to commit himself. Does he prefer getting the 100 per cent. guarantee scheme in as quickly as we can, or would he rather that we went riding off on his scheme as an alternative, and a very much more costly one?

I want now to deal with the dilemma in which the hon. Gentleman found himself. It does not follow that a scheme which encourages savings is the best way of enabling people of small means to purchase houses, because inevitably the people who most feel the pinch of home buying are the people who have no gap out of which to save.

Let us consider the case of Cathy to which reference has been made. I do not know what her chances were of paying in money regularly to one of these approved savings funds. They will have to have five times the grant before they will qualify to get it. It is the deposit which is so crippling, as the hon. Member for Bodmin said, so that under this scheme a person will have to save five-sixths of this crippling deposit before he can get a capital grant. I do not want to be accused of making debating points. This may not be what is intended.

The only other authority for what is intended is the speech of the Leader of the Opposition, of which I was pleased to see a newspaper account early last year. I think that it is known as the "Hammersmith" speech. He did not deal with this point at all, so I do not know what the answer is. If it is really intended to encourage savings, to do it in this way is to discriminate directly against the poorest people. There is no limit on the option mortgage scheme. We would have been in trouble with the Opposition had we imposed one. The scheme proposed by the hon. Gentleman would mean that the richer a person was—

Mr. Channon

I said that the Minister would have to stipulate a maximum amount of acceptable savings which would be covered by the Clause.

Mr. MacColl

Within the limits, whatever may be the maximum amount. I am not certain whether it might not be possible for a person to have a great deal more than he puts into the kitty. He may have acceptable savings in the Post Office Savings Bank, or in development bonds. He produces them and says, "There, I am putting down my five-sixths of the deposit, let me have my grant". Is there to be a means test to find out whether the man has tucked away in I.C.I. several thousand £s worth of savings which are not declared? I do not know how we get over that difficulty.

I was taking the scheme in its simplest and broadest form. It would be of advantage to people if they were rich or comparatively rich. The really poor person, who has no real reserves out of which to find his deposit, the person about whom we have been speaking so feelingly, will get very little help from the scheme because he will never get over the obstacle of producing the deposit out of acceptable savings. We will have to work for month after month until he can build up the money.

I think that the hon. Gentleman is going back to classical Toryism which his party thought died when Lord Brooke went to the other place, and going back to the idea that a man should be given help only if he has enough money to have a stake in his house. This view is held by a lot of people, and one can understand it, but the Government's view, and the view of Part II of the Bill, is the opposite one. We think that we should help the people at the lowest end of the home buying scale, the people who have the most difficulty in putting up any sort of money.

Mr. Allason

This is an alternative to the guarantee scheme and I tried to take down what the Joint Parliamentary Secretary said. I understood him to say that "we will introduce the guarantee scheme as soon as we can make arrangements with building societies and find the money." I rather fancy that it is not really the arrangement with the building societies which is the difficulty; the difficulty is finding the money.

Mr. MacColl

The hon. Gentleman will remember that in answer to the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Bessell), who made one of his usual penetrating interventions, I said that we wanted to bring in the scheme, and that as soon as there were resources to bring it in and the insurance companies and our partners in the scheme were satisfied that it could be done we would do it.

Mr. Allason

I am afraid I am still as mystified as ever about whether this is a little matter of organisation with the building societies and then we can get a scheme very quickly indeed, or whether it is, what was my impression in the Committee, that this scheme will be stuck for resources for quite a long time ahead. The Parliamentary Secretary is mystifying the House by this sort of cover-up in suggesting that it is a question of arranging organisation with the building societies. He said that a capital grant of £50 would work out at £20 million in the first year. I take it that he is allowing for all new construction automatically to come in and a very substantial number of old houses which change hands every year. Otherwise we cannot see how it would be anywhere near £20 million.

