Commons Sitting of 11 December 1968

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
DEATH OF A MEMBER
Mr. Speaker: I regret to have to in form the House of the death of George Forrest, esquire, Member for Mid-Ulster, and I desire, on behalf of the House, to express our sense of the loss we have sustained and our sympathy with the relatives of the hon. Member.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  BOARD OF TRADE

    Investment Grants
    1. Mr. Gordon Campbellasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will take steps to improve the procedures for dealing with applications for investment grants.
    The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Edmund Dell): If the hon. Member will let me know what aspect of the procedures he considers should be improved, I will, of course, consider this.
    Mr. Campbell: Is the Minister aware that the present system by which arbitrary questions of eligibility are decided by officials is a cause of delay and great uncertainty?
    Mr. Dell: I do not think that there are serious problems of delay. The average time for processing applications is six weeks and, although this causes administrative work for firms, this is far outweighed, in my judgment, by the fact that they are now getting their cash payments in 12 months from expenditure.

    Balance of Trade
    2. Mr. Gordon Campbellasked the President of the Board of Trade what
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    measures he is now taking to improve the balance of trade.
    47. Mr. Croninasked the President of the Board of Trade what further proposals he has for increasing exports and diminishing imports, having regard to the latest balance of trade figures.
    Mr. Dell: The Government are pursuing a wide range of measures designed to promote exports and encourage import saving.
    Mr. Campbell: Since there has been little change a year after devaluation, and since the Government apparently expect the effect of the import deposits scheme to be only marginal, are we not in a more serious situation than the Government have so far recognised?
    Mr. Dell: I do not think the hon. Member is right in saying that there has been little change. On the contrary, the visible trade deficit has been improving substantially on a three-monthly basis and moreover, exports are on a sharply rising trend. Together with the import deposits scheme, this creates considerable confidence in our acheiving balance very shortly.
    Mr. Cronin: Will not my hon. Friend agree that there is still scope for direct attack on this problem, perhaps by further import restrictions of luxury goods, consistent with our obligations to G.A.T.T. and E.F.T.A.? Will he also put more pressure on firms to export, particularly those which are getting large Government contracts and living largely at the expense of the taxpayer?
    Mr. Dell: I agree with my hon. Friend that more can be done by way of import substitution, but on the restriction of imports, my hon. Friend knows what has been done with the import deposits scheme. A great deal of encouragement has been given by the Government to import substitution and to exports, and the sharply rising trend in exports to which I have referred is a substantial factor in our present situation.
    Mr. Michael Shaw: Does not the hon. Gentleman consider that the latest issue of the Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin makes very disturbing reading, in view of its forecast of a continuing deficit in the last quarter of this year? Is it

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    not accepted that the real problem is the new factor that appeared for the first time in November, 1964, namely, a lack of confidence which is now overriding all touches on the tiller made by the Government?
    Mr. Dell: I think that the real character in our present situation is shown by the continuing improvement in our visible trade deficit. We have to achieve as rapidly as possible a trade balance and a substantial balance of payments surplus. There is nothing in the current facts of our situation that in any way justifies lack of confidence. On the contrary, the current figures show that there is sub stantial reason for confidence in our future prospects.

    Manufactured Imports
    3. Mr. Sheldonasked the President of the Board of Trade what estimate he has made of the level of manufactured imports in the fourth quarter of 1968 and the first quarter of 1969.
    Mr. Dell: I would not wish to make an estimate so soon after the adoption of the new import deposits scheme.
    Mr. Sheldon: I understand the reason for that reply, but will not my hon. Friend agree that it is here where the greatest cause for concern in our balance of trade figures lies, and would he not consider that in a month or two, after study of the way in which the import deposits scheme is working, it may be necessary to come to the House with further measures?
    Mr. Dell: The situation in respect of imports has been less favourable than the Government anticipated earlier this year, but my hon. Friend should not exaggerate the situation. A comparison of the June-October figures with the February-May figures shows that there has been only a moderate increase in the import of manufactures, including semi-manufactures, amounting to about 2 per cent.
    Mr. Biffen: Did not the Government make an estimate before the introduction of the import deposit legislation, and was not that estimate necessary to enable the legislation to be brought forward? Why cannot the House be told about that estimate?
    Mr. Dell: The effect of the import scheme was discussed when the legislation was being passed through the House. It was made clear that the Government were not prepared to give any estimate of this. They judged the effect on imports to be marginal, but certainly not negligible.

    Take-over Panel
    4. Mr. Sheldonasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will now make a statement on the progress of his discussions regarding the future of the Take over Panel.
    Mr. Dell: I have nothing to add to the Answer my right hon. Friend gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Reading (Mr. John Lee) on 3rd Decem ber.—[Vol. 774, c. 422.]
    Mr. Sheldon: Is my hon. Friend aware of the extreme disquiet that is being felt among large sections of the investing public, and does he agree that one of the aspects which causes most concern is the estimating of future profits by various companies which are threatened with take-over? Does he further agree that it is nearing the time when his right hon. Friend will need to come to the House for further powers to regulate this as well as other matters concerned with this problem?
    Mr. Dell: I think that there are many aspects of this situation which cause concern. I do not want to make any com ment, because we are still in discussions with the Governor of the Bank of England on this whole subject. I merely refer my hon. Friend to the announcement that was made following the visit of the Governor of the Bank of England to my right hon. Friend, when reference was made to the possible reinforcement of these measures by the Board of Trade.
    Mr. Barnett: In view of the failure of the present panel to stand up for the rights of the small shareholder against major city interests, does not my hon. Friend feel that it is unlikely that there will be any confidence in a panel consisting of similar type of people.
    Mr. Dell: It is the interest of the small shareholder that we have very much in mind in these discussions, but I should emphasise that in our judgment

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    it would be much better if a voluntary system of control could be made to work, and it is to that end that we are currently working.

    Overseas Commercial Officers (Engineering Exports)
    7. Mrs. Renee Shortasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is satisfied with the ability of official British agents abroad to act in the promotion of exports of engineering products; and if he will make a statement.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody): Yes. They are expected to be knowledgeable about local market conditions. It is for firms to provide technical information about their products.
    Mrs. Short: Has my hon. Friend's attention been drawn to the little Neddy Report, which was produced after its conference at the beginning of November, which drew attention to the lack of facilities and organisation of our embassies abroad to deal with exports, particularly of certain engineering projects? As these are an important part of our export drive, does not my hon. Friend think that her attitude is a little complacent. and that something ought to be done about our representation abroad?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: I am sure my hon. Friend will accept that engineering products fall into about 1,600 different categories, and that it would be extremely difficult for any commercial officer abroad to have detailed knowledge of every individual branch. What I am sure will produce good results is if the firms themselves brief embassy personnel adequately, before they go on missions, with the right sort of technical information about their products.

    West Midlands
    8. Mrs. Renee Shortasked the President of the Board of Trade what criteria guide him in deciding when to grant permission to firms in the West Midlands to expand there.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Each application for an industrial development certificate is considered on its merits.
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    Among the factors taken into account are local employment needs and resources, the nature of the project, its ties to a particular area and its contribution to exports and industrial efficiency. Special regard is paid to the suitability of projects for the Development Areas, whose needs must have priority, and where appropriate the overspill towns.
    Mrs. Short: But my hon. Friend does not mention that she takes into account the existence of under-used or empty factory space. As my hon. Friend's Department keeps no record, how is she in a position to decide whether firms should be allowed to expand?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: I am sure my hon. Friend will accept that we have some knowledge, although we do not have detailed knowledge of every empty factory, of which firms are going to move out, and we take what is going to happen to their remaining premises into account before deciding what their future pattern should be. In 1967 approval was given for 7· 1 million square feet of new industrial building, which is expected to provide 6,900 jobs. In the first nine months of 1968 approval was given for 8· 5 million square feet of building, which is expected to provide 4,700 new jobs. This is a fairly considerable amount of development.
    Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Is the hon. Lady aware that in my view there is no damn merit about this at all? The Minister is turning down far too many requests for these certificates by small country towns seeking to employ only 30 to 40 people in small factories, and this is absolute nonsense. Will the hon. Lady reconsider the policy of her Government in this matter?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: The hon. Gentleman is not only unfair, but inaccurate. It is about time a little of the psychological hysteria which seems to be gripping some parts of the Midlands was dealt with on fact, and not on fancy.

    G.A.T.T. (Developing Countries)
    9. Sir R. Russellasked the President of the Board of Trade if, in view of the acceptance by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of a waiver allowing developing countries to make preferential tariff arrangements, he will apply to have the waiver extended to developed

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    countries, and between developed and developing countries.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: No general waiver in the G.A.T.T. allowing developing countries to make preferential tariff arrangements has been given.
    Sir R. Russell: Is not the hon. Lady aware that arrangements appear to have been made between India, the U.A.R., and Yugoslavia for preferential arrangements, and have not these received a G.A.T.T. waiver?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: I think the hon. Gentleman will accept that what was considered was the five year agreement, but it was decided that a final decision would be given in the 1969 Session.

    Special Development Areas (Blyth)
    10. Mr. Milneasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a progress report on the special development districts in the Blyth constituency, giving details of advance factories built, tenants secured and the number of jobs to be made available during the next 12 months.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: In the special development areas in my hon. Friend's constituency, four advance factories have been built since 1964. Three of these are occupied and an application for the fourth is under consideration. Other industrial development is also taking place in these areas. Two thousand six hundred and fifty new jobs, including 1,820 for men, are expected to arise within the next four years. I regret it is not known how many of these will become available during the next twelve months.
    Mr. Milne: Is my hon. Friend aware that while that represents a considerable success story of past achievements, the rate of progress in the months ahead to meet the impact of impending pit closures is of itself not sufficient, and will my hon. Friend inject some sort of urgency into her Department to speed up an already satisfactory programme?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: I accept that it is bound to be worrying if there is continuing job loss, but I hope my hon. Friend will accept that the special development area projects are bound to have an increasing effect in the coming months.
    Mr. Higgins: The hon. Lady keeps talking about new jobs. Will she define that precisely? Is it the same as additional jobs, or not?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: It is all jobs of which we are aware which will be created in all new industrial development. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept my definition.

    Frozen Fish Fillets
    11. Mr. Milneasked the President of the Board of Trade what discussions have taken place with Norway and other European Free Trade Association countries concerning Great Britain's decision to impose a 10 per cent. import duty on frozen fish fillets; and what other alternatives were considered before the decision to impose a tariff was made.
    Mr. Dell: My right hon. Friend described the discussions with Norway and other E.F.T.A. countries in the debate in the House on 2nd December. These discussions failed to reach agreement. In the absence of agreement, the 1959 arrangements envisage only reimposition of the duty on frozen fish fillets.—[Vol. 774, c. 1167-83.]
    Mr. Milne: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is some dissatisfaction at this Measure, introduced as it was, and there has been a general recession in the white fish industry? Does he agree that this was not necessarily the best way of dealing with that, and is he further aware that we have with Norway and the Scandinavian countries our best balance of payments relationships in Europe? Will he look at the matter again?
    Mr. Dell: I am well aware of our excellent trading relations with all countries affected by the decision, and I hope that those trading relations continue to improve. However, we have rights under the 1959 arrangements, and it was these rights, and these rights only, which we exercised in a situation in which imports of frozen fish fillets were far beyond the agreed level.
    Mr. R. W. Elliott: Will the hon. Gentleman note that the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Corporation made an enormous effort in the name of long-term North-East prosperity through the medium of a Norway Week recently, and this type of

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    imposition undermines a great deal of local work done in the name of good relations?
    Mr. Dell: I am well aware of the importance of friendly relations and good trading relations with Norway. We wish to do everything we can to encourage them. But this country has rights under certain agreements, and, if those rights fall to be exercised as a result of a failure to reach agreement, a failure occurring before this imposition of duty was decided upon, then we must exercise our rights under the treaty.
    30. Mr. Martenasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on Anglo-Norwegian trading relations with particular reference to tariff on frozer; fish fillets.
    Mr. Dell: Since the inception of E.F.T.A., trade has nearly doubled in each direction. My right hon. Friend explained our decision to restore the full most-favoured-nation duty of 10 per cent. on frozen fillets from E.F.T.A. in the House on 2nd December—[Vol. 774, c. 1167-33.] Frozen fish fillets account on average for less than 3 per cent. of our total imports from Norway.
    Mr. Marten: In view of the growing dissatisfaction in Norway at the series of measures affecting trade which have been taken by the Government, would the hon. Gentleman explain—which his right hon. Friend did not do in the debate recently—why this duty was not applied on the excess amount over 24,000 tons rather than on the whole lot?
    Mr. Dell: To answer the first part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, I repeat that we regard our trade with Norway as most important. Our imports from Norway this year have shown a notable increase.
    To answer the second part, the hon. Gentleman made this suggestion in the debate. What we did we were entitled to do under the 1959 arrangements. What the hon. Gentleman has suggested we should do would take us outside those arrangements. In any case, the object of the exercise was to reduce imports of frozen fish fillets down to the level of 24,000 tons—but not below that figure—and the hon. Gentleman's suggestion
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    would have been irrelevant to that pur pose.
    Mr. James Johnson: Hon. Members who represent fishing ports will welcome the 10 per cent. import duty on frozen fish fillets. Is it not a fact that imports were approaching the 30,000 tons mark, which made this imposition necessary? Is it not also a fact that the Minister has been to Vienna, has had amicable discussions with our E.F.T.A. partners and that this whole matter can be settled peacefully next year when the agreement is considered after being in force for 10 years, from 1959?
    Mr. Dell: I agree that there will be further discussions on this matter in E.F.T.A. circles in February or March of next year.

    Scrap Metal Industry (Investment Grants)
    14. Mr. Patrick Jenkinasked the President of the Board of Trade what representations he has had about his refusal to pay investment grants to firms engaged in the business of recovering and processing non-ferrous scrap metals; and what replies he has sent.
    Mr. Dell: I have nothing to add to the answer I gave on 6th November to the hon. Member for Leicester, South-west (Mr. Tom Boardman).—[Vol. 772, c. 87-8.]
    Mr. Jenkin: Is it not absurd that an industry which invests millions of pounds in machines such as shredders, crushers, balers and saws is not entitled to investment grants? Does not the hon. Gentleman recognise that there is a substantial change in the character of the goods which pass through the scrap processors' works, and that this should entitle them to investment grants?
    Mr. Dell: I entirely appreciate all the consideration which the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, but I do not think that any of the types of equipment to which he refers involve what is required under the Industrial Development Act, namely, the making of an article, and it is to this that the Act requires us to have regard. There is some encouragement to the industry by way of initial allowances on plant and machinery at the enhanced rate of 30 per cent.
    Mr. Crawshaw: My hon. Friend's answer will be received with disappointment particularly in the light of his emphasis on rising imports. Will he assure the House that there is a section in his Department which not only views with alarm the rising level of imports but makes recommendations on how our own industry could save these imports coming in?
    Mr. Dell: I am aware that my answer will be received with disappointment. We have had continuing discussions with the industry concerned. Import saving is of the highest importance, but the Industrial Development Act does not assist all industries engaged in import saving or assisting the balance of payments. The Act concentrates the grant system of assistance on manufacturing industry, that is, on those industries which make a major contribution to exports.

    Finished Manufactures (Imports)
    15. Mr. Tom Boardmanasked the President of the Board of Trade what has been the particular cause of the increase in the volume of imports of finished manufactures in the first nine months of 1968; and to what extent this increase corresponds with estimates made before the Budget.
    Mr. Dell: These imports, about 70 per cent. of which are capital goods, have been rising strongly since the 1950s, in common with the experience of other industrial countries. The increase in volume this year has been about two-thirds the average over the previous 10 years. This slowing down reflects the pause in the growth of home expenditure on plant and machinery. It is not the practice to discuss forecasts of detailed categories of imports.
    Mr. Boardman: A large part of the increase in the last nine months comes in the post-devaluation period, and a great deal of it comes in imports of goods which could be manufactured in this country, such as footwear. What is the cause of the increase in products of that type?
    Mr. Dell: I have already made clear that the Government would be glad to see a great deal of additional import substitution. The hon. Gentleman referred to imports of footwear. These, no doubt,
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    are due to the competitiveness of exports from other countries. British industry also is making efforts to export to many other parts of the world, and I hope that these efforts will be successful.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Is not the significant fact regarding these imports of industrial manufactured products, machine tools and so on, that the value has risen by the full amount of the price increases as a result of devaluation, and does not that demonstrate that this is essentially a competitive trade in which specialisation is the guiding light? Do not those facts show up the short-sightedness of Government policies which increase the cost of machinery which we do not make in this country?
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Supplementary questions must be brief.
    Mr. Dell: A great deal of international trade arises from specialisation. That is what international trade is all about. However, that does not mean that there are not considerable opportunities for import substitution, of which, I hope, British industry will increasingly take advantage.

    Aluminium Smelters
    16. Mr. Ridleyasked the President of the Board of Trade what will be the total of loans and grants made toward the cost of the three aluminium smelters out of public funds.
    Mr. Dell: Loans of up to £33 million and £30 million will be made to Anglesey Aluminium Metal Ltd. and the British Aluminium Co. Ltd., respectively. The amounts of investment grants and assistance under the Local Employment Acts for all three companies are confidential.
    Mr. Ridley: Since my calculations, in default of the Minister's, make the total £110 million, will the hon. Gentleman set up an independent inquiry by an economist to ensure that the British taxpayer is getting value for money from this enormous expenditure?
    Mr. Dell: No, Sir. Obviously, I cannot comment on any estimate which the hon. Gentleman makes. As I said, and as I emphasised in the debate in which he played a full part, these figures are and must be confidential unless the firms themselves wish to reveal them. We are

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    confident that this project will be of substantial benefit to this country's economy.
    Mr. James Hamilton: Is my hon. Friend aware that this is a continuation of the Tory Government's policy under which they lent money to private enterprise, and is he further aware that we in Lanarkshire did not think that we got value for money?
    Mr. Dell: I am interested to hear my hon. Friend's view. I am sure that in this case the country will have value for money.
    Mr. Ridley: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

    Trade Deficit
    20. Mr. Kenneth Bakerasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will give his estimate of the likely size of the deficit on visible trade in 1968.
    Mr. Dell: No, Sir. I shall wait until statistics for the whole year are available.
    Mr. Baker: I appreciate the Minister's reluctance to stick out his neck, but would he agree to comment on the estimate made by the National Institute that the deficit on visible trade this year will be £791 million, which will be the worst in the history of Britain? Does not this contrast with the record year expected in invisible earnings this year, and is this not a case of the gnomes of the City having to bail out this country again?
    Mr. Dell: It was always expected, and said at the time, that the initial effect of devaluation would be to increase the value of imports more than exports in sterling terms in the short term. But there is now a fast-rising trend of exports and I see no reason why hon. Members opposite find it so difficult to welcome this fundamental and essential fact in our current situation.
    Mr. Winnick: Would my hon. Friend not agree that, although some excellent work is being done by many firms and individuals in the export drive, there are speculators in the City who are far more concerned with undermining a Labour Government and Parliamentary demo-
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    cracy itself, than with helping the country's economic position?
    Mr. Dell: I note what my hon. Friend says. What I am most concerned with is building up the nation's exports of both visible and invisible character so that we can get into a balance of payments surplus as rapidly as possible.

    Exports (Foreign Exchange Earnings)
    23. Mr. Blakerasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the rate of earnings in foreign exchange from visible exports during the average of the last three quarters is now as great as during the last three quarters before devaluation.
    Mr. Dell: Yes, Sir. The dollar value was slightly greater; in terms of foreign currencies generally the average increase would be somewhat larger.
    Mr. Blaker: Is the hon. Member not aware of the figures given by his right hon. Friend on 25th November, which show practically no difference in the two figures when it comes to foreign currency earnings? Is not this fact just as significant as the increased percentage in volume terms and the increased value in sterling terms?
    Mr. Dell: The hon. Member must remember the difference between dollars and foreign exchange. As I pointed out, in terms of foreign currencies generally the average increase was somewhat larger. In dollar terms, I agree that it is only slightly ahead. I must emphasise that there was bound to be a fall in the dollar value of our exports immediately after devaluation, but we are currently on a strongly rising trend of exports. This is a fundamental fact of our situation.

    Tourist Industry
    24. Mr. Blakerasked the President of the Board of Trade what is the percentage import content in the value of the output of the tourist industry; and how this compares with manufacturing industry.
    Mr. William Rodgers: In 1963, 18 per cent. of the gross output of manufacturing industry was imported; no corresponding figures are available for those trades which serve tourists, but

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    the weighted average of the proportion imported is likely to be under 10 per cent.
    Mr. Blaker: Do not those figures completely destroy one of the Government's main arguments for the imposition of the Selective Employment Tax?
    Mr. Rodgers: They certainly do not. The important thing is to acknowledge the great importance of tourism and to welcome the proposals which my right hon. Friend put before the House three weeks ago.
    Mr. Higgins: Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that those proposals were made without adequate consultation with the industry? If he really hopes to help the industry, should there not be adequate consultation?
    Mr. Rodgers: There was very full consultation, certainly with the B.T.A. Of course, if organisations wish to make further representations, it is open to them to do so before we introduce the legislation.

    Springburn-Cowlairs Industrial Estate
    25. Mr. Buchananasked the President of the Board of Trade what progress is being made in the development of the Springburn-Cowlairs Industrial Estate.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Construction of the 20,000 sq. ft. advance factory on this estate has begun, and is expected to be completed in October next.
    Mr. Buchanan: Is my hon. Friend aware that it is very heartening to learn of the progress in the demolition of the old railway works and the construction of new factories in the very short period since this estate was acquired? Would she maintain the urgency necessary to complete the job on the estate and so bring more employment to the Springburn area?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: I am aware of the urgency of building the estate. I am sorry that the demolition work has been held up because of some technical factors, but we hope that the rest of the work will be completed by the end of this year.

    Repair Agencies (Charges)
    26. Mr. Carter-Jonesasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will in-
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    troduce legislation to compel repair agencies to display prominently minimum charges where such charges apply; and if he will make a statement.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Those who impose a minimum charge for servicing or repair generally make this clear to the customer at the outset, and, if they do not, the customer would be well advised to ask. I see no need for legislation.
    Mr. Carter-Jones: Surely my hon. Friend has given the show away in saying that they "generally" do it; the unscrupulous do not. There may be a case for minimum charges. If it is the sole method of having a repair, is it not unfair to the consumer suddenly to find himself with a fabulous bill for a minimum charge?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: No one sympathises more than I do with what my hon. Friend says, but I am sure that he will realise that there are all sorts of difficulties in this field. For instance, someone who had asked for a service in his home on a piece of machinery would have no way of knowing what was displayed in the shop as a minimum charge. It is a problem, but I hope that people will have enough common sense to demand to know the price of repairs before getting the repair man in.

    Domestic Appliances (After-Sales Service)
    27. Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will take steps, by legislation or otherwise, to ensure the maintenance of a reasonable after sales service by manufacturers of domestic washing, heating, cooking appliances and other similar consumer durables.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: I do not think that this is a subject which can be dealt with by legislation. In general, I believe that reasonable after-sales service is a matter for the manufacturer to arrange and if my hon. Friend has grounds for thinking that the arrangements made by any particular firm or industry are defective perhaps he will convey them to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Technology.
    Mr. Roberts: But is my hon. Friend aware that I have had a crop of complaints in this direction, particularly in

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    connection with washing machines? Would she not accept that there should be a minimum condition that the major manufacturers should at least provide a direct after-sales service?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: It is to the benefit of any manufacturer to provide a very good after-sales service. I hope that house wives who are not satisfied will tell the manufacturer plainly what they think of his product.

    Service and Distributive Industries
    29. Mr. Michael Shawasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will specify the respects in which manufacturing industry makes a more direct and immediate contribution to the United Kingdom balance of payments than service and distributive industries, respectively.
    Mr. Dell: A larger proportion of the output of manufacturing industry is exported. In general manufacturing industry also competes more with imports than do the service and distributive industries.
    Mr. Shaw: Would the hon. Gentleman recollect that his right hon. Friend felt it right that there should be discrimination in favour of manufacturing industries, in the short term? Could he say, in the years, 1966, 1967 or 1968. where the benefit of such discrimination of such matters as Selective Employment Tax is shown in the figures?
    Mr. Dell: I can certainly indicate one possible benefit from this discrimination in favour of manufacturing industry. That is that, within the downward turn of the cycle in 1967-68, after the boom in 1966, the fall in manufacturing investment was far less than either was estimated or had taken place on previous similar occasions in similar cycles.
    Sir K. Joseph: Will the hon. Gentle man convey to his right hon. Friend our sympathy following his accident and our best wishes for his speedy recovery?
    Would the hon. Gentleman agree that visible trade can be judged only in conjunction with the movement of stocks, that in: he first nine months of 1964 the visible trading deficit was more than half accounted for by the rise in stocks of £260 million, whereas in the first nine
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    months of this year there was a huge visible trading deficit coupled with a falling in stocks of £26 million?
    Mr. Dell: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the remarks in the first part of that supplementary question, which I will certainly convey to my right hon. Friend.
    On the subject of stock levels, there was a previous Question on this and I repeat that stock levels, after an initial fall, have been rising in recent quarters. I am, of course, speaking of total manufactured stocks. It is absolutely true, however, that we must in future achieve—I hope we shall because this will help our balance of payments—a far better relationship between total production and the level of stocks in this country.

    Anglo-Brazilian Trade
    31. Mr. Martenasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the future of Anglo-Brazilian trade.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Yes, Sir. Anglo-Brazilian trade is increasing well in both directions. Our exports to Brazil in January-October this year exceeded £36 million compared with just under £16 million in the same period last year; our imports over this period increased from about £22 million to over £33 million. British industry is giving strong and widespread support to the British Industrial Exhibition to be held in Sao Paulo next March. Both the British Government and British exporters are alive to the potential of the developing Brazilian economy, and I hope to see a continued expansion of trade.
    Mr. Marten: While welcoming that Answer and the trend shown in the figures, may I pay tribute at this stage to the results which have been achieved by the visit of Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Philip to Brazil?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: All hon. Members will join in welcoming the demonstration of affection which was shown to Her Majesty on her visit. I am equally sure that all hon. Members hope to see a further expansion of trade between our two countries.
    Mr. Blenkinsop: Is my hon. Friend aware that criticisms have been voiced about British exporters not being fully

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    aware of the opportunities which exist in Brazil's markets, including possibilities in the free port of Manaos in the Amazon?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: The opportunity that we have been given, from the amount of publicity devoted to the visit of Her Majesty and from the expansion of trade which is already taking place, must be followed up by manufacturers in this country, and I hope that they will take every opportunity of doing so.

    Vicuna (Protection)
    32. Mr. Dalyellasked the President of the Board of Trade what representations he has had from the Flora and Fauna Preservation Society on legislation to ban the sale of vicuna skins in Great Britain, and the import of vicuna skins, in order to lessen the dangers of the extinction of the species; and what reply he has sent.
    Mr. Dell: My hon. Friend has informed me of the Society's views, but I have received no representations from the Society.
    Mr. Dalyell: What approaches has Peru made?
    Mr. Dell: We have had representations from the Peruvian Government to ban the free entry into the United Kingdom of live vicuna, skins or cloth and we are currently investigating the situation to see if, in collaboration with other large importers and exporters of vicuna, a viable and effective system of control can be established.

    Riddochhill Colliery, West Lothian (Closure)
    33. Mr. Dalyellasked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he is taking to provide suitable jobs for miners made redundant by the closure of Riddochhill Colliery, West Lothian.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: It is expected that the majority of men affected by the closure of Riddochhill Colliery will be offered jobs in other pits within reasonable daily travel to work distance. It is hoped that others of the men displaced will find jobs in the many expanding industries which have set up in West Lothian in recent years. The Board of Trade will continue to use its powers
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    under the Local Employment Acts, 1960 to 1966, and the Industrial Development Act, 1966, to encourage existing industry to expand and new industry to establish there.
    Mr. Dalyell: How does the Board of Trade define the term, "reasonable daily travel to work distance"?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: This is a difficult problem and I am not pretending that it is easy to say to a man who has always worked and lived in the same village, "You must travel some distance to find a job". My hon. Friend will accept, however, that if we are to establish successful alternative industries, we must do that in new modern premises where industrialists will wish to develop. This is bound to lead to a certain amount of travelling.
    Sir C. Osborne: Were not these miners promised full employment by the Labour Party? Why have those promises been broken?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: The miners are well aware that the Government are very concerned about their future. The hon. Gentleman might care to remember that when the Leader of the Opposition talks about the shibboleth of regional policy, he is not concerning himself with either the future of Scottish miners or anybody else in Scotland.

    Portsmouth (Industrial Development Certificates)
    34. Mr. Juddasked the President of the Board of Trade how many requests for industrial development certificates he has received from Portsmouth in 1968; and how many he has granted.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: In the nine months ended September, 1968, 18 industrial development certificates for 432,000 sq. ft. were issued in the Portsmouth, Havant, Gosport and Fareham employment exchange areas. No applications were refused.
    Mr. Judd: In view of the unemployment level in Portsmouth, which is higher than the national average and twice that of the region of which it is a part, would the hon. Lady assure us that a positive attitude will always be shown towards requests of this kind?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: We must always take the immediate needs of the development areas into priority consideration. Having said that, I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are aware that the seaside towns are facing some difficultties; and we are giving them as much sympathetic consideration as we can.

    Developing Countries (Commodity and Tariff Agreements)
    35. Mr. Juddasked the President of the Board of Trade how many new long-term commodity agreements and how many tariff agreements he has concluded with developing countries in each of the past four years.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: A new International Sugar Agreement was concluded this year. The Kennedy Round of international tariff discussions, leading to a multilateral tariff agreement, was concuded in 1967. In each case the United Kingdom and a substantial number of developing countries were parties to the agreemnt.
    Mr. Judd: In view of this country's commitments to U.N.C.T.A.D. and overseas development, would not the hon. Lady agree that there is room for much improvement in this sphere and that agreements of this kind are worth any amount of aid handed out as traditional charity?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: Obviously for countries which are one-crop countries this must be an immediate means of development. We are members of a number of existing international commodity agreements and it is to be hoped that this kind of trading agreement will be extended in the future.
    Mr. Frederic Harris: Is the hon. Lady aware that this is particularly important to countries like East Africa, which have been placed in difficulty because we devalued and they did not because their circumstances were different? Will she take this point particularly into account?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: Yes, Sir. We are very well aware of the difficulties being faced by East Africa and I assure the hon. Gentleman that we will keep this matter very much in mind.

