Commons Sitting of 27 January 1969

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

    Zuckerman Report (Consultations)
    Mr. Maurice Macmillanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will include representatives of the hospital doctors, including junior hospital doctors, in his consultations with the profession on the Zuckerman Report on Hospital Scientific and Technical Services.
    The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Mr. David Ennals): Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Macmillan: I thank the Minister for that Answer. I am grateful for the time that it will give us to debate these proposals. But has there been any change of heart, feeling or emphasis within the Ministry about the possible time, rate or plans for implementing or producing any further publications as a result of public discussion?
    Mr. Ennals: There has been no change of heart or policy since I made the announcement to the House a few weeks ago. We are now in the process of consulting a wide range of organisations within the profession, including hospital doctors and others, and so soon as we have their advice we will be in a position to decide on policy.

    Operating Theatre Nurses
    Mr. Deanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will now state his plans for overcoming the shortage of operating theatre nurses.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Julian Snow): I have nothing to add at present to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan) on the 18th November.—[Vol. 773, c. 211.]
    Mr. Dean: Does the hon. Gentleman recollect that that is an exact carbon copy of his Answer to a similar Question on 2nd December? Does he realise that about three-quarters of the theatre nurses are on call outside their duty hours, when they are supposed to be resting? Is not this an intolerable situation, in view of the strain and responsibility involved in current operations?
    Mr. Snow: Yes, but the hon. Member will recall that in my earlier Answer to his hon. Friend I said that this matter was being examined by the appropriate committee. I can now say that the report should be available about mid-1969. That is not so very far ahead. I would add that we fully take into account the fact that the work load has increased as a result of improvements in treatment and operations. We must take that fact into account, along with the fact that we now have more nurses in post than ever before.
    Mr. Bidwell: Will my hon. Friend assure the House that Commonwealth immigrants Who enter this country for other employment and become qualified to take such nursing posts will have no impediment put in their way, nothwith-standing the recent speech by the Leader of the Opposition this weekend requiring certification authority for a change of employment? Will he give an assurance that people will not be hounded in this way?
    Mr. Snow: I can give an unqualified assurance on that point. It should be remembered that many of these immigrant nurses who have now achieved improved qualifications in this country were brought here under the auspices—in terms of the Ministry concerned—of the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell).

    Medical and Nursing Staff
    Mr. Deanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what plans he has to assist hospitals fill medical and

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    nursing staff posts which are vacant owing to lack of money to pay salaries.
    Mr. Ennals: It is for hospital authorities to decide priorities for expenditure within the resources available to them.
    Mr. Dean: Does the Minister recall that when this Question was last asked on 2nd December the House was told that the Secretary of State was giving this problem his urgent attention? Does he agree that vacancies are still not being filled for nurses and doctors, because there is not sufficient money to pay their salaries?
    Mr. Ennals: I am afraid that we do not keep a special record of vacancies which may be due to lack of finance within a particular hospital authority, or which may be due to the non-availability of nurses or medical staff. But there are some such cases and, as I said in my original reply, this is, of course, the responsibility of the hospital authorities, but we are doing a good deal to help in this respect. After all, there was an increase in pay for nurses in January this year and we are also doing as much as we can to relieve nurses of some of their responsibilities, which would enable them to make fuller use of their time.
    Mr. Pavitt: Will my hon. Friend confirm that, in hospital budgeting, this sector is the most crucial of all the financing that we do? Second, would he call for a further review of the establishment of hospitals, since many of these vacancies appear because many of the establishments are not realistic?
    Mr. Ennals: I will look into the last part of that question. On the first part, my hon. Friend is absolutely right.

    Alcoholics (Treatment)
    Mr. Fisherasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what plans he has for extending facilities for treatment of alcoholics.
    The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. Richard Crossman): Hospital boards plan to provide four new special units for this purpose and to increase the size of one existing unit; others are under consideration.
    Mr. Fisher: In view of the estimates that there are between ¼ million and
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    ½million people suffering from alcoholism and that the cost to industry in lost man-hours is over £40 million a year, may I ask whether the Secretary of State is absolutely satisfied that the facilities for treatment are adequate and, indeed, that his Department is taking this whole problem sufficiently seriously?
    Mr. Crossman: I think that the increases now proposed in the hospital boards indicate the seriousness with which we are taking it One would never say that one was satisfied with the attention being given to a major evil of this kind.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: Would not the right hon. Gentleman confirm that it is a fact that less spirits are being consumed today because of the exorbitant taxes inflicted by this Government?
    Mr. Crossman: That is a different question.

    Stockport Infirmary (Casualty Department)
    Mr. Orbachasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he is aware of the need for the enlargement of the casualty department at the Stockport Infirmary; and what action he is taking to remedy the situation.
    Mr. Snow: Yes, Sir; work to enlarge and improve the department will begin as soon as planning is completed.
    Mr. Orbach: While thanking my hon. Friend for his reply, may I ask him to expedite this work in co-operation with the regional hospital board, as this is the only casualty department in the City of Stockport?
    Mr. Snow: Yes, Sir. The current estimate of the cost of the works to be provided is about £73,000, and the delay has been occasioned by the need to find alternative out-patient accommodation at Stepping Hill hospital. Until that is provided, one could not go on with the planning of the new accommodation.

  SOCIAL SERVICES

    Health Service Structure (Green Paper)
    Mr. Maurice Macmillanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services

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    whether he will publish the comments which he has received on the Green Paper on the Structure of the Health Service.
    Mr. Crossman: Not at this stage.
    Mr. Macmillan: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House when he intends to publish any comments that he has received on the Green Paper? If this is to be a public debate, surely it would be better if it were conducted in public so that all sides of the argument were known to all who may take part in it?
    Mr. Crossman: I think that is very reasonable. I have so far received 280 comments, many of them extremely long. The difficulty is that people were not told when they sent them in that they were for publication. I have no objection to any of the interested bodies publishing on their own, but I will consider later whether anything further needs publishing.

    Young People (Supplementary Benefit Allowances)
    Mr. Fortescueasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many people have had their supplementary benefit allowance curtailed as a result of the more rigorous checks on young people applying for social security benefits announced on 25th July, 1968.
    The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Mr. Stephen Swingler): Between 1,800 and 1,900 decisions to issue a short-term allowance from the outset of a claim are made each week. In addition, about 200 claimants who have already received allowances for three months have the period of any further payment limited to four weeks.
    Mr. Fortescue: Will the Minister confirm that the physically and psychologically unfit are not being harshly treated under this new policy? Does the Minister agree that for a young, fit, single man without family responsibilities, supplementary benefits should be curtailed not merely if there is suitable employment in his locality, but if such employment
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    is available at any distance up to, say, 100 miles?
    Mr. Swingler: Taking the second point first, that is indeed part of the policy which is being applied.
    On the first part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, I think that I can confirm that that is so. If the hon. Gentleman has any particular case in mind I should like to inquire into it. But, in the first period of the policy, of 319 appeals to appeals tribunals, 206 have failed, 87 are under consideration and only 26 have succeeded. I think that this shows the value of the policy.
    Mr. Spriggs: When looking into this problem, will my right hon. Friend consider the position of a person sent to work at another place where train services are being cancelled or abolished altogether, making it almost impossible for him to work at a distance of up to 100 miles, as suggested by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Fortescue)?
    Mr. Swingler: If my hon. Friend can draw my attention to any such case I will go into it. Certainly the availability of travel facilities should be taken into account in all these cases.

    Pensions
    Mr. Laneasked the Secretary of State for Social Services by how much prices have increased since pensions were last increased.
    Mr. Swingler: 7·3 per cent. measured by the Index of Retail Prices.
    Mr. Lane: As prices have been rising more rapidly in recent weeks, may I ask whether the Government can hold out any hope of improving on the rather gloomy forecast of the Prime Minister a year ago when he implied that the earliest time for the next increase in pensions would be autumn this year?
    Mr. Swingler: The hon. Gentleman will no doubt have in mind that during the period when this rise took place the supplementary benefit scales have been raised. I am referring to the period since pensions were last raised in October, 1967. This is a factor which will be taken into account in the next review during the next 12 months.

    Retirement Pension
    Mr. Tapsellasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the loss in value in real terms of the National Insurance retirement pension since it was last increased.
    Mr. Edward M. Taylorasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what has been the reduction in the purchasing power of the £4 10s. pension since it was fixed at that weekly rate.
    Mr. Swingler: Measured by the Index of Retail Prices, the purchasing power of the retirement pension which has been considerably improved since this Government look office has, since its last increase in 1967, diminished by rather less than 7 per cent.
    Mr. Tapsell: How is that Answer to be reconciled with the Prime Minister's promise that the most vulnerable sections of the community would be safeguarded against the effects of devaluation?
    Mr. Swingler: It depends upon the periods at which the reviews take place. The Prime Minister made that promise, and I would stress that the present level of the pension is still considerably above the level, in terms of its real value, in October, 1964. This change in the cost of living will be taken into account when the next review takes place.
    Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Has not the hon. Gentleman read the report of the Cost of Living Advisory Committee, which shows that the basic prices paid by pensioners were increasing faster than the average rise in the cost of living index? Bearing in mind that on the right hon. Gentleman's own figures there has been a fall of 6s., was it on a different basis from the pensioners' budget, on the figures given in this report?
    Mr. Swingler: The hon. Gentleman will know that a further report is coming out on this subject. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for Employment and Productivity has promised to bring this out, and we: shall take this into account in assessing what shall be done about pensions in the next review.
    Mr. Rankin: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that nearly all the claims for increased wages today are based on
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    the fact that the cost of living—and particularly the cost of food—is continually rising? As these claims are accepted in many cases, why are pensions not increased in order to meet what is accepted as the continuing rise in the price of food?
    Mr. Swingler: This factor will be taken into account. It depends at what periods the pensions are reviewed. They will be reviewed again shortly. In spite of the fact that their real value today is higher than it was four years ago, they will be reviewed and this rise in the cost of living will be taken into account.
    Lord Balniel: The right hon. Gentleman seems complacent. In considering the burden of rising costs on pensioners will he also take into account the fact that in the first four years of this Government the real value of pensions has been increased by 14 per cent. whereas in the last four years of the former Conservative Government the real purchasing power of the pension was increased by 19 per cent.? Could elderly people have expected this deterioration in their interests from the speeches delivered by the Government spokesman at the last election?
    Mr. Swingler: I should make it plain that the increase of 14 per cent. is an increase in real value of the pension as left by the Tory Administration. That is the position about which we are talking. Nothing that I have said is complacent. The real value of the pension is higher. Though we recognise that the cost of living has been rising, we cannot deal with this matter from month to month. We shall deal with it in the next review.
    Mr. Tapsellasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the current actuarial value of the National Insurance pension for someone who had paid contributions for 20 years, excluding the Exchequer subsidy.
    Mr. Swingler: This depends on various assumptions, including the interest rate assumed, and, in the case of pension for a married couple, on the age of the wife. Assuming, for example, a rate of interest of 5 per cent. the contributions paid for retirement pension over the last 20 years by a man and his employer might provide a weekly pension

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    of £2 3s. 0d. for a single man aged 65 and £1 14s. 0d. for a married couple where the man is 65 and his wife is 60.
    Mr. Tapsell: On what basis of equity does the Government continue to refuse to pay to people over 80 the difference between the actuarial value of the pension and the current level of benefits? Will the Minister undertake to support my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan) when he introduces a Bill to remedy this situation?
    Mr. Swingler: I am not sure whether I understand the hon. Gentleman aright. The basic point is that this is a contributory scheme, and the Fund is based on contributions from employers and employees, with a supplement from the Exchequer. Those who have not been in the contributory scheme cannot draw a contributory pension. That is precisely why we have established the supplementary benefits system—in order that those people shall be entitled to something from the Supplementary Benefits Commission.

    Cervical Cancer Smear Tests
    Mrs. Knightasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will now extend the provision of cervical cancer smear tests for women under 35 years of age.
    Mr. Ennals: I have nothing to add to my reply of 2nd December to the hon. Member.—[Vol. 774, c. 1031–1032.]
    Mrs. Knight: Does the Minister realise that I am attempting to clear up some ambiguity? Will not he say clearly whether the reason is a shortage of money or too many people taking advantage of the existing facilities?
    Mr. Ennals: The point is that the priority, in terms of danger, is for those who are over the age of 35. I can point out that, where laboratory facilities permit, there is no refusal in respect of those under the age of 35. Many younger women are already being screened at hospital ante-natal and post-natal clinics and local authority clinics, but the greatest danger is for those over the age of 35. We are doing everything we can to encourage people in that age range to come forward for screening.
    Dr. John Dunwoody: Can my hon. Friend say what percentage of women aged over 35 were tested last year? Does not he agree that the first priority must be to increase the acceptability of this test to the women who are most at risk?
    Mr. Ennals: I agree. The question of acceptability is an extremely important one. We welcome the work being done by women's organisations and, interestingly enough, now, by trade unionists, to make the importance of this known to people of this age range. During the six months ended 30th June, 1968, no fewer than 703,000 women were tested, which was an increase of 12 per cent. over the previous six months. I cannot give a breakdown of the figures, as to how many were over 35 and how many under that age.
    Mr. Maurice Macmillan: If facilities are being under-used for people over 35, who must have priority, could not the Minister, meanwhile, do something about their use for women under 35 who, by the time they are convinced, may be over 35? Could not fuller use be made of the available facilities in that way?
    Mr. Ennals: It is true that some facilities are being under-used. The important thing is to impress upon women over 35, for whom there is the greatest danger, that they should not hesitate to come forward. It is much more important to do that than to make some change in respect of tests for those under 35 years of age.
    Mrs. Short: Is it not equally important to extend the facilities for the detection of cancer of the breast? Will my hon. Friend take steps to do this as well?
    Mr. Ennals: I will look into the point raised by my hon. Friend.

    Doctors
    Sir G. Sinclairasked the Secretary of State for Social Services, in view of the evidence in Command Paper No. 3569, paragraph 358, of the annual needs of the United States of America for between 2,000 and 3,000 doctors from outside and the developing emigration to the United States of America of young doctors qualified in the United Kingdom medical schools, what steps he proposes to take to attract more of them to stay

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    here either by reorganisation of the National Health Service or by improvements in their pay and conditions of service.
    Mr. Fortescueasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what plans he has to improve the recruitment of doctors into the Hospital Service and to lessen its dependence on immigrant doctors.
    Mr. Crossman: A number of important improvements in the working conditions of hospital doctors were agreed in 1967 and further proposals have been made with a view to improving career planning and prospects of junior doctors. As regards general practice, I would refer the hon. Members to the reply given by the former Minister of Health to my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Mr. Bishop) on 5th February last.—[Vol. 758, c. 13–14.] My aim is to improve still further in consultation with representatives of the profession, working conditions throughout the National Health Service as the best means of encouraging doctors to remain in this country.
    Sir G. Sinclair: But does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that the proposals in his Green Paper, by making the Hospital Service more bureaucratic, tend to make it less attractive?
    Mr. Crossman: My Green Paper, which is an independent Paper, produced by my predecessor, is a basis for discussion: the hon. Member would be wrong to assume that it will remain as a basis for action.
    Mr. Fortescue: Would the right hon. Gentleman not agree that an effective way to improve the pay and equipment of doctors would be to give every possible encouragement, particularly by such things as tax incentives, to private health and hospital schemes?
    Mr. Crossman: No, Sir. I should have thought that that was a very dubious idea. It would not necessarily be true that, if we stimulated the private sector of medicine, we should improve the salaries in the service.
    Mr. Will Griffiths: But if my right hon. Friend is successful in this recruitment, how does he propose to improve the salaries of these doctors, since a previous Answer indicated that establishments can-
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    not be filled at the moment because the regional boards cannot pay the doctors?
    Mr. Crossman: My hon. Friend will appreciate that the subject of doctors' remuneration is a very different question from the one that I was asked.
    Sir G. Sinclairasked the Secretary of State for Social Services in view of the conclusions of the Royal Commission, Command Paper No. 3569, regarding the reliance of the National Health Service on reinforcements of doctors from overseas and the need to reduce such reliance, what steps he proposes to take.
    Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what steps he intends to take to reduce the number of doctors coming from overseas, in view of the Royal Commission's Report on medical education.
    Mr. Crossman: I am in sympathy with the Royal Commission's comments on this subject and am taking them into account in reviewing future needs both for overseas and for British doctors.
    Sir G. Sinclair: I welcome that reply, but would the right hon. Gentleman consider it to be in the interests of this country, as well as of the developing countries, to ensure that, when medical reinforcements come in from outside, they are on the basis of being trainees or students, rather than on work vouchers, which carry with them the right of permanent settlement?
    Mr. Crossman: I am not prepared to go as far as that, and I repeat that I am in entire sympathy with the Royal Commission's comments. I think that they have pointed to what could be a danger to the long-term recruitment of doctors in this country. If the hon. Gentleman will put down another question later, I hope to be able to give him a more concrete answer.
    Mrs. Short: Is my right hon. Friend aware that senior consultants, with their merit awards, all oppose dilution, that is, the appointment of more consultants, yet they are quite happy to allow dilution at the lower end of the hospital and medical service? Does he not think that it is absolutely immoral that we should take trained doctors from underdeveloped countries—people in whom

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    they have invested a large share of their national resources—when we should be training more doctors here and helping them to train doctors?
    Mr. Crossman: We are training more doctors here and there is emigration from this country to other countries, as well as immigration to this country from others. I do not think all movement of doctors is bad, but we do regard the emigration to the United States, as my hon. Friend knows, as something which we should be actively trying to reduce. Equally, we are considering carefully and critically the dependence on doctors from the Commonwealth, both from our own point of view and from that of the Commonwealth countries themselves.
    Mr. Maurice Macmillan: In view of the obvious importance of these matters and all other matters which are the subject of the Todd Committee's Report, does the right hon. Gentleman intend to publish a statement about the Report?
    Mr. Crossman: It could not be done in a single statement but would require a series of statements. A number of the matters concerned are not the responsibilities of my Department but those of the Department of Education and Science. However, I am hoping in the relatively near future to make a statement about medical manpower and the Todd recommendations.
    Mr. Montgomeryasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the average length of service in Great Britain after completion of training of foreign doctors who have trained in this country.
    Mr. Ennals: This information is not at present readily available but studies are in progress with a view to obtaining more data about doctors born overseas and working in this country, including their length of stay.
    Mr. Montgomery: May we have an assurance that we will be given this information as soon as possible? Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the tremendous shortage of doctors in certain industrial areas? What are the Government planning to do to try to get people who train in this country to stay on and work
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    in the National Health Service on completion of their training?
    Mr. Ennals: This has in part been dealt with by my right hon. Friend in his previous Answer. It is true that, in some parts of the country, there is a shortage of doctors. Executive councils are doing what they can and the degree of shortage is not nearly as much as it was some years ago. I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance for which he asks. The data concerning the actual movements in and out of doctors is not nearly as good as we should like, and this is why we are urgently looking at means of improving our statistics.
    Mr. Frank Allaun: Will my hon. Friend accept from me that there are many young hospital doctors, English and overseas, working up to 120 hours a week, working day, night and the next day, without going to bed at all, and that therefore if it were not for these doctors from overseas, our wives and families would not receive the attention that they might need?
    Mr. Ennals: This is absolutely true. As to the extent to which junior hospital doctors are working, my hon. Friend is right. When he refers to the dependence that we have on doctors who come from other parts of the world, especially from the Commonwealth, I agree that it would be extremely difficult for us to maintain our hospital services were it not for those who have trained in other countries and have come to give their services here in Britain.
    Sir G. Nabarro: Is it not a fact that the egress of doctors from this country is larger than the intake of doctors from overseas and that it is not a matter of conditions of service, as the Minister said, but largely of the lack of pecuniary rewards and the invidious comparison with the United States, where a trained doctor can earn 40,000 or 50,000 dollars a year?
    Mr. Ennals: The question of pecuniary rewards is not one that I can answer at present. I doubt whether the hon. Member is right concerning the flow of doctors leaving this country compared with those coming in, but I cannot give him a precise answer. Our statistics do not show whether doctors leaving this country were trained in Britain or overseas.

    Drug Addicts
    Mr. Montgomeryasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what further plans he has for extending facilities for treatment of drug addicts.
    Mr. St. John-Stevasasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will make a statement on progress made in the setting up of treatment centres for drug addicts.
    Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what further proposals he has to extend facilities for the treatment of drug addicts.
    Mr. Crossman: I would refer to the replies given on 24th October last to my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) and on 2nd December to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renée Short) which still apply generally. The number of heroin addicts attending outpatient clinics at the end of November was 919 in London and 228 elsewhere, and the number receiving in-patient treatment 68 in the London area and 39 elsewhere,—[Vol. 770, c. 378–9. [Vol. 774, c. 235.]
    Mr. Montgomery: Is not the Minister aware of the great concern which has been felt about the treatment of drug addicts? Has his attention been drawn to an article in the Sunday Times in which a supervisor at one of these centres said, "This is supposed to be a treatment centre but it is becoming a prescription centre"? This is a matter which is causing great concern to many people. What do the Government intend to do about it?
    Mr. Crossman: I rather share those views. I was at a centre the other day at which much the same answer was given. We are still studying the problem. We have to face the fact that there is not yet a complete answer or knowledge how to tackle the problem. Much of the work at the centres must be analysis and research before they can provide a cure. It would be wrong for the public to be given the idea that there was a simple, easy answer to the problem. We are still studying it.
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: But surely the Minister should not be merely studing the question.
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    He should be remedying the scandalous situation which was revealed in the Sunday Times article. Does he need compulsory powers to make treatment effective?
    Mr. Crossman: I should like to think carefully about the implications of the last part of that question. I could not answer it off the cuff. It was not put on the Order Paper. The implications of the first part of the question seem not wholly fair in view of what I and my hon. Friends have seen in the work of these centres.
    Mrs. Short: While accepting what my right hon. Friend said about our not knowing all the answers, may I ask whether he does not nevertheless think, in view of the increase in the number of drug addicts, particularly among young people, that it is regrettable that such an established unit as the Cane Hill Unit, which was doing excellent treatment for some addicts, has been closed down, thus reducing the number of beds available for those who are willing to take inpatient treatment?
    Mr. Crossman: I do not think that the problem is that there are not enough places in the centres for those who wish to go to them. All my evidence is that the centres are not fully used.
    Dr. John Dunwoody: Has my right hon. Friend seen recent Press reports about addiction to the amphetamines? Does he not agree that this poses a very serious problem and will he consider further restricting the availability of this group of drugs?
    Mr. Crossman: That is a totally different question. I suggest that my hon. Friend puts down a separate Question about it.

    Pop Music
    Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will set up an inquiry into the effect on mental health and general health of extended listening to loud pop music; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Kenneth Lewisasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will set up an inquiry into the effects on the health of young people of extended listening to pop music.
    Mr. Crossman: The answer is, No, Sir.
    Mr. Roberts: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is great concern about continuous pop music not only among lay people but also among youth officers and others—concern not only about the short-term physical and mental effects but also about possible long-term mental factors associated with it? There is concern that in continuous pop music there may be a new and much more deadly opium for the masses.
    Mr. Crossman: I remind my hon. Friend that when Karl Marx coined the phrase he coined it metaphorically and not clinically.
    Mr. Lewis: Does the Minister agree that in this dull and dreary life which the Government have organised for us, pop music can only be good for the health and for the morale of our young people and that it is better for them to indulge in pop than to indulge in drugs, disorders, sit-ins and the rest?
    Mr. Crossman: I must take the question seriously. There is no evidence whatever that this music has any serious medical effect.
    Mr. Murray: Would it not be better if my right hon. Friend considered an investigation of the kind suggested into some of the speeches in this place?
    Sir Knox Cunningham: Will the right hon. Gentleman remember that he was young once and that youth likes noise and pop?

    Capital Building Programme
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyneasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many projects in the health and welfare capital building programme have been deferred; and what is the value of the projects.
    Mr. Ennals: I assume the Question refers to deferments following the announcement in January, 1968, that the planned rate of growth in local authority expenditure would be reduced in Great Britain as a whole by an average of £5 million a year for the period 1968–69–1970–71. It is not possible to identify projects deferred as a result of this reduction.
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Does the hon. Member not agree that, deplorable as all cuts of this nature must be, to some extent they are an inevitable consequence of the failure of the wealth of the nation to increase under the Labour Government and of the increase in the uncom-petitiveness of the British economy under the Labour Government? Will he tell us what discussions representatives of his Department have had with representatives of the International Monetary Fund on its capital spending programmes in view of their inspection of the books at regular intervals?
    Mr. Ennals: The last part of the question is not for me. The hon. Member is talking absolute nonsense in the first part of his question. There has been a slow-down in the planned rate of expansion but there is still expansion, and this is so in health and welfare, about which he asked. Even for the year in question, though there has been a slowdown in the granting of loan sanctions, £2·9 million more were granted in 1967–68 than in the previous year on these projects.
    Mr. Dean: How does the Minister explain the fact that the White Paper on Public Expenditure shows clearly a reduction of £29 million in health and welfare expenditure in this year and of £31 million for next year? Surely he must know something about the sort of project which will suffer under these cuts?
    Mr. Ennals: There has been a range of projects in health and welfare and other local government activities in which proposals which have been put forward have not been immediately accepted. It is essential that in local government as well as elsewhere there should be a moderation of the sustained, very rapid rise in expenditure, but there is still a rise, as I said in my Answer.

    Invalid Vehicle Repairs (Messrs. Beaven Bros.)
    Mr. Huntasked the Secretary of State for Social Services, whether, in view of the inadequacy of existing servicing facilities in the Bromley and South-East London areas, he will now grant official recognition to Messrs. Beaven Brothers of New Cross as approved repairers for invalid vehicles.
    Mr. Snow: My Department has received no complaints about the servicing of invalid vehicles in these areas, but the approved repairer facilities there are being reviewed and Messrs. Beaven Brothers' application will be taken fully into account.
    Mr. Hunt: While I am grateful for that glimmer of hope, may I ask the Minister please to bear in mind that although he may not have received any complaints, I have received many expressions of dissatisfaction in my constituency from disabled drivers within Bromley and district about the existing servicing facilities? They are also full of praise for Beaven Brothers, who at the moment are able to carry out only minor and emergency repairs. They would like to see full recognition for this garage, which I believe will be well justified.
    Mr. Snow: I understand that the hon. Member has a constituency interest to advance. If he will let me have details of specific cases of dissatisfaction with present arrangements, I will look into the matter.

    Unemployment Benefit
    Mr. Huntasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what are the latest available figures for the number of people receiving unemployment benefit.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Norman Pentland): On 4th November, 1968, some 294,000 people were receiving unemployment benefit.
    Mr. Hunt: How do those rather startling figures square with the Labour Party's election pledges to maintain and safeguard full employment in this country?
    Mr. Pentland: The hon. Member must have misheard the figures which I gave. I said that 294,000 people were receiving unemployment benefit. The Labour Party's pledges about unemployment benefit will be fulfilled.
    Lord Balniel: Is the Minister aware that a substantial number of those persons in receipt of unemployment benefit are also in receipt of termination grants paid under redundancy payments scheme? Is
    926
    he satisfied that this double payment of benefit is the best use of scarce resources? Will he consider a possible link between redundancy payments and mobility and retraining?
    Mr. Pentland: If the noble Lord would like us to look into that and will put down a Question about it, we will certainly look into it for him.

    Earnings-Related Pension Scheme
    Sir B. Rhys Williamsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the additional amount of money he will raise by putting National Insurance contributions on a graduated basis.
    Mr. Crossman: I must ask the hon. Gentleman to await the publication tomorrow of the White Paper on the new earnings-related pension scheme.
    Sir B. Rhys Williams: Would the Secretary of State explain the point of raising National Insurance contributions by putting them on a graduated basis if the money is dissipated again by giving graduated benefits? Is he not giving most money to those with the least need? Will he give an undertaking that if more money is to be available for spending he will give it to the disabled, the over-80s, and children in poverty, and not to people who are already the best-off in society?
    Mr. Crossman: The only assurance I can give the House today is that, when the House debates the White Paper, as it will no doubt wish to do, I will explain the reasons.
    Mr. Juddasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will now make a statement on the Government's plans for a comprehensive wage-related system of social security.
    Mr. Barnesasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will now make a statement on the Government's new plan for social security.
    Mr. Crossman: The White Paper containing proposals for a new earnings-related pension scheme will be published tomorrow. In order to make the proposals readily available to the public, a summary version of the White Paper priced Is. will be published simultaneously.
    Mr. Judd: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of us wish to congratulate him on the completion of this mammoth preparatory task? In view of the great deal of public interest in this matter, may I ask how soon it will be before the Government introduce legislation?
    Mr. Crossman: Legislation will certainly not be introduced before next Session, but I hope early next Session. As for my hon. Friend's congratulations, I advise him—though I am delighted to find him so enthusiastic—to wait until he has seen which parts he likes better than others.
    Mr. Barnes: Would my right hon. Friend comment on the detailed versions of some of his plans which have already appeared in the Press? Would he agree that the present tendency for so many matters to be announced or reported in the Press before being formally announced should, if possible, be prevented?
    Mr. Crossman: I believe that when my hon. Friend reads the White Paper he will be struck more by the contrast which it shows between the comprehensive position and the bits and pieces which have dribbled into the Press in the last four years.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: Can the Minister say to what extent the White Paper will vary from what we have already read in the Press?
    Mr. Crossman: I must leave the hon. and gallant Member in nervous anticipation of publication.

    National Insurance (Employers' Contributions)
    Sir B. Rhys Williamsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the current annual amount of employers' contributions to the National Insurance schemes.
    Mr. Swingler: Employers are paying National Insurance contributions, including contributions for industrial injuries, at the rate of about £1,025 million a year.
    Sir B. Rhys Williams: This is an extremely large sum of money. Would the right hon. Gentleman explain what em-
    928
    ployers get in exchange? Does the whole of this money get spent on dealing with needs which arise directly out of employment?
    Mr. Swingler: This money is invested in a comprehensive social security scheme on behalf of the whole nation and, therefore, benefits the entire population. The arguments for this will once again be set out in the improved scheme which will be presented by my right hon. Friend tomorrow.
    Mr. Heffer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many Labour hon. Members feel that the contribution made by employers is not large enough and should be increased? Would he agree that employers get, in return, a very good service indeed from workers in industry?
    Mr. Swingler: I must ask my hon. Friend to wait 24 hours and to consider the propositions which will be put forward tomorrow by my right hon. Friend.

    Social Security Benefits
    Mr. Biffenasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will conduct a survey to ascertain to what extent, if any, the current levels of social security benefits exceed earnings from employment in lower wage occupations.
    Mr. Crossman: We expect to get some information about this from the inquiry now being planned into the circumstances of families.
    Mr. Biffen: While in no way questioning the present level of social security benefits, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he is aware that, in many low-wage rural occupations, there is a widespread belief that it barely pays to work? In these circumstances, will he make representations to his Cabinet colleagues about the utter folly of referring farm workers' wages to the National Board for Prices and Incomes?
    Mr. Crossman: The last point of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question seems to be somewhat remote from the first.
    Mr. Barnes: Having carried out the original survey into the circumstances of families in 1966, is it not possible to carry out a limited piece of research annually to obtain a quick check on the

    929
    current position? Could not this be done at a limited cost and so avoid the need for a major survey every few years?
    Mr. Crossman: There is a great deal in what my hon. Friend says. In fact, I have been disappointed with how much things are now out of date compared with the 1966 survey. I am trying to make sure that what we are now doing lays the basis for a regular report, which is what we really need.

