Commons Sitting of 20 November 1969

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

  HOME DEPARTMENT
  CS Smoke
  Mr. Dalyellasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is satisfied with the current methods of granting permission to the police for the use of CS gas in cases of civil disorder; and if he will make a statement.
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. James Callaghan): Chief officers of police in England and Wales do not contemplate the use of CS smoke to control civil disorder.
  Mr. Dalyell: Granted that the Government have done a good job in training the R.U.C., may we have an assurance that there has been a directive to police forces that never again will there be a repetition of the original events in Londonderry when CS gas was used by an untrained police force?
  Mr. Callaghan: That does not arise out of the Question. I am responsible for police in England and Wales.
  Mr. McMaster: Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that the same rules about the use of CS gas apply to the Army as to the police. so that there will be no repetition of what occurred when CS gas was used at a peaceful church parade at which there was no fear of either rioting or looting?
  Mr. Callaghan: The Question and my answer dealt with police in England and Wales.
  Mr. Dalyellasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what
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  action he is taking as a result of the Himsworth Committee Report on the use of gas in Northern Ireland.
  Mr. Callaghan: The report recommended the enlargement of Sir Harold Himsworth's committee and the extension of its terms of reference to assess the evidence about CS in the widest possible way. This has been done, as indicated in the report itself.
  Mr. Dalyell: If part two of the Report is expected in March, may we be told something about the question that is left open by part one as 10 the effect of CS gas on the old, the sick, the pregnant and the very young? Will part two deal with those matters?
  Mr. Callaghan: I would expect the committee to take that fact into account as it was raised in the original report.
  Mr. Macdonald: In view of the fact that all forces, except the Metropolitan Police, hold devices which are inaccurate for discharging CS gas, what steps will my right hon. Friend take to ensure that these devices are replaced by more accurate ones?
  Mr. Callaghan: The stocks held by the police are for use only in limited cases, and I have no reason to believe that they are inadequate for that purpose.

  Community Relations
  Sir G. Sinclairasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is satisfied with the working relationships between the headquarters of the Community Relations Commission and the community relations councils throughout the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement.
  Mr. Callaghan: I believe that these working relationships are satisfactory, and I am aware of the great importance which the commission attaches to the support it can provide for the work of these councils.
  Sir G. Sinclair: In view of the public evidence of widespread dissatisfaction, will the Home Secretary inquire further into the relationship between the commission and the community relations councils, especially those of Birmingham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Wandsworth, and make a report to the House?
  Mr. Callaghan: The hon. Gentleman has referred to three councils out of 80. I am aware that there is a certain amount of dissatisfaction among a small number of councils. I constantly keep myself abreast of the relationship between the commission and the councils, and there is no evidence of widespread unrest.
  Sir G. Sinclairasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the work of the Community Relations Commission.
  Mr. Callaghan: The commission has been in existence for less than a year. It is operating in a difficult area, but its annual report, which has been laid before Parliament, shows that a good deal of positive work has been done.
  Sir G. Sinclair: In view of the evidence of dissatisfaction among many senior members of staff, two of whom have resigned and others are contemplating employment elsewhere, will the Home Secretary now publish the Civil Service report, or will he institute an inquiry of his own and report to the House?
  Mr. Callaghan: The hon. Gentleman seems intent on making these assertions based on very little evidence. I am sorry that he is doing it when the commission is operating. It is a new body, which has teething troubles, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support it.
  I will consider publication of the report, but the hon. Gentleman should not draw the conclusion that that means I will publish it.
  Mr. Bidwell: Will my right hon. Friend undertake to draw to the attention of the commission and its chairman the need to get maximum local authority co-operation in community relations, as many Tory-controlled authorities, particularly Powellites and neo-Powellites, are dragging their feet on this question?
  Mr. Callaghan: I hope that local authorities will co-operate. My hon. Friend spotlights one of the difficulties in the relationship between the commission and local committees, which are voluntary bodies partially financed by other institutions, and it is likely that they will have their own views about the way that the matter should be conducted. It is for the commission to try to harmonise
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  these views into a common programme of education in the matter.
  Mr. Deedes: Accepting what the right hon. Gentleman says about it being early days, will he accept that several things are wrong: first, the lack of a full-time chairman; second, a good deal of internal dissension; and, third, a lack of resolution by the Home Office in following up the results of its own inquiry early in the summer?
  Mr. Callaghan: On the first point, there need by no difficulty, if it were thought right, in considering whether the appointment should be full-time. That is not a point of principle.
  Second, I am not aware of any widespread dissatisfaction. 'The hon. Gentleman should not speak for the Commission or its staff. I am aware that a small number of people are dissatisfied and are certainly doing their best to ensure that the hon. Gentleman makes the most of their dissatisfaction. However, I have no evidence that it is widespread.
  On the third point, if we are at fault, I will follow it up; but I was not aware that we were at fault.

  Capital Punishment
  Mr. Woodnuttasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will consider introducing legislation to reintroduce capital punishment for the murder of law enforcement officers.
  Mr. Callaghan: No, Sir.
  Mr. Woodnutt: Would the Home Secretary not agree that for vicious men who are already in prison for the rest of their lives a further prison sentence cannot possibly be a deterrent, and that capital punishment may be a deterrent?
  Mr. Callaghan: That raises a wider question, but I am happy to say, and long may it continue, that no prison officer has been killed by a prisoner in one of Her Majesty's prisons for many years.
  Mr. Brooks: Would my right hon. Friend not accept that there is a curious anomaly in that there are a number of offences in Acts dating from 1772 to 1957 for which the death penalty is still retained? Would he indicate in what circumstances such penalties might be applied.
  Mr. Callaghan:No, Sir, not without notice. I seem to remember something of the kind in the Naval Discipline Act, but it is a long time since Admiral Byng.

  Football Matches (Hooliganism)
  Mr. William Priceasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what further steps he proposes to take to curb violence at football matches.
  Mr. Kenneth Lewisasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he proposes to take to deal with vandalism and violence before and after football matches.
  Mr. Callaghan: The arrangements for the quick exchange of information between police forces about hooliganism among football supporters on trains have been strengthened; a code of practice designed to encourage good behaviour by supporters has been circulated by the Football Association to all League clubs; and clubs are being encouraged to provide stewards to travel on football trains.
  Mr. Price: May I tell the Home Secretary, as one who frequently watches football matches from behind the goal, that there are serious riots on the way and that the effect on football will be disastrous? Will he do two things: first, ask clubs to keep rival supporters apart in the ground, and, second, tell magistrates that some of the punishments being imposed are totally inadequate?
  Mr. Callaghan: While I do not wish to avoid responsibility, neither of those matters happens to be my responsibility. The police are concerned with what happens outside the ground and not with what happens behind the goal. As for magistrates, there is a lot to be said for a general expression of opinion from the House if that is desired, but it is not for me to instruct them—indeed it would be resented if I were to try to do so—in the kind of sentences they should impose.
  Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Would the Home Secretary, nevertheless, encourage the courts to strengthen the penalties and to suspend some of the young attenders at football matches who create disturbances for the same number of weeks as some players are suspended so that they cannot attend matches but have to turn up at police stations?
  Mr. Callaghan: The new liaison arrangements undertaken by the police have the effect, in certain appropriate circumstances, of requiring young people to report at police stations and at other places for work and other beneficial duties on a Saturday afternoon.
  Mr. Fred Evans: Would the Home Secretary accept that everybody in Wales shares the perturbation expressed in the House about incidents at the Swansea-Springbok game? Will his inquiry embrace methods of recruitment of stewards by clubs and the instructions issued to them? Will he also read carefully the depositions which I have sent to him today concerning detailed circumstantial evidence of violence at that particular game?
  Mr. Callaghan: If allegations are made against the police in relation to that particular game, I think I should hold myself free to consider the matter at a later time when I might have to come in in my capacity as an appellate authority. I would not want now to prejudge that issue. If complaints are made against stewards, then the complainants have their remedies in the courts if they can identify the persons who assaulted them. If they cannot identify them, I do not think that I can.
  Mr. Eldon Griffiths: Why is it that when demonstrators attack the police it is described as crowd violence, but when the police use necessary force in the enforcement of law and order it is described as police brutality? Will the right hon. Gentleman rectify an omission the other day, when great concern was expressed in the House about the damage done to demonstrators but no one drew attention to the fact that we have every reason to regret the attack on a police sergeant which injured him severely?
  Mr. Callaghan: Vandalism is vandalism, whoever indulges in it. Violence is violence, by whoever it is practised. I hope that the House condemns both vandalism and violence, whoever is responsible. My experience shows that the police are extremely self-controlled in the manner in which they respond to a great deal of provocation. That is not to say that the occasional policeman does not lose his temper. He would be less than human if he did not. But, in his quieter moments,

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  that is frowned upon by him and by his colleagues. That is a standard that we want to maintain.

  Arab Terrorist Activities
  Mr. Arnold Shawasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department in view of the danger of increased Arab terrorist activities throughout the world, what precautions he has taken to safeguard persons and property in this country.
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mrs. Shirley Williams): Chief officers of police keep a close watch on activities of this kind, but I do not think it would help to give details of precautions.
  Mr. Shaw: Has my hon. Friend given thought to the safety of this place? Is she aware that it is reported that one hon. Member of this House is associated with the terrorist El Fatah organisation, and that there are certain other hon. Members who hold funds, as far as we know for no specific purpose, subscribed by a foreign Government who are sympathetic towards the terrorist organisations?
  Mr. Speaker: Order. It is customary, if an hon. Member proposes to refer to another hon. Member, to inform the hon. Member concerned.
  Mrs. Williams: On the first part of my hon. Friend's Question, my right hon. Friend will do everything in his power to protect the House. I think that past experience has shown that that has worked. As for the second part of my hon. Friend's question, I think that he should substantiate his allegations, following which, of course, they will be taken up in the proper quarters.

  Fireworks Accidents
  Mr. Laneasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to reach decisions following the results of his Department's inquiry into accidents caused by fireworks.
  Mr. Roseasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what further action he plans to take to limit the dangers to the public of fireworks.
  Mr. John Wellsasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he
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  will introduce legislation to raise the age of persons to whom fireworks may be sold.
  Mr. St. John-Stevasasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make a further statement of departmental policy in relation to the sale of dangerous fireworks which may cause accidents.
  Mr. Spriggsasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received about the present provisions for the sale of fireworks to children since 5th November. 1969 and what reply he has sent.
  Mrs. Shirley Williams: My right hon. Friend has received a number of representations that the sale of fireworks to the public should be restricted further, or banned. As the House knows, my right hon. Friend is considering whether the age of persons to whom fireworks may be sold should be raised, and proposes to arrange a meeting of all the organisations concerned with the problem of injuries caused by fireworks when the 1969 figures have been analysed.
  Mr. Lane: While the much lower rate of accidents this year is welcome, will the hon. Lady keep in mind the fact that there would be great public support for a proposal to raise the minimum age for buying fireworks to 16, not only from the point of view of the risk to children but, equally important, from that of the possible annoyance to older people?
  Mrs. Williams: On the hon. Gentleman's first point, it is encouraging that accidents have been well below the 1962 figures for some years now. Nevertheless, it is disturbing that, of those involved in accidents, a large proportion are young children under 13. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State said in the Adjournment debate on 29th October that he would look very seriously at the possibility of raising the age at which children can be sold fireworks.
  Mr. Rose: Is my hon. Friend aware that, since the meetings four or five years ago between the Home Office and the manufacturers of fireworks, the manufacturers have been dragging their feet? May I suggest that fireworks manufacturers be invited to visit the burns unit

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  of the Booth Hall Hospital in my constituency in order to see the results of some of these terrible accidents?
  Mrs. Williams: The manufacturers will certainly be invited to the meeting to be held by my right hon. Friend, and all these questions will be raised with them. As for my hon. Friend's invitation, I would suggest that he sends that direct to the fireworks manufacturers.
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: Leaving aside the question of the unsuitability of rejoicing at the death of one who, were he alive today, might be regarded more as a benefactor than as a malefactor, would it not be a new and ludicrous extension of paternalism to ban altogether the sale of fireworks? Is not the solution the more stringent enforcement of existing regulations?
  Mrs. Williams: The hon. Gentleman will recognise that some motor car drivers share his view about that historical figure in the past of the House of Commons. However, one has always to make a division between trying to forbid things and trying to treat people as responsible. Our view is that the distinction should be drawn between children who cannot be regarded as wholly responsible and parents who should take responsibility for what they do.
  Mr. Spriggs: Is my hon. Friend aware that there are two very important points at issue? They are the health and safety of children versus vested interests. Will my hon. Friend look at that issue when examining this problem, and take some action?
  Mrs. Williams: I can only repeat that, with regard to children, obviously the situation must be treated very seriously. Every time that Guy Fawkes day approaches my right hon. Friend endeavours to give the best possible advice to parents about the use of fireworks. It must be said clearly that parents have the major responsibility for protecting young children from the effects of dangerous accidents at this time.

  Police (Pensions)
  Mr. Laneasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress he has made in his discussions with police representatives about the safeguarding of police pension rights which
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  may be affected by the Government's new national superannuation scheme; and if he will make a statement.
  Mr. Callaghan: The Police Council for Great Britain, which f consult before making police pensions regulations, has set up a working party representative of all police interests to examine police pensions arrangements in the light of the Government's proposals for earnings-related pensions.
  Mr. Lane: While we are grateful for such reassurances as the Home Secretary and his colleagues have been able to give, will he bear in mind that the rate of resignations from police forces is already alarmingly high owing mainly to dissatisfaction with pay, and that uncertainty about pensions may for many be the last straw. Will he continue to give the matter the highest priority in the next few months?
  Mr. Callaghan: Assurances have been given to the police about pensions. I do not know where the rumours started, but the pension scheme is absolutely safe. They can retire now, and will be able to retire in future, at the normal age that they have in the past, without alteration.
  From this House, we have set up detailed machinery for working out rates of pay and provided negotiating machinery to do the job. When the time comes to review the arrangements, it will be for that machinery to do it.
  There is no evidence that wastage is any larger now than it has been. I would not like the hon. Gentleman's assertion to gain currency. I notice that he indicates disagreement. In his own force in Mid-Anglia, for example, it is running at about the normal rate.
  Sir D. Renton: As we have not had details of the assurances given to the police, will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that: police officers' rights under the police pensions scheme will not in any way be diminished by the proposed new national. superannuation scheme?
  Mr. Callaghan: If the right hon. and learned Gentleman cares to put down a Question, I will give a full and detailed answer. I am sure that he is not complaining that assurances have been given to the police.
  Mr. Eldon Griffiths: The Home Secretary, who knows so much about this, will wonder whether he has gone far enough. Can he not tell the House now that the Government will ensure that there is a non-worsenment arrangement for the police in any changes that are made?
  Mr. Callaghan: I ask the House to keep to this, because, although it may think it advantageous to raise these questions now, there will be occasions when it will not. The best way to handle these matters is to allow the appropriate body, set up at the request of the police organisations, to enter into negotiations and discussion. A working party is considering this matter.