    Cheese Imports
    36. Mr. Peytonasked the President of the Board of Trade if, in view of the fact that imports of cheese during the first nine months of 1968 showed an increase of more than 17,000 tons against the corresponding period of last year at prices substantially below those ruling in the countries of origin, he will now review the efficacy of the anti-dumping legislation and consider imposing similar quotas to those concerning butter which were introduced in 1962.
    Mr. Dell: No such review is necessary. The anti-dumping legislation as recently amended gives the Board adequate power to act against dumping or subsidisation that is causing or threatening material injury to a British industry. The Board normally requires British producers affected to apply for action under the legislation with supporting prima facie evidence. No application on cheese has been received by the Board.
    Mr. Peyton: Is the Minister satisfied that the legislation affords adequate power? If he is, why in the name of conscience does not the Board of Trade use it? Does he not realise that to continue indefinitely this policy of absorbing other people's surpluses at throw-away prices will spell disaster for the dairy industry and a very big reversal for the country as a whole?
    Mr. Dell: Answering the hon. Gentleman's first point, as I said in my original reply, there has been no application from the industry with the necessary prima facie evidence for us to act on it. As to his second point, the hon. Gentleman knows that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture made a statement in the House on 6th November, 1968, that he was discussing with the countries concerned a scheme of voluntary restraints for a period after 31st March, 1970.
    Mr. Roebuck: Is my hon. Friend aware that if we enter the European Economic Community there will be no point in anti-dumping legislation, and that the cheese industry will be ruined? What does he intend to do about that?
    Mr. Dell: I know that this is not a question on which I and my hon. Friend

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    are always in agreement, but I would not accept his facts as he states them.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Does not the Minister recall that Article 93 of the Rome Treaty provides quite effective protection against dumping by fellow members of the Common Market?

    Wearside
    37. Mr. Willeyasked the President of the Board of Trade what representations have been made to him about the employment needs of the Wearside area; and what reply he has made.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: I am well aware of the employment needs of Wearside, as of other parts of the North-East, and during my right hon. Friend's visit there in July these were again brought to his attention by the many local representatives he met. My right hon. Friend will continue to do everything possible within his powers to encourage industrial development in the region.
    Mr. Willey: As Sunderland has had the largest percentage of unemployment of any large town in Britain for well over a year, does not my hon. Friend realise that we need exceptional steps to concentrate attention upon the Wearside within overall development area policy?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: I sympathise with my right hon. Friend. I know that his own efforts to assist us in the employment field have been herculean. I am sorry that we have been having so much difficulty, but we hope to see a change in the immediate future.

    Advance Factory, Sunderland
    38. Mr. Willeyasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will make a statement on the advance factory in Sunderland which is at present unoccupied.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: The Board of Trade is continuing its efforts to find a suitable occupant.
    Mr. Willey: I greatly appreciate my hon. Friend's help in trying to get industry into this factory, but does she not realise that, again, in the circumstances, exceptional measures are necessary; that where the Government have provided a factory they cannot afford to leave it idle, and that we should consider, perhaps, spon-
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    sored production as well as advance building?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: I am sure that my right hon. Friend will accept that we are doing everything we possibly can to get someone in to the factory—[Interruption.]—and hon. Gentlemen opposite who so frequently resent the amount of money spent by the Board of Trade might like to bear in mind their thinking about their own policy.
    Mr. R. W. Elliott: Will the hon. Lady take very much to heart her right hon. Friend's appeal? Is she aware that at this time for every available job in Wear-side there are 68 unemployed men? Is she further aware that the Labour Party in the North-East claimed at the last election that it would clear unemployment in the region in 17 months?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: I am not complacent about any area which has these unemployment problems, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will accept that his own leader has made comments which lead us to believe that this would not be his policy if he were returned to power.

    Preston and Blackburn Building Society
    41. Mr. Henigasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will make an official investigation into the continued delay in completing the liquidation of the Preston and Blackburn Building Society.
    Mr. Dell: The progress of the liquidation is kept under review by the Board of Trade. I am satisfied that the liquidator is doing all he can to bring this difficult and complicated liquidation to a conclusion.
    Mr. Henig: Is my hon. Friend aware that a constituent of mine has now waited for more than eight years to get back anything at all of his investment in the society? Is he further aware that six years after his appointment the liquidator admitted that he still did not know the total amount of claims outstanding? Is not this far too long a period, is it not a most disturbing state of affairs, and will he take a fresh look at the case?
    Mr. Dell: I know the trouble which my hon. Friend's constituent has had, and I very much sympathise with his position. I am convinced that the liquidator is

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    making all the progress he possibly can in the extremely difficult circumstances of this case, and I am prepared to write to my hon. Friend bringing him up to date on the facts.

    Hotel Grant and Loan Scheme
    42. Mr. Michael Shawasked the President of the Board of Trade when he will introduce legislation to give effect to the proposed hotel grant and loan scheme.
    Mr. William Rodgers: As soon as possible after the Christmas Recess.
    Mr. Shaw: Is not the Minister aware that the continuing delay in bringing forward this legislation, far from helping the industry is causing increased uncertainty, for is it not clear that action cannot be taken by the industry solely on the authority of a White Paper?
    Mr. Rodgers: This is correct, and we fully appreciate the hon. Gentleman's point. We want this legislation as soon as possible. It is complicated, and we expect it to cover the new tourist organisations we are setting up.
    Mr. Costain: Does the Minister appreciate that earlier proposals were made without regard to the needs of the industry and of hoteliers, and that his Department is now writing letters expressing views different from those expressed in the House? Will he, therefore, assure the House that he will take the industry into his confidence, and will also take its advice?
    Mr. Rodgers: We have had consultations, and we will have more, but, having published the White Paper and my right hon. Friend having made a statement in the House three weeks ago, we believe it to be in the best interests of the industry that we should proceed as fast as we can to get the legislation.
    Dr. Gray: Does my hon. Friend intend to tie his hotel grant and loan scheme to the scheme for classifying, registering and inspecting hotels so as to ensure that consumers get value for money?
    Mr. Rodgers: This is not the present intention. A scheme such as my hon. Friend mentions is something that must be considered by the new tourist boards. Meanwhile, let us get on with the incen-
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    tives, because I agree that they are needed.

    Industrial Development Certificates
    43. Mr. Brewisasked the President of the Board of Trade how many applications for industrial development certificates by firms wishing to set up or expand within the scheduled development areas have been refused in the past two years.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Two, Sir.

    Early Potatoes
    44. Mr. Brewisasked the President of the Board of Trade what was the tonnage of early potatoes imported this year; and how it compares with 1966 and 1967.
    Mr. Dell: 303 thousand tons in the first 10 months of this year compared with 234 thousand and 304 thousand tons in the corresponding periods of 1966 and 1967.
    Mr. Brewis: In view of the very large imports of potatoes, particularly in the months of June and July when we can grow them perfectly well ourselves, will the hon. Gentleman seek an agreement with our overseas suppliers to exercise restraint in what they send, and will he do so urgently?
    Mr. Dell: This is a question for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, but it is against our trading interests and contrary to international obligations to place further restrictions on early potatoes for balance of payments reasons.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: What is likely to happen to the importation of new potatoes and the new potato industry in Scotland when we enter the Common Market?
    Mr. Dell: My hon. Friend should not ask me to speculate in that way.
    Mr. Bessell: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that very considerable hardship has been caused to growers of new potatoes, particularly in the South-West? will he, therefore, look at this matter with some urgency?
    Mr. Dell: I shall certainly look at this question. If there were a cause for anti-dumping action, the industry could make such an application but no such application has been received.

  AVIATION

    Edwards Committee (Report)
    5. Mr. Onslowasked the President of the Board of Trade when he now expects to receive the report of the Edwards Committee; and if he will make a statement.
    The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. William Rodgers): By the end of March. But we have discussed with Sir Ronald Edwards whether there would be any possibility of advancing this date and he is aiming at the earliest possible moment consistent with a full and complete report.
    Mr. Onslow: That is welcome news, but is the hon. Gentleman aware that so long as this report remains unpublished damaging uncertainty must effect the future of the independent airlines, and will the hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to give an assurance that he sees these airlines as playing a major part, where they are sound, in the future British civil aviation industry?
    Mr. Rodgers: I think that the hon. Gentleman has less confidence in the independents than they have in themselves at the moment. I refer the hon. Gentleman and the House to a most interesting letter from the Chairman and Managing Director of Caledonian Airways, which recently appeared in The Times, I confirm that we have no doctrinaire views about the future of the industry.
    Mr. Dobson: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important to give adequate and proper time for this Committee to pursue its very important work, and is it not a bad thing when hon. Gentlemen opposite continually deploy tactics which make the uncertainty in the independent airlines even worse?
    Mr. Rodgers: Certainly we should avoid any damaging speculation. This must be a report which covers the many matters within the Committee's terms of reference. Certainly the sooner the better, but we would not wish any hasty stop gap measures meanwhile.

    B.E.A. (Trident 3-B Aircraft)
    6. Mr. Onslowasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will now
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    make a statement setting out the basis of calculation of the compensation to be paid to British European Airways on purchase of Trident 3-B aircraft.
    Mr. William Rodgers: My right hon. Friend will be making a full statement about financial aid for B.E.A. when we introduce the necessary legislation.
    Mr. Onslow: Does the hon. Gentleman agree, as his Department told Flight that Parliament is entitled to ask for the necessary explanation, and the necessary explanation will no doubt be given?
    Mr. Rodgers: I am sure that Parliament is entitled to ask for information about the calculations upon which the decision to make this financial aid available was based.
    Mr. Rankin: In view of the question which has just been asked, can my hon. Friend assure us that the £25 million which have been promised as compensation payable over four years still stands?
    Mr. Rodgers: It certainly still stands.

    B.E.A. (Domestic Air Services)
    17. Mr. Ridleyasked the President of the Board of Trade what are the losses for the latest year for which he has figures incurred by British European Airways upon domestic air services.
    Mr. William Rodgers: For its last financial year, 1967-68, B.E.A. assesses the loss at £1½ million.
    Mr. Ridley: Does not the hon. Gentleman consider that causing B.E.A. to make these losses and then making them up from taxes is just about the best way one can think of to bankrupt independent airlines which have the effrontery to compete with the State?
    Mr. Rodgers: Making them up from taxes does not arise. For many years the domestic losses have been more than offset by profits on B.E.A.'s international services.
    Mr. Marten: As the hon. Gentleman said in answer to a previous Question that he had no doctrinaire approach to this matter, will the Government not shut their eyes to the proposition that the best way to solve the whole problem of these airlines is to denationalise the two Corporations?
    Mr. Cronin: Does my hon. Friend agree that these losses contain a substantial component consisting of losses due to services provided, for instance, to the Highlands and Islands which the independent airlines would not touch with a barge-pole because there is no profit in them?
    Mr. Rodgers: That is correct. It is necessary to notice also that most independent airlines are not making a profit on their domestic scheduled services at present.
    Mr. Onslow: When does the hon. Gentleman expect these services to show a profit?
    Mr. Kodgers: As the hon. Member knows, operations must be taken one year with another. This has been a bad year; we hope that the next year will be better.

    Coastal Airports
    28. Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the President of the Board of Trade what studies he has made of proposed off-shore airport developments on Lake Michigan, United States of America, details of which have been sent to him by the honourable Member for South Bedfordshire; and if he will seek to finance research into the designing of major off-shore airports for use off British coasts to meet the needs of London and other large urban areas.
    64. Mr. Bostonasked the President of the Board of Trade what studies are being made into the problems of coastal air ports.
    Mr. William Rodgers: Coastal and off-shore locations are among the sites at present under consideration by the Roskill Commission for a Third London Airport. In addition, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Public Building and Works is looking into some of the practical and cost problems of airports in such locations, to which the Lake Michigan proposals (which he has studied) do not offer any novel solutions; he also has in mind some longer term research into the feasibility of constructing floating airports.
    Mr. Roberts: Would my hon. Friend not accept that the main decision must be that major airfields of this type must be located considerable distances from major urban centres and that the two problems
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    facing the Government are the design of such airfields and the production of fast passenger transport connecting them with the urban centres?
    Mr. Rodgers: Many considerations are involved and I would be wrong to prejudge in any way the recommendations of the Roskill Commission.
    Mr. Boston: Would my hon. Friend confirm that the replies to Questions on 6th November were in no way intended to prejudge any inquiries currently being made into coastal and other sites? Would he agree that some coastal sites would be far more disadvantageous and would affect adversely far more people than some inland sites which are being suggested?
    Mr. Rodgers: My hon. Friend may be correct in his second statement, but if I am to support him in his first, I do not think that I am required to comment.
    Mr. Fortescue: The Question refers to London and other large urban areas. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the large urban area of Merseyside has a first-class airport which is grossly under-used and starved of help by the Government? Would he give the House his plans in this connection and confirm that this starvation has no connection with the fact that the airport is not used by either of the two nationalised Corporations?
    Mr. Rodgers: I would not accept the hon. Member's assumption for a moment, but I think that there is a later Question about this problem which deals with it more fully.

    Luton Airport
    39. Mr. Allasonasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will make an order under the Civil Aviation Act, 1968, for consultation with local interests at Luton Airport.
    Mr. William Rodgers: I would refer the hon. Member to the Answer which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Luton (Mr. Howie) on 21st November.—[Vol. 773, c. 322.]
    Mr. Allason: As that reply only told us that Luton was one of a number of places being considered, will the hon. Gentleman tell us whether he needs further representations to ensure that he

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    gives favourable consideration to this plea?
    Mr. Rodgers: No further representations are required to ensure that a decision is made with regard to Luton. We shall make a decision as soon as possible, but before making a decision it is right that we should have consultations with the owners, both municipal and private.
    Mr. Gwilym Roberts: But will not my hon. Friend accept that tens of thousands of people in the area are already affected by aircraft-noise, and as tens of thousands more will be affected if the airport is extended, does he not agree that this matter is of the utmost urgency?
    Mr. Rodgers: I entirely agree that noise at Luton and elsewhere is a real social problem and that we must do all we can to alleviate it. For that reason, we are very anxious indeed to see these consultative committees, which will enable those most affected to express their point of view.
    Mr. Howie: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Since the whole of Luton airport lies in my constituency—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Supplementary question—Mr. Howie.
    Mr. Howie: I am deeply grateful to you, Mr. Speaker. When my hon. Friend says "as soon as possible," or words to that effect, will he try to make sure that his definition of "soon" is at least as agreeable to me and my constituents as it is to him, his Department, and the Luton Borough Council?
    Mr. Rodgers: My hon. Friend is hard to please, such a determined advocate is he for his constituency, but he will be very glad to know that we hope to do this early in the new year.

    Scotland (Passenger Services)
    40. Mr. Eadieasked the President of the Board of Trade if he has studied the Report of the Scottish Board for Development and Industry on passenger flying services in Scotland; and what action he proposes to take.
    Mr. William Rodgers: I assume my hon. Friend has in mind the evidence submitted by the Scottish Council
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    (Development and Industry) to the Edwards Committee. I have certainly read it, but must await the Committee's report before deciding what action to take.
    Mr. Eadie: Is my hon. Friend aware that at Turnhouse Airport, Edinburgh, we have two morning flights to London within about 35 minutes of each other, and that people have to use cars because the commuter services do not seem to fit in with those flights? Does he not think that this situation requires some investi gation?
    Mr. Rodgers: I agree that there are problems about operations at Turnhouse but, in the last resort, some matters must be left to the commercial judgment of the operators themselves. If I understand my hon. Friend's supplementary question aright, it comes within that category.
    Mrs. Ewing: Is the Minister aware that the results of policies followed by successive London Governments has been to separate Scotland from most other countries? Has he seen the B.E.A. summer timetable, which shows that Scotland is not linked with any country in Europe? Will he recommend that Scotland should now be brought back into the world and linked by direct flights to other countries in Europe?
    Mr. Rodgers: I am wholly in favour of Scotland maintaining its links with other parts of Europe. I am sure that in organising their air services, B.E.A. and others have this approach in mind, given the traffic which is available to them to carry.
    Mrs. Ewing: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

FALKLAND ISLANDS
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Michael Stewart): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement on the Falkland Islands.
On 26th March last I gave a full explanation to Parliament of our reasons

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for holding talks with the Argentine Government about this question and I also described Her Majesty's Government's policy in these talks in some detail.
In their talks with the Argentine Government Her Majesty's Government have been trying to reach an understanding with Argentina with the object of securing a satisfactory relationship between the islands and the nearest continental mainland. Since that time, the talks have continued and the two Governments have reached a measure of understanding, although this is not yet complete.
There is a basic divergence over Her Majesty's Government's insistence that no transfer of sovereignty could be made against the wishes of the Falkland Islanders.
This pledge has been repeatedly given to Parliament by Ministers who have reiterated on numerous occasions the principle that Her Majesty's Government could only consider the solution of this dispute by a cession of sovereignty to Argentina, first, as part of an arrangement which would secure a permanently satisfactory relationship between the islands and Argentina and, second, if the islanders themselves regarded such an arrangement as satisfactory to their interests and it accorded with their wishes.
It is on this basis that Her Majesty's Government propose to continue to negotiate with the Argentine Government in order to overcome the obstacles which now exist to a normal relationship between the islands and the mainland.
Her Majesty's Government are very conscious of the close ties between the population of the islands and the United Kingdom and of their loyalty to the Crown. It is for this reason that Her Majesty's Government have insisted on the paramountcy of the islanders' wishes. Her Majesty's Government have not exerted any pressure on the islanders to change those wishes nor do they intend to do so.
We shall continue to discharge our responsibilities towards the islands as a British Dependent Territory. In this context it is particularly relevant that, in the course of my right hon. and noble Friend's recent visit to the Falkland Islands, the Executive Council accepted that the British Government have been acting in good faith in our talks with
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Argentina and that our understanding with Argentina, if it is reached, will be fully in keeping with the promise that Her Majesty's Government would not transfer sovereignty against the wishes of the islanders.
Sir Alec Douglas-Home: The House will be grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for taking the earliest opportunity he has had to make the statement. May I ask him these questions? As the right hon. Gentleman said that Her Majesty's Government are not using sovereignty as a bargaining factor and it is the basic difference with the Argentine Government, as it is quite clear the islanders do not wish sovereignty to be transferred and the right hon. Gentleman has said that the wishes of the islanders are paramount, and as the Argentine Foreign Minister has said that there can be no agreement unless sovereignty is ceded, will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House that the question of sovereignty, therefore, will not enter into any future negotiations he may have with the Argentine?
Mr. Stewart: No, I cannot give that undertaking. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] The undertaking I have given, and have given on many occasions, fully secures the position of the Falkland Islanders themselves, but I believe that, despite the fact that there is what I referred to as a basic divergence, we should still try to seek agreement if it can be reached consistently with the principle I have so repeatedly laid down.
Mr. Thorpe: In the right hon. Gentleman's reference to securing a satisfactory relationship between the islanders and Argentina, may we take it that what the Government have in mind are matters like trade and communications and that there is no question of any constitutional alteration envisaged during the nego tiations?
Mr. Stewart: What I said was that the only circumstances in which we could consider settling this dispute by a cession of sovereignty would be, first, that that would be part of the settlement which got a satisfactory relationship in all respects and, secondly, that it did not transgress the principle that we will not transfer sovereignty against the islanders' wishes.
Mr. Hooley: Would my right hon. Friend agree that a 19th-century colonial situation cannot be perpetuated indefinitely in respect of these islands, nor indeed of other colonial territories round the world? Will he confirm that the best way of arriving at a satisfactory settlement is to continue the civilised dialogue he has established with the Argentine Government?
Mr. Stewart: I believe that it is right to continue the dialogue. My hon. Friend referred rightly to attitudes in the world that have been taken up about our former colonial possessions, but I must stress this point: the Charter of the United Nations lays down that in dealing with these matters the interests of the inhabitants must be paramount. We take our stand on that position, but I believe, also, that if we try to live in this century and not in the last it is right by patient argument to try to reach a satisfactory solution.
Mr. Heath: Is the Foreign Secretary saying that he is now continuing these negotiations in order to find a way of transferring sovereignty which he will then put to the islanders to see whether it is satisfactory or not? Is that the purpose of his negotiations now?
Mr. Stewart: What I want to reach is a settlement. From our point of view we want to reach a settlement which will remove the difficulties that there are now between the Argentine and the islanders and to remove the dispute from the United Nations. To do that it has been necessary, as I have repeatedly told the House, to make sovereignty one of the topics of discussion, but we could not agree to the cession unless it were agreeable to the islanders themselves. This has been made clear all along.
Mr. Heath: With great respect, the right hon. Gentleman has not answered my question. It is quite specific and goes to the heart of the matter. Is he now negotiating with the Argentine Government for a form of transference of British sovereignty to the Argentine over the islands which he can then put to the islanders to see whether or not it is satisfactory? Is that what his negotiations are about?
Mr. Stewart: I think that it would be more accurately put thus. [HON. MEM-
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BERS: "Answer."] I am answering the question. I am trying to seek an agreement in which, if there is any reference to cession of sovereignty, it would have to be subject to this over-riding condition. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we have already taken the Executive Council of the islands into our confidence about the progress of the talks so far. It might well be necessary to do that again if the talks made further progress. If the talks resulted in any kind of understanding which involved in any way a cession of sovereignty, it would have to be subject to this condition.
Mr. Crawshaw: Is my right hon. Friend aware that one of the suspicions is that, although no pressure is being brought to bear on the islanders, the blackest possible economic future is being portrayed for them if they continue to be one of our colonial possessions? Can my right hon. Friend say that this is not so and that, in fact, economic assistance will be given to them if they continue?
Mr. Stewart: Yes, Sir. I am glad this question has been asked, because there have been allegations of the kind to which my hon. Friend refers. They are complete fabrications; they are wholly untrue. For the last 20 years, under the Colonial Development and Welfare Act, we have been giving grants to the islands, quite properly. This was one of the things I had in mind when I said that we should continue to discharge our responsibilities to the islanders as a British Dependent Territory.
Mr. Dalyell: Granted the paramountcy of the wishes of the islanders, is the Foreign Secretary aware that some of us, unlike the Opposition, want adult relations with the nations of South America?
Mr. Stewart: I think that this is an important consideraton. To be fair, my hon. Friend will agree that some hon. Members opposite are aware of this aspect of the matter. I am certainly aware of it, and that is why I am endeavouring to reach agreement.
Mr. Sandys: Is the Foreign Secretary aware that his tortuous replies give the impression that he is in the process of selling the Falkland Islanders down the river? Since the Argentine Government have made it perfectly clear—they have

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said so publicly—that they will not conclude an agreement which does not include the transfer of sovereignty, what is the use of going on talking?
Mr. Stewart: The right hon. Gentleman rarely rises without accusing somebody of bad faith. His statements and declarations are by now totally devalued. The statements I have made repeatedly to the House have not been tortuous at all. I have not disguised from the House that we are in discussions with the Argentine. I have not disguised from the House that sovereignty is part of those discussions. I have made clear to the House the whole time that in no case would there be a cession of sovereignty against the islanders' wishes. It is only possible for someone who wishes to mislead to twist that into something else.
Mr. Wellbeloved: Will my right hon. Friend continue to bear in mind that his fair and straight statement that this country is not prepared to cede sovereignty of the Falkland Islands against the wishes of the inhabitants is fully accepted by all reasonable people? Will he also continue to encourage the Falk-lands Islanders to understand that the long-term solution of their future depends on the establishment of friendly relations between themselves and the Argentine?
Mr. Stewart: I think that the islanders are very well aware of that. I think it was partly because they had that in mind that they authorised my right hon. and noble Friend to say that they recognised that the British Government were acting in good faith and that any understanding, if it were reached, would be consistent with the pledge concerning their wishes.
Mr. Clark Hutchison: Does the Foreign Secretary realise that the Government's attitude is doing untold harm to the islanders and their prospects for future trading? If an agreement is reached with the Argentine, will it be written in that document that there will be no transfer of sovereignty against the islanders' wishes?
Mr. Stewart: I cannot answer as to the exact wording of a document that has not yet been reached or agreed. In no circumstances would the United Kingdom put itself in a position in which it could be required to surrender the sovereignty against the wishes of the islanders. The hon. Gentleman has done his best to
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create disturbance in the islands, but has not succeeded.
Mr. Winnick: Is the Foreign Secretary aware that people who believe in majority rule will be very happy with the statement he has made today? Is he also aware that there has been a vicious campaign by the Opposition and by the Tory Press against our right hon. and noble Friend the Minister of State—a smear campaign somewhat along the lines of that being conducted in relation to a Bill which the House is considering later today?
Mr. Stewart: I am aware that there have been a number of wholly false statements about my right hon. and noble Friend. The decisive reply to them has been given by the statement of the islanders themselves, which I have twice quoted to the House.
Mr. Turton: Do these talks merely concern the Falkland Islands, or do they extend to the Falkland Island Dependencies in the Antarctic, which are very valuable?
Mr. Stewart: The talks do not apply to either of those.
Mr. James Johnson: After hearing the Secretary of State's assurances, which, of course, I believe, may we on this side be told why we ever began the dialogue? Are not these 2,000 people of British stock merely pawns to the Argentine? Is not this affair part of a wider setting in which the Argentine is staking a claim to the Continental Shelf and to fishing limits of about 250 miles?
Mr. Stewart: We began the talks for the reasons I have explained to the House, that there is a dispute here, that the United Nations is seized of it, that there are, while the dispute persists, certain vexations to which the islanders are subject and which they would be glad to see removed. I repeat that I do not know whether we shall be successful, but I think that I should try and go on trying to see whether these drawbacks to the islanders could be removed without the abandonment of the one vital point in the matter.
Mr. Eldon Griffiths: Does the Foreign Secretary's statement involve any going back on undertakings, either given or

431
implied, that he has offered to the Argentine Government? Does he not think that it would be better if as Foreign Secretary he were encouraging and not discouraging these people to stay British?
Mr. Stewart: The suggestion that I am discouraging them to stay British is wholly untrue. The hon. Gentleman has no evidence for it. The answer to his first question is, "No". Indeed, so far there has been no undertaking made of understanding reached of any kind. The talks are still in progress.
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: What useful purpose is served by continuing to include the question of sovereignty in the talks when the attitude of the islanders is perfectly clear?
Mr. Stewart: Because I still believe that although we must continue to maintain the position we have maintained about the islanders' wishes, it might none the less be possible to reach an agreement which would be beneficial to them and to our relations with Latin America generally.
Mr. Albu: Does my right hon. Friend think that the wilful misunderstanding of his repeated statements by the Opposition is motivated by care for the interests of the inhabitants or by memories of their colonial past?
Mr. Stewart: I always hesitate to speculate about people's motives, particularly the motives of some hon. Members opposite. What is quite clear is that the Government's position in this has now been stated over and over again. There is no excuse for misunderstanding.
Mr. Braine rose—
Hon. Members: Withdraw.
Mr. Braine: While, contrary to what the right hon. Gentleman has just said, I fully accept the Foreign Secretary's good faith and his obvious intention today to clear the air, would he not agree that as long as sovereignty remains on the agenda, statements, whether true or untrue, that joint efforts being made by the two Governments to convince the islanders of the necessity for a change in their links are bound to be misunderstood, if one bears in mind—[HON.
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MEMBERS: "Speech."]—the Argentine Government's known intention to have sovereignty—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech"]—and the British Government's open declaration that they do not rule out the possibility—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. We are discussing a serious topic.
Mr. Braine: I hope that the House will listen.
Would the Foreign Secretary not agree that these statements have to be seen against the known interest of the Argentine Government to acquire sovereignty and the openly declared view of Her Majesty's Government, expressed only last week, that they do not exclude the possibility of the islanders changing their minds about their remaining British in the future?
Mr. Stewart: No one can make statements which exclude all possibilities in the future. If the hon. Gentleman wants to be quite clear about this, he had better study the terms of the statement which I have just made. I said that we could only consider a solution based on a cessation of sovereignty, first, as part of a generally satisfactory relationship between the islanders and the Argentine and, second, if it accorded with the wishes of the islanders. That has been made clear over and over again. I do not think that this provides any background for the determined efforts of the hon. Gentleman, which I understand that he engaged in last week, to present the House with an incorrect account of what my right hon. and noble Friend has been doing.
Mr. Judd: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that, in view of the complexity of the problem, the Government are right not to be pushed into an irrevocable position on sovereignty or on any other matter and to place so much emphasis on the most thorough possible discussions with the islands' population?
Mr. Stewart: This is a problem which is both complex and difficult. I understand the difficulties which right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite raise, in view of known statements of both Governments about this matter. I assure them that I am making it clear that we shall not abandon this essential principle that I have stated so often. In view of that,

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I do not know whether it will be possible to reach an agreement. I hope that it will be, in everyone's interests, including the islanders'.
Viscount Lambton: Will the Foreign Secretary go a little further than he did in his reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Clark Hutchison) and make it clear that, if an agreed statement is signed, it will include the phrase that sovereignty will depend upon the wishes of the people? Secondly, will he say whether there have been negotiations between England and the Argentine about sales to the Argentine of ships essentially dependent on this agreement?
Mr. Stewart: Certainly, there has been no discussion about sales of ships in connection with this agreement. Whether there have been other discussions connected with ships at any time, I could not say without notice. But it has no connection with this matter.
On the other point, as I said to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Clark Hutchison), whatever ultimate wording or arrangement may come out—and I cannot predict this—it would have to be consistent with the pledge that I have made repeatedly.
Sir Alec Douglas-Home: We can, it necessary, return to some aspects of this tomorrow I think that the right hon. Gentleman has done his best to reassure the House on this matter of principle
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concerning the paramountcy of the islanders' wishes. As the Argentine Minister has made it clear that there can be no agreement unless sovereignty is conceded, can the Foreign Secretary say what is the point of going on with these negotiations?
Mr. Stewart: I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman has got that quite right. My own statement just now mentioned solution of the matter by cession of sovereignty, but made it clear what were the essential conditions that we should lay down. It may be that those conditions prove so unacceptable that agreement cannot be reached. That is what I do not yet know.
Several Hon. Members rose —
Mr. Speaker: Order. We must move on.

BILL PRESENTED
  HORSERACE BETTING LEVY
  Bill to make further provision with respect to the contributions to be made, under Part I of the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963, by bookmakers and the Totalisator Board to the Horserace Betting Levy Board, presented by Mr. James Callaghan; supported by Mr. William Ross and Mr. Elystan Morgan; read the First time; to be read a Second time Tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 54.]