    Disabled Drivers' Vehicles
    Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is his time-scale for making the new prototype P5 invalid tricycle available to disabled drivers; and what additional cost per vehicle he estimates to be involved in making this a two-seater vehicle with storage for an invalid chair.
    Mr. Macdonaldasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what progress is being made in the development of the P5 prototype two-seater invalid car; and if he will make a statement.
    Mrs. Braddockasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what new categories of disabled drivers will receive four-wheel vehicles.
    Mr. Martenasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) if he will list the first three categories of disabled drivers which are to receive four-wheel vehicles in the next extension of this facility;
    (2) what is the estimated cost of providing a second seat and stowage arrangements for a wheel chair in the prototype P5 invalid tricycle.
    Mr. Macdonaldasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will draw up categories of the totally disabled with the object of gradually granting concessions similar to those for which they would be eligible if they were less severely disabled, including financial assistance towards the cost of private transport.
    Mr. Snow: The 1969 three-wheeler will have greatly improved suspension and a new three-wheeler with a bigger engine and automatic transmission will be introduced in 1970. These important improvements will considerably increase the cost
    930
    of providing vehicles for the disabled. Although the actual fitting of a second seat in a new three-wheeler which did not need to carry a wheelchair would not be difficult or costly, the consequences of permission to carry a passenger would be costly and my right hon. Friend is unable to provide further additional funds for this service at the present time at the expense of other National Health Service developments. For the same reason, the conditions applying to the issue of cars are not being changed. The timing and nature of any future changes cannot yet be forecast, but when available resources permit an extension of the service my right hon. Friend will consider the needs of all suitable groups.
    Mr. Roberts: Is my right hon. Friend aware that disabled people generally will welcome the news that this three-wheeler will be introduced at a reasonably early stage? Will he accept, however, that there will be considerable disappointment at the fact that there are not to be facilities for carrying passengers? Will he bear in mind that loneliness—including when driving—is a real problem to the disabled and will he, therefore, look at the matter again?
    Mr. Snow: This is a matter which is deserving of the sympathy of hon. Members in all parts of the House. In fact, we are reviewing our future provision most carefully. It must be understood that the arrangements aim to provide a degree of personal mobility. This is expensive enough and the cost of this is increasing yearly. We do more for our disabled people in this respect than does any other country in the world.
    Mr. Macdonald: Concerning Question No. 28—I do not see how this Question has a direct connection with the others being answered by the Minister—does not my hon. Friend consider it curious to make a distinction between the civilian partially disabled and the civilian totally disabled to the disadvantage of the totally disabled when no such distinction is made in respect of the war disabled? Will he think further about this distinction?
    Mr. Snow: The association of my hon. Friend's Question with the other Questions arises because of the same regrettable fact that there is an economic factor

    931
    here which we find difficult to cope with at the moment. The totally disabled war pensioner who cannot drive can have one of our vehicles or an allowance towards the cost of running his own and is thus in a more favourable position than the National Health Service patient. This is in line with policies that have been adhered to by all parties for a long time. One day, perhaps, we might have an expression of view by the House about the present views of hon. Members on this subject. The House must face the fact that to make the practice general as between war disabled and other disabled people would be a very expensive exercise indeed.
    Mrs. Braddock: Would the Minister explain why there is no other category for the four-wheel disablement vehicle?
    Mr. Snow: When further resources become available, the desirability of making improvements for those who are already entitled to vehicles will have to be considered together with the claims of those who do not at present qualify for any such help. This is the problem. We may extend the use of four-wheeled vehicles but, on present form, it would be to the detriment of many categories of people who marginally are not at present entitled to three-wheeled vehicles.
    Mr. Marten: Does the Minister's somewhat disappointing reply—he will agree that it is disappointing—mean that the new P5 three-wheeler is not to be a two-seater simply because it would be more convenient and, because it would be more convenient, more people would want it?
    Mr. Snow: There is no technical difficulty involved in making the P5 a two-seater. Where the difficulty arises is in then finding space in it for a wheelchair. The hon. Gentleman, whose work in this respect, together with the work of many of my hon. Friends, is well known, will appreciate that there is no unanimity of opinion outside the House on this matter. Indeed, it would be helpful if he could use his influence to see that there is a clearer definition of the disabled people's views on this matter. I can find no uniformity on this issue at present and, as I explained, it is a question of developing as resources become available.
    Mr. Archer: When my hon. Friend is looking into this matter, will he take into account the anomalies which arise? Will he examine, for example, the position of those disabled through respiratory complaints who are entitled to a three-wheeled chair only if they are going to a place of employment? Is he aware that often the difficulty for these people is that they are too ill to have an occupation?
    Mr. Snow: This is one of the factors which we shall be taking into consideration as the situation develops. I do not wish to conceal our great difficulty in meeting the demand that is coming from disabled people who are only marginally not entitled to some sort of vehicle.

    National Insurance Funds
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenterasked the Secretary of State for Social Services the market value of the securities held by the National Insurance Reserve Fund and the National Insurance Fund, respectively, at the end of 1968, with comparable figures at the end of 1964.
    Mr. Swingler: The market value of the securities held by the National Insurance Reserve Fund and the National Insurance Fund, respectively, at the 31st December, 1968, were £704 million and £88 million. Comparable figures for 31st December, 1964, were £874 million and £188 million.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: In the light of those figures, can the Minister clear up the question of whether the £200 million which was supposed to have been transferred from the Reserve Fund to the Fund was £200 million at market value or £200 million nominal?
    Mr. Swingler: £200 million at market value, of which £50 million was transferred in December, 1968.
    Lord Balniel: Does the Minister recollect that we were informed that this transfer of £200 million from the National Health Reserve Fund was to meet special payments during the winter—for example, increases in sickness or unemployment benefit? If no such payments have to be made, will it be returned to the Reserve Fund?
    Mr. Swingler: I said that we would have to see how the situation worked

    933
    out. The transfer is not for the purpose of any special payment. When the Motion was presented, I said that the transfer was being made because the National Insurance Fund had become low, as had been occurring over a long period of time.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenterasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what were the annual deficits on the working of the National Insurance Fund for the years 1964–65, 1965–66, 1966–67, respectively; and what he estimates will be the outturn in 1968–69 after making allowance for the transfer to the Fund of £200 million from the National Insurance Reserve Fund.
    Mr. Swingler: There was a deficit of £21 million in 1964–65, a surplus of £25 million in 1965–66 and a deficit of £13 million in 1966–67. It is estimated that if transfers from the National Insurance Reserve Fund are left out of account, the deficit in 1968–69 will be something over £60 million, depending on the level of sickness during this winter.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Do those figures mean that the fall in the value of the securities held by the two Funds, which the right hon. Gentleman announced in his previous Answer, is mainly due to a falling off in the value of the securities in which the Fund is held?
    Mr. Swingler: As, I think, the right hon. Gentleman will know, that is a trend which, unfortunately, has been occurring over a long time, with fluctuations over a period of 20 years. During the last four years when the right hon. Gentleman was Minister, I think that there was a fall in the value of these securities of about 11 per cent.

    Influenza Vaccine (Supplies)
    Mr. Edward M. Taylorasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether adequate supplies of flu vaccine are now available; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Moonmanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make a further statement on the manufacture and distribution of the A2 influenza vaccine.
    Mr. Ennals: 1,070,000 doses of Hong Kong influenza vaccine have now been
    934
    distributed. Supply is still not meeting demand but increasing quantities are going to retail chemists to meet doctors' prescriptions.
    Mr. Taylor: While I fully appreciate that the epidemic has not really occurred, may I ask the hon. Gentleman at least to say what steps he is taking to make sure that those with responsibility for maintaining essential services are given the vaccine? Is he aware that some general practitioners still cannot get a supply?
    Mr. Ennals: The Government are not responsible for either manufacturing or distributing vaccine, and I do not expect that the hon. Member would propose that we should be. Recognising, however, that there would be a demand and that there might be a shortage, we took the advice of our experts and decided that there should be certain priorities who should, if possible, have the vaccine first. This advice was made known and I had discussions with the manufacturers and distributors. They gave their ready cooperation in seeing that bulk supplies went mainly to hospitals and local authorities, and much more of the sup-lies have now gone to retail chemists to meet doctors' prescriptions. But the supply is, of course, still not meeting all demands.
    Mr. Moonman: I hope that there will not be undue optimism because of a few days of mild weather. In the criteria that my hon. Friend wants to establish, will the bronchitic and asthmatic have first claim? If so, how does this square up with the fact that members of the staff of the House of Commons got their "jabs" this morning but, apparently, not one Member of Parliament?
    Mr. Ennals: The priorities that were suggested by the Joint Committee still apply. This is the first information I have had about jabs being given this morning. Mr. Speaker, and not the Government, is responsible for the administration of the House of Commons. I will make inquiry about the point raised by the hon. Member.
    Dame Irene Ward: In view of what the hon. Gentleman has said, may I ask whether he is aware that most of the hospitals that I have contacted, both in London and in the North of England, do

    935
    not have supplies even for their very ill patients? Were any financial commitments required from hospitals before vaccine was delivered to them? Will the hon. Gentleman accept that the whole distribution has not been very effectively or efficiently done?
    Mr. Ennals: As to the question of payment, there is no difference from any other system of ordering prescriptions and drug supplies. I certainly do not accept the point made by the hon. Lady. I do not know when she made her inquiries—
    Dame Irene Ward: Last week.
    Mr. Ennals:—or at what hospitals, but my inquiries have led me to the impression that almost all hospitals have now received their requirements. There is still insufficient to meet some prescriptions by doctors, but in the matter of distribution my impression is that although we have, of course, no means of insisting how a doctor prescribes—it would be quite wrong for us to do so—the vast proportion, I would say 95 per cent. of that which has become available, has gone to the priority groups.
    Mr. John Hynd: As we understand that this vaccine is a preventive measure, can my hon. Friend tell us on what basis it is being distributed? He has referred to doctors' prescriptions. Does that mean that only those who are attending doctors for other illnesses are getting injections, or are block injections being given, as was referred to a moment ago?
    Mr. Ennals: I have occasionally heard reports of block injections. Most of my inquiries have shown that the vaccine was either the pre-Hong Kong variety or was ordered in October before the Government's intervention to bring about the voluntary distribution system. The supplies which are now available are, of course, to meet doctors' prescriptions and are available through the chemists.
    Mr. Maurice Macmillan: Could the hon. Gentleman restore the balance a little and inform us about ordinary 'flu? Am I right in assuming that the relationship of that vaccine to Hong Kong 'flu is the same as the relationship of the previous vaccine to ordinary influenza and that it is still possible for people to get a non-Hong Kong virus, with
    936
    which the vaccine has no effect, and that it is just as dangerous for bronchitic and asthmatic patients?
    Mr. Ennals: I would not say that it necessarily had no effect. It is too early to say. Certainly, it is a vaccine which is designed to deal with this particular type of virus. As has been recognised and said in the House, the incidence so far has been very mild and some of the scaremongering statements that were made have so far proved to be absolutely untrue. We cannot be certain. It is interesting to note that new sickness benefit claims last week showed a reduction compared with 12 months ago.

    Disabled Persons
    Mr. St. John-Stevasasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he has now completed his study of a social security scheme to aid those who are disabled from any cause whatsoever; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Laneasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether, in preparing the Government's plans for reshaping the system of social security, he will give special attention to the position of disabled people; and if he will now make a statement.
    Mr. Crossman: We cannot complete our plans until we have the information which is lacking at present of the numbers, needs and financial circumstances of severely disabled people. This we shall be getting from the current Government survey. Meanwhile, I would ask hon. Members to await the Government's White Paper which is being published tomorrow and which will set out the kind of provision we have in mind.
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: Since the Government pledged themselves to produce a scheme as long ago as 1964 and rejected the very helpful Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. Gordon Campbell), which the Minister himself opposed, are not the Government behaving with extraordinary callousness to the plight of 150,000 citizens who are not within this insurance scheme, who have no help of any kind and who are disabled?
    Mr. Crossman: No, I would not say that. It was an unfair question with

    937
    unfair imputations. What the Government are doing is to have the first adequate survey made of the problem of disablement. It is no good the hon. Member giving figures. No one knows the numbers, the degree of disablement or the extent of the problem. What we have said is that we cannot pass Bills to deal with a problem before we have studied it adequately.
    Mr. Lane: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us, roughly, in what month of this year he hopes to publish the results of the survey?
    Mr. Crossman: I am hopeful of having it published in the summer. I hope to get some access to it for use in the Department a month or two earlier. It is a major report, which will take a few weeks to publish.
    Mr. Arthur Lewis: Can the Minister say, since the Opposition are continually asking the Government to cut down on all forms of expenditure, including social security, whether, if any of these schemes they are pressing for are put into operation, the Opposition will not complain that the Government are again wasting money? Have they given him any assurance?
    Mr. Crossman: It is not the kind of assurance we would expect from the opposite side of the House. I agree with my hon. Friend that any suggestion for a brand new insurance scheme covering all disabled people, grading them and giving them cash benefits would be an enormously expensive addition to our social security system.

SCIENTOLOGY (INQUIRY)
The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:
Mr. HORDERN: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what further consideration he has given to holding an inquiry into the practice of Scientology.
The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. Richard Crossman): I will with permission, Mr. Speaker, now answer Question No. 74.
In consultation with my right hon. Friends I have decided to set up an
938
inquiry with the following terms of reference:
"To inquire into the practice and effects of Scientology and to report."
The hon. and learned Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster) has kindly consented to carry out this inquiry. The existing restrictions on foreign nationals proposing to study or work at Scientology establishments will continue in force while it is in progress.
Mr. Hordern: May I express my appreciation to the Minister for his decision to set up this inquiry? It is something for which I have been pressing for two years.
May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether my hon. and learned Friend will be empowered to take evidence from overseas countries in which Scientology is practised, as many of the permanent staff of this organisation come from overseas? Secondly, will the proceedings of this inquiry be privileged and, finally, can he say how long it will be before the inquiry will make its report?
Mr. Crossman: The terms of reference will clearly enable the hon. and learned Member to study the problem overseas—indeed, it would be quite unrealistic to study Scientology without studying it in aspects other than those of Great Britain.
The inquiry will be semi-privileged. It is the type of single report which I, as Minister of Housing and Local Government, set up to deal with problems at Bognor Regis. Evidence will be taken privately and not on oath. I have done this for a very special reason. The kind of evidence we want will be from people of a nervous nature, who will not face cross-examination or any public examination. This way we are more likely to get them to talk than in any other form of inquiry.
Mr. C. Pannell: May I inquire why it is that, first, Scientology is characterised as a fraud, and then we set up an inquiry into it? Would it not have been rather better the other way round?
Mr. Crossman: I would not have thought so. There are a great number of frauds in the country against which we do not feel we have to take measures, or investigate any more thoroughly. Stupidity is something which we tolerate in ourselves and others.
Mr. G. Johnson-Smith: Fraud or not, may I say to the right hon. Gentleman that many people, particularly those in the constituency of East Grinstead, where this organisation has its world headquarters, will warmly welcome the Minister's statement?
Mr. Thorpe: Without expressing any view on the merits, one way or the other, of Scientology, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman can say why we banned people coming to this country to study something which we now admit we know so little about that we have to set up an inquiry?
Mr. Crossman: I would not draw that implication from what I said. We banned people coming in, as my predecessor reminded us, because the Government had come to the conclusion that it was an undesirable practice, and that we should not permit people to come in and set themselves up as being able to educate each other. We banned them coming in for teaching purposes. We banned them partly because we knew so much about them. However, it is now highly desirable—after six months we have seen some remarkable changes taking place—that we should now have an inquiry and publish its results.
Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on setting up this inquiry, if only so that the public at large should know the full facts about Scientology, and be able to come to their own judgments about it, although this would have been desirable at an earlier stage?
But may I express some concern about the decision to hold this inquiry in private? I see the reasons for it, but would it not also adversely affect people who may be criticised during the course of the hearings and who may not be present to hear the criticism and therefore to reply?
Mr. Crossman: One of the reasons I delayed announcing this inquiry for some weeks, to consider the possibilities, was precisely because of the problem which my hon. Friend poses. Unfortunately, as we all know, the choice is very limited for the Government. We either have to have a formal inquiry under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921, or we have to have the sort which I have proposed. I thought that to use the former
940
would be to take a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Mr. Maurice Macmillan: May I thank the Minister for setting up this inquiry, perhaps a little belatedly, and ask him, in view of the last question, whether he will assure us that its findings will be published?
Mr. Crossman: Yes, Sir, Officially, I should say that we will wait to see the report, but it is pretty definite that, unless something very unusual happens, the report will be published.
Dr. Gray: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many people, like myself, were dissatisfied with the action taken against Scientology before, on the evidence that the Government published? Will he ensure, if this inquiry is to be held in private, that sufficient evidence will be published to justify any conclusion that the Government reach?
Mr. Crossman: We shall publish the results of the report by the hon. and learned Member for Northwich whatever the repercussions are. He is an absolutely free man in the inquiry, and we shall not try to influence him in any way.
Sir G. Nabarro: As one who was extensively lobbied by these people about the Government's earlier decision—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—as we all were, but I more than most—may I now be told by the hon. Gentleman what has caused him to relent and to change his mind, or to change the Government's mind, and why is he now doing exactly the opposite of what it was endeavoured to persuade him to do a few months ago?
Mr. Crossman: I am a little bewildered by the hon. Gentleman. We are not doing exactly the opposite. We are continuing in force all the limitations on the activities of these people which were proposed by my predecessor. In addition, we are now having a thorough investigation into the nature of Scientology, which I am sure will edify the hon. Gentleman as much as the rest of the public.
Mr. Pavitt: Will the investigation include an examination of the terrible campaign conducted against the previous Minister of Health and the assassination of the characters of several hon. Members by that organisation?
Mr. Crossman: No doubt the hon. and learned Member for Northwich will note my hon. Friend's question. He should see things in proportion, however. The subject I am mainly concerned with is not hon. Members of the House, but very innocent people with weak minds. I was gravely alarmed at what was happening. Now we shall find the truth.
Mr. Gordon Walker: Would my right hon. Friend consider publishing not only the report, but at any rate as much of the evidence as ought to be published?
Mr. Crossman: I must await the reception of the report.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS
Dame Irene Ward: May I ask, Mr. Speaker, whether, in view of the amalgamation of Social Security and the Ministry of Health, we are likely to have two days in which to address Questions on social security matters, since there now seems to be a clamping down on Questions about the humanity of Government administration?
Mr. Speaker: Order. Clamping down goes on at Question Time every day. If the hon. Lady wants a second day for questions for any Department, she must put the request to the Leader of the House.

OPEN UNIVERSITY (REPORT)
The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Edward Short): With permission, I would like to make a statement about the Report of the Planning Committee on the Open University.
This Report is published today. The Committee's task was to work out a comprehensive plan for an Open University, and to prepare a draft charter and statutes. This it has done with great energy and skill, and I should like to pay tribute to the Committee, under its chairman, Sir Peter Venables for the effort which it has put into producing such a worth while Report.
The Government fully accept the outline plan for development set out in the Report. 1: will now be for the university authority, as an autonomous and
942
completely independent institution, to carry the project forward, and in this it can count on the support of the Government.
Preparations are now going ahead on the basis that the university authority will be set up within the next few months; that student enrolments will begin in the autumn of 1970; and that courses, including broadcasts on radio and B.B.C. 2, correspondence tuition, and tutorials at local study centres, will start in January, 1971.
The B.B.C. will work as educational partners with the university, and I should like to pay tribute to the Corporation for the support and co-operation which it has shown in the planning of the Open University.
Finally, I should like to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the "Minister of State for the Arts" for the energetic and imaginative way in which she has carried this project forward.
Sir E. Boyle: We would, of course, endorse the right hon. Gentleman's personal acknowledgement of the work of the Planning Committee and its Chairman, whose Report sets out a project embracing interesting experiments in the use of broadcasting for educational purposes and in the development of part-time degree courses, with both of which objectives we on these benches are very much in sympathy. But is it not a fact that this proposal comes at a time when resources for essential educational tasks are more severely stretched than in any year since the war?
Does the right hon. Gentleman really think that it makes sense for him to commit himself to funds of about an annual rate of £3·7 million, as mentioned in the Report, particularly as this Report may well suggest techniques and innovations that could be adopted more efficiently and less expensively by existing institutions providing part-time degree courses and other forms of adult education?
Mr. Short: I certainly can justify this expenditure. The expenditure this year will be about £0·4 million, next year about £1·25 million, and the following year about £3·75 million, but in that year there will be considerable income for the university as well.

943
There are a great many gaps in our provision for higher education. A great many people missed the boat. Many people, teachers and others, wish to obtain additional qualifications and I am sure that this innovation will give them the assistance they require. Also, it will make a considerable impact on teaching in higher education, and in further education generally.
Mr. Christopher Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of us believe that the Opposition will repent of their very peevish and churlish attitude? Is he also aware that this project would pay for itself if it develops the educational technology which it will be able to provide and which no other organisation in this country is providing at the moment?
Mr. Short: My hon. Friend has made two very important points. I estimate that in a few years' time income may well balance expenditure in this institution. The second point is the one that I made earlier. It is tremendously important that in developing new techniques and new programming for learning at higher levels this institution may well, and I think will, have a considerable impact on teaching generally at this level.
Mr. Pardoe: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Liberal Party will certainly welcome his statement? We feel that the expenditure will be more than justified.
May I, however, ask the right hon. Gentleman a question relating to further education and part-time education generally? Will he say what research he has done in conjunction with this Committee to ensure that the part-time education he has mentioned will be available not only from this open university, but much more generally available in the country?
Mr. Short: How the university uses its recorded programmes, and so on, is a matter for the university. I am sure that a great deal of use will be made of them, but this is a matter for the university entirely.
Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this project is likely to cost, so far as I have quickly calculated, one-tenth of the cost of a Polaris submarine, and that it is likely to be much more useful?
Mr. Short: It is very important to get the expenditure into perspective. Next year, as I said, it will be £1·25 million against a total expenditure of well over £2,000 million next year on education.
Mr. J. E. B. Hill: Could the right hon. Gentleman be a little more specific about the groups of people he expects to benefit from these degrees? In particular, is it his intention that this shall be offered as an alternative to the excess of young people who qualify for university degree courses and who may not be able to get into some institutions; and secondly, will the taking of a degree in the open university entitle a person thereby to become a graduate teacher with a graduate's allowance?
Mr. Short: To take the last point first, the open university degrees will be equivalent to degrees from any other university.
On the first point, whatever provision we make, there will always be people who, for one reason or another, missed the boat educationally in their youth. This organisation will provide for them, among others.
Mr. Gordon Walker: While welcoming my right hon. Friend's statement and noting that had the Opposition been in office this project would not have been launched, could my right hon. Friend tell me whether the money for this university will come from the University Grants Committee or direct from his Department?
Mr. Short: So far as we can see in the years ahead it will come directly from my Department. There are important differences in financing here which, perhaps, we can develop on another occasion, but I feel that it is more appropriate that it should be financed directly from the Department than through the U.G.C.
Mr. Hornby: Will the right hon. Gentleman say in which year he imagines the income will balance expenditure?
Mr. Short: Of course I cannot, because we cannot say what the income will be. The students will pay fees, but there will be considerable receipts from the sale of textbooks, tapes, and so on. I hope, also, that when the university gets going it will be able to make a major contribution

945
towards the development of education in developing countries.
Mr. Dalyell: Is guidance being given on an age of entry limit to the open university?
Mr. Short: No, there are no upper limits at all on the ages of entry.
Mr. Lane: While I am in sympathy with the idea of the project, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that if the financial stringency continues as acute as it is now, and if he insists on going ahead with the time scale that he indicated, many people will feel, "Here is another example of the Government getting their priorities wrong"?
Mr. Short: I do not know what the hon. Gentleman means about financial stringency in education.
Sir E. Boyle: Oh.
Mr. Short: The right hon. Gentleman says "Oh". The school building programme is more than twice what it was when he was in my place, and next year, on current expenditure, expenditure will be well over £100 million more than in this year.
Mr. Dudley Smith: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that he has got his priorities right when this afternoon, because of the Government's economic squeeze, Warwickshire County Education Committee has before it a proposal to sack over 300 helpers in primary schools?
Mr. Short: That is another matter, but I am watching very carefully what the Warwickshire local authority does about the employment of teachers for whom the local authority has been given the money.
I certainly think that the priority is right to deal first with those people who have been deprived in their youth.
Sir Knox Cunningham: If, as the right hon. Gentleman says, the finance will come direct from the Ministry, does this mean that this university will be controlled by the Ministry?
Mr. Short: Not at all. I pointed out in my statement that the university has applied for a charter. The notice appeared in the London Gazette on 3rd January. I hope that Her Majesty will grant it a charter early this spring. It will then be a completely autonomous body in the same way as any other university in the United Kingdom.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  SUPPLY
  [6TH ALLOTTED DAY],—considered.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Ernest G. Perry.]

  CANNABIS (WOOTTON REPORT)
  3.50 p.m.
  Mr. Quintin Hogg: We on this side were greatly relieved, and we were grateful to the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, when we heard him announce last Thursday his conclusions on the Report of the Wootton Sub-Committee. Our relief was not dismissed when we sensed, rightly, I hope, that our feeling was shared and widely supported by hon. and right hon. Members opposite. Perhaps we shall have an opportunity to gauge this more accurately by the time the proceedings this afternoon are over.
  However, we thought, and we think now, that the House should spend part of its time today in discussing the Report and its implications, if only because it is our view—it is certainly mine—that opinion in the country is a little more confused than it is in this House, if my assessment is correct, and because the question of cannabis and its use has been the subject of a considerable propaganda campaign which the Home Secretary, with the resources at his disposal and the authority of his office, may be able to counter in what he has to say.
  The House of Commons is as much a place in which we ought to register agreement on important issues as one in which we ought to air our differences. I have two general preliminary observations to make. In the first place, I myself—I hope that other hon. Members do so, too—greatly rejoiced at the decision of the House of Lords last week in its judicial capacity on the question of absolute liability. I hope that that decision, which will be generally welcomed, will not deter the Home Secretary from the good work which he promised last Thursday, when he said that he was continuing to take up the question of absolute liability in this matter.
  948
  In passing, I hope that the question of absolute liability will not be viewed solely in relation to cannabis or solely in relation to drugs. As some of the Law Lords said last Thursday, Parliament has been a little lighthearted in recent years—this applies not only to the present Government but to their predecessors—in creating offences, or at least in appearing to create offences, in fields in which it was anxious to control particular activities but in respect of which no element of moral guilt appears to arise.
  I remember that, in the time of the 1945 Parliament, the palmy days when Sir Hartley Shawcross was Attorney-General, and a Socialist, I had a tremendous battle with him on this subject, but I lost the battle because I was told that the particular subject—the black market, or whatever it was—was so important that it did not matter whether a person was morally guilty or not.
  If we want the law to be respected, however much we wish to control an activity and however much we may be afraid of bogus defences, we must be careful not to exclude the element of conscious guilt from criminality. I hope that that principle will be generally agreed and accepted, and I wish the Home Secretary well in his work in this connection.
  Second, I say sincerely that although, like the Home Secretary, I differ from the judgment of the Wootton Sub-Committee in this matter, I wish to say nothing disrespectful about any of its members. People who undertake public work for Parliament deserve the thanks of Parliament for what they do, whether one happens to accept or to reject their conclusions. Parliament could not carry on without public-spirited persons, eminent each in his or her walk of life, who are prepared to undertake this kind of work, always, I believe, without pay.
  I wish, therefore, to express on behalf of all my right hon. and hon. Friends thanks to the members of the Committee, thanks which are no less sincere because I happen to differ from their conclusions. Having said that, however, I claim the right of Parliament to differ from conclusions of Committees when we think that they are wrong.

  949
  I was not a little disturbed when, as the Home Secretary reminded the House, I was questioned on this subject on a sound radio programme and also on television on at least two other occasions, that on each occasion it was suggested to me that, if the Government set up a Committee, they ought to accept its recommendations. I was chided a little by the Home Secretary for not pointing out that this particular Committee was not set up for this purpose by the Government, and I accept his rebuke, but, with respect, the point I took was correct, namely, that Parliament must retain its supremacy in these matters, and never more so than when what is ultimately at stake is a social and political judgment. That is our purpose here. Although we must at all times find the advice of a Committee helpful, we cannot be excluded from the right ultimately to reject it if we wish.
  In this case, I am convinced that the Home Secretary's political judgment was sound. As with all Committees, the Report of the Wootton Sub-Committee is obviously a compromise, even apart from the minority reservations. Often, compromise is admirable in the report of a Committee because it can yield a measure of agreement for practical action from people who in other respects take different points of view. However, on reading this Report, I feel that it is one containing a certain amount of argumentation in one direction and conclusions pointing the opposite way, and that is not the sort of compromise which I welcome.
  The conclusions of the Report—this, I think, has not received adequate publicity—were these. First, cannabis is a dangerous drug. Second, in controlling this dangerous drug,
  "there is no alternative, as it puts it, to the criminal law …"
  Third, the Report pointed out, or the main Committee pointed out, that we were under an international obligation so to proceed, an obligation which we had renewed, as the Home Secretary reminded us last Thursday, as recently as last year. Indeed, by adhering to the resolution of the United Nations body, we renewed an undertaking to increase our efforts to reduce the use of this drug in our own dominions.
  950
  Lastly, in spite of the interjection of the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Dr. Gray) last Thursday, the Committee made no recommendation, except that the Home Secretary should examine the situation, about creating a distinction between possession and trafficking, use and pushing, although the advantages of a distinction may superficially and at first sight appear to be attractive.
  Unfortunately—partly, I think, because of the conclusion in the argumentation of the Report—instead of highlighting these positive findings of the Committee, which are the most important findings in the Report, the Press hailed it as a step in the direction of legalising cannabis, and it was so heralded in the television programme in which I participated.
  I share the view of the Home Secretary that had he gone on to accept the proposals in the Report to reduce the maximum penalties available for breaches in the law in this field, the conclusion drawn by the public, by traffickers in the drag and by potential victims of it would be that the Government were on their way to legalising its use. This seems to me to be the sort of commonsense political judgment which Ministers are here to make and which Parliament is here to endorse, and I am very happy to say that in this respect I wholly accept what the Home Secretary said.
  In relation to drug use and abuse, there are, of course, a large number of related but distinguishable issues. There is the medical-social question of the effects of taking the drug—what I might call the technical aspects of the matter. Then, less important but important if we are to use the criminal law in relation to it, there are the legal questions connected with enforcement. Thirdly, there is the important issue of international comity, because none of these questions is nowadays a purely domestic issue. We must take account of the desires and needs of other countries. In this connection it is vitally important to notice that those who take the initiative in asking for stronger measures from the West are largely the developing countries where the drug is better known, and we owe a duty to them quite apart from the duty which we owe to our own citizens. Last of all, there is the overriding political judgment.
  I start with the purely legal issues, because they are the least important,

  951
  although they cannot be disregarded. The first point which I desire to make is that the law which we are invited to amend is a law of 1965. It was none of the contemptible predecessors of the bunch of geniuses on the present Government Front Bench who passed this Act. It was the new Labour Government swinging into action. Of course, it was largely a consolidation Measure.
  I make this point quite humbly—and I do not often make legal points, but I wish to make this clear: if we want the law to be respected, it must be ascertainable, it must be simple and it must have a certain element of durability. It cannot be a law with which we are perpetually fiddling or people cannot respect it. I am far from saying that nowadays the criminal law should be like the law of the ancient Medes and Persians, which cannot be changed, but if we legislate in 1965 there is a prima facie case against legislating in a radically different sense in 1965. I feel that that is a strong argument.
  Dr. Hugh Gray: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is aware that in the introduction to the Report it is maintained that there is no consistent principle in law in respect of criminal acts when these are connected only with self-damage. Will he explain to me why he thinks that the social implications of such matters as cannabis smoking justify action that is not justified in other cases? Would he enlarge on John Stuart Mills' view and his own philosophy in this matter?
  Mr. Hogg: I intended to deal with that mainly in that part of my speech dealing with the merits of the problem. The only point which I am seeking to make at the moment is that if we legislate in 1965 there is a prima facie case against legislating in a totally contrary sense with the same Government and virtually the same Parliament in 1969.
  Secondly, and still on the legal aspects, if hon. Members look at the penalties Section in the Act of 1965, they will find that, caught up in a single penalties Section—and, I shall try to show, rightly caught up—there are not only the drugs in Part I, which are separate, but also those in Part II, which mainly related to prepared opium, and also the Schedule, which contains 80 different substances,
  952
  all of them separate, all of them with varying degrees of toxicity, some with a medical use and some without, some synthetic and some natural, some habit-forming in one sense and some habit-forming in another sense.
  Together with their derivatives, we have a very formidable list of substances. Unless it is desired to have 80 different offences, or, if we separate, as the hon. Member for Yarmouth suggested the other day, use from trafficking, 160 different offences, it seems to me that it must be wrong, to deal with one of these substances in isolation. I think that the Home Secretary was right when he made that point in answering questions in the House.
  The third legal point which I would make about the proposals is that what is dealt with, as the Home Secretary said, is maximum penalties and not minimum penalties. We must, I think, try to set up—and to some extent over the centuries we have succeeded in setting up—a legal system in which judges can be expected to know the difference between a first offence and subsequent offences, between, let us say, cannabis and heroin, between using and being used, between being the dupe and being the exploiter.
  Only last year we passed an Act called the Theft Act, which radically altered what had previously been the law of larceny. The maximum penalty in that Act is also 10 years. In theory, that covers the case of the old lady who pinches a bag of bull's-eyes from a super-market and the professional thief. We expect our courts to know the difference. We expect the police to know what to prosecute in a magistrates' court and what to take to sessions or assizes. We must presume that people besides ourselves have a little common sense. This idea that we can sentence people by remote control cannot bear much examination. If we do not have judges of the right kind, it is our business to provide them, but do not let us try to do the work of the judges for them.
  I now come to the point which interested the hon. Member for Yarmouth. Here, I must make one or two rather simple points. First, cannabis is not a new substance. It has been in wide use in the Middle East and elsewhere, certainly for more than 2,000 years. It is

  953
  my recollection that it was mentioned by Herodotus in 500 B.C. as being used by the ancient Scythians in order to madden themselves in their tents.
  To say that we do not know the result of these drugs when, according to the Report, 50 per cent. of the inhabitants of Morocco have tried it, when there are 1 million habitués in India and I forget how many tens of thousands of kilogrammes are used in Egypt every year, is like saying that we do not yet know enough about the: effects of a bottle of whisky to be able to legislate about it.
  It is a very well known drug and its effects are very well known, and it is only in this and one or two other rather innocent countries that it is not very well known, indeed. It has been examined for a very long time by international bodies. In 1925, it was condemned by a League of Nations Committee consisting of Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the U.S.A., all of whom but three reported in favour of complete prohibition, the exceptions being the delegates of Great Britain, the Netherlands and India because, in the case of Great Britain, it was uncertain whether there was a potential, though not actual, medical value in the resin.
  It has been repeatedly condemned by the United Nations since the war. In 1961, the Narcotics Commission was informed that the Press in the Netherlands had featured comments by professional persons saying that cannabis addiction was no worse than alcoholism and recorded that "the observer of Interpol said that cannabis intoxication was known to produce aggressiveness." The representatives of the World Health Organisation drew attention to the opinion of its expert committee, which was still valid, that "cannabis definitely came under the terms of its definition of addiction".
  I shall return to the word "addiction"—and there was also the added danger that cannabis abuse was very likely to be the forerunner of addiction to more dangerous addicting drugs. The Commission recalled that it had been agreed that cannabis abuse was a form of drug addiction, and emphasised that any pub-
  954
  licity to the contrary was misleading and dangerous. This view has been repeatedly endorsed by various United Nations organisations since.
  After this condemnation, a technical committee was set up to produce a draft article which claimed that the drug was "particularly liable to abuse and to produce ill effects" and that "such liability was not offset by substantial therapeutic advantages" not possessed by other substances. In 1963 and 1965 the committee reviewed its attitude in the light of further publicity casting doubt on the dangers of the drug and stated its position. It recognised that the situation
  "differed from one country to another … There could be no question but that cannabis presented a danger to society, although more and more people were attempting to cast doubt on the necessity of controlling this substance. The Commission reiterated the view that cannabis, the drug that moved most in international traffic, should be fully subject to international control."
  In 1968 the Economic and Social Council passed the resolution, to which the Home Secretary drew attention and to which we adhered, through our representative recommending that Governments should "increase their efforts to eradicate the abuse and the traffic in cannabis." It is not irrelevant to point out that this was done on the initiative not only of the United States and France, but of Ghana, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico and the United Arab Republic, which are the countries which most mind the abuse of this drug. These are the people we should be most damaging if we reversed our policy in connection with it.
  This is not all, because the Permanent Narcotics Board as recently as November, 1967, said:
  "…the Board feels it should repeat the caveat which it included in its report for 1965, namely, that opposition to the control of cannabis is contrary to the advice of scientific and medical authorities of international repute, and contrary to the policy reaffirmed by the international community of States at the Plenipotentiary Conference which drafted the Single Convention in 1961. This conference in fact classified cannabis amongst the particularly dangerous substances and recommended that governments should impose a general prohibition on its production, distribution and consumption, even for medical purposes."
  It is worth recalling that it added that this decision was taken by a conference of 74 delegates, whose members included many experts familiar with all aspects of the narcotics problem.