  Taxi-cabs, Heathrow Airport
  Mr. Worsleyasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he expects that the Maxwell Stamp Committee on the London cab trade will include in its report a consideration of all the problems which affect the trade at London Airport, Heathrow.
  Mrs. Shirley Williams: Yes, Sir.
  Mr. Worsley: While thanking the hon. Lady for that reply, may I ask her to go a little further? Will she agree that a disproportionate number of difficulties which seem to affect the London taxis originate at Heathrow? If she does agree, will she put that point to the committee?
  Mrs. Williams: The committee is aware, as indeed is the Home Office, that while the majority of London cab drivers endeavour to maintain the by-laws at Heathrow, there is a minority which is prepared both to break the rules about moving from the feeding car park to the taxi ranks and also occasionally to exploit the ignorance of foreigners trying to get to London. We take the most serious view of this, and the committee will look into it very closely.
  Mr. Snow: Is my hon. Friend aware that this irritation is not confined to foreigners, but extends to English people as well, including provincial people travelling through London Heathrow? What is so different about the conditions at Heathrow compared with Orly and Le Bourget, where the schedule for, the run-in
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  to Paris is shown and any variations in the schedule are clearly marked and notified to the public?
  Mrs. Williams: I think that the answer to the next Question on the Order Paper will go some way to calming my hon. Friend's fears.
  Sir J. Langford-Holtasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the excessive fares still being charged by London taxis to and from London Airport; whether he will consult the British Airports Authority on this matter; and what other steps he proposes to take.
  Mrs. Shirley Williams: Fares between London Airport and destinations in Greater London are now controlled by the London Cab Order, 1968. My right hon. Friend has received only three complaints of overcharging since that order was made.
  Sir J. Langford-Holt: Will the hon. Lady take steps to inquire what overchargings are made, because charges of £3 to £3 10s. are being asked for cabs for which 36s. to 38s. is the correct fare? The Minister has a real responsibility—it is not just for the British Airports Authority, which admittedly has done virtually nothing—because a large part of the journey is in the Metropolitan area.
  Mrs. Williams: As the hon. Gentleman rightly implies, the proper fare from Heathrow to London is about 33s. to 36s., plus tip. In any case where there is overcharging the person concerned should report this within seven days.
  Recently an allegation of overcharging was made on a widely seen television programme. But I must emphasise that where such allegations are made and not followed up with evidence being supplied to the Metropolitan police or to the British Airports Authority, it is hardly surprising that the Home Office is unable to take action.
  Mr. Oakes: Will my hon. Friend tell the House whether she has received any complaints about the operation at London Heathrow airport of so-called mini-cabs in flagrant breach of the London Cabs Act, 1968, with apparent impunity?
  Mrs. Williams: Yes, indeed. Some cheap rate mini-cab drivers and hire car drivers who should not be there do appear at London Airport. The British Airports Authority has power to say who may or may not be there. I fully understand the feeling of cab drivers, that if they are asked to keep to the rules everybody else should do so.

  Gun licences
  Miss Quennellasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many gun licences have been granted, of all sorts, in the past 12 months to the nearest convenient date; and how this compares with those issued five, three and seven years ago, respectively.
  Mrs. Shirley Williams: As has been explained to the hon. Member by letter, gun licences have not been required since 13th December, 1966, although, of course, shotgun certificates have been required since May of last year. Statistics for earlier years are to be found in the OFFICIAL REPORT for 21st October, 1968.—[Vol. 770, cc. 221–2.]
  Miss Quennell: First, I should like to express my gratitude to the Home Department for its co-operation in this matter.
  Second, in view of the number of firearms which appear to be used in violent crime now, does not the hon. Lady think that we should look at the legislation that was put on the Statute Book recently to see whether it is having the effect for which we all hoped?
  Mrs. Williams: As the hon. Lady will know, the intention of the Firearms Act was to control more closely the possibility of possession of firearms. Since the Act came into force on 1st May, 1968, 600,000 certificates have been issued by chief officers of police in England and Wales. We will review the situation, but I am sure that the hon. Lady appreciates it is a little early to do so now.

  Drugs
  Miss Quennellasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what special studies his Department has made into the source or origin of supplies of illicit hard and soft drugs.
  Mr. Callaghan: Knowledge of the source of origin of illicit drugs is con
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  stantly being assembled, in particular through information obtained from the enforcement agencies both here and overseas.
  Miss Quennell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that magistrates and others concerned with the drug addiction that is spreading in this country are perturbed at the large amounts of drugs that apparently are available? Surely, it would be much wiser to try to stop the influx of drugs at the sources at which they enter the country than to chase them around when they are in the country.
  Mr. Callaghan: This will be true of cannabis, and the Customs and Excise does its best about it. As regards manufactured drugs, it is the view of my experts in the Home Office that most of those which are illicitly circulated were licitly manufactured in the United Kingdom. Although it is sometimes easy to identify the actual manufacturer, the point of diversion into the illicit market is much more difficult to identify, but we are using all the resources of the police that we can to keep track of this.

  Borstal Centre, Portland (Deaths)
  Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will state the number of deaths which have occurred in the Portland Borstal Centre during the past six months; when these occurred; what was the cause of death in each instance; and what action he has taken or intends taking to prevent such occurrences in the future.
  Mrs. Shirley Williams: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which was given to his Question on 22nd October. The measures taken to prevent attacks on inmates are kept under constant review.[Vol. 788, c. 255.]
  Mr. Lewis: I thank my hon. Friend for her kindness in interviewing me yesterday and for the discussions which ensued. Having said that, may I say that the information which she gave yesterday, and which she has given again today, is quite unsatisfactory, and that when the matter is no longer sub judice I shall take the opportunity of raising it on the Adjournment?
  Mr. Evelyn King: Does not the Question also show the delicacy and difficulty inherent in the tasks of a Portland borstal prison officer or housemaster? In the light of the risks that they run and the anxiety suffered by their wives—and one of the officers, too, was murdered in recent years —will the hon. Lady pay tribute to the quality of the work they do and the courage they show?
  Mrs. Williams: I think that borstal officers do a great deal of good in difficult circumstances. The answer to the point made by my hon. Friend is that in any case where an inmate in borstal loses his life there is an immediate departmental inquiry into the circumstances in an endeavour to establish all the facts.

  Parkhurst Prison (Category A Prisoners)
  Mr. Woodnuttasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will arrange for the number of category A prisoners at Parkhurst Prison to be reduced by sending a proportion of them to other prisons; and if he will introduce regulations to enable prison governors regularly to transfer category A prisoners from one prison to another.
  Mr. Callaghan: The category A population of Parkhurst, excluding the special security wing, is being reduced from 46 to about 30 during the next few weeks. Allocations of category A prisoners must be controlled centrally, but they are reviewed frequently, and governors are free to propose transfers.
  Mr. Woodnutt: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the first part of that reply, which is very welcome. As regards the second part, he will know that rumours get round prisons when trouble is brewing, and that the best way to deal with it is to take immediate action to remove the ringleaders to other prisons. The right hon. Gentleman would be wise to give governors the power to do that.
  Mr. Callaghan: I accept what the hon. Gentleman says in the first part of his question, but this is a matter that must be controlled centrally. There are relatively few of these prisoners. I am often consulted about the proposed allocations. I am certain that we must have regard to the whole policy for the country as a
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  whole and the limited number of prisoners concerned.
  Mr. Lipton: Does my right hon. Friend's reply mean that from now on his policy will be to reduce the number of category A prisoners in various prisons where they at present form a kind of inverted aristocracy in the prison, which has a very bad effect on the other prisoners?
  Mr. Callaghan: We have a limited number of prisons and prisoners. I have from time to time thought it a good thing to have a general post when trouble seemed to be brewing, but one must have regard to a number of factors, including the need to have people settled in one place for a period, and I think that the policy is working out as reasonably as one can get it to do, recognising that we are dealing with a particularly violent group of men.
  Mr. Deedes: How many prisons are there which can take category A prisoners?
  Mr. Callaghan: I think seven, but may I check that?

  Parking Penalties
  Mr. Wingfield Digbyasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many parking tickets were issued by police authorities in the last year; what percentage of the fines went to defray cost of wages and administration; and what rules govern the disposal of the remainder of the fund.
  Mrs. Shirley Williams: During 1968 the police in England and Wales issued 1,046,358 fixed penalty notices. The number of those that related to parking offences is not known. Fixed penalty payments are transferred to the Ministry of Transport without deduction for costs of administration.
  Mr. Digby: Are we to assume that this is the only form of central control—the transfer of these funds to the Ministry of Transport? Is there any information about how much of this money is being devoted to improve parking spaces for motorists?
  Mrs. Williams: Yes, Sir. Local authority profits from parking meters,

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  which include excess charges, are used to finance the provision of off-street car parking. The other penalties which arise are transferred to the Ministry of Transport because the police are financed under. a separate Vote.

  Dangerous Chemicals (Storage)
  Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimates are available of the quantities of cyanide and other dangerous chemicals which are stored in London and other major towns and cities; if he will take steps to increase the safety precautions necessary for the storage of these dangerous chemicals, in order to minimise the possibility of a major accident; and if he will make a statement.
  Mrs. Shirley Williams: Information on which worthwhile estimates could be made is not available. I believe that, in general, dangerous chemicals are properly safeguarded; but if my hon. Friend thinks that there are some particular problems which require attention and will let me have details, I shall be glad to study them.
  Mr. Roberts: I hate to disagree with my hon. Friend, but is she aware that many experts feel that there are enough dangerous chemicals stored in London alone to wipe out half the population of Great Britain? Can my hon. Friend say when we can expect some developments from the Home Office committee which is looking into the question of the control and transportation of dangerous chemicals?
  Mrs. Williams: I hate to have my hon. friend disagree with me, but the powers of my right hon. Friend in this respect do not extend to custody or to precautions against theft. My right hon. Friend's powers in respect of transportation and labelling are considerable, and there is no evidence that these powers are not adequate at the present time.

  Elections (Public Holidays)
  Air. Gwilym Robertsasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will take steps to make the day of a general election a public holiday; if he will examine means of arranging for
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  similar holidays on the days of some major local elections; and if he will make a statement.
  Mrs. Shirley Williams: So far as concerns Parliamentary elections, this matter was considered by Mr. Speaker's Conference on Electoral Law, which recommended no change in the law. I see no reason for dealing differently with local government elections.
  Mr. Roberts: Would not my hon. Friend agree that the present system has a built-in advantage for the Tory Party, many of whose election workers, as they are the idle rich, are available earlier in the day, whereas many of our election workers, who have to earn their living, are available only much later? Will my hon. Friend look at this again?
  Mrs. Williams: I deplore a number of built-in advantages whic the Opposition have, but I do not think that we ought to add to them. It is the case that elections held on Saturdays, particularly, invariably have a lower poll than those held on another day of the week. I am sure my hon. Friend will appreciate that the greater the number of people who vote, the greater the number who will indicate their support for my party.
  Sir A. V. Harvey: Even assuming that the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Gwilym Roberts) is right, does not the hon. Lady agree that to offset that there is a distinct advantage to the Government by fiddling the Boundary Commission's Report?

  Ethel Gee (Prison Sentence)
  Mr. Evelyn Kingasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will now recommend a revision in the prison sentence being served by Ethel Gee, sentenced at the same time as Lonsdale and the Krogers.
  Mr. Callaghan: No, Sir.
  Mr. King: I understand the right hon. Gentleman's difficulty, but was not the principal criminal in this spy trial, Lonsdale, sentenced to 25 years and released after serving one-eighth of his sentence, and thereafter the Krogers were sentenced to 20 years and released after serving less than half their sentence. Could it be equitable for this ageing typist, dominated as she was by her

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  lover, to be almost alone in bearing the penalty for a crime which she did not instigate, and into which she was misled?
  Mr. Callaghan: I note what the hon. Gentleman says. As he knows, this case has given me, personally, some concern. The hon. Gentleman also knows, because I wrote to him about it, that I did not have a favourable recommendation from the Parole Board in this case, and, therefore, I do not feel that I should act at the present time.
  Mr. Rose: Is it not inevitably going to cause resentment that the ringleaders should be allowed to go free because of their powerful friends, whereas this rather pathetic woman must remain in prison? Do not we have a maxim that justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done?
  Mr. Callaghan: Justice was done, but the question is when, and how much, mercy should come into the application of the justice. The people who have been referred to were foreign subjects and spies. Miss Gee is a citizen of this country, and the calculation is not exactly the same. But I note what my hon. Friend has said.
  Mr. Paget: Is not there a considerable difference between people like Lonsdale and the Krogers—who were loyal people serving their own country, as our own spies serve us—and those contemptible people who betray their own country for money?
  Mr. Callaghan: I repeat that I believe that justice was done. But the question arises as to the stage at which those who have been sentenced can be regarded as having fulfilled the appropriate sentence that public opinion would expect—and that is a matter that I shall keep under review, and I know that the Parole Board will also do so.
  Mr. King: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I beg to give notice that owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply I shall seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

  Mr. Moussa Balgobin
  Mr. Huntasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps are being taken to ensure that immigration officers comply with the
  1500
  instruction in Command Paper No. 3465 of 1967 relating to the admission of those in possession of valid entry certificates, following the refusal of admission to Mr. Moussa Balgobin, of Mauritius. at Gatwick Airport on 14th August, 1969.
  Mrs. Shirley Williams: I have no reason to think that immigration officers do not comply with the instruction.
  Mr. Hunt: Is not there a very important principle at stake here, in that Mr. Balgobin had a quite valid entry certificate and that there were clearly no grounds in law for us to have refused him admission to this country as a visitor? In view of that fact, is it not time that the instructions to immigration officers at Gatwick were made clearer? Did not those officers act quite wrongly in this respect?
  Mrs. Williams: One of the provisions of the instructions to immigration officers is that if an entry certificate is obtained by misrepresentation or the knowing concealment of material facts they have a right to refuse admission. In this case inquiry was made of the High Commission in Mauritius, which sustained the view that the entry certificate had been obtained by misrepresentation. As a result, Mr. Balgobin was refused admission. He then appealed to the High Court, and leave to appeal was given. He was offered bail until 21st September, but he returned home before his bail was up or the case could be heard, so it is difficult for the hon. Member or for me—with the best wishes of justice in mind—to reach a final conclusion in this case.

  School Crossing Patrols
  Mr. Huntasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will seek to arrange for the responsibility for school crossing patrols to be transferred from the Metropolitan Police to the local authorities.
  Mrs. Shirley Williams: My right hon. Friend has asked the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis to discuss the possible transfer of responsibility with the education authorities in the Metropolitan Police District. Any such change would require legislation.
  Mr. Hunt: I warmly welcome that answer, as far as it goes, but is my hon.

  1501
  Friend aware that I have two separate examples in my constituency, in Mead Way and Hayes Lane, where applications for school crossing patrols have been supported by parents, teachers, governors and managers of the schools concerned and have yet been turned down? How can a police commissioner sitting in New Scotland Yard know all the local factors involved? Will that point be borne in mind in the discussions that will now take place?
  Mrs. Williams: As the hon. Member implies, the situation is otherwise outside London. Talks are to be held to see whether we cannot bring the situation within London into line with what happens outside it.
  Mr. Molloy: Is my hon. Friend aware that some aspects of that answer were given to me nearly 12 months ago, since when nothing has happened? Is she further aware that many police forces and local authorities would prefer local authorities to be responsible for the provision of this service? Will she do all that she can to hasten this wish into a reality?
  Mrs. Williams: Yes, Sir.