  HIGHWAYS (STRAYING ANIMALS)
  3.55 p.m.
  Sir Barnett Janner: I beg to move,
  That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the payment of compensation for injury or damage caused by animals straying on the highway.
  I had hoped that the abundant evidence which is and has been available for many years to prove the necessity of affording compensation to those who are injured by animals straying on the highway would have resulted in legislation being passed on a Government level.
  I am indebted, in the first place, to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdare (Mr. Probert) who, many years ago—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The House decided some time ago to continue the consideration of Ten-Minute Rule applications at this point of time. The House must listen.
  Sir B. Janner: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that it is difficult, when introducing a Bill under the Ten-Minute Rule procedure, to command a very large attendance in the House. Nevertheless, I am glad that a number of hon. Members are here, because this is a very important subject.
  We have just been discussing another very important matter affecting a comparatively small number of people in the Falkland Islands. I understand that there are about 2,000 inhabitants. I am in no way deprecating the fact that we have spent some time doing that, but I wonder whether the House realises that the subject matter with which I am concerned is one in which, in one county alone, Monmouthshire, there were over 2,370 accidents during a period of five or six years. Throughout the country, tens of thousands of accidents have been caused by animals straying on roads which have been allowed to do so in consequence of the negligence of those who should be responsible to the persons who are injured.
  As the House is aware, I have sought to get a Private Member's Bill passed dealing with this subject on a large number of occasions and over a period of
  436
  years, unfortunately without success. Our learned judges, as well as very many other experienced persons, have indicated the necessity of dealing with this urgent matter. Families have been and are being deprived of their breadwinners by death and injury caused to them in consequence of animals straying on to highways.
  Every hon. Member will appreciate that a matter which affects his constituents, even though it may not apply to vast numbers compared with other problems, is of vital significance to the particular individuals concerned. This is apparent from the correspondence and interviews which we have. Speaking from a professional standpoint, every client who seeks advice, whether it is on a matter of small or large dimensions, regards his case as being equal in importance to any other. Almost invariably, a professional man treats this situation with complete understanding. We as Members of Parliament do the same when people come to us with their problems, even though they may be problems which, compared with the vast amount of other important work done by Parliament, might be regarded as being comparatively small.
  The common law is still the basis of our legal system. The Law Commission set up under Section 1 of the Law Commissions Act, 1965 for the purpose of promoting the reform of the law submitted a Report on this subject in 1967. It said:
  "To the general liability for negligence there is in the case of animals an important exception under the present law. A school authority may be liable for negligence in allowing a child to wander on to the highway and there cause an accident. But the occupier of land adjoining the highway from which an animal gets on to the highway, there causing injury or damage to a user of the highway, is not liable in negligence even if it is possible to show that in allowing the animal to escape he failed to exercise reasonable care and that the user was guilty of no contributory negligence. This exception to the general rule was confirmed by the House of Lords in Searle v. Wallbank (where the appellant collided on the highway with a horse belonging to the respondent, which had escaped from a field in which the respondent had placed it). However qualified, the exception from negligence liability recognised in Searle v. Wallbank has been the subject of frequent and strong judicial criticism.
  Thus, in Hughes v. Williams, which was decided before Searle v. Wallbank, Lord Greene, M.R., said:

  437
  'In my opinion, this court is banned by a rule of law which I dislike but which has been stated or assumed to exist in several pronouncements of this court… The rule appears to be ill-adapted to modern conditions. A farmer who allows his cow to stray through a gap in his hedge on to his neighbour's land where it consumes a few cauliflowers, is liable in damages to his neighbour, but if through a similar gap in the hedge it strays on to the road and causes the overturning of a motor bus, with death or injury to thirty or forty people, he is under no liability at all. I scarcely think that this is a satisfactory state of affairs in the twentieth century.'"
  When parts of the New Forest were fenced in, the statistics for accidents on one of the lengths of trunk roads so fenced, given by the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary, showed a fall in the numbers of accidents in which animals were involved. The figures before the fencing was completed on 1st July, 1964 were: 1961, 81 accidents; 1962, 94; 1963; 80. In 1964, the number of accidents was reduced to 35, and in 1965, the first full year of fencing, the number fell to three. In 1966, one accident took place.
  The Law Commission has produced a draft Bill, and I am sure that if an hon. Member who was successful in the Ballot had taken up the Bill the Government would have agreed to do something about the matte". If it is desirable and there is no Government objection, I see no reason why a private Member should not be able to carry through a Bill of this nature.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Barnett Janner, Mr. Arthur Probert, Mr. Donald Coleman, Sir Stephen McAdden, Mr. Leo Abse, Sir Myer Galpern, Dr. M. P. Winstanley, Mr. Albert Roberts, Mrs. E. M. Braddock, Mr. Gordon Oakes, Mr. Michael English, and Mr. Graham Page.

  HIGHWAYS (STRAYING ANIMALS)
  Bill to provide for the payment of compensation for injury or damage caused by animals straying on the highway, presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 21st February and to be printed. [Bill 52.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL
  Considered in Committee [Progress, 10th December].
  [Mr. HARRY GOURLAY in the Chair]
  Clauses 16 to 23 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 24

  OTHER CONSEQUENTIAL AND SUPPLEMENTARY AMENDMENTS, AND REPEAL
  4.5 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Merlyn Rees): I beg to move Amendment No. 90, in page 19, line 12, at end insert:
  (2A) In Part VI of Schedule 3 to the Local Government Act 1933, in paragraph 5 (5) (which was substituted for the previous paragraph 5 (5) by section 5 of the Local Government Elections Act 1956 and applies certain provisions to polls consequent on a parish meeting)—

  (a) after the words 'A poll consequent on a parish meeting' there shall be inserted the words 'shall be a poll of those entitled to attend the meeting as local government electors, and'; and

  (b) any reference to a provision of the Representation of the People Act 1949 which is amended by this Act shall have effect as a reference to that provision as so amended, and the reference to the local elections rules shall apply also to paragraph 11 of Schedule 2 to this Act.

  This is a technical Amendment. Paragraph 5 (5), of Part VI of Schedule 3 to the Local Government Act, 1933 as replaced by Section 5 of the Local Government Elections Act, 1956, refers to local election rules. These are altered in the Bill and paragraph (b) of the Amendment deals with this. Paragraph (a) deals with the situation that between the date of the parish meeting at which a poll is demanded and the date at which the poll is held, more people may reach voting age and become electors. Under the Amendment, only the electors who were entitled to attend the parish meeting at which the poll was demanded will be entitled to vote at the poll consequent thereon. The poll is therefore, in

  439
  effect, an adjournment of the parish meeting.
  Mr. Richard Sharples: I do not think that anyone will quarrel with the Amendment, which is probably useful. There is another reason why we do not quarrel with it. It is the first Amendment that the Government have put down. We are grateful to them for using the parish councils as this vehicle, because it gives us the opportunity of debating the matter on Report, which otherwise I do not think we should have been able to do.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
  Clauses 25 to 28 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

New Clause 2

  PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION
  After the passing of this Act the election of councillors of London boroughs and of the Greater London Council shall be conducted in accordance with the principle of proportional representation, and notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the Representation of the People Act 1949, the provisions of the Schedule (Proportional Representation) to this Act shall have effect with respect to the marking of ballot papers and the counting of votes.—[Mr. Lubbock.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  Mr. Eric Lubbock: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second Time.
  The Deputy Chairman (Mr. Harry Gourlay): We shall discuss, at the same time, Amendment No. 45, also standing in the name of the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock), the new Schedule:

  PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION
  Definitions
  1. In this Schedule:

  (1) the expression 'continuing candidate' means any candidate not elected or not excluded from the poll at any given time;

  (2) the expression 'first preference' means the figure '1' standing alone opposite the name of a candidate; 'second preference' means the figure '2' standing alone opposite the name of a candidate in succession to the figure '1'; 'third preference 'means the figure '3' standing alone opposite the name of a candi-
  440
  date in succession to the figures '1' and '2'; and so on;

  (3) the expression 'next available preference' means a second or subsequent preference recorded in consecutive numerical order for a continuing candidate, the preferences next in order on the ballot paper for candidates already elected or excluded from the poll being ignored;

  (4) the expression 'transferable paper' means a ballot paper on which, following a first preference, a second or subsequent preference is recorded in consecutive numerical order for a continuing candidate;

  (5) the expression 'non-transferable paper' means a ballot paper on which no second or subsequent preference is recorded for a continuing candidate:

  Provided that a paper shall be deemed to have become a non-transferable paper when ever—

  (a) the names of two or more candidates (whether continuing or not) are marked with the same number and are next in order of preference; or

  (b) the name of the candidate next in order of preference (whether continuing or not) is marked:

  (i) by a number not following consecutively after some other number on the ballot paper; or

  (ii) by two or more numbers; or

  (c) for any other reason it cannot be determined for which of the continuing candidates the next available preference of the voter is recorded;

  (6) the expression 'original vote' in regard to any candidate means a vote derived from a ballot paper on which a first preference is recorded for that candidate;
  (7) the expression 'transferred vote' in regard to any candidate means a vote derived from a ballot paper on which a second or subsequent preference is recorded for that candidate;
  (8) the expression 'surplus' means the number of votes by which the total number of the votes, original and transferred, credited to any candidate, exceeds the quota;
  (9) the expression 'count' means:

  (a) all the operations involved in the counting of the first preferences recorded for candidates; or

  (b) all the operations involved in the transfer of the surplus of an elected candidate; or

  (c) all the operations involved in the transfer of votes of an excluded candidate or of two or more candidates excluded together.

  Method of voting and counting votes
  2.—(1) Each voter shall have one transferable vote.
  (2) A voter in recording his vote—

  (a) shall place on his ballot paper the figure 1 opposite the name of the candidate for whom he votes: and

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  (b) may in addition indicate the order of his choice or preference for as many other candidates as he pleases by placing against their respective names the figures 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on in consecutive numerical order.

  3. A ballot paper shall be invalid on which—

  (a) the figure 1 standing alone indicating a first preference for some one candidate is not placed; or

  (b) the figure 1 standing alone indicating a first preference is placed opposite the name of more than one candidate; or

  (c) the figure 1 standing alone indicating a first preference and some other figure are placed opposite the name of the same candidate; or

  (d) it cannot be determined for which candidate the first preference of the voter is recorded; or

  (e) any mark is placed by the voter by which he may afterwards be identified.

  4. The form of ballot paper to be used, and the form of directions for the guidance of voters in voting shall be in such form as the Secretary of State may by order pre scribe.
  5. After the ballot papers for an electoral division have been counted and mixed in accordance with Rule 46 of the Second Schedule to the Representation of the People Act 1949, the returning officer shall examine the ballot papers and shall sort them into parcels according to the first preferences recorded for each candidate, rejecting any that are invalid.
  6. The returning officer shall then count the papers in each parcel and shall credit each candidate with a number of votes equal to the number of valid papers on which a first preference has been recorded for such candidate, and he shall ascertain the total number of valid papers.
  7. The returning officer shall then divide the total number of valid papers by a number exceeding by one the number of vacancies to be filled. The result increased by one (any fractional remainder being disregarded) shall be the number of votes sufficient to secure the election of a candidate. This number is herein called the 'quota'.
  8. If at the end of any count the number of votes credited to a candidate is equal to or greater than the quota, that candidate shall thereupon be elected.
  9.—(1) If at the end of any count the number of votes credited to a candidate is greater than the quota, the surplus shall be transferred, as provided in this paragraph to the continuing candidates for whom the next available preferences have been recorded on the ballot papers in the parcel or sub-parcel last received by the elected candidate.
  (2) (a) If more than one candidate has a surplus, the largest surplus shall be dealt with first.
  (b) If two or more candidates have each an equal surplus, the surplus of the candidate with the greatest number of notes at the
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  earliest count at which the candidates in question have an unequal number of votes shall be dealt with first. When the numbers of votes credited to such candidates are equal at all counts, the returning officer shall determine which surplus he will deal with first.
  (3) The returning officer need not transfer a surplus when that surplus, together with any other surpluses not transferred, is less than the difference—

  (a) between the votes of the candidate lowest on the poll and the votes of the candidate next above; or

  (b) between the total of votes of the two or more candidates lowest on the poll and the votes of the candidate next above, provided that the exclusion from the poll of the aforesaid two or more candidates lowest on the poll shall not reduce the number of continuing candidates below the number of vacancies remaining to be filled.

  (4) (a) If the votes credited to an elected candidate consist of original votes only, the returning officer shall examine all the papers contained in the parcel of the elected candidate whose surplus is to be transferred.
  (b) If the votes credited to an elected candidate consist of original and transferred votes, or of transferred votes only, the returning officer shall examine the papers contained in the sub-parcel last received by the elected candidate whose surplus is to be transferred.
  (c) In either case, the returning officer shall sort the transferable papers into sub-parcels according to the next available preferences recorded thereon, shall make a separate sub-parcel of the non-transferable papers and shall ascertain the number of papers in each sub-parcel of transferable papers and in the sub-parcel of non-transferable papers.
  (5) If the total number of papers in the sub-parcels of transferable papers is equal to or less than the surplus, the returning officer shall transfer the whole of each sub-parcel of transferable papers to the continuing candidate indicated thereon as the voters' next available preference, and shall set aside as a separate sub-parcel so many of the non-transferable papers as are not required for the quota of the elected candidate. The particular papers set aside shall be those last filed in the sub-parcel of non-transferable papers.
  (6) (a) If the total number of transferable papers is greater than the surplus, the returnning officer shall transfer from each sub-parcel of transferable papers to the continuing candidates indicated thereon as the voters' next available preference the number of papers which bears the same proportion to the number of papers in the sub-parcel as the surplus bears to the total number of transferable papers.

  (b) The number of papers to be transferred from each sub-parcel shall be ascertained by multiplying the number of papers in the sub-parcel by the surplus and dividing the result by the total number of transferable papers. A note shall be made of the fractional part, if any, of each number so ascertained.

  (c) If owing to the existence of such fractional parts, the number of papers to be transferred is less than the surplus, so many of

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  these fractional parts, taken in the order of their magnitude, beginning with the largest, as are necessary to make the total number of papers to be transferred equal to the surplus shall be reckoned as of the value of unity, and the remaining fractional parts shall be ignored.

  (d) If two or more fractional parts are of equal magnitude, the fractional part shall be deemed to be the largest which arises from the largest sub-parcel, and if the sub-parcels in question are equal in size, the fractional part credited to the candidate with the greatest number of votes at the earliest count at which the candidates in question have an unequal number of votes shall be deemed to be the largest. When the numbers of votes credited to such candidates are equal at all counts, the returning officer shall determine which fractional part shall be deemed to be the largest.

  (e) The particular papers transferred from each sub-parcel shall be those last filed in the sub-parcel, and each paper so transferred shall be marked in such a manner as to indicate the count at which the transfer took place.

  10.—(1) If at the end of any count no candidate has a surplus, or if any existing surplus need not be and is not transferred, and one or more vacancies remain to be filled:

  (a) the returning officer shall exclude from the poll the candidate lowest on the poll; but

  (b) if the total of the votes of the two or more candidates lowest on the poll together with any surplus votes not transferred is less than the number of votes credited to the candidate next above these, the returning officer may at the same count exclude the aforesaid two or more candidates lowest on the poll, provided that the exclusion of these candidates shall not reduce the number of continuing candidates below the number of vacancies remaining to be filled.

  (2) If, when a candidate has to be excluded, two or more candidates have each the same number of votes and are lowest on the poll, the candidate with the lowest number of votes at the earliest count at which the candidates in question have an unequal number of votes shall be excluded, and, when the numbers of votes credited to those candidates are equal at all counts, the returning officer shall determine which shall be excluded.
  (3) Upon the exclusion of any candidate, the returning officer, save as hereinafter provided, shall examine all the papers credited to that candidate; shall sort the transferable papers into sub-parcels according to the next available preferences recorded thereon for continuing candidates; shall transfer each sub-parcel to the candidate for whom that preference is recorded; and shall set aside as a separate sub-parcel the non-transferable papers.
  11.—(1) If at the end of any count the number of elected candidates is equal to the number of vacancies to be filled, no further transfer of voters shall be made.
  (2) If, on the exclusion of a candidate or candidates, the number of the then continuing candidates is equal to the number of vacancies unfilled, the continuing candidates shall
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  thereupon be elected, and no further transfer of votes shall be made.
  12. The order of priority of election of elected members shall be the order in which they are severally elected. If at the end of any count two or more candidates are elected, the order of priority shall be the order of magnitude of the numbers of votes credited to such candidates, beginning with the greatest.
  13.—(1) Whenever any transfer is made, each sub-parcel of papers transferred shall be placed on the top of the parcel, if any, of papers of the candidate to whom the transfer is made and that candidate shall be credited with a number of votes equal to the number of papers transferred to him.
  (2) Non-transferable papers (except such as in the transfer of a surplus may be required for the quota of the elected candidate) shall be set aside as a separate sub-parcel together with any parcel of non-transferable papers already set aside.
  (3) On the transfer of the surplus of an elected candidate, all papers not transferred to continuing candidates and not set aside as provided in the preceding paragraph, shall be placed together in one parcel as the quota of the elected candidate and the parcel shall be marked with the name of the elected candidate.
  14. Any candidate or his agent may, at the end of any count, request the returning officer to re-examine and recount all or any of the papers dealt with during that count, and the returning officer shall forthwith re-examine and recount accordingly the papers indicated without making any alteration in the arrangement of the papers in the various parcels, save where such alteration may be necessary in consequence of any error discovered in the recount; the returning officer may also at his discretion recount papers either once or more often in any case in which he is not satisfied as to the accuracy of any previous counting of the votes:
  Provided that nothing herein shall make it obligatory on the returning officer to recount the same papers more than once.
  15. If any question shall arise in relation to the exclusion from the poll of any candidate, or to any transfer of votes, the decision of the returning officer, whether expressed or implied by his acts, shall be final unless objection is made in writing by any candidate or his agent before the declaration of the poll, and in that event the decision of the returning officer may be reversed upon an election petition.
  16.—(1) If upon an election petition—

  (i) any ballot papers counted by the returning officer are rejected as invalid; or

  (ii) any rejected ballot papers are declared valid,

  the Court may direct the whole or any part of the ballot papers to be recounted and the result of the election ascertained in accordance with these regulations.
  (2) If upon an election petition the decision of the returning officer upon any operation

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  is reversed, the operation in question and all operations subsequent thereto shall be void and the court shall direct what operation is to be made in place of the operation in question, and shall cause the subsequent operations to be carried out and the result of the election to be ascertained in accordance with this Schedule.
  (3) On any recount, subject to such modifications as may be necessary by reason of any order of the court, each paper shall take the same course as in the original counting of the votes.
  17. The counting of the votes having been completed in accordance with this Schedule the returning officer shall publish a notice of the result of the poll and of the names of the persons elected. Such notice shall include a record of any transfer of votes made under this Schedule and of the total number of votes credited to each candidate after any such transfer, and shall be in such form as the Secretary of State may by order prescribe.
  Mr. Lubbock: It is an interesting reflection that the system we advocate in the Clause and the Amendment is considered all very well for export, but not suitable for home consumption. On several occasions when it has been our task to confer constitutions on developing countries, we have chosen proportional representation. For example, in Guyana, the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys), then Secretary of State for the Colonies, introduced such a system, although not along the lines I proposed. It was a list system and there are considerable differences between that and a transferable vote system. The House, therefore, has always thought proportional representation worthy of consideration for application to others but little thought has been given to its introduction here.
  I do not propose to detail the mechanism set out in the Schedule which constitutes Amendment No. 45, because it is not necessary to understand how the single transferable vote operates in order to make it work for the electorate. One must only bear in mind that, instead of putting a cross against the name of a single candidate, the voter places 1, 2 and 3 against the names of three candidates in order of his preference and, therefore, gives himself wider freedom of choice.
  For the counting process, I use an analogy in what was said by the Secretary of State for Defence when he appeared before the Select Committee on Science and Technology. He was asked
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  why control of defence research appears to be so complicated. He said that it is like a transistor radio. When one turns it on, "pop" music comes out but, if one opens up the back, the circuits look very complicated. I hope that we can leave out any argument concerning details of counting and the job of electoral registration officers and consider the principles, which I outlined both in the debate on the White Paper and on Second Reading of the Bill.
  There are four principles on which any electoral system should be based. First, it should enable every citizen to participate in the process of government by making an effective choice between persons and attitudes. Secondly, it should not only give the vote to every elector but should ensure that, roughly speaking, every vote has the same influence on the final results. In slogan form, this second principle could be represented by, "one vote, one value", which is of equal importance to "one man, one vote".
  I recall the statement by the Minister without Portfolio about the electoral system in Rhodesia. He said, referring to the delimitation formula:
  "This provides that as the number of Africans on the A roll increases, the Africans' chances of capturing A roll seats should increase proportionately."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th November, 1968; Vol. 773, c. 899.]
  It is, therefore, considered desirable that Rhodesian Africans should be represented in their House of Commons in proportion to the number of entries they have on the electoral roll. This is yet another example of Governments being keen on applying this principle to overseas territories, but not wishing to apply it here at home.
  The third principle is that any system must give fair representation in accordance with the number of votes cast as between different points of view. This applies not only to the different parties, as in the continental party list systems of proportional representation, but also to different expressions of opinion within the parties.
  Finally, the system should not be capable of giving arbitrary results because of the operation of extraneous factors such as delimitation of constituency boundaries.
  I have no doubt that the Under-Secretary of State will argue against the single

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  transferable vote as it applies generally and in the case of Greater London, in particular. Perhaps I can anticipate some of his arguments. First, we hear a great deal about "strong government" from opponents of electoral reform but if we recall the experiences this century in Parliamentary elections we find that we have had not such thing. On many occasions this century, we have had Governments either with no majority or with only a small majority which has been practically unworkable.
  4.15 p.m.
  The most recent case was in 1964 when, although, because of the praiseworthy efforts of their Chief Whip, the Government managed to survive for 18 months, there was a perpetual struggle to survive. No one would call that strong government. I believe that many decisions which should have been taken by the Government when they took office in 1964 were not taken because of the tenuousness of their majority. If they had been able then to deal more firmly with the situation in Rhodesia and to take the right kind of action to cope with the balance of payments crisis, particularly in the case of devaluation, we should not be in some of the difficult crises we face every few weeks today.
  It was because of that small majority, which was a result of our present electoral system, that the Government failed to take these decisions and the country is now in a mess. Let us be clear that our system does not by any means give strong government. On the other hand, it is not the case that, with the single transferable vote, wherever it is applied, the majority is necessarily very small.
  The second main theme of those who oppose the single transferable vote is the important argument about the association between a Member of Parliament and his constituency.
  They consider that, by having multimember constituencies of from three to seven members, as provided for in Amendment No. 45 in the case of Greater London, there will be some weakening of this close association between a member and his supporters at an election. I must agree that this is a valuable feature of our present system, even though it is not
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  one of the principles on which we should devise an electoral system.
  Are hon. Members not sometimes misled by the size of their postbag into thinking that their association with their constituents is closer than it is? A survey conducted by the Sunday Times and published on 16th October, 1966, showed that 58 per cent. of the people in the sample knew who their Member of Parliament was. Thus, by inference, 42 per cent. of those questioned were not even aware of the name of their Member.
  The second point about hon. Members' correspondence is, I think, that those who approach an hon. Member either by letter or through his advice bureau are only a tiny fraction of the electors in a typical constituency. Even many of the letters we receive from our constituents are instigated by interested bodies or pressure groups. For example, yesterday the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. Ensor) sought leave to introduce a Bill on what he called "humane slaughter". I must have had 100 letters from constituents as a result of a pamphlet widely distributed in Orpington asking me to support him.
  I do not believe that those who wrote those letters had thoroughly studied the objections to the Bill nor had considered the great weight of scientific opinion that the methods of slaughter adopted by Jews and Mohammedans are as humane as those adopted by Gentiles. I mention this as an example of the enormous postbag one can receive as a result of the activities of pressure groups and which may mislead one into thinking that one is in close touch with opinion throughout the country.
  Mr. John Mendelson: I do not want in any way to question the hon. Gentleman's zeal for the method that he is proposing, but I hope that he will not, in the process of his argument, do damage to the very positive relations between Members and the electorate under our present system. The first part of his argument is a complete travesty of the truth. Surely it is irrelevant. There may be only 500 or 600 a year who write, out of 50,000, because not everyone has a case that he wishes to bring to the notice of the Member.
  Mr. Lubbock: I must apologise to the hon. Gentleman, who has had to

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  listen to my argument on about five previous occasions. There may be some repetition in what I have to say. Some hon. Members who were not on Mr. Speaker's Conference may be hearing this for the first time. I agree with what he has said—one would not want in any way to denigrate the association between a Member and his constituency, and I am far from wishing to do that, because I depend on it very heavily, as the hon. Gentleman may know.
  In my constituency I have a weekly advice bureau, and I probably have as heavy a post-bag as any other hon. Member. I counted the number of letters I received during the first six months of this year and they came to 2,251. I am answering 4,500 letters a year, and would be the last to play down the association between a Member and the constituency he represents. I am only trying to show that not all of the letters one receives are of equal importance, and that if one measures the connection, which has great value, purely in numerical terms, one may be misled into thinking that it is slightly closer than it is.
  Mr. Cranley Onslow: The hon. Gentleman will understand that all hon. Members can deliver equally convincing "commercials". I would invite him to return to the Motion that he is moving. Much of his argument is familiar to me, too. Would he assure us that he will deal with something which I do not think I have ever heard dealt within this context before, and that is how, in a multi-Member constituency one has a by-election?
  Mr. Lubbock: If the Chairman will allow me to deal with it, I will do so.
  To return to the original question, there is a small number of very important cases which come to our attention, and with which perhaps only we are capable of dealing. I have been very disappointed in the performance of the Parliamentary Commissioner since this House established his office. I believe that hon. Gentlemen can do the job very much better. For this reason I would be the last to wish to lose this connection. But, with my experience of six years in the House I say that as a Member for a multi-Member constituency, the London Borough of Bromley which returned four Members, I would not be in any less
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  closer touch because I represented only one part of it.
  This leads me to the question asked by the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow).
  Mr. Michael English: I am listening with interest to the hon. Member's remarks. As he knows I support him in certain parts of his argument. However, he should not be allowed to get away with the statement, "I have been very disappointed in the performance of the Parliamentary Commissioner", when it is quite unbacked by evidence. Many hon. Members very much appreciate the abilities of the Commissioner, within his terms of reference. If they are wrong, that is a matter for us.
  Mr. Lubbock: It would be out of order to go into the rôle of the Parliamentary Commisioner in any detail. What I have said is that I do not think that the Commisioner can replace an hon. Member. I agree with the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) that we are already doing this job, have been doing it for many years before the Commissioner was appointed, and will continue to do it to the best of our ability, whether we have single Member or multi-Member constituencies. I am trying to point out that it would make no difference to any of us.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Woking that we can all quote personal experience to back up this talk of the care and attention which we devote to Parliamentary cases. If someone comes to us with a pensions grievance, or with a complaint about the education of his child, we will investigate it carefully, obtain reports from the officers of the local authority or the Ministry concerned and, having satisfied ourselves that the complaint is justified, we will see it through to its conclusion in the hope that we can obtain a satisfactory result for the person concerned.
  My point is that because one is one of three or five or seven Members representing a multi-Member constituency, one will not necessarily devote any less care to those individual cases than one does at present. One might even devote more time, because the constituents in one's; area would have a greater choice of hon.