  955
  This is the answer to the question, posed at a slightly inappropriate point in my argument, by the hon. Member for Yarmouth. I do not know what more he wants. The medical aspects are set out in Appendix 1 of the Report.
  One of the earliest descriptions gives the results of the drug as
  "euphoria; excitement; disturbed associations; changes in the appreciation of time and space; raised auditory sensitivity with elaboration of simple phrases or tunes; fixed ideas; emotional upheaval; and illusions and hallucinations:"
  This is what we are invited to legalise.
  Dr. David Kerr: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman distinguish for the House in what way the list he has just read differs from the effects of a high consumption of alcohol?
  Mr. Hogg: I shall deal with that. The hon. Member must not assume that I have failed to notice the more elementary aspects of this problem. I propose to deal with that at an appropriate place in my remarks.
  Lord Todd put it in this way:
  "To give an accurate picture of the effects of hashish is extremely difficult, partly because they are more subjective than objective and because individual variation in response is probably greater with this than with any other drug…. Among the commonest recorded effects are the feeling of well-being alternating with depression, distortion of time and space, and double consciousness. Objectively, there is a period of excitation and exaltation, followed often by sleep or coma."
  The adverse effects of abuse are thus described. The Report says:
  "Observers with long experience concur in the opinion that continued excessive use of cannabis over a period of years leads to moral and social decay; countries from which such reports come are South Africa, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Syria, Turkey, Astrakan and India…. The degradation that most writers report in the excessive chronic cannabis user is apparent in several ways. He is irritable and impulsive, or inert and dreamy; he neglects himself grossly and is incapable of sustained effort; he may become a beggar or a vagrant taking no responsibility for his family …"
  The Report goes on to state other disadvantages. It states:
  "A Greek investigator inquired into the subsequent history of 170 people who were arrested for possessing cannabis between 1919 and 1950 but had not previously been before
  956
  a court for any offence; he found that 117 of these were subsequently sentenced for crimes of violence, blackmail and similar offences. P. O. Wolff wrote in 1949 that the drug had given rise to 'a most appalling percentage of the tragedies and crimes in Cuban society'".
  I could go on citing evidence for a very long time. The evidence is overwhelming. As is pointed out in the Report, since this drug is often taken in mixture with other drugs it is sometimes a little difficult to disentangle its results. As its effects are primarily psychological, it is also difficult to produce statistical evidence. However, during the Christmas Recess I read three sets of papers—one professional and two political. In each the pattern was repeated. They concerned the use of cannabis, L.S.D. and in one case, heroin. One case led to murder and the other two to other personal disasters. The facts of one were communicated to me by the parent of a young woman who had started at one of our universities with all the promise in the world.
  When I talk to members of my profession and, often enough, to members of the medical profession, I find that, although they cannot always give figures which prove these facts, as has been the case all over the world, this drug is associated in their minds and professional experience with crime, violence and abnormality of one sort or another, but, most commonly of all, with a kind of degradation of the personality.
  I am not prepared to accept that this is simply self-damage. Crime is not self-damage; murder is not self-damage; driving dangerously is not self-damage. Even putting oneself on the Health Service is not simply self-damage. I do not think that in a responsible modern society we have no right to discuss this matter lightheartedly, as some people do, or without the clearest knowledge of where muddle-headed thinking on our part may lead other people.
  I have been asked by the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) about alcohol and tobacco. Cigarette smoking kills about 50,000 people every year—partly as a result of lung cancer, partly as a result of bronchitis, partly as a result of heart disease. I do not know all the results of alcohol. It is true that, if I were asked to advise a delegation of Martians

  957
  visiting this planet without previous experience of any one of the three about whether any one of them should be permitted on the planet of Mars, I might find it difficult to do so. If I were asked to advise someone from the Middle East or India, where the most appalling results of hashish addiction are to be seen on a massive and sociological scale, about whether he should admit tobacco and alcohol on the same scale, it might well be that I would have my hesitations.
  But that is not the problem with which we are faced. This is my answer to the hon. Gentleman. We are a nation of cigarette smokers and drinkers. Are we to become a race af hashish addicts as well? To hear some hon. Members, who should know better—one of them is not in the Chamber at present, so I shall not refer to him—talking about this subject, one would think that the burden of proof lay on the people who wanted to prevent the adoption of a new vice, if I may use the word "vice" without question begging, or a new habit, instead of the other way round. But, with modern drugs, the universal experience has been that many of them have unexpected, un-desired side effects.
  Where does the burden of proof lay in this case? I submit that it lies on those who wish to go soft on soft drugs and not on those who wish to remain tough on them. If we were to adopt what is proposed or started to take a namby-pamby attitude about it, we should need our heads examined. I range myself wholeheartedly behind the Home Secretary on this issue.
  I said that I would refer to the question of the use of the world "addiction", because this has been another excuse for sophistical argument on the other side of the controversy. When I say that I am addicted to something, I mean, in the ordinary use of the English language, that I cannot do without it. Until very recently, that was what doctors meant by it, too. But recently—and I would not care in the presence of at least one member of the medical profession to say when—the medical profession, which is as much entitled as lawyers to adopt its own technical language, provided it does not allow itself to be misled by it, con-find the word "addiction" to drugs which altered the chemistry of the body
  958
  in such a way that physical withdrawal symptoms were visible.
  If they care to use the word in that sense, I have no objection. But they know that drugs which are not addictive in that narrow and confined sense may none the less be habit-forming and may create a dependency upon them. If the habit is vicious and produces deplorable social results, I do not mind what they call it, but do not let us have a semantic argument about whether they are drugs of addiction or dependence.
  It is time that we made these issues plain and stood up to be counted. This country owes a duty to the other countries of the world not to permit within these boundaries the spread of this vice. We have not suffered from it very badly yet. But if we were to go back on the policy which we have deliberately adopted for more than 40 years we should be breaking our pledged word. What is more, we should be interfering vitally with the struggle of some of the developing countries to lift their population from squalor, poverty and ignorance to which this particular drug is an important contributory cause; worse, we should be importing here another source of misery, crime and unhappiness.
  For that reason, I hope that the House will speak this afternoon in no uncertain voice.
  4.28 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. James Callaghan):After the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg), which represents my own approach completely, I feel like pronouncing the benediction, but I doubt whether the House would say "Amen", because I fancy that a number of speeches to the contrary will be made. However, I congratulate the right hon. and learned Gentleman on the moral force, passion and conviction with which he put his views, with which I find myself wholeheartedly in agreement. To have a doughty supporter like him gives me very great comfort. I should like to think that he would always be on my side.
  I must ask the House to excuse me if I leave immediately after making my speech. I have a long-standing engagement in Cardiff, but as this was an important debate I put it off to be here.

  959
  I hope that it will not be thought discourteous if my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State listens to the debate and winds up shortly at the end of it.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman took the opportunity of the debate to widen the discussion. I am grateful that he did so and I would like to follow him in this respect. He stated the case so completely that I can cut out much of what I was proposing to say. There is no point in wasting time by both of us putting the case against the legalisation of cannabis, as it has been put so well by him.
  I think that it came as a surprise, if not a shock, to most people, when that notorious advertisement appeared in The Times in 1967, to find that there is a lobby in favour of legalising cannabis. The House should recognise that this lobby exists, and my reading of the Report is that the Wootton Sub-Committee was over-influenced by this lobby. I had the same impression as the right hon. and learned Gentleman, that it was compromise at the end; that those who were in favour of legalising "pot" were all the time pushing the other members of the Committee back, so that eventually these remarkable conclusions emerged that it would be wrong to legalise it but that the penalties should be reduced.
  The existence of this lobby is something that the House and public opinion should take into account and be ready to combat, as I am. It is another aspect of the so-called permissive society, and I am glad if my decision has enabled the House to call a halt in the advancing tide of so-called permissiveness. I regard it as one of the most unlikeable words that has been invented in recent years. If only we would regard ourselves as a compassionate society, an unselfish society or a responsible society, I would feel prouder of 1969. This conclusion is another aspect of the same thing, and I was encouraged by the overwhelming response in the House of Commons to the statement I made last Thursday.
  I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that, although we may differ from the conclusions of the Committee, we should thank it for what it has done. Apart from the recommendation on
  960
  penalties, much valuable work has gone into the Report and a number of useful conclusions have emerged which I propose to take up, although all those have, naturally, been overshadowed in the public comment by the controversy over penalties.
  I repeat the thanks which I expressed, and which the right hon. and learned Gentleman uttered again this afternoon to the Committee. Although I have seen forecasts that some members of the Committee may not wish to go on with their work, I hope that they will wish to do so. I would much regret it if they did not. I do not believe that they would take the view that, because the House of Commons differs from their conclusions, they should feel debarred from going on with their work.
  I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) wrote recently in a newspaper. He said that we had developed no social philosophy, no framework of principles, on which to judge drug dependence. This is true. He is a member of the Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence and I hope that he will do his best to make good some of its deficiencies, in company with my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop), the other House of Commons representative on the Committee, who has written to me to say that he cannot be here this afternoon.
  The use of drugs is a complex problem, depending on a number of different considerations and upon social philosophy. Different attitudes will be expressed depending upon whether these matters are discussed against the background of the laboratory, of public health or of society's sense of values. The right hon. and learned Gentleman and I have taken our stand to a great extent on the third and to some extent on the second; certainly, that is where I start from. There must be different attitudes depending upon where one starts, and it would be as well if there were a cool and dispassionate examination of the approach that we should make to this complex problem of the use of drugs.
  This is where I would like to broaden the discussion and then come back to it a little later. There is little doubt that a pharmaceutical revolution in drugs

  961
  working on the central nervous system is now taking place. It is a new phenomenon for our society. I am told that the number of new drugs manufactured may run into hundreds. Stimulants, depressants, tranquillisers, hallucinogens have all been developed during the last 10 years, and our society has not yet come to terms with the circumstances in which they should properly be used or in which they are regarded as being socially an evil.
  Continuing debate on this matter will have to go on, and I am glad that the right hon. and learned Gentleman opened it up this afternoon. I would make only one marginal comment on what he said. He said he thought that enough was known about cannabis for a final conclusion to be reached. I agree that enough is known in the under-developed countries, where it has been used for centuries, but I wonder whether he is absolutely right in thinking that we know its full impact on major industrial societies such as our own against the use of alcohol—he made the point himself in a rather different connection—and in addition to or in substitution for alcohol.
  There is a case here for much more research; but the conclusion that I draw is precisely the reverse from that drawn by others, and that is, if much more research is needed, this is not the time either to legalise the drug or to reduce the penalties. It is for that reason that I came to the conclusion that I did. It is against this background that cannabis must be considered. I felt that it was wrong for the Committee to take one drug, look at it in isolation from the whole complex and background, and bring forward recommendations in the way it did.
  Contrary to views that were perhaps held a short while ago, I understand that cannabis now has no medical value; that there are a number of aspects of it which are damaging, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman has pointed out, and in that respect there are the various problems which he raised, the medical and social effects, the legal question of enforcement, international comity, the political judgment. All these are important. I would add one more that he did not touch on, but which is always very much in the forefront of his mind, and that is civil liberty. It is right to balance the
  962
  liberty of the individual in these matters, and this is another complex aspect of the problem.
  Where there is doubt on these matters, as there is, then the public policy at least must be clear. I have endeavoured, with the full support of the House, to make the public policy clear, but there must be a greater certainty of knowledge. There must be clear understanding of what is involved before any action is taken along the lines that the Committee was suggesting. In the meantime, everyone in the country now knows what the policy of the House of Commons and of the Government is on this matter.
  I understand the view of the Committee that the law is not satisfactory in a number of respects. It was a coincidence that the House of Lords delivered its judgment on the Sweet case on the same day that I was proposing to answer the Questions in the House of Commons. The immediate value of the Sweet judgment is that it will remove from the minds of a great many people who let premises, or take in lodgers, or are concerned in the management of such places as educational establishments, many unnecessary and improper fears that were previously expressed of liability to prosecution for an offence in regard to which they were in no way culpable.
  I speak as a layman and not as a lawyer, but I do not see how, in any circumstances of the Sweet case, Miss Sweet could have been regarded as culpable. If she was culpable, a great many other landlords would be culpable too, and we would be in an impossible situation.
  The immediate value of it is this. I propose to continue my discussions with the Law Commission on the matter. That body is a distinguished group of lawyers who can give me advice. I shall ask them to say whether they think that the law needs make more clear in this direction. But at least I have the sense that the urgency is not now so great, in view of that judgment, and I can look at the matter with a little more leisure.
  I said that I wanted to broaden the discussion a little from the question of cannabis. The picture on the drug scene as a whole is very sobering, although I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that it is not yet serious in

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  numerical terms. The new drugs to which I have referred already are illustrative of the dangers that we run. I am told of one new drug which may shortly be produced and which will have a potency at least ten times as great as that of L.S.D. The Home Office has a considerable international reputation on the matter—no thanks to me, but to everyone who has contributed to it. I have discussed this with my officials, and apparently a good graduate chemist often can manufacture a drug which can be extremely potent; so, clearly, we are up against a real and serious problem.
  I will not burden the House with statistics. I would mention only four figures, comparing 1964 with 1968. In 1964, there were 753 known addicts to dangerous drugs. In 1967, that figure had grown by nearly 1,000 to 1,729. In the case of heroin, 521 were dependent on heroin in 1964. The figure in 1967 had grown to 1,299. By the end of 1968, under the new regulations, which I think are beginning to prove their worth, we had received some 2,624 first notifications, of whom 2,096 related to heroin addicts. The registration means that a great many more have come to light than were known to exist before; 1,024 had previously not come to notice. I am sorry to say that, between 1964 and 1968, the known number of young people under 20 addicted to heroin rose from 40 to 785.
  In my approach to cannabis, I have been influenced by a number of these facts. I know that it can be shown that there is not overwhelming evidence that the person who goes to heroin would not have got there anyway, whether cannabis had been legal. But I am bound to say that I was moved when I saw one report of a case study of a group of young people which showed that what had happened was that, between 16 and 17, they had taken cannabis, between 18 and 19 they had taken heroin, and that by the age of 20 they were in hospital for permanent treatment. None of us can dismiss that sort of tragedy of young lives being thrown away in this manner.
  The statistics of convictions for drug offences have been increasing over the last three or four years. In 1966, there were 1,397 convictions, and in 1967 the total was 3,024. Another disquieting
  964
  feature that I find is that the problem is no longer confined to London. A number of provincial centres are beginning to find evidence of drug abuse, and illicit trafficking grows more organised. I have asked the police for a special report on the matter, details of which I would prefer not wholly to give today. It refers to a number of large seizures of cannabis, bringing the total for last year well above anything recorded in previous years. There have also been detections of attempts at large-scale illegal manufactures of L.S.D.
  We are faced with a continual battle. I am overhauling the arrangements and degree of energy which the police and the Customs and Excise are putting into the detection of manufacture of these drugs. It is extremely important that we should do so. In consultation with the representative organisations, I am also working out the framework of some new regulations under the Dangerous Drugs Act, 1967 for the safe keeping of drugs in shops, warehouses and factories. There are arrangements already, some of which are reasonably satisfactory and others of which I want to improve, and I hope to bring forward regulations later this year for which I am sure I shall have the support of the whole House.
  Next, let me say a word about what is perhaps the most disturbing development of all in 1968, which was the number of youthful teenage drug takers and those just reaching the age of majority who have taken to the practice of the intravenous injection of central nervous stimulant drugs, such as methedrine. It was a matter of very great concern to me and to my right hon. Friend the then Minister of Health that their activities were encouraged by a tiny handful of doctors. I was depressed by the cumbersome procedure and the length of time that it took to deal with the situation.
  I hope, in due course, that it may be possible to have discussions with the General Medical Council to see how this cumbersome procedure of dealing with thoroughly irresponsible and, one might almost say, evil doctors who over-prescribe in this way can be improved. This form of drug abuse has spread here, unfortunately, from Stockholm and other parts of Sweden, where it has been experienced with dire medical and social results.

  965
  There are a number of ways of trying to deal with the situation other than the cumbersome method of dealing with it through the doctors themselves. The Advisory Committee, which has been responsible for reducing this Report among others, has done a very good job in this connection. Last autumn, it took up discussions with the manufacturers and the professions, and they have agreed readily to a voluntary scheme to confine the supply of injectable amphetamines to hospitals so as to limit the availability of these drugs. That has been a great help, and I am grateful for the co-operation of the industry and the professions in making this very valuable move.
  I have referred already to the other dangers predicted, the other new and more potent hallucinogens from the "underground", and the new interest in dangerous stimulants and depressants. During recent years, the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs have been studying the need for international action to improve controls against the spread of abuse of drugs of this kind, and I need hardly say that the Government intend to give full support to the endeavours to get international agreement on these problems.
  I think that I have said enough to indicate that, in my view, the present state of the law in a number of ways is unsatisfactory. I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that we should not keep fiddling about with it. There have been a number of Acts in recent years. We have the Acts of 1961, 1964 and 1965, and so we have gone on. When I look back over them, it seems to me that one or" the difficulties has been that we have tried to deal with individual problems as they have arisen, piecemeal and in a fragmentary way, at the same time accepting a potential growth in the manufacture of drugs. It may be that, in the near future, I shall be able to put before the House proposals which may give me and the Government of the day much more power to handle the problem in a much more flexible manner. The House will have to balance all the various considerations when they are put before it.
  However, when one reflects on the facts that it is necessary to get voluntary
  966
  agreement between manufacturers before certain matters can be stopped, that doctors can prescribe in ways which are quite opposed to all the social views of the House of Commons and the overwhelming majority of people in the country, that the 1964 Act does not allow me to limit authorised possession, although it requires manufacturers and dealers to be registered but does not allow me to limit the numbers on the register, all are facts which will make the fight against the hard drugs much more difficult than it should be. We are crippling ourselves in the battle at the present time.
  In the light of recent experience and the challenge ahead, there is a clear risk that each new fashion of drug taking will find new gaps in the defences, which will only be plugged, too late, by voluntary steps or by ad hoc legislation Therefore, I suggest to the House—and I should like to hear some reaction to this—that it would be better to have a single comprehensive code which would rationalise and strengthen the Government's powers and also enable them to act flexibily in the difficult and dangerous problems that are likely to arise in the years ahead.
  I think that I ought to leave that matter before I get into trouble with the Chair, because I must not talk about legislation. But I should say a word about the importance of research in these directions. The Wootton Sub-Committee drew attention to research, about which the Government fully appreciate the importance and significance. For some time now the Medical Research Council, with the aid of working parties, has been studying the main areas calling for inquiry, and it is formulating a first programme for research in touch with the appropriate Government Departments.
  An addiction research unit was established by my right hon. Friend, the former Minister of Health, in 1967, and that is building up a wide range of inquiries. The international bodies, too, are taking a close interest in drug research. A large area is to be opened up. I think that it is my job to try to co-ordinate it as far as possible, in conjunction with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, to see that we are pursuing research in the most appropriate directions.
  Captain Walter Elliot: I would not disagree that more research in anything is necessary. But, in view of what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) said on the large accumulation of evidence from other countries, which, in a small way, I can confirm from personal experience in Egypt, could the Home Secretary make quite clear, at any rate, that the effects of cannabis are harmful, that it can be addictive, and no mistake about it?
  Mr. Callaghan: Yes. What is contained in the Wootton Report on that matter is probably accurate.
  However, I was not referring to cannabis. When I was talking about the need for further research—although I am sure that the Committee wishes that—I was referring to this great new world which has opened up under our feet in the last 10 years, in which hundreds of new drugs, with differing effects, all of them variations perhaps on the central theme, are being manufactured and where medical and social research should be pursued on a pretty broad scale. But nothing I have said—and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has not misunderstood me—has weakened my view on the general approach to cannabis.
  I expect that the pro-"pot" lobby will say that it is unfair to link cannabis with the other dangerous drugs to which I have referred. I dare say that we shall be accused of doing this, but that is an accusation that I can withstand. It is simply not possible to say that those who smoke cannabis do not move on to heroin. I agree with the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone that the burden of proof is on those who wish to legalise this particular drug. I have read and studied this subject a great deal. I did not see the Report and hear of this subject for the first time on the date of publication. I can assure the House that I have been into this with great care. What is proved, time and again, is that young people get on to hard drugs basically because they are in touch with other people who are drug takers in some form or other.
  My mind boggles about the thought of licensing the sale of cannabis by the local tobacconist, off licence, or wherever it may be, thereby creating centres where
  968
  people will start on one drug and very easily move on to another. I would not be a party to this. After I had been at the Home Office for a month or two and seen something of this, I said that it would take a great deal to convince me that I should be in any way party to a lessening of offences, in isolation, on this particular matter. I have seen nothing since that has convinced me to the contrary.
  I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman and to the Opposition for giving us the opportunity of debating this subject. It is an important matter. I have tried to discuss it against a broader background, because I think that the country should know what it is up against. I have long since left behind me the thought, which is always the first reaction to a new evil, "Let us not talk about it, because if we do we may encourage others". There is an element of this kind in it.
  On the other hand, I think that the drugs scene has now got to the point where the public should be aware of its potential dangers, should also know that those dangers have not yet spread widely; but that, if we are ignorant, if we are supine in the face of them, they can spread very fast indeed with grave dangers to the whole structure of our society.
  4.56 p.m.
  Mr. Patrick McNair-Wilson: I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman now has to go to Cardiff. However, I thank him very much for his comments, and also express my gratitude to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) for his magnificent speech. It is really a most important day for the House of Commons when both Front Benches, on a matter of such importance, can show to the people of the country that we at least march together.
  I have listened to the arguments of those outside this House who have tried to persuade me and others that the smoking of cannabis is no more than a social pastime. It is quite true that this House is not a court of morals, but we have a responsibility for certain things—in particular, the moral welfare of society. Our first responsibility is to protect man from the excesses of his neighbour, and,

  969
  secondly, to make sure that evil does not flourish.
  When I was a small child, before the war, a word which was constantly heard bandied about was "appeasement". It was then being used in the context of the enemy without and Nazi Germany. But I think that our society today is facing a situation when we may well go down in history as the great appeasers. We are accepting many kinds of social changes, not so much because we want them but merely because we believe that they are inevitable.
  The word "inevitable" is perhaps the most dangerous word in the English language today—a feeling that there is little point in trying to draw attention to the problems which exist because, at the end of the day, the world will take its course and the smoking of "pot" will become a normal pastime. I do not subscribe to the inevitability of what must happen to our social order in this country, and I am not an appeaser to allow people to have their lives ruined by something which can be stopped by law.
  Coming to the problem of cannabis resin, we find straight away that it is a commodity which produces all kinds of effects, many of them not dissimilar from alcohol, but many of which can, as has been pointed out earlier, lead the recipient to move on to other areas. I draw the attention of the House to the comment of the World Health Organisation, which stated that
  "Cannabis is a drug of dependence, producing public health and social problems and its control must be continued."
  That is unequivocal, completely simple, and ready to be understood by everybody. This is a drug of dependence.
  As has been pointed out by my right hon. and learned Friend and by the Home Secretary, there are many cases to support the belief that cannabis is merely the first step. I was, therefore, disturbed to read, on page 16 of the Report, at paragraph 67, that
  "The evidence before us shows that:
  'An increasing number of people, mainly young, in all classes of society are experimenting with this drug, and substantial numbers use it regularly for social pleasure.
  'There is no evidence that this activity is causing violent crime or aggressive antisocial behaviour, or is producing in other
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  wise normal people conditions of dependence or psychosis, requiring treatment."
  I should have thought that those comments were in direct contradiction to the comment of the World Health Organisation.
  Paragraph 87 says something which is just as disturbing in this context, namely, that
  "In considering the scale of penalties our main aim, having regard to our view of the known effects of cannabis, is to remove for practical purposes, the prospect of imprisonment for possession of a small amount and to demonstrate that taking the drug in moderation is a relatively minor offence. Thus we would hope that juvenile experiments in taking cannabis would be recognised for what they are, and not treated as anti-social acts …"
  I regard that comment as highly dangerous. We all know that one of the problems of cannabis is that its smoking tends to be a social act. We could be sitting in a room among friends and someone could pull out a reefer and say, "Let us have a smoke". Some people in the room may well have smoked it before and others may not have, but the latter, for a number of reasons—because they wished to try it, or did not wish to seem out of things—would smoke it.
  It is at this inexperienced or, perhaps, youthful level that the greatest danger exists. For the Report to suggest that its trial by young people is something that should be dismissed as unimportant because it merely amounts to young people having a go at anything is the most dangerous premise on which to build any sort of legislation on drug taking.
  Dr. Gray: I take the hon. Member's point, but is he saying that the young person whom he has described at the party should be sent to prison for this offence?
  Mr. McNair-Wilson: That is a relevant point. I am saying that that young person should not be at risk. Cannabis should not be something that is pulled out of a pocket at a party and handed round as a social experiment. It should be made quite clear that the possession of cannabis and its use in the way I have described is a serious crime, and that a young person would be better advised to walk out of such a party and report the person who tried to corrupt him,

  971
  because it is just in that way that the spreading of the habit goes on.
  During the weekend I asked somebody, "If 'pot' were available here tonight, would you try it?" and she replied, "Yes, I would." We are dealing here with a highly dangerous matter which cannot be left to people at a party to decide whether or not a young person should smoke cannabis.
  Then there is the anodyne comment about cannabis and alcohol—the suggestion that they have a similar type of effect and that one is only an extension of the other. I have met people from the Caribbean who have suggested that I might drink alcohol and that they might smoke ganja. Two wrongs do not make a right, and we have more than enough on our hands already with the problems of alcohol and its side effects than to try to relate these two things together and say, "Cannabis is a little anti-social, but do not let us worry about it." That would be a dangerous road down which to go.
  Although the smoking of cannabis is a very old tradition, many of the facts and figures available in Britain and the Western world as a whole are limited. There are reasons for this. But we have now become more conscious of this problem than in the past, and there is probably a need for further research. With all social legislation one has to face the fact that social conditions change, and it is very difficult to say that we can pass a law today which will never be changed.
  Therefore, we may have this sort of debate again in the not-too-distant future because, as attitudes and conditions change, we must prepare to be flexible and accept the change. It is now a comparatively rare crime to be caught in possession of cannabis. It is the occupation of a comparatively small minority. But lots of crimes are committed by small numbers of persons. Murder is a comparatively rare crime; it is almost a family affair. But it is highly dangerous and highly anti-social. That is why I was among the small minority in the House that voted for the retention of capital punishment. That is neither here nor there—but although the smoking of cannabis is also a minority problem at the moment it could become a majority
  972
  problem, and we want to ensure that it does not.
  As Members of Parliament we have a responsibility for health and social order in our society, and the Under-Secretary of State and his Department already have major problems on their hands. They are facing organised hooliganism, and I have no doubt that they have more than enough to worry about already. I assure them that any strengthening which they require I shall gladly support, because I believe that we have to keep a reasonably firm rein on our society if we do not want it to get out of control.
  We have to protect young people, as I have to protect my three daughters. I have been enormously encouraged by the fact that today both Front Benches have shown their determination to do this. As a nation we can either roll with the punch and do what the Americans call "going down on the toboggan", or we can draw the line. I want to draw the line.
  5.9 p.m.
  Dr. David Kerr: I was one of the people who was asked to sign the SOMA advertisement in The Times. I saw fit not to do so, and nothing that I have since learned has persuaded me that I was wrong. Only one thing has given me cause for doubt. I have been sorry to witness the complacency of the House in its reference to the Wootton Report. One would imagine that this Report had been compiled without any regard for the facts, or any assessment of evidence placed before it by witnesses. One would have thought that it had been compiled by a group of nonentities, with an inability to judge and discriminate with a sense of social responsibility.
  Nothing is further from the truth. This is a very authoritative Committee. It includes some extremely well-qualified doctors, and it was led by a social scientist of international repute—the noble Lady, the Baroness Wootton of Abinger, in the light of whose achievements we ought to be a little less cavalier in our ready dismissal of what the Report has to say. To listen to what has been said this afternoon—even in the, as always, highly intellectual speech of the right