  Remand Accommodation Women (Midlands)
  Mrs. Renee Shortasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will provide suitable and convenient alternative remand accommodation to the Brockhill Remand Centre for women in the West Midlands.
  Mrs. Knightasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department in view of the resolution passed unanimously by the Magistrates' Association at its annual general meeting on 10th October, 1969, concerning the need for remand accommodation for women in the Midlands, a copy of which is in his possession, if he will consider the possibility of re-opening Brockhill Remand Centre to women.
  Mr. Danceasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his Department have yet received various documents from the honourable Member for Bromsgrove relating to the Brock hill Remand Centre and whether he will make a statement.
  Mrs. Shirley Williams: I am reviewing this matter in the light of the representations received, the many other demands on an overstrained prison system and the need to ensure that where-ever women and girls are remanded in custody adequate nursing care is available.
  Mrs. Short: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for that reply. Is she aware that the Magistrates' Association has expressed great concern about the closure of this remand centre, and that it means that women now have to travel to Manchester or London, and that their relatives and legal advisers have to make the same journey? Will she therefore consider reopening the Brockhill Remand Centre—which would be the easiest way to deal with the problem?
  Mrs. Williams: All that my hon. Friend says is true, but I should add that a high proportion of women in custody and on remand are in need of psychiatric attention. We have had to balance the difficulties of getting nursing staff to go to Brockhill because of the difficulties to which my hon. Friend has referred. I have already promised to do my best and to look into the matter, but I cannot promise that Brockhill will necessarily be the place at which we try to meet the needs of the Midlands.
  Mrs. Knight: Will the Minister bear in mind—thinking of the remarks that the Minister made a moment or two ago—that although the magistrates are well aware of the problems that she outlined, their recommendation in this matter was quite unanimous?
  Mrs. Williams: I would hate to suggest that the recommendation was valueless, but the hon. Lady will realise that we cannot quickly bring about changes in matters which are causing great difficulty and are very complex. We are looking into this matter. Owing to the extreme legality and conformity of the female sex, we have so few female prisoners that we cannot have prisons situated within close reach of all their homes.
  Mr. Dance: Does the hon. Lady agree that Brockhill is a good place and that other alternative proposals have been put forward which could work, with the provision of a nursing staff? Will not

  1503
  she agree that someone in her Department has made a grave error in coming to the decision? Will not someone have the courage to say so, so that the decision can be reversed?
  Mrs. Williams: The hon. Member will recognise that I am most unlikely to follow him in his tempting remarks. It is not clear that Brockhill will be the answer, because there have been extreme difficulties in recruiting nursing staff. Nevertheless, I recognise the difficulties that now face the Midlands in this respect.

  EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY
  Mr. Martenasked the Prime Minister if he will invite the Heads of the Governments of the Common Market countries to a conference in London.
  Mr. Barnesasked the Prime Minister what communications he has received from the Heads of the European Economic Community Governments regarding Great Britain's application to join the European Economic Community following the summit meeting at The Hague.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson):I would refer to what I said in reply to Questions from several hon. Members last Tuesday.—[Vol. 791, c. 1106–12.]
  Mr. Marten: If the Prime Minister does have a meeting with the leaders of the Common Market will he take the opportunity of explaining to them—and will he explain to the House today—how far the Labour Government accept the safeguards in respect of negotiations on the Common Market so clearly set out in the Labour Party resolution passed at its conference in September of this year?
  The Prime Minister: I have heard this a number of times. The opening part of the hon. Member's supplementary question suggests that the rest must be hypothetical.
  Mr. Barnes: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that although the terms of British entry will be of great importance there is much more to our application than that? Is he fully satisfied that the Heads of Government are aware that des
  1504
  pite previous disappointments there is still a widespread desire in this country that we should now play a full part in the future political and economic development of Europe?
  The Prime Minister: I feel that there is full appreciation among the Heads of Government about the position of the British Government and this House on this matter, as regards the economic and technological aspects of joining the Community, and as regards the political value.
  Mrs. Short: Would it not be better if my right hon. Friend took no notice of the suggestion of the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) but concentrated on hammering out a suitable alternative when he visits President Nixon next year?
  The Prime Minister: I dealt with the question of alternatives, including N.A.F.T.A., worldwide free trade areas, and a reprise of the Kennedy Round, but none of these activities so far as there is a short-term hope of their leading to anything is incompatible with our application to join the European Economic Community.

  FIREWORKS ACCIDENTS
  Mr. Fauldsasked the Prime Minister if he will recommend setting up a Royal Commission to investigate the problem of injuries sustained by children from fireworks and to propose the changes in legislation consequential upon its findings.
  The Prime Minister: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) on 6th November. —[Vol. 790, c. 166.]
  Mr. Faulds: I thank my right hon. Friend for that pretty imprecise answer. Does he not recognise that there is mounting concern throughout the country at the annual toll of fireworks casualities as evidenced by Members' postbags? Will he reconsider his answer and the other answer?
  The Prime Minister: If my hon. Friend does not find enough precision there he may have found precision in the answers

  1505
  given by my hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Home Office to Questions earlier this afternoon. The concern to which my hon. Friend has referred is shared by my hon. Friend at the Home Office. It is for that reason, as stated in my answer, that my hon. Friend's Department is calling a meeting of all those concerned with manufacturing and other aspects of the safety question as soon as it is possible to analyse the 1969 casualty figures.
  Dr. Winstanley: Is not a criticism of this House that so many people can still quietly set fire to their children and grandmothers on 5th November? Since Royal Commissions take time, and it is clear that the recommendations of commissioners, both royal and otherwise, are not invariably implemented, would it not be wiser to allow the House to come to its own conclusions?
  The Prime Minister: My experience of participating in family fireworks parties suggests that the hon. Member has missed out a generation. I do not think that a Royal Commission is the answer. I believe that all the facts that can be found will be found when the 1969 figures are analysed and added to the analysis for previous years, and that the right answer —in the first instance, at any rate—is for my right hon. Friend's proposal to be followed up and for us to have meetings of all the manufacturing and other interests concerned.

  RHODESIA
  Mr. Biggs-Davisonasked the Prime Minister if he will give details of the communications he has received from Mr. Pat Bashford about the Government's Rhodesia policy; and what reply he has sent.
  The Prime Minister: I have not received any such communication, Sir.
  Mr. Biggs-Davison: Has the Prime Minister studied what this leading liberal opponent of Mr. Smith—
  Mr. Thorpe: Oh, really!
  Mr. Biggs-Davison: —wrote in The Times: that sanctions are having precisely the opposite of the intended effect? This being so, could he not now make a
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  reappraisal, however agonising, restore normal trade and allow British ideas to compete again in Rhodesia with those of South Africa?
  The Prime Minister: I saw the statement reported in The Times, of Mr. Bash-ford and also the replies to it by certain other people, including the Bishop of Matabeleland, whose attitude I would rather follow on Rhodesian questions. So far as British ideas are concerned, I have never noticed the hon. Member very active in seeing that British ideas of human rights are pushed in Rhodesia.
  Mr. Molloy: How many other nations have identified themselves with and recognised the illegal regime in Rhodesia, which is so often eulogised by some hon. Members opposite?
  The Prime Minister: Not one, Sir.
  Mr. Thorpe: In view of the premise of the question of the hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison), will the Prime Minister bear in mind that Mr. Bashford, whom he described as a liberal, is not so, and that most of the leading liberals in South Africa with any political experience are either in detention in their houses without trial or are in prison camps?
  The Prime Minister: It is certainly the case that some of those who have expressed liberal ideas there have shown singularly little effectiveness in pushing them in political terms—
  Mr. Biggs-Davison: It is your fault.
  The Prime Minister: It is the fault of the fact that they are living under a semi-Fascist regime. So far as the others are concerned, it is a fact that large numbers have been imprisoned without trial—that is true both of Europeans and of Africans who are opposed to the oppressive and repressive nature of the regime which the hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) has supported.
  Mr. Paget: Leaving aside the question of Mr. Bashford's liberality, does my right hon. Friend feel that the continuation of sanctions has the smallest prospect of toppling Mr. Smith or restoring legality in Rhodesia? If the answer be "No", what is the continuing point?
  The Prime Minister: The answer is "Yes". Although I have a great respect for my hon. and learned Friend on many issues, I have never agreed with his continued pressure in this House for four years that we should have a sell-out to racialist policies in Rhodesia.

  BUILDING MATERIALS (MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY)
  Mr. Bryant Godman Irvineasked the Prime Minister what responsibilities regarding materials have recently been transferred from the Ministry of Transport to the Ministry of Public Building and Works.
  The Prime Minister: Since May 1969, the Ministry of Public Building and Works has been the sponsoring Department for all building materials and aggregates: this includes certain materials (i.e. building stone, stone used as aggregate, and slag) for which responsibility was transferred from the Ministry of Transport; no change in statutory responsibilities was involved.
  Mr. Godman Irvine: What has led to this decision, and what is the right hon. Gentleman hoping to achieve by it?
  The Prime Minister: This was explained at the time that the transfer was made. It was felt that, because of the common usage both between the building industry and also the constructional industry's responsibilities for roads, it would be better for the responsibility for all these building materials, which raise many other wider questions—planning permission and so on—to be under one Department.

  TYNEMOUTH AND SOUTH SHIELDS (PETITION)
  Dame Irene Wardasked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on his action following the presentation to him of the petition, asking him to save the Tyne River from decline, to preserve its ferries and to abolish selective employment tax, on 15th October by the Mayor and Councillors of Tyne-mouth on behalf of the county boroughs of Tynemouth and South Shields.
  The Prime Minister: I arranged for a deputation consisting of the hon. Lady,
  1508
  my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) and local authority representatives, to be seen by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Local Government and Regional Planning later that day.
  Dame Irene Ward: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for having made that arrangement. Is he aware, however, that the petition was sent over from No. 10 to his right hon. Friend and that therefore the responsibility still rests with the right hon. Gentleman? What we on this North-East coast want to know is the answer to the questions contained in the Question which I have addressed to him today. May we have an answer please, because we will be dying if they do not get on with it?
  The Prime Minister: The hon. Lady will be aware that these matters are best dealt with by the Ministers who have departmental responsibility. She was, I think, pleased with the courteous way in which my right hon. Friend received the deputation. He is visiting the North-East tomorrow—Tees-side, I think—and will be on Tyneside next month. I think that it is better to let him deal with these matters, some of which are important. On some of them, I do not think the hon. Lady will find that a proper study by my right hon. Friend will show the same validity in the petition as she thinks.
  Mr. Blenkinsop: Is my right hon. Friend aware that we are very grateful for the great activity in our shipbuilding yards on the Tyne, but that, nevertheless, there is strong feeling on both sides of the Tyne about the danger of the disappearance of our major ferry and other activities in that area, and that people are very annoyed that nothing is being done to prevent that?
  The Prime Minister: I am aware of the position of the Market Place Ferry, referred to in the petition. This must be a matter for discussion with the Minister of Transport. Of course, it is somewhat unusual for a ferry to be part of a port authority's operation. Nevertheless, if a case can be made, loans and grants can be made available for harbour developments and it is possible to give capital expenditure, for example, for a new boat for the ferry.

  1509
  On the first part of my hon. Friend's qustion, in which he referred to shipbuilding, I would only say that both he and the hon. Lady the Member for Tyne-mouth (Dame Irene Ward) will be delighted to know, and will probably already know, that in 1968 net new orders for shipbuilding in the country as a whole were nearly three times as great as in 1964 and that new orders for export were 13 times as great as in 1964—and that the Tyne has had a very full share of these new orders.

  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (PRIME MINISTER'S VISIT)
  Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Prime Minister when he next expects to visit the United States of America for discussions with the President.
  The Prime Minister: It was announced simultaneously from 10 Downing Street and the White House last night that I have accepted President Nixon's invitation to visit Washington on 27th and 28th January for a further personal exchange of views on the international situation.
  Mr. Lewis: I thank my right hon. Friend for letting me know that it was announced last night, as I heard, and for his courtesy in dropping me a note to that effect. Has my right hon. Friend seen the Press reports that one of the subjects which will be discussed is, putting it in the Press report language, a "sellout" of Israel? May I be assured that my right hon. Friend will not in any way take part in any discussions which might have as their basis a sell-out of Israel?
  The Prime Minister: No agenda has yet been settled. I should be very surprised if the Middle East was not one of the questions discussed, but a sell-out of Israel is the policy neither of the United States Government nor of Her Majesty's Government.
  Sir R. Cary: In his discussions in January, would the Prime Minister tell the President that we should welcome a second visit from him to this country, perhaps next year?
  The Prime Minister: If the President felt able to get away for such a visit, it would he his third since he took office.
  Mr. John Mendelson: When my right hon. Friend meets the President, will he point out to him the very strong and deep feeling in this country about the wholesale assassination of ordinary village people in South Vietnam by members of the United States forces, which has been revealed, in the first place, to their great credit, in the American Press, which has upheld the tradition of the American Press in this matter? Would my right hon. Friend arrange for a debate in this House on Vietnam so that he may be fortified with the opinion of this House before he meets the President and discusses Vietnam with him?
  The Prime Minister: I have another Question to answer on Vietnam—the next one, indeed—and I am to answer Questions about Vietnam next week. The House has read the Press report of a number of very grave alleged incidents in Vietnam. Even if they proved to be only a quarter true, they would be regarded as very grave atrocities. In fact, there have been atrocities on both sides in this horrible and tragic war—
  Mr. Mendelson: Not on this scale.
  The Prime Minister: Even on this scale. I remember verified reports of 1,000 people being massacred by the Communists during their short period of occupation. But that does not excuse either of these kinds of atrocities. So far as the American alleged atrocities are concerned, these are a matter for very thorough investigation by the American Service authorities, and it would be for them to take any action. It is for us to express our horror, if these stories prove to be true. In America, free Senate, Congressional and Press discussion on these matters can lead to them being unearthed and brought into the light of day, which is not always the case in Communist countries.
  Dame Joan Vickers: When the right hon. Gentleman goes to see the President, will he have time to meet Mr. Dean Acheson to discuss his recently-expressed views on Rhodesia?
  The Prime Minister: I have read Press reports of Mr. Dean Acheson's statements, with which I totally disagree. Indeed, I would be surprised to think that many hon. Members here agreed with them. I recall, when on the benches