Surely this would not apply to every single transaction on the sale of a house in the course of a year. This raises the question of whether it ought to apply to every transaction and whether it should apply to the very wealthy. The Parliamentary Secretary had a very good point when he said that if the grant were to be given indiscriminately it would benefit the rich rather than the poor. Of course Conservative policy is never to say that subsidies should go indiscriminately to those who do not need them. It would be necessary to exercise a certain amount of control. I do not accept that it would be necessary for it to cost anything like £20 million a year if reasonable care were exercised to ensure that those who really needed it received the grant.

Certainly it would be more costly than the guaranteed scheme. That suggests that it would probably be more useful to house purchasers. I do not see that as a particular argument against the proposal. Then came the question of whether "Cathy" would save. I think she could save, but she needs an inducement. I seem to remember that her husband had quite a good lorry-driving job. The difficulty is to start anyone on the habit of saving. Here would be a "divi" dangled in front of people. Imagine the advertisements which would say, "For every £5 you save the Prime Minister will add £1". This is good, exciting stuff. I am sure that a copywriter could make marvellous propaganda out of this which would induce people to save.

One of the great necessities for the country is that people should save. We

want to encourage saving and house purchase. I should have thought the Government would approve both those requirements. This is what the capital grant would do. Somehow or other it is necessary for people to be helped with deposits. Shortage of money for a deposit is a greater difficulty than high interest rates. I do not approve of high interest rates, but even they are better than not being able to get a mortgage at all. People searching for a mortgage are so keen that they would be prepared to pay high interest rates although they do not want to do so. If they cannot find a deposit they are bitterly disappointed.

This proposal would help house purchase. The Government ought to be extremely keen on finding a way of encouraging the private sector in building. If they are to expand it to 250,000 houses a year, they had better get started. We know that they are anxious about this. Here is a chance to do something about it. This proposal would give effective help to owner-occupiers. We firmly believe that it is a very useful thing to encourage owner-occupation. I therefore invite my hon. and right hon. Friends to divide the House in favour of this new Clause.

Question put, That the Clause be read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes, 98, Noes 165.