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  hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg)—one would have thought that the Report consisted of a demand for immediate legalisation of cannabis. This is absolute rubbish. Not only is it rubbish: it is an insult to the intelligence of this House and the country.
  Just to annoy the House a little, I propose to refer, as no one else has done, to some of the recommendations of the Wootton Report. People who have heard this debate up to now would be amazed, but it starts by saying:
  "We recommend that in the interest of public health, it is necessary for the time being to maintain restrictions on the availability of cannabis."
  To listen to hon. Members, including the Secretary of State, one would imagine that the Committee had not said anything of the sort, but that the whole cast of the Report directly contravened that.
  The Report goes on to say:
  "Every encouragement, both academic and financial, should be given to suitable projects for enquiry …"
  and
  "The law should progressively be recast to give Parliament greater flexibility of control …".
  It adds:
  The association in legislation of cannabis with heroin and other opiates is inappropriate …".
  It does not say, "We are certain that there is no connection between cannabis smoking and heroin taking". Who can be certain of that? What it does say—I had hoped that the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone would be able to deal with this—is that the association of a soft drug and a hard drug under the same curtain of legislation is inappropriate.
  There is then a number of recommendations, some of them dealing with the restriction on the availability of cannabis. However, there is one point—I hope that, through my absence from the Chamber, I will not repeat something already said by the hon. Member for New Forest (Mr. McNair-Wilson)—which merits attention in paragraph 90. Although I would not sign the Soma advertisement, I agree fully with the Committee's Report and the tone of this single extract from that paragraph:
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  "It is our explicit opinion that any legislation directed towards a complex and changing problem like the use of cannabis cannot be regarded as final. For the foreseeable future, however, our objective is clear: to bring about a situation in which it is extremely unlikely that anyone will go to prison for an offence involving only possession for personal use or for supply on a very limited scale."
  Let us get right what the Committee was saying. It was saying, "We want to move, over the next period, so to educate public opinion that it will come to regard the personal use of a drug like cannabis in the same context as it should now regard the personal use of alcohol and cigarette smoking, namely, as the subject of condemnation but not of imprisonment." This is my reading of the Report and to distort it, as it has been distorted, I regret to say, by the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone and the Home Secretary and, I have no doubt, as it will be by others who follow me to express support for the control of drugs, is to be unfair to an authoritative and worthy Committee which has been courageous in what it has said and has been misrepresented totally by the Press and others who should know better.
  I asked the right hon. and learned Member to distinguish between his list, which he evidently found so offensive, and the list of similar effects of alcohol. With a forensic skill which I never underestimate, he chose to avoid the question, and I want to answer it for him. The answer is that to distinguish between the effects, for most people, of an intake of cannabis and an intake of alcohol is extremely difficult. The psychological and pharmacological effects are similar.
  Indeed, one of the reasons why I cannot go happily along with any attempt to legalise, in the fullest sense of encouraging, cannabis consumption, is that it has recognisable effects on judgment, perception and discrimination. In a world which is already full enough of sources of such ill-judgment, I see no reason to add to them or to encourage them. But, equally, I cannot go along with an umbrella which is so spread as to protect us equally from alcohol and cannabis and from the corruption and evil of heroin. This is the inappropriate-ness to which the Committee draws attention and it is this point which I felt that so eminent and admirable a legal practitioner as the right hon. and learned

  975
  Member for St. Marylebone would have dwelt on at greater length and in greater depth.
  This situation is recognised by every Western industrial society, not least by our own, in which the consumption of cannabis is rising. Here, too, we have the threat of continued increase in heroin consumption. Let no one make any mistake about my view. There is no one in the House who is more anxious than I to see an end to the 30,000 and more deaths a year from cigarette smoking, and the only way we shall do that is by stopping people smoking.
  No one is more anxious than I to end the corruption which follows the consumption of alcohol, and the only way in which we shall do that is, ultimately, by dissuading people from drinking too much. No one in the House is more aware than I of the utter squalor and horror of heroin addiction, or "dependence", if we want to be pedantic about it.
  But the way in which we approach this problem does not accord with the black picture of B following ineluctably from A. It is true that there is no proof that cannabis consumption does not lead to heroin addiction, but, equally, there are lots of other accusations which might be made which would be just as hard to prove. The difficulty of proving a negative will be familiar to hon. Members.
  What we do know is that the whole aura a few years ago of condemnation and avoidance of cannabis is changing. I have the good fortune from time to time to lecture to student groups on health education and it has, until recently, been my custom to say, "Put up your hands those of you who smoke cigarettes", and then to say, "Of those, how many know that it causes lung cancer?" It is a practical demonstration of the failure of otherwise intellectually well-equipped groups to bridge the gap between knowledge and action.
  The interesting thing is that the numbers of cigarette smokers are diminishing, but I have now reached the point at which, if it were not for the moral and legal implications, I could ask that student group, "Which of you have smoked 'pot'?", in the confident expectation that a number of hands would go up.
  976
  I have discussed this matter recently with two young people from much the same part of London and of much the same social and academic background. One is now a teacher and the other a student. The teacher found herself at a party at which "pot" quite clearly was being circulated. Although she was regarded as a swinging, with-it, mini-skirted terror, she fled: she was appalled at the idea. The student was with a group of young people when "pot" appeared. People do not fish out reefers, with all respect to the hon. Member for the New Forest, but cigarettes are opened and a few grains of the dried cannabis leaf are inserted, and "pot" is smoked.
  Nowhere is there any evidence, either from that student's experience or anywhere else, that this kind of social smoking differs materially from the social habit of taking a glass of whisky or, sometimes, too many glasses. There is no evidence that it leads on to sexual orgies: in fact, probably rather the reverse. Yet we are constantly having thrust before us this total distortion of the picture of cannabis smoking. That is not the picture we have to judge. What we must judge is whether there is a recognisable social threat in "pot" smoking, and, if so, what is the appropriate measure to combat it.
  The important thing that is happening now is not that the law is being flouted, though it is. When Peter Sellers can say, "I smoke 'pot' because I derive certain benefits and pleasures from it", what greater flouting of the law can there be? I am not advocating that he should immediately be taken into custody. The important thing is not that the law is being flouted, but that despite the existence of the law, which the hon. Member for New Forest wants to strengthen, society is changing its attitude and practices. Our responsibility here is to recognise those changes, so far as possible to influence them, but not to indulge in the kind of fantasy we have heard and which I predict we shall hear more of in the debate.
  Mr. McNair-Wilson: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves that point, particularly his example of the fleeing teenager in her mini-skirt, will he say whether he feels that that sort of party is a good thing?
  Dr. Kerr: I do not think that it is possible to attach a value judgment to that kind of party. If, for example, a person goes to such a party and smokes "pot"—I make it plain that I have not done so yet—drives home safely, sleeps, wakes up and goes to work next day, I cannot see that that is more worthy of society's condemnation than the sort of party to which many of us have been, where too much alcohol is consumed, we make a disgusting exhibition of ourselves on the pavement outside, drive home dangerously, and perhaps kill somebody, maybe ourselves. Yet society has only very recently begun timidly to take steps to condemn that kind of party. I do not recall that the hon. Member for New Forest was in the forefront of condemning that kind of thing. He was not one of the leaders.
  To ask me to attach any kind of social judgment to a simple act which of its nature is not evil, but which could be followed by evil consequences, is only to invite me to judge the consequences and then to attach the value to the act itself. This does not seem to me to be a reasonable way to proceed in our judgments.
  I do not know where all the John Knoxs are springing from to say that the arrival at a point of pleasure must be condemned. It is not the fact that cannabis can produce pleasurable results that should lead us in some Presbyterian fashion to condemn. What we must condemn, if they are there to condemn, are the consequences of a continued widespread growth of hemp smoking. We have not nearly enough evidence about this.
  Reference is constantly being made to the hashish consumption in Egypt and Tunisia. Why is it that these underdeveloped, poverty-ridden countries have a hashish problem, when Israel, with exactly the same climatic and agricultural conditions, has none to speak of? What is the curious social difference that makes these countries have different experiences? How can we dare to extrapolate the pharmacological and social experience of Egyption fellaheen to the industrial workers and students of Great Britain and America?
  The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Elystan Morgan):Would my hon. Friend admit that in 1967, the last year for which we have
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  figures for European countries, the total amount of cannabis seized here—295 kilograms—was exceeded in only one other European country, Spain?
  Dr. Kerr: I hope that when my hon. Friend replies he will not confine himself to quantities. It is not the quantity consumed—not even, perhaps, the quantity consumed per head—to which I am now directing the attention of the House.
  It is the influence of our social climate, our nutrition and our whole ethos in these matters, that in very large part determine the entirely different response to "pot" smoking as compared with the experience of under-nourished, often starving, people with no hope in their life, against a background of many thousands of years of this kind of practice. How can anyone extrapolate into our own kind of society the experience to which I expect hon. Members may be going to refer?
  Captain W. Elliot: The hon. Gentleman seemed to imply that the effect, of cannabis was different in different societies. Has he personally seen the effects in, say, Egypt, as I have?
  Dr. Kerr: No, but I am certainly postulating that in different societies such practices have very different effects. In an individual the consumption of alcohol may produce different effects, depending on whether he takes it after dinner or before breakfast. The problem with which the House must grapple is not whether the hon. Gentleman gets more drunk before breakfast than after dinner, but what is the threat to society that emanates from the more widespread use of cannabis.
  The Report that we are discussing says that we do not know, and the Wootton Committee says that in the light of our ignorance about the threat, which implies that the threat must not be very obvious or very great, we should examine it; that until it is proved it is inappropriate to punish the "pot" smoker with imprisonment, when all he is doing is smoking "pot", and that there is as much rational argument and logic for punishing the cigarette smoker or alcoholic, which we do not do. I am not advocating that we should, but that society should take a more responsible attitude to all these manifestations of the changes taking place in society today.

  979
  It is with that last point that I wish to leave the House. It is because society is changing so rapidly that we find it difficult to grasp those changes. The right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone grumbled that we now have to amend recent legislation. He should not waste his time grumbling. The very swift changes in society, our mores, and practices, particularly among the dynamic young people, will impose on the House a constant re-examination of legislation. We must not be fearful of amending it, in the light of need. Perhaps we need to speed up our procedures a little, for otherwise we shall be left even further behind than we are now. We must recognise that because of the revolution in communications and knowledge society will change much more quickly in the next 10 years that it has during the past 10 years. This is the social dynamic of today. I am very sorry to discover that the hon. Member for New Forest who, I had always assumed, was young and "with it", is among the hoary grey-beards.
  There are many young people capable of rational and discriminating judgment who are prepared to experiment with new sensations and adventures, because the world of today does not offer the same sensations and adventures of even the world of 20 years ago. If there is any attribute of being young, it is the need for new adventure and new experience. Perhaps one of the reasons why we have a permissive society is that there are new ideas in the way we approach one another and behave towards one another and ourselves. But that is too wide a subject to embark on now.
  I am grateful for having been called so early in the debate so that I can ask those who follow me to address themselves to what the Wootton Sub-Committee really said—not to what they think it said, or what the Daily Telegraph said that it said, but to the document—and to read it with the same kind of perception as that eminent Committee gave to a very grave and important social problem, with which the House must attempt to deal.
  5.30 p.m.
  Sir Douglas Glover: I, too, am glad to have been called early in the
  980
  debate and I am pleased of this opportunity to speak following the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr).
  I suggest that the House had not misunderstood the Wootton Report. We appreciate that the Wootton Sub-Committee performed a useful job in a dangerous sphere. We disagree, however—this is certainly the view of many hon. Members—with the recommendation that the present penalties for any offence dealing with cannabis should be altered. I fear that the Report and speeches like that just made by the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central, considered in the context of the present argument, will be taken as making the smoking of cannabis respectable.
  I wish to make my position clear, as should any hon. Member when speaking on a topic such as this. I have never smoked cannabis, but I reckon that I am well hooked on tobacco and alcohol. If, with all the knowledge that we now possess about the dangers of tobacco, we were debating that subject when tobacco was first introduced into our society—when it was at more or less the same stage in our society as cannabis is today—I would say the same about tobacco as I am saying about cannabis, which is that it would be evil and wrong to reduce the penalties until we know more about it.
  Hon. Members who speak with far greater knowledge of this matter than I have will agree that in some other societies the smoking of cannabis has been a great social evil, has become addictive and has led to increasing crime. I am more influenced by the Report of the World Health Organisation than I am by Lady Wootton's Report.
  We in this country are fortunate in having only recently come up against this problem. Some time ago I was speaking to Sir Harry Greenfield, the Chairman of the Narcotics Board. I pay tribute to the work of that Board because the discoveries which it has made have alerted us to the dangers of narcotics and we are now much better informed on the subject than we were 20 or 30 years ago.
  It has been made clear that we are considering a problem which affects not only the United Kingdom, but the whole

  981
  world. We live in a well-organised, kindly and probably the best run society in the world and what we do about this subject will greatly influence what is done by many of the developing nations. They want our support and encouragement so that they act on lines which will keep drugs under control in their countries. I fear that the sort of Report which we are discussing, and the speech of the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central, will make not just our job, but theirs, more difficult.
  The Western world is in danger, in its present handling of drugs—not merely cannabis and the somewhat harder drugs, but drugs generally—of destroying itself by its own cleverness. Perhaps cannabis is the smallest danger, but I suggest that it is the small sherry on the way to the large Scotch. Considering the enormous number of artificial hard drugs that are being invented and getting into circulation, as the Home Secretary pointed out—and as far as I can see, they are not under control—we in the Western world face a dangerous position.
  I was impressed by what the Home Secretary said about the need for an overall code of conduct within which he and the police can work. Although I am a great believer in the rule of law. I am particularly worried about the way in which the position changes so quickly these days. A new drug can be invented in a laboratory today and before we have knowledge to tackle its effects it has a grip on many addicts and is a social problem. We need faster acting machinery than at present exists to deal with this problem.
  My hon. Friend the Member for the New Forest (Mr. McNair-Wilson) said that he supported the retention of hanging. When one considers some of the latest inventions in the hard drugs sphere—I refer not to heroin but to artificial drugs—those who invent them, not for medical but for evil purposes, are committing a crime even worse than murder, for people who become addicted to them are on their way not just to a short life but to a long and agonising illness before they eventually die. The House should devote more attention to the need for machinery to deal with this rapidly expanding, vast and dangerous problem.
  Dr. Gray: Does the hon. Gentleman consider that there should be differential penalties for possession and supply?
  Sir D. Glover: At this time I would not alter the penalties at all because I do not believe that we have sufficient knowledge to make such a change.
  I appreciate the thinking behind the Wootton Report and I am not completely hostile to that thinking. Nevertheless, if somebody persuades me today to smoke a reefer and it is found at a later date that I am smoking heroin, can it definitely be said that there is not a link between what I have done today and what I will do in the future? I do not pretend to be an expert on this subject. The whole of our permissive society is so worrying that I would be prepared to leave the law, including the penalties under it, as it is.
  In our discussion of this subject we tend to overlook the fact that we are talking of maximum penalties. A magistrate will not send a girl who has smoked half a reefer to jail for 10 years. He merely has the power to do so. Magistrates and others dealing with these matters are experts and can assess whether a person is a pedlar and pusher or a habitual or casual smoker. They know whether people have come into the possession of these drugs by accident or for commercial profit.
  I am prepared, as long as our laws are right, to leave the administration of those laws to the courts. I have not read in the newspapers of even the pushers being sent to jail for 10 years, and perhaps when the Parliamentary Secretary replies to the debate he will say what maximum penalties have been imposed in the last three or four years.
  Mr. Elystan Morgan: It might be of assistance if I tell the House that the Report quotes figures for 1966, when, apparently, 17 persons were given sentences, on indictment, of between two and five years.
  Sir D. Glover: I thank the hon. Gentleman. I am grateful for having that redrawn to my attention. That is the point. Are we quite certain that the next case in the courts will not be of the Pooh-Bah, the big organiser, to whom the courts and the nation would like to give the maximum penalty? The courts

  983
  obviously have been dealing with this problem in a warding sentences of between two and five years. If they could impose a higher penalty, is it not a good thing to have it in reserve in case a worse case comes along during the next two years? I do not think, therefore, that the Wootton Sub-Committee has made the case for deliberately altering the penalties.
  Even the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central, speaking with his authority as a doctor, is not prepared to be dogmatic that there may not be side effects or that there may not be cause and effect between soft drugs and heroin and the other hard drugs. With all his experience, the hon. Member is not prepared to say that that is not so. If that is the case, I am sure that Parliament would be wrong to accept the recommendation of the Committee and reduce the penalities.
  Penalties mean to the general public that, if people are caught doing this, it is a serious business because the maximum penalty is so much but that, if they are caught doing something which has a smaller penalty, it is a much more minor offence because the maximum penalty is less. When we are trying to persuade, perhaps unsuccessfully, the younger element of the nation to stop experimenting and trying to see whether they can get greater kicks out of life—and I can understand that among young people—it is wrong, at this moment, deliberately, with all the panopoly of Parliament—Second Reading, Committee stage, Report, and so on—with all the publicity of the Press, to have the impression conveyed that Parliament has deliberately said, "Go ahead with this. It cannot be very serious, because we are reducing the maximum penalty from 10 years to 12 months." That must inevitably have an effect upon people's thinking.
  The hon. Member for Wandsworth. Central spoke about the mini-skirted girl who ran away. Probably she would not have run away if the maximum penalty had been 12 months, because the effect on her mind after talking with her chums would be, not that she was prepared to go to gaol for 12 months, but that the penalty was not nearly as big and therefore, it was not nearly as big a crime.
  984
  I think that far more young people would be prepared to have a go, as it were, with trying cannabis if we reduced the penalties. If that were to happen, I am certain that not necessarily with heroin, but with all the other drugs that can be attractively presented by the pusher, a person who gets into the habit of regularly smoking cannabis would stand in grave danger of finishing up later in life as a confirmed addict on one of the hard drugs of which we have been talking today. Therefore, this is one of the occasions when Parliament should not be in advance of public opinion. I think that we have a great mass of public opinion behind us in saying that we will not alter the penalties. We should not be the people who push public opinion to change its mind in a more progressive way.
  I always regret—the Home Secretary mention this expression today—that instead of talking about a permissive society, we do not talk about a responsible society. I remember that in 1959 I wanted the Conservative Party to fight the General Election on the slogan, "A responsible society". I wish that it had done so, because I believe that the greatest need of the nation—and not only of this nation, but of the whole Western world—is not to produce a society to break up, but is to get back a sense of responsibility, control and discipline.
  In that setting, we should resist the modern vogue that anything goes, that a person who ruins himself or herself does not have a great effect on other people and that that has nothing to do with society as a whole. This House should stand firm tonight and say that we want to produce a responsible society and, therefore, we reject the recommendations of the Wootton Report.
  5.45 p.m.
  Dr. Hugh Gray: I respond with pleasure to the challenge of the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) and say immediately that I drink alcohol. I have not smoked cigarettes for some years and I have not smoked cannabis.
  I listened with some regret to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. He said that he spoke not only for himself and the Opposition Front Bench, but for the whole House.

  985
  That, of course, is not true. He does not speak for me. He did not speak for my non. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) and he also did not speak for my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop), who was appointed by the Government to the Advisory Committee and who has written me to say that he cannot be in the House today. But he says:
  "'I do, however, agree with its"—
  the Committee's—"
  recommendations fully."
  I suggest, therefore, to my right hon. Friend that there are a number of hon. Members who fully agree, as I do, with the Committee's findings.
  I listened, as we all do, with great pleasure to the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg). If I am in the Library, and he gets up to speak, I always rush in to hear him. I rarely agree with what he says, but I am always impressed by his manner and his matter. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said—and I gathered by the nods which the hon. Member for Ormskirk received from the Opposition Front Bench spokesman who is to reply, the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes), that he agrees—that it should be left to the courts.
  Let us see what the courts have done. The hon. Member for Ormskirk seemed to suggest that they had acted with tolerance, intelligence and objectivity and had differentiated between young first offenders and those who pushed the drugs in large quantities.
  The Advisory Committee's Report states, in paragraph 80:
  "About a quarter of all cannabis offenders were sent to prison (or borstal, detention centre, or approved school); only about 13 per cent. were made subject to a probation order; and about 17 per cent. of first offenders were sent to prison."
  Now we come to the wisdom of the courts:
  "There was notably other dangerous drugs, but less use of probation and conditional discharge for possession of cannabis than for possession Either of other dangerous drugs or of amphetamines"—
  Mr. T. L. Iremonger: The bon. Member has missed out a line. The House would follow him better if
  986
  he read what he says he is reading. He has omitted the line which begins "greater emphasis on fines".
  Dr. Gray: I beg pardon. My omission was not intentional. I will start the sentence again:
  "There was notably greater emphasis on fines and imprisonment for possession of cannabis than of other dangerous drugs, but less use of probation and conditional discharge for possession of cannabis than for possession either of other dangerous drugs or of amphetamines and other 1964 Act drugs."
  That was the wisdom of the courts.
  I listened to the hon. Member for New Forest (Mr. McNair-Wilson), who spoke of his three daughters. If they went to a party and smoked cannabis for the first time, would he think it just and reasonable if they were sent to prison, as 17 per cent. of young people were? Is it suggested that prison cures this habit or contributes to the education of young people sent there? Surely all our experience shows quite the contrary. This is one of the reasons why I support the findings of the Wootton Sub-Committee. The Committee said, quite rightly, that young people found in possession of small amounts of cannabis should be fined, and not sent to prison.
  The right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone seemed to think that it was only my idea that a distinction should be made between possession for use and possession for supply. This is not so. In the reservation entered by Mr. Michael Schofield he said at page 36, paragraph 5:
  "Like my colleagues I would like to distinguish more clearly between possession intended for use and possession intended for supply. Unlike them I think this distinction should be written into the law. I think it would be preferable to base the distinction on the quantity found in possession. Accordingly I suggest that:

  (1) Illicit possession of up to 30 grams, leaves or resin, should be a summary offence only, punishable on a first or subsequent conviction by a maximum fine of £50.

  (2) Illicit possession of any amount larger than 30 grams should be punishable

  (a) on summary conviction by a fine not exceeding £100 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding four months;

  (b) on conviction on indictment a fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or both.

  The existing provision under the Dangerous Drugs Act 1965. whereby proceedings on indictment can only be instituted by or with

  987
  the consent of the Attorney General or the Director of Public Prosecutions, should be retained."
  This is a plea for a more sophisticated law. Many hon. Members would agree with me that it is not reasonable to lump heroin and cannabis together. We have heard, from the extract that I have read, that the courts have not behaved differentially in the treatment of offenders, as one would expect from their accumulated wisdom. Therefore I suggest that the law needs altering in this connection. One hon. Member seemed to suggest that there was not more need for research. Of course there is. The Committee says that, whereas the world picture points to there being no escalatory factor as between the smoking of cannabis and heroin, more research is needed, and some should be undertaken in this country.
  I would also draw the Government's attention to the existence of different sub-cultures throughout the country. Medical experts in Norfolk tell me that, whereas "pot" is smoked in Norwich, they have no knowledge of it being smoked elsewhere in the county, though there is addiction to amphetamine in King's Lynn, and barbiturates in the town of Great Yarmouth. We need to know why these differences arise. Is it due to the way in which local doctors prescribe drugs or are there other factors and reasons?
  I refer, because no other speaker has, to the generation factor. As a university teacher before I came to this House, I continually came into contact with young people. The argument that they always put forward was that it was not a sufficient answer to say that alcohol is a drug that has been with us for hundreds of years, to which we have come to terms, and so on. They can also now point to this Report, saying that cannabis taken in moderation is less harmful than alcohol.
  Although there are other medical opinions, the Report says quite clearly, rightly or wrongly—and there were 10 medical experts on the Committee among those who expressed these views—that cannabis is not addictive from a physical viewpoint, and that no withdrawal symptoms are shown. Young people who read this Report understand this. Are they not entitled to stand up
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  and ask "Is it just or reasonable that we should be sent to prison for a first offence when this is the expert view?"
  Mr. David Weitzman: Is not my hon. Friend's criticism that the courts have not acted with discretion? There is ample power for a court in appropriate circumstances to impose a lesser penalty than imprisonment.
  Dr. Gray: I hope that justices will note what my hon. and learned Friend has said. I hope that the Government spokesman in his reply will give some indication to the courts as to how they should behave in future.
  Mr. Elystan Morgan: I am sure my hon. Friend accepts that it is not for Parliament to give any direction at all.
  Dr. Gray: I am sorry to hear that. Perhaps my mistake arises from the Committee's hope that justices will note what it has said in its Report when sentencing.
  Mr. Charles Doughty: As one who has to impose sentences I decline to take orders from any Government or Report, unless through legislation or some other form.
  Dr. Gray: I did not suggest that any orders should be given. I simply hoped that observations would be made, and taken note of by those responsible for sentences. Otherwise one is driven back, not to saying, as the hon. Member for Ormskirk said, "Leave it to the wisdom of the courts", but one must demand from the Government that they accept the recommendations of this Committee and weaken the penalties.
  I found the Home Secretary's argument, as did the Daily Telegraph—no supporter of a permissive society—extremely curious. He seemed to think that if the penalties were lessened this meant that in some strange way the Government were encouraging drug-taking. This is absolutely absurd. It is as though one were saying that when the penalty of hanging was abolished for sheep stealing the Government of the day were encouraging sheep stealing.
  My argument rests on this basic point, that sending young people to prison for offences of this kind is completely useless. Probation should be used, hospitalisation or perhaps in some cases approved

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  schools, but prison never. I can see no use in the Committee producing what seems to be a balanced Report if it is not to be listened to. At present when a young person is found in possession of a small quantity of this drug, the law is barbarous, savage, 19th century and should be changed. I hope that the Government spokesman will address himself to this point in his reply.
  I do not believe that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Marylebone replied to my point, made at the beginning of the Committee's Report on the subject of when legislation should be introduced to curb self-destruction and self-hurtfulness. The Committee, with some reason, draws attention to the fact that 12,000 people, more than half the total of young men between the ages of 15 and 19 who ride motor cycles, were killed by this lethal instrument, yet were not protected in any way from possessing them.
  There seems to be no consistent principle in law in protecting the individual from himself, as the Report suggests. We are no longer punished for attempting to commit suicide in our society, and a good thing too. I do, however, agree that the social consequences of drug taking are so grave that I would not proceed to legalisation of taking cannabis on the evidence we have at the moment.
  Unlike the Home Secretary, who seemed to think that a half-way house Report was not acceptable, I believe that it to be the only humane and possible solution to the situation in which we find ourselves. The Report has now been rejected by both Government and Opposition Front Benches. I hope, as both opening speakers suggested, that they will look again at the whole question of the law in respect of these offences, and will see whether mitigating changes cannot be made and whether we cannot move on to a more sophisticated system of laws which will invoke the respect of all members of our society, including the young members, who under the present system, seem to be so unjustly penalised as compared with their elders.
  6.0 p.m.
  Mr. T. L. Iremonger: The hon. Member for Yarmouth (Dr. Gray) was speaking to an unsympathetic
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  House, but I am sure that he is too seasoned now to have been unduly put off by that. I feel for him in the badgering that he had to put up with. Although I think most of us would disagree with what both the—I think that the phrase is—"socially dynamic and swinging" doctors, the medical doctor the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) and the academic doctor the hon. Member for Yarmouth, had to say, it is valuable for the House to have had put to it the argument in defence of the Report which we are discussing and to which the House as a whole is rightly hostile.
  I do not agree with the hon. Member for Yarmouth. I reflected, on reading this Report, that we should have one new verse in the National Anthem:
  "God save us from the rule
  Of the clever fool."
  It seems to me that this Report is so very clever and makes so many sophistical and specious points, but no one with any common sense would give two thoughts to its recommendations. I am glad to see that the House is inclined totally to reject them, that the Home Secretary has taken the line he as done, and that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) supported him as he did with his usual brilliance and wisdom.
  The theme of the Wootton Report seems to be that if we cannot prove that something is a bad thing we ought not to do anything to discourage it. The main recommendation seems to be that there should be, to use the words of the Report, flexibility in the treatment of offences in respect of individual drugs. The general idea is that we are not sufficiently informed to be certain that "pot" is not entirely innocent and that we should, therefore, reduce the penalties in respect of offences concerned with "pot".
  I think that the attitude of the Home Secretary is quite right, if I take his meaning correctly, that we should thereby be encouraging people to start on what may well be—we have no right to say it is not—the primrose path to drug addiction, addiction to hard drugs and heroin, if we minimise by legislation passed by this House the dangers of starting on that path.

  991
  I am profoundly unimpressed by paragraph 73 on page 18 of the Report, which sayss:
  "It will be clear from this Report that there is still a great deal that we do not know about cannabis."
  and that thereby in some way the dangers ought to be regarded as not proven and that therefore the drug should be held to be innocent until proved guilty. I think that the burden of proof lies the other way round. This mania for research that inspires sociologists and armchair legislators fills me with misgiving. There is a lot that we do not know about water, but I have a pretty shrewd conviction, at any rate when I am in a boat, that it is wet and better kept out and better not got into. There is a lot that we do not know about fire, but I have a shrewd suspicion that it burns and, on the whole, I would give the benefit of the doubt against water and against fire when I am in a boat or if I am responsible for a house or anything like that.
  The Home Secretary was right to be reluctant to accept the general emphasis and weight of this Report in favour of the "legalise 'pot'" lobby. Also, I cannot understand how a Committee of such responsible people should have seen any merit in wishing to lower the maximum statutory penalties for offences in respect of cannabis even if they thought that cannabis was harmless, or even if they were not sure that it was harmful. Surely it is a fundamental principle of English statute law that penalties are maxima and that it is for the courts to use their discretion in applying the maxima within the limits prescribed by statute.
  The hon. Member for Yarmouth made great play, with reference to paragraph 80 on page 20 of the Report, with the fact that 17 per cent. of first offenders had been sent to prison and that few had been put on probation. But, of course, if these sentences were manifestly outrageous and unjust, it was for the convicted persons to appeal from one court right up to the House of Lords if it came to it. I speak subject to correction, and it is not made clear in the paragraph, but I do not think that has been done.
  Dr. Gray: I do not think that I made myself clear. The point I was making
  992
  was that I did not think first offenders should be sent to prison at all if found in possession of cannabis. How could they appeal to any higher court against the sentence? All they could do would be to get the sentence reduced. I am opposing any imprisonment at all.
  Mr. Iremonger: The question of any imprisonment at all of first offenders is another matter. We are talking about whether it is right for offenders guilty of offences in respect of cannabis to be sent to prison, irrespective of whether they are first offenders or not. If they are sent to prison they can appeal against sentence right up to the highest court that the law allows.
  If they do not do that, the objection of the hon. Member for Yarmouth against the law which provides the maxima will not stick. They could have used the law to appeal against the sentence. It might be unfair to make any speculation about this, but I cannot help feeling that a first offender who is sent to prison for an offence under the present law and who does not appeal may well think that it would be just as well that the circumstances should be investigated no further. He may well think that he got off comparatively lightly.
  Mr. Gordon Oakes: The hon. Gentleman is coming to a point which I had intended to raise. Would he not agree that it is extremely rare for first offenders to be sent to prison? Indeed, it is even rarer under the Criminal Justice Act, 1967, for a first offender to be sent to prison. Very often, if he is sent to prison, the courts have special reasons for doing so.
  Mr. Iremonger: That is very much my feeling. One cannot be sure that a first offender caught for the offence of possessing or pushing cannabis is not quite a big fish. The fact that is is the first time he is caught does not mean that he is an innocent fellow who has just come away from a party. It may be that the hon. Member for Yarmouth is being a little naïve.
  I am not happy about recommendation (7), in paragraph 101, that the penalty for comparatively serious cannabis offences should have a maximum of no more than two years' imprisonment. This would mean that these who are

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  engaged in drug trafficking on a big scale and are not particularly concerned with cannabis could really laugh; they would not then be for the high jump at all. It is the duty of this House to give the courts power to impose the severest sentences when they see fit, in the confident expectation that they will use not only their humanity but their common sense and their experience to see that the punishment is made to fit the criminal, which is the guiding principle of sentencing.
  The confusion in the mind of the hon. Member for Yarmouth, if I may say so, is that he fails to distinguish between penalty and sentencing. Sentencing is a question for the court, and the setting of the maximum penalty is a question for the House. I should not like to see the House usurp the function of the court.
  Next, I am not inclined to dismiss as lightly as some are our international obligations in this respect. We ought not to brush aside too lightly the misgivings of responsible people in other nations or too lightly the fact that, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone said, we have pledged our word that we shall not encourage the traffic in drugs. We were sensitive about breaking our pledged word in respect of Kenyan passport holders. Perhaps we ought to be a little more tender than the Report is inclined to be about breaking our word in respect of the international drug traffic, for which we should hold a large measure of responsibility if we did not maintain our defences at the highest possible level.
  Dr. Gray: We should not break our obligations in any way by reducing the penalties. We should break our obligations if we legalised the smoking of cannabis at present.
  Mr. Iremonger: That is a rather fine distinction. A little more emphasis by the hon. Member for Yarmouth on the importance of preventing an increase in the habit of drug taking altogether would be more becoming than his constant pushing towards legalising—
  Dr. Gray: No.
  Mr. Iremonger:—what is, in fact, a drug or what can hardly be said to be a practice which will discourage people from getting into the company of the sort of persons who have drugs to push and
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  who wish others to become dependent on heroin and the hard drugs. I am much more anxious about our responsibilities than the hon. Gentleman seems to be.
  The hon. Gentleman made great play of the argument about alcohol, about how young people feel that alcohol is just as filthy, just as disgusting, and possibly more dangerous, and how unfair it is that, just because we have, in his words, come to terms with alcohol, we do not make a similar effort to come to terms with "pot". In the first place, we have not come to terms with alcohol. Alcohol started a long time ago. We were not there then. We are here now.
  The question is whether we should allow something to supervene on an already bad situation, that is, a situation in which alcohol is something controlled and accepted in society but has deleterious effects on many people, by allowing a new situation to develop in which other supposedly comparable drugs such as cannabis—and leading on to the harder drugs—could take a similar hold.
  One ought not to argue from our acceptance of a situation which we did not create—a situation which is bad for society in which alcohol has a hold on a great many people—that we should go on to accept another bad state of affairs which we could, if we had the will, prevent and discourage by the legislation which we already have.
  The Home Secretary rightly put to the House the contrast between the permissive society, which may have some merits in some respects, and a responsible society, the society in the spirit of which we are addressing ourselves to this Report. In considering the responsible society and the responsibilities of this House, I cannot help, in my position as an elected Member answerable to my constituents, paying serious regard to the feelings of parents in my constituency who have at school children of 13, 14 and 15, children who move about in a way in which previous generations of young people never moved about, open to influences which they are, perhaps, not entirely capable of standing up to, and who come home subtly changed—parents have said this to me—going off their food and not paying their usual attention to their work at school. It is then discovered, when it is too late to do anything about it, that they have got into