  1511
  opposite, expressing disagreement with other statements made by Mr. Acheson, and I also recall certain right hon. Gentlemen opposite, when speaking from this Dispatch Box, expressing their continued disagreement with some of his statements —statements of a distinguished figure who has lost a State Department and has not yet found himself a role.
  Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: Since President Nixon intends to keep his air force in Vietnam and since he intends to withdraw only ground troops as Marshal Theu's troops can take over, does my right hon. Friend agree that it appears to be his policy to keep a corrupt military dictatorship indefinitely in power; and will my right hon. Friend explain to President Nixon that that policy is not acceptable to the British people?
  The Prime Minister: Before answering my right hon. Friend's supplementary question, I hope that I will not be out of order in mentioning that the whole House will have read with regret his statement that he will not be seeking re-election to this House at the next General Election.
  To answer his basic question, my right hon. Friend will, of course, be aware of the clear proposals put forward by President Nixon about a solution in Vietnam, including the withdrawal—the phased and then total withdrawal—of all ground troops, if, of course, there is a settlement—and a settlement requires two sides to agree.
  We have had several statements and assertions by the American Government that they are prepared to withdraw totally from any commitment inside Vietnam. I know that my right hon. Friend will continue to urge on both sides the need for a permanent and democratic settlement.
  Mr. Sandys: When he meets President Nixon, will the right hon. Gentleman explain that very large numbers of people in this country appreciate the efforts which the United States are making to prevent the spread of Communism throughout South-East Asia?
  The Prime Minister: I have already answered questions about the American role in Asia. What I believe all of us appreciate above all is the fact that President Nixon has made a very clear
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  offer to withdraw his ground combat troops from Vietnam and to play his full part in ending the fighting there, if there can be a settlement. No hon. Member, whatever views he may hold about the present South Vietnamese Government, would wish to have a political solution imposed on Vietnam from anywhere which was contrary to the wishes of the people of that area.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Mr. Heath: Would the Leader of the House please state the business of the House for next week?
  The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Fred Peart): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
  MONDAY, 24TH NOVEMBER—Second Reading of the Local Authorities (Goods and Services) Bill and of the Industrial Development (Ships) Bill.
  TUESDAY, 25TH NOVEMBER Remaining stages of the Police Bill and the Ulster Defence Regiment Bill.
  WEDNESDAY, 26TH NOVEMBER—Remaining stages of the Customs (Import Deposits) Bill and the Rent (Control of Increases) Bill.
  THURSDAY, 27TH NOVEMBER—Supply [2nd Allotted Day]: Until seven o'clock there will be a debate on the £50 Travel Allowance, which will arise on an Opposition Motion, and afterwards on Rural Bus Services, also on an Opposition Motion.
  FRIDAY, 28TH NOVEMBER—Private Members' Motions.
  MONDAY, 1ST DECEMBER—Private Members' Motions until seven o'clock.
  Afterwards, Motions on the Milk Marketing Amendment 1933 Scheme, the West Riding County Council Order, the Cumberland County Council Order, the Defence Powers (Continuance) Order and the British Overseas Airways Corporation (Borrowing Powers) Order.
  Mr. Heath: Can the right hon. Gentleman now say when the promised debate on the Government's White Paper on pensions is to take place?
  Mr. Peart: No, Sir, I cannot say. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I am hopeful that there will be a White Paper. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I will look into the matter.
  Mr. Heath: Another White Paper?
  Mr. Peart: I was answering the right hon. Gentleman's question and was thinking of a separate matter, the social services, and so on. I will look into it. I cannot make a further statement on the subject today.
  Mr. Heath: Do I understand that we are to have yet another White Paper on the Government's pension plans?
  Mr. Peart: I understand that there have been discussions about the possibility of this. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I am trying to be helpful. I will look into the matter carefully. In any event, there is always an opportunity of using a Supply day.
  Mr. Heath: I must again question the right hon. Gentleman in view of the alarming prospect which he has held out. The first White Paper was barely comprehensible. The second was incomprehensible. What will the third one be like?
  Mr. Peart: I am anxious that information should be given to hon. Members. I will have discussions about the matter. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Heath: The whole House is bewildered by the right hon. Gentleman's statement. We are prepared to accept that there may be a third White Paper. Could we at least debate the second White Paper before getting the third?
  Mr. Peart: I was thinking about the Bill and was trying to be helpful. This is an important matter, but I cannot promise a specific debate at this stage.
  Mrs. Renee Short: For three weeks in succession I have raised with my right hon. Friend the need for a debate at the earliest possible opportunity on the proposals to reorganise the broadcasting services, but he has not yet made a firm announcement. Instead of taking some of the odds and ends which he has announced for debate next week, would he consider substituting an urgently
  1514
  needed debate on this subject? Is he aware of the concern that is now spreading through the B.B.C. staff, particularly in the regions, and the urgent need for this House to have a say about what is to happen to the broadcasting services in the future?
  Mr. Peart: I am aware of the importance of this matter. I replied last week and the week before to questions about it from my hon. Friend. I have conveyed her views to my right hon. Friend and it may be that we will have a statement shortly. However, I cannot promise anything for next week.
  Lord Balniel: Does the right hon. Gentleman recollect that a fortnight ago my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said, and the Prime Minister agreed, that a debate on the second White Paper on pensions would be desirable in view of the widespread concern that is felt about the Government's proposals? Is it not desirable that: we debate the matter at an early date?
  Mr. Peart: I said that I would look into the matter sympathetically. I repeat that I am trying to be helpful. I realise the importance of the subject—[Interruption.]—which, for some strange reason, hon. Gentlemen opposite appear to reject. I assure the noble Lord that I will convey all these views to my right hon. Friend.
  Mr. Winnick: In view of the serious allegations of mass murder in Vietnamese villages, would my right hon. Friend give serious consideration to having a debate on the Vietnam war, particularly in view of these allegations of mass murder? Is he aware that a Motion on the subject is now being tabled?
  Mr. Peart: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister answered a number of questions on this specific matter earlier. I was pressed the other week by my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) to have a general debate on Vietnam. I said that I would make representations to my right hon. Friend, and that has been done. However, on the specific point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick), I suggest that the Prime Minister gave satisfactory answers at Question Time.
  Mr. Jennings: Is it possible for the right hon. Gentleman to squeeze time out of next week's business as a matter of urgency for at least a half-day's debate on the present position of teachers and their salary claim?
  Mr. Peart: I appreciate that this is an important matter. Indeed, the teachers are at present involved in a dispute. However, I cannot find time for a debate next week.
  Mr. Maclennan: Would my right hon. Friend consult his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland about the possibility of initiating a debate in the Scottish Grand Committee on the Report of the Royal Commission on Local Government in Scotland?
  Mr. Peart: I will convey that suggestion to my right hon. Friend.
  Dame Irene Ward: Has the leader of the House seem the Motion standing in my name asking for a statement to be made about the strike of maintenance men on the Underground?
  [That, in the opinion of this House, a statement should be made on the continued strike by the Underground maintenance men which is causing inconvenience to the travelling public owing to the withdrawal of trains owing to lack of essential maintenance and the stoppage of escalators through lack of repair and on why this strike has caused less attention from the authorities than the unofficial strikes of the guards now settled to their advantage.]
  Since quite a lot of information has been given about the guards' dispute, which seems to have been satisfactorily settled, is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the need for a statement to be made about this strike? Is he aware of the difficulties that face people travelling on the Underground when some escalators are out of action? Is he aware that some trains must be taken out of service because there is nobody to fit the necessary spare parts? Can the House be told what is happening in this dispute?
  Mr. Peart: I have seen the hon. Lady's Motion. My right hon. Friend has been in touch with the bodies concerned and has been trying to reach a solution. I
  1516
  do not think that it would be helpful for us to debate the matter at this stage.
  Mr. Michael Foot: Does my right hon. Friend recognise that on Tuesday it may not be possible to conclude the business on the Ulster Defence Regiment Bill at a mutually agreeable time for us all'? Will he take into account that we may need further time to complete proper discussion of that Bill?
  Mr. Peart: I am aware of that possibility, and I will note what my hon. Friend says.
  Mr. Crouch: Is the Leader of the House aware of the growing concern in the country and the House at the Government's lack of a proper policy on the Nigerian war? Will he give us an opportunity to debate the question next week?
  Mr. Peart: I appreciate that this is a vital matter, and that hon. Members feel very passionately about it. The Government have stated their position time and again in debate and in reply to Questions, but I will keep my right hon. Friend advised of the feeling of the House on the matter.
  Mr. Faulds: May I emphasise the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renee Short) about the need for a debate on the B.B.C.s plans to reorganise both its regions and its services, in view of the increasing concern of the staff, who have not been consulted, and the need for a public inquiry into the responsibility of the B.B.C. in the 'seventies?
  Mr. Pearl: I have replied to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renee Short) on that subject.
  Mr. Mawby: Can we look forward next week to either the Prime Minister or the First Secretary giving a progress report on the solemn and binding undertaking given by the T.U.C. in June this year on unconstitutional strikes?
  Mr. Peart: It is an important matter. I cannot promise, but I note the hon. Member's view.
  Mr. Hector Hughes: Will the Leader of the House find time next week for Motion No. 17, for two reasons: it is

  1517
  topical in relation to the inter-denominational schools in Northern Ireland; and it shows a remarkable change of policy on the part of some Tories—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman cannot now debate the subject for which he seeks to ask time to debate.
  Mr. Hughes:—and my amendments to it rationalise it.
  [That this House, recognising the special problems created by a divided community in Northern Ireland, and without prejudice to the rights of parents to decide their children's place of education and form of religious instruction, urges education authorities, voluntary agencies, and the churches, in Northern Ireland to give immediate consideration to the creation of truly inter-denominational secondary schools and teacher training colleges, which will be attended by pupils of all religious persuasions, as a first step towards a more united community.]
  [As Amendments to Mr. Henry Clark's proposed Motion (Inter-Denominational Schools in Northern Ireland):
  Line 1, after recognising', insert and deploring'.
  Line 7, at end add ' and United Ireland '.]
  Mr. Peart: I have carefully looked at my hon. and learned Friend's proposed Amendments in lines 1 and 7 of the Motion. This is a matter for the Northern Ireland Government. Her Majesty's Government always welcome any steps which will promote mutual respect and tolerance in Northern Ireland.
  Mr. Hugh Fraser: In view of the facts about arms supply given by the Front Bench opposite and the failure, or success, of the Foreign Secretary in misleading the House, will the Leader of the House now urgently consider a debate on the Nigerian war before Christmas?
  Mr. Peart: I think that to use the word "misleading" is unfair. The matter was dealt with. I have given a promise that it will be noted carefully.
  Mr. James Johnson: We have waited a long time for the Merchant Shipping Bill. Can we be told when we can debate it—perhaps before Christmas?
  Mr. Peart: We have only just started the new Session. I hope that my hon. Friend will be patient.
  Mr. Worsley: Will the Leader of the House reconsider what he said about a debate on broadcasting, and give an assurance that no action will be taken until there has been a debate?
  Mr. Peart: I said that I would look at this carefully. I cannot give a promise. It may be necessary also to have a statement before a debate.
  Mr. Rose: Now that the latest decision under the Road Safety Act is an open incitement to drivers to take a drink of whisky when stopped by policemen, will my right hon. Friend now consult the Cabinet and, even if it means sacrificing some parliamentary time, initiate a short amending Bill to save a potential 1,000 lives during the next year?
  Mr. Peart: I know that this is an important matter and that obviously needs to be considered, but not next week.
  Sir D. Renton: Will the Leader of the House give an undertaking that no legislation based upon the Beeching Report on the size of quarter sessions will be introduced in either House until we have had an opportunity of debating the report itself?
  Mr. Peart: I should like to look at this subject carefully before giving a complete assurance. But it is an important matter, I know.
  Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Will not my right hon. Friend recognise that there have been far too many statements on broadcasting without debate, and will he now arrange a debate before any further statements are made?
  Mr. Peart: I can only repeat what I have already said.
  Mr. Awdry: There are rumours in the Press today that hon. Members may get an allowance to pay their secretaries a little more. Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to make a statement?
  Mr. Peart: I am to make a statement, but one must not always believe statements in the Press—
  Hon. Members: When?
  Mr. Peart: I hope, probably next week.
  Mr. John Mendelson: Does the Leader of the House recall that when pressed last week on the urgent need for a debate on Vietnam he said that he would consult his right hon. Friend, and look into it? Does he not accept that this matter has become more urgent because of the announced date of the Prime Minister's visit to Washington? As the House needs an opportunity to express its view on Vietnam, will make haste to make an announcement next week about a debate before Christmas?
  Mr. Peart: I cannot be committed to making an announcement next week, but I recognise that the whole question of Vietnam is important; and the force of my hon. Friend's argument. I have made representations on this matter.
  Mr. Ian Gilmour: Has the Leader of the House gathered from the large number of questions addressed to him about broadcasting that to have the statement he has threatened next week without a debate will be quite unacceptable to the House?
  Mr. Peart: I did not say that a state-would be made next week. I think that a statement may well have to be made by the Minister concerned, but I said that I would look into the matter carefully.
  Mr. Barnes: As a misleading statement was given to the House earlier in the week about an American guarantee for Biafra, and as this is not the first instance of this kind, can we not have a debate next week so that the Government can make a clear statement on their policy with regard to the Nigerian war?
  Mr. Peart: I cannot give an assurance about that. This matter has been debated, statements have been made, and Questions have been put to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. I have made representations to my right hon. Friend. I must make representations, even though I may disagree with views expressed by colleagues in the House.
  Sir Ian Orr-Ewing: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the Select Committee on Science and Technology published its report on Defence Research Establishments six months ago? In view
  1520
  of the importance of the matter, ought we not to have a debate before the Defence Estimates debates season starts?
  Mr. Peart: It is a very important report. It is very long, and the members of the Committee must have worked very hard on it. But I cannot promise a debate before Christmas.
  Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: May I press my right hon. Friend that it is quite essential that the House should have a debate on Vietnam before the Prime Minister goes to Washington, which means that we must have it before Christmas?
  Mr. Peart: I cannot add to what I have said. I have said that I will make representations.
  Mr. Bryan: Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm or deny a report that the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications will be making a statement on Monday?
  Mr. Peart: I cannot give a specific answer. I said that I thought that there should be a statement on broadcasting matters, and I hope that the House will accept this.
  Mr. Arthur Lewis: The Leader of the House has said that he will make a statement next week on salaries for secretaries, or some secretarial assistance—a matter which, incidentally, is reported in the Press—but is he aware that hon. Members rather resent the fact about the way the Committee is selected, and put into operation? No one knows how it operates, and then my right hon. Friend comes along and says that he will make a statement. Is he aware that a lot more is needed than just this method of dealing with hon. Members' salaries and conditions?
  Mr. Peart: My hon. Friend should not denigrate the Services Committee. The Committee's policy was approved by the House, and if my hon. Friend felt so strongly about it he should have had the courage to oppose it.
  Mr. Palmer: My right hon. Friend has just said that he cannot promise a debate before Christmas on the Report of the Select Committee on Science and Technology on Defence Research Establishments. Can he promise a debate very soon after Christmas?
  Mr. Peart: I cannot give a specific assurance. It was an important report, and I know that my hon. Friend, as Chairman of the Committee, feels strongly about it.
  Sir A. V. Harvey: Is the Leader of the House aware that as a result of what has been shown on television in recent weeks about starving children in Biafra, it is now the clear duty of the House to debate the matter in order to see whether Britain can give a lead? The right hon. Gentleman must not under-estimate the feeling of people in the country as well as in the House.
  Mr. Peart: I am not under-estimating the feeling on this matter at all, either inside or outside the House. I have given a promise.
  Mr. Heath: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that so far in reply to hon. Members, according to my count, he has spoken of 11 important matters, on four of which he promised to be helpful, five he promised to watch carefully, and the remainder he was vaguely ambiguous about? Can he go away and arrange for the remaining four weeks before Christmas to be used to deal with important matters which the House wants to discuss and statements by Ministers which the House wants to hear, instead of putting forward some of the business in which the House has very little interest?
  Mr. Peart: I cannot accept that. I believe that the Police Bill and the Ulster Defence Regiment Bill, to be debated next week, are very important. If hon. Members opposite believe that the £50 allowance is a bad subject for their Supply day, why did they not choose a different one?
  Mr. Shinwell: Is my right hon. Friend aware, in view of what the Leader of the Opposition is demanding, that the Merchant Shipping Bill relates to matters which have been discussed for the last 50 or 60 years and that the industry has been neglected by the Tories? Is it not about time that we dealt with this important matter?
  Mr. Peart: I agree. That is why I resent the accusation made by the Leader of the Opposition. I think that next week's business is important. If the right hon. Gentleman had wished, we could have debated Biafra on the Supply day.
  Mr. Heath: If the Leader of the House wished to give us Supply days until Christmas, he could provide for what the House wants.
  Mr. Peart: Why did the right hon. Gentleman not choose that subject when he had the opportunity?
  Mr. Rippon rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman wish to ask a business question'? It is rather late.
  Mr. Rippon: Is the Leader of the House suggesting that the question of rural buses is not important?
  Mr. Peart: No I did not suggest that, but your Leader suggested that it was not important.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The Leader of the House must not bring me into it.