Division No. 288.] AYES [8.15 p.m.
Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash) Gibson-Watt, David Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead) Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.) Langford-Holt, Sir John
Batsford, Brian Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.) Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Bell, Ronald Goodhew, Victor Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)
Bessell, Peter Grant-Ferris, R. McAdden, Sir Stephen
Bossom, Sir Clive Gurden, Harold Maclean, Sir Fitzroy
Boyd-Carpenter, Ht. Hn. John Hall-Davis, A. G. F. McMaster, Stanley
Brewis, John Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.) Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Brinton, Sir Tatton Harris, Reader (Heston) Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Bromley-Davenport,Lt.-Col.SirWalter Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye) Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Brown, Sir Edward (Bath) Harvie Anderson, Miss Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Buck, Antony (Colchester) Heseltine, Michael Miscampbell, Norman
Bullus, Sir Eric Hill, J. E. B. Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Campbell, Gordon Hirst, Geoffrey More, Jasper
Channon, H. P. G. Holland, Philip Murton, Oscar
Cooke, Robert Hornby, Richard Nott, John
Crouch, David Howell, David (Guildford) Page, Graham (Crosby)
Cunningham, Sir Knox Hutchison, Michael Clark Percival, Ian
Dalkeith, Earl of Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye) Pink, R. Bonner
Dance, James Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford) Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch
Davidson,James(Aberdeenshire,W.) Jones, Arthur (Northants. S.) Pym, Francis
Dean, Paul (Somerset, N.) Jopling, Michael Ridley, Hn. Nicholas
Eden, Sir John Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith Ridsdale, Julian
Errington, Sir Eric King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.) Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)
Eyre, Reginald Kirk, Peter Roots, William
Farr, John Kitson, Timothy Royle, Anthony
Fortescue, Tim Knight, Mrs. Jill Russell, Sir Ronald
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby) Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H. Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)
Sinclair, Sir George Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John Winstanley, Dr. M. P.
Summers, Sir Spencer Walker, Peter (Worcester) Wylie, N. R.
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne) Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek
Taylor,Edward M.(G'gow,Cathcart) Walters, Dennis TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side) Weatherill, Bernard Mr. Monro and Mr. Grant.
Teeling, Sir William Wells, John (Maidstone)
NOES
Albu, Austen Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston) O'Malley, Brian
Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale) Orbach, Maurice
Allen, Scholefield Ford, Ben Orme, Stanley
Anderson, Donald Forrester, John Oswald, Thomas
Archer Peter Garrett, W. E. Owen, Dr. David (plymouth, S'tn)
Armstrong, Ernest Gordon, Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C. Padley, Walter
Ashley, Jack Gourlay, Harry Page, Derek (King's Lynn)
Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.) Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth) Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles
Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham) Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Anthony Park, Trevor
Bagier, Gordon A. T. Grey, Charles (Durham) Parkyn, Brian (Bedford)
Barnett, Joel Hamling, William Pavitt, Laurence
Baxter, William Harper, Joseph Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)
Bishop, E. S. Haseldine, Norman Pentland, Norman
Blackburn, F. Hattersley, Roy Price, Thomas (Westhoughton)
Blenkinsop, Arthur Henig, Stanley Probert, Arthur
Boardman, H. Hobden, Dennis (Brighton, k'town) Rankin, John
Booth, Albert Horner, John Redhead, Edward
Boyden, James Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas Rees, Merlyn
Braddock, Mrs. E. M. Hughes, Emrys (Ayshire, S.) Rhodes, Geoffrey
Brooks, Edwin Hunter, Adam Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D. Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill) Robinson, W. O. J. (Walth'stow, E.)
Brown,Bob(N'c'tle-u on-Tyne,W) Jackson, Peter M. (High Peak) Rose, Paul
Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch & F'bury) Jone, Dan (Burnley) Rowland, Christopher (Meriden)
Buchan, Norman Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham) Shinwell, Rt. Hn. E.
Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn) Judd, Frank Short, Mrs. René(W'hampton,N.E.)
Cant, R. B. Kelley, Richard Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)
Carter-Jones, Lewis Lawson, George Silverman, Julius (Ashton)
Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara Lestor, Miss Joan Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)
Chapman, Donald Lewis, Ron (Carlisle) Slater, Joseph
Coe, Denis Lomas, Kenneth Small, William
Concannon, J. D. Loughlin, Charles Spriggs, Leslie
Crawshaw, Richard Lyon, Alexander W. (York) Steele, Thomas (Dumbartonshire,W.)
Dalyell, Tam Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.) Swain, Thomas
Davidson, Arthur (Accrington) McCann, John Symonds, J. B.
Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford) MacColl, James Tinn, James
Davies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway) Macdonald, A. H. Urwin, T. W.
Davies, Robert (Cambridge) McKay, Mrs. Margaret Varley, Eric G.
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr) Mackintosh, John P. Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)
Delargy, Hugh McNamara, J. Kevin Walden, Brian (All Saints)
Dempsey, James Mallelieu, E. L. (Brigg) Walker, Harold (Doncaster)
Dickens, James Manuel, Archie Watkins, David (Consett)
Dobson, Ray Mapp, Charles Wellbeloved, James
Doig, Peter Marquand, David Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Dunnett, Jack Mellish, Robert Wilkins, W. A.
Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter) Millan, Bruce Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Dunwoody, Dr. John (F'th & C'b'e) Milne, Edward (Blyth) Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)
Eadie, Alex Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire) Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)
Edwards, Rt. Hn. Ness (Caerphilly) Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw) Williams, W. T. (Warrington)
Edwards, Robert (Bliston) Morris, John (Aberavon) Winterbottom, Rt. Hn. A.
Edwards, William (Merioneth) Moyle, Roland Woof, Robert
English, Michael Murray, Albert Yates, Victor
Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.) Neal, Harold
Evans, loan L. (Birm'gh'm, Yardley) Newens, Stan TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Faulds, Andrew Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon) Mr. Whitlock and
Finch, Harold Noel-Baker,Rt.Hn.Philip(Derby,S.) Mr. Brian Harrison
Fitch, Alan (Wigan) Oakes, Gordon Mr. Brian Harrison
Fitch, Alan (Wigan) Ogden, Eric