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  the habit of taking drugs—to the astonishment and appalled dismay of their parents.
  It could hardly become us in this House or be worthy of our responsibilities if we said to parents who brought these problems to us, "We cannot prove that this is a bad thing, and we thought, on the whole, that because so many people get drunk, we ought not to do anything about people smoking 'pot' if they want to. You will find, on the whole, that your children will not be at any greater risk, if we reduce the penalties, and, after all, if they are, you cannot prove that there is any harm in it".
  People would simply say, "The House of Commons is composed of clever fools. They have gone mad. They are completely out of touch with the anxieties and realities of life as it is lived in the constituencies among ordinary families. What do we elect these people for?". I am not prepared to put to my constituents the sophisticated academic drivel in this Report. I say that with great respect, but legislation should be done by legislators, and legislators should be subject to the strict discipline of frequent election and rejection by the electorate. Although from time to time we may ask the advice of medical men and—God help us—the 0dd sociologist, we ought to look at it with the greatest possible scepticism. That is how I look at this Report.
  I am not moved, either, by philosophical reflections on liberty. On this side, we have, if anything, a more passionate devotion to liberty than is shown by some hon. Members opposite, but I feel that, when we are in doubt, we ought to give the benefit of the doubt, even if it impinges theoretically in some slight degree on personal liberty, to protecting the vulnerable members of society. To my mind, the most vulnerable members of society are those who are weak in will and young in experience, exactly those who are most susceptible to the machinations of people who are not concerned with whether they smoke pot or not but who are ultimately concerned to make a vast fortune by pushing heroin and the hard drugs.
  We have not seen the beginning of this in our country. We have no real drug problem. Anyone who has been
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  to the United States and who knows what large-scale drug trafficking means in social terms will think very carefully before doing anything which might possibly unlock the door, let alone turn the latch and open it slightly in that direction.
  I do not wish to close without referring to what the Home Secretary said about the rapid advances in the development of drugs unknown and undreamt of before and with effects which none of us understand. One of the most marvellous potential developments of this age is in the understanding of the biochemistry of the brain.
  We are merely on the threshold of what is to be discovered, let alone what is to be understood and digested intellectually and spiritually, in that respect. No one can tell what lies ahead in the dangers of being able to manufacture drugs with comparatively simple resources or in controlling those who may be brought to suffer from them. I do not think that we can dismiss as entirely bad the developments which we envisage in the future. But we should not allow our awe at the mysteries which science may reveal to cause us to lose our foothold on the path of common sense, self-respect and social decency.
  6.20 p.m.
  Mr. Gordon Oakes: I give my unqualified and absolute support to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary in his decision to reject the Report. I am sure that my hon. Friends the Members for Yarmouth (Dr. Gray) and Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) are not representative of hon. Members on this side of the House and that my right hon. Friend's decision will be widely welcomed and overwhelmingly supported by people of all political parties and none.
  The Report looks at the question of drugs from this point of view: what harm can they do? Never does it look at it from the point of view: what good does cannabis do? The Committee would be in a most difficult position if it looked at it from that angle, because no arguments are advanced in the Report, and no arguments have been advanced today, that cannabis does any good whatsoever. The nearest that we got to it were some remarks by my hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, Central who talked,

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  strangely enough, about the dynamic young society which was seeking new experiences.
  I would hardly say that it was characteristic of a dynamic young society for someone chemically to induce euphoria, and to sit in a crowd in such euphoria, seeking not to do things for others or to participate in life, but to withdraw from life. If there is any example of the dynamic young society, it is the mini-skirted, swinging teacher my hon. Friend talked about who walked out of the house in absolute disgust when she found a "pot" party going on.
  It has been said by my hon. Friends the Members for Yarmouth and Wandsworth, Central that we must consider the Report itself and not what we think it says. That is a fair challenge to any hon. Member who supports my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. Recommendation (4), on page 33 of the Report, is:
  "The association in legislation of cannabis with heroin and the other opiates is inappropriate and new legislation to deal specially and separately with cannabis and its synthetic derivates should be introduced as soon as possible."
  That recommendation clearly shows that the Committee must have been quite disingenuous.
  Earlier in its Report, in paragraph 98, it said:
  "Preliminary reports have suggested that some substances in this group "—
  that is, synthetic derivatives of cannabis—
  "are more potent than the natural product".
  The Committee does not know. Nevertheless, it suggests that there should be separate legislation for separate drugs. That is a very difficult principle to operate in law. It would be very unwise for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to differentiate drugs in this way. If some derivatives are more potent than cannabis, but not quite as potent as heroin, are we to have other categories of drugs and separate penalties for them? The Committee has not thought through its own recommendation and what it would mean in law. My right hon. Friend has looked at it from that point of view.
  Recommendation (9), on page 33, is:
  "Section 5 of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1965 (permitting premises to be used for smoking cannabis, etc.) should be redefined in scope so as to apply only to premises open to the public, to exclude the reference to dealing in cannabis and cannabis resin, and
  998
  to remove the absolute nature of the liability on managers."
  If that recommendation were accepted, the job of the police in dealing with the drug would be almost intolerable.
  Did the Committee realise, as obviously my right hon. Friend does, that a club is not open to the public? Therefore, whereas the smoking of "pot" in a public house or cafe would be illegal, it would be legal, if the Committee's recommendation were carried out, in a private members' club, although it is virtually open to the public.
  The worst recommendation is Recommendation (6):
  "Possession of a small amount of cannabis should not normally be regarded as a serious crime to be punished by imprisonment."
  I do not blame the Press, as the right hon. and learned Member for St. Maryle-bone (Mr. Hogg) did, or the television media when they looked at that recommendation and claimed that the Committee was seeking softer penalties in respect of cannabis and that we were not exactly supporting the smoking of cannabis, but not looking so savagely upon it.
  The recommendation presumably is to differentiate between possessing cannabis for one's own use and possessing it to supply other people. The only figure which one finds in the Report is 30 grammes. The Committee does not recommend that figure in its tables and; it always draws a distinction between over and under 30 grammes. Did it seriously think through whether the recommendation would deal separately with the pusher and the user? If I were a pusher of cannabis and it was proposed that much more serious penalties should be imposed if I carried more that 30 grammes of it, I would make a lot of trips and would make sure that I never had more than 30 gramme on me; or, if I had it in premises, I would ensure that it was split among a number of premises. This is no answer when it comes to the difference between the supplier and user of cannabis.
  The hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) dealt very well with the position of the courts. I refer my hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth to the table on page 22 of the Report. We should not forget that of the 1,109 people convicted in 1966, only 286 were sent to

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  prison. Of the rest, 613 were fined, and probation orders were made in 171 cases. There were 111 people conditionally or absolutely discharged. It is not the case that prison invariably results from a conviction for possessing this drug. The figures in the same table for 1964 and 1965 show that, although the number of convictions almost doubled, the number of imprisonments did not although it increased slightly. But the number of fines nearly doubled. Therefore, the courts are doing what my hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth wants them to do.
  Let us consider the difficulty which a court may have. The court is the place in which it is decided how the law should be administered in the light of each individual offender and offence. It has the relevant evidence before it. We should not try to tie the hands of the court in differentiating between drugs and between users and suppliers. How can one prove conclusively in court that a man is a supplier and not a user of the drug?
  It was mentioned earlier that a well-known actor, Peter Sellers, had stated that he had smoked the drug and enjoyed it. He should be ashamed of himself for making such a statement. He is respected and known as a famous comedian by many millions of people. I hope that he made that statement as a comedian, because, clearly, it should not be taken in any other context. However, when a court deals with a "pop" singer for being in possession of cannabis or for smoking or supplying it, it is in a very difficult position If it fines the average of £50 or about that figure, the law is unjust, because that "pop" singer may be earning £1,000 a week and will pay his £50 cheerfully.
  In those circumstances, the court has little alternative but to impose a sentence of imprisonment. Very often it is set aside on appeal, but it does a lot of good when the initial court imposes imprisonment, because such a man is in a position of power to influence others, and if he is in a position of power he is also in a position of greater responsibility. A policeman convicted of larceny almost invariably goes to prison, no matter how small the amount, and whether or not it is a first offence. If a man responsible
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  for the administration of money is found guilty of fraud, he too almost invariably goes to prison, even though a first offender.
  The man with influence, particularly over millions of young people, is really doing a worse job by his advocacy of drugs, and advertising them by the fact that he uses them, than many a pusher who would be sent to prison for a longer period. The court which sentences famous people to imprisonment for using drugs, flouting the law, and encouraging young people and others to use them, do rightly. If that is the sort of thing the Committee opposes, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is absolutely right to reject the Report, to keep in Parliament's hands the political decision, and to say that we do not know enough about the use of cannabis to make any relaxations. We know from many social workers the inevitable conclusion that those on heroin and hard drugs have started on softer drugs, though perhaps not cannabis. It is very rarely that they go immediately to heroin.
  I commend absolutely my right hon. Friend's very wise decision.
  6.32 p.m.
  Captain Walter Elliot: In the three minutes' left to me, I want to make only one point. I find it difficult to understand why so many people, including commentators and the Wootton Sub-Committee, call for more research into the effects of cannabis. I can understand what the Home Secretary said about investigation into the general effect on society of all the new drugs being developed. But the effect on the individual of cannabis is very well known. Although research is always valuable, I am sure that we know enough to come to a decision on this drug.
  I expect that many hon. Members saw Malcolm Muggeridge's letter in The Times. He had taught in Egypt, and he pointed out the archives of the old League of Nations must be full of information about the effects of cannabis on that country. There was also a letter from Camilla Sykes in The Times, daughter of Russell Pasha, the man who did so much for drug prevention in Egypt. She mentioned a film which must also be in the archives of the League of Nations. I wonder why the very distinguished

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  Wootton Sub-Committee did not have at least some of this information at its disposal.
  I can speak about my small personal experience in Egypt. In the Services, we went out on police patrols at times in the course of duty and often met the local police. Before the war, they would show us the addicts and say, "There is a hashish taker." The effect is lethargy, lack of will to work, and a gradual mental and physical degradation. The effects of cannabis are bad. It is all very well for the hon. Member for Yarmouth to say that when it is taken in moderation they are not bad. The essential of drug taking is that one has to take more and more to have the same effect. In the end, it brings you down.
  The Home Secretary referred to the permissive society, and how much he would prefer it to a responsible society. A permissive society is all very well, if, after due and proper consideration, one permits something to be done. But when, because a problem is becoming so difficult, one allows it to overwhelm one, and beats a retreat, that is pure abrogation of responsibility.
  That was the first time I have heard a Minister of the present Government take his stand to stem the tide of the so-called permissive society instead of swimming with it. I am greatly encouraged by that and wish him the best of luck.
  6.35 p.m.
  Mr. W. F. Deedes: It would be very 0dd if this somewhat reactionary Tory appeared at the Dispatch Box to defend the Baroness Wootton and her colleagues against a Labour Home Secretary's charge of being too permissive. That is not my intention. I am impressed and heartened by the formidable alliance between my right hon. and learned learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) and the Home Secretary this afternoon. I am perfectly prepared to accept that, on balance, they reflect the mood of the House and the majority of the country.
  On balance, I naturally think that the Wootton Sub-Committee was justified by the scientific evidence for the view it took. If thought otherwise, I should have entered a reservation on the Report. Equally, the Home Secretary has an abso-
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  lute right on wider grounds to reject its main recommendation, even if one or two of his reasons seem to be questionable, and the House has a duty to support that sort of decision. The Home Secretary was absolutely right when he spoke of the distinction between the background of the laboratory and the background of a sense of public values. That is really what the debate has been about.
  I do not think that the Committee has any need of defence from me. In any case, it would be improper. One's duty here lies to the House, and not to any Committee. But I would say one word about the Report. Some of the judgments passed on the committee and the Report owe something to a trick of our trade. If one disagrees with somebody, it is often helpful slightly to misrepresent what he has said before attacking it. In this sense, some of the words used by the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) sounded unusually musical to me. He made a fair point in defence of members of the Committee.
  Those who, like my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Iremonger), believe that they took leave of their senses in putting forward the recommendation that they made, should be reminded that their findings are not internationally singular. They are pretty much in line with conclusions reached quite lately in reports published in America and Canada, where cannabis is prevalent and troublesome, and where it is regarded socially very much as we regard it here. I shall not make many selective quotations from either report, one of which is part of the monumental report on law enforcement made to the President of the United States in 1967. Perhaps one will suffice to indicate what I mean when I say that the Committee has not acted uniquely. The American report says:
  "There appears to be good reason to moderate present punitive legislation so that penalties are more in keeping with what is known about the risks; that is, they are not great."
  That may well be disputed, but that appeared in the definitive American report, and the Canadian Addiction Research Foundation, which is probably one of the most considerable bodies of its kind in the world, offered the same view from Ontario.

  1003
  Many of the arguments which have been aired since the Committee reported and in the debate this afternoon, including some offered with great fervour by my right hon. and learned Friend, have been addressed against legalising cannabis. Of course, any such move can be and ought to be annihilated, for international if not for moral reasons, but it is fair to remind the House that that was not the move proposed by the Wootton Sub-Committee. It sought to reassess the place of this drug in the scale of narcotic and psychotropic drugs.
  I must add that in no country, so far as I know, have any of the sort of recommendations which I have quoted been followed by any change in the law, and it is fair to say so because it abundantly justifies the line which the Home Secretary was taking, that there will be a division between those who view these things from the medical, scientific and laboratory point of view and those who have a responsibility to the public. Therefore, I absolutely accept, and I think that we must accept, that this is a subject in which governments have every right to differ from technical committees, and that the House of Commons has a duty to endorse those differences.
  I thought that the Home Secretary was on less sure ground when he appeared to argue that if we did not want to increase the use of cannabis, it was foolish to reduce the penalties. Not all the arguments we have heard today have been quite in line with some of the arguments which we heard when we were debating the proposals of the Wolfenden Report, for example. What we are arguing about is not whether there should be penalties—that is agreed—but what penalties will prove most effective.
  If the Home Secretary argues, as he appeared to argue when he made his announcement, "the higher the better", he is questioning some part of our recent approach to penology, including the Criminal Justice Act, to which his predecessor at the Home Office gave his hand. Moreover, the higher penalty will not necessarily be the most effective if it appears to too many people to be out of line with the facts. This is an argument which must be weighed by the House.
  We may not find it easier to persuade our young people to accept the truth
  1004
  about dangerous drugs—and it is tremendously important that we should be able to persuade them—if we are not quite truthful about one of them, if we are not quite truthful in the light of what we think we know—and our knowledge is never finite in these matters—about one of them.
  My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Carshalton (Captain W. Elliot) felt that we knew enough about cannabis—and this was a topic raised by my right hon. and learned Friend—and asked what was the need for further exploration and further research. One short answer is that research in these matters is never finite and continues indefinitely, but another answer is surely, if we take the example of tobacco, that we have found that it is possible suddenly to discover something about a drug which has not hitherto been suspected for a great period of years. In other words, I do not believe that there is ever a point when we can leave research and believe that we have all the answers we need.
  I appreciate the force of the proposition that we do not want to encourage another vice, whatever may be the relationship of "pot" to tobacco and to alcohol. My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest (Mr. McNair-Wilson) was absolutely right when he said that two wrongs did not make a right. The argument that "pot" may be no worse than alcohol or no worse than smoking is the weakest possible argument which its proponents could put forward. Where there may be a difference and certainly where the Home Secretary differs from the Committee is about the best way to discourage what is undeniably a vice.
  The need for the social acceptance of any particular law has been argued more than once in this place and I shall not rehearse that argument again, but there is a further argument in relation to this drug. From the evidence which was before the Committee and all of which I saw I formed the view that there was a strong element of social defiance in this cult, perhaps a stronger element of social defiance than in the use of any other drug. That is thoroughly dangerous. I am not convinced that we shall diminish such defiance, and that it is possible that we shall accentuate it, with penalties which appear to be unjustified. That at least is a matter which the House ought to weigh.

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  I turn to other and stronger grounds on which the Home Secretary based his decision. He thinks that we shall need to strengthen the Government's hand and to make it flexible enough to meet new situations as they arise. I am sure that he is right about that. Our legislative apparatus for dealing with this constantly changing epidemic is hopelessly ponderous, and hon. Members will agree that we seem constantly to be shutting stable doors.
  While the Wootton Sub-Committee was dealing with cannabis and the House of Commons was changing the law about heroin, in one sense we were overtaken by a much bigger potential menace to which the Home Secretary referred this afternoon, namely, intravenous methyl-amphetamine. Certainly, in terms of violent crime, this is the most serious development in drugs which we have yet encountered. As the Home Secretary said, it is a most disturbing development. This illustrates the difficulty which may not have been sufficiently recognised by my right hon. and learned Friend when he stressed the need for a stable law and by the Home Secretary when he said that we should not keep fiddling about with the law.
  This is absolutely right, but amphetamine as recognised and as prescribed by the million tablets to patients is one thing and may appropriately fall under the Misuse of Drugs Act, 1964, while amphetamine suddenly discovered as a drug which can be intravenously injected to produce an entirely different effect is quite another. That is the sort of thing which can happen very quickly and take us unawares. This is the difficulty of creating any law which will have the respectability of stability.
  As the Home Secretary said, this outbreak has been held temporarily by voluntary agreement. But it will not be the last. I do not want to appear to be a Cassandra, but it may be that the next epidemic from which we shall suffer will be a hypnotics epidemic as Japan is now having, and there are already some signs of it.
  There is room to argue how much of this new approach which I am sure we must have is best achieved by the flexible legislation which the Home Secretary has in mind and how much requires stronger
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  professional disciplines—no hon. Member will overlook the importance of strong professional disciplines, whether medical or pharmacological or any of the other associated professions, to combat this menace—and we shall probably need both. But I doubt whether even that will be enough.
  A society—and we are not the only one—which feels the need for mood changing drugs and finds them abundantly available, some, unlike marijuana, quite legitimately available on prescription, poses a very large problem, and we would be mistaken if we believed that law enforcement would be enough. I believe that there is no way other than doggedly going on seeking out fresh knowledge, new techniques, new understanding.
  As we have discovered from the Report, not all the results of this quest will be to our liking; many results will be condemned as offering the wrong example and pointing society in the wrong direction. But it should be acknowledged that when they come from responsible people in no sense influenced by a lobby of one kind or another they at least help to illuminate what I fear is likely to be a very long road before us.
  More often than not findings of this sort will lead to argument, as this Report has done. I am not convinced that that is necessarily harmful; it is how democracy sustains itself and keeps itself at least moderately healthy. Democracies cannot confine their diet to unassailable statements of which everyone approves. That is not the way in which to resolve difficult arguments of this kind.
  It is in that context that I see, and I hope that hon. Members will see, the work of the Wootton Sub-Committee, and it is towards that process that it has made a valuable contribution which should perhaps be more widely recognised and acknowledged.
  6.50 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Elystan Morgan): I am sure that the House will agree that this has been an interesting and wide-ranging debate. The Government are grateful to the Opposition for the opportunity which they have given to

  1007
  put the Advisory Committee's Report in perspective.
  The Chairman of the Advisory Committee, Sir Edward Wayne, in his letter to the Home Secretary accompanying the Report, stressed that the Report was neither final nor definitive. Some Press comment has suggested that it would have been better had the Committee refrained from making any report at this stage. I appreciate that that must have been a difficult matter of judgment for the Wootton Sub-Committee.
  The Report contains a valuable summary of the somewhat confusing world literature on the subject, but it is notably deficient in reliable evidence about the use of cannabis in the United Kingdom. Paragraph 36 of the Report states that the Sub-Committee was unable to come to any conclusion whether the number of persons who take cannabis in the United Kingdom is nearer to 30,000 or to 300,000, and the gap is a wide one.
  Hon. Members have alluded to some inconsistencies in the logic of the Sub-Committee's thinking. No doubt that is why newspaper headlines have been as varied as "Charter for Junkies" and "Reason on Pot". The Report is valuable for raising discussion of this difficult social problem to an altogether different plane from that featured in The Times advertisement of July, 1967, and for showing the great difficulties of this kind of inquiry. There can be no doubt that the Report will, in the words of the Advisory Committee's Chairman:
  "… make a valuable contribution towards a more informed understanding of the problem of cannabis".
  On that basis, today's debate forms a most timely starting point for further thought and inquiry.
  The reasons for drug-taking even among young people are infinite. They range from personal inadequacies, frustrations and setbacks, to the urge to experiment, the allurement of the unknown, the wish to achieve a sharper perception and, ultimately, to classical group attitudes. It is right for us to remind ourselves that drugs can be one of the media employed by one generation to show its dissatisfaction with the standards, the attitudes and the customs of another. To a large extent the misuse of drugs represents yet another issue in the
  1008
  gap, a credibility gap or a rapport gap, which exists between youth and age. I have touched on matters which may lie beyond the proper scope of the debate, but I believe that they should always serve as a background for our thoughts and decisions.
  It is inevitable that the debate has tended to centre around only one of the many recommendations of the Sub-Committee, the most controversial recommendation, turning on the revision of the penalties for the use of cannabis.
  Before I deal with various matters that have been referred to in the debate, I have been asked to say on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that when he spoke of methedrine having some to us from Sweden, that was an inadvertent slip of the tongue; he had no intention of saying that, and it is not true. A cult of intravenous amphetamine abuse seems to have developed from the initial attempt to win heroin addicts away from the drug of their choice.
  Like everyone else in the House, I have a great admiration for the rhetorical powers of the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg). As usual, he gave the House a glimpse of his grandeur and evangelical fervour in pleading a case. I wholeheartedly agree with him that it is not for us to try to do the work of the courts, judges and magistrates. It would be a sorry state if we were to seek to set down a rigid tariff of maximum penalties, compartmentalising in great detail various subheadings of what are now regarded as being general headings of crime.
  I agree in substance with the hon. Members for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover), New Forest (Mr. McNair-Wilson), Ilford, North (Mr. Iremonger) and Carshalton (Captain W. Elliot). Normally—indeed, I should think, on any other occasion—I should look upon them as a quartet of reaction, but today I agreed with their fundamental argument that, looking at the Report of the Committee as a whole, there was, from the point of view of public opinion, a very great danger of regarding the Report, perhaps not intentionally, as having the effect of toning down the detrimental and deleterious effects of cannabis.

  1009
  It is right that young people should seek to experiment; it is right that they should seek a greater perception; but this is not a movement towards a greater and sharper experience of reality. It is a movement in the contrary direction. This is not reality; this is a blurring, a distortion, a blunting of reality.
  Under the heading of "Marijuana" the current edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica has this to say of cannabis:
  "Marijuana intoxication may be accompanied by such physical and psychic manifestations as thirst, hunger, craving for sweet foods, nausea, dizziness, abdominal pain, drowsiness, irritability, delusions of grandeur or persecution, uncontrollable hilarity, talkativeness, apprehension, mental confusion, prostration, depression, inarticulate speech and delirium."
  I am sure that some hon. Members would remind us that certain of those conditions are possible in the House of Commons without smoking "pot".
  Be that as it may, we should ask ourselves whether that is the licence that we are seeking to confer upon our young people. Is this the privilege that we want to give them? Is this the real patrimony of citizenship to which we feel that they are entitled?
  At this point, I want to refer to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr). There are many matters in that speech on which I should like to comment. I shall confine myself to alluding to his argument which sought to show that there is no evidence to substantiate the claim that there is a causal connection between the taking of cannabis and ultimate addiction to heroin. I do not know whether he has seen the recent paper published by Professor Paton of Oxford University. It is unfortunate that it came to light only two days before the Sub-Committee concluded its work. In it, Professor Paton tries to look dispassionately at the problem. He looks upon it as a scientist and seeks in the fairest way possible to put it up as a null hypothesis, suggesting that there is no connection. Then he tries to test that null hypothesis by putting up the conditions that would be expected to exist if that were true.
  In the first instance, Professor Paton says that one would expect to see persons take to heroin at an earlier age than they Would take to cannabis. The evidence is to the contrary. We know
  1010
  that young people tend to take cannabis at 16 or 17 and to heroin at 18 or 19, or even a year or two later.
  The Professor's second point is that one must then look at the incidence of heroin addicts who have taken cannabis and compare it with the incidence of those who take cannabis in society at large. In society at large it is roughly the proportion of one to 2,000. That is 005 per cent. For those who are heroin addicts and have taken cannabis at an earlier stage, it is between 80 and 100 per cent.
  Dr. David Kerr: This is not the moment to argue these statistics, but may I put it to my hon. Friend, first, that if I said that there is no connection I did not mean to say it, because there is clearly a case for investigation? That is the point. May I put it to him, second, that on the evidence which he now puts before us I would remain quite unconvinced, because it seems to me that the postulates that he is raising are highly questionable?
  Mr. Elystan Morgan: I accept what my hon. Friend says about his own contentions, but, if I may mention the third test of Professor Paton, it is that one has to trace the graph to find what is the pattern of the incidence of cannabis-taking over the last 18 years and compare it with the incidence of heroin addiction. The two lines are almost exactly parallel.
  Professor Paton does not put forward any of those factors as positive arguments, but, in so far as they are arguments in support of the hypothesis that there was no connection, not only do they fail but they go some considerable distance in the other direction. I am sure that my hon. Friend would not dispute that.
  There are many matters in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth (Dr. Gray), but time is pressing, and I will refer only to his comment about the courts. Put at its highest, his argument is that this is an imperfect human system, and the discretion has not been used as it should be. I submit with the greatest force that that is not an argument for abolishing the discretion itself. He said that 17 per cent. of first offenders found to be in possession of cannabis were sent to prison. Without

  1011
  having examined each of those cases minutely, I do not think it is right and proper to say that such a sentence was wrong in any one of them. It may be that a person is prosecuted for being found in possession of cannabis. He may be a "pusher", but the prosecution will not be able to establish that and will have to charge him with being in possession. It is right that the court should take into account all the circumstances, and the point has been made already by the hon. Member for Ilford, North that these are sentences that have not been appealed against, have stood, and, therefore, can be regarded as having been reasonable ones.
  I am sorry that time does not allow me to comment on the matters raised by the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes). I agree with much of his characteristically courageous speech, but the real difference between us is that, whereas he believes that the weight of medical evidence is in favour of his contentions, looking at all the published literature, the resolutions of international bodies and all the evidence. I submit that the weight of evidence is overwhelmingly against the recommendations of the Committee.
  My right hon. Friend has made clear the Government's intention to discourage drug taking. That is good public health policy to which, I believe, public opinion fully assents. Our present legislative position is not satisfactory, and we must refashion it soon to meet future developments. The Government are not opposed to changes in penalties for all time, and it may be that that after some general review there will be a case for modifications of one kind or another in new, comprehensive codifying legislation. For the time being, however, we are convinced that it would be as wrong as it would be dangerous to modify the penalties for possession of cannabis in isolation from a comprehensive recasting of the drugs laws. In a situation as confusing as that surrounding the mis-use of drugs, concerning as it does young people in that difficult transitional stage from youth to adulthood, it is the absolute duty of the Government to proceed with circumspection and care, and with the full support of the public, in refashioning the law.
  Mr. J. D. Concannon: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  POST OFFICE
  7.9 p.m.
  Mr. Paul Bryan: I beg to move,
  That this House regrets the deteriorating services provided by the Post Office.
  It is unfortunate that this debate is taking place with a background of a very serious industrial dispute. It is no purpose of mine to raise the subject in this debate, except to express the hope on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends that a fair settlement will be reached very soon.
  In normal times, a critical Motion of this sort would be worded in such a way as to indict the Postmaster-General as the Minister responsible. On this occasion, that is quite impossible because we have had three Postmasters-General within the last year. They could all be indicted, together with the one before them. The fact that we have had so many Postmasters-General is probably the least obvious but certainly the most telling reason for the disarray in the Post Office's services.
  No one imagines that a good staff with long years of service suddenly will become bad. Lack of continuous and informed leadership has led to the wrong decisions and the consequences therefrom. Therefore, I do not entirely indict the Postmaster-General tonight. I indict the Government for degrading the post of Postmaster-General into a kind of temporary parking ground for Ministers on their way to other jobs.
  Many hon. Members in the House tonight have taken part in debates in Committee in which we have stressed the importance, size and responsibilities of the Postmaster-General's job. One reason for the Bill being discussed in Committee is that the present responsibilities are too big for any one man. Yet this year, which has already been named by the Postmaster-General as a time of the most important changes in the Post Office for a hundred years, it is apparently not necessary to have the Postmaster-General

  1013
  in continuous charge. This has led to great damage to the status of the Post Office, to the morale of post office workers and, of course, to the functioning of the whole service.
  Upstairs we have also constantly said that we will try to turn the Post Office into a more commercial undertaking. It is already one of the biggest commercial undertakings in the country, but who would think of having three chairmen or three managing directors of a large concern by design, by decision, in a critical year?
  Mr. Alfred Morris: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way: he is always extremely kind. The hon. Gentleman has talked about those who wish to indict the Government. Is he aware that many would wish to indict the Opposition for what has been said upstairs, in particular about selling off the tele-communications side of the industry? Can the hon. Gentleman speak about the penetration of foreign capital in this direction?
  Mr. Bryan: I should be glad to discuss that at any normal time, but this is a debate on the deteriorating services of the Post Office, not on what the hon. Gentleman is talking about.
  Reverting to the services, 1968 has been a year of sustained criticism of the Post Office. I suppose that never before has the public had less confidence in the Post Office. This we need no statistics whatever to report. We have only to discuss the matter with our constituents. In fact, we do not have to raise the matter; they raise it. Obviously, the services have deteriorated to an alarming degree.
  The Post Office has been continuously in the news. We started early in the year with a discussion on the price rises, which have come on since.
  On the telecommunications side, we had the expensive farce of the London Telephone Directory being divided into 36 parts. The most striking thing there was the alarming disregard of the Post Office of public feeling and also of experience abroad. The working of the telephone system has got no better, and the telex services have got worse.
  1014
  In September we had the verdict of the Comptroller and Auditor General on the buying methods of the Post Office. We were told that about £568,000 could have been saved had different methods been used.
  I think that everyone will agree that quite the most wounding blow to the reputation of the Post Office has been the misleading presentation of the two-tier system and the opening weeks of chaos that went with it. The Post Office will not recover from that for a very long time.
  Looking to the future, a smaller, but very sticky, problem that the Postmaster-General will have ahead of him is a growing local radio experiment with no apparent means of financial support.
  We claim, first, that the postal service has deteriorated. I do not think that is a very risk claim to make. I suppose that 99 out of every 100 people in the country, if asked, "Is the service better now than a year ago?", would undoubtedly say "No". The public is still puzzled why it has gone as it has. Those of us who have studied the question know exactly why. At the beginning of September, before the two-tier system started, 80 per cent. of the total of letters posted got first-class treatment. Of those, 60 per cent. were fully paid for, but, as we know, the system was so flexible in those days that many letters paid for at the: second-class rate got first-class service.
  A couple of weeks after this system had started, about 30 per cent. were paying for first-class treatment, and, owing to the utter inflexibility of the system, just about 30 per cent. were getting first-class treatment. Therefore, in this very short time, we had, on the one hand, 80 per cent. of all post getting first-class treatment and, a few days later, only 30 per cent. This vast change in the postal service, plus the chaos, was bound to cause an outcry, because it had no bearing on the "You benefit, we benefit" description given to it.
  The Postmaster-General, commenting on some remarks by my right hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Barber), said:
  "Of course, this meant that many envelopes posted at second-class rates after the introduction of the two-tier system would be delivered more slowly than they were before "—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th November, 1968; Vol. 772, c. 569.]