  FALKLAND ISLANDS
  The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Michael Stewart): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement on the Falkland Islands.
  As I informed the House on the 11th of December, 1968, discussions with the Argentine Government have continued. In accordance with the practice for several years past, letters will be sent by the Argentine Government and ourselves to the Secretary General of the United Nations describing these discussions.
  The text of these letters will be made public tomorrow at 7.30 p.m. Falkland Islands time, a time agreed by all parties and convenient to the Falkland Islanders.
  With the permission of the House, I will make a fuller statement on Monday. Meanwhile, I can assure the House that the undertakings which Her Majesty's Government have repeatedly given both to Parliament and to the islanders remain unchanged, namely, that the Governor and his Executive Council have been kept informed and that there can be no transfer of sovereignty against the wishes of the islanders.
  Sir Alec Douglas-Home: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that his unqualified words that there will be no transfer of sovereignty against the wishes of the islanders will meet with general approval in all parts of the House? But as the letters to the United Nations apparently amount to nothing, could he not have said that today?
  Mr. Stewart: On the first part of the right hon. Gentleman's question, I am sure that what I said about no transfer of sovereignty against the wishes of the islanders will be welcome to the House, but it is by no means the first time that it has been said. The Government have made this clear throughout. On the second point, it will be for hon. Members to judge when the text of the letters is published what significance they wish to give to them. I made this statement today because I gathered that a report from Buenos Aires alarmed some hon. Members.
  Mr. James Johnson: Despite all the blether by hon. Members opposite, is it not obvious that the announcement will be made to suit the wishes of the Falkland islanders themselves? Is this not so?
  Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend is correct about that. The Falkland islanders, not having newspapers and relying on the broadcast for their daily news, wanted this to be at a time convenient for their evening broadcast.
  Mr. Russell Johnston: While I welcome the right hon. Gentleman's assurance, what I find very difficult to understand is why there are continual assurances yet, at the same time, the Government's assurances seem to be continually undermined, whether intentionally or not, by rumours which seem to circulate—perhaps coming from the Opposition or the Argentine Government—which inevitably cause disturbance and distress to the Falkland islanders. This seems to be not only undesirable but unnecessary.
  Mr. Stewart: I quite agree that it is unnecessary. There is no excuse for anyone, as some hon. Members opposite have done, to try to undermine these assurances. Fortunately, it was made clear some time ago by the Executive Council of the Falkland Islands, as I
  1524
  told the House last year, that it accepted that the British Government had been acting in good faith and that an understanding with Argentina, if it is to be reached, will be fully in keeping with Her Majesty's Government's promise that there will be no transfer of sovereignty against the wishes of the islanders. I deprecate attempts to disturb the islanders by questioning this.
  Mr. Molloy: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that notwithstanding the fact that on a number of occasions he has made transparently clear that the Government stand fully with the Falkland islanders there are those who, apparently for purely political purposes, desire to find some false arguments? They are not helping the islanders at all with this sort of manoeuvring.
  Mr. Stewart: I must agree that any attempt to suggest that the undertaking given in this House will not be honoured can only do damage. Fortunately, I think that the Falkland islanders have begun to take the measure of these manoeuvres by now.
  Sir F. Bennett: The right hon. Gentleman has referred to letters being sent to the United Nations by the two Powers. Can he confirm a matter which may be disturbing? Are they to be in an agreed text, or will they be each country's separate interpretation?
  Secondly, since the Argentinians made clear that the only matter in which they are interested is a transfer of sovereignty, which the Foreign Secretary has said is not on the cards if it is against the wishes of the Falkland islanders, can the right hon. Gentleman remind us what all these discussions are about?
  Mr. Stewart: The letters will be, as in the past, an agreed text and will not be in the least anything inconsistent with the pledge that has been given.
  The hon. Gentleman is incorrect in saying that the only thing in which the Argentinians are interested is a transfer of sovereignty. Both they and emphatically we are interested in trying to improve communications between the Argentinians and the islanders and the islanders are interested in that.
  Mr. George Jeger: My right hon. Friend has said that the timing has been

  1525
  agreed between the three parties concerned. Can he confirm that the Falkland islanders are in agreement with the text of the communiqué as well as the timing?
  Mr. Stewart: I should be glad to answer that question on Monday, when I shall make a fuller statement. The only reason I cannot answer it now is that the discussions through the Governor with the Executive Council have been confidential. I do not think that I could go further until the agreed time when the letters are published.
  Mr. Braine: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Argentine Foreign Minister was reported early yesterday morning to have said that the joint statement would be a positive step towards a solution of the conflict over possession of the islands? Is it not most regrettable that on a matter affecting the interests of British subjects in a British territory this House should learn about the matter first from a spokesman of a foreign Government and not from the right hon. Gentleman?
  Mr. Stewart: I think it regrettable that this report came out, but I still think that, having agreed to a particular time for the publication of the letters, I ought to stick to that time.

  USE OF ANTIBIOTICS IN ANIMAL HUSBANDRY AND VETERINARY MEDICINE (SWANN REPORT)
  The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Cledwyn Hughes): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement.
  The Report of the Joint Committee on the Use of Antibiotics in Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine has been laid before Parliament and published today. My right hon. Friends and I would like to thank the committee for its detailed and precise analysis of a most complex matter and for its clear findings and recommendations.
  The Committee found that the administration of antibiotics to farm livestock poses certain hazards to human and animal health since it has led to the
  1526
  emergence of strains of bacteria which are resistant to antibiotics. The committee was satisfied that these hazards can largely be avoided and has put forward a number of recommendations to that end.
  We accept, in general, the committee's proposals for the control of antibiotics.
  The committee's principal recommendation is that antibiotics should be classified as either "feed" or "therapeutic" and that in future only "feed" antibiotics should be available without prescription for use in feedingstuffs. The committee also defines "feed" antibiotics in a way which will enable us to ensure that hazards to human health cannot arise from their use in feedingstuffs. The use of antibiotics on prescription by the veterinary profession would not be limited. We accept these recommendations.
  As a consequence of its main proposal, the committee recommends that the use of penicillin and the tetracyclines in feedingstuffs should be prohibited; and that certain other drugs which are now freely available should also be available only on prescription. We also accept these recommendations.
  Some of the committee's more detailed recommendations and longer-term proposals on research and veterinary epidemiology will need further study.
  The implementation of these recommendations will require consultations. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services and the other health Ministers will, therefore, be consulting medical and pharmaceutical interests. I and the other agricultural Ministers will be consulting veterinary, agricultural and animal feedingstuffs interests. We are proceeding to these consultations immediately.
  Mr. Stodart: I echo the thanks the right hon. Gentleman has expressed to the committee, with perhaps a particular emphasis as the Chairman, Professor Swann, is a constituent of mine.
  The right hon. Gentleman will understand that this is an extremely complicated matter for a layman to understand, and I would wish to read and study the report before commenting on it.
  When will the recommendations about the "feed" antibiotics operate? What

  1527
  about existing stocks? Are they large in number? Whilst the economic advantages of using antibiotics must, of course, take second place to the health aspect, has the right hon. Gentleman made any calculation of the cost that will be involved?
  Will the right hon. Gentleman keep the House informed of the progress of his consultations, as it is possible that we might wish to ask him to ask his right hon. Friend for a debate on the matter?
  Mr. Hughes: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he has said.
  On the question of cost, he will know that the committee says that it believes its recommendations could be implemented without adverse effects on animal husbandry or veterinary medicine.
  I cannot give a reply on the volume of stocks in the country, because this will be the subject of consultations. The question of "feed" antibiotics is another matter which will have to be discussed with manufacturers, because they will have to let us know how long it will take to build up stocks of the alternative antibiotics. I hope that this can be done promptly and speedily.
  Mrs. Joyce Butler: Whilst welcoming the report, I am somewhat disturbed by the complexities of the methods of carrying out the recommendations. Will my right hon. Friend look very seriously at the possibility of at least implementing the recommendations about preventing the use of certain therapeutic antibiotics without prescription, and of adding new Clauses to the Agriculture Bill now going through the House, or making some other Amendment to the Bill, so that this can be carried out very quickly, bearing in mind the important consequences for human health?
  Mr. Hughes: This will be done as quickly as possible. The action to which my hon. Friend refers will have to be carried out by Orders which would be initiated by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. But I can assure her that we are fully seized of the importance and urgency of the matter.
  At the same time, there is no cause for immediate alarm in this matter. We shall act urgently, because we believe this
  1528
  to be necessary, but we must not allow ourselves to become a nation of hypochondriacs.
  Mr. Kitson: Will the right hon. Gentleman have consultations with the Secretary of State for Social Services, bearing in mind that paragraph 7.18 of the report says that doctors are also unwisely using antibiotics? Will he give an assurance that legislation will be brought before the House at the earliest possible moment?
  Mr. Hughes: My right hon. Friend and I are working in close co-operation in this matter, and my right hon. Friend will have heard what the hon. Gentleman says.
  Mr. Alfred Morris: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his very prompt action in this important matter. Can he confirm that there is no reason for immediate anxiety over the hazards disclosed in the report?
  Mr. Hughes: I believe that to be right. When hon. Members read the report I think that they will appreciate that while there is a need for urgent action we are taking preventive rather than curative measures in tackling the problem I think that I can also say that we are the first country in the world to tackle the matter in this way.
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I shall always have a considerable respect for the scientists who advise the Minister and the Agricultural Research Council, but, whilst I am sure that it is right to take immediate action in the light of the report, will the right hon. Gentleman consider the continuing anxiety that when new therapeutic substances come on the market something has to get out of control before anything is done? May we have an assurance that as a result of the report there will be a further tightening up of the anticipatory machinery as well as the post hoc machinery?
  Mr. Hughes: It is precisely the kind of action the hon. Gentleman describes that we are taking now. We are acting in advance of any injurious effect of antibiotics. I think that our action is right.
  Mr. Dalyell: On the narrow issue in paragraph 10.17, will my right hon. Friend, without further consultation, go

  1529
  ahead with the proposal to interest universities in setting up departments of veterinary epidemiology as a distinct discipline? Could the Government also go ahead with a directive to the Medical Research Council and the Agricultural Research Council to carry out the proposal in paragraph 12.38 without further consultation, as it is urgent? Could some system of permanent monitoring be set up to study the effect of the prevalence of antibiotic resistances?
  Mr. Hughes: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's suggestions. My right hon. Friend and I have it in mind to have the type of discussion my hon. Friend describes. On the question of monitoring, we shall go a little further than the report's recommendation. We are considering the desirability of examining feedingstuffs, including imported feeding-stuffs, for antibiotic residues and their possible effect in producing resistant organisms.
  Mr. Maude: With reference to the Minister's answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke), is he not aware that this is by no means the first time that the Government have been forced to take what he described today as urgent action in respect of drugs and pesticides used in agriculture and food production, which scientific experts have continually advised the Government and claimed were harmless? He must not be surprised if people are a little worried about the steps taken to prevent these things.
  Mr. Hughes: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's anxiety, but I am rather surprised at his criticism. After all, it was the present Government that set up the Swann Committee, as a result of anxieties that members of the Government felt about the matter. Already, following the announcement that the report was to be published, many countries, including the United States and countries in Europe, are asking for a copy of it.
  Mr. Pardoe: Whilst I welcome the report, and particularly the Government's acceptance of the need to control penicillin and tetracyclines, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to reassure the House that there will be a public and continuing method whereby the whole system can be reviewed over the years,
  1530
  in view of the public's feeling that scientists, like the rest of us, can change their minds on these matters?
  Mr. Hughes: There is a proposal in the report for an antibiotics committee. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Medicines Commission has to advise on expert advisory committees required under the Medicines Act. This recommendation will be brought to the Commission's attention forthwith. The action the hon. Gentleman suggests is being taken.
  Mr. Oakes: In view of the very specific recommendations in the report, particularly about feedingstuffs, is there any likelihood that the industry itself will voluntarily stop adding antibiotics to feedingstuffs forthwith before legislation needs to be introduced?
  Mr. Hughes: As I said in my statement, we shall be entering into consultations, not only with feedingstuffs manufacturers, but also with the industry itself. This poses a problem. We shall need a reasonable phasing out period. There are stocks in existence now. Therefore, the House will appreciate that my right hon. Friend and I will have to have the most detailed consultations with all the interests concerned. I assure the House that we shall take the action as quickly as we can.
  Sir J. Langford-Holt: Will the Minister bear in mind that what is wanted from him primarily is an early decision so that the phasing out and the action can follow each other in quick succession?
  Mr. Hughes: My right hon. Friends and I have taken the most important decisions in the acceptance of all the major recommendations of the report. We must now proceed to consultation, because, after all, the interested parties have not yet had an opportunity to study the Report. This is not unreasonable.
  Mr. Jopling: Is the Minister aware that virtually all farmers will accept the need to control antibiotics where human and animal health is at risk? I accept his statement that this proposal will have no adverse effect on animal husbandry, but will he accept that it will have a quite considerable effect in increasing the cost of food production? Will he give

  1531
  an undertaking that it will be taken into consideration at the next Price Review?
  Mr. Hughes: There is no indication in the report that there will be any cost increase. I understand the hon. Gentleman's point. I hope, as he has said, that the farmers will co-operate, and I am sure they will.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I must protect the business of the House.