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  Members to whom they could take their problems, as they already do on some local authorities.
  I want to answer the question put by the hon. Member for Woking about by-elections. In the case of the Greater London Council, where there is a by-election in a multi-Member constituency, the electorate throughout the whole borough is entitled to vote. We had a by-election in my own London Borough of Bromley quite recently and this was how the procedure went. All the 250,000 electors in the whole of the borough voted to replace that councillor who had died.
  Mr. Onslow: When the hon. Member says all 250,000 voters, I am sure that he has made a mistake. What proportion actually voted?
  Mr. Lubbock: I will deal with that point later.
  The other alternative is for the multi-Member constituency to be divided into the same number of electoral areas as there are Members representing it, purely for the purposes of the by-elections which may occur, and for dealing with those personal cases which are as interesting to me as they are to the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson). With these two alternatives I believe that we have solved the main objection about the closeness of the association in our Parliamentary system between a Member and his constituents.
  The third main objection in many people's minds is that the single transferable vote and proportional systems generally, lead to a multiplicity of parties. This arises from confusion of thought in the minds of those who have not studied this matter in any great detail, between the list system of proportional representation, common on the Continent, and the single transferable vote. This is used in the Republic of Ireland and Tasmania.
  If we look at those countries we find that there is no multiplicity of parties. In Tasmania, we find that there are only two parties there as compared with the rest of Australia, where generally speaking, there are four, the Australian Labour Party, the Democratic Labour Party, the Countryside Party and the Liberal Party.
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  The contention that some people advance that the single transferable vote leads to an increase in the number of parties is false and arises from the confusion with these lists, such as one has in many European countries, where the smaller parties are represented. That deals with the question which is often raised of how the system works in certain overseas countries.
  4.30 p.m.
  If one has any doubts about this matter, it is instructive to look at the recent poll taken in the Republic of Ireland. The electorate was asked whether it favoured changing to the British system or retaining the single transferable vote which has operated in that country since independence in 1921. The result of the referendum on 16th October this year was that over 424,000 people were in favour of changing to the British system and 659,000 people were in favour of retaining the single transferable vote—a majority roughly of 233,000 votes in favour of proportional representation.
  We see, therefore, that people who have had experience of the operation of the system for a number of years like it very much and do not want any change to be made even when, as in this case, their Government tries to persuade them, with all the propaganda weapons at their disposal, that this change would be in the people's interest.
  Turning to the situation in Greater London, it is interesting to recall a passage from a speech by the late Mr. Winston Churchill, as he then was, when the Representation of the People (No. 2) Bill was being discussed on 2nd June, 1931. He said:
  "Having to choose, as we shall have to choose if we are to redress the constitutional injustice, between the Alternative Vote, the Second Ballot and Proportional Representation in the cities, I have no doubt whatever that the last is incomparably the fairest, the most scientific and, on the whole, the best in the public interest."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd June, 1931; Vol. 253, c. 102.]
  If we are discussing the G.L.C. elections, to which I have attached the new Clause, we see from the results in the 1964 and 1967 contests why it would be desirable to make this change. There were some serious anomalies in 1964 and 1967. In 1967, the Labour Party secured only 18 out of the 100 seats, in spite

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  of the fact that it received more than one-third of the votes. Similarly, in 1967, the Conservatives, with their 82 seats, were vastly over-represented in relation to the share of the poll which they secured. In 1964, it worked the other way round. The Labour Party had a very substantial majority, although it received only the minority of the votes cast.
  One of the reasons for that is that in Greater London we have had multimember constituencies which correspond with the boundaries of the boroughs. For that reason, I thought that it would perhaps be useful to discuss the single transferable vote in the context of Greater London, because these multi-Member constituencies are ready made. Although, as I have shown in the figures which I quoted, it works very badly in the case of the "first-past-the-post" system, it would enable the single transferable vote to be introduced in the Metropolis with very little other change.
  Another point worth bearing in mind in connection with Greater London is that as the population shifts, and people continue to move out from the centre, as they have done historically over a very long time, it would be necessary not to make adjustments to the boundaries, but merely to alter the number of councillors returned for each multi-Member constituency. The object of the Royal Commission on which the London Government Act was based on designing smaller boroughs on the periphery of London and larger ones in the middle so that as the population moved out the electorate would be equalised. Unfortunately, it was done the other way round.
  Some of the largest boroughs are on the outskirts, in particular, the London Boroughs of Croydon and Bromley. Sooner or later, because these are the areas in which the population is growing most rapidly for the simple reason that land is still available in them for building houses, it will be necessary to redistribute the boundaries and transfer part of these boroughs to their neighbouring constituencies unless we are to have more than four councillors elected for one of the electoral areas. But with the system we are advocating there would be no necessity for that. We could merely alter the number of councillors returned without making any other consequential amendment.
  The hon. Member for Woking asked me what the turn-out was at the recent G.L.C. by-election in my borough. It was 20 per cent. I said, after the result had been declared, that it was shocking that so few people had bothered to vote in an election which vitally concerned the interests of the 250,000 people who live in that area. But, in a way, I could understand it. The Conservatives have always had a very big majority in the London Borough of Bromley as a whole. One or two people wrote to me after my remarks about the poor turn-out and said, "Why should we bother? We knew that the Conservatives were bound to win and that our vote would have no effect".
  That is one of the main reasons why there is a very poor turn-out of electors in local elections in many areas. It is not because people are disinterested in the services provided for them by their rural district, county borough or county council; it is that in the vast majority of cases they know that their single vote will carry no weight whatsoever in the result. Many of us, if we live in areas in which the majority party has a vast lead, go through life without influencing the result in the slightest. In many cases, we might as well have stayed at home in front of the television set on polling day for all the difference that we have made to the result.
  I have never been able to understand why there should be such a strong antipathy, particularly among those active in politics, to the idea of the single transferable vote. Conversely, I have never been able to understand why it should be assumed that over the years we have gradually approached more closely to the ideal of a perfect democracy as more of our citizens have been able to exercise the vote and fewer of them have been able to exercise it twice. If a man's vote in one electoral area is worth twice, three or four times that of his fellow citizen in some other area, we may have the appearance of democracy, but it is more apparent than real. When millions are, in effect, permanently disfranchised because of the small influence which they may exert on the result of an election throughout their adult lives, it is not surprising that the majority of people, particularly the young, are beginning to wonder whether some other kind of system should be substituted for our

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  parliamentary and local government democracy.
  This is probably the last opportunity that we shall have to make a change in our system for the next 20 years. I hope that we take it.
  Mr. English: The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) spoilt the best part of his case, although he put up a very good defence for some of its weakest parts. He has spoilt the possibility of allowing individual local authorities to choose rational democratic systems of their own. Whether one accepts or rejects his argument for a particular system of election, his suggestion has the demerit of the present system concerning local authorities. We in our wisdom or lack of it, unlike other countries, say to all local authorities," You must all have an identical system of election, the system of election we think satisfactory nationally."
  I will not enter into a long dissertation on the merits or demerits of our present national system of election. Suffice it to say that I believe that the overwhelming majority of hon. Members believe that for the purposes of creating a national Legislature and a national Government our present system of election is the best one. I know that the hon. Member for Orpington does not share that view, but all the arguments have been discussed so much that I shall not weary the Committee by going into them.
  However, it does not seem to me that it therefore follows that the same system of election is appropriate to every one of hundreds, more than 1,000, local authorities. It does not seem to me that this is at all logical. Nor, in practice, is it the case. We have local authorities situated in the areas where the Parliamentary seats are marginal seats. For those local authorities one could say that the system of election which we have works reasonably well. We may say this, but I do not think that anybody can say that the present system works just as well in the overwhelmingly safe Parliamentary seats.
  Quite irrespective of party, it is fair to say, surely, that local government shows some of its least pleasurable aspects in the places where there are overwhelmingly Labour-dominated councils, sometimes so Labour dominated that
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  there is no Conservative representative on the councils. Alternatively, one knows of certain seaside resorts which are so overwhelmingly dominated by the Conservative Party that there may not be a representative of the Labour Party on a council. Even though possibly 20 per cent. or even 30 per cent. of the electorate may vote Labour. The Labour Party there is a totally unrepresented party.
  It seems to me that there is a case for saying that a system different from the national system would be appropriate in certain local authority areas. I would not, therefore, wish to support the hon. Member's Clause, but I would ask the Under-Secretary of State if his Department, in conjunction with other appropriate Departments, would consider this possibility in connection with the reform of local government, because it seems to me that while we must have a democratic system of election, nevertheless, provided that the system is democratic in a recognised sense, there is no valid reason why a local authority itself should not be able to have some say in the sort of system of election that it wants.
  This may sound an unusual idea, but the strange thing is that it does apply to just one of the areas the hon. Member for Orpington has mentioned. The City of London, unlike any other local authority, has almost semi-sovereign powers. Since the 18th century it has described its decisions as "acts" in the same way as we talk of Acts of Parliament, and this is quite right, because the City of London has, within very broad terms, power to alter its own constitution if it wishes to do so. The City of London is distinct from anywhere else in that it can alter its system of election. Legally, I believe, it could alter it tomorrow, by Act of the Common Council—although I do not think it is likely to do so.
  Moreover, in the United States it is quite customary to allow individual electors by referendum to decide the constitutions of their own local authorities or even the constitutions of their own State Governments, within the Federal system. Therefore, it seems to me that there is nothing unusual or irrational in this. It would lead to considerably more participation—which is a word we all pay lip service to, but, when we have opportunities, do not always implement.

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  The only thing one has to look to is the possibility that somebody may wish to introduce an undemocratic system, a sort of little local one-party state. I think that there are hon. Members on this side of the Committee who wished to raise the issue of Northern Ireland at an appropriate moment. However, it is not beyond the wit of man to say that as there are various possible electoral systems and that, provided a system is democratic, we would allow any local authority to implement any of them it chose.
  4.45 p.m.
  Mr. Lubbock: The hon. Member will appreciate that in the Republic where there is the single transferable vote, Protestants do have representation according to their numbers among the citizenry as a whole, whereas the very reverse is true of Roman Catholics in the North.
  Mr. English: Much as I would like to, I will not allow the hon. Member for Orpington to lead me astray from the subject of the Clause and into the rather treacherous waters of Northern Ireland, although if the hon. Member wants to know it, my own view of the Ulster Constitution is that it would have been better if a Bill of Rights had been inserted in it, as is the case within the Federal system in the United States. However, I am sure I would be out of order if I developed that point.
  What I was saying was that the essential thing is to preserve democracy. Where I think the hon. Member for Orpington spoiled his case was by bringing in such questions as the single-Member constituency versus the multi-Member constituency. Many of his arguments are perfectly true in the case of the small local authority. It is wholly untrue to say that single-Member constituencies are not desirable on the national scale. To start with, the constituency is much bigger; a single-Member constituency on a national scale might be a multi-Member constituency on a local scale.
  There is also a much more centralised party system with proportional representation in some countries. The hon. Member says, "No", but I think that one does get a much more centralised system in some countries. It depends how one operates the system—I would give the
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  hon. Member that—but he is totally wrong when he says that in the single-Member constituency contact is not as great as we think between Member and elector. This may be so, but it is overwhelmingly greater than in the multi-Member constituency.
  With other hon. Members, I spent part of the summer in Sweden, where multimember constituencies are used for the election of members to the legislature, the Riksdag. [Interruption.] I am still on this question of multi-members; I am not on the question of the method of election. I asked a Swedish Riksdagman a simple question, "How many letters from your constituents do you get?" He sat and thought and then said, "I think that I have had a couple in the last six months".
  Mr. Lubbock: The hon. Member will forgive me for saying so, but he has fallen into the very trap I was warning about in treating the system in those countries as though they were identical with those where the single transferable vote applies. Naturally, those representatives do not get letters from their constituents because the list is so vast, with on it the names of candidates determined by the party, so that the individual elector has very little interest in who is representing him. Where there is the single transferable vote the elector has the opportunity of choosing between candidates put forward as representing a party—Fianna Fail, for instance—and he has a very strong interest in the person he is electing and will communicate with him.
  Mr. English: I entirely accept that there is a difference, but I do not think I would at all accept the hon. Member's description of the list as "vast" in the case of a Swedish constituency which usually has five or seven members. It is not a vast list, but a list of five or seven. The hon. Member is not using adjectives correctly by saying that it is a "vast" list. It is perfectly possible for the individual under the Swedish system to know and vote for his Riksdagman out of five or seven or whatever the number may be.
  The fact remains that there is not the close degree of contact between member and elector that there is with the single-Member constituency system, but, irrespective of that, I do accept, as I say,

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  that what is true and desirable for national Government may not be appropriate on the local government scale.
  This is where the hon. Member for Orpington spoilt the best part of his case. He could have said that he would like to see this done with the consent of the Greater London Council or of its electors. He has not said that. He wishes to impose his proposal on the poor old Greater London Council as we have in the past imposed our system on all councils. This is a substantial weakness in what one might call a liberal position.
  I ask the Under-Secretary of State, while rejecting the Amendment, to express a view on the possibility of local authorities having electoral systems suited to them, which may not be the same as ours, in any consideration of the reform of local government.
  Mr. Onslow: I will not follow the remarks of the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English), interesting though they are, since I do not wish to prolong the debate. I wish merely to comment on one or two points raised by the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock).
  I agree with him that we have still some way to go before we approach the idea of a real democracy. I can think of many more reasons than the absence of a single transferable vote in our system for our being as distant as we are from anything that can be claimed to be a real democracy. Most of the shortcomings, which I would analyse if I were tempted to do so, would be found not far from this Chamber.
  The point we are considering is the basis of elections and the case for having multi-Member constituencies and the single transferable vote. The hon. Member for Orpington was good enough to admit that in the G.L.C. by-election for Bromley only 20 per cent. of the electorate turned out to vote. I am not surprised that the figure was so low. I believe that the smaller the unit in which an election takes place the higher the percentage of voters is likely to be. I feel, and I have not heard him suggest this, that a Parliamentary by-election for a seat which had 250,000 electors would probably not produce a poll of more than 40 per cent.
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  I would regard this as a bad thing, a negation of democracy and all the other epithets which can be hurled about. The people will not vote because they do not know what they are voting about. It is the crystallisation of the issues and the personalisation of the candidate which will get people to the polls. A seven-Member constituency with an electorate of 350,000 is moving away from any real participation by the voters.
  The hon. Member said that there was an alternative, that a multi-Member constituency could be broken down into fractions for by-election purposes. Pre sumably, a constituency returning seven Members would be broken down into parts of one-seventh to each Member. If one Member who had been returned died or resigned, then the by-election would take place in one-seventh of the constituency. How is this to be sorted out? Is the oldest Member to take the safest seat, thus avoiding the danger of sweeping defeats for Governments in by-elections, or is there to be a previously registered preference on these lines, "If elected, I undertake to put myself down for the one-seventh part which includes Orpington "?
  This is entirely unworkable and ex tremely complicated. Why not stick to the single-Member constituency, which works extremely well? The only answer which the hon. Member for Orpington gives is that with a single-Member constituency there cannot be a single transferable vote. If forced to choose, I would come down unquestionably on the side of the single-Member constituency which serves this Parliament well.
  Mr. Merlyn Rees: I will deal first with the remarks made by the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock). I was sorry to hear him say that he thought the Parliamentary Commissioner had been a failure. My view, like his, is that the intention was not to replace the Member of Parliament. The Member of Parliament representing the single constituency does so much work and, when they were talking about a Parliamentary Commissioner, people did not appreciate that they were arguing for the wrong reasons.
  In my five years in the House of Commons, the one thing which has impressed me is that Members of Parliament of all political persuasions, including Ministers, act as Ombudsmen.

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  The work of the Parliamentary Commissioner is additional to that, in a direction in which the Member of Parliament by himself would not be so successful. The Parliamentary Commissioner does not replace Members of Parliament but adds to their efficacy. Underlying that is the value of the single member representing the single constituency.
  The hon. Gentleman sent me a copy of his pamphlet "One man, One vote". Taking up the point made there, even if, in the Winston Churchill sense, a man comes to an area as a carpet-bagger, it is not long before he will identify him self with the needs of that area.
  The Amendment is one which has been argued many times over the last 30 years; I do not criticise that because it is a perfectly respectable argument, but I was sorry that in tabling the Amendment the hon. Gentleman should seek to denigrate the existing system, which is a point my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) mentioned. The pamphlet speaks of Members in safe seats not doing their job properly—
  Mr. Lubbock: Some.
  Mr. Rees: Some, or a few of them. Whether or not a Member does his job properly is not influenced by the size of the majority. But, of course, the size of the majority is one part of the argument of the hon. Gentleman. His argument is about safe seats and that in such a constituency a person might never vote for the candidate he wished to be elected. In the 25 years in which I have voted, in every local or national election, I have never voted for the man who has won. I have not felt that I have lost any rights. I have expressed my views by a cross on a piece of paper and, although my candidate has never won, I still have played a part in the democratic process.
  New Clause 2 speaks of the principle of proportional representation. Like the hon. Member for Penistone I once sat at the feet of the late Professor Laski, and I can recall him saying that he had found 949 different methods of proportional representation; no doubt since that day the number has been added to. To be fair to the hon. Gentleman, he has come down with one precise scheme for only the Greater London Boroughs and the single transferable vote.
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  To deal first with the general principle, I have no doubt that most schemes of proportional representation would give more precision to the views of the electorate. In speaking of the views of the 30 million-odd electorate of this country, one wonders if they have precise views that can be parcelled up into the views of small groups of political parties. When television commentators go out into the streets and ask the views of individual electors one finds a curious cross-section of views and it is extremely difficult to decide whether a person is, in terms of this House, left, right or centre. I accept that there would be more precision in terms of people being elected. Even in terms of the Liberal Party, which has a small number of hon. Members in the House, I imagine that one could still find a spread of views.
  5.0 p.m.
  In this country we have, over the years, developed what I think is one of the great strengths of this country, namely, the single member constituency, with the majority candidate elected. The hon. Gentleman said that in countries which have some sort of proportional representation, either by referendum or other wise, the majority of the people prefer the existing system. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that if there were a similar sort of referendum here, there would be the same result. I have always felt that referenda in general never lead to change. Certainly the Australian experience has been of that kind. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman can necessarily read into that some sort of essential truth, except that people like what they have got—an essential con servatism.
  I should be with them in this sense, that the system which we have built up here over the years, bit by bit, is the correct one. Our democracy works, and one reason for that is the clear majority which is given to the Government of the day.
  Mr. Peter Walker: What about 1964?
  Mr. Rees: There was a majority of three then, and hon. Gentlemen say that that led to an incorrect view of how one should deal with the economic situation. But the previous Government had a majority of 100 for five years, yet they

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  did not deal with it, either. Indeed, they got their majority in 1959 by paying more attention to getting votes than to dealing with the economic situation. I am sure that if the Chief Whip were here he would agree that he had greater control over the Parliamentary party when there was a majority of three, than he has with a majority of 80.
  Mr. Lubbock: Is it not a reasonable hypothesis that if the Government had had a more substantial majority in 1964 they would have taken firmer action to deal with the rebel regime in Rhodesia, and that they would have devalued a long time before they did?
  Mr. Rees: I was a mere P.P.S. at the Treasury at that time, and it is not for me now to comment on questions of devaluation. I think that the hon. Gentle man is wrong in what he says about Rhodesia. I think that there were many other complicating factors in that situation which made it difficult to deal with other than the size of the Government's majority in the House of Commons.
  We do not, as a result of our system, have monolithic parties. If anybody had sat down at the beginning and asked, "What sort of a constitution shall we have?" or "What sort of political parties shall we have?" I am sure he would have drawn the conclusion that our system would have produced monolithic parties, because, on the face of it, it seems that that would be so. In fact, my experience over five years is that in neither of the major political parties, nor, indeed, in the Liberal Party, does the existing system lead to aught else than a multiplicity of views. On both sides of the House people are held together by strange bonds which look to be thin, but which are powerful and allow great diversity of opinion. People talk about the Whips, and about Members being Lobby fodder. This is simply not the case. It is true in a certain essential and important way, but it is not true that our system does not lead to a great diversity of views. If one looked at the relatively few members in the Chamber now, one would expect different attitudes and different outlooks on a common cause. I therefore reject the general principle.
  Over the years the G.L.C. has been a remarkably well run authority. In the
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  days of the London County Council, and going back to before 1888, when it was the Metropolitan Board of Works, it was always exceptionally well run. There is something good about it. I should be the last, therefore—and I shall come in a moment to the point made by my hon. Friend—to want to introduce this system of the transferable vote into the G.L.C. I accept that at the moment the Labour Party is under-represented on the G.L.C. I suspect that on the 1964 General Election the Conservative Party was under-represented, but I do not think that it matters very much. It might offend the purists, but it does not offend me very much. There has been a swing in popular opinion, in terms of 1964, for almost extra-Parliamentary reasons. The G.L.C. is not an authority which I should want to muck about with, because it has been remarkably successful.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) said that perhaps one could have a variety of election systems for different local authorities but I could not commit anybody on that. If local authorities are to be bigger—and all the signs of informed public discussion seem to lead that way—I hope that embedded in them there will be small enough authorities to have on them the man or the woman who is the local representative, because the work done by local councils is extremely important. In the cities in the North—I accept that the position is different in the South where there is a more fluid society—at all hours of the day and night people knock on the door of the man who is the local councillor, and it is important that we should maintain that state of affairs.
  Mr. English: I am not, naturally, asking for any assurance now that my hon. Friend will do any such thing. What I am asking is that he should try to ensure that somebody in his Department studies this possibility. If, for example, we have larger authorities, I strongly suspect that in the south-western one the present system of election will allow little scope for the Labour Party, and I leave the Opposition Front Bench to form their own opinion of how many members they might have on the Welsh one.
  Mr. Rees: If there is a change in local authority structure, this will be a matter for many Departments, and I am sure

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  that that will be borne in mind. I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that sympathetic remark, and that the Committee will reject the new Clause.
  Question put and negatived.

New Clause 6

  AMENDMENT OF SECTION 69 OF 1949 ACT
  After paragraph (c) of subsection (1) of section '53 of the Representation of the People Act, 1949, there shall be inserted the following' nor, after the issue of the writ in a Parliamentary election, or the publication of the notice of election in a local government election, shall any person incur such expense with a view to influencing persons to give or refrain from giving their votes to a candidate or a group of candidates at that election, otherwise than by or through a candidate's election agent'.—[Mr. Strauss.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  Mr. G. R. Strauss: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
  May I anticipate one criticism which may be made against the Clause, and that is that it is imperfectly worded. I have no doubt that that is so, as I have not had the technical help which the Government receive to word complicated and difficult legal provisions effectively. I hope that as a result of what I and some of my colleagues say the Home Secretary will agree to my proposal in principle, or will agree anyhow to consider it, and then, when it comes to Report, to put into proper, water-tight, legal form.
  I must go back in history to explain the purpose of the Clause. The 1944 Speaker's Conference came to the conclusion that the existing provisions for limiting expenditure during elections was in sufficient, and that something more was necessary than to lay down the maximum amount which candidates were entitled to spend. The conference came to the conclusion that it was desirable that expenditure by outside bodies should be limited, and that such expenditure should have to go through the ordinary machinery, in other words, it should be returned by the election agents in the ordinary way.
  That principle is very important. It was accepted by Parliament and during
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  the debates in 1948, which preceded the 1949 Act, it was clear that everyobdy—the Government, the Opposition, and all hon. Members who took part—accepted the principle that outside bodies should not have unrestricted freedom to spend such moneys as they wanted in support either of a candidate or a political party during the election campaign. That was the general concensus and it is a principle which everybody must now accept. I am sure that the Home Secretary does.
  The result of that general agreement was the passage of Section 63 of the Representation of the People Act, 1949, and I should like to read to the Committee the relevant part of it. Subsection (1) says:
  "No expenses shall, with a view to promoting or procuring the election of a candidate at an election, be incurred by any person other than the candidate, his election agent and persons authorised in writing by the election agent on account

  (a) of holding public meetings or organising any public display; or

  (b) of issuing advertisements … "

  Everybody thought that that was clear and simple, carrying out the intention of Parliament and the generally accepted principle that money must be limited in the weight which it is allowed to carry in an election. Otherwise, the parties which have the greatest funds or who have friends and supporters with the largest resources would be at an unfair advantage. As I say, it appeared that the principle was enacted in that way, and so everyone thought until 1952.
  In 1951, Tronoh Mines Ltd., after the Writ had been issued and during the election campaign, caused an advertisement to be inserted in The Times supporting the Conservative Party. That advertisement was perfectly clear and blatant, and, when the subsequent case was heard, it was accepted that the advertisement was one supporting the Conservative Party. A prosecution was brought by the Crown against Tronoh Mines for offending against Section 63 of the Representation of the People Act.
  Having studied the Act carefully, the judge came to the conclusion, in short, that the wording of the Section did not

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  carry out Parliament's obvious intention and that the words which I have quoted—
  "No expenses shall, with a view to promoting or procuring the election of a candidate at an election, be incurred"—
  referred to a single candidate, it being legitimate for anyone, any organisation or outside group, to spend as much money as they liked on propaganda supporting two or more candidates, so long as—I think that this is the supposition which was accepted—the actual name of a candidate or a constituency was not mentioned. In other words, general propaganda supporting one or other party could be issued by any outside body during an election campaign, and any such body was perfectly entitled so to do.
  This was wholly contrary to Parliament's intention when it passed the 1949 Act. Moreover, it put outside bodies at an advantage over candidates or political parties. Candidates cannot do it. The political parties do not do it, During an election campaign, any money which they spend has to be allocated and put in the election agents' returns.
  To fortify myself on this point, I inquired from my own party what its procedure was and what happened about election propaganda costs during a campaign. This is what I was told:
  "During the period of a Parliamentary general election, all expenditure that could be regarded as an election expense, that is to say, advertising, printing and publicity, speakers' expenses, posters, etc., becomes chargeable to the election agents against their written authorisation or order. After the issue of the writ, nothing is supplied by head office unless it is ordered by an election agent. All national advertising is stopped and all publications are withdrawn from general sale, except for single copies. Even the expenses of the Leader or Prime Minister or other main speakers are charged to the election agents of the candidates whose constituencies they visit."
  I am sure that the Conservative Party adopts the same procedure. Thus, it is clear that the political parties accept Section 63 in the letter and spirit intended.
  But now we find that other bodies need not do so. A Co-operative society, the Aims of Industry, or any other organisation is free to carry on any propaganda during an election campaign unrestricted and not required to make returns. They can do it to any extent they like.
  I give an example of what might happen. At a hard-fought election cam-
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  paign in Birmingham, the outcome in many constituencies might be in doubt. After the Writ has been issued, any propaganda and any election activity which costs money from the headquarters of the Conservative Party—I take it as an example—or any activities organised locally by candidates or agents would have to be returned in the election agents' figures. All comes within the limit laid down by Parliament in the 1949 Act, and, now, in the present Bill, in Clause 8. Thus, the parties both locally and nationally may spend only the limited sum authorised by Parliament.
  5.15 p.m.
  If we do not remedy the flaw in the law which was disclosed as a result of the Tronoh Mines case and Mr. Justice McNair's judgment, the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, for example, might well say, after the Writ has been issued," We are prepared to spend £20,000 in Birmingham on advertisements in newspapers, on posters, on organising meetings, and so forth, in general advocacy of the cause of the Conservative Party". That would be lawful, yet I cannot imagine that any hon. Member on either side would regard it as right or just.
  Can this situation be satisfactory? Does my right hon. Friend consider that such a body as Tronoh Mines should be entitled to indulge in unlimited expenditure, after the issue of the Writ, asking people to vote for a particular party? The party headquarters cannot do it and local candidates cannot do it without returning the expenditure. Does my right hon. Friend consider that such a situation as I have suggested could happen in Birmingham would be defensible? Would it be in accordance with our democratic principles and the general agreement among all parties that the amount of expenditure during an election should be limited?
  That is the purpose of the Clause. On occasions in the past—not many, but some—outside bodies have taken part in an election. One thinks of the Freedom Movement, the National Socialist Movement and the like. They have not done so on a big scale yet, but when the import of the McNair judgment in the Tronoh Mines case is appreciated people will realise that there is no reason why all sorts of bodies indirectly interested in

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  politics should not undertake vast expenditure after the Writ has been issued.
  There has been some argument about whether there ought to be a limitation on expenditure during the period proceeding an election, whether moneys spent by the parties or outside bodies during the weeks and months leading up to an election should be limited in some way, on grounds of fairness. The case for that is arguable. It has been turned down on the general ground that it would be impracticable and would be an improper limitation on freedom of speech and freedom of advocacy for any cause which any individual or body wishes to put forward. But there is no case for having no limitation after the Writ has been issued and the election campaign is on.
  I ask my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to consider this matter care fully. Perhaps he will not want to give an answer today, but I hope that he will assure us that he will consider the matter sympathetically and amend Section 63 of the 1949 Act so that it conforms with what was intended by all sections in Parliament at the time, no longer permitting the abuse which could occur as a result of the judgment in the Tronoh case which permits outside bodies of great wealth to participate to an unlimited ex tent by propaganda during an election campaign.
  Mr. A. P. Costain: I listened to the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) with care and attention and I have a great deal of sympathy with his case, but I am in some difficulty to know exactly what he means by an advertisement. For instance, we read in the papers today that the British Steel Corporation is considering putting up the price of steel. Suppose that that coincided with a General Election and the Corporation wanted to publish an advertisement to say that the cost would be increased by the 7½ per cent. which is being discussed. Would the right hon. Gentleman make it clear whether that would be an advertisement in favour of the Socialist Party or one in favour of the Conservative Party? Frankly, I see it as a splendid advertisement for the Conservative Party. Does he contend that this could be charged to the advertising of the Conservative Party?
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  Would the Minister make it clear what is meant by an advertisement? I find it difficult at the moment to think of any article or comment in a newspaper which is not an advertisement for the Conservative Party. Would the right hon. Member assure us that any news items or advertisement would not be considered favourable to the Conservative Party, even though it is difficult to see how they can be favourable to the Socialist Party?
  Mr. Strauss: I am grateful to the hon. Member, as this enables me to add a sentence which I had intended to include in my original speech. Of course, this would be for the judge to decide, but I must make it clear that the acceptance of my Amendment would in no way restrict newspaper comment, letters to news papers or the ordinary freedoms now enjoyed. But if any question arose as to whether some announcement was an advocacy of one party or another, that would be a matter for the court to decide.
  Mr. Costain: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that partial explanation, but it does not answer my question. The G.P.O. recently advertised about the rise in postal charges. We are used to so many announcements at the moment of increased charges because of the Socialist Government. Would the right hon. Gentleman make it clear that his proposal would exempt them from being charged to the Conservative Party? They are against the Socialist Party be cause of that party's performance, but they should not be charged to the Conservative Party because of the failures of the Socialists.
  Mr. Mendelson: In supporting this Amendment and the powerful case which my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) has made, I am immediately up against the main difficulties which the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) has raised—although his first example was more amusing than his second. It did not gain by repetition.
  First, I support the important principle which my right hon. Friend has introduced. It is, I think, common ground in all Parliamentary democracies that it is a desirable and fundamental aim of constitution making and amending to ensure as far as humanly possible that every elector has an even chance to support his point of view publicly. For instance,