  1015
  The right hon. Gentleman referred to that as though it were a great failing. It is in fact a great success. Having said that—and we can see what he meant—the Postmaster-General did in fact get the message and at the very end of the debate, so that we could make no comments on it, he announced relaxations which would permit some of the second-class post to be treated in the first-class stream when this was possible. I ask: how far have those relaxations been effective and to what extent has the number of second-class letters going in the first-class stream increased? On that occasion, the right hon. Gentleman was talking about relaxations in London and in the country. What other relaxations are there? What is the extent to which this has made a difference? We cannot get statistics, but we hear that the complaints continue.
  The Postmaster-General, in that same debate, describing the objectives of the two-tier system, said:
  "The first objective was to reduce the load for fully paid mails from 60 per cent. of all mail to about 32 per cent. Second, to achieve a 95 per cent. delivery of first-class mails by day B, … Third, to achieve a 90 per cent. delivery of second-class mails by day C, … Fourth, to complete first deliveries in town by 9.30 a.m. …".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th November. 1968; Vol 772, c. 614.]
  I have shortened it slightly, but I do not think I have taken the sense wrongly. That is very clearly put, but it is a straight description of a deterioration of the service.
  In the first two objectives, it means that half the quantity of fully paid, first-class mail is to take place and we are to get a 1 per cent. improvement. I think that the highest percentage of day B delivery that we have had before is 93 per cent. We are promised, or we have, an improvement of 1, making 94 per cent. That is the extent to which the first two objectives succeeded.
  The other two objectives are resulting in a far worse treatment of second-class mail. The policy means that of a total of all letters, one in 300 will receive better treatment—that is, the 1 per cent. in the first-class mail, which has increased from 93 per cent. to 94 per cent. But at least half, and probably more than half, will receive worse treatment. So the right hon. Gentleman's description of the service is
  1016
  true; it is a far worse service than it was. But that is not what the public was told. It was not told that those who posted first-class mail would get slightly better treatment and all the rest would get much worse treatment.
  I ask the right hon. Gentleman not to harp only on the success of moving up to 94 per cent. on day B deliveries. I do not underrate this achievement. Obviously it is more difficult to increase an already high figure by 1 per cent. than a lower figure. It is a considerable achievement. But when we are dealing with such a small amount—coming down from 60 per cent. first-class to 33 per cent.—we expect a better service. It would be amazing if there were no improvement at all. Therefore, there is certainly room for improvement in the direction that I have been indicating. How can we provide more flexibility, so that a far bigger bulk of the service is getting a better delivery than was the case before, and how can we get a far higher proportion of the total mail in the first-class stream?
  Nor should the Postmaster-General be overjoyed, as he appears to be, at the number of letters in the first-class stream, and the fact that it has increased from 25 per cent. in September to 32 per cent. or 33 per cent. now. It is difficult to think that the increase is due to the 1 per cent. increase in the percentage of day B deliveries. Undoubtedly it is due to the fact that in those early days deliveries of second-class mail were so chaotic that a person could not continue using it if he had an important or even a semi-important letter to post.
  I now want to look into the future and see what assurances we can get from the Postmaster-General. Because the service is worse there has been a drop in the volume of total mail—a drop twice as large as one normally gets after a price rise. The usual drop is 2 per cent.; this time there has been a 4 per cent. drop.
  We all appreciate that although these percentages seem small they are very important in the Post Office, because it works on a very narrow margin. It will be too much if, after enduring the birth pangs of the two-tier system, we are told as the year goes on that the tariff must be increased again. The present tariff is meant to keep us going until 1971, when there will be a Tory Government in power.
  Mr. R. F. H. Dobson: A;: the hon. Gentleman has looked into his crystal ball and spoken about the future it might be an opportune time for him to tell us what he will do with the telecommunications service—how he will dispose of it, and to whom if, unfortunately, the Tories get back into power.
  Mr. Bryan: This would be an extraordinary minute to indulge in that exercise.
  I was going to ask the Postmaster-General whether he would say to what extent the volume of post has fallen and how it compares with what was budgeted, and also whether he can give us some details of the direction in which the movement has gone. Is it in business post? Is it in direct mail? Is it in private mail? Is it merely the result of Christmas? Where does he think the truth lies? Will he give us a financial reassessment?
  We know the original objectives of the two-tier system. How is that system going? We were told in the newspapers recently that the executives of the Post Office have asked for economies of £4 million throughout the country. Some newspapers have put the figure at £4 million and others at £2 million. On what calculations are those figures based? Is it the estimated shortfall? How are these figures arrived at?
  Can the Minister tell us a little more about overtime, which is a big item in Post Office costs? We had assumed—and the Minister has never sought to deny it—that one objective of the two-tier system was to get rid of excessive work at peak hours as far as possible, together with a certain amount of overtime. That seemed a logical thing to conclude. But now, on the figures with which we have been issued, we have a lower volume of post and a worse service, but more overtime. Why is that? At Question Time on Thursday we were told that the November, 1968, figure was 5 per cent. up on the figure for November, 1967. This is very difficult to understand. We should like to know what the budgeted cost of overtime was expected to be, and how it is working out.
  We are very interested in these figures because they are important. I hope that, unlike his reaction on previous occasions, the right hon. Gentleman will not take
  1018
  refuge in his old record—somewhat cracked now—that our postal service is the best and cheapest in the world. Whether or not it is the best is very open to debate after what has happened in the last three months. As to whether it is the cheapest, in the last debate he gave us some figures which I do not say were meaningly misleading but were certainly misleading to me. On 14th November, last year he said that we should compare the various 4 oz. rates. He said that Australia charged Is. 6½d. I was in Australia during the Recess and was under the impression that I would have to pay Is. 6½d. if I posted a letter. I paid only 5½d. The Postmaster-General was referring to the cost of posting a 4 oz. letter—but we do not spend much time posting 4 oz. letters.
  This is a short debate, and I do not want to lake too much time. I shall leave most of the questions on telecommunications to my hon. Friend. I merely say that just as the Postmaster-General has rather over-used the 94 per cent. as his yardstick for the efficiency of the postal service, in telephones he has overused the waiting list as a; the waiting list is a measure not only of the number of telephones put in but of demand. Demand depends very much on cost. If the cost of using telephones has increased, as it did last year—and everyone knew that the cost was going to rise—demand is reduced. If charges are doubled the demand is probably halved.
  Therefore, these are not over-important indices. It is far more important for us to know whatever statistics, indices or guides the Minister has of the way in which the service is going—because to the average person the telephone suggests endless waiting, wrong numbers, and all the rest of it. That question needs to be concentrated on. We must be concerned not only with the number of people using the telephones but the extent to which they use it. It is at a very low level in this country. If its use rose to any great degree it would at least show that a better service was being provided.
  I have said enough to introduce the subject and to give many hon. Members on both sides of the House time to develop it. We assert that the services of the Post Office have deteriorated and deteriorated badly. We also assert and

  1019
  we genuinely believe that what is wrong is not so wrong that it cannot be put right by new leadership and a General Election.
  7.30 p.m.
  The Postmaster-General (Mr. John Stonehouse): I originally intended to speak at the close of this short debate in order to give as many back bench hon. Members as possible an opportunity to reply to the discussion so that I could fully reply to the points they raised. However, I propose to intervene briefly at the beginning of the debate in order to bring the House up to date with the situation concerning the strike of the overseas telegraphists and the most unfortunate escalation of this dispute which we are experiencing from today. However, I shall do my best to answer some of the issues which the hon. Member for How-den (Mr. Bryan) has raised. I thank him for the tone and reasonable way in which he has introduced this subject.
  Just over half an hour ago I left a meeting, which I attended with my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal, with the representatives of the Union of Post Office Workers to discuss the pay and. productivity dispute affecting the overseas telegraphists. The House will want to know in what circumstances the discussion took place.
  The union has been asking the Government to meet it to discuss its claim yet again, and we responded by inviting it to meet the Lord Privy Seal, who, under the Prime Minister, is responsible for the Civil Service as a whole, and myself in order that we could hear what it wished to put forward to us. Also present at the meeting as an adviser was my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity.
  I am not able to give the details of the discussion which took place, but I want to say that we listened with very great care to what the union representatives said to us. We reiterated from our side the most unfortunate consequences which would flow from the escalation of this dispute and we repeated the offer, which I have made repeatedly to the union, to accept a 5 per cent. award back-dated to last July and 2 per cent. related to productivity which we could agree could be implemented in this field of our activity. Failing the agreement
  1020
  between us on this award, we again asked the union to agree to arbitration about this dispute.
  From time to time I have asked the union to follow the reasonable and normal course of taking its dispute to arbitration. As I understand it, the union members are asking to be treated as civil servants and to enjoy the pay award that other civil servants have enjoyed, and it is reasonable, if there is a dispute about the implementation of their pay award, that it should go to the agreed arbitration procedure.
  The discussion this afternoon clarified two additional points, and I should like to make those clear to the House. We are prepared not only to offer the 5 per cent. plus the 2 per cent. for agreed productivity, whenever this becomes effective, but also to have a post hoc revaluation of the productivity 2 per cent. to ensure that it is being paid for fairly. Furthermore, if the union is not prepared to accept this proposal, we will allow the dispute to go to another form of arbitration different from the orthodox Civil Service Arbitration Tribunal if it has objections, as I believe it has overwhelming objections, to that particular form of tribunal. The union has not so far responded to these two proposals.
  I have said on past occasions that I regret the escalation of this dispute. It is a very sad day for the Post Office that so many of our other Post Office employees who are not directly concerned with this dispute, which is very narrow, should have been brought into the dispute as they have, so disrupting communications in the country and creating great inconvenience for the public.
  Mr. Raphael Tuck: Is my right hon. Friend prepared to say what form this alternative tribunal might take? I feel rather in the dark about that.
  Mr. Stonehouse: We would establish another form of tribunal with experts who would not necessarily be drawn from the Civil Service Tribunal itself in order that the union could escape from the Civil Service Tribunal against which it has objections. I do not believe that it would be wise to give the details of the form of the tribunal. Indeed, as this suggestion has so far been rejected by the union, there is no particular value at this stage in pursuing it.

  1021
  It is very regrettable that an attempt has been made in certain sections of the Press—
  Mr. Dudley Smith: One appreciates the right hon. Gentleman's difficulties, but I wonder whether he will draw the attention of those concerned to the fact that one of the consequences will be serious delays in the parcel post and that the most serious will affect the pharmaceutical industry, which sends more than 50 per cent. of its products by parcel post. These are life-saving medicines sent to wholesalers and chemists and I am sure that if the right hon. Gentleman drew the attention of those concerned to this fact they would at least bear it in mind in the discussions.
  Mr. Stonehouse: I will consider that, and certainly I will investigate whether any special provision can be made for emergency materials which may have to be sent.
  I was saying that an attempt has been made during the weekend and particularly today in certain sections of the Press to imply a clash of views among Ministers in dealing with this dispute. Journalistic speculation has been reinforced by statements made by union leaders to the Press and in broadcasts on the B.B.C. I want to make it clear that the Government are united in their attitude to this dispute, and that any suggestion that I, as Postmaster-General, do not entirely support that policy is totally untrue. We believe that the union should accept a solution within the criteria of the Government's prices and incomes policy, and I deeply deplore the attempts being made in certain quarters to drive a wedge between Ministers on this question.
  The dispute has been escalated in a way which will have serious effects on the services provided by the Post Office during this week. Members of the union dealing with the telephone services do not work much overtime and so in that respect the effects of the overtime ban are likely to be more irritating than significant. But there may be delays on the telegraphs inland in the evenings.
  The postal service, on the other hand, depends heavily on overtime. About one-fifth of its work is done in this way.
  1022
  A ban on overtime would have had very serious effects unless immediate restrictions were imposed. I imposed restrictions and announced them last Friday: the suspension of the inland parcel post, except for local devilery parcels, and also the refusal of rebate postings, which reduces the quantity of mail with which we have to deal. We cannot, however, guarantee that the first-class mail service can be maintained at the standard which we have achieved in these last few months, and, of course, the service is bound to be of a varying order. The situation at post office counters will be severely worsened, although the sub-post offices will not, so far as I know, be adversely affected.
  As to the one-day strike on Thursday, the vast majority of phone calls, a high proportion of inland trunk calls and many calls to Europe can be dialled by S.T.D. Substantial public telephone services will, therefore, be maintained. The absence of operators in the largest towns will limit the service and there will be inconvenience, but the situation will not be disastrous. The most serious consequences are likely to be felt in the overseas services to destinations outside Europe.
  The 999 emergency service will, of course, continue in use, as I have announced. The telegraph business in the cities affected will cease on Thursday, and this will also apply to many other telegrams routed manually through those centres. The overall effects on the telegraph service will be severe.
  Mail services will be at a standstill on Thursday in all the big towns, including London, and the problems produced by the one-day stoppage will add markedly to the problems created by the overtime ban. We hope to maintain the overseas services, but the delays to air mail will be serious.
  Our advice to the public in those conditions is that we want to maintain the quality of the first-class service. What we have done is cut the quantity of mail with which we deal so as to maintain, so far as we can, a reasonable service, but we cannot guarantee the 94 per cent. next-day delivery which we have been achieving. We shall, of course, give fresh advice as the situation develops, but we would ask members of the public to avoid congestion by deferring inessential postings until the present situation has passed.

  1023
  As regards pensions, which is a particularly serious problem for those who receive payment on Thursday, I have arranged for pensions and allowances due next Thursday to be paid on request on the day before, where the post office concerned is likely to be closed on the Thursday because its staff belong to the union which is coming out on strike.
  The effects will be less serious on telephones, but I would appeal to the public in the towns affected not to call for operator service on Thursday as that will jeopardise the maintenance of the 999 service. I hope that the present dispute will be only short-lived, because it will certainly produce a great deal of inconvenience and embarrassment, particularly to many firms which rely on internal and overseas communications for their business.
  Mr. George Younger: Is there expected to be any serious difficulty in the remoter areas, like the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, as a result of the working to rule and reduction of overtime?
  Mr. Stonehouse: I do not expect that the services will be cut completely, but there will be delays in that part of Britain as there will be in the towns.
  Mr. Bryan: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his statement, but would like to ask him one question. When does he expect to meet the union again and when is a decision likely over these fresh talks?
  Mr. Stonehouse: I have not fixed another date to meet the union, but there will be consideration on its side, I expect, of the proposals which we have made to it today.
  Mr. Dobson: Does my right hon. Friend recall that on the last occasion that the then Postmaster-General withdrew the parcel post there were special attempts to deliver urgent medicines, to which the hon. Member for Bromley (Mr. Hunt) referred? Has he made this point in any way, officially or unofficially, to the union to see what it can do to assist?
  Mr. Stonehouse: I will pursue this question so as to ensure that we do our best to deliver urgent parcels of this character.
  1024
  The hon. Member for Howden made a number of points about the postal services, and I want to reply to some of his questions at the outset, although I hope, if given permission, to deal with any other points at the end of the debate. He still seems to have missed the point of the two-tier system. We acknowledge that its whole object was to cut the quantity of first-class mail, because this was producing an embarrassment for us as most of it came in at peak hours and it was impossible to deal with this effectively. The system gave the public and, in particular, the business houses the opportunity of deciding what priority to put on their mail, and of sending their second-class mail in sealed envelopes if they chose. The object of the two-tier system was to reduce the quantity of first-class mail and give the public the opportunity of choice which they did not have before.
  We have succeeded in doing that, and one of the reasons for the decrease in the mail dealt with since the new system came in is that the public have learned to take advantage of it. At the same time as there was a price increase—which I have acknowledged—the weight allowed was increased, a factor to which hon. Members opposite do not give sufficient acknowledgement. It was increased by two ounces to four, which has given the opportunity to many business firms to put more material in one envelope and so reduce their postage bill.
  The hon. Member asked me what was the decrease in the traffic over the Christmas period. Between 13th December and 2nd January the decrease was 11 per cent., partly caused by the fact that more and more posters were putting two or even three Christmas cards in one envelope, where previously they were posted separately. That has been our experience—[Laughter.] Hon. Members may dispute this, but there is a lot of mail which we cannot deliver because of incorrect addresses, and this has to be examined. The Post Office has to open the envelopes and examine this mail to see whether it can be sent back to the sender. We have discovered a large number of envelopes with two or more Christmas cards in them, which shows that the members of the public have been able to take advantage of the higher weight allowance.

  1025
  The hon. Member also asked what was the overall traffic decrease. It is down about 3 or 4 per cent. over the period from October to December, but we do not have the breakdown for which he asked between business and social correspondence.
  Mr. Younger: The right hon. Gentle man has talked of finding many envelopes with two or more Christmas cards in each. Is he aware that to carry weight this argument must be backed up by comparable figures for last year? How many envelopes did he open last year and in how many of them did he find only one Christmas card?
  Mr. Stonehouse: I admit that I do not open envelopes myself. I am advised by my regional directors, whose staff do this work, that it has, in their experience, been a growing practice since the two-tier system came into operation for business houses and ordinary posters to take advantage of the higher weight allowance and put more material in envelopes. This is one of the reasons why the amount of traffic, in terms of numbers of envelopes, has gone down.
  The hon. Member for Howden asked how much second-class mail had been put into the first-class stream. He may be interested to know that no less than 41 per cent. of second-class mail is now being delivered with the first-class mail by the day after posting. We have, therefore, honoured the promise we gave after the two-tier system came in that there would be no deliberate delay to the second-class mail and that as much as possible of it would be delivered with the first-class mail, after priority had been given to the first-class mail. This is what we have been doing, and the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Pounder) may be interested to know that we are using the air-lift to take second-class mail to Belfast. This has materially improved the service given to that part of the United Kingdom.
  The hon. Member for Howden made a number of points about the two-tier system being misleading. I take this opportunity, at the outset of the debate, completely to refute the allegation that we attempted to mislead the public. Indeed, we did our best, by extensive Press advertising and also by the circularisation of many households, to give members
  1026
  of the public the fullest possible details about the two-tier system. It was a pity that the two-tier system came into operation at the same time as a tariff increase. This caused a great deal of the confusion.
  It would have been so much more satisfactory if it had been possible to have a straight price increase and then six or nine months later to have introduced the two-tier system. Everybody—including, perhaps, the hon. Member for Howden—would then have acknowledged that the two-tier system was a great concession, as indeed it is. But the association with the price increase was, I acknowledge, felt to be misleading in certain quarters. I regret that that was the situation. Nevertheless, I do not believe that it can be alleged with any justification that the Post Office went out of its way to mislead the public. It gave the fullest possible information about the way in which the two-tier system would work.
  The fact that we have had a successful implementation of the two-tier system in the last few months, the fact that we are achieving the split in traffic that was planned—namely, 33 per cent. of first-class mail and 67 per cent. of second-class mail—and the fact that we have, until this week, been achieving the reliability of service that we promised the public are ample justification for the two-tier system and the complete refutation of the points that hon. Gentlemen opposite have made.
  Mr. Eric Lubbock: Before the Minister resumes his seat—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): Order. The Minister has resumed his seat. I remind hon. Members that this is a short debate and that a large number of hon. Members wish to take part in it. Sir R. Russell.
  7.53 p.m.
  Sir Ronald Russell: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan), I do not wish to say anything which might worsen the dispute. I merely echo his remarks and' wish the Postmaster-General all success in settling it.
  Will the internal telephone services of this House be affected? Obviously we shall be able to dial outside numbers from the instruments which have dials,

  1027
  but presumably nothing will happen when we use instruments which do not have dials and anybody who telephones this place from outside will not be able to get through. I experienced this this afternoon when I dialled the number of the House of Commons three times and got the sound of the number being unobtainable. I wondered if the strike had started already!
  To prove that my hon. Friends and I have no bias against the Post Office, I wish to begin my remarks by mentioning an improvement in the service which I have experienced recently, although it is an improvement which should never have been needed and would not have taken place had I not complained.
  Last summer I found that my mail postmarked "10.30 a.m. Friday" redirected from this House to me in Northumberland did not reach its destination until the following Monday morning; in other words, three days later. This happened on successive Fridays. Meanwhile, when posted on other weekdays and bearing the same time postmark, it arrived the following morning. I complained to the Assistant Postmaster-General and I am glad to say that 10 days ago I found this lapse had been rectified. I immediately wrote a note to the Assistant Postmaster-General telling him how grateful I was for the improvement. I hope that this means that mail to the North-East Coast and to other parts of the country which were affected in the same way on Fridays will continue at this normal standard, as on other weekdays.
  Having said that, I come to the telephone service. Three times in the past month I have had to complain that I could get no dialling tone on my telephone at home in St. John's Wood. On the first and third occasions I telephoned, when I came to this House, the London North-West Region telephone manager's private secretary. She was most courteous and helpful and the trouble was rectified within minutes.
  The second occasion was late at night when I did not think that there would be anybody in the telephone manager's private office. I trudged round to the local telephone exchange—it is the Primrose exchange—which is only 200
  1028
  yards from my home and there another helpful official, who said that he was not an engineer, promised to try to rectify the matter.
  I understand that no engineers are on duty late at night at this exchange. This surprises me, although perhaps it is not economic to have them available late at night. I wonder how often they are needed during the night. I hope not often. I am surprised that engineers are not available for an all-round-the-clock service. Perhaps the Minister will explain the reason when he replies to the debate.
  When I returned home the official telephoned to say that he had rectified the fault, and he asked me to 'phone him back on a certain number to test the line. I got the dialling tone and several times dialled the number he had given me, but nothing happened. Eventually I dialled the operator, who was also unable to obtain the number. However, the fault on my line had been rectified.
  This brings me to the question of mis-routed calls. My experience is that for at least half the calls one tries to make one does not get the correct number first time. This almost always happens when I dial "902" numbers, which is the Wembley exchange, from my home. I gather from constituents that this also frequently happens in the reverse direction, when they try to telephone me. Apparently, generally speaking, nothing happens, and one just gets that dead silence from the telephone as if the instrument has been disconnected. Sometimes one get a wrong number and on other occasions one gets the "number unobtainable" sound.
  I suppose that one could be accused of mis-dialling. I remember that when the automatic system was introduced in London some years ago a lady complained that she could never get through to numbers on the Holborn exchange. An official went to her home and asked her to dial a Holborn number. He found that she was dialling "HOB" instead of "HOL". I try to dial deliberately and firmly and to pause between each number, yet even that does not seem to produce the right results. I should like to know why this happens. Is the equipment in the London area old and does it need renewing, or is there a shortage of maintenance

  1029
  engineers so that it cannot be kept up to scratch?
  If I dial my son's number in Seaford, Sussex, from home, after a slight pause I always get the ringing tone straight away. That seems amazing when I cannot do it in London. In other words, subscriber trunk dialling seems to be more effective than dialling inside a local area.
  Similarly, in Northumberland, with limited dialling facilities in local exchanges, I usually get results first time. Again, why is this? Why should it be easier in some parts of the country than in others? The equipment in the London area is, presumably, in much greater use than equipment in other parts of the country, although there is, no doubt, more equipment which can go wrong in London than in, say, Northumberland. Presumably, also, it is maintained more frequently in London than at isolated country exchanges.
  I hope that when the Minister replies to the debate he will be able to explain these difficulties and reassure us that the technical side of the service will be quickly improved. I am sure that in many instances, at least in the London area, it is far below the standard of other countries and far below the standard it ought to be.
  8.1 p.m.
  Mr. R. F. H. Dobson: I want to say a few words about the general pattern of services in the Post Office and to refer to the speech of the hon. Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan). I wish to spend most of my few moments in this short debate, however, talking about the overseas telegraph operators' dispute. I have a number of questions to my right hon. Friend the Minister about various aspects of the dispute which I hope he will feel able to answer at the end of the debate.
  What was so disappointing about the Opposition's attack, if that is the right word for it, was that the principal Opposition spokesman for Post Office matters once again refused to be drawn about denationalisation of the telecommunications services, which have featured so prominently throughout our debates in
  1030
  Committee upstairs on the Post Office Bill.
  When this matter was raised in Committee on 21st January, the hon Member for Acton (Mr. Kenneth Baker) said:
  "This is a very important Amendment, because it would allow the denationalisation of part of the Post Office—the telecommunications side."
  At the end of the short discussion on the Amendment, the hon. Member for Howden said:
  "On this Amendment no name of a member of our Front Bench appears, so I rise now to assure the Committee that my hon. Friend has our support in his Amendment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D. 21st January, 1968; c. 393, 406.]
  If that does not mean in clear terms that if the Tories came back to power they would denationalise the telecommunications services of the Post Office, I do not know what does. It is a clear indication of their view of the Post Office services.
  What is so shameful of the Opposition Front Bench spokesman is that he withdrew that and coyly said at the next meeting of the Committee that he and his colleagues were not sure about this until they got back into power, if they ever did—and goodness help those in the Post Office if ever they do—when they would have to prepare a list of priorities. The hon. Member would not be drawn beyond that.
  In a debate on the Post Office, when dealing with the sort of Motion which is before us tonight, I hope that the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills), who has strong views on this subject, will be much more forthcoming. I hope he will say precisely what the Opposition would do to the telecommunications services, how they would denationalise them and how speedily they would do so if anything drastic should happen and they were, unfortunately, returned to power.
  Mr. Nicholas Ridley: Before the hon. Member castigates the Opposition for not saying what they would do if they were in power, which they are not, may I ask whether he has ascertained from his own Front Bench colleagues whether they intend to nationalise the docks? I am incapable of doing so.
  Mr. Dobson: If the hon. Member will restrain himself until the day after tomorrow, there will be a White Paper which, I hope, will make it astonishingly clear. I shall be in favour of nationalisation of the docks, as I am in favour of not denationalising the Post Office.
  I take issue with my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General on a few things that he said about the Post Office overseas telegraph operators' dispute. He said that the rest of the staff were not involved. That is not so. The rest of the staff are involved in the principles of this dispute. It is an important dispute, as I shall try to demonstrate yet again, because I believe that it has been done adequately in all the discussions which have been held between my right hon. Friend and members of the union concerned. I want to show my right hon. Friend once more just how important it is and why the rest of the staff of 200,000 working in the Post Office are prepared to support this small number of 3,500 operators. They are prepared to support them because of the very deep principles involved in this type of dispute.
  I should have thought that what the Postmaster-General has offered so far has not met with the approval of the union. The claim of the operators is the very simple one that they will take the 5 per cent. which has been paid to all other staffs in the whole of the Civil Service and all the staff of the Post Office and then negotiate the rest of the productivity bargaining in the appropriate way and with as much speed as they can. I will return to that presently.
  On Thursday every hon. Member received in his post a statement from the unions which is called "Telact No. 1" and headed" A strange strike ". It could equally have been headed "A needless strike", because if some of the things about which the union were complaining had been looked at sufficiently early and clearly, the chances are that we would not have been involved in this dispute. It is no pleasure for me to stand here knowing that there is a dispute in which other members than myself happen to be involved, because I happen to be a member of the union. I want to see an end to the dispute as soon as possible.
  Three things come out in that document. The first is that long and patient
  1032
  negotiations have gone on for over seven months. Secondly, as with all industrial disputes, it is a complicated issue. All strikes are complicated issues, but there are one or two fundamentals which I hope to illustrate. Thirdly, as was amply demonstrated by what my right hon. Friend said, there are still specific differences between him and the Union of Post Office Workers. If in some senses they are not very wide, they are certainly deep. I want to plumb some of those depths tonight.
  The issues were set out clearly in a letter to The Times this morning by the General Secretary of the Union of Post Office Workers, Mr. Tom Jackson, which showed three things in particular. First, there has been a two and a half year delay—this is one of the underlying causes—in the settlement of the 5 per cent. pay increase, which has been paid to 800,000 other civil servants and yet denied to these 3,500 overseas telegraph operators. Every other person in the Post Office represented by the union has had, without strings or anything else attached to it, the 5 per cent. increase which was part and parcel of the agreement for the whole of the Civil Service.
  There was no other section which had anything saying, "You must have this in or that in or take this out or that out." They were all on exactly the same basis, a 5 per cent. increase. I have three questions to put to my hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General. First, which of the Civil Service agreements have a productivity bargain tied to them? Second, how many other civil servants are waiting from 1st January, 1966, for a settlement or are these the last 3,500? Thirdly, and most important, why was the offer to take 5 per cent. only and negotiate the rest refused, when it was made to the other civil servants concerned?
  The second point that Mr. Jackson makes in his letter is to do with the refusal by the Post Office to cost productivity measures, such as were proposed on a local basis. This has been done on the postal and telephone side, if not completely, then certainly negotiations are proceeding and there is no reason to think that they will not be successful. The method of working in these two categories, the major portion of the Post Office, is that the local costings on

  1033
  productivity bargaining are measured up and sent for national discussion and distribution. This is all that is being asked for in this settlement—that a local, properly based costing exercise on productivity measures should take place in Electra House, which is where the dispute is, and then sent to national headquarters for it to determine the disbursements of the savings flowing from it.
  In other words, all that the union is seeking is exactly what happens to the other 200,000 people involved in the other discussions. Local staff are involved with local productivity discussion and then it goes up to national headquarters. Is not this part and parcel of what Donovan said in his Report, that the idea was to get local plant bargaining? This is along these lines and it is a sensible way in which we can improve some of our industrial difficulties. It would certainly improve this one.
  Does the Postmaster-General agree that local costing figures quoted so far are only estimates and not agreed locally? Does he understand the difference between an estimate of what might happen, which can be fairly accurate on some occasions, but grossly inaccurate on others, and something which has to be talked about in detail, locally, as it needs to be in an exercise of this kind? Because a pay research document is involved in this, can he also say how the pay research document on which this offer is apparently based, can be said to contain
  "… an element of productivity bargaining "?
  It did not even evaluate the jobs which are now in dispute locally in Electra House. Until he really answers this question honestly I cannot see that he will ever get to the position where he understands the union's case.
  The third issue brought out in the dispute is the introduction of measures which will reduce staff and their take-home pay. The history of staff relations in Electra House is of a difficult period, and I have been involved in it personally for a good few years. There have been staff shortages there so grave that on occasions no one really knew what the proper number should be. No one dared to make a figure because they did not know whether it would reach the correct figure when the staff were totted up. For many years the building has suffered from a staff shortage of a grave
  1034
  kind. This is because of many things, poor wages, bad working conditions, particularly bad in some sections, and social hours—24 hours a day and a lot of weekend work.
  Most operators, over a period, lost rest days on a regular basis. The office has been subject to sustained and heavy overtime. All these things add up to a staff which expected to take home a more-than-average pay packet to make the job worth while. If they did not they went home and did not do the job. The introduction and reintroduction of the measures which my right hon. Friend is insisting on inside this bargain of 2 per cent. save in all a very substantial number of posts, 350, and it saves the Post Office something like £250,000 in wages, a year. This is a very fine thing to do, to which no one would object. But if it is done in an area where one wants to make productivity bargaining work, and use such bargaining as a method of assessment of wages, one has to look farther than actual savings of wages. One has to see what happens.
  In this case, the Post Office seems to be arguing that an introduction of this type of saving cannot be used to keep up the average take-home pay of the operators concerned. My right hon. Friend must know that this has been made quite clear in certain reports from the Prices and Incomes Board, which have had clear Government approval. We have had a series of reports—P.I.B. Report 51, Cmnd. 3499 on Atomic Energy Workers, P.I.B., 8, Cmnd. 2873 on the Railway Staff, P.I.B. 42, Cmnd. 3405, on the Electricity Supply Industry wages, P.I.B. 17, Cmnd. 3019 on the Baking industry, P.I.B. 36, which I am holding in my hand, Cmnd. 3311, dealing with productivity agreements.
  Page 46 of that Report, at paragraph 207 says:
  "The prior planning and conclusion of the agreements has given management more effective control over the performance of work, while at the same time, through the consolidation of overtime and other payments in total earnings, it has given the employee? greater security of earnings."
  Is this not the point at issue over the 2 per cent? It is exactly the point. Here is the P.I.B. Report, not just a selective report, but one dealing with productivity agreements, making it quite clear that this is the sort of thing that the Government