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

  SUPPLY
  [1ST ALLOTTED DAY], considered.

  COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS (REPORTS)
  4.12p.m.
  Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter: I beg to move,
  That this House takes note of the First, Second and Third Reports from the Committee of Public Accounts in the last Session of Parliament and of the Treasury Minute on those Reports (Command Paper No. 4191).
  This is the annual occasion on which the Committee of Public Accounts submits its report to the House and we ask our colleagues for their judgment on it. Paradoxically, perhaps, the fact that this is not one of the more congested of parliamentary occasions is a matter of sober satisfaction to the Committee. Those who are familiar with commercial practice will know that a scant attendance at the annual meeting of a company generally indicates happy contentment with the way it is being conducted, whereas a crowded attendance on such an occasion generally bodes ill, particularly perhaps for the chairman. I hope that I may assume that it is in that spirit that the attendance this afternoon is comprised mainly of those who are particularly concerned with our committee's work, including many of my colleagues.
  I begin by expressing my own very sincere thanks to my colleagues on the Committee for the very large amount of work that they have done and the concentration of effort which they have provided, the results of which are embodied in the substantial volume which is on the Table. With the very heavy commitments which we all know all hon. Members have in these days, it is very creditable to the Committee, not only that its members have got through all this amount of work, but that it has been possible to carry through a very extended programme of sittings without ever having to cancel one by reason of the absence of a quorum. I want very sincerely to thank my colleagues for the great assistance they have given in this way, and in other ways.

  1533
  In mentioning the members of the Committee, I know that they would all wish me to express the feelings we have on the death of our late colleague, Sir Gerald Wills. Sir Gerald was appointed to the Committee whose report is before is. Failing health compelled him to withdraw from it later in the year. All of us remember affectionately his bearing and conduct in the Committee and the quiet perspicacity of his questioning of witnesses. In the fine words which Mr. Speaker uses on these sad occasions, we are very conscious indeed of the loss which we have sustained.
  I would also like at this stage to express our immense indebtedness to the Comptroller and Auditor General and his staff. Parliament and the nation are very lucky to be served by an official of the high intellectual quality and capacity of Sir Bruce Fraser. The fact that our reports appear to have a considerable impact upon the conduct of government is due in very considerable measure to the work which he and his able and devoted staff put in.
  We are also greatly indebted to our new Clerk, Mr. C. J. Boulton. He has moved so effectively into the Clerk's seat that it is almost an effort of will to remember that this was, in fact, his first Session. He fully embodies the high standard of service to the House and ability which are characteristic of the Department headed by the Clerk at the Table.
  I turn to our general functions before proceeding to deal with specific items. It is a very long-established Committee. It celebrated its centenary several years ago. By way of preparation for the debate. I turned up the reports of the Committee of precisely 100 years ago Except that they are far better printed, if I may touch on perhaps a delicate subject, than our contemporary reports, they provide an astonishing example of continuity.
  There is a complaint 100 years ago of excessive spending by the Inland Revenue and by the General Post Office. Also—this perhaps marks the time that has passed since then—there is a sad little account of additional expenditure on the wars in New Zealand and Ethiopia, both of them east of Suez—just east of Suez at that moment, because it was in that year that the Suez Canal, now closed,
  1534
  had been opened. This is an example of the continuity of the Committee's work and its link with the Treasury.
  I am very glad to see present the Minister of State, Treasury, who, I understand, is to reply. As he and the House know, his colleague the Financial Secretary is an ex-officio member of the Committee. I would like, on behalf of the Committee, through the Minister of State, to welcome the Financial Secretary to our midst. It is, as my colleagues at any rate know, the longstanding custom that the Financial Secretary attends as a matter of courtesy, when he can, the first sitting of the Committee and only subsequently if the Treasury is in trouble with the Committee.
  I therefore imagine that the Minister of State will share my hope that, though we shall hope to see the Financial Secretary at our first sitting, we shall not see very much of him thereafter—but only, of course, for that reason. He and his Department are our close link with the Government. We are greatly indebted for the assistance we receive from the Treasury, particularly from Mr. A. J. Phelps, the Treasury Officer of Accounts, who is a regular witness. I should be grateful if the Minister of State would convey that expression of gratitude and appreciation to his Department.
  The continuity of the Committee's work, as also its strength—which is that its recommendations do seem, sooner, on the whole, rather than later, to be accepted by the Government—is evidenced by another volume to which I invite the House's attention, because I understand that a new edition is in preparation. This is the epitome of the reports from the Committee which has been periodically published and laid on the Table. It has been described as the "accounting officers' Erskine May". The original volume covered the period from the 1850s to 1938; this was carried further by a volume laid in 1952, summarising the Committee's conclusions between 1938 and 1950.
  I observe at this moment that the volume I hold in my hand was laid in 1952 by the then Financial Secretary to the Treasury, a holder of that office of whose limitations I have an unrivalled knowledge. I understand that a new volume is in preparation, bringing the story down

  1535
  from 1952. We shall welcome it, as, I imagine, will the officials concerned in Whitehall.
  The Motion asks the House to take note of the three reports but I shall not say anything myself about the first two, which deal with excess votes and virement. As the Committee points out, the old doctrine that an excess Vote is a terrible thing is not now so strongly held by the Committee. It is accepted that, in certain areas, particularly, perhaps, those involving research and development, where it is quite impossible to foresee the complete position and what expenditure will arise in a particular year, it is contrary to good and taut estimating to be obsessed with fear of an excess Vote. It is better to risk an excess Vote occasionally than persistently to overestimate because the Department concerned is scared of having to come before the Committee about the excess Vote. The Committee expresses this view in its First Report, but the matter has certain public importance and, therefore, I thought it well to mention it today.
  I come now to the contents of the Third Report, which covers a very wide scope. Obviously I should talk this Motion out if I tried to deal with all of the matters contained in it, and that is not my purpose. But I shall pick out one or two matters which may help the debate and about some of which the Minister of State may be able to say something in reply.
  We refer, as our predecessors have done for the last four or five years, in paragraphs 39 to 42, to the development costs of the Concorde project. It will be a happy day for the Committee when the Concorde comes off its menu. We point out some serious defects in the system of control of expenditure and in particular make a point of some general parliamentary importance. We take the point, as the Minister of State will recall, that the escalation of costs from the £500 million figure given to us in 1966 to the figure of £730 million, with an intimation of possible further escalation, is very substantial and that it would have been better if Parliament had been kept informed in the interval of the degree to which the costs were escalating.
  I am not seeking now to give a view one way or another as to whether the
  1536
  Concorde project is one which the Government would be wise to continue, but the House cannot form a sensible view, still less impress it on the Government, if it does not know the facts, and I ask the Minister of State to say that, in future, with other projects which may suffer similar experience, greater efforts will be made to keep the House informed of the way the costs are going.
  I am not ignoring what is said in the Treasury Minute, and I appreciate that, in an international project tied up with a foreign country, there are greater difficulties than in a domestic project. But we are spending large sums of public money here, and if the House is to be effective in the control of public expenditure, knowledge of the way expenditure of this magnitude is going is an essential pre-condition of its effective work.
  Mr.Joel Barnett>: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to reinforce that point and join him in the hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will expand on the somewhat short answer contained in the Treasury Minute, which says:
  " The Treasury and the Ministry of Technology accept that Parliament should be informed at the earliest practicable opportunity should there be any further substantial increases in development cost estimates."
  We would like to know from my hon. Friend what the Treasury means by the words
  " … earliest practicable opportunity …"
  because, in questioning, we learnt that although the Treasury had known seven or eight months about substantial increases in costs, the House was still not informed.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am obliged to the hon. Member for Heywood and Royton (Mr. Barnett)—I nearly said "honourable Friend", because upstairs I so regard him. I am obliged to him for reinforcing that point. No doubt the Minister of State has taken note of it.
  The Committee is bound to spend a good deal of time on aviation matters and in our Third Report we also draw attention, particularly in paragraph 52, to what seems to me the somewhat amateur system which has been adopted for a good many years for the pricing of aircraft engine spares. The system consisted of taking a price list for these

  1537
  spares compiled in 1960—not even then of the actual costs but of estimated costs for 1960–61—and simply making an arbitrarily determined percentage pricing-up of that price list each subsequent year.
  There was no evidence, as I must say in all fairness, that this system resulted in any appreciable loss to public funds, but 1 am bound to say that it struck the Committee, as I think it will strike the House, as a somewhat amateur way in which to lay out considerable sums of public money. And the argument adduced before us in favour of it, to the effect that, if a company has overall not made an unreasonable profit, it can therefore be assumed that the prices quoted for particular items are reasonable, is not, frankly, an argument that anyone who has sat on the Public Accounts Committee in previous years would be prepared to accept.
  It seems to me that the worst example of failure of financial control and, I am sorry to have to say, personal failure of individuals, occurred in respect of the multiple hiring of married quarters in Germany, which is dealt with at some length in paragraphs 89 to 102. The matter is complicated and I shall not weary the House with the background. But, briefly, to deal with the- real need to provide married quarters for the Army in Germany, a complicated system was worked out under which the German Government arranged for the construction of blocks of flats on a leasing system and then leased them to the British Government for this purpose.
  One of the most serious aspects of this matter is set out in detail in paragraph 92 of our report and we there specify three separate ways in which there was a direct violation of the Treasury authority given in three specific cases which are quoted. In two of them, some hundreds of thousands of pounds were involved, and perfectly clear and specific Treasury authority was violated and the limits laid down therein transgressed. As the witness for the Ministry of Defence fairly said, this was an example of serious financial laxity.
  As he also admitted, it goes to the root of the system of Treasury control. I hope that I am not influenced by the fact that I have had two tours of duty at the Treasury, but any system of
  1538
  handling public expenditure is rendered nugatory when departments spend public money contrary to the conditions on which they have been authorised by the Treasury to do it.
  What makes the situation the more unhappy is that the senior civil official in Germany concerned., the Command Secretary, who is an officer of the senior rank of assistant secretary, knew nothing about it, and it is clear that no proper prior instructions were given to those carrying out the negotiations. It is further the unhappy fact that the accounting officer before us claimed that it was impossible to bring home personal responsibility to any individual for a state of affairs which had been continuing for a number of years. This seems to raise not only questions of the efficiency of the Army Department, but perhaps broader questions affecting the personal responsibility of civil servants.
  Since the Fulton Report, we have had discussions about the doctrine of accountable management. The Report of the Select Committee on Procedure is full of such references. I sometimes suspect that "accountable management" means unaccountable management. It is an extraordinary state of affairs that we should be assured by the accountingofficer that it has proved impossible to bring home to any individual responsibility for a prolonged breach of Treasury authority in matters involving many hundreds of thousands of pounds.
  I want to read the relevant questions and answers on this issue. I begin at Question No. 5281:
  "So the Ministry's policy and finance divisions did not know what was happening at the time that the commitments were made? —Unfortunately not.
  Is that not again an example of serious laxity of financial administration?—It is.
  You have a Command Secretary in Germany?—Yes.
  Is he not supposed to deal with precisely this sort of issue?—I have questioned such of the Command Secretaries and their Deputies mainly concerned, and they are very astonished that this happened. I have not been able to see all the individuals of course, because there have been such shifts of staff and people have retired. But everybody who was in Germany that I have spoken to considered that they were within their authority. They did not knowingly exceed it.
  It is in fact quite plain that they were outside it?—It is certainly.

  1539
  What rank does the Command Secretary in Germany have?—An Assistant Secretary.
  Is there any disciplinary action being taken in respect of this?—The man to blame, I think, would be the man who actually had the instructions and carried out the projects. There is no evidence that the Command Secretary knew what was going on and failed to do anything about it.
  But is not the point of having a Command Secretary on the spot that he should know what is going on?—Yes.
  And he did not do so?—The individuals thought they were doing so. They thought they were being fully informed.
  Has any disciplinary action been taken against any single individual or individuals in respect of this?—No.
  Has this been considered?—It has been considered, but, if I may say so, unfortunately there are so many people involved and over such a long period of time that I think if one wanted to allocate individual blame one would have to have something like an inquiry, a judicial inquiry, and it would involve people who had now retired and some who are living abroad."
  I do not think that the House will regard that as a satisfactory state of affairs, any more than the Committee did. It seems to suggest a failure of organisation in the Ministry at the relevant time. Incidentally, it is the kind of occurrence which supports very much the modern thinking that we have perhaps carried the doctrine of Ministerial responsibility too far. None of the Ministers at the relevant time can possibly have known or be reasonably expected to have known about it. It was the failure of individuals inside the system.
  When there are failures of this kind in a system it cannot be healthy that there is no person who can be held to have individual responsibility. I appreciate that, owing to changes which have taken place, the Minister of State is no longer in the Department responsible for the organisation of the Civil Service, but I hope that those who are responsible for organisation in the new Civil Service Department will treat this as an example not of a matter in which no one wants to indulge in criticism of individuals, but as an indication that real improvements can and should be made in the organisation of what I regard as the finest Civil Service in the world.
  I turn now to one or two other matters to which I wish to refer briefly. One has a lighter touch, and it concerns the purchase of upholstery cloth for furniture
  1540
  in military quarters. Here we see a good example of the extraordinary situation which can grow up in Departments if they are not firmly administered from the top by senior officers.
  The task was to choose upholstery cloth for furniture used in the quarters of officers and other ranks in the Army. It was laid down, rightly or wrongly, that there should be a superior specification for officers' cloth and an inferior one for the cloth to be used for the furniture in the quarters of other ranks. Solemnly assembled were 20 individuals round a table to look at various specimens of cloth, and they were expressly excluded from knowing the prices of the cloths concerned. Those 20 distinguished persons doing the job selected two cloths. The one to the inferior specification designed for the quarters of other ranks turned out to be appreciably more expensive than that of the cloth to the superior specification designed for officers' quarters.
  That is perhaps an illustration of the situation which can develop in Departments if there is not a ruthless determination from the top to maintain modern and efficient systems of management and administration. The principle of allowing such a* committee to make choices of this kind without the information which we would all ensure that we had if we were purchasing goods for our own houses—the price—is quite extraordinary. It is fair to add that we have been told that the situation has now been put right and that this considerable committee has been disbanded. No doubt the members of it have been "redeployed" to other useful occupations. We understand that those who will now take similar decisions will be told the price of what they choose.
  Another matter to which I would refer is the fact that, for the first time, we dealt with the report and accounts of the Land Commission and, for the penultimate time, with those of the General Post Office.
  I know that my colleagues felt that the lack of experience in the administration of the Land Commission naturally meant that we could not apply the same rigorousness as we might have been disposed to apply to more experienced Departments. The fact remains that there