  471
  there is a great deal of trouble from time to time in the United States about the precise conditions under which funds have been contributed and campaigns run on behalf of one party or another or on behalf of particular candidates. A great deal of legal work has been done on this subject, far more than in this country.
  Indeed, to hold a fair balance between various capital interests and people disposing of great financial resources in the United States has often made up the entire Presidential campaign: towards the end of the campaign, people are arguing not about foreign policy or taxation but about the purity of the campaign. This teaches us a lesson. We do not suffer from so much of this nowadays, but there might well be a good deal of it in the future. That is why this is a very important Amendment which my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary should sup port in principle.
  I now come to the important difficulty raised by the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe. To put it in the form of a formula rather than of an example, it is the difficulty of limitation and definition. In all debates in recent years on this subject—Mr. Speaker's Conference also discussed this matter—the problem of limitation and definition has been the central point of argument. As a matter of principle, his subject is not unique in presenting this difficulty. It is Parliament's experience over the years and the centuries that, while a principle is not in dispute, there is often a difficulty of limitation and definition. If we were to throw up our hands every time this difficulty arose, the amount of legislation—some hon. Members might regard this as highly desirable—passed by the House would be reduced to a tiny minimum.
  Therefore, it cannot be sufficient, as the hon. Member has done—I say this in all friendliness and in no polemical spirit—to produce two absurd examples and say that he has thereby killed the case—
  Mr. Costain: I gave two examples of advertisements which would, in all innocence, be to the benefit of the Conservative Party. Would the hon. Member give the Committee the benefit of opposite examples which might be to the benefit of the Socialist Party, since I can think of none?
  Mr. Mendelson: I do not intend to do that, since I am rejecting as sufficient to kill the case the production of two absurd examples. If I were to follow his tempting invitation and produce another two examples, I should have accepted his underlying argument that he had killed the case—and I do not.
  To proceed with my argument, which is rather different, where this difficulty arises, Parliament is not guided by absurd examples. It rejects them and then tries to limit the case and recommends legislation to do this as far as is humanly possible. After that process, it is left to the courts to determine what Parliament meant and to say, "This is our judgment", thus creating a body of case law, or, as sometimes happens, the judges might say, "Parliament has not put into the correct words what it obviously intended, so we must judge differently, and if Parliament takes a different view, it must pass amending legislation, upon which we will act accordingly". This is not an unprecedented situation.
  On the hon. Member's two examples, it would not be beyond the wit of man, the Parliamentary draftsmen and my right hon. Friend and his advisers to find a definition which clearly excluded that type of case. There is a real difference between publishing a routine statement about the price of stamps or steel and publishing a statement for which one would buy space in a news paper for £5,000, saying," We appeal to people to vote for Mr. X", or, in this case, since they would not be allowed to do that, "to vote for the Labour Party or the Conservative Party". Anyone who argues that no form of words could be designed to make clear the distinction for the courts to apply between an advertisement calling upon people to turn out the present Government and vote Conservative and one which announced an increase in the price of steel by 3 per cent., is not making a very serious case.
  My point, which remains, therefore, is rather different. The danger is very great that more and more interested groups might move into this field and that those who are skilfully preparing campaigns in the three years "run-up" to the General Election might not wish to be identified too openly with the continuation of the campaign.
  5.30 p.m.
  A firm or organisation might be running a campaign for two years prior to the General Election campaign actually beginning and prior to writs having been issued. At that point an advertising company might be hired to take over the job, and we know what could happen then. Advertising agencies are becoming more prominent in the political process and in a recent case a foreign Government hired an advertising company for this purpose. Only through the ineptitude of one of the directors of that company did the facts come to light, and the campaign end. However, one must not assume that all advertising companies will be as amateurish as that one. I am referring to a case involving the Greek Government. Other people may not writer semi-secret reports only to have them discovered and the facts published in the newspapers.
  At this time, when advertising companies are becoming more important in political activities—when the indirect approach is being preferred to hide political intentions—there may be a real danger, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall pointed out, that if we leave the law as it stands and is now being interpreted, the whole election process as we have known it may come to an end.
  Elections are for the electors and candidates. They play the essential rôle. However, we live in an age of television when a great deal of mechanical reporting is occurring. This has already created the danger of reporting being regarded as more important than the election campaign itself. There is also the danger of campaign incidents being staged in such a way that they will become more important in the eyes of some people than the discussion and debate between the electors and candidates. This is a danger which Parliament must consider.
  If this trend is not stopped in time, it may result in the present balance between candidates and electors being seriously upset; whilst the expenditure of candidates, parties and electors is strictly limited interested groups from out side are free to spend vast sums to influence people to the detriment of our political life.
  [Mr. BRYANT GODMAN IRVINE in the Chair]
  Miss J. M. Quennell: I had not intended to intervene at this stage, but certain issues have been raised which need careful consideration.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) raised that the problem of defining an advertisement. How would the new Clause affect the freedom of the normal democratic processes to express opinions? The right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) said, in effect—the hon. Member for Pennistone (Mr. Mendelson) said the same thing—that the courts had to decide these matters and that if Parliament had to spell everything out in detail and be pernickerty over every piece of legislation, we would never get anything done.
  Ignorance of the law is no defence in Britain. It is, therefore, incumbent on Parliament to ensure that legislation is clear, precise and as well defined as possible. Woolly law is bad law and there are already far too many judicial decisions awaiting the consideration of eminent gentlemen in wigs and gowns. Although judges make some excellent decisions, we must be precise.
  I admit that the right hon. Gentleman has drafted the new Clause clearly. It says that
  "… after the issue of a writ in a Parliamentary election … such expense …"
  may be incurred only with the permission of
  "… a candidate's election agent".
  Mr. Strauss: I do not understand the difficulty which the hon. Lady is emphasising about definition. I am merely attempting to extend the present law. This contains the necessary definitions and these have been in operation for many years. At present they cover only the election of individual candidates in individual constituences. I want to use the same definitions to cover candidates in a large number of constituencies, or candidates generally. The present law is already wide. I wish to make it wider.
  Miss Quennell: That may be true, but let us consider the situation today. The business of Government covers a wide sphere. A body might be in existence

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  for the discussion of economic affairs and these activities might be held to have a political connotation and be applicable to one or other of the parties. One might say the same of social affairs.
  A large number of Motions appear on the Notice Paper and hon. Members receive letters urging them to sign some of them. At election time the societies concerned with the promotion of the objectives of those Motions circulate people in the constituencies telling them whether or not certain hon. Members have or have not signed certain Motions. If the new Clause as drafted becomes law, it will not be possible for them to circularise people without writing to the election agents of every candidate—with 630 constituencies, and about three candidates fighting each one, a great many letters would have to be sent out—before being able to pursue their aims. In our democracy those aims are perfectly legitimate. I hope that the Home Secretary will bear in mind the possible impediment which this could place on the free expression of opinion, which, in our democracy, we consider to be perfectly legitimate.
  The right hon. Member for Vauxhall attached great importance to the con sequences of the Tronoh Mines judgment, but that was some years ago and I do not believe that the lack of this new Clause would result in the Measure suffering.
  Sir Stephen McAdden: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Petersfield (Miss Quennell), I had no intention of taking part in the debate until I was stimulated by the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) and the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson). As one would expect, the proposition put forward by the right hon. Gentleman was reasonable and sensible—and, perhaps, a very good idea—but in advocating it he drew upon our experience in earlier legislation. He pointed out that in 1949 Parliament had drafted legislation which had the blessing of all parties. They all thought that they knew what they were up to, only to discover subsequently that Parliament had not tied things up as tidily as they had thought. The right hon. Gentleman has tabled a new Clause
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  which he thinks will improve the position, but I am not so sure that it will.
  As I understood him, the hon. Member for Penistone said that we need not worry too much about niceties of drafting because it will be for the courts to decide whether what is done is against the intention of Parliament—
  Mr. Mendelson: No. I said that, quite apart from two absurd examples, we still have to wory about the drafting, but that I do not rgeard it as being beyond the wit of the Home Secretary's advisers and of the Parliamentary draughtsmen to produce watertight drafting.
  Sir S. McAdden: I heard the hon. Gentleman say that later, but earlier he said that it would be for the courts to decide what Parliament meant. I am not a lawyer, but I do not think that his is true at all. It is not the job of the courts to decide what Parliament meant but what Parliament said. The Home Secretary will recall that in earlier gaming and betting legislation Parliament meant all sorts of things. We thought that we had got it all nicely sewn up, only to discover that Parliament's intentions were not accurately translated into the Measure, and subsequent legislation became necessary.
  Mr. Mendelson: All I said was, and I repeat it now, that if the judges feel that what Parliament meant is not absolutely clear they are entitled by long constitutional and legal practice to go through the arguments in order to discover Parliament's intention.
  Sir S. McAdden: That may well be, but it is not the judges job to go contrary to the law, and if the law lays down some thing in imprecise terms it is not the duty of the court to decide the matter.
  I was intrigued by the example which the right hon. Gentleman gave of some of the consequences that might ensue unless his Clause was incorporated. He said that at a General Election the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce might, without naming any names, take several thousand pounds worth of space in the Birmingham newspapers advocating the cause of a particular political party. That might be so.
  The Southend, Westcliff-on-Sea and District Chamber of Trade, which covers

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  my constituency, has recently taken space, and has issued posters headed,
  "Don't blame the shopkeeper for rising prices."
  It lists under the causes of rising prices, Selective Employment Tax, increases in Purchase Tax, and so on and so forth. That seems to me to be a perfectly reason able activity for a chamber of trade to engage in; to call the attention of the population to the fact that the increases in prices which the shopkeeper can charge are not his fault but arise out of a series of impositions placed on them by the Government.
  But if I understood him aright, the right hon. Gentleman would not, in the course of a Parliamentary election, allow any such truthful statement to be made by anyone unless it had the imprimatur of the election agents—
  Mr. Strauss: We are, of course, only talking about the period between polling day and the issue of the writ. If, during an election, a chamber of trade issues in his constituency such a circular as the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, which was blatantly Conservative propaganda, it would be committing an offence, and could be prosecuted.
  Sir S. McAdden: I very much doubt whether the issue of a truthful statement that the shopkeeper is not to blame for high prices can be described as blatant Conservative propaganda. The statement may not even mention the Socialist Government. The chamber of trade just lists the increases in taxation with which the shopkeeper has been loaded—
  5.45 p.m.
  Mr. Costain: Has it escaped my hon. Friend's notice that when I put two perfectly reasonable examples before the Committee the hon. Member for Penistone said that they were absurd, but when he put a case the right hon. Gentle man said that it was propaganda—when can we get at the truth?
  Sir S. McAdden: That is one of the difficulties in trying to lay down in the new Clause what is and is not to be permitted. As my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) has pointed out, since the celebrated case to which the right hon. Gentleman referred there has not been any wide spread abuse by people using vast sums
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  of money to distribute propaganda on behalf of Conservative Governments, or Liberal Governments or Socialist Governments. So we must not worry too much about that.
  Whilst, superficially, the right hon. Gentleman's idea may appear to be attractive, it imposes some fairly severe limitations. The way in which the right hon. Gentleman rose at once to say how wicked it was that the Southend, Westcliff-on-Sea and District Chamber of Trade should issue a poster drawing the attention of the public to the sufferings imposed upon them by Government, without mentioning the Government, seems to indicate a fairly drastic curtailment of the rights of free speech. It comes rather oddly from the right hon. Gentleman, who I understood was opposed to censorship in all its form, that he should now want to stop people from speaking out as they have to those with whom we are inflicted at present.
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. James Callaghan): My right on. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) first indicated that he did not want me to say anything that would destroy his Clause on grounds of inadequate wording. I hope that he has known me long enough to know that I will not rely on any such argument. It would not be worthy argument to say that because the wording was defective we should reject the Clause, because if the arguments were good it would then be for the Government to find wording that would fit in with his objective. My right hon. Friend need have no fears on that score.
  As I understand the Clause, its general intention and effect is to prohibit general political propaganda after the issue of a Writ in a Parliamentary election or publication of a notice of election in a local Government election.
  At present, general political propaganda is not an election expense. Election expenses are defined in Section 103 of the Representation of the People Act, 1949, as expenses incurred
  "… on account of or in respect of the con duct or management of the election …"
  Therefore, expenses incurred by an adopted candidate in promoting and disseminating the political opinions of the party to which he belongs and in holding

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  meetings merely for that purpose are not expenses in the conduct and management of his election, even though the candidate may be incurring those expenses with reference to his future election, because he hopes, if he can establish the principles of his party, to be in a majority in the constituency so that when he comes to be the actual candidate he will get elected. In a case decided some time ago it was held that ward and other meetings held during the period of 16 months be fore the election to promote the interests of the Conservative Party were not election meetings, and that the expenses of such meetings were not incurred in the conduct and management of the election. I am sure that most of us are relieved to hear that.
  It is on this principle that hon. Members and prospective candidates are free to address meetings on political subjects before the election campaign commences. When an election is deemed to have commenced for the purpose of election expenses incurred by a candidate has to be determined in the light of all the circumstances. A candidate knowing that an election is bound to occur in the near future may incur election expenses before the date of a General Election is announced or the Writs are issued. It is as well that we should remind ourselves of what the position is.
  Section 63, to which my right hon. Friend wishes to attach his Amendment, widens the scope of election expenses by requiring certain expenditure to be authorised by a candidate's election agent thereby bringing it within the definition of election expenses. The case of Rex v. Tronoh Mines in 1952 related to an advertisement in The Times which was designed to promote the election of candidates other than Socialist candidates in the General Election of 1951.
  The judge took the view that Section 63 (1) is not intended to prohibit expenditure incurred on advertisements designed to support, or having the effect of supporting, the interests of a particular party generally in all elections, at any rate at the time of a General Election, and not supporting a particular candidate in a particular constituency. He ruled that the Section does not prohibit expenditure the real purpose or affect of which is general political propaganda even
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  though that propaganda does incidentally assist a particular candidate. I think that states the law as it is understood to be at present.
  We now come to an interesting point, the case in which a former Prime Minister was involved, the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home). In that case it was decided that expenses on party political broadcasts are not within Section 63, I assume on the ground that they are general political propaganda. That leads me to the point about difficulty of definition in this matter. I share my right hon. Friend's view about this. The hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) has mined an unsuspected vein of humour in his make-up this after noon, but I hope that he, too, will share the general sentiment that it is wrong that great organisations should be able to throw the whole of their financial weight behind individual candidates in an election. That is the reason why Parliament lays down the maximum limit that may be spent on elections.
  Those figures and those limitations have been born out of our experience in the past. So, despite the hon. Member's fun, I hope he will appreciate—
  Mr. Costain: May I interrupt the hon. Gentleman?
  Mr. Callaghan: No, not for the moment. The hon. Member had his joke once and a second time. A third time would be getting a little tedious. He will appreciate that there is a real problem which has to be met. It is one which most of us, on reflection, if we are not advancing our party's interest, would agree is for the health of democracy. It is that individuals should not be sup ported to a tremendous extent by great corporations, or indeed by individuals—that they should not be bought. This is one of the reasons why we must put these limitations on and why we should endeavour as far as possible to define them as closely as we can.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Peters-field (Miss Quennell) that there have not come to light any great abuses since 1952. The case was decided and it might have been thought that following from that there would have been a whole spate of this kind of thing, but that has not in fact happened.
  Mr. Strauss: I mentioned a number of interferences by various bodies, not on a vast scale, it is true. Application was made on several occasions by the Labour Party to the Director of Public Prosecutions to take action on one, but the party was informed that in view of the wording of Section 63 it was impossible to do so.
  Mr. Callaghan: I am aware that there was the recent case in connection with the organisation called Aims of Industry, but I said that there were not many cases of this sort. Although my right hon. Friend may have mentioned one, or even two, there is not a great number in view of the size of the problem and the difficulty which would arise if we were to adopt this proposal.
  The purpose of the new Clause is to forbid general political propaganda after the issue of the Writ in a Parliamentary election. This would bring us up against quite formidable difficulties which have to be weighed against the principle I have enunciated. The new Clause would permit general political propaganda incurred after that date only through a candidate's election agent. One minor consequence would be that candidates who now incur personal expenses which do not at pre sent have to be incurred by or through the election agent would under this rule have to incur them through the agent in future. That is a minor point and no more, but it is worth mentioning that a candidate is entitled at present to certain expenses which do not have to be vouched for by the agent.
  The let out for general political propaganda incurred by or through an election agent raises problems concerning the election agent's consent and the apportionment of expenses between the candidates concerned. The difficulties can be posed by considering again the question of party political broadcasts. Does the expense of the broadcast fall solely on the candidate or the candidates taking part? This would have to be apportioned in some way.
  Suppose it was a by-election and the broadcast coincided with the by-election. General political propaganda would not be possible unless it had been sanctioned by the candidate's agent. It would be necessary therefore to avoid political propaganda during that period. That would be unfair when party political
  482
  broadcasts are laid down according to a strict schedule. These are things which would have to be considered and taken into account. Suppose there was a broad cast during a by-election—I give an extreme example—in which only their Lordships took part. Which candidate would have to vouch for the expenses? It clearly could not be done. Would it be all the candidates supporting the party concerned, or all those who approved the broadcast, or a sufficient number who were prepared to foot the bill?
  We are in a difficult field here. Similar difficulties would be faced when deciding whether to prosecute. Suppose that an expense had been incurred on the under standing that part of it would be met by one or more of the candidates. The problem is different from that which arises under section 63 (1) since under that Section it is limited to the election expenses of one candidate.
  Mr. Strauss: I am not sure whether my right hon. Friend is aware that national party broadcasts during an election are at present excluded from election expenses which have to be accounted for by individual agents. National propaganda in newspapers and on posters is not excluded, but television or radio talks are already excluded, so no problem arises there.
  Mr. Callaghan: That was exactly the point I was making. Perhaps my right hon. Friend did not hear it. I said that under his new Clause it would be necessary to apportion those expenses, but it would be physically impossible to do so.
  I come to what I regard as the important part of the new Clause. That is the question relating to support of candidates. My right hon. Friend mentioned support of candidates by the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce. He said, correctly, that at present election agents supplied by Transport House with literature during an election have to pay for it. I dare say the same is true of the Conservative Central Office. The argument by my right hon. Friend that the law at present prohibits the major political parties from incurring expenditure on general political propaganda after nomination day but does not likewise prohibit the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce is thought to be incorrect.
  Mr. Strauss: No.
  Mr. Callaghan: I am giving my right hon. Friend an opinion. The major political parties can incur expenditure in connection with party political broad casts precisely because they concern general political propaganda not related to the particular election of some person.
  6.0 p.m.
  I do not think that the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce should take too seriously what my right hon. Friend said or be tempted into the political field too quickly, because I am advised that expenditure by a more local body like the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce might be held to be so closely allied to the activities of the candidates it was supporting in some or all of the Birmingham constituencies as to come within Section 63 (1) as incurred
  "with a view to promoting or procuring the election "
  of those candidates. This would be a matter for the courts to decide. In such a case, the elections would be set aside.
  I think that the major parties are wise at the moment to discontinue a great deal of general political propaganda unless it is channelled through their local election agents, as soon as an election is declared, because the law is uncertain on this subject. Even though the law is uncertain as to the extent to which general political parties can undertake general political propaganda—it is not ruled out, but the law is uncertain as to how far they can go—it would certainly be very unwise for a chamber of trade or commerce to insert advertisements or take up space somewhere or other to advocate policies so closely related to policies being put forward by the local candidates that the chamber could run the risk of having the elections invalidated.
  Perhaps the protection is greater than my right hon. Friend thinks. I agree that the matter has not been decided in the courts, but it is right to utter this warning, because if this is the view which is held at present it would be wrong not to state the view as it is held, and as I understand it, and as I think that Parliament wanted it to be under the original Act.
  Mr. Sharples: The Secretary of State has referred to the Birmingham Chamber
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  of Commerce. Would not his warning also apply to any body which might be connected with a particular group of would-be Parliamentary candidates?
  Mr. Callaghan: Certainly. This is another reason why we have to be careful. What I have said could be held to apply to a trade union which supported and named a particular group of candidates and asked for support for them. It could be held to apply to a co-operative party which did the same. I mentioned the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce because that was the illustration used by my right hon. Friend. The hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir S. McAdden) referred to his own chamber of trade. I hope that he will not get subscriptions from that chamber on a false prospectus. He may find when it comes to an election that the chamber will not be able to deliver the goods in the way he would hope.
  I believe that the whole Committee would want us to narrow, as far as we can, the circumstances in which expenditure of this sort can be incurred. It is certainly my desire. I resist the Clause only because I think that it would not be possible to administer it in a way which would meet Parliament's desire without inhibiting the expression of legitimate public opinion during the course of an election.
  My right hon. Friend is right to be vigilant. This is something which Parliament should continue to watch. In rejecting the Clause now I would not feel myself bound to reject a fresh approach to the subject if the kind of circumstance which led to the 1952 case was to be repeated in circumstances which were clearly opposed to the will of Parliament when it enacted this Section.
  Mr. C. Pannell: My right hon. Friend said that he did not think that there had been any case before the courts since the Tronoh Mines case in 1952. Our party has referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions, unsuccessfully, from 1955 the activities of Aims of Industry, Martell's attack on the Prime Minister by a newspaper advertisement in 1964, and the British National Party's activities in the famous Leyton by-election. In the opinion of many people, those activities cut completely across the

  485
  original Legislation, but the Director of Public Prosecutions has taken a very narrow view. This matter was raised during the proceedings in Mr. Speaker's Conference. We say that in the Tronoh Mines case the court took a narrower view that that which Parliament took when it enacted the legislation. This case caused great surprise. I am sure that in fairness my right hon. Friend will agree that we are talking not merely about the cases which have come out into the open. It is whether political parties have felt that there are grounds for such cases.
  Mr. Callaghan: I know that my right hon. Friend has some information on this. I said that cases had been referred to the Director. I think that the Labour Party is more likely to suffer as a result of this than the Conservative Party. My right hon. Friend, therefore, will not think that I would look at this with an unsympathetic eye. I would tend to look at it in rather the reverse way, consistent with my responsibilities as Home Secretary. Having looked at the matter in an endeavour to meet it, I am not satisfied that we would not create more problems than we would solve. Therefore, I rely on my general warning about the consequences of carrying the examples given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall too far in a particular case, town or area.
  Mr. Strauss: It is pointless to pursue the matter. I am sorry that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has not gone further than to utter a warning. It was held in the Tronoh Mines case that an offence is committed only when the propaganda is directed to a particular candidate in a particular constituency. The warning my right hon. Friend gave about what might happen in Birmingham does not hold water, because according to Mr. Justice McNair's judgment—there has been no further judgment on the matter—Birmingham Chamber of Commerce would be perfectly entitled to issue propaganda dealing with the whole of Birmingham, because that would be directed to a large number of candidates in a large number of constituencies.
  Mr. Callaghan: My right hon. Friend is entitled to his interpretation of the law. I am entitled to mine. I do not claim to be correct. I can only give the
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  Committee the best advice I have. I repeat that I hope that my right hon. Friend will not encourage the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce to indulge in this sort of thing by telling the Chamber that his view of the law is correct, that I hope he is wrong in this matter, and that I hope that no candidate's election will be invalidated if it is challenged in the courts and the Chamber is found to have been involved in expenditure which is found to be ultra vires.
  Question put and negatived.

New Clause 7

  AMENDMENT OF SECTION 4 OF 1949 ACT
  In the Representation of the People Act 1949 for section 4 (3) there shall be substituted the following subsection:—
  (3) A person who is detained as a patient in any establishment maintained wholly or mainly for the reception and treatment of persons suffering from mental illness or mental defectiveness under section 26 or section 60 of the Mental Health Act 1959, or who is the subject of an order made by the higher courts under section 65 of that Act, or who is the subject of an order made by the Secretary of State under section 71 or section 72 of that Act, or who is detained in legal custody at any place, shall not by reason thereof be treated for the purposes aforesaid as resident there.—[Mr. Lubbock.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  Mr. Lubbock: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
  I was relieved to hear the Secretary of State say at the beginning of the speech he made on new Clause 6 that he rarely relied on the argument that Amendments have not been correctly drafted. I am certain that the Clause is not correctly drafted, although I have spent some time thinking about it. In a few moments I will explain to the Committee what the difficulty has been.
  The Clause seeks to amend Section 4 (3) of the 1949 Act, which says:
  "A person who is a patient in any establishment maintained wholly or mainly for the reception and treatment of persons suffering from mental illness or mental defectiveness, or who is detained in legal custody at any place, shall not by reason thereof be treated for the purposes aforesaid as resident there."
  To put it in rather more simple language, this means that a person resident in a psychiatric hospital is not entitled to use

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  that hospital as his address for the purposes of registration.
  The difficulties which arise from this provision in the Act of 1949 have been drawn to my attention by the National Association for Mental Health, which wrote to me on 29th November about the consultations which it had had with the Home Office in the past year. The Assistant General Secretary said in her letter:
  "The Royal Medico Psychological Association and ourselves have had some correspondence with the Home Office in the past year and, perhaps as a result, have been pleased to note that householders were reminded this year on their return for the electoral roll that they should include informal patients in psychiatric hospitals who normally reside at their address. However, we know that many informal patients have no home or other settled address outside, and we are anxious that they should have the same voting rights as the others. When it actually comes to voting, the final decision as to whether a patient or, indeed, any other person is in a fit state to vote rests with the presiding officer at the polling station."
  Of course, that power of the presiding officer is dealt with in paragraph 36 of Schedule 2, which enables him to ask an elector who is applying for a ballot paper," Are you the person registered in the register of Parliamentary electors for this election, as follows"—and then the presiding officer reads out the name, and the person has to reply "Yes", Obviously, if that person is not in a fit state to understand the question, he will not be able to exercise his vote, and the presiding officer has to have the answer "Yes" before allowing the person to proceed.
  We have a situation where the Home Office, very wisely, has issued a reminder to householders that if they have relatives or friends normally resident at their addresses, but who are in psychiatric hospitals for the moment, they may be included on their returns.
  The difficulty arises with patients who have no such relatives or friends, who are permanently resident in psychiatric hospitals and who, because they have nowhere to be registered, are not entitled to exercise their votes.
  In this Clause, I suggest that, to the extent that these people are what are called informal patients, they should be entitled to register as being resident at their hospitals. My difficulty is that nowhere in the Mental Health Act, 1959,
  488
  is there a definition of the word "in formal". It is used in the sidenote to Section 5 of the Act. I suppose that one could have said that any person who is in an institution as a result of the provisions of Section 5 of the Mental Health Act, 1959, shall be entitled to register at that address. However, I have done it the other way round and excluded from the right to be registered at such an institution all those who are admitted other than as informal patients.
  I have tried to go through the Sections of the 1959 Act to which this consideration applies. It has not been necessary to deal with them all. For instance, Section 25 allows a person to be detained for only 28 days. Section 29 deals with observation in the case of emergency, and the period is limited to 14 days. Section 51 refers to children and young persons. Section 73 concerns prisoners in custody. Finally, there is the Sixth Schedule, which refers to patients who were legally detained prior to the 1959 Act. The other Sections of the Act which I have mentioned apply to people who are not in formal patients, and I propose amending Section 4 (3) so that those persons should not be treated as resident in the hospitals for the purposes of registration.
  The number to whom my Clause applies is quite considerable. If one refers to the last Annual Report of the Ministry of Health, which is that for the year 1967, one sees that, on 31st December, 1966, there were 175,186 patients in psychiatric hospitals.
  6.15 p.m.
  Mr. James Dempsey: Would the hon. Gentleman be good enough to define what he means by "psychiatric hospitals"?
  Mr. Lubbock: The phrase used in Section 4 (3) is slightly different and refers to
  "… any establishment maintained wholly or mainly for the reception and treatment of persons suffering from mental illness or mental defectiveness … "
  I have not modified that phraseology in putting forward this new Clause, because I think that it is well understood by the Home Office and others who are concerned.
  I was discussing the number of patients in psychiatric hospitals and giving the Committee the figures which I

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  have taken from the last Annual Report of the Ministry of Health. In a further letter to me from the National Association of Mental Health, the Assistant General Secretary says:
  "… some informal patients, even those who are in hospital for quite long periods, have a settled address which they use or can use for voting purposes. However, at one hospital with about 700 beds of which we made inquiries, only about 200 patients came into this category. Of the remainder, about half were regarded as too old and/or confused to vote, leaving about 150 who had no settled address other than the hospital and were capable of voting. At another hospital of similar size we were told that more than half the patients had no settled address outside the hospital. In yet another hospital, about twice the size of the first two, an even smaller proportion of patients had no address which could be used for voting purposes."
  The Assistant General Secretary goes on to say:
  "As detained patients form such a small proportion of all patients in psychiatric hospitals"—
  I do not think that it is necessary for me to go through the figures, but they make up a minute number in comparison with the 175,000 informal patients—
  "… it is clear that the vast majority of those who have no settled address outside the hospital are informal patients. Many of them will be as fit to vote as those with a family or landlady prepared to put their names on their householders' returns."
  It seems reasonable to argue that, if one is entitled to exercise the vote and is fortunate enough to have a relative or friend at whose address one can register, equally one should be entitled to exercise the vote if one has no other address than the hospital in which one is being treated as a patient.
  The wording of Section 4 (3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1949, is too narrow as it stands. The Under-Secretary of State would be both logical and democratic if he agreed to this Clause.
  Mr. Sharples: I want briefly to sup port what the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) has said. Until he spoke, I had not realised the extent of the problem. It is clear that a good many people who are informal patients in psychiatric hospitals normally reside at those hospitals. The problem is a real and difficult one, and I am quite sure that the Under-Secretary of State will consider it sympathetically if he feels able.
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  The hon. Member for Orpington pointed out realistically the great difficulty in drafting a new Clause to cover such a point as this. I doubt whether the Under-Secretary of State will be able to accept it as it stands. I think that there are deficiencies in it. However, if he could give the Committee an undertaking to look sympathetically at the general problem to see whether, on Report or while the Bill is passing through the other place, it was possible to meet the point, I am sure that hon. Members on all sides would be grateful.
  Mr. Merlyn Rees: I shall look at the question very sympathetically and consider what we can do to help. So that discussion shall not take place simply in the Department and among people who already know the facts, it may be helpful if I say something about the situation. That may throw a new light on the matter for some people, as one or two of the remarks of the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) did for me, which is the purpose of debate.
  Section 4 (3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1949, as amended by the 7th Schedule to the Mental Health Act, 1959, reads as follows:
  "A person who is a patient in any establishment maintained wholly or mainly for the reception and treatment of persons suffering from mental illness or other form of mental disorder, or who is detained in legal custody at any place, shall not by reason thereof be treated for the purposes aforesaid as resident there."
  That is the starting point.
  When I am dealing with the general principle, it may be a small point to add that the words "… or other form of mental disorder, …" apply to England and Wales. In Scotland, the words used are "or mental deficiency", and in Northern Ireland they are replaced by the words "or arrested or incomplete development of mind". I do not know whether that leads to any profound differences between the three parts of the United Kingdom.
  The new Clause would prohibit the registration of a patient legally detained in psychiatric hospitals under the Mental Health Act, 1959. I think that the inference of the way the hon. Gentleman has worded the Clause is that it would permit the registration of an informal

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  patient at such a hospital, that he is concerned with the informal patient alone.
  Mr. Lubbock Mr. Lubbock indicated assent.
  Mr. Rees: An informal patient—in general terms, that means one who is free to return home—in a psychiatric hospital may be registered as an elector at his home address under the law. He may have been registered before becoming a patient, or may be registered while a patient. A legally detained patient may also have been registered before becoming a patient, but after becoming a patient he is not entitled to be registered any where.
  The registration of patients in psychiatric hospitals was considered by Mr. Speaker's Conference, which recommended that steps should be taken to bring to the attention of persons completing Form A in Schedule 1 to the Representation of the People Regulations, 1950, that a patient free to leave a psychiatric hospital from time to time may be included on the form.
  That recommendation has already been implemented, and Form A pre pared for the canvass of the 1969 Register, the form which has recently been filled in, asked occupiers to include
  "… those who normally live at your address but are temporarily away, e.g. on holiday, as a student or in hospital (including informal patients in psychiatric hospitals)."
  The law, to some degree, makes a differentiation between the legally detained patient and the informal patient, a term which includes the voluntary patient.
  I have been putting some facts on the record so that we have something on which to work. We are left with a smallish group of informal patients who may have been missed out because they were in hospital at the time of registration. Surely they should be covered because there is somebody to register them? The narrow point that we come down to is: what happens when there is nobody to register them?
  Mr. Lubbock: The point I made was that the number of such patients is surprisingly large. According to the inquiries made by the N.A.M.H., in one hospital with 700 beds only about 200 patients had an address which they could
  492
  have used outside the hospital for registration purposes. Of the remaining 500, 150 patients were perfectly fit to vote, in the hospital's judgment, but were not capable of being registered. It is quite a big number.
  Mr. Rees: I shall certainly look at the question.
  There is one other point—one always finds interesting twists to the curious little problems that arise on Bills such as this. If patients in psychiatric hospitals were entitled to be registered at the hospital address, the register for constituencies and local government electoral areas in which the hospitals were situated would be swollen by a considerable number of persons having little connection with the area, and suffering from varying degrees of mental disorder.
  This would raise a problem in Surrey, in parts of which there are large numbers of psychiatric hospitals. One figure I have had is that there are a total of 179,000 informal patients in the county. In some areas, if informal patients were all registered at the hospital their number would be such as to enable them to elect candidates from amongst themselves if they wished. I do not say that that would necessarily be unusual, judging from what one sometimes sees in politics. But there are curiosities in this matter if we take it too far.
  I have thought aloud in an attempt to be helpful. It was my inclination to resist the Clause, and I ask the hon. Gentleman not to press it. But if we can help with this marginal problem in some way, without opening up an avenue that would lead to other difficulties, we shall do so.
  [Mr. SYDNEY IRVING in the Chair]
  Mr. Dempsey: The Clause raises a vital matter of principle. My hon. Friend described it as marginal, but I think that validity is a much more descriptive term. It raises the vexed problem of whether a person detained voluntarily or statutorily in what we in Scotland call a mental hospital should have the right to decide which candidate should represent him in Parliament, when the patient is mentally disordered or mentally deficient but has sufficient faculties to make that decision.