  1035
  want to see. This is precisely what the union is arguing for. If I wanted to be naughty, I could go on to say that in paragraph 209 it says:
  "We believe that the advantage lies with point discussions on principles before the presentation of formal policies …"
  and not subject to arbitration. If my hon. Friend cannot understand that, or has been persuaded that this is not representative of Government policy, I am absolutely astonished.
  This strike is not a dispute over Government policy. Clearly, 5 per cent. is in line with Government policy. The argument that the union wishes to pursue on productivity bargaining is in line with Government policy, absolutely and utterly. Why cannot the union go to arbitration? Why cannot the union look to the other forms of arbitration suggested? In The Times letter, Mr. Jackson makes this clear. He says:
  "… an arbitrary decision is the worst possible way to introduce productivity bargaining."
  He is right. Under normal circumstances if this was a normal pay claim, there would not be much argument, about having to go to arbitration. But when one is dealing, as in this case, with a productivity bargain, one must not allow, certainly in the first one that ever happens in a particular sphere, a Civil Service arbitration tribunal which has no experience of this, or any other tribunal, to judge, in this arbitrary way, the productivity bargain. I am sure that has been made clear to my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General and my hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General on many occasions.
  I want to remind my hon. Friend that this grade, the overseas telegraph operator grade, is on the verge of technical changes of some magnitude. How can we expect the staff and local people concerned to understand that they should not object to new procedures and new technology if, on the first occasion that one tries to introduce such procedures, one refuses to recognise their legitimate claims to proper bargaining at local level?
  Secondly, and most important, there will be substantial changes this year and, indeed, over the next few years on the postal side, when postal machinery will be introduced and will displace postal
  1036
  workers. Nobody wants to stop this process, but if it cannot be carried out on the basis of proper productivity bargaining but at the same time on the basis of the depletion of earnings, my right hon. Friend can whistle in the wind if he wants to introduce new equipment.
  The union's position is absolutely clear. Its members will accept 5 per cent.—not the 7 per cent. which seems to be on offer. Then they want an opportunity properly to negotiate productivity bargaining for this grade. I am sure that if the Postmaster-General made such an offer we would stop this silly dispute.
  8.22 p.m.
  Mr. Kenneth Baker: May I say at once how pleased I was, and I am sure how pleased all hon. Members were, to hear that negotiations had started between the Post Office and the union to end this dispute.
  I was also a little surprised to hear the Postmaster-General say that there had been no dispute between various Ministers. The newspapers yesterday, this morning and this evening contain stories of a rift between Ministers. On the one side was the Postmaster-General who was prepared to negotiate, which is a sensible position, and on the other side was principally the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity. It appears that when the Postmaster-General said, "Can I negotiate?", the right hon. Lady replied in the words of the old song, "Oh, no John, no John, no John, no". I am very glad to hear that this is a complete fantasy of the newspaper world and that there is not a rift.
  Mr. John Page: I think we ought to have clarification from the Assistant Postmaster-General as to whether my hon. Friend is right and whether negotiations are in progress between the unions and the Postmaster-General. I understood that the Lord Privy Seal was acting as chairman at a discussion at which the Postmaster-General was present.
  Mr. Baker: There seems to be a collective responsibility for the Post Office these days. Every Minister chips in if he thinks he has got a point to make.
  I return to the Motion, which is a criticism of the deteriorating services of the Post Office. Everybody living in the

  1037
  United Kingdom comes into contact with the Post Office nearly every day of his life. Therefore, it is not surprising that this is possibly the most sensitive area of the Government machine. It is always subject to many complaints, but there is also no doubt that the volume of complaints has increased considerably in the last few months.
  The main reason for this is the reason which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan), that in the last four years we have had four chief executives in the Post Office—four Postmasters-General heading one of the largest industries in the country. It would be surprising if an industry which changed its chief executive four times in four years and three times in the last 18 months was efficiently managed. Morale is low. The reason is that the Government look upon the post of Postmaster-General almost with contempt and scorn, either as an ante-chamber for those who are amorous of a political future, or as a condemned cell for those who are making their last political farewells. When they look at the chief post in the Post Office in this way it is only natural that morale in the Post Office should be low, and that Mr. Grady, who was responsible for establishing the Giro system, threw in his cards and joined a merchant bank.
  Services have deteriorated or at least have not improved. Take S.T.D. telephone calls. In 1963 the failure rate for calls which just did not get through was 8·2 per cent. Last year the failure rate was 8·1 per cent. There has been no improvement at all in the reliability of the telephone services in five years. Take again the telephone waiting list. When the Conservatives went out of office the waiting list was just over 40,000. Today it is in the region of 100,000. [Interruption.] I accept that a few months ago it was even higher and that it is now coming down. I will tie this up later to an argument on the capital expenditure of the Post Office.
  The fact that the waiting list is increasing is nothing to be proud of. In no other country is it getting bigger and bigger. The waiting list is being reduced, I think, by rather questionable methods. In a large part of my constituency of Acton, anyone wanting a telephone cannot get a separate line and
  1038
  has to take a shared line. I thought that shared lines were a thing of the past and that none of us would be prepared to accept shared lines. In the whole of South Acton any constituent of mine who wants a telephone has to have a shared line.
  Let me now turn to the postal service. The Postmaster-General is complacently proud of the mess that the two-tier system has left us in. Before that system was introduced, 60 per cent. of our mail went first-class. Of that 60 per cent., 92 per cent. was delivered the next day; in other words, 55 per cent. of all letters were delivered next day. Now only 33⅓ per cent. go first-class, and of that amount 94 per cent. is delivered next day, namely, 30 per cent. Here is a real drop in standards, from a next-day delivery rate of 50 per cent. to a next-day delivery rate of 30 per cent.
  The other disappointing feature of the two-tier system is that the Post Office management estimated that the fall in consumer demand would be about 2 per cent. Yet only 10 days ago we learned that the fall in consumer demand since last September has been about 4 per cent. So the estimate was 100 per cent. wrong. The consequence is that the extra revenue to be raised from the two-tier system will fall from £25 million to £21 million, a drop of £4 million. That figure is highly significant, because the profit made by the postal side of the Post Office last year was £4 million. When the Postmaster-General winds up tonight, perhaps he will give a forecast of how the profitability of the postal side will be affected this year. Is it possible that as a result of declining traffic it may run into deficit again? I sincerely hope not.
  The lowering of standards, while never acceptable, would at least have been tolerable if it had not been accompanied by a rather bright and breezy advertising and public relations campaign which implied that everything was well with the Post Office. One of the present Postmaster-General's first acts on taking office was to change advertising agents. I do not quarrel with that decision, but, having decided to shoot the pianist, the right hon. Gentleman should have changed the tune. The present advertising and public relations campaigns of the Post

  1039
  Office is still set in the complacent optimism of last year. One of our greatest criticisms of the Treasury Bench is that we can detect no sign there of the slightest realisation that all is not well in the Post Office. Inertia seems to reign, and there is no sense of urgency—just a resigned acceptance of second best:
  Mr. Ridley: Is it not rather 0dd that at a time when we are asked by the Postmaster-General not to telephone or to send letters or parcels the Post Office is still issuing advertisements advertising services which it cannot provide?
  Mr. Baker: That is so. There is no flexibility in the advertising programme—my hon. Friend has made the point—and it betrays a complacency on the part of the management of the Post Office which is most depressing.
  Hon. Members opposite will say that it is easy for us to criticise the Post Office, that letters go astray and telephone calls do not always get through. In my view, it is up to the Opposition to put forward a concrete plan showing what we would do to improve the services. I believe that the answer lies in a massive injection of capital investment.
  The Postmaster-General has said many times—I want to be fair to him, and I acknowledge this—that the present Post Office capital programme is the largest capital programme ever undertaken. It is simply not enough. Last year we spent about £291 million on telecommunications capital equipment, and this year we shall spend about £334 million. In America during the same period ten times as much is being spent. America is a bigger country, but it is not ten times bigger, and its population is not ten times ours. Moreover, the American telephone system is much more developed than ours. It penetrates to 85 per cent. of homes, whereas ours penetrates to only 25 per cent. of homes.
  In order to catch up, a massive investment programme is required, much larger than the £2,000 million at present invested.
  The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Joseph Slater): Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that there was under-capital-isation by his own Government? If there had been greater concentration on Post
  1040
  Office requirements during their period of office, there Would not have been the situation which he now alleges exists.
  Mr. Baker: That is typical of the negative attitude of the present management of the Post Office. It is no good looking to the past and bemoaning the under-capitalisation of the past. We have to look to the future and be determined that it shall not occur again. The telecommunications side of the Post Office should be spending £500 million or £600 million a year in capital investment. It is unreasonable to expect any Government, Socialist or Conservative, to find that investment. This is why the Post Office should put itself in a position to be able to tap the private capital market, as is done very effectively in America. My Amendment in Committee has been referred to already. The Post Office ought to have that power. Unless there is a massive injection of new capital, we shall inhibit the growth of the Post Office and its true potential.
  1 remind the House what the Prices and Incomes Board said:
  "In spite of the capital programme"
  of which the Assistant Postmaster-General is so proud
  "the United Kingdom will still lag behind many other countries, and in 1971 both telephone penetration and usage will still be below that already existing elsewhere".
  There is an undoubted case for a massive programme of investment in the Post Office. It must compete with other urgent social needs—schools, hospitals and roads—and that is why the Post Office should take powers to tap the private capital market in order to develop this great service to its full potential.
  8.35 p.m.
  Mr. Raphael Tuck: I want to declare first that I have no interest except to see that the catastrophic strike of overseas telegraph operators goes on no longer than it need. I am naturally glad to hear that there is an increase in the number of Christmas cards posted, though I have now no connection with the firm that bears my name.
  I have not been briefed by the Union of Post Office Workers, but I have had interviews and meetings with some members, particularly one of the overseas telegraph operators, and I can say that they did not want the strike to occur.

  1041
  They want to bend over backwards to stop it; and they turned somersaults to see that it did not occur.
  My right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General said that there was no clash of views in the Cabinet. I accept that, though I should not have expected him to say that there was a clash even if there had been. However, I do not believe that the members of the Ministerial Committee of the Cabinet know very much about what is going on in the Post Office, particularly one or two of the facts I want to put before my right hon. Friend and the House now.
  Last year, or thereabouts, out of 425,000 workers in the Post Office, all but 3,000 overseas telegraph operators received a 5 per cent. pay increase. They have now been offered that pay increase, with two strings attached. One concerns the Revised Revision, whereby telegrams might now be checked only three times instead of eight, effecting a saving in expenditure of about £270,000 and a reduction of 183 in the staff. The second string is that the Overseas Telegraph Relay Unit is to be reintroduced, and with reference to that the workers have been offered nothing.
  It has been estimated that the saving to the Post Office on the O.T.R.U. will be about 2 per cent., but the overseas telegraph operators do not think that it has been costed. A rule has been accepted by the Post Office that if a reorganisation involves a reduction in staff and a saving to the service the workers concerned will receive a proportionate benefit. The overseas telegraph operators want this costed properly, pointing out that when the multiple relay unit, the M.R.U., was introduced some time ago the Post Office said that it had been costed, and gave a certain figure which they said the workers should receive. The workers said that it had not been costed properly and went into seven months' costing. They told the Post Office, "This is our costing. You were wrong." The Post Office went into it, and had to admit that they had been wrong and that the workers were right. Therefore, the overseas telegraph operators say that if this has not been costed properly it must be costed now. The figure of 2 per cent. might turn out to be much more, or it might be less, but
  1042
  they are willing to take what comes out of that costing.
  On the reintroduction of the Overseas Telegraph Relay Unit there will be a saving of 167 personnel out of about 2,000, which is 8 per cent. The Postmaster-General says, "Let them go to arbitration". But the overseas telegraph operators say that the arbitration tribunal has stated that it has never had this kind of thing to decide before. The first thing that it would have to decide would be whether, on an award not based on productivity, strings could be attached based on productivity in another sphere. It has no guidelines on which to proceed.
  The overseas telegraph operators say that they would be willing to accept a 5 per cent. award now, with no strings, and to guarantee that they would meet Post Office officials and cost the Revised Revision properly. I ask my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General to consider whether that is so unreasonable. They are willing to meet round the table, go thoroughly into this costing, and enter into a productivity agreement based upon it.
  Again, the Post Office has said that when O.T.R.U. was previously introduced a productivity agreement was reached, and to arrive at another productivity agreement would be having two bites at the cherry. Whether or not that is so, the productivity agreement arrived at before the introduction of the multiple relay unit was of a different kind. The reintroduction of the overseas telegraph relay unit would result in a saving of 8 per cent. of the overseas telegraph operators and they should be in receipt of some, but not all, of that benefit.
  It has been said that the prices and incomes policy should govern this matter, but the overseas telegraph operators sent a telegram to the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity asking her to intervene. A telegram was received from her stating that she had no power or authority to intervene. What is the use, therefore, of going to the Prices and Incomes Board?
  I know my right hon. Friend is making every effort to end the dispute. I ask him to place these considerations before his Cabinet colleagues, who, I believe, do not know the issues involved, and whose views are perhaps not the views

  1043
  which the right hon. Gentleman privately holds, although I will make no further comment on that.
  8.42 p.m.
  Mr. John Page: It is no pleasure for an hon. Member to criticise the great public undertaking of the Post Office and it is extremely sad to have to remark on the deterioration of the service which it is now giving.
  As I said in the debate on the two-tier post, much of the blame lies upon the Postmaster-General and not on his staff. I will not go over the old history, but I was disappointed when the right hon. Gentleman at the end of his speech beat his breast and said that he had never tried to mislead the public. At two Press conferences he said that it was not the intention to blackmail the public into using the 5d. post, and that the 4d. post would not be unnecessarily delayed. Those of us who went to the trouble to see, saw that both those undertakings were being patently disregarded. We saw piles of 4d. mail which could have gone out with the 5d. post, being held. Had he said that in due course the Post Office would try to deal with the second-class mail at the same time as the first-class mail, that would have been more acceptable.
  The Post Office is a great business, and any business, particularly one that sells a service, depends on good will. Those of us who know anything about business realise that goodwill is easy to lose and difficult to build up. The attitude of the people towards the Post Office has taken a very sad turn. They are dissatisfied with the service which they get and are constantly critical of it. The Postmaster-General may say that because they start being critical about one aspect of the service, they later turn their criticism to other aspects, but that is what good will means. If a firm has good will, its faults are not emphasised and perhaps magnified as might otherwise be the case.
  The present strike underlines the un-suitability of the Government as an employer, especially a Government who have on the books a Prices and Incomes Act designed to depress wages for those who apply for increased wages. It is particularly ridiculous that the Government
  1044
  should issue a White Paper setting up a new commission on industrial relations which will not have to take into account in its recommendations the criteria about productivity which the Prices and Incomes Board has to follow.
  The hon. Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Dobson) spoke about the previous productivity agreement. It is amazing that the First Secretary and her Department have no means of checking whether productivity agreements, made before a new pay award is permitted by her, result in extra productivity. That underlines the absurdity of the situation.
  I entirely agree with everything said by my hon. Friend the Member for Wembley, South (Sir R. Russell) about the telephone service from Wembley. The two areas are close together, and very much the same comment applies to calls into and out of the Harrow area. Many of my constituents complain that they frequently dial and get no response—just a dead telephone. They also get many wrong numbers when dialling. I have never understood how the Postmaster-General can quote the number of misrouted calls. Presumably they are regarded as misrouted only if they are reported. Most people are too busy to report a wrong number or a misrouted call.
  I therefore ask him whether and at what stage it is possible to record a wrong number. Is the subscriber, immediately has has had a wrong number, supposed to dial 100 and to report it in order that his money may be refunded, or can he make a report later? Can he lump together a number of wrong numbers which he has received and deduct that amount from the telephone bill at the end of the period?
  Mr. John Mendelson: Send a telegram to the Postmaster-General.
  Mr. Page: I understand that it is not possible to send a telegram to the Postmaster-General and to mark it "Collect".
  I wonder whether there could be an automatic answering service, which is not engaged, so that it was possible to report a wrong number without having to wait for a long time, as is often the case when dialling the operator. I have to record with some regret that there seems to be a slowing of the telephone service within the House. I do not know the reason.

  1045
  It may be advancing age and advancing impatience with the Government. I seem to wait longer each time I pick up the telephone before getting a response. When one questions why one has had to wait, the answer always is, "We are imposibly busy and overloaded". I understand that the telephone exchanges in the House are old-fashioned. What does the Postmaster-General propose to do about them?
  Mr. Eric Ogden: In fairness to the staff here, who are workers, like ourselves, would the hon. Gentleman compare the service which we get here with the service which one gets on any other private enterprise switchboard in the country? Would he agree that there is a technique of dialling or asking for a number? Perhaps my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General would issue a guide to hon. Members telling us how we might get the best and most efficient service from the staff, who already give us a very good service.
  Mr. Page: I do not think that my approach in the House is any different from my approach outside. I am referring not to the dialling lines in the House but to the many telephones which one picks up but does not get a reply. If the hon. Gentleman has a suggestion about how Members might improve their telephone technique, I would be the first to try to adopt it.
  I greatly approve of the new method used when one contacts directory inquiries. The operator says, "State the name of the town for which the number is required", or something like that. This usually induces a better response from the caller. I regret, however, that many of the young ladies in London, although not in Scotland, who have to make the search, find it more difficult to deal with the inquiry than I should have thought was necessary.
  1 turn to the question of public call boxes. It is still hardly worth while, when one is driving to an appointment and one is late, to park the car and go to a public call box, because so often it is not working. Is there not a way to improve security? This must be something about which the Postmaster-General is worried. It would be helpful if an alarm bell on the box rang when it was being tampered with.
  1046
  I come to the final nail in the coffin of the Postmaster-General's skill in public relations, namely, the issuing of the new long 5d. commemorative stamp of the QE2 on 15th January when delivery of the ship, through no fault of the Postmaster-General, I hasten to add, has not yet been taken. Even if it had been announced, I should have thought it possible for the right hon. Gentleman to save the acute embarrassment of anyone receiving a letter with this stamp on by postponing its issue until the ship had sailed and started to be the success which we all hope and I believe she will be.
  8.54 p.m.
  Mr. John Mendelson: We can always rely on the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) to provide some unintended light relief in a serious situation. The House will again be grateful to him on that account tonight.
  The number of points made in the paucity of argument displayed by hon. Members opposite which perhaps have some merit has been reduced to two. One concerns investment. Some hon. Members opposite who have spoken have been Members for such a short time that they do not know the grave neglect of the Post Office for which their party was responsible over many years. Year after year, when we were on the benches opposite, hon. Members on both sides of the House, some of whom are not Members any more, urged the Government to provide proper capital investment for the Post Office. On other occasions we heard propaganda speeches and public relations outfits telling us how well the Tory Government were doing when year after year, in secret, they were postponing the necessary investment in the Post Office without telling the House. That is the background to all Post Office debates, and it takes the effrontery and ignorance of younger hon. Members to talk in the way that they have tonight. The hon. Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan) has no such excuse, because he was here. In his case, it is blatant hypocrisy, and I admire his blatancy.
  The only other point of any merit referred to the technical difficulties. It was raised by the hon. Member for Wembley, South (Sir R. Russell) an hon. Member who has been greatly respected

  1047
  in all parts of the House for many years. He knows what he is talking about, and, quietly, he raised a number of detailed points which are technical in character but not unimportant. I will not go into them, but I hope that my right hon. Friend will accept that those technical points are of great concern to many users of the Post Office services. Knowing my right hon. Friend as I do, I am sure that he will take due note of what the hon. Gentleman has said. Many hon. Members on this side of the House could make similar points from their own experience. They are matters which must be taken seriously.
  My main purpose in intervening briefly in this debate concerns the serious dispute taking place at present. I welcome the fact that my right hon. Friend has given a detailed outline of what happened this afternoon and earlier this evening, so bringing us up-to-date. When he did not choose to make a statement earlier today, I knew for sure that he intended to make one later when he could give us more information.
  What he has said is inadequate as a statement of Government policy. In spite of his emphasis that he takes the same view as all other members of the Government and stands by what the Government feel about the matter, he must forgive me if I remind him of what we used to say when we were in opposition and were in the habit of going home together:
  "All Ministers are equal, but some are more equal than others."
  Those words apply to the present situation. It is important for my right hon. Friend to remember that the public expects him to take a stand on behalf of those employed in the Post Office. That cannot be the same as the stand taken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer or any other member of the Cabinet. My right hon. Friend has the task not only to safeguard our postal services but to see that fairness is applied to those whom he employs.
  I come now to the only point that I intend to make about the dispute. It would be impertinent for anyone not as closely connected with it as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Dobson) to make any detailed survey of the situation, so great was the
  1048
  clarity and knowledge with which my hon. Friend spoke.
  The important point is the one that I raised last Monday afternoon, when my right hon. Friend made his first statement about the dispute. I urged him to see whether the Government could not apply to the dispute the procedure that was applied in the railway dispute, which was an equally difficult one. Some months have passed since that dispute, and it may be that we have forgotten the bitterness felt by many railwaymen at the time. The assistant general secretary of the footplatemen's union made a public statement on the first Monday of that dispute in which he said that a compromise agreement might be reached if negotiations were to take place in the direction of reaching an interim pay settlement, leaving the rest of the negotiations, including productivity matters, to further discussions in private. On that same Monday I made this suggestion to the Government. The Ministry of Transport said that it was listening carefully but could do nothing about it. A whole fortnight was wasted. At the end of that time the negotiations were concluded precisely on the basis that the assistant secretary general of that union had proposed. The same agreement could have been made within the first three days.
  I, therefore, urge the Government not to be too rigid. The two additional proposals that my right hon. Friend has reported to the House tonight do not go further in any substantial respect than what he has said before. They repeat, in other words but with a slight amendment, proposals already made.
  It is clear from the carefully worded letter of the General Secretary of the Union, Mr. Jackson, which appeared this morning, that this matter is similar to the railway dispute. Mr. Jackson, in substance, is arguing that there is disagreement on the arrangements that ought to be made about a productivity agreement. That was the precise situation in the railway dispute. What was needed then is needed now—a quiet period of discussion away from the glare of publicity. It is not for me to make suggestions about arrangements which might finally be made—that is for the people who know the job and are directly involved—but my

  1049
  right hon. Friend and the Government must find a means of conciliation which will allow these discussions to take place.
  We have had no reply so far from my right hon. Friend, or from any other member of the Government, why it is not possible at this stage to accept Mr. Jackson's main proposal to make an interim payment and then to go on, in detailed private discussions, to look at all the other matters concerned. Why must the Government insist on tying the payment of the 5 per cent. increase to the immediate payment of the additional 2 per cent.? Arbitration is no answer. What is needed is an agreement similar to that in the railway dispute which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East has pointed out, will create maximum good will at the point where the agreement is concluded, so that the two sides can go into the application of productivity arrangements in the best possible atmosphere. My right hon. Friend has not said tonight why the Government must be so rigid in insisting that we do not want an interim agreement paying the 5 per cent., or some such figure.
  My right hon. Friend was very aggressive about the fraternity of journalists in telling them that they were engaging in wholly unfounded speculation, but I want to put in a word for the Press. After all, when a Government have for some years been engaged in argument about their prices and incomes policy, which forms the background to every industrial dispute that takes place at the present time, surely free journalists have the right to make their point about the possibility of some senior Ministers taking a different view from that of my right hon. Friend. There is nothing journalistically illegitimate in writing about these matters. Moreover, another point is involved. This is part of the public service, and it is well known that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has a particular interest in all matters of pay and conditions concerning the public service. It is also clear that in disputes of this kind there is a political aspect. I, therefore, invite my right hon. Friend not to be so vehement when he deals with the reports and suggestions which have appeared in the Press. What senior Ministers feel about disputes of this kind is a legitimate business of public debate.
  1050
  1 close by reminding my right hon. Friend that I do not propose to lecture him on social justice and how to deal with the rightful aspirations of trade unionists. We have been colleagues together for many years. My right hon. Friend has known, and still knows, about these matters at least as long, and as well, as I have. But there is grave concern that time is again being wasted, as in the railway dispute, because people are acting too rigidly. We look to my right hon. Friend, as the representative of the people employed in the Post Office and the custodian of peace in the enterprise, to be firm with his own colleagues, and courageous. He should know that he will receive the applause of many of us if he acts in that way.
  There is no good reason that the House or the country has heard why there should not be new negotiations tomorrow morning. No matter what transpires this afternoon, my right hon. Friend should call the two sides together again and say, "Let us make an interim agreement on pay and then have a quiet period of discussion, and then, perhaps, fix some such date, as in the case of the railways, four or five months from now, during which time we will come to a new agreement." If he acts in that way he will deserve the applause of all of us. If he does not—and if, because of the rigidity of the Government, the chance is missed—he will assume a very grave responsibility.
  9.6 p.m.
  Mr. Tom Boardman: It was inevitable that the subject of this debate should be overshadowed by the statement made by the Postmaster-General on this unfortunate dispute. This has taken a great deal of time of hon. Members on both sides of the House. I welcome the statement of the Postmaster-General, and I am glad that he made it straight away. I particularly welcome his action about pensioners in cities such as Leicester, because this matter has caused concern to some people in those cities. I welcome the prompt way in which this matter has been dealt with and announced. Unfortunately, it has reduced the amount of time during which we are able to debate the deterioration of the postal services.

  1051
  Listening to the arguments of hon. Members opposite it would seem that the labour dispute has resulted from—in their words—bad management. If that is right, the same cause can be attributed to the deterioration in postal services of which we complain. The debate on the dispute that is now taking place has also opened up questions of industrial relations, and some of the remarks made tonight may be relevant to our discussion of the question of procedural agreements being made binding. Such a question would be relevant to the issue before the Postmaster-General at the moment.
  The deterioration in postal services stems, in large part, from the confusion—I concede that it is partly historic—of the three arms of the Post Office, namely, its Royal Mail Service, its telecommunications service and its postal counter service. These are three quite distinct services, but they are confused, both in their accounts and, very often, their treatment. As has been said in Committee on the Post Office Bill, as well as in the House, these three arms should be segregated and given different treatment.
  The low point of the postal services has been the two-tier system, about which much has already been said today. The Postmaster-General implied that the criticism is dying down. If so, it is only because people are becoming tired of complaining or—worse still—because they have forgotten the former speed and reliability of the service and have, in the words of the song, "grown accustomed to her face".
  If this were so it would be unfortunate, because the service can in no way be claimed to be comparable with that which was given before, taking the mail overall. As we have heard, 94 per cent. of first-class mail is now delivered the next day. As my hon. Friend the Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan) said, it used to be 93 per cent. of all ordinary mail. The Postmaster-General says that there is a choice, but the choice amounts only to the fact that by paying more one stands slightly over 1 per cent. better chance of one's mail being delivered the next day—or by paying the same, one is nearly certain that the mail will be delivered 48 hours later.
  1052
  But my main criticism of the deterioration of postal services is the effect that they are having on business efficiency. This is not just a matter of delays but can also be seen in the earlier closing of Post Offices. The Post Office in one provincial town used to close at 6.30 about two years ago; then, it was 6 p.m. and now it is 5.30 p.m. People with franked mail can deliver it only when the Post Office is open, which means that mail which used to arrive shortly before 6.30 now has to get to the Post Office just before 5.30. Allowing for signing the letters and getting them franked and bundled up, the working day in most firms must stop at 4.30. An enormous amount of business and commercial time has been lost by this one act of closing earlier.
  The right hon. Gentleman may say that people can get on with the next day's work, but we know that this is difficult in practice. It is rather like a Press deadline. The deadline for an office is the time when the mail has to leave to catch the post. This is one more complaint on top of those already mentioned. I am not averse to change or experiment—I welcome it—but it should be carefully planned and all these factors should be taken into account.
  We are missing great opportunities in telecommunications. There was never a time when it was more vital to harness the great skills and inventiveness of industry so that we can provide the telecommunications service which we need. We shall not get that, however, in the present position of the monopoly buyer with the powers which the Post Office Bill will give him. People will not take the risks and supply the skills or techniques or invest capital in research when there is one buyer with powers to compete with the supplier and take him over or subsidise his competitor with public money.
  This is not how the American system has thrived: quite the reverse. I beg the right hon. Gentleman to think again on this. The present proposals are a great deterrent and opportunities are being lost. His attitude to private capital in the postal services is a strange one, but it was exposed in Standing Committee recently. Referring to the speech of my

  1053
  hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Kenneth Baker), the right hon. Gentleman said:
  "As far as the telecommunications business is concerned, it would be quite wrong for private investors to be allowed to come in and share the profits in an industry in which they have had no money invested and taken no risks over the last 100 years during which it has been developed. It is the public sector which has developed this industry, and the private investor should not be allowed to come in and participate in the profitable activities of this section of the business."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D; 21st January, 1969, c. 404–405.]
  Of course, the private investor should not be allowed to come in at the original cost of a hundred years ago, but he should be allowed to come in at the current market value. The right hon. Gentleman will recall that in Committee I asked him what would be the position of such great enterprises as the former British Motor Corporation if that policy had been pursued and if Mr. Morris, having put down and risked the original capital on making the original bicycle, had been able to prevent other people from sharing in his enterprise. Presumably, on that policy we should still have Mr. Marks's bazaar stall and Mr. Morris's bicycle shop in Oxford. The right hon. Gentleman's statement exposed an attitude which is muddled and fallacious and which I hope will be corrected tonight.
  In the extract which I have quoted, the right hon. Gentleman spoke of the great advantages which had been obtained through the risks taken by public enterprise. Are we entitled to be very proud of our telecommunications services? Are they so good when compared with those of other countries? My telephone is almost identical with that which I had in my youth. The waiting lists for the service are still long. Are these matters for pride when we compare the system with that in some other countries? I agree that comparisons can be made with some countries which are favourable to us, but we should not accept such a standard. This is a small, compact, densely populated island in which we should be able to have the best communications services, postal and telephone.
  I do not think that the public sector would ever be able to provide the capital or the will to achieve that, and I support my hon. Friend the Member
  1054
  for Acton in saying that the opportunity ought to be taken to inject the private capital which is essential to bring about the expansion which we need.
  Mr. Maurice Orbach: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that only the injection of massive amounts of capital into the telecommunications industry will bring us a better telephone service? Does he not agree that there are other factors to be considered, such as the absorptive capacity of the telecommunications industry? Unless it has the skilled engineers—who are very scarce—to manufacture these articles, all the capital in the world will not help.
  Mr. Boardman: I believe that they go hand in hand. If we have the capital, and the private enterprise which risks that capital, it will attract the brains and produce the ideas and service.
  Mr. Orbach: Overnight?
  Mr. Boardman: Of course not over-night. But let us start now. We must not plan for the future on the basis of a public monopoly and public funds as the sole way to match the great private enterprise economies in other parts of the world. We could start now in the postal telecommunications services, in what is described as "inside the front door". There must be far more scope than the right hon. Gentleman admits for the private sector to supply the various adaptations connected with telecommunications. We must get rid of the old-fashioned service.
  May I comment on the counter services? Largely these act as agents for Government Departments. The system of costing and charging for these services should be reviewed and fully explained. This is a costly sphere and many people suspect that these services are being used to a considerable extent to subsidise other Government Departments.
  The Motion
  "… regrets the deterioration of services provided by the Post Office."
  Any hon. Member who studies his post-bag and mixes with his constituents will be satisfied that the public, who are the customers, believe that these services are deteriorating. This is a case where the customers are right.
  9.21 p.m.
  Mr. Stratton Mills: This debate has been overshadowed by events outside the House. Hon. Members are anxious about the situation and are grateful to the Postmaster-General for having made his statement at the beginning of the debate.
  1 wish to concentrate on the terms of the Motion, which
  "regrets the deteriorating services provided by the Post Office."
  In our capacity as hon. Members—visiting our constituents, dealing with our mail and meeting people generally—we must admit, if we are honest, that in the last year in particular there has been a growing volume of complaint from the public about the standard of the postal service. It is right that we should tonight analyse some of the faults, see where things have gone wrong, point the finger of blame at those responsible and try to learn, from those errors, to provide a better service to the public.
  I imagine that the Postmaster-General's mail bag has been very heavy indeed in the last few months. I noted, for example, that on 21st November, in replying to a Question about the two-tier system, he said that he had received 1,502 letters on this subject alone from hon. Members—which, by any standard, must represent a heavy mailbag. Can he bring us up to date and tell us the current total of letters he has received on this subject? I noted, too, that replying to the same question—in which he was asked how many letters he had received from members of the public—he became extremely vague and commented that the number ran into some thousands. To us the number of sacks in the in-tray seemed so great that nobody had got round to counting the letters. The purpose of this debate is to delve deeper into these matters.
  It is fair that my hon. Friends should acknowledge that the Post Office has an excellent staff. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not suggest, and that no hon. Gentlemen opposite will level the charge, that we are engaged in any sort of attack on the Post Office. We appreciate that one of the most excellent assets that it has is the quality and loyalty of its staff.
  There is, however, widespread public concern about this issue, and if the Post-
  1056
  master-General would visit the post offices, in some of the towns in Britain he would realise how great this concern is. Our charge tonight can be summed up in three words—muddle, confusion and complacency. These are the points to which I shall come in the course of my remarks.
  On the postal side, it is clear that the two-tier system was badly handled in its introduction. Many hon. Members have already dealt with this point. More serious was the error of the right hon. Gentleman in trying to laugh off the mistakes that were made. This was a serious error of judgment on his part. In the debate on 17th October the right hon. Gentleman spoke virtually without notes. He tended to shrug aside any criticisms that were made and said:
  "The system is exciting a great deal of interest"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th October, 1968; Vol. 770, c. 734.]
  That was true; it was exciting a good deal of interest. The Gallup Poll the following month showed that 84 per cent. of the public disapproved of it and only 4 per cent. were in the category "Don't know", which is in itself a condemnation of the introduction of the scheme.
  The right hon. Gentleman was able to produce in that debate two letters of support, but, unfortunately, it turned out that one of them came from a Socialist alderman. That was pointed out by one of my hon. Friends only after the letter had been read to the House.
  This evening, however, we must acknowledge that in the later debate of 4th November the right hon. Gentleman somewhat changed his tune. He admitted that mistakes had been made and he acknowledged some of them. He announced certain changes in the procedure which were welcome. Perhaps tonight he can give us more details of how those changes are working out. He announced that a full survey was to be published and he said that it would be produced within six months. It strikes me that that is a somewhat leisurely pace for a matter which is of some urgency. Perhaps this could be looked at again.
  In his speech this evening the Postmaster-General seemed largely to sweep aside the points which my hon. Friend the Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan) had put to him and the questions which my hon. Friend had asked,

  1057
  although, no doubt, he will reply to these when he winds up the debate. He congratulated himself that one of the advantages of the scheme had been that several Christmas cards were sent inside one envelope. If the right hon. Gentleman has no other contribution to make to the Post Office, that one will long be remembered, and he will, I have no doubt, receive many letters and congratulations on this striking advance.
  Tonight, however, the right hon. Gentleman made what, I believe, was a major admission, and it was right that he should. He admitted a serious error which I wish to underline. He admitted that a mistake had been made in the introduction of the two-tier system at the same time as a price rise. I was glad that the right hon. Gentleman made that point. It was made by Dr. Kramm, of the Post Office Users Council, who warned the right hon. Gentleman of it not in January but before the scheme was introduced. It was swept aside, however, by the right hon. Gentleman.
  I am always reluctant to attribute reasons to Ministers for their actions, but I suggest that one of the reasons why a suspicious person might consider that the two schemes were lumped together was so that the public would not notice that at the same time as a new service was being introduced a price rise of 25 per rent. was also being foisted on the public. The right hon. Gentleman has let the cat out of the bag this evening on that one.
  Since the debate on 4th November, we have had more evidence about the working of the two-tier scheme. On 23rd January the right hon. Gentleman answered Questions in the House and reported on three facts which are worth looking at. He said that since the service had started the first-class mail had increased from 25 to 33 per cent. Before he congratulates himself too much on that however, one has to look in a little more detail at its implications.
  It can be summed up best if one puts it in this form. We had "MacDermot's Law" on the Finance Bill; this falls into the category of "Stonehouse's Law". The law is this: If the second-class mail is bad, one forces the consumer to use the first-class service. This is what hap-
  1058
  pened. The second-class mail service was bad and people naturally use the first-class service and it naturally comes up from 25 per cent. to 33 per cent. I understand its implications, but I should not have thought that the right hon. Gentleman would have been very wise to boast about the matter.
  The second point of the right hon. Gentleman was that 94 per cent. of first-class mail was delivered the next day. This is an improvement. Before one goes much further, one should remember what my hon. Friend reminded the House, that before the scheme was introduced 92 per cent. and sometimes 93 per cent. was delivered the next day. It is also important to note that over a period of years the Post Office delivery record was gradually improving. The percentage of deliveries next day was improving gradually. The great change from 92 per cent. and 93 per cent. to 94 per cent. has to be seen in perspective, particularly since before then the volume of mail going by first-class delivery was very much greater than today.
  The position can be summarised thus. Despite an extra penny on the post, there is only a 1 per cent. or 2 per cent. improvement in the volume of mail being delivered the next day, on a very much smaller volume of mail going on that service. I would remind the House of the terms of the original advertisement:
  "We benefit, you benefit."
  I ask the right hon. Gentleman: "Who benefits more? The consumer or the Post Office?" The public benefits by a 1 per cent. or 2 per cent. improvement in reliability, but it is the Post Office which benefits from a 25 per cent. increase in price. I have very little doubt, when one puts the equation "You benefit, we benefit" who it is that benefits substantially more.
  The right hon. Gentleman's third point was to do with increased revenue. He said that it is turning out at £21 million, as against a forecast £25 million. My hon. Friend has asked about the drop in the mail and overtime, and no doubt the right hon. Gentleman will deal with those points. I have a question to put which deals with a story in virtually all the newspapers on about 13th January, saying that something like £4 million was to be cut in the Post Office postal budget.