  1541
  was serious over-estimating of the workload which resulted in the recruitment of excessive staff running into hundreds. This has now been corrected, but there was some waste of money and manpower due to the failure at the beginning to understand the quantity of work involved.
  I have no doubt that the Land Commission has taken to heart what the Committee said, and that it was probably a useful experience for its officers to come before us on this matter, even if they may not have enjoyed it as much as they might have enjoyed other ways of spending an afternoon.
  We had the General Post Office before us for the last time but one. Subject to my colleagues' wisdom and decision, we shall have an opportunity to give it its final examination before the Public Accounts Committee in the present Session. As the House knows, under the Post Office Act, the functions of the Post Office are being transferred to the new corporation which, being a nationalised industry, although still formally within the ambit of the P.A.C., does not have the advantage of the examination of its accounts by the Comptroller and Auditor General. I express an an individual the feeling that, whatever advantages the new system may have in other directions, this is a disadvantage.
  My colleagues, with the aid of the Comptroller and Auditor General, have examined the Post Office's affairs in most recent years. There have been very large purchases of equipment by the Post Office involving considerable sums of public money and at one time the system of purchasing called "the ring" excited considerable criticism. The steady pressure of this criticism has, I believe, resulted in considerable improvement.
  There are, however, very large sums involved in the operation of the Post Office and I very much hope that those concerned with its administration and those in the Treasury concerned with the normal overseeing of the system of administration will seek to devise an alternative method of securing supervision of its expenditure and financial management to replace that of which it will be deprived after the coming year.
  The strength of the Committee, if I may be so presumptuous as to assume that it has strength, is based on two
  1542
  things. First, it is wholly non-party and non-partisan in its operation. During my years on the Committee I do not recall a Division on party lines. Indeed, I think that in the Session to which the report we are discussing relates we did not have a Division at all. Our reports, therefore, come forward as objectively framed as they can be by fallible human beings.
  It is perhaps as a consequence of this that our second strength arises. There is an acceptable and agreeable willingness in general on the part of Whitehall to accept the recommendations. This Session we shall be discussing in the Committee what is said in the Treasury Minute replying to the report which we are discussing. I do not want to foreshadow what will arise, but, in general, the Treasury Minute complies with the tradition that the Government take a good deal of trouble to try to meet the recommendations of the Committee, and I should like, on behalf of my colleagues, to express our appreciation of that.
  This is a job of work which has been done now for over 100 years by a Committee with a wide range of membership and an even wider variety of chairmen. But it is work of some importance in supervising financial management and financial control. It is perhaps interesting to reflect that the Select Committee on Procedure, which has proposed wide and radical changes in other directions affecting Committees dealing with financial matters, has left us severely alone. I express my gratitude for that.
  The Motion is simply one to take note. I do not suppose that every hon. Member will agree with everything that we have said or done. However, we feel that they should be asked to take note of the report.
  4.45 p.m.
  Mr. A. H. Macdonald: It is very flattering to be called to speak so early in this important debate. I have never had the good fortune to take part in a debate on a Report of the Public Accounts Committee before. I am glad to be called early because it gives me an opportunity to echo the remarks generally made on these occasions in expressing appreciation to the Chairman and members of the Committee for the work which they do. I see that I am one of the few Members present who is not a member

  1543
  of the Committee. None the less, I pay tribute to the Committee with some feeling.
  I wish that the work of the Committee received not just more but better publicity. Only a month or two ago I was greatly taken by a letter in the Financial Times from which it was evident that the writer was under the extraordinary delusion that the Committee was a creature of the Government. I wish that the Committee's work were more widely publicised and better understood.
  I hope that my remarks are not taken as a load of preliminary "flannel", because they are meant sincerely. Nonetheless, I wish to make a criticism of one of the recommendations in the report. I should like to refer to paragraphs 187 to 193 dealing with a case in which £3 million in public money was advanced to a concern which soon afterwards folded up and went into liquidation. I understand that the liquidator is declaring a dividend of only 4s. 6d. in the £ and that £2½million of that public money will have to be written off. Clearly, this is a serious matter, and, equally clearly, it was entirely right for the Committee to make a close and careful examination of it.
  I notice that in its report the Committee endeavours to draw some lessons from this case. With due respect, I wish to differ from those lessons. In its examination of this case, the Committee noted that the equity capital provided by the promoters of the scheme amounted to only 16 per cent. of the total capital involved. It further notes that the present practice of the Board of Trade when making loans of this nature is to look for equity participation of 33⅓per cent. or even more. In paragraph 193 of the report it suggests that even 33⅓per cent. equity participation is too low for wisdom and safety and implies, though does not actually say, that equity capital of 50 per cent. would have been more reasonable. It is with this recommendation that I wish to disagree.
  I think that the Committee is arguing from the particular to the general. For a soundly based and wise lesson to be drawn from this case, if that were possible, it would have been desirable to examine all the loans made by D.A.T.A.C.
  1544
  to determine how many of them had ended in failure and how many had involved equity participation of less than, say, 20 per cent. In that way it would have been possible to determine what co-relation, if any, exists between low equity participation and high failure rate. All we know is that this one case with an equity capital of only 16 per cent. has failed. I am not sure whether this loan, although large, was unusually large, but it does not appear from the report, the supporting evidence or the appendix that this is a typical case and I do not know, therefore, how far this can be taken as a pattern.
  Secondly, it appears from the report and the evidence that this was a particularly bad case because, even if equity capital at 50 per cent. had been provided, and even if, as the Committee recommends in another place, it had been secured—may I say, in parenthesis, how much I agree with the recommendation that security should be taken in every case—if the promoters had put up, say, £3½million out of the £5½million and B.O.T.A.C. had provided £2 million, there would still have been a loss incurred because the liquidator was able to raise only £1 million from the sale of the assets.
  Mr. Barnett: Is not my hon. Friend missing precisely the point which applies in industry generally, that there might have been no loss, because the organisation might not have been able to put up 50 per cent. and, therefore, there would have been no abortive project?
  Mr. Macdonald: My hon. Friend has anticipated the point I was coming to by perhaps rather laborious stages.
  I was about to say that this had been a poor proposal. It might have been more realistic not to suggest that it could have been accepted with different or tighter terms, but that it should not have been accepted at all. If we imagine coming before B.O.T.A.C., or D.A.T.A.C. as it then was, a scale of proposals becoming poorer and poorer, it is possible within certain limits to make those proposals acceptable on tighter terms, but, inevitably, the point comes when no amount of tightening of the terms can make them satisfactory, and the correct decision to

  1545
  make is that the proposal must be rejected. At some time that point must have come, and I would have thought that it had been passed in this proposal.
  Thirdly, I gather from the Committee's report that other considerations were taken into account. The Government took a particular interest in this proposal possibly because of the amount of employment which it might have been likely to generate. This appears in question 2684 and the answer thereto. Also, the loan was negotiated by D.A.T.A.C. which was expressly the lender of last resort, whereas these matters now come under the auspices of B.O.T.A.C., which is not necessarily the lender of last resort. With due respect, therefore, I doubt whether that case can be considered as typical or whether lessons can be drawn from it.
  If I may briefly sum up the first leg of my argument, I doubt whether it is possible to take this case as one from which we can draw lessons. It must be admitted that it was a poor case. It was accepted by the lender of last resort and considerations other than commercial ones were present when it was being considered.
  I now want to argue about the desirability of drawing lessons at all in this way. First, if we take it that B.O.T.A.C. now is not the lender of last resort and operates in some measure on commercial principles, the optimum failure rate is not nil. I do not know whether I am capable of determining what the optimum failure rate would properly be, as this must depend on a number of variables but, if there were no failures, it could be argued that this was a sign that B.O.T.A.C. was being far too cautious.
  If we assume, as we must in the context of this debate, that it is proper to put public money into projects of this kind, we must also recognise that every loan involves a risk of some magnitude, and it would be unrealistic to expect there to be no failures. It is proper to make every effort to minimise the number of failures but, if we were to insist that there should be no failures, we should be saying that B.O.T.A.C. should not do any business.
  Secondly, even if the close analysis to which I referred earlier were carried out, it is a mistake for the Public Accounts
  1546
  Committee to advance from that and suggest too rigid guide lines for B.O.T.A.C. The Committee's implied suggestion of 50 per cent. equity capital being desirable is, in my view, far too high. I would regard 331 per cent. as entirely normal —not that I am saying that such proposals should automatically be accepted, or rejected, because other factors would be taken into account. I would go further and say that a proposal with only 25 per cent. equity capital is not necessarily to be damned on that account. If other factors are good, it might be perfectly legitimately considered.
  The business of making loans in which B.O.T.A.C. is engaged is more of an art than a science. It is useful to draw lessons from past failures; it is also useful to draw lessons from past successes. There is nothing about past successes in the Report—naturally, that is not a subject of complaint. Even when lessons have been drawn from past failures and past successes, ultimately a wise loan is a matter of judgment, and I respectfully suggest that it may be a little unwise to advance too rigid rules in this matter.
  I may be misjudging the Committee, but I fear that this is what it has tried to do. It is possible that the judgment may have been wrong in the case considered by the Committee. We do not know that it was wrong, but it is possible. Even if it were wrong, I have argued that this was a special case which should not be taken as a pattern from which lessons can be drawn. Even if it were not a special case, but a pattern, I respectfully deprecate any attempt to draw rigid guide lines from the consideration of one case.
  My first intervention in a debate of this kind has been rather critical, I hope not too critical. As I have said, it is proper for these bad cases to be examined. All I am anxious to ensure is that, once they have been examined, we shall not be quite so positive, as I think the Committee was, about guide lines on this difficult matter of making loans.
  5.0 p.m.
  Sir Douglas Glover: Despite what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), I find it disappointing that so few members of the Opposition are present for this debate on

  1547
  the Reports of the Public Accounts Committee. I should like to take the opportunity of congratulating the hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Macdonald) who appears to be the only person interested in our Report, or the one dissatisfied shareholder. I do not propose to detain the House long. Hon. Members who have obtained the evidence and produced these Reports should not take up too much time in talking about their own conclusions. They produce these Reports for their colleagues to read.
  I agree with all that was said by my right hon. Friend about the Comptroller and Auditor-General and his staff and Mr. Boulton. I believe that the Public Accounts Committee is a successful Committee. In saying that as a member of the Committee, I admit that I must disclose an interest. One of the reasons for the success of the Committee is its chairman to whom we must be grateful. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames is adept at asking the right questions, and insisting that witnesses, however much they wriggle, finish up by coming clean with the truth. It means that we get much more value from our deliberations. He is held in high regard and the Reports owe much to his efforts.
  As my right hon. Friend said, it is over a hundred years since the Public Accounts Committee was formed. I agree with the hon. Member of Chislehurst that it deals only with the disasters and failures and not with the triumphs. There is sufficient evidence in the report to show that the administrative machine can run off the rails unless a watchdog exists to see that it stays on the rails.
  I have been a member of the Committee as long as anybody, and it is fascinating to see the progress we have made in the matter of Customs and Excise. Some five years ago there were nothing but extra-statutory concessions by the Customs and Excise Department. It will be seen that we have got the number of items down from 94 to 38 and are establishing a system of Statutory Instruments. This shows that the Committee has done a useful job.
  Reference was made to the occasion when 20 wise men sat round a table discussing a piece of cloth. I used to be in the clothing business, and it is the sort of
  1548
  cloth I would have chosen. It cost 22s. 9d. a yard originally, but when a further contract was to be placed there was found to be an error and it was a better piece of cloth than was thought originally. That is what I was always looking for when I was in business. Eventually the State paid 28s. id. a yard for that cloth. Criticism must obviously be made of a Department which solemnly brings together round a table 20 men to pick out a piece of cloth, with no specifications or costings to go by, and when all the firms involved were asked to submit cloths of a similar texture and identity. It is beyond my comprehension that those wise men could discuss the matter when they were completely in the dark about what was required. I hope that as a result of our somewhat amusing remarks to the Department it will reorganise the whole system of cloth procurement. It is a disgrace that the system should be run on those lines.
  It can be seen that we dealt with many matters and kept an eye on many things which otherwise would have gone wrong. I refer particularly to the lettings in Germany. I personally finished that discussion in a rage that something so appallingly bad could have happened. Yet, after great research and questioning, not a single person has been held responsible for an outrageously bad set of circumstances.
  I make it clear on the Floor of the House, so that it might receive some publicity, that if the sort of circumstances disclosed in the Report exist, then somebody's head ought to roll because of a flagrant breach of Treasury instructions. If a Department that is spending vast sums of money is allowed to spend sums without any control at all, then it should be stamped on hard. Otherwise, in two or three years' time there could be absolute chaos in Departments. Therefore, I hope that the Treasury has issued a firm directive to the Department concerned, and I hope that other Departments have read the Report. I hope they have been told that if this ever happens again, the person nominally responsible will be held physically responsible and, if necessary, lose his job. The matter is serious enough for that sort of directive to be issued.
  I do not agree with the hon. Member for Chislehurst in his criticisms of the

  1549
  Committee, but I must admit that as a member of the Committee I am prejudiced. It strikes me as a little nonsensical that when the House discusses Reports of the Public Accounts Committee as well as Reports by Select Committees the only people who take part in the debates are the members of the Committees. Other hon. Members of the House not members of the Committees should be getting un and criticising our Reports. The investigations are a continuing process, and in the light of criticisms by hon. Members the Committee may well take a different view the next time it is faced with a similar problem.
  We do not get that sort of advice from our colleagues in the House because the Reports are debated only by the people who have produced them. This is not a sensible way to run our affairs. There is a great deal of material in the Reports for hon. Members to delve into, and if they were to take part in this debate they could elicit much more than is disclosed in the published document. I am surprised that some of my colleagues do not smell a better story behind the documents and come to the House to use their debating powers to discover whether they can pin it down.
  I and other hon. Members on the Committee have gone through all the proceedings and elicited information by our questions, and then produced the Reports and agreed to them, so there will not be much that we can criticise. My right hon. Friend said that we did not have a Division in the Committee during the whole of the last Session, so there is not even a minority report. We are in favour of the Reports, which make a first-class document that hon. Members should study. It gives not only a great deal of guidance on the problems with which we dealt but general guidance on how some of those faults could be eradicated. I thank my right hon. Friend. It was a pleasure to serve under his chairmanship, and I commend the Reports to the House.
  5.11 p.m.
  Mr. Frank Hooley: I endorse what the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover), said about the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) as Chairman of the Committee. All members of
  1550
  the Committee will agree that his chairmanship has been incisive in the extreme, without ever departing from the standard of courtesy and reasonableness which must always be shown to those who appear before us. I have been greatly impressed by his conduct of our proceedings, and I hope that he will go on for many years in that office, if he is willing to do so.
  By a kind of uncanny telepathy the right hon. Gentleman seems to have chosen to mention those aspects of our reports about which I wanted to say something, as has the hon. Member for Ormskirk. I made no apology for going over some of those points again, because they are extremely important. We should write into the record of the proceedings of the House some points which the public at large, or Members, might not have the time or energy to pick up for themselves from the original texts.
  I was especially concerned about the estimating failure of the Ministry of Technology with regard to expenditure on research and development of moneys made available by the House to private industry. Over the year; there has been a fantastic error of estimating under the sub-head relating to expenditure on research and development. The House should be aware of these figures, not merely in terms of cash but as a percentage of the money requested by the Department and granted by Parliament for the purpose.
  In the year under study, the error was £19½million; the Ministry of Technology asked for £19½million more than it required on the outturn of the account. This was an error of estimating of 11·5 per cent. The previous year, the error was £12 million, 6·6 per cent.; the year before it was £15 million, 7·4 per cent.; the year before that, £24¼million, 12·3 per cent.; and way back in 1963–64 there was an error of £18¼million, 9·3 per cent.
  I gather from hints in the Committee that in the current year there will be something of a bonanza, and that there may be an over-estimate of £24 million, though I cannot say what percentage that would represent.
  This seems to me so reckless as to make a nonsense of any pretence that those are sensible estimates. It is true that in other Departments and under other Votes and sub-heads there are