  493
  That is the vital point. We should not talk in terms of whether there are scores, hundreds, or a few thousand people involved. In our democracy, of which we are very proud, such people should be given every encouragement.
  Therefore, what we are discussing is the limitations that might be set on the Clause if its intent were accepted by my hon. Friend. One comes across various questions when dealing with the problem. For instance, there are people who have no domiciliary residence and are resident in mental hospitals in my part of Scot land. I know someone who has been nearly two years in such a hospital. His residence has gone, but he has many faculties.
  This is the type of person whom the psychiatrist would say was capable of exercising his vote, but, under present legislation, there is no hope of his being able to do so. However, he might be given that opportunity if my hon. Friend would consider whether, on Report, we could introduce a new provision. It is certainly worth looking at.
  6.30 p.m.
  In my part of the country, we have in many instances to say to persons who have left council houses to enter the hospital for treatment," We are sorry. We cannot keep your home going indefinitely. You are likely to be domiciled in the hospital for some time and we are taking away your home. But should the day arrive when your medical practitioners recommend your release, we will provide a home for you at that stage."
  I hope that my hon. Friend will grant that this means that, for an interval after a man is released from hospital, he has no home and, therefore, although quite capable to taking part in community life and in elections, does not have the right to vote if an election takes place. This arises because he was not registered, having no domiciliary residence. Yet he could not have had a residence because his local authority took it from him when he entered hospital. It is unfair that persons of that calibre, no matter how few, should be deprived of the right to vote.
  There are other persons who spend long periods in hospital. I knew a lawyer who worked in his office during the day, but stayed at nights in hospital
  494
  for treatment. He had no domiciliary residence because he was really domiciled in the hospital. Yet he was capable of attending to his legal duties during the day. It gives a good deal of credit to lawyers when they can practise in this way and give people advice. That gentle man lived to a ripe old age.
  It is clear that, if there are individuals who are capable of voting but are pre vented from doing so by a technicality, the Government should consider introducing a suitable provision on Report. We have a duty to these people. They are citizens. They probably smoke and pay tax on their tobacco or cigarettes. They pay tax on their sweets. If they are capable and it is said by their psychiatrists that they are fit to exercise their responsibilities to the State, they should be given every opportunity to do so.
  I hope my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will seriously consider this situation and earnestly study what has been said in the debate and that, on Report, he will bring forward a provision giving these individuals the same right as others in the United Kingdom—the right to vote.
  Mr. David Steel: This has been a constructive and useful debate and my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) is to be congratulated on raising the subject. Since we have had such a good reception from the Under-Secretary of State I only want to add one point. I face this problem in my constituency and my hon. Friend the Member for Bodmin (Mr. Bessell) tells me that, at St. Lawrence's Hospital, in his constituency, he has had a similar experience.
  At Melrose, in my constituency, I have a large hospital, Dingleton. It is a very progressive mental hospital which, at election times, invites the candidates to come and meet the staff and address a meeting. I have been there at each of three elections and on each occasion it has been pointed out to me that the majority of those who have come to listen would have no vote, although, in the main, they were voluntary patients and were not detained. This was felt to be a grave injustice, but I never thought that we would have the opportunity to

  495
  put it right because so often one hears complaints and all one can say is," Perhaps one day this will be put right."
  I hope that the Government will look at this case sympathetically. I think that we are going through a welcome revolution in our treatment of mental illness and in our attitude to the stigma attached to it. It is curious that psychiatric patients admitted to a general hospital would be qualified to register and vote at an election whereas the law says," If you are in an institution recognised as a psychiatric hospital, you may not have the vote."
  But the psychiatric hospitals are opening up. There is much more involvement with the local community. The Under-Secretary of State suggested that it would be wrong, for example, if a large number of people with no local community or constituency interest residing in a mental hospital registered and thereby swamped the register. My reply to him is that long-stay patients, with the development of psychiatric hospitals, are becoming more and more involved in the community and are encouraged so to do. This proposal, therefore, although small, would be a consistent and significant step in helping to remove the stigma illogically attached to mental as against physical illness.
  That is the sole point I wish to represent. No one suggests that the vote should be given to those detained or certified in mental hospitals. I think that we are all agreed on that; but I hope that the Government will look at the question as it involves voluntary patients very sympathetically.
  Mr. Merlyn Rees: I repeat that I shall look at this matter extremely sympathetically. As the debate has gone on, it has grown on all of us that there are more problems than perhaps we felt at the be ginning.
  The hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) has made it clear that we are talking about informal or voluntary patients. I would not like anyone to think that, in talking about the effects of a large number of people being registered in a locality, I would not have said the same in the case of, for example, university students or anyone else. I was not referring
  496
  specifically to the problem as it concerns people having to be in hospital.
  I want to leave the matter in this spirit. I agree that there is a new attitude to the problems of mental illness. It is not per haps that mental illness is growing, but that our understanding and treatment of it becomes more civilised. Perhaps, in this civilising attitude the Committee will accept my undertaking to look sympathetically at this question and consider what can be done.
  Mr. Lubbock: In view of the helpful reply by the Under-Secretary of State, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
  Motion and Clause, by leave, with drawn.

New Clause 8

  AMENDMENT OF SECTION 23 OF 1949 ACT
  In section 23 of the Representation of the People Act 1949, in subsection 7 the words 'rural district or' shall be left out.—[Mr. Lubbock.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  Mr. Lubbock: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
  The Chairman (Mr. Sydney Irving): With this Clause we will also consider new Clause 9, Amendment of section 23 (7) of the 1949 Act:
  Subsection (7) of section 23 of the Representation of the People 9ct, 1949 shall be amended by leaving out the words 'except, in England and Wales, elections of rural district or parish councillors'.
  standing in the names of the hon. Member for Petersfield (Miss Quennell) and the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley), and Amendment No. 76, in Schedule 3, page 33, line 24, at end insert:
  8. In section 23 (7) the words from 'except' to the end of the subsection shall be omitted.
  standing in the name of the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Ron Lewis).
  Mr. Lubbock: This Clause enables me to return to a point I made briefly on Second Reading, namely, the difference in treatment, as far as postal votes are concerned, between urban and rural district councils. This arises from Section

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  23 (7) of the Representation of the People Act, 1949, which states:
  "Postal voting shall be allowed at all local government elections, except, in England and Wales, elections of rural district or parish councillors."
  On an earlier Amendment, we tried to provide for postal votes to be given to orthodox Jews who were unable to cast a vote in person if an election were held on a Saturday. It was pointed out to me on that occasion that we could only solve that problem as far as urban district councils were concerned because there is no provision in our legislation for a similar right to be extended in rural district council elections.
  I therefore hastily put down this Clause so that we might have an opportunity to discuss the matter. It would go wider than enabling orthodox Jews and other minorities to exercise votes on Saturdays or other holy days.
  We are discussing whether there should be any distinction between the U.D.C.s and the R.D.C.s, bearing in mind that the responsibilities of these authorities are very much the same, and that people wishing to use a postal vote are more likely to be in spread-out areas than in a closely-knit urban community. Think of the old person who is infirm and consequently needs a postal vote, because she cannot get between her home and the polling station. If she lives in a spread-out rural area she is more likely to need the postal vote than if she lives in the middle of a town governed by a U.D.C. That is the essence of the argument.
  I understand that the Rural District Councils' Association has made representations to the Home Office in favour of postal voting being extended to rural elections. I think that there is an argument for the further extension to parish councils too. This is recommended by the Amendment of the hon. Member for Carlisle. The National Association of Parish Councils has written to me pointing out that parish and rural district council elections are always held to gether, so it would be no additional administrative inconvenience if postal votes were conferred in those elections, too.
  I would have liked to have had time to go back to the discussions on the Representation of the People Act, 1949, to try to understand why this distinction
  498
  was made. I have not had the time to do this, but no one with whom I have discussed the matter since it arose can think of any logical reason. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will give as sympathetic reply to this as he did to the last debate.
  Mr. Ron Lewis: I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) and I am hoping to go a little further than he is suggesting in his new Clause. This is a very important matter, dealing with postal and proxy voting. The hon. Gentleman said he could not understand why the 1949 Act was not extended. I may be wrong, but I gather that at that time both the Rural District Councils' Association and the Parish Councils' Association were against that principle. I speak tonight only on behalf of the Rural District Councils' Association, which has come out firmly and strongly in favour of postal and proxy voting being extended into rural and parish areas.
  Take the example of a blind man who can become a postal voter in Par liamentary, county council, borough or urban elections, but not in rural or parish council elections. In a rural election, he may have to travel much further to the polling booth than if he lived in the towns. Unsuccessful attempts have been made during the discussions of the Bill to make provisions enabling persons on holiday to vote in Parliamentary elections, but how much greater is the need to correct than anomaly in local elections?
  6.45 p.m.
  It cannot be right if one class of voter is excluded from rights given to another simply because of the area of the country in which he lives. It may be said that there are administrative difficulties in carrying this out. This has been one of the arguments in the past, the timetable of elections and the printing of ballot papers. As one who lives in a rural district council area, I say that the administrative problems should not be allowed to stand in the way of what must be right, and that is that people living in a rural or parish council area should have the same rights as those living in a county.
  Take the case of a father living in the countryside and his daughter-in-law

  499
  living in the city. It could happen that both were ill at the same time, but the father, because he lived in a rural area, could not vote by post while the daughter-in-law, living in the town, could do so. On 21st November, the Government announced that they intended to introduce legislation to settle the pattern of local areas in Wales. Details produced show an amalgamation of boroughs, urban districts and rural districts into districts. Unless postal voting is with drawn from the former borough and urban districts there has to be an ex tension of postal voting. I hope that this local government apartheid, which has been with us so many years will go. What is fair for the town is equally fair for the parish. I hope that my hon. Friend will meet the wishes of these people.
  Miss J. M. Quennell: I am delighted to support the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) in his new Clause. I have one on the Notice Paper relating to much the same subject. While he has not had time to go into the history of this case, the Clause which I have tabled is a culmination of a long argument that I have had with the Home Office over many years. The hon. Gentleman became acquainted with this anomaly within our electoral structure as a result of dealing with orthodox Jews, while I became aware of it a year after I entered this House, in 1961, in connection with handicapped persons.
  It applies to them just as much. I thought it only fair to give the Under-Secretary fair warning, so in the Second Reading debate I warned him that I would
  "seek to correct a serious omission from the Bill … "—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th November 1968; Vol. 733, c. 981.]
  I noticed when I spoke a look of bewilderment upon his face, and I realised that all those years of correspondence with the Home Office had disappeared into limbo. That was not really surprising. The position arises from Section 23 of the 1949 Act. This was a far-reaching and complex Act, but it was put on the Statute Book 20 years ago, in the light of knowledge and medical experience of that time.
  Many war injured people were about, and it was assumed that they would tend to live in towns rather than in the country.
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  As medical science has progressed and made it possible for handicapped people to take their part in the community, and to be effective taxpayers and ratepayers, they have spread much more widely into the countryside. I cannot say precisely how many handicapped people who are confined to their chairs there are, but there are thousands of them—I would think about 10,000.
  Section 23 of the 1949 Act made pro vision for most classes of people eligible for postal and proxy voting. This is why handicapped people and presumably orthodox Jews in urban districts enjoy the facilities of postal and proxy voting, but not those in rural districts. A nation wide apparatus of electoral machinery has been established covering every parish and rural district under the 1949 Act. This is why the anomaly is so ridiculous. Every county division has this apparatus, and, therefore, every parish is covered, but Section 7 of the 1949 Act excludes rural districts. It provides that postal and proxy voting shall be available for all local government elections and then goes on to knock on the head all rural district and parish council elections in England and Wales. I am not brave enough to trespass into the Kingdom of Scotland. I leave that to Scottish Members and the bravery of the Home Office.
  The effect on handicapped people is that they can cast their vote at Parliamentary elections because they have access to the postal or proxy facilities as rate payers. But they cannot cast their vote at district council elections, not because they are statutorily barred or because they are criminals or lunatics, but simply and solely because they are crippled. I do not believe that any hon. Member would willingly accede to the continuance of this state of affairs.
  Between 1961 and 1964 I received a number of letters from the Home Office to the effect that when the legislative opportunity occurred this anomaly would be borne in mind. In 1965, we had Mr. Speaker's Conference and the appointment of the Advisory Committee to the Home Office, and their recommendations have been incorporated in the Bill. But, unfortunately, there is no provision in the Bill to correct this unjustifiable anomaly which denies a small group of people, who are perfectly good taxpayers and ratepayers, the same rights in a democracy which others enjoy.

  501
  Let me try to visualise the arguments which would be adduced against this proposal. In.949, the Rural District Councils' Association and the Parish Councils Association were a little afraid. The 1949 Act was far-reaching and they were not sure how the new machinery would operate. There was fear of undue expense and undue complications. But the mere fact that the postal and proxy facilities were established so widely under Section 23 of the 1949 Act, and because they exist in respect of every county division and therefore in respect of practicaly every parish, the polling station apparatus is in existence. This new Clause would simply enable the use of the existing apparatus The additional cost must be marginal. There could be no consequent expense from the Clause in connection simply with proxy voting.
  There is one other point which we should bear in mind. A Royal Commission is currently considering the whole structure of local government. It is not unlikely that it will make recommendations which would radically alter the structure. It is possible that district councils will assume far greater importance than they possess now. It would be intolerable if the denial of the full franchise to a small minority of citizens were to be extended.
  Mr. Onslow: You may remember, Mr. Irving, that I was once a member of the Dartford Rural District Council. I came across this ridiculous anomaly when I first stood for election. I never under stood it. It caused much resentment among the electors. On behalf of the people whom I used to represent, and whom you now represent, Mr. Irving, I strongly support the new Clause.
  Mr. Sharples: I support the new Clause. There is broad agreement in the Committee that the law as it stands is wrong and that a change should be made either on the lines proposed in the Clause or by going even further and taking in parish councils as proposed in the Amendments put forward by other hon. Members.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Petersfield (Miss Quennell) speaks with great knowledge of this subject. I am one of her constituents. She represents a constituency covering a very large
  502
  number of rural district councils. We should pay careful attention to what she has said. One important point which she raised concerns the outcome of the Royal Commission and the effects which that will have on the pattern of local government. As she rightly said, a number of people are prevented from exercising the right to vote enjoyed by others because they live in areas covered by rural district councils.
  The hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Ron Lewis) rightly said that administrative difficulties were likely to be advanced against implementing the change proposed in the new Clause. He said that administrative considerations should not be allowed to stand in the way of a principle if that principle was right. I support his view. I believe that there is general support for it.
  I appreciate that there may be very considerable administrative difficulties, but I do not believe that they are insuperable. I hope very much that when the Under-Secretary replies he will tell the Committee that it is his intention to get over those difficulties and to find a way round them if that can possibly be done.
  7.0 p.m.
  Mr. Merlyn Rees: We are considering two new Clauses and another Amendment. The object of the first new Clause is to extend postal voting to rural district council elections. The second new Clause would extend it to rural district and parish council elections. There is one odd quirk—one learns all the time—and I think that the point may have been omitted by accident, but there are a few rural borough council elections; there are such cases, and I see that hon. Gentle men are as surprised as I was to learn that.
  The object of the Amendment is to ex tend postal voting to all local government elections at which it is not allowed at present, that is, rural district, rural borough, and parish council elections. My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Ron Lewis), by his Amendment, covered the point which the second new Clause missed out—that is, that of the rural boroughs.
  The hon. Lady the Member for Peters-field (Miss Quennell) said quite correctly that she had been in touch with the Home

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  Office over the years. I have her correspondence here. I had always thought, in my innocence, that one never saw correspondence with the previous Administration. However, I imagine this is not exactly the 50-year rule, or anything like that. I have looked at it, and it shows that she has stuck to her last over the years.
  The situation now is that under Section 23 of the Representation of the People Act, 1949, as amended, there are postal votes for all local government elections except rural district, rural borough, or parish council elections. The rural boroughs are a few former municipal boroughs of great antiquity which managed, I think before 1957, to get this type of organisation. Postal votes arose for the first time after the last war. They were a new venture. We have had discussions in recent weeks about how far they should spread. I accept straight away that we are not on that argument, and that there are strong views one way and the other. The argument now is that for certain local government elections, citizens who would have the right to vote in other local government elections do not get that right in those particular local government elections. I accept straight away that this is more than an anomaly, that it is something which must be put right.
  In 1946, the Oliver Committee on Electoral Registration looked at the whole matter and one phrase in its Report illustrates the difficulties which were seen then. The Committee said, in connection with postal votes in all local government elections:
  "We accordingly recommend that so far as practicable provision should be made for postal voting. …"
  It is the phrase "so far as practicable" which has to be borne in mind. The question of postal voting facilities in the rural district councils, and so on—though I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle has argued about it today—turned on the question whether it was practicable.
  Since that time there has been one change. Since 1956, parish council elections, by Statute—my hon. Friend will corect me if I am wrong—are held at the same time as rural district council elections. This is something which one has
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  to bear in mind. This means that there are certainly two elections, although for different types of authority, taking place at the same time.
  Mr. Ron Lewis: Yes, but surely the difficulty can be got over with postal voting—by having different coloured ballot papers?
  Mr. Rees: I am not arguing that this cannot be overcome and I am not pressing it too far. However, there are problems which I have to consider in deciding what attitude to take.
  The returning officer for a combined rural district, rural borough and parish council elections is the clerk to the rural district council. In many cases he is responsible for a large number of parishes with long lists of candidates in the parish council elections as well as in the rural district council election.
  Again, I do not say that administrative difficulties should not be overcome to meet a principle, but I am advised that it is difficult for the necessary work to be done in time after the close of nominations and that if postal voting were introduced it would be for the electoral registration officer to see that special lists for postal voting in each parish were prepared. But the returning officer would have to have the ballot papers ready about a week earlier. There are, therefore, complications and difficulties. What I want to do is to find a way to overcome these difficulties in elections at that level—I do not mean that these elections are unimportant, rather that they are different from Parliamentary and urban district council elections.
  The real problem is not registration. The hon. Lady made this clear. Registration is relatively a simply matter, in the sense that the machinery is there—for the Parliamentary elections. There is a problem of machinery, however, in relation to the work of the returning officers in widespread areas. All of us know that on the returning officer there are put certain duties at the Parliamentary election level.
  We all of us as candidates have a right to see the opening of the votes and to be at the counting of the postal votes. This is not something I have done very often, certainly not recently, because postal vote openings do not on the whole give my party any indication of what the

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  result will be. However, one is allowed to go along and have a look at the votes being opened and one can get some indication of what is going on. As I have said, there is a problem of the mechanism for dealing with the postal votes in rural district council and parish council elections, and this is why postal votes were not allowed in those fields 20 years ago.
  I would very much like to help. I have tried to be as helpful as possible with other Amendments and new Clauses this afternoon, but in this instance I advise very strongly that, when we are dealing with people's voting, putting crosses on bits of paper, we must be sure that the mechanism and arrangements for doing that are impeccable. This is not some thing one considers lightly. It is not a question of administrative difficulty in the normal sense of the term—that is not an argument which one would press too far—but there are administrative difficulties when one talks of spreading postal voting to other fields. In Parliamentary elections, at least, the mechanism is there. One can talk of overloading, and so on, but what I am now arguing is that the mechanism for dealing with rural district and parish council elections in preparing lists, and so on, is not such that I could recommend that this Clause be accepted.
  I thought for a moment during the debate about proxy voting which my hon. Friend and the hon. Lady mentioned, and the problem of the disabled. One has to bear in mind that the proxy vote is for the Service voter. The point is that if one says that we will have proxy voting for one class, however desirable it may be for that class, it then becomes necessary to take into account the arguments which will be put by other people, and I do not think that it would be right, for just one group, to open up a completely new avenue.
  We must make sure that the right given to all those who are entitled to postal votes in Parliamentary elections is also given for rural district and parish council elections, but I think that it would be wrong to erect yet another special class. The hon. Lady in saying that local government reform would not be very helpful in this respect was countering an argument which I had in mind.
  I want to do something about this, and would have done so, had I been able to
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  tell the Committee that I was satisfied with the machinery of dealing with postal votes—it is not a question of the machinery for registration. I have spent some time discussing this matter with interested people and, much as I started out wanting to help, I cannot recommend the new Clause and Amendments to the House.
  Local government will change. I know that the hon. Lady has heard this argument in a different form since 1961. On that occasion, it was said that the time would come when this matter could be dealt with, meaning now; but it is not being dealt with now. The time will come in local government reform when the machinery for looking after postal votes can be applied universally. I am not saying that there are not rural district and parish councils that could do it now, but, in general, I do not believe that there could be the certainty about the organisation that would enable it to be done.
  As the hon. Lady pointed out, it is done in county council elections. The machinery in county council elections is such that I am satisfied that the rules of electoral law that have been built up can be properly carried out in every place.
  Mr. Ron Lewis: Surely that applies to the rural district councils? Is my hon. Friend saying that we have not the intelligence in the rural district councils to be able to carry it out honestly?
  Mr. Rees: No, I am certainly not saying "intelligence", by a long chalk. I am saying that in terms of the returning officer having the machinery for dealing with it, the postal voting facility is not something which can be spread lightly. At county council elections, in the nature of things, it can be done. I do not want to offend anybody, and I have been seeking the right words all along the line.
  Had I felt that there was a way of dealing with this, I would have done so, because I want to. We will look at this most carefully. The intention of my right hon. Friend is that the rights now avail able in local government elections at urban and county council level will also be applicable to parish and rural district councils.
  Miss Quennell: I am puzzled by the Under-Secretary's argument. At a county council election or a General Election the clerk of the rural district council is appointed by the county returning officer to act and he conducts the proceedings perfectly well. I do not under stand why he should now be supposed not to be able to do so.
  Mr. Rees: The hon. Lady is absolutely right; the clerk of the county council handles these elections. I am the last to cast a reflection on anyone, but I advise the Committee that the machinery for dealing, not with registration, but with postal votes, and so on, is something which I would like to be happier about, so that elections can be carried out in the way we expect. As the hon. Lady has pointed out, it is done in this way at county council elections. I am not criticising anyone for his personal integrity, or for what he is doing.
  Mr. Onslow: Will the hon. Gentleman accept that if an authority is fit to levy a rate it ought to be able to administer a postal vote, and that is all there is to it?
  Mr. Rees: I want to be sure that the postal voting arrangements can be carried out. I will look at this again, but not in the light of Report. Much as I want to help on this, I am satisfied that I cannot. When local government reform comes about, which will be very soon, we will look again at the matter.
  7.15 p.m.
  Mr. Lubbock: I cannot pretend that I am entirely happy with the hon. Gentle man's reply, and, I think, neither is he. We are grateful that he has agreed with the principle of new Clauses 8 and 9 and Amendment No. 76, and that he has accepted that, in theory, one cannot argue against the principle on the basis that a person given a democratic right for one type of local authority should have the same right for another.
  I am not sure that I understand the hon. Gentleman's explanation of the administrative difficulties, but I am satisfied that he has looked into the matter thoroughly. I am sure that he would not be taking the view which he puts before the House without having gone into the matter with extreme care and attention.
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  Unhappy as I am about the conclusion which we will have to reach, I will accept his undertaking that the matter will be looked at again after the Royal Commission on Local Government has reported and the structure of local government is recast. I think that we have on the record a positive under taking from him that the same machinery will be applied throughout the whole country when the recommendations of the Royal Commission are implemented. In view of that undertaking I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
  Motion and Clause, by leave, with drawn.

Schedule 1

  REGISTRATION OF POLITICAL DESCRIPTIONS
  The Chairman (Mr. Sydney Irving): The next Amendment selected is No. 54.
  Mr. Sharples: Amendment No. 54 refers to the prescribed fee in relation to the party labels scheme. As the Home Secretary yesterday gave an undertaking that he would take away the whole scheme and reconsider it, it is not my intention to move the Amendment.
  The Chairman: The next Amendment selected is No. 91.
  Mr. Rees: In view of the undertaking given yesterday evening by my right hon. Friend that he would consider the matter raised in Clause 12, it is not my intention to move this Amendment.
  Schedule agreed to.

Schedule 2

  MISCELLANEOUS AMENDMENTS OF PAR LIAMENTARY AND LOCAL ELECTION RULES
  Mr. Onslow: I beg to move Amendment No. 34, in page 26, line 20, at end insert:

  Rule 10

  …

  …

  Deposit.