  1059
  I do not know whether it was an inspired leak, but the next day it was partially retracted by the Post Office. The right hon. Gentleman said that any cut would be made without harming services. Perhaps we can have more details on this. Is this amount to be for the period to the end of the financial year as some papers suggested or for a full financial year?
  There have been substantial rises in telecommunication prices—a £14–£16 rise in rental, S.T.D. increases and a special services increase. I found a certain general air of confusion about these increases, particularly noticeable in the documents showing the new increases sent out to householders. Although I studied mine for a considerable time, I could not work out who actually gained on the substantial adjustments in some areas and marginal adjustments in others. There was another even greater area of confusion to which I will now turn. This is typical of the muddle which has been coming out of the Post Office in recent months:
  There was introduced a special search facility experiment in five different areas of the country. The Daily Telegraph tried out an experiment of telephoning and asking these five experimental areas a question. The Daily Telegraph said:
  "The Post Office introduced a special charge of Is. yesterday at five experimental centres for vague telephone directory inquiries. But its operation was also vague."
  Despite the fact that these questions were asked, only in one area was it suggested that the special service would be used. I am not complaining about the men operating the system in those five areas. What I wish to know is: were those people given proper instructions for the working of this service?
  The other area of dissatisfaction—this is one where many hon. Members have similar worries—is the number of faults which we come across in our day-to-day use of the telephone service. On occasions I have been driven to near desperation as a frequent user of the telephone service, and I was encouraged to see a recent article in The Times by Adam Ferguson in which he quoted an experience which may possibly reflect the experience which others also have had.
  1060
  The writer was endeavouring to telephone from London to Yorkshire, an operation involving dialling only nine digits. He said:
  "I got through at the eighth attempt in just over half an hour, having dialled a total of 66 figures. The following sequence of noises accompanied my attempt: first, silence; second, the engaged signal; third, a high-pitched buzz after the preliminary '0'; fourth, a faint unobtainable signal; fifth, the engaged signal again; sixth, a loud unobtainable signal; seventh, the engaged signal after the first two digits; finally, the ringing tone."
  I do not know how many times that was repeated, but Mr. Ferguson was charitable enough to say that he was lucky that he did not get through to the recording piece saying "Lines from London to Yorkshire are engaged" or strike a crossed line.
  That is not untypical of the exasperation which many of us experience. I am not saying that this happens every time one uses the telephone, but I am saying that it happens sufficiently often to us in this House to know that there is something wrong in this sector. To express concern about this is one of the purposes of our debate this evening. Even the Post Office figures reveal that something is wrong. Even the Post Office Prospects for 1967–68 admit that something is wrong. Even Post Office figures show that something like 8 per cent. of S.T.D. calls go wrong. I hope this is something which can be dealt with by the Post Office as a matter of urgency.
  I refer briefly to the telephone waiting list. The right hon. Gentleman says that he hopes to eliminate it in 18 months. I hope he does, but this is an example of Stonehouse's Law to which I referred a few moments ago. It is this: "If you increase the rental, if you increase the cost of a telephone call and maintain generally deflationary conditions, is it surprising if the waiting list is eliminated?" Is it not inevitable that the waiting list is eliminated?
  Time is marching on and I will end by saying this. The purpose of our debate today has been to call attention to the general muddle, confusion and complacency in the Post Office, allied with a period of sharply rising prices. We have had four Postmasters-General since this Government came to office, three in the past year. Each Postmaster-General, on taking office, goes to the Department,

  1061
  hangs up his coat, is introduced to the civil servants and has the papers put on his desk, but before he is able to get to grips with the detailed technical problems he is moved off by the Prime Minister.
  Inevitably, there is a sapping of staff morale. Inevitably, Ministers take decisions which they are not fully competent to take. Inevitably, there is rubber-stamping. The Prime Minister is at least partly in the dock for the faults which we are now experiencing. If he plays a game of musical chairs with his Postmasters-General, moving them on every few months, it is inevitable that, when the music stops, someone is left holding the baby—and that person is the right hon. Gentleman whose conduct we are debating tonight. Some members of the Government, of any Government, tend to become accident-prone. The right hon. Gentleman has become accident-prone, and we shall in the Lobby tonight express our dissatisfaction with his handling of affairs.
  9.41 p.m.
  Mr. Stonehouse: May I have the leave of the House to speak again?
  My hon. Friends the Members for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson), for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Dobson) and for Watford (Mr. Raphael Tuck) referred to the overseas telegraphists' strike. I hope that they will not expect me to comment on their remarks in detail, as this would not be particularly helpful in reaching an agreement on this considerably inconveniencing dispute. The point on which, I think, the House will agree with me is that we hope that the dispute will be brought to an end soon. I add only that we expect to reach a settlement within the Government's prices and incomes criteria. This union, negotiating for a section of public employees, must not expect that any preferential treatment will be given to them as against any other section of employees in Britain.
  The debate tonight has been on a slightly lower key than the debates held towards the end of last year when hon. Members opposite got very excited about the two-tier postal system. I am grateful to them this evening for the more relaxed tone in which they have spoken to that subject. Some of the predictions
  1062
  which they made last year about the failure of the two-tier system have not been borne out in practice. We have been able to achieve the reliability of service which I set out broadly as our objective last year. We have been able to give a better guaranteed reliability for the first-class service than applied before two-tier. We have been able to provide in most parts of the country a next-day delivery for first-class mail and a so-called day C delivery for second-class mail. That is extremely satisfactory.
  Here are the percentages of performance comparing 1967 with 1968. In September, 1967, for fully paid mails delivered on the day after posting the proportion was 92·6 per cent., and in 1968 we were achieving 93·8 per cent. In October, it was 92·9 per cent. in 1967 and 93·8 per cent. in 1968. In November it was 93·2 per cent. in 1967 and 94·5 per cent. in 1968. In the December period, excluding Christmas, it was 92·3 per cent. in 1967 and 94·1 per cent. in 1968. Thus, admittedly on a smaller quantity of mail—I concede that—there has been a more reliable service for first-class mail, so that customers choosing to use the first-class mail have a slightly higher degree of reliability.
  I want to refute the suggestion from hon. Members opposite that we have worsened the second-class service in order to force people to use the first-class service. This is utterly wrong. The second-class service has similarly been improved. We are now delivering within two days of posting a higher proportion of second-class mail than was previously the case, although its quantity has been greatly increased by two-tier. In November, 1967, it was 939 per cent., and in November, 1968, it was 96 per cent. In December, 1967, excluding Christmas, it was 91·7 per cent., and in December, 1968, again excluding Christmas, it was 94·5 per cent. So I throw back the allegation that the second-class service has deteriorated. It has been improved, although the quantity of second-class mail has so greatly increased.
  Mr. Bryan: May I throw back something else at the Postmaster-General. I said to him on 4th November:
  "I challenge the Postmaster-General to tell us that, if he had to live the last eight weeks again, he would still introduce the two-tier

  1063
  system simultaneously with the rise in prices."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th November, 1968; Vol. 772. c. 603.]
  His answer that night indicated that he would not do that. Tonight he has confessed all.
  Mr. Stonehouse: What I have said tonight is that I believe, and I have thought so for some time, that it would have been better understood by the public and hon. Members opposite if the two things had been done separately. I have said that publicly outside the House before tonight, and I have repeated it tonight. It is my view that when the two-tier was introduced the public did not fully appreciate the significance of the improvement of the service with which they were being provided, because it was associated with a price increase. I believe that they have since become more aware of it, and the traffic flow confirms it. They have become much more aware of the advantage of two-tier.
  Mr. Kenneth Baker Mr. Kenneth Baker rose —
  Mr. Stonehouse: I do not wish to give way now. I must continue, because time is limited.
  I have already referred to the improvement in the mail services. There is a similar improvement in the parcels service. When we compare 1968 with 1967, we see that the percentage of parcels delivered within two days of posting has increased, in September by 4 per cent., from 77·3 to 81·2 per cent., in October by no less than 8 per cent., from 73·6 to 81·4 per cent.; and in December by 7 per cent., from 58·4 to 65·4 per cent. I apologise for giving the House detailed percentages, but they confirm that, far from the services deteriorating, as the Opposition suggests, they have been improving, which was the object of two-tier.
  During the months since two-tier came into operation, Post Office representatives have been visiting a large number of business firms, because we believe in very close co-operation with our major customers. We have received increasing congratulations from business firms about the service we are providing. [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite may laugh, but we have had a lot of compliments paid to us, in Oxford and Cambridge, for instance. Our representatives there discovered that firms were reporting that
  1064
  97 per cent. of their mail was being delivered the day after posting. Two large mail order firms in Bradford are receiving 95 and 97 per cent. of their mail the day after posting. An examination of the mail of four firms in the North-West of England showed that, in the main, 94 per cent. and in some cases as much as 97 and 98 per cent. was received next day.
  In Wales, the analysis at the premises of some of our principal customers at Cardiff and Swansea showed that 96 per cent. of first-class mail was delivered next day. At Chester, the figure was 94 per cent. In Sheffield, visits to major firms showed a 99 per cent. success rate in securing delivery next day.
  We have had great support from some of the Post Office advisory committees, which are made up of laymen and business representatives. They have conducted independent inquiries, and we have had many congratulations from them on the way. in which the service has improved.
  The hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) referred to the overtime being worked. I assure him that at all times the Post Office is anxious to cut excessive costs. If overtime is not required to deal with the traffic given to us by our customers, it must be cut. This was an exercise which the Post Office would have done in any case. But, following the reduction in the amount of traffic which we were receiving, it became doubly important to consider the amount of overtime being worked. There has been a sharp cut-back in that expenditure.
  The hon. Gentleman asked what was the correct figure for the cut in expenditure in the budget—£4 million or £2 million? We are not aiming at a specific figure. We are aiming at the maximum possible cut in expenditure which can be achieved without impairing the postal services to the public. As I have said outside the House, we have no intention of reducing services to the public in terms of the number of deliveries or the time of delivery. We want the services to be maintained. But, within that, we hope very much to be able to secure economies, and I have given instructions to the regional directors in the 10 regions to secure the maximum possible economies in expenditure.
  Mr. Stratton Mills: Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that the head of the postal division has written to the regional controllers calling for a 1 per cent. cut in their budget?
  Mr. Stonehouse: This was one of the requests made as an objective, but it must be understood, within the terms that I have announced, that there must be no reduction in the service to the public. We want the economies to be made in excessive overtime and in other costs without reducing the service to the public.
  The hon. Gentleman spent some time talking about what were alleged to be deficiencies in the telephone service. I refute emphatically that there has been any deterioration in the telephone service in the past few years. In fact, after very many years of Conservative neglect, we are beginning to catch up on the investment programme. My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone was absolutely right in his initial remarks. One reason why the telephone service was slipping behind that of other countries was that successive Conservative Administrations starved it of finance during crucial years.
  In 1965, a 10-year improvement plan was introduced aimed at reducing to a half, or better, the rate of call failures due to plant defects in the system. The failure rate was about 3 per cent. for local calls and 7 per cent. for STD calls at that time in the United Kingdom as a whole.
  The aim then was to improve the failure rate to 1·3 per cent. on local calls and 3·5 per cent. on STD calls by 1975. I am glad tonight to report that we are well on the way to achieving that target, because in the three years which have elapsed since the start of this 10-year plan we have progressively improved the quality of the performance of our plant and are well inside the targets which we have set ourselves. The average call failure rate due to plant defects in the United Kingdom has been reduced to 2·2 per cent. for local calls and 5·2 per cent. for STD.
  Hon. Members opposite may make individual complaints. I respect the observations made by the hon. Member for Wembley, South (Sir R. Russell) in his
  1066
  speech, and I undertake to investigate them in detail. The overall performance of the telephone service in Britain is, however, improving as the objective statistics show. This is despite an annual growth in trunk traffic of about 13 per cent. in the last few years and the fact that the number of connections and subscribers is increasing.
  The hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Kenneth Baker) and other hon. Members in the debate have referred to the waiting list. I am glad to tell the House that although the telephone system has increased by 30 per cent., from 10 million to 13 million telephone numbers, in the last three years and the number of all calls has grown by 2,000 million per annum, which represents a 30 per cent. growth, nevertheless, although we are dealing with a great expansion in the use of the existing system, we are also applying ourselves to extending the service as well.
  We have been able to reduce the waiting list to a very substantial extent. We can now accept 86 per cent. of all orders on demand, and in many parts of the country there is no waiting list. We have reduced the waiting list by 37,000 in the last nine months and we expect to reduce it by 14,000 by the end of March. Therefore, during the present 12 months; we shall achieve the greatest reduction in the waiting list since 1957–1958, and we are well on course for abolishing the waiting list in 1970.
  It is significant that in this debate the Opposition spokesmen have not sought an opportunity of emphatically denying what my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East referred to in his speech: the threat that if they should ever win an election the Conservative Party will sell off the telecommunications system to private enterprise.
  Such a measure, which has been advocated by the right hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) and is quoted in a Conservative Political Centre document which I have in my hand, would be against the interests of the public. It would be a deplorable invasion of the public interest. It is unnecessary and undesirable, because the telephone service is being developed with its £2,000 million development programme over the next five years at a rate which is necessary

  1067
  to improve the system. Private enterprise is certainly not required to improve it. I invite the House to reject the Motion.
  Question put,
  That this House regrets the deteriorating services provided by the Post Office.
  The House divided: Ayes 155, Noes 191.

  Division No. 51.]

  AYES

  [10.0 p.m

  Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

  Grieve, Percy

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

  Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

  Page, John (Harrow, W.)

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

  Gurden, Harold

  Pardoe, John

  Awdry, Daniel

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Pearson, Sir Frank (Clitheroe)

  Baker, Kenneth (Acton)

  Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

  Percival, Ian

  Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Cos. & Fhm)

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Biffen, John

  Hawkins, Paul

  Pounder, Rafton

  Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel

  Hay, John

  Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

  Blaker, Peter

  Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel

  Prior, J. M. L.

  Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S. W.)

  Heseltine, Michael

  Pym, Francis

  Body, Richard

  Higgins, Terence L.

  Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

  Bossom, Sir Clive

  Hiley, Joseph

  Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John

  Hill, J. E. B.

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward

  Holland, Philip

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Brinton, Sir Tatton

  Hooson, Emlyn

  Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

  Bromley -Davenport, Lt. -Col. Sir Walter

  Hordern, Peter

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Hornby, Richard

  Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

  Bruce-Cardyne, J,

  Howell, David (Guildford)

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Bryan, Paul

  Hunt, John

  Russell, Sir Ronald

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

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Scott, Nicholas

  Bullus, Sir Eric

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Burden, F. A.

  Jopling, Michael

  Sharples, Richard

  Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)

  Carlisle, Mark

  Knight, Mrs. Jill

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

  Clegg, Walter

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Speed, Keith

  Corfield, F. V.

  Lane, David

  Steel, David (Roxburgh)

  Costain, A. P.

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Stodart, Anthony

  Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

  Crouch, David

  Loveys, W. H.

  Tapsell, Peter

  Crowder, F. P.

  Lubbock, Eric

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  MacArthur, Ian

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

  Dance, James

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

  Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

  Dean, Paul,

  Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain

  Temple, John M.

  Dodds-Parker, Douglas

  Maginnis, John E.

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  Doughty, Charles

  Marten, Neil

  Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy

  Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

  Maude, Angus

  Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.

  Eden, Sir John

  Mawby, Ray

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John

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

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

  Walker, Peter (Worcester)

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Mills, Peter (Torrington)

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

  Eyre, Reginald

  Mills, Stratum (Belfast, N.)

  Wall, Patrick

  Farr, John

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Walters, Dennis

  Fisher, Nigel

  Monro, Hector

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Fortescue, Tim

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Foster, Sir John

  Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

  Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

  Galbraith, Hn. T. G.

  Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

  Williams, Donald (Dudley)

  Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

  Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  Nabarro, Sir Gerald

  Younger, Hn. George

  Glyn, Sir Richard

  Neave, Airey

  Gower, Raymond

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Grant, Anthony

  Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

  Mr. Jasper More and

  Grant-Ferris, R.

  Nott, John

  Mr. Timothy Kitson

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Boyden, James

  Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Alldritt, Walter

  Bray, Dr. Jeremy

  Delargy, Hugh

  Anderson, Donald

  Brown, Rt. Hn. George (Belper)

  Dewar, Donald

  Ashley, Jack

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

  Diamond, Rt. Hn. John

  Ashton, Joe (Bassetlaw)

  Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)

  Dobson, Ray

  Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)

  Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch & F'bury)

  Doig, Peter

  Barnett, Joel

  Buchan, Norman

  Driberg, Tom

  Baxter, William

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter)

  Beaney, Alan

  Carmichael, Neil

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

  Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Eadie, Alex

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Coe, Denis

  Edwards, William (Merioneth)

  Binns, John

  Concannon, J. D.

  Ellis, John

  Bishop, E. S.

  Cronin, John

  English, Michael

  Blackburn, F.

  Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard

  Ennals, David

  Booth, Albert

  Dalyell, Tam

  Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)

  Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

  Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)

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

  Faulds, Andrew

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)

  Fernyhough, E.

  Loughlin, Charles

  Price, Christopher (Perry Barr)

  Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir Eric (Islington, E.)

  Luard, Evan

  Price, Thomas (Westhoughton)

  Fowler, Gerry

  Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

  Randall, Harry

  Freeson, Reginald

  McBride, Neil

  Rankin, John

  Gardner, Tony

  McCann, John

  Rees, Merlyn

  Garrett, W. E.

  MacColl. James

  Reynolds, Rt. Hn. G. W.

  Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)

  MacDermot, Niall

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Macdonald, A. H.

  Ross, Rt. Hn. William

  Gregory, Arnold

  McGuire, Michael

  Ryan, John

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Mackie, John

  Shaw, Arnold (llford, S.)

  Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

  Maclennan, Robert

  Sheldon, Robert

  Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

  Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)

  Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

  McNamara, J. Kevin

  Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  MacPherson, Malcolm

  Silverman, Julius

  Hamling, William

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Slater, Joseph

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

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

  Small, William

  Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

  Manuel, Archie

  Snow, Julian

  Haseldine, Norman

  Mapp, Charles

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Hattersley, Roy

  Marks, Kenneth

  Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

  Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John

  Henig, Stanley

  Mendelson, John

  Swain, Thomas

  Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret

  Millan, Bruce

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. George

  Hooley, Frank

  Miller, Dr. M. S.

  Thornton, Ernest

  Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Milne, Edward (Blyth)

  Tinn, James

  Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)

  More, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

  Tomney, Frank

  Howarth, Robert (Bolton, E.)

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Tuck, Raphael

  Hoy, James

  Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

  Urwin, T. W.

  Huckfield, Leslie

  Moyle, Roland

  Varley, Eric G.

  Hughes, Emrys (Ayrshire, S.)

  Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Neal, Harold

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Hunter, Adam

  Newens, Stan

  Wallace, George

  Hynd, John

  Oakes, Gordon

  Watkins, David (Consett)

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

  Ogden, Eric

  Wellbeloved, James

  Janner, Sir Barnett

  O'Malley, Brian

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Jeger, George (Goole)

  Oram, Albert E.

  Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Orbach, Maurice

  Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Oswald, Thomas

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

  Owen, Will (Morpeth)

  Willis, Rt. Hn. George

  Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)

  Padley, Walter

  Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

  Judd, Frank

  Paget, R. T.

  Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

  Kelley, Richard

  Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

  Winnick, David

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Park, Trevor

  Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.

  Lawson, George

  Parkin, Ben (Paddington, N.)

  Woof, Robert

  Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick (Newton)

  Pavit, Laurence

  Lever, Harold (Cheetham)

  Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)

  Pentland, Norman

  Mr. Charles Grey and

  Lewis, Hon (Carlisle)

  Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)

  Mr. Joseph Harper.

  ROYAL NAVAL MINE DEPOT, WARBNESS (USE)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. McCann.]
  10.11 p.m.
  Mr. Julian Ridsdale: My purpose in raising this question of the Royal Naval Mine Depot at Wrabness is to challenge the decision of the Government to turn the depot into a Category C prison. In the national interest I am certain that this depot should, in the first place, have been offered for sale by public auction with an industrial development certificate so that it could be used for industry. Surely, industry and exports must have priority over other uses. Only if no other industrial use can be found for it should it be used as a Category C prison.
  The depot has extensive buildings covering over 250,000 sq. ft. It is seven
  1070
  and a half miles west of Harwich, bounded on the north by the River Stour and on the south by the British Railways main line from London to Harwich. It is approximately 70 acres in size and has a 1,000 ft. frontage to the River Stour.
  The principal buildings have good road and rail access. It has a railway marshalling yard composed of three parallel lines 500 ft. long immediately inside the depot. There are 12 semidetached houses, each with two reception rooms and three bedrooms, with two semi-detailed bungalows containing similar accommodation.
  Further building land could be made available if an industry coming to this site required to build more houses. It is the ideal site for an industrial concern that has a primary interest in exports and the export trade. It appears almost to be ready-made for taking over by an industrial company.

  1071
  This was, indeed, realised by the Conservative Government in 1964 when, on 17th August, the Senior Surveyor of Lands of the Rural Land Office told the local council that it would be advertised next year and the Navy Department would like to be able to say that planning permission for any industrial purpose would be granted. I ask the Government whether the site was ever advertised.
  As far as I know, the depot has never been advertised for industrial use. The buildings have been empty ever since waiting for the Government to make up their mind about what they should do. This is why I charge the Government with lethargy and lack of foresight. They have clung, for over four years, to a valuable industrial site which surely, in the national interest, should have been offered for sale by public auction with the Board of Trade saying that an i.d.c. would be available. As an industrial site it would have a unique advantage in helping with the export trade.
  Have the Government no conception at all of the economic progress and development in Harwich and the Stour Estuary? The port of Parkeston and Harwich Navy Yard are taking an evergrowing amount of traffic and industry is expanding and exports for the area are increasing at a very fast rate. Some industries are short of land for expansion. As barriers with the Continent are lowered this industrial development in the Stour Estuary is bound to grow still more. There is only one barrier, and that is the Government's refusal to grant i.d.c.s more readily. Their fixation with development areas is leading them to neglect areas with natural industrial growth, and as a consequence decisions are being made, as a result of which a valuable industrial site is proposed to be turned into a Category C prison.
  Surely, realising how the area is developing in the export trade and industrially, if it is to be used by a Government Department a new Customs clearance depot would be far more appropriate. Have the Government studied how countries like Japan have benefited by allowing industrial development near their ports? Considerable savings are made both in time and transport costs. I am certain that when such buildings as this become available from a Govern-
  1072
  ment Department they should be used by other Government Departments only if, in this critical time for our economy, they have no industrial use or requirement—especially no requirement for the export trade.
  In this case I claim that these buildings not only have an industrial use but a big potential for helping our export trade. I therefore ask the Government, before pressing ahead with this scheme, to reconsider their decision and put the buildings up for sale by public auction with the promise that an industrial certificate will be made available. I am sure that there would be a considerable saving to the taxpayer. Surely a cheaper site than this can be found in some other part of the country, rather than using a valuable industrial site for the proposal that we have before us
  This is a waste of a valuable site and of taxpayers' money. It is going against local advice. It is piecemeal planning at its very worst, and for the sake of good planning and common sense I sincerely ask the Government to change their mind and to allow this site to go for public auction, with an i.d.c., so that it can be used for our export trade and as an industrial site.
  10.18 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Elystan Morgan): The speech of the hon. Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale) serves to underline once again the difficulties by which we at the Home Office are beset in our efforts to build new prisons. I am sure that there is no dispute between the hon. Member and myself about the need for measures to relieve the gross overcrowding that exists in so many of the older Victorian prisons and to provide modern methods of penal treatment. Indeed, the Estimates Committee referred to the problems in its 11th Report, and I cannot do better than quote the words it used. It said:
  "Your Committee felt that the future development of the prison system, however long the term in which it is viewed, must include a full-scale and radical attack on conditions in these Victorian prisons in order to put an end to the existence of such conditions."
  The conditions to which the Committee referred can to some extent be ameliorated by improving and developing these older buildings. However, any

  1073
  programme of this kind must be accompanied by one to provide more new places quickly by new building if any significant progress is to be made. There are at present throughout our prisons nearly 7,000 prisoners sleeping two or three to a cell intended for only one prisoner. Many are in the Category C referred to by Lord Mountbatten in his Report on prison escapes and security as prisoners lacking the will and resources to make escape attempts, but at the same time lacking the stability to be kept in conditions presenting no barrier to their escape. Apart from being safeguarded, the accommodation now occupied by these men should be exclusively available for prisoners requiring a more restrictive régime, and it is wrong that Category C prisoners should be housed in this way. To make more suitable provision for them, we are about to embark on a programme to provide prisons specially designed for Category C prisoners.
  This is justified not only because of the number of prisoners involved but also as an exercise in cost-effectiveness. It is, for example, much cheaper to build prisons for this type of inmate than for prisoners with a higher security classification. This is so not only because the buildings themselves cost less but because it is possible to house as many as 750 prisoners in such prisons without creating appreciable problems of security, control and management.
  If we were able to build enough of these new prisons, it would be by far the quickest way of making a real impact on the present unsatisfactory conditions. Of the 7,000 or so prisoners sleeping in overcrowded conditions, about a third are in prisons in the South-East of England. The problem is particularly acute in London. To meet this situation and to provide in the region the range of prisons needed if prisoners are to be given the kind of treatment most appropriate to their needs, two new prisons, each for 750 Category C prisoners, are required.
  It is proposed to put one of these at Wrabness. The site, although a little remote from London, is nevertheless suitable and at the moment in Government ownership. As the Estimates Committee said in its Report:
  "The policy of building on land redundant to the needs of other Government departments has economic advantages and avoids
  1074
  the need to disturb existing land use or the exercise of compulsory acquisition powers."
  The site is also well situated from the point of view of the staff who would be required to run the prison; this, of course, is a highly important consideration.
  The hon. Gentleman has, on the other hand, pleaded that the premises should be used for industrial development, and he has spoken about attracting industry to the site. It is perhaps significant that the depôt was declared redundant as long ago as the middle of 1964, and although the possibility of using the site for industrial purposes has been canvassed from time to time since then, there has not, so far as I know, been any firm proposal to that end.
  Mr. Ridsdale: Could the hon. Gentleman say whether it has ever been advertised with an industrial development certificate?
  Mr. Morgan: I do not think that it could possibly be so, because that would happen only in the event of there being a specific proposal for a particular type of development. I am afraid that I cannot tell the hon. Member whether it has been advertised, but it is clearly a place which must, in local knowledge, be regarded as a site which would be right for development, all things being equal. If there were a voracity for development on the part of private industrial enterprise which included this mine depôt, we should have known something about it up to the present, but over four years nothing has happened. There is no evidence to show the acute demand which the hon. Gentleman has sought to pray in aid. We, too, are most concerned about the provision of suitable work for our prisoners. The hon. Member may, therefore, be assured that any new prisons of this kind envisaged will provide good industrial employment for the inmates. Industry of this kind makes a significant contribution to the economy.
  Government Departments are obliged, under the procedure laid down for them by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government, to consult local authorities about their proposed developments. Already informal discussions have been held between officials of the Home Office and the Essex County Council. These will be followed very

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  shortly by a formal approach under the required procedure. It is not for me to speculate what the reactions of the local authorities might be, but should there be a request for a local public inquiry to be held into the proposal, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government would, I know, be prepared to consider such a request sympathetically.
  I do not know whether there are any local fears in connection with the proposed change of use of this place and its development as a prison. That is not an entirely new phenomenon in connection with the building of prisons, but our experience over the years has shown that those fears are rarely justified, and they would not be justified in this case. Sometimes we are said to be threatening the amenities of the area, interfering with the use of land for agricultural purposes, offending against green belt considerations and defining the landscape with hideous buildings.
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  I know that the hon. Member does not make that point, but in case there should be any such plea in this locality I stress that none of these considerations would apply at Wrabness. The prison will be of modern construction and to modern design, although use will be made of buildings which already exist where that can be done.
  All of that is said, of course, in the supposition that in the event of an inquiry being held, the desire of the Home Office so to develop the site would be upheld We therefore propose to seek formally the views of the local authorities as early as possible. We shall give the fullest consideration to any observations which they may wish to make on our proposals, but I must give notice that the need for new prisons is so vital that we cannot lightly contemplate abandoning our proposals for developing this site in the way in which I have described.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes past Ten o'clock.