  1551
  errors of estimating, but they are usually in the range of 1 to 2 per cent., or perhaps occasionally 5 per cent. Errors of estimating ranging from 6.6 to 12.3 per cent., repeated year after year, seem to make a nonsense of any argument that proper financial control is being exercised. The Treasury virtually accepts that in its Minute, because it says on page 4:
  "…the Treasury and the Ministry of Technology accept that persistent over-provision in annual Estimates must necessarily adversely affect both the control of public expenditure generally and the efficient management of the economy ".
  I am glad that that is explicitly accepted by the Treasury, and I hope that the Department will do something about it.
  It may seem a little odd on the face of it to worry about under-spending. It might be thought that if over-spending had occurred we should become anxious, but that if there is under-spending the money comes back, or is not expended, and that is all. But what I am concerned about—and I am reinforced in this view by the Treasury Minute—is that errors of this kind on Estimates, as compared with the outturn of the Vote, indicate lack of proper control over the finances and public money made available by the House.
  There is another serious point. It is clear that in working out annually what he can permit different Departments to spend the Chancellor of the Exchequer must set the claims of one Department against those of another. If a Department demands, and succeeds in obtaining, substantial sums running into £10 million or £20 million which it does not need and cannot spend, that is clearly to the detriment of Departments which might very well have found a perfectly good use for such large sums of public money had they been allowed to have them. One cannot accept with complacency one Department making errors of that magnitude year after year after year. I have quoted six years in succession without the matter being probed into and a remedy being found.
  Sir D. Glover: If I understood him correctly when we were arguing this matter, the accounting officer's view was that the money concerned is the same rolling 10 per cent. In other words, the
  1552
  research programme is perpetually six weeks behind. I thought that the total was about £150 million, and tried to find that out, but it is not. It is the same £10 million rolling on each year.
  Mr. Hooley: With respect, the accounting officer produced a number of intriguing arguments as to why he could not marry up his estimates with the appropriations. I do not want to go into the whole matter. Anyone who is sufficiently interested to probe in detail will find all the evidence annexed to the reports. This is a serious matter, and I hope that it will be brought under control in future.
  The right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames touched on an important consequence of this argument, namely, that the Department should not be terrified of an excess Vote, but that it is much more important to make Estimates sensibly and correctly, and within the normal range of probabilities. In other words, they should do what I think is called "taut estimating", and not be terrified by what I think in the past has been Treasury mythology, that somehow an excess Vote is a terrible thing that must be avoided at all costs.
  The Committee and the House will accept that we want close estimating, plus or minus a reasonable amount, but certainly I do not want to see, and hope that the House would not want to see, a continuation of extravagant estimating which in effect is not estimating at all.
  I want to make one or two remarks about the Concorde aircraft. The general problem of the escalation of the project's cost has been ventilated enough in public, and the facts are pretty well known. The original estimate seven years ago was £170 million, and the latest estimate is £730 million, but most of us believe that we are nowhere near the end of the road. What has disturbed me is not so much a blatant lack of control over expenditure, or a lack of sensible estimation of costs, by the Ministry as by the aircraft manufacturers.
  From the evidence before the Committee there seems to have been a vigorous effort on the part of the professional officers of the Ministry of Technology and, previous to that, the Ministry of Aviation to keep proper surveillance

  1553
  over the rise in the cost of this project, but they have been defeated by a total lack of control by the aircraft manufacturers.
  This Session we were presented with two studies in depth of two aspects of this project. One concerned the estimates for the manufacture of the prototype and pre-production aircraft. The other concerned estimates of the cost of the fuel rig.
  On the first point, it appeared that the British Aircraft Corporation's top management told the Ministry that they had not known the real extent of the cost increase. In other words, the top level management of the firm concerned did not know the figures and had to be pressurised by Ministry officials to produce exact figures about what was happening in terms of the cost of this important and complicated project.
  Investigation into the fuel rig showed that there had apparently been an escalation in cost of 200 per cent. in three years. I gather that the fuel rig is a complicated piece of apparatus—it involves all kinds of complicated integration with the general design of the aircraft—and it is reasonable that the first estimate of its design and so forth would need to be revised considerably.
  Extremely alarming is the evidence provided by the Comptroller and Auditor General, that control of costs on this particular task had been inoperative for a considerable time. In other words, manufacturers were merrily going ahead dealing with this section of the aircraft without any control or real knowledge of the cost. This is an incredible reflection on the British aircraft industry. I should not cast any reflection on the technical skill of that industry, but technical skill in this modern world is not enough. We must produce things with sufficient technical skill at a price that people can afford. It appears that in this important project the control of costs, so far as the manufacturers are concerned, has been thrown out of the window. They have concentrated on going ahead with solving the technical problems irrespective of the money they were spending. The point is that this is public money, voted by Parliament, which the manufacturers are using on this project. There seems to be an impression in the aero-space
  1554
  industry that when it is spending public money it can spend it ad lib.
  Comments were also made in the Comptroller and Auditor General's Report on other aspects of aircraft production. The right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames has already commented on the theory that if the profitability overall of a firm is all right, then it is assumed that the profitability on particular contracts is not out of order. That is a theory which a study of the Public Accounts Committee's Reports will not substantiate.
  There was also a disquieting comment by the Comptroller and Auditor General that, when a study was made to find out whether overheads on Government contracts were correctly calculated, there was evidence of considerable over-manning in the firms carrying out such contracts. All these things give cause for disquiet. They may also lead us to examine at some future date whether our techniques for control and surveillance of the expenditure of public money in commercial or quasi-commercial operations, especially in the sphere of advanced technology, are right.
  I have referred to Concorde and aircraft procurement generally. It might also apply to other technological spheres such as the purchase of, or research on, pharmaceutical projects. As the Government become more involved in the industrial and commercial world, we need to reinforce our technique of scrutiny over the expenditure of public funds. The Committee has scored important victories on equality of information and post-costing, but we may have to look at the problem in more depth.
  Traditionally, the Public Accounts Committee has examined the men directly responsible for spending public money—accounting officers. But the senior civil servants do not really spend money on projects like Concorde. They try to exercise control and surveillance over the firms spending the money. MINTECH is making available large sums of public money to private corporations, which are the real spending agencies. This kind of spending on advanced technological hardware seems to throw up new problems of control and examination.
  It might be argued that the Public Accounts Committee ought to detail

  1555
  smaller sub-committees to look at these complicated technological spheres of expenditure. It may be that the Committee should have the right to examine not merely the accounting officers, but also some of the senior management of the firms spending the money. This has occurred in practice where grave public scandals were suspected. But it would be unfortunate if the idea grew that we were concerned only to call to account the management of aircraft firms if an obvious scandal was suspected.
  I do not see why, in principle, the Committee should not have the right, expressly through Statute or by Order of the House or by a convention, from time to time to summon senior management to give evidence and to examine them specifically on what they are doing to see that public money made available to their firms in huge quantities—hundreds of millions of pounds—is being dispersed and used with due care.
  These suggestions are not conceived essentially in any spirit of hostility to the private corporations. There may be problems concerning the control of research and development expenditure with which the Public Accounts Committee is not fully conversant. It may be that we have gone as far as we can with the proper control of this kind of spending, but I suspect that rather more could be done and that it would not merely be in the interests of the taxpayer, but also in the interests of industry.
  I should like now to make some comments on the hiring of married quarters in Germany, to which the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames referred. This was an outrageous scandal. There was a flagrant and blatant disregard of conditions specifically laid down by the Treasury. I endorse entirely what has been said from the other side of the House about nobody being responsible. It is a thoroughly unsatisfactory state of affairs and there should be a rigorous probe to make sure that it does not recur. It is the more unfortunate because the expenditure has been incurred across the exchanges at a time when the balance of payments has preoccupied this House and the whole country and where any laxity in spending Government funds in terms of foreign currency is the more reprehensible. I have suspected for a
  1556
  long time that there is considerable waste in our expenditure on maintenance of the British Army of the Rhine. I shall be surprised if that was the only example of failure to control expenditure in respect of that operation.
  I hope that as a result of this investigation the Treasury will institute a rigorous inquiry into all aspects of the control by the Ministry of Defence of the expenditure being incurred, day in day out, month in month out, in maintaining the Rhine Army. I do not say that because I am inherently hostile to the idea of keeping that Army there, I am not, but because for a long time I have believed that the costs are grossly excessive in relation to the role which that Army is expected to play.
  I have only one more comment to make, and that is on what appears to be a rather curious situation in the National Health Service. There does not appear to be any knowledge of, or any clear guidance on, the right level of nursing staffs in hospitals. The Committee accepts that different hospitals need different levels of staffing, but there are many hospitals of the same type and there does not seem to be any recognised norm or establishment for nurses in hospitals under the control of the Health Service.
  In universities and schools it is accepted that, within certain ratios and limits, staffing is laid down. We take great care, or should do, to see that the deployment of expensive and highly skilled staff is made in accordance with certain broad principles. We do not decide that universities must have an absolute ratio of staffs to students, or that schools must have an absolute ratio of teachers to pupils, but there are some broadly accepted principles on which the staffing of these institutions is carried out.
  No such rules appear to exist in respect of nurses in hospitals under the control of the Health Service. I think that some research has been done on the subject, but it is by no means adequate, and in view of the cost of training these important and skilled people, and the importance of seeing that our hospitals are properly served in terms of staff, I think that further investigation is needed into this matter.

  1557
  I suppose that it could be construed as a compliment to the Committee that so few Members are interested in its report, in the sense that they take it for granted that we have done our job properly, and that any further comment is superficial. On the other hand, it may be that the House thinks that our whole proceedings and technique are antiquated and out of date. If that were felt in any quarter, I should be interested to hear the arguments advanced for it. I think that it is somewhat regrettable that the House should not be prepared to take rather more seriously a Report of this kind, which surveys the whole field of public expenditure, and does from time to time make recommendations which are not only important in detail, but which involve important questions of principle.
  Sir D. Glover: What I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree with me is so tragic about this is that the Report is so wide that all hon. Members, if they wanted to, could speak on almost every subject, but they are in the Smoking Room and cannot be called to take part in the debate.
  Mr. Hooley: I should not care to pursue that argument too far, because I think that there are some hon. Members who are prepared to speak on every subject already. It is unfortunate that we do not have a better attendance. I hope that our future debates on the Committee's Reports will attract rather more interest.
  5.34 p.m.
  Mr. Edwin Brooks: I do not dissent from the concluding remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley), for, like him, and like the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover), I feel that it is a pity that on this occasion the House should be so thinly attended. Nor do I dissent from my hon. Friend's opening remarks when he paid generous and only too well-deserved testimony to the skill and patience, and often forbearance, of the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts in the immense labours that he undertakes on behalf of the House during the course of the year.
  This is a time of some importance in our discussion of accountability and parliamentary control of expenditure.
  1558
  Hon. Members have referred to the Report of the Select Committee on Procedure, which, I understand, is soon to be debated in the House. This is a time when the House needs to re-establish what has been termed. the "circle of control". It is perhaps therefore a sign of the frivolity of members of the P.A.C. if, after a year's intensive effort, I seem to depart from the general and fundamental, and turn to a matter of apparent insignificance, but I am fortified in this choice of opening theme by the attention which has been lavished on it by earlier speakers.
  I am, of course, referring to the curious and almost bizarre circumstances which surrounded the purchase of upholstery cloth. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), the Chairman of the Committee, gave the House the basic facts, and I shall not repeat them, except to emphasise the obvious and extraordinary phenomenon that six types of upholstery were being ordered, three for officers, and three for other ranks, and at the end of the day, as we now often say, the officers' cloth turned out to he cheaper, despite the higher specification, for it, than did that purchased for the other ranks.
  It is true that the Public Accounts Committee, during the course of its interrogations, was to learn that specifications cannot apparently be written with any high degree of accuracy, but this knowledge appears to have been unrecognised at the time of the original tendering and selection of materials. Indeed, the joint committee which finally selected six brands, ranging from two-tone tan to lacquer red, appears to have been lacking a great deal of other information, also. As has been said, only its chairman seems to have known the prices of the tenders, and as he was only 5 per cent. of the total committee, it seems that aesthetic rather than price considerations must have dominated their deliberations.
  The P.A.C. was told, in what I think was rather a splendid simile, by the accounting officer:
  "Just as in a club, Sir, your guest is given a menu with no prices so that his choice will be uninhibited by worries about his host's expense, there is something to be said for saying, 'Look, all these fabrics are acceptable. Your job is to choose the best '."

  1559
  I think that that is splendid, but it is not usual—and the House need not be reminded of this—for the taxpayer to be regarded as such an open-handed entertainer.
  Another peculiar aspect of the whole matter is that the teal blue material was originally accepted, as the hon. Member for Ormskirk said, at a price of 22s. 9d. but subsequently it was found that the firm had made a mistake and that the real price should have been 28s. I d. But that price was, nevertheless, endorsed by the joint committee, and the P.A.C. was told that subsequent investigations revealed that the firm was making no profit on the deal.
  Why the firm bothered to seek such a contract in those circumstances escapes me, but the joint committee apparently was satisfied that all the materials represented in the 90 samples examined were "good value for money". Although they may have been satisfied in principle that anything they were looking at would be good value for money, it appears strange that there should be such a range of prices—from 13s. to 34s.—for these materials, and yet, apparently, all 90 samples were good value for money.
  As I meditated over this strange story I felt that somehow I had to find an explanation or philosophy behind what appeared to be happening. I turned, as I often do to rejuvenate myself, to Parkinson's splendid law and I found that it held the key to what happened. I wish to develop this point in relation to some other episodes described by the Public Accounts Committee. During the course of Parkinson's work, which was based upon the most erudite and fundamental statistical analyses, he discussed the coefficient of inefficiency of committees. He discovered that the coefficient of inefficiency must lie between 19 and 22.
  This is based upon the formula—
  X = mº (a — d)/y+pb
  —where a represented the average age of the members; d the distance in centimetres between the two members sitting furthest from each other, and v the number of years since the committee
  1560
  was first formed. As a result of this scientific assessment one discovers that the coefficient of inefficiency is always found to lie between 19·9 and 22·4. The joint committee numbered exactly 20 and, therefore, lay clearly within the coefficient of inefficiency. But we were told that the committee has now been reduced in size.
  We were curious why it should have been reduced to a certain size. Again, Professor Parkinson provides part of the key. To him, the golden number for a committee is about eight. He says:
  " The interesting theory has been propounded that this number"—
  the golden number—
  " must be eight"
  That may be the case, or it may be six, but if it were a case merely of looking at one example and finding some apparent proof of what