  The Chairman: With this Amendment we will take Amendment No. 35, in page 26, line 22, at end insert:

  Rule 54

  …

  …

  Return or forfeiture of candidate's deposit.

  and Amendment No. 38, in page 28, line 22, at end insert:
  6. In Rule 8 (1) of the Parliamentary Election Rules (which deals with the number of electors required to propose, second and assent to the nomination) for the word 'eight' there shall be substituted the word 'forty-eight'.
  Mr. Onslow: I hope that the Commit tee will not feel that we have reached too late a stage to spend a few minutes considering an important subject in the con text of elections, that is to say, the deposit. Mr. Speaker's Conference, having considered this matter, decided to make no recommendation, but I feel that the subject is one which could be considered by the Committee, given that there are such few opportunities, and such a long time between them, to consider the basic features of the parliamentary rules.
  The deposit of £150, payable by any candidate standing in an election, is widely thought of as being a deterrent to keep frivolous candidates out of the lists but, on looking back at the history, one finds that is a misconception and that the real purpose of the deposit was to attempt to provide the public with some security against the expenses involved if an election had to be held.
  The present position dates from the Representation of the People Act 1918, which provided that every candidate should put up £150 with the returning officer at the time of nomination. Before that time, under the Parliamentary Elections (Returning Officers) Act, 1875, the returning officer had certain powers to require security to be given for the charges which may become payable.
  It is interesting to note what they were, and to reflect that the maximum charge payable in the case of a county constituency with more than 30,000 electors was £1,000, and in the case of a borough it was £700. It is clear that in 1918 the view was taken that the financial charge involved should be reduced, and that the figure which we now have of £150 is not there to act primarily as a deterrent to frivolous candidates. Perhaps I might mention, in passing, that it is calculated that the equivalent of £150 in 1918 is £52 10s. today.
  At a General Election nowadays all the seats, including Mr. Speaker's seat, are contested. I think that possibly the only present Member of the House ever to have had the pleasure of being returned unopposed is my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Sir C. Taylor). Few of us are likely to be returned unopposed. There will be contests between the official party candidates for every seat in the country, and the question of the deposit is not likely to deter any of those can-
  510
  didates. To suppose that there is any deterrent effect in the deposit seems to be unreal.
  Nor do I believe that the deposit has the effect of deterring what are identifiable as less than serious candidates. For instance, "Screaming Lord Sutch" was not deterred from taking on the Prime Minister at Huyton by the fact that he had to put up £150. Indeed, his advisers may have told him that this could be money well spent. I do not know. But if the purpose is to deter the frivolous candidate, the present situation does not help. Instead, it creates a situation in which we are apparently prepared to tolerate the idea of a financial penalty on candidature, and I find this objectionable.
  We know that the penalty can be considerable. It is only necessary to look at the statistics of some of the General Elections since the war to see how consider able it can be. In 1950, there were 460 forfeit deposits, 319 of which were on the Liberal side. In 1964, there were 187 forfeit deposits, 53 of which came on the Liberal side. In 1966, there were 237 forfeit deposits, and 104 Liberals were unlucky enough not to get their money back.
  I make that point because, in moving the Amendment, I claim complete disinterest. I do not think that the effect of removing the requirement for a deposit will benefit my party at all, and I stand in the paradoxical position of arguing a powerful case for a totally absent Liberal Party.
  Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter (Kingston-upon-Thames): The subject is too painful for them.
  Mr. Onslow: I had thought that I should get some support from the Liberals, at least on behalf of their insurers. I understand that at one time the Liberal Party persuaded an insurance broker to take the risk. I believe that in 1950 they may well have taken their insurers to the cleaners. Whether they can still insure against the risk of losing their deposits I do not know, but I do not consider that it adds to the dignity of an election that any candidate has to insure against the loss of his deposit. This seems to be an unnecessary indignity.
  If the purpose is to safeguard public funds against unnecessary expenditure at

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  an election, I do not think that that works, either. I do not believe that it deters frivolous candidates. We could not argue that the original level set in 1918 would apply today, unless we were prepared to raise it to £400, and I am not prepared to argue that. The financial burdens on democracy are already dangerously high.
  That leads me to suggest, first, that we should withdraw the requirement for a deposit, and, secondly, that we should increase the number of signatures validating a nomination. At the moment what is required is a proposer, a seconder, and eight names. Amendment No. 38 suggests that that should be amended to read a proposer, a seconder, and 48 names, a total of 50. I know that the old election hands will throw up their hands in horror at the idea of 50 people having to sign their names correctly on the election nomination paper, but this is the argument of an idle man. If an agent is so careless that he is incapable of checking that the 50 names are right, and are correctly reproduced in the form in which they are set out on the electoral roll, he is not capable of running an election at all.
  Most of us stand for Parliament fortified by the knowledge that we have more than 10 signatures behind us. It is not unknown for candidates to be put up with two, three, four, or five nomination papers, all perfectly entered, to sup port their candidature. I think it is much more a fair test that a man should be able to say that 50 people wish him to put his hat into the ring, than that he should have to say that he has been able to get 10 people to put their names down, and that as he has £150 he will have a go.
  Mr. C. Pannell Mr. C. Pannell indicated dissent.
  Mr. Onslow: The right hon. Gentle man shakes his head. I put forward that point of view because we see the financial burden on political activity and democracy increasing daily. The Amendment is consistent with the principles of democracy, and if the Bill had been so drawn I should have been glad to couple it with a further Amendment enabling candidates who get a fair proportion of the poll to reclaim a proportion of their
  512
  expenses. I cannot, however, argue that, because to do so would take me out of order.
  I welcome the opportunity of putting my case to the House, and of suggesting that it is much more important, in a man's entitlement to stand for election to this House, that he should be able to bring before the public a substantial number of names to endorse his candidature, than that he should be able to say, "I can, if the worst comes to the worst, afford to throw away £150 ".
  The Under-Secretary of State for Scot land (Mr. Norman Buchan): I have listened with interest to the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow). Basically, this is a simple proposition. I do not think that the deposit of £150 effectively pre vents a freak or frivolous candidature. An example of that was given. A much better alternative is, however, that there should be some evidence of a substantial body of support, in this case it is suggested 48 names. This is a fairly simple proposition.
  There has been a lot of talk about it, but it has never been accepted that this change should be made. I remember Mr. David Butler, the psephologist, arguing that a large number of names should be brought forward in this way, but I do not think that the Amendment would do what the hon. Gentleman in tends. I say that because 48 is too few to establish a substantial body of sup port, and, on the other hand, too many for the comfort of the agent who may, in a great hurry, have to make the proper arrangements.
  Mr. Onslow Mr. Onslow indicated dissent.
  Mr. Buchan: The hon. Gentleman disagrees with me, but we know the difficulties which can be caused by trying, in a short time, to get the whole thing exactly right. We know of the signature which misses out the middle name, or is slightly different from that on the electoral roll, and so on. The figure suggested is too many for comfort, and too few to establish substantial support. I therefore do not consider that the hon.' Gentleman has made his case.
  This is an interesting issue, and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has raised it. I accept that basis of his argument that we should not use finance to prevent

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  the workings of democracy, and I am glad that he rejected the possibility of increasing the amount of money payable. The case for a change has not been made, and I think that we should follow the line of successive Electoral and Speakers' Conferences, and accept the situation as it stands.
  Mr. Costain: Can the Minister tell us the amount of deposits forfeited at the last two General Elections?
  Mr. Buchan: Some figures were given earlier, and I saw no reason to challenge them. I do not have the up-to-date figures. I suspect that both in relative amounts and per party the sum was not unlike some of the figures put for ward earlier.
  7.30 p.m.
  Mr. C. Pannell: The hon. Gentleman was a member of Mr. Speaker's Conference, as I was. There is something in the point which he makes that £150 in 1918 is worth only about £52 now, but he knows that we took that into consideration. Whereas it might have been a burden in 1918, it is less of a burden row, so Mr. Speaker's Conference deliberately decided to keep it as a relatively small financial penalty. As for "Screaming Lord Sutch", it was probably worth more for the publicity to him, and in any case he probably earns far more than the Prime Minister does.
  Mr. Onslow: Oh, come!
  Mr. Pannell: Yes, he probably does, or he gets it in one way or another. The hon. Gentleman had better not tempt me on that issue, and, for the sake of argument, perhaps I should speak of "any" Prime Minister. The whole affair was frivolous, and it was rather a bad thing in itself that we had that candidature, but I do not regard it as a good case to argue from.
  Now, the point about signatures. I am not at all sure that what the hon. Gentleman says is right. I can remember one occasion when the question of a nomination paper was raised and the returning officer said," As long as the person is identified as that person, I shall take the paper ". However, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman's agent could tell him about these things. There is
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  always the tested nomination paper, the one which is put to the returning officer, which is 100 per cent. right. We all collect the other nomination papers—from the branch of the A.E.U. in my case, from the British Legion in another, from the Soroptimists in another, and so on. These are the dummies, the decorative nomination papers.
  After having spent a good deal of time on this matter in conference and having taken part in a collective decision, I cannot see an affront to democracy in the arrangements we now have. I think that it is probably a good thing to indicate that Parliamentary candidature is in no sense a frivolous matter, and I should not want it ever to be so, but, though I listened with sympathy to the hon. Gentleman's argument, I feel that we shall approach the subject rather more responsibly if we leave the position as it is.
  Mr. Onslow: I am much obliged to the right hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell), the level of whose reply, if I may say so, was more studied and less superficial than that of the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. I despair of getting any sense out of the Under-Secretary, and I suppose that I had better withdraw the Amendment, though I do so with reluctance.
  I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Mr. Sharples: I beg to move Amendment No. 94, in page 27, line 12, leave out paragraph 2.
  The Chairman (Mr. Sydney Irving): We may discuss, at the same time, the following two further Amendments: No. 36, in page 27, line 16, leave out 'ten' and insert 'a quarter past nine'.
  No. 37, in page 27, line 16, at end insert:
  Polling hours at local elections
  3 In rule 3 of the local election rules, for 'eight o'clock in the morning' there shall be substituted the words 'seven o'clock in the morning', and for 'eight o'clock in the evening 'there shall be substituted the words' a quarter past nine in the evening', and the proviso to paragraph (1) and the whole of paragraphs (2) and (3) shall be deleted.
  Mr. Sharples: Paragraph 2 of the Schedule extends the hour of polling at

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  Parliamentary elections from 9 until 10 o'clock at night. This matter was debated on Second Reading, but one of the difficulties which the House found, and which its Committee still finds, is that the Government have advanced no argument in favour of the change. I understand that it was one of the matters considered by Mr. Speaker's Conference, which came to the conclusion that no change should be made.
  Before agreeing to what is now pro posed, the Committee should be told what evidence has been put to the Government to persuade them to reverse the decision of Mr. Speaker's Conference. If an important decision like this is to be taken, there must have been clear evidence and pressure put on the Government to that end.
  From whom did the pressure come? Did it come from representatives of the trade unions? If there is a real demand for the extra hour from any broadly representative section of the community, no one would wish, by opposing such a move, to prevent people from exercising their right to vote.
  Is the change intended to meet the problems of shift workers? We have not been told. Was there pressure from employers' organisations? We must have clear answers to these questions. Did representations come from any of the main political parties? Was it felt by any of them that people were being deprived of their right to vote by the closing of polling stations at 9 o'clock instead of 10?
  Did representations come from any of the bodies concerned in the conduct of elections or in the administration of Government generally? If there is such evidence, the Committee should be plainly told.
  Mr. C. Pannell: At a time when we want to get away, the hon. Gentleman asks all these questions although he knows that the answer to each one of them is, "No".
  Mr. Sharples: If the answer is "No", as the right hon. Gentleman says—he knows much better than I do, since he was a member of Mr. Speaker's Conference—I do not know it and, if
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  the Committee is asked to make a major change in the electoral system the Government should tell us on whose recommendation it is proposed.
  What consultation took place? Were there consultations with any of the interested bodies? What was the view of the various societies representing returning officers? They are the people who have to administer elections and on whom grave responsibilities lie. If they objected to this proposal, the returning officers may have said that there were administrative difficulties. Administrative difficulties are by no means insuperable, but we should look at the matter from the point of view of the officer who is responsible for the conduct of an election.
  Let us think of the clerk at the polling station. At a Parliamentary election, he probably has to be at his place of work at least half an hour before polling opens to make sure that everything is set up properly. If the proposed change is made, he will probably have to remain in the polling station for 15 hours. In many cases, it is difficult for returning officers to arrange reliefs for those who man polling stations at a Parliamentary election when polling is relatively heavy during the whole of the day. Moreover, in many constituencies the same people have to be used for organising and taking part at the count as were used throughout the day at the polling stations.
  Everyone concerned with local government accepts that at General Election times he will have to work very long hours, but there are limits beyond which we ought not to ask those who serve us so well to go. If people are asked to go too far, they will get tired and make mis takes which all of us will regret.
  The Government may say that this is essential to meet the needs of certain people who cannot vote during the 14 hours at present available, but, if so, what is so different about local elections? If someone cannot get to the poll by 9 o'clock at a General Election, what different arrangements is he supposed to make for a local election? If this proposal is accepted, there will clearly be absolute confusion during the first local election after it comes into effect. If there were a March General Election, and

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  the polls closed at 10 o'clock, would any one realise at the local government elections the following April and May that the closing hour was different?
  One thing that we must do is make it possible for as many people as possible to vote in local elections, which are, in some ways, almost as important as General Elections. The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) has said that the hours are different now. They are in the morning, of course, but it is not in the morning that this difficulty arises. Many people put off voting until the last minute. It does not matter whether the polling stations close at 11 or 12 o'clock: these people would still do the same. There is a great difference between different opening hours in the morning—although I should like them to be the same—and different closing hours, which present great dangers.
  This proposal is wholly unnecessary, administratively undesirable and will lead to confusion at local elections. It is directly contrary to the recommendation of Mr. Speaker's Conference and not one shred of evidence for it has yet been offered to the Committee. I do not believe that it should be in the Bill, and unless we get a firm assurance that the Government intend to reconsider their decision, I shall advise my right hon. and hon. Friends to divide the Committee against it.
  Mr. Roland Moyle: I want to draw attention to the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock), proposing that polling stations should remain open until 9.15 only. I suppose that the longer they are open, the more likely it is that there will be a 100 per cent. vote. Traditionally, my party more than any other has pressed for the extension of the hours of opening, but one can have too much of a good thing. We shall have to maintain party workers in action until 10 o'clock and this is not the first time that I have said that party workers who support hon. Gentlemen on both sides are fairly important people in the working of the democratic machine.
  To some extent, we should curb their natural enthusiasm to ensure our return to the House. I know that it is probably fashionable on both sides to think that hon. Members themselves are solely
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  responsible for any electoral triumphs in their constituencies, which is why we often do not pay enough attention to these voluntary and hardworking people who canvass, man polling stations and push out literature—
  Sir Harmar Nicholls: I agree completely that these people are a very important part of the Parliamentary system. Is it not a pity, therefore, that the Prime Minister should have cast a slur on them in saying that, because they are interested in politics, they can not be included in the Honours List—as if they were lepers?
  7.45 p.m.
  Mr. Moyle: I am sure that my own party workers get their reward by seeing me in the House, but I would hesitate to say that the same applied in Peter borough.
  The other aspect of this problem, which is not confined only to my constituency but which I have seen in a number of others in which I have worked, is that the great majority of electors have voted by about 8.30 or 8.45. Therefore, there will be a rapidly diminishing return in keeping the polling stations open a further hour. There is also the problem for the voters themselves who, having voted by 8.30, find while relaxing before their television sets at 9.45 that they are continually knocked up by party workers from both main parties. This will not add to the popularity of party political activity.
  For all these reasons, I should like my right hon. Friend to consider this again, possibly with a view to seeing whether he could not accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Orpington, which is a very sensible compromise.
  Mr. Lubbock: I am very grateful for the support of the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Moyle) and I echo what he said about party workers. None of us, once he is elected, spends enough time considering how much he owes these workers, without whose assistance none of us would be here. To impose on them the great additional load of having to stay on until 10 o'clock, getting voters to the polls and staying on there after as observers during the count—
  Mr. C. Pannell: Scrutineers.
  Mr. Lubbock: I mean scrutineers, a word which I know the right hon. Gentle man prefers.
  This will mean that they will have had a 16-hour or 17-hour day, which is absolutely unreasonable and too much to ask of anyone who voluntarily gives service to make the democratic system work. If I had to call on the Orpington Liberal Association to do it, I know that they would put their shoulders to the wheel with a glad heart, but it would be unreasonable to compel them to spend that much time "at the finishing post" after what has probably been a long and gruelling election.
  Therefore, I have suggested what the hon. Member has been good enough to call a sensible compromise, designed to test the Home Secretary's hypothesis that, because polling stations are closed at 9 o'clock, some people are thereby pre vented from voting and that, if we kept them open another hour, they could do so. Very well, let us advance the hour to 9.15, and we can then make a comparison between previous elections and the first at which this change was made to see whether there was any noticeable difference. But if there has not been, then, as the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Sharples) said, we can only assume that, whatever time polling comes to an end, there will be people who will leave it to the last minute. If one goes to a polling station just before 9 p.m. one usually sees a rush of people to vote when previously during the afternoon it has been quiet. There is a tendency for people to leave voting till the last minute.
  Amendment No. 37 is concerned with bringing the hours of polling in local elections into line with those applying to Parliamentary elections. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam for his support, although I suggest that it is important to make the polling times coincide at both the beginning and end of the day.
  Many people go to polling stations at 7 o'clock in the morning at local elections, having only a month or so previously cast their votes at that hour in a Parliamentary election. However, they find that in local elections the polling stations are not open at 7 a.m. It may be inconvenient for them to return before 9 o'clock at night, or they may say," I have gone to the trouble to arrive at the
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  polling station at 7 a.m., having hurried over my breakfast, leaving me little time in which to catch my train. As they have not bothered to open, I will not bother to cast my vote." I have heard people say this.
  There is no reason why we should not change the hour at which people may vote in local elections to make it coincide with opening time for Parliamentary elections. Indeed, I cannot understand how the difference arose in the first place. At present there is an option at the end of the day under the election rules. There is a proviso by which instead of closing at 8 p.m. the polls may be kept open until 9 p.m. I am informed that in practically every part of the country this option is exercised and the 9 o'clock rule applies.
  I recommend that we no longer need this proviso. Instead, there should be a universal closing time for local elections throughout the country, just as there is for Parliamentary elections. I have suggested 9.15 p.m. for local elections so that both local and Parliamentary election closing times are the same.
  I cannot see any virtue in having a close of poll coinciding with the striking of the clock at the hour of 10, except that it might be easier for people to remember 10 o'clock, which is the only argument of substance in favour of advancing the time by one hour. At first people might go to the polls just after 9 o'clock. They would previously have been prevented from casting their vote. They will find that there is an additional quarter of an hour—that is, if my recommended time of 9.15 p.m. is accepted—and thus be able to cast their vote, which may result in a marginally increased poll.
  Unless powerful evidence can be adduced by the Home Secretary to show why an extra hour is vital, his proposal will create all sorts of difficulties. I am mainly concerned with the plight of party workers, but we must not forget the returning officers and those who are engaged professionally in the conduct of elections. The right hon. Gentleman's proposal will inevitably mean many results not being declared until the following day, particularly if counts must in some cases take place the following morning. Indeed, if the former Leader of the House had his way, we might have had morning

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  polling the following day, the polls having been closed at 9 o'clock the night before
  We are prepared to go a part of the way with the Government to test the feeling of the electorate. If the right hon. Gentleman would accept 9.15 p.m. as a compromise between his suggestion and the system we already have, I am sure that that would be acceptable to the three parties and the electorate as a whole.
  Mr. C. Pannell: I do not think that many of the arguments that have been advanced, however eloquently, on this subject will move the Home Secretary. I wish to advance some that may influence him.
  My right hon. Friend received advice from both of the main political parties saying that there should be two registers a year. He replied that, refretfully, he could not accept that advice. It would have been too expensive. Sir Stafford Cripps abolished the idea in 1949, and then it cost £3 million.
  Bearing that in mind, what is this extra hour for polling likely to cost? There will have to be a completely new scale of expenses for returning officers, otherwise we will not get them. There will be overtime all along the line, great confusion and a great deal of other expense, particularly in a divided city like Leeds, with a complete recount the next day. That used to happen regularly. In divided cities there were frequently six recounts. This is one reason why I am still in favour of carrying on the process the following day, but that is another argument.
  A great deal of strain is bound to be placed on many people. In 1924 in my constituency there were seven recounts of two votes. The nonsense was stopped only when the Conservative candidate went into hysterics and fainted. The Home Secretary—who, after all, has not lost a certain fiduciary flavour in his arguments—should say why he is pre pared to refuse two registers a year, which would be vital—both parties want that; it would not really be an extravagance—but is prepared to condone this sort of extravagance all along the line.
  There is the other argument that in many cases one cannot increase the size of the poll. By the time the count is taken, the register is usually only about
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  85 per cent. accurate. This proves that the polling figures at General Elections are nothing short of amazing. On one occasion a village in my constituency polled over 90 per cent. On another occasion sufficient ballot papers were printed in South Coventry to cater for a poll of 95 per cent—and they ran out of ballot papers.
  The antecedents of the Chair, however lurid, must never be referred to. The antecedents of the Under-Secretary may be referred to, and even called in question. My hon. Friend represents Leeds, South. He is next door to me and I regard him as a good neighbour. I am willing to bet that if, at the last General Election, he had gone into a polling booth in his constituency at the same time at which I went into one in my constituency, he would not have found any voters there. I was told by the presiding officer," They are all watching 'telly'. 'Gunsmoke' is on. In any event," he added," they have nearly all balloted."
  I assure hon. Members that I have studied this matter. At the last General Election I carefully watched what went on at one polling station. Not a vote was cast after 8.40 p.m. Leeds and Pudsey have been the subject of investigation by the Leeds University. Considering the polling habits of people, it seems that we are now unable to get much bigger polls than we already get. One will always come across the person who will be shut out at the last moment. In many instances people will use this as an alibi for not voting. The electoral process cannot turn on that sort of consideration.
  Perhaps the Home Secretary is struggling after an electoral liability. Has he realised that if the polling stations are kept open until 10 o'clock the pubs may suffer? Does he believe that people should do their drinking before or after they have voted? All sorts of considerations come into this and I trust that my right hon. Friend has borne them in mind.
  I was a member of Mr. Speaker's Conference. I appreciate, whatever I may feel about youngsters of 18 having the vote, that strong views are held on the subject and that it is a substantial political matter. It is of far more importance than the matter we are now considering. Although I might not have agreed on the first issue, I appreciate the weight of argument in favour of votes at 18. But

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  I have never heard a great demand for the polls to be kept open until 10 o'clock. In the main, people are working shorter hours and they are not working overtime to such an extent. Who would this proposal benefit? It would be to every one's disadvantage. I do not usually vote against the Government, but I certainly will not go into the Lobby in favour of this proposal in the Bill.
  8.0 p.m.
  Mr. Callaghan: Perhaps it might be advantageous if I intervene at this stage to give answers to some of the questions which have been asked. I have no intention of bringing the debate to an end.
  I regret that I was not in my place when the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Sharples) asked a number of questions, but I have had a full account of them and I shall endeavour to give the answers. I was engaged elsewhere when he was speaking. Somehow the Home Office seems to be involved practically every other day in something or other in the House.
  It is true, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) said, that Mr. Speaker's Conference recommended that there should be no change in the law in this respect. This is a situation in which the Government have departed from the recommendations of the conference. The evidence that was given to the Government was, on the whole, along the lines of that which has been expressed in speeches this after noon—that the functionaries concerned with elections do not want this change.
  They wanted polling to finish at 9 o'clock at night, but the Government take the view—it was the Government's own decision—that there was a case for extending the hours of polling to 10 o'clock. There are people who are excluded when polling ends at 9 p.m. They should be given the opportunity to vote. Therefore, the Government bring this as their conclusion to the Committee in face of the recommendation of Mr. Speaker's Conference. I ask the Committee to sup port their view.
  Mr. Sharples: For reasons which I appreciate, the right hon. Gentleman was not present when I made my speech. I not only asked what were the views of returning officers, but what positive
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  evidence there was from outside bodies of any kind, trade unions, employers, local government, and so on, from either side of industry or the political parties, of a demand for this change.
  Mr. Callaghan: This conclusion was drawn from the political experience of members of the Government, which is as great as that of outside organisations or of anyone else. In their view there were circumstances in which people did not vote until 9 o'clock. It was the Government's collective view, having discussed and considered the evidence, that there was a case for extending the time to 10 o'clock.
  Several Hon. Members rose —
  Mr. Callaghan: I did not think that I was saying anything controversial. I was stating the Government's view.
  Mr. Lubbock: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether that view was supported by any outside organisation?
  Mr. Callaghan: I thought that I was being absolutely clear. The Government reached their own conclusion on this matter. The functionaries were opposed; the presiding officers and those concerned with elections do not like this proposal. They want polling to finish at 9 o'clock, but the Government are entitled to reach their own conclusion and to submit it to the Committee. There is no more to it than that and no less.
  Sir Harmar Nicholls: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Callaghan: I think that the hon. Member would be about the fourth on the list.
  Mr. Costain: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that in some rural areas where only a few people are going to the poll, it is absolutely absurd to keep polling stations open for 15 hours when probably about 190 have polled early in the morning?
  Mr. Callaghan: I should like to be permitted to develop the case. I have been interrupted several times after speaking about two sentences. Before 1948, the polling hours were 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., but there was an option to apply for an extension at either end. The present statutory hours are 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. It is difficult to produce concrete

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  evidence that any polling hours are in disputably the right ones. I grant that there are constitutional difficulties, but these have to be balanced against other considerations. There are the interests of election officials, of candidates, of agents and the interest of the electorate, to be considered.
  On average, Parliamentary elections occur only every four years. It is not as though we were asking everyone to do this additional work every day, or even once a week; it happens once every four years. The Government propose that once every four years the poll should be open until 10 instead of 9 o'clock. It cannot be expected that the poll should be open no more than the present mini mum number of hours. The emphasis should be the other way round giving the longest possible reasonable time.
  With our changing social habits it cannot be argued that 10 p.m. is very late for members of the public to be about. Working hours may be shorter than they used to be—since the Government came to office they have been shorter—but there is much more travel ling than there used to be. Although no one can prove that any particular hours are right, there is a case for extending the time to 10 o'clock.
  After the publication of the Government's proposals, the societies representing returning officers in England and Wales asked the Home Office for a meeting and put their view. They did not conceal the fact that they were concerned about the arrangements for Parliamentary elections. They said that it was difficult to get staff of the right calibre, particularly for the type of presiding officer needed, and that the extra hour would not add to the attractions of the job.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West asked about cost. The Treasury fixes the scale of expenses for returning officers, including the pay for presiding officers and poll clerks. The present fees are seven guineas and £4 a day respectively. The Treasury indicated to societies of returning officers that it would be prepared to consider a pro rata increase for the extra time of polling. The returning officers have ex pressed doubt whether such an increase would be sufficient. I can only say that
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  the Treasury is willing to meet the additional cost on a pro rata basis for the extra hours involved for the staff.
  I accept that this means that in a number of areas the count cannot take place on the evening of the day of poll and it may have to be postponed to the following day. This would be one of the results of the proposed change, but in many constituencies the count already takes place on the day after the poll. If satisfactory arrangements can be made for a count on the following day, which, of course, involves the custody of ballot papers overnight, there is no reason to expect greater difficulty in other areas than where at present the count takes place on the following day. There may be difficulty about mustering as many observers, but candidates do this in areas where the count traditionally takes place on the day after the poll.
  I do not think that there is anything in the point about the use of schools, because at the moment there is no requirement on a local authority to do more than to allow the school to be used for the polls. I do not want to make too much of this, but there is no authority to require a local authority to make the school available for the purposes of a count. It is only for the purposes of the poll. I dare say there will be many cases, as there are in county areas now, where this alternative arrangement can be made.
  As regards the extension proposed by the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock), a quarter of an hour is neither here nor there. There is something to be said for closing the poll on the striking of the clock, though on occasion I have regretted it. More recently, there have not been quite the crowds at the close of the poll that I remember in my earlier days, when I saw queues at ten to nine at night trying to get into the polling station and often people were shut out. There fore, I propose that we adhere to the striking of the clock. That makes it 10 p.m. or 9 p.m.
  As to the starting time, I rely on the fact that the political parties considered the matter, but although they would have liked an earlier start, they recognised the administrative difficulties and were content for it to remain at 8 a.m. This is what I understand to be their conclusions in my conference. This is

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  what is reported to me as being the conclusions of the conference.
  Mr. Lubbock: Why should administrative difficulties be brought in to argue against doing something in the morning which the Secretary of State has decided to do in the evening?
  Mr. Callaghan: If the Government had thought that there would be a substantial number of people voting in local elections at 7 a.m., that would have made a difference and we would have overcome the administrative difficulties. I do not think that there is the same incentive to vote at 7 a.m. in a local election as there may be to vote after 9 p.m. in a General Election. There is a case for an optional closing time, but nobody has suggested this. I suggest that this is something that the Committee might want to consider, although I would not recommend it. There is much to be said for having a fixed time, with everybody knowing what it is, and for its being standard through out the country.
  My recommendation to the Committee on behalf of the Government is that we should give the electorate this extra hour in which to cast their votes, accepting that there are administrative complications arising from it, but hoping that in the end the result will be that there will be a bigger vote than there would have been otherwise, in which case it will have been justified.
  Mr. J. E. B. Hill: Does not the Home Secretary appreciate that the lethargic who have not managed to cast their votes in 14 hours will be shut out at 10 p.m. just as they are shut out at 9 p.m.? Many people say that they have had no time to vote as a polite way of saying that they want to abstain.
  Mr. Callaghan: I have met such people at 8.45 in the evening, just as the hon. Gentleman has, no doubt. It is also the case, especially with shift workers, that 10 p.m. could be a convenient time. There are a number of shifts that start at 10 p.m. and run to 6 a.m. The workers start to leave for their work at 9.30 p.m. Perhaps they even go into the "pub"—into the Labour club in my constituency—and drink a pint before going to work. If the poll
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  closes at 9 p.m., I see them coming into the club at 9.30 in the evening having just left home in time for a drink, and then going straight to the works.
  I hope that maybe some of them will be inclined to vote before they go to work. This is a matter that cannot be proved either way. There is no case for saying that there should be less than a reasonable number of hours in which people can cast their votes. Nobody can claim that from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. is an excessive number of hours in which to register a vote once in five years to re turn someone to the House of Commons.
  [Dr. A. D. D. BROUGHTON in the Chair]
  8.15 p.m.
  Sir Harmar Nicholls: I do not think that even the Secretary of State believes that he deserves to get away with that. I have admired the right hon. Gentleman's tactics for many years. He pulled all the stops out of the barrel to smooth over a point, knowing that he has no case. He used all his charm and sweet reasonableness, but did not answer one of the questions. He had to admit that he has nobody to support him, except what he calls "the Government".
  This is a case in which the voice of Parliament should be heeded. Both sides have made it clear that they think that the Government are wrong in making this proposal. I was interested in one sentence the right hon. Gentleman used. He said that the Government have decided this, that the Government are com posed of people with a fair amount of experience at elections, and that their view is that it should be 10 p.m. He said," Having examined the evidence, that is what the Government have decided ".
  What was the evidence that the Government examined? Was there any evidence which they examined which fitted in with what they have decided to recommend their supporters to vote for? The right hon. Gentleman admitted that those who run the elections have made it clear that they think that this is a bad thing and that they may not be able to recruit people to run the machine. Mr. Speaker's Conference made the clear recommendation that this is wrong. The right hon. Gentleman has heard the view of the right hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell). What was the evidence that

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  the Government examined? I would give way if the right hon. Gentleman wished to say that he had any evidence at all which fitted in with what the Government are recommending to the Commit tee.
  Mr. Callaghan: When a challenge such as this is issued it is easy for an hon. Gentleman to go on and say," As the Minister did not rise, clearly he had no evidence ". So I intervene. The evidence is that people have been shut out of the poll at 9 p.m.
  Sir Harmar Nicholls: I wonder where the evidence came from. Some people will be shut out at 10 p.m. Whatever the closing time, somebody will be shut out. I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman has any evidence—otherwise, he would have used it—to show that a sufficient number of people were shut out at 9 p.m. to justify this alteration. Certainly, those running the machine do not think that. His right hon. and hon. Friends do not think that. My right hon. and hon. Friends, who are equally experienced, do not think that.
  The right hon. Gentleman used all his charm. He used that reasonable approach of which he has such an abundance. But he did not make out a case. This is an instance where, even now, he ought not to try to whip his hon. Friends into the Lobby to support anything as nebulous as this. I beg him to have second thoughts.
  Mr. Onslow: The Home Secretary has been so urbane and bland, for a change, that he has made it perfectly clear that he has a rotten case—and he knows it. It is the right hon. Gentleman's manner, when he thinks that he has something of a case, to be somewhat more discourteous than the Committee likes.
  It may help the House if I go briefly through an exchange of correspondence which I have had with the Home Office on behalf of the clerk of one of my local authorities who was concerned in the giving of advice to the Electoral Advisory Committee. He wrote to me on 25th July, after the publication of the White Paper, complaining about the proposals to extend polling hours till 10 p.m. He told me then that in April, 1968 he was asked by the Home Office to express his opinion on the possible extension of polling hours
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  till 9.30 p.m. He expressed himself as being strongly opposed to it. He was, naturally, very surprised, on the publication of the White Paper, to find that the proposal was for an extension till 10 p.m. and he told me that he was even more strongly opposed to that proposal.
  I undertook to do what I could to discover what was in the Government's mind; why this decision, which was wholly unlooked for, had been made; and what evidence, if any, the Government had seen fit to consider.
  Accordingly, I wrote to the Home Office. On 12th August I received a reply from Lord Stonham, in which he said:
  "In reaching their conclusion on this matter the Government were aware of and took into account the administrative difficulties … which would be involved, but we considered that these difficulties should not be allowed to prevail over the principle of affording the longest reasonable time for people to exercise their voting rights at Parliamentary elections, which are held infrequently."
  The Home Secretary repeated that tonight.
  The letter goes on:
  "In our opinion an extension to 10 p.m. would be of particular advantage in areas where people travel some distance to work and do not return in time to vote conveniently before 9 p.m."
  I wrote again to Lord Stonham, asking whether he could tell me from whom evidence had been taken about the value of an extension to 10 p.m. and whether he could cite specific areas where people travel some distance to work and do not return in time to vote conveniently before 9 p.m. He replied as follows:
  "The answer to your first question is that my colleagues, with their experience (which I can from personal knowledge confirm) of fighting elections and of what goes on at polling stations, required no evidence from out side to convince them of the value and importance of allowing the maximum opportunity for people to vote. As for the people about whom you particularly asked—those who travel some distance to work and do not return in time to vote conveniently before 9 p.m.—my colleagues had particularly in mind the needs of shift workers in industry. Shift working is commonest in the large industrial areas, but is by no means unknown in many other parts of the country."
  This care for shift workers is no doubt commendable, but the statement that the Government required no evidence is an extraordinarily insulting remark even from a Minister of this Government. The

  531
  comment in the Fulton Report that it is an abuse of consultation if it is simply used to prepare the ground for decisions which have been taken already applies with great force to this case.
  Shift workers who are likely to be away for the whole of polling day ought to have no difficulty in getting a postal vote, anyway. If they come home at six in the morning, it ought to be no great trial for them to stay up an extra hour and vote when polling stations first open. The unfortunate functionaries, as the Home Secretary so patronisingly calls them, who man the polling stations will be working a day of 15 hours or more for a sum as yet undisclosed, but certainly it will be substantial.
  Those of us who are used to getting election results on the night of the election will find increasingly that counts take place the following day. The premises for counts will cost more to obtain, and the staff to do the counting will be more difficult to obtain, because most bank clerks will be working in their banks and will not be able to do it. The whole process will be made more difficult, expensive, and cumbersome simply because the Home Secretary will not admit that he is wrong.
  The right hon. Gentleman took a certain view. He consulted a lot of people and found that they did not agree with him. He was to stubborn and is still too stubborn to change his mind. As a result, thanks to one man's stubbornness, a great many people will be put to considerable inconvenience.
  I do not think that there is any substantial evidence to show that large numbers of people are being deprived of the opportunity to vote by reason of the polling stations shutting at 9 p.m. I doubt whether there will be more than 10 in any constituency. Let us say that there will be 6,000 throughout the country, half of whom, if they applied themselves, could get there in time and would be unable to vote only if they went home, had a meal, washed and changed and
  perhaps stopped at the local for a beer before going to the polling station.
  If we agree to the Home Secretary's proposal, voters will be exposed to the danger of polling procedures being handled by tired men. That is too great a price to pay for one man's stubbornness. This is a bad proposal, though I have no doubt that the Home Secretary is delighted at the prospect of whipping his supporters to vote for it. It is his proposal and his alone.
  Mr. Sharples: We have had an extremely unfortunate reply from the Home Secretary. To say that it was a disappointment would be the under-statement of the year. Unfortunately, he was unable to be present throughout the debate, for reasons which I understand, but finally he came into the Chamber apparently with no interest in any of the arguments put forward from either side of the Committee. There was a most powerful speech from his right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell), who asked a large number of questions. The right hon. Gentleman made no attempt to answer them, or any of the points raised by other hon. Members. After listening to one and a half speeches, he came to the Dispatch Box and said," We have no evidence of this. No views have been expressed to us about it. It is the Government's view that this change should be made ".
  Clearly, it is the Government's view. It is not that of his own party. The Government have been wrong before, and they are wrong again, and the country will realise it.
  There is no point in continuing this debate. It is clear that the Government are not prepared to listen to reason from either side of the Committee or anyone outside. I advise my right hon. and hon. Friends to divide the Committee now.
  Question put, That the Amendment be made:—
  The Committee divided: Ayes 110, Noes 171.

  Division No. 35.]

  AYES

  [8.25 p.m.

  Astor, John

  Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward

  Carlisle, Mark

  Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n & M'd'n)

  Brewis, John

  Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Baker, Kenneth (Acton)

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Chichester-Clark, R,

  Bessell, Peter

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&M)

  Cooke, Robert

  Biffen, John

  Bullus, Sir Eric

  Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

  Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel

  Campbell, B. (Oldham, W.)

  Corfield, F. V,

  Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W)

  Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

  Costain, A. P.

  Dalkeith, Earl of

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

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Davidson, James (Aberdeenshire, W.)

  Lubbock, Eric

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Dean, Paul

  MacArthur, Ian

  Royle, Anthony

  Deedes, Rt. Hn, W. F. (Ashford)

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

  Sharples, Richard

  Dodds-Parker, Douglas

  McMaster, Stanley

  Silvester, Frederick

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

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Eyre, Reginald

  Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

  Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)

  Farr, John

  Maude. Angus

  Speed, Keith

  Fortescue, Tim

  Mawby, Ray

  Stainton, Keith

  Gibson-Watt, David

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Steel, David (Roxburgh)

  Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

  Mills, Peter (Torrington)

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

  Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)

  Mills, Stratum (Belfast, N.)

  Summers, Sir Spencer

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  More, Jasper

  Temple, John M.

  Gower, Raymond

  Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  Grant, Anthony

  Monro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Grieve, Percy

  Murton, Oscar

  Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John

  Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

  Waddington, David

  Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

  Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

  Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Onslow, Cranley

  Webster, David

  Hawkins, Paul

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

  Hiley, Joseph

  Page, John (Harrow, W.)

  Williams, Donald (Dudley)

  Hill, J. E. B.

  Peel, John

  Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

  Howell, David (Guildford)

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Winstanley, Dr. M. P.

  Hunt, John

  Pounder, Rafton

  Wright, Esmond

  Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

  Pym, Francis

  Wylie, N. R.

  King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Younger, Hn. George

  Kitson, Timothy

  Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Lane, David'

  Ronton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

  Mr. Hector Monro and

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Mr. Bernard Weatherill.

  NOES

  Albu, Austen

  Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)

  McCann, John

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Evans, Gwynfor (C'marthen)

  MacColl, James

  Alldritt, Waiter

  Evans, Ioan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)

  Macdonald, A. H.

  Allen, Scholefield

  Ewing, Mrs. Winifred

  McGuire, Michael

  Anderson, Donald

  Faulds, Andrew

  Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)

  Archer, Peter

  Finch, Harold

  Maclennan, Robert

  Ashton, Joe (Bassetlaw)

  Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

  McMillan, Tom (G'gow, C.)

  Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  McNamara, J. Kevin

  Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  MacPherson, Malcolm

  Bacon, Rt. Hn, Alice

  Ford, Ben

  Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Fowler, Gerry

  Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

  Beaney, Alan

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton)

  Gardner, Tony

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

  Bishop, E. S.

  Garrett, W. E.

  Mapp, Charles

  Blackburn, F.

  Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)

  Marks, Kenneth

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Gregory, Arnold

  Marquand, David

  Boardman, H. (Leigh)

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

  Booth, Albert

  Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

  Mendelson, J. J.

  Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

  Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

  Miller, Dr. M. S.

  Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Milne, Edward (Blyth)

  Buchan, Norman

  Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)

  Hannan, William

  Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

  Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

  Harper, Joseph

  Moyle, Roland

  Carmichael, Neil

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Neal, Harold

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Hattersley, Roy

  Newens, Stan

  Coe, Denis

  Hazell, Bert

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

  Coleman, Donald

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Norwood, Christopher

  Concannon, J. D.

  Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret

  O'Malley, Brian

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Hooley, Frank

  Oram, Albert E.

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Orme, Stanley

  Dalyell, Tarn

  Hoy, James

  Oswald, Thomas

  Darling, Rt. Hn. George

  Hughes, Emrys (Ayrsh're, S.)

  Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)

  Davies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway)

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Owen, Will (Morpeth)

  Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)

  Hunter, Adam

  Page, Derek (King's Lynn)

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Hynd, John

  Park, Trevor

  Dell, Edmund

  Jackson, Colin (B'h'se & Spenb'gh)

  Parkyn, Brian (Bedford)

  Dempsey, James

  Janner, Sir Barnett

  Pavitt, Laurence

  Dewar, Donald

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

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Dickens, James

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

  Dobson, Ray

  Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)

  Pentland, Norman

  Doig, Peter

  Kelley, Richard

  Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)

  Driberg, Tom

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)

  Dunwoody, Dr. John (F'th & C'b'e)

  Kerr, Russell (Feltham)

  Prentice, Rt. Hn. R. E.

  Eadie, Alex

  Lawson, George

  Price, Thomas (Westhoughton)

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Probert, Arthur

  Edwards, William (Merioneth)

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Rankin, John

  Ellis, John

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Rees, Merlyn

  English, Michael

  Loughlin, Charles

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Ennals, David

  Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  534

  535

  Rose, Paul

  Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W.)

  Watkins, Tudor (Brecon & Radnor)

  Ross, Rt. Hn, William

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

  Whitaker, Ben

  Sheldon, Robert

  Symonds, J. B.

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

  Taverne, Dick

  Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.

  Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

  Urwin, T. W.

  Woof, Robert

  Silverman, Julius

  Varley, Eric G.

  Slater, Joseph

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Small, William

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Mr. Neil McBride and

  Snow, Julian

  Watkins, David (Consett)

  Mr. Ernest Armstrong.

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Mr. Oscar Murton: I beg to move Amendment No. 74, in page 27, line 23, leave out 'In'.
  The Temporary Chairman (Dr. A. D. D. Broughton): It would be convenient to discuss at the same time the following Amendment, No. 75, in page 27, leave out lines 26 to 34 and insert 'are hereby repealed", also standing in the name of the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Murton).
  Mr. Murton: I am really speaking on behalf of the Association of Municipal Corporations which, while realising that the recommendation of Mr. Speaker's Conference was that the ballot paper should continue to be stamped with an official mark, urges that further thought should be given to whether ballot papers need official marks on them at all.
  Paragraph 4 of the Schedule has been amended to abolish the procedure under which ballot papers can be embossed as an alternative to being perforated. Now, they must be embossed solely. This will reduce the number of papers which have to be declared invalid for want of official mark, for experience has shown that, where papers are marked rather than perforated, they can slip through the net. Many an indignant voter has found himself disfrancished because his paper has been disallowed.
  On the other hand, one wonders whether there is any real safeguard against forgery in having the papers marked or embossed. It is worth considering whether it is worth the expense of having machinery which, simple though it may be, makes it necessary for papers to be physically perforated.
  Marking or perforating is probably an obsolete relic of days when people were more unscrupulous at elections than they are now. Indeed, it is debatable whether perforation itself will give absolute protection against anyone determined on forgery. It is always possible that someone could enter a polling station early in the morning and remove a paper after
  536
  it had been perforated. It would surely not be beyond the wit of man to reproduce, in the course of the day, the perforated mark and to produce forged perforated papers with someone else in the evening entering the polling booth and putting a sheaf of them into the ballot box. It sounds absurd, but equally absurd is the suggestion that the papers need a physical mark upon them.
  The object of my Amendment is to remove this. When one comes to the postal vote, the paper has to be perforated, yet there is even less likelihood of forgery here. The postal vote is checked against the person in whose name it is registered. Altogether this is a time-consuming exercise. It is liable to mistakes. In debating the last series of Amendments, the Secretary of State for Scotland said that perhaps someone might get tired towards the end of the evening, and this is the one likely case when a paper may be overlooked. It would be much better if the paragraph of the Schedule were amended on the lines I recommend, which would mean that the paper would not require marking by stamping or the new arrangement of perforation.
  Mr. Buchan: The argument boils down to three points—it is unnecessary, time-wasting for officials and in any event the devised method could be reproduced. This is false. It is necessary to retain some kind of marking. It is true that no one really suspects forgery in British elections, but one of the reasons for this is because of the fairly elementary but effective safeguard of marking the paper. If that did not happen, and if people did not change their habits, the kind of suspicion we want to avoid might be aroused, and that might lead to the kind of practice which we do not want to encourage.
  We have tried to tighten up on this and make it more effective by bringing in perforating, which is more easily identifiable and avoids the problem of papers

  537
  being marked and subsequently lost because the mark has rubbed off following handling. The figures are interesting. Something like 50,000 ballot papers were rejected at the last General Election for various reasons. Of these 2,061 were rejected because they lacked official marks altogether. The suggestion that the perforating could be reproduced is a little far-fetched. The "Great Train Robber" concept of an election is not really our problem.
  It boils down to whether we think it fair to put this extra work on the pre siding officers to secure the sanctity of the election. I think that it is. In an election that takes place once every four or five years to decide the government of the country the extra work needed should be done. If a failure in stamping occurs, the ballot paper is wasted. The only answer is extra vigilance on the part of the presiding officer. We note that it should be opened before being put into the box. I agree that this does not happen very often. What is saved by retaining this habit here is very considerable.
  Amendment negatived.
  8.45 p.m.
  Mr. Sharples: I beg to move Amendment 39, in page 29, line 46, at end insert:
  'by a person authorised by the returning officer'.
  Rule 44 (1) of the Representation of the People Act, 1949, refers to the procedure adopted on the closing of the poll and lays down what should happen to the ballot papers after the poll has been closed. It concludes by setting out the duty of the presiding officer. It provides that he
  "shall deliver the packets to the returning officer to be taken charge of by him ".
  Paragraph 9 of Schedule 2 of the Bill proposes that
  "after the words 'deliver the packets' there shall be inserted the words 'or cause them to be delivered'".
  It does not make clear who can be authorised to carry the ballot papers from the polling station to the count.
  It is right that we should make it clear that the responsibility remains with the presiding officer and that only a person who is authorised by him should be allowed to take charge. I know that normally the job will be done by a
  538
  policeman in a police car. The ballot papers are handed to the police and the presiding officer normally goes with them. It is reasonable that the presiding officers should hand over the papers to someone like an officer in charge of a police car. But there could be a misunderstanding, and it would be wrong if the ballot papers were handed to, for example, a taxi driver or someone of that kind. The purpose of the Amendment is to clear up any doubt and to safeguard the situation.
  Mr. Buchan: I should like to consider the Amendment. Probably it would be a good addition to the Bill. It is possible that the drafting of the Amendment needs to be altered. However, if the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Sharples) will withdraw it, I will consider it favourably.
  Mr. Sharples: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. In view of his clear under taking, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Mr. Buchan: I beg to move Amendment 92, in page 30, line 22, at end insert:
  "Provided that where it is for the mayor or town clerk to give notice of the poll, the description required by this sub-paragraph shall also be given by him instead of by the returning officer."
  The Temporary Chairman (Dr. A. D. D. Broughton): It would be convenient to discuss, at the same time, Amendment 93, in Schedule 5, page 47, line 50, column 2, at end add:
  "and the proviso, and in the local elections rules in Schedule 2 the words 'or town clerk', and in the rules in Schedule 3 the words 'mayor or'".
  Mr. Buchan: These are technical Amendments, consequential on the provision in paragraph 12 (1) of Part II of Schedule 2 to the Bill that
  "the returning officer shall, as soon as practicable after publication of a notice of poll, give to each of the election agents a description in writing of the polling districts, if any".
  The returning officer is not the appropriate person on whom to place this responsibility for borough elections in England and Wales outside London or at burgh elections in Scotland. At borough elections in England and Wales the mayor is required to give notice of poll. At burgh elections in Scotland the

  539
  town clerk is required to give notice of poll.
  The effect of the Amendment is to place on the mayor or town clerk the responsibility for giving the election agents a description of the polling districts at these elections.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Schedule 3

  CONSEQUENTIAL AND SUPPLEMENTARY AMENDMENT OF REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE ACT 1949
  Amendment No. 49 made: In page 41, line 15, at end insert:
  35. In the Appendix to Schedule 3, in Form A.I, in paragraph 3, and in Forms A.II and A.III, in paragraphs 2 of both those forms. for the word 'Tuesday', where second occur ring, there shall be substituted the word 'Friday'.—[Mr. Buchan.]
  Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Schedule 4

  REPEALS
  Mr. Merlyn Rees: I beg to move Amendment No. 43, in page 43, line 27, column 3, at end insert 'paragraph 36'.
  This Amendment inserts a further pro vision in Part I of the Schedule which repeals provisions which can be regarded as dead wood. Part II repeals enactments which are no longer necessary. The Amendment is consequential to Part I, which removes the dead wood. I think that it is self evident. It relates to the London Government Act and an aspect which is no longer required.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Mr. Merlyn Rees: I beg to move, Amendment No. 44, in page 45, line 16, at end insert:

  1963 c 33

  The London Government Act 1963

  In Schedule 3, paragraph 25.

  Part II of the Schedule, as I said on the last Amendment, repeals enactments no longer necessary. The Amendment includes a further provision in Part II of the Schedule which relates to consequential repeals. The provision to be
  540
  Schedule 3 to the London Government repealed is paragraph 25 of Part III of Act, 1963, which amends Section 5 of the Representation of the People Act, 1949, which is being repealed by the Bill.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Schedule 5

  INSERTIONS AUTHORISED IN REPRESEN TATION OF THE PEOPLE ACT 1949 IN REVISED EDITION OF STATUTES
  Amendment made: No. 93, in page 47, line 50, column 2, at end add:
  'and the proviso, and in the local elections rules in Schedule 2 the words "or town clerk". and in the rules in Schedule 3 the words "'mayor or"'.—[Mr. Buchan.]
  Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
  Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended, to be considered Tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 57.]

  TELEPHONE SERVICE (CHELTENHAM)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. McBride.]
  8.52 p.m.
  Mr. Douglas Dodds-Parker: I am delighted that we have reached my moment for putting a point to the House at a time much earlier than I expected. I had felt a certain fear that we should not be on the Adjournment till three or four in the morning, in which case if I did not take the Adjournment I would be in the bad books of a large number of my constituents, and if I did take it I would be in the bad books of a large number of servants of the House who do so much to keep this place working—and all through the winter as well as the summer. It occurred to me that, in considering business of the House, one might suggest that we should take the Adjournment at the beginning of business instead of at the end, because, after all, then not many hon. Members would be inconvenienced, and it would enable others to get home half an hour earlier at the end of the day. After all, it is rather like a

  541
  private House now; there are not many here.
  However, despite the chance afforded to me of the Adjournment coming slightly earlier than usual I propose to keep my remarks brief in going from the sublimity of gerrymandering in the Bill we had before us just now to the practical question of the shortage of telephones for my constituents in Cheltenham.
  Like other hon. Members, I have had correspondence from a number of constituents who have been unable to get telephones installed because exchange facilities are not available. I had the usual replies from the Postmaster-General, but at last one of my constituents, who is versed in the ways of Whitehall, and who, frustrated beyond the normal degree one's constituents are, sent me a list of queries to which I could not get adequate replies. Eventually, some facts emerged after further inquiry. I hope I may be permitted to interpose that both the present Postmaster-General and his predecessor have always been most courteous in their personal replies. However, the replies I had seemed to reveal centrally at headquarters weakness in forecasting needs, and a certain dilatoriness in action in getting on with the job.
  My ccnstituent asked for a telephone in February, 1968. He was told that he would get it by the end of the year. Later, he was told that he would get it in 12 months' time. The latest in formation is that he will get it by April, 1969, 14 months after he originally asked for it. I submit that that is an unreasonably long time to have to wait.
  From the investigations that I have made, and from the facts which the Post master-General has been good enough to send to me, I find that an estimate was made locally in 1963 that extra capacity would be needed by 1967 and that it takes two years and one month after such a decision is taken to order and install such equipment. No order was placed until February, 1966. This capacity should have been ready, according to this arithmetic, in March, 1968, but the news now is that it will be ready by April, 1969.
  In mid-summer 1968 there were about 600 names on the waiting list, and the
  542
  growth of demand for telephones in the Cheltenham area which had been fore cast at 670 a year was running at about 900 a year. In the meantime, a mobile exchange, taking care of about 350 ex tensions, had been brought in to help to fill the gap. Further provision in the new exchange is for about 3,800 lines. Over 600 of these had been pre-empted by July, and others no doubt have been taken up since. If the growth rate is now running at about 1,000 a year, I estimate that half the 3,800 will be taken by the end of 1969 and the whole lot will be taken by the end of 1971 at the latest, especially as the Postmaster-General goes out to sell the telephone service, which he is not yet in a position to do.
  A point which arose in the correspondence is that there was a local rumour, which, I am glad to say, turned out to be untrue, that the capital cost of the telephone service had been cut by £72 million. I am informed that only £15 million was cut, as the Prime Minister announced in the House in July, 1966, just after that General Election which cost us also the Landsdowne station in Cheltenham and which we hope, one day, will again be staffed. Despite the cut of £15 million, I understand that in the South-West Telecommunications Region the amount set aside for telephones has been increased from £2· 2 million in 1964–65 to £6·9 million in 1967–68.
  The conclusion which I draw from all this, and which I ask the Assistant Post master-General either to acknowledge or to refute, is that, in the first place, no blame lies on the local telephone managers. They clearly want to get North Gloucestershire on a bigger and better central exchange. A new exchange was built at Cheltenham not long ago, but it has proved to be too small to take the increased growth of the past two or three years to which I have referred. There is no brake on the contractors, either for the buildings or for the equipment. I believe that they would have been ready to provide extra capacity had the orders been placed in time.
  It seems to me that the miscalculation has been made essentially on the growth which was likely to take place, and also in taking action in making available the necessary capital and ordering in good time. Whether this growth has been due

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  to the success of S.T.D., which I think we all recognise has taken the telephone service forward faster than expected, whether it is due to the success of Telex, which is a wholly admirable service which has not yet been brought sufficiently to the notice of the public, or whether it is due to the increased costs and difficulties of the telegraph and postal service of the past two or three years, it is not for me to say. All I can say is that the growth has been greater than expected.
  I maintain that, first, there would have been no difficulty in the manufacturers putting in extra capacity to take care of domestic as well as export demands if they had been alerted in time. With some knowledge of the American Tele graph and Telephone Company, which is a public utility, which many of us feel is the right way of handling these facilities these days, I believe that the forecasting under such a system would have been more accurate, and the pro vision of facilities more rapid and more effective within an economy which en courages capital formation and savings in the private sector to provide such public utilities.
  Secondly, I maintain that there was no difficulty in building a relatively small extension such as this. Two years and one month is enough to provide both the building and the equipment. In the meantime, the mobile exchange for 350 was not big enough. I believe, again, that some organisation like the A.T. and T.C. would have had more units available to put in for these areas which had expanded more than the estimate. I ask the Assistant Postmaster-General to tell me why, when the capital was available, and was greater than in previous years, he chose to pick on Cheltenham for this discrimination.
  There is a suggestion in the Press from time to time that Cheltenham is full of retired people. There are a number of them there, and I wish that there were many more, because they are very good supporters of mine. I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that Cheltenham is a light industrial town, having some of the finest aircraft and other craft industries in Britain, and one of the biggest insurance companies has just made its headquarters there. All
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  this, with the development of the motor ways and other facilities in the last few years, has led to the expansion of demand.
  The promenade, with its Christmas lights, is unbeatable as a spectacle, as well as a shopping centre. Why should more and more of my constituents be prevented from ringing up Father Christmas? I ask the hon. Gentleman to tell me why there is such a shortage in Cheltenham, when it will be resolved, why it had to be Cheltenham, and whether he will give an assurance that it will not happen again.
  9.3 p.m.
  The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Joseph Slater): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Dodds-Parker) for giving me this opportunity to speak about the telephone service in his constituency. The hon. Gentleman has presented his case on behalf of his constituents with great regard for the people who have been affected by the lack of telephone facilities, and I shall endeavour to give the hon. Gentleman the full picture as it relates to Cheltenham.
  The hon. Gentleman has drawn our attention to one weakness, which is that at the moment we are not able to meet all the demands for a telephone service by those who want it. But there is little to be ashamed about the service in general, which in many respects is very good.
  Perhaps I might deal straight away with the question of the waiting list. I accept that there is at the moment a shortage of telephone exchange equipment at Cheltenham. This will be rectified by a large extension of the equipment which should be installed and working by the spring of next year. The exhaustion of the present equipment was brought about by an unprecedented increase in the demand for the telephone service, which began in 1965 and 1966. The increase was not, as it were, assigned only to Cheltenham; it came throughout the country, but it was particularly high in Cheltenham. The average annual growth in Cheltenham during those two years was nearly 9 per cent., compared with about 8 per cent. elsewhere.
  As soon as we realised that this rapid growth was taking place, we ordered additional equipment for Cheltenham. The amount required was such that it

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  would take more than two years to make and install it. The size of the undertaking will be appreciated if I mention that the contract was valued at no less than £200,000. The lead time meant that we could only hope to have this extra equipment working about mid-1968, whereas the existing equipment would run out early in 1967.
  To make matters worse, at the same time our equipment contractors suddenly found themselves inundated with orders because of the rapid general growth in demand for telephone service that was taking place throughout the United Kingdom. Inevitably, manufacturing delays began to occur, and, despite every possible effort to overcome them both by the contractors and by the Post Office, these delays, I admit, are still with us. The effect of the delays on Cheltenham was to hold back the new equipment until next spring.
  To help meet this problem, we put in a mobile exchange at Cheltenham in November, 1967, and this enabled us to serve another 350 people who were waiting. The main exchange and this mobile relief unit are now serving nearly 14,000 customers, leaving about 900 still waiting for service. I agree that that is a very high figure. These are all householders; there are no businesses waiting for tele phones in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, according to my information. The average waiting period so far is about 6½ months, and the longest period that anyone on the list has waited—I accept what the hon. Gentleman said about it—is 20 months.
  All these people will be given service either at the time the exchange extension is completed in April, 1969, or within a short period after that. The only exceptions will be a few cases where the houses concerned are on new estates and we may not be able to put in cables until roads and buildings are ready.
  I am very sorry—I say this most sincerely—that this situation has arisen, but it is largely a reflection of an unprecedented demand and under-capitalisation in the past. But I am not seeking to make political points tonight; that would not do. There have been critics who have maintained that we ought to have fore cast the great increase in demand which commenced in 1965 and 1966. No one,
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  of course, can see clearly what the future holds, but I am glad to be able to tell the House that, since those years, we have considerably improved our fore casting techniques.
  At the time when our original fore casts were made for telephone demand in Cheltenham, we made these only every few years. Since the big national upsurge in telephone demand in 1965–66, we have considerably increased the frequency of these reviews, and we now make rolling forecasts which are revised every quarter.
  When we are preparing a forecast for any particular exchange, we get as much information as we can from local authorities and planning authorities on the expansion of trade, commerce and industry, and changes in population. To these we apply the existing known trends in the area. These then are looked at in the light of the national forecasts we make in Post Office headquarters, and this is where the biggest improvement has come in recent years.
  We have increased the staff who work on our statistics and economic forecasts for the whole of the Post Office, and we have also increased the staff on actual forecasting itself. We are developing new techniques based on econometric models and the use of computers. This enables us to study and analyse trends more closely and apply many more variables to our forecasts for the future.
  We have even gone so far as to have an "on line" computer terminal in our fore casting department. All this has meant that, over the last three years, our fore casts have been very much more accurate, and the effort that we are still putting into researching and developing these new techniques will mean that they will become increasingly accurate in the future.
  I now turn to the standard of service which we are giving today to our customers in Cheltenham. First of all, S.T.D. In 1963 Cheltenham became one of the first towns to be given S.T.D., and I am glad to report that in Cheltenham the S.T.D. service is well up to the national average. The equipment is working well and we have sufficient trunk lines between Cheltenham and other towns and cities. When it is difficult to get through on S.T.D. this is most probably due to congestion at the other end.

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  Trunk traffic nationally has been growing at the very high rate of 13 to 14 per cent. per annum, and this has inevitably put pressure on our main trunk network at certain places. We are, therefore, adding 10,000 circuits to the national system this year, which is an increase of 15 per cent. This should go far to improve the trunk service generally.
  Now I turn to the local service. This is good. The figures for the month of October show that the local equipment operated correctly, and was adequate on 98· 5 per cent. of local automatic calls. We obtain these good results only by giving a great deal of attention to pre ventive maintenance. The equipment in the exchange is tested by special electronic machines during the night when the exchange is not very busy. Automatic printing devices type out details of what is going wrong, so that, when our engineers come on duty next morning, they can deal with the defects straightaway.
  This helps to ensure that calls do not fail, either because they come across a faulty piece of equipment, or because they cannot get through owing to the shortage of equipment which would arise if some had to be taken out of service at peak times because it became faulty. Automatic devices—which check that the traffic passing through the exchange is being connected satisfactorily—should also be installed in the near future.
  We give similarly close attention to the plant—largely underground—lying out side the exchange, and reaching out to customers' premises or other exchanges. An automatic device—operating during the night—tests the insulation of customers' local lines. In addition, most of the underground cable system that is suitable for cable pressurisation has been protected in this way. We are bringing in a new type of polythene-sheathed, plastic-insulated and jelly-filled cable to protect this part of the underground system.
  By measures such as these, interruptions to customers' service have been kept at a particularly low level at Cheltenham. On average, service on an ordinary telephone is lost only once in every four years. Moreover, interruptions to service in Cheltenham are dealt with expeditiously when they do occur. Normally,
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  85 per cent. of service interruptions are cleared within the first working day, and nearly 100 per cent. of faults are dealt with by the end of the second working day.
  Reports of faults at kiosks are much fewer than the average throughout the country as a whole—less than one half in fact, which, I am sure, is in some measure a reflection of the public spirit shown by the hon. Gentleman's constituents.
  I come to the service given by the operating staff on the Cheltenham exchange switchboard, which serves 17 exchanges in the district. The quality of service is, according to the information I have, generally good because we have no staffing or equipment problems. Recent figures showed that the average time taken by operators to answer calls was 5· 5 seconds. During the evening the time was 9· 3 seconds. I think that this can be improved and more staff have already been recruited and are being trained. I have visited many exchanges which have not been able to reach this figure. Cheltenham is, therefore, high on the list of ability for the way in which it is able to handle calls.
  Directory inquiries, too, are answered promptly at Cheltenham. The latest figures showed that the time taken to answer customers was better than eight seconds. Our existing customers seem to find the operator service in Cheltenham generally satisfactory, and this is borne out by the absence of serious complaints to the local manager.
  All in all, this picture, although it has its black spots—the hon. Gentleman has rightly drawn attention to them on behalf of his constituents; I appreciate his feelings about the long time it has taken us to reach the position of being able to give a really good service—is an encouraging one. I appreciate that there is a long waiting list and that this concerns the hon. Gentleman. That is understandable and I assure him that we have noted his remarks.
  When the new exchange equipment is working next spring, I am sure that Cheltenham will have a service which will be fully adequate to meet the needs of this developing area, and of the sort

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  which the Post Office is determined to bring to all its customers.
  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me this opportunity of replying to the points which he has raised about his constituency and the people he
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  represents. It is only right that he should put forward a case on their behalf.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at sixteen minutes past Nine o'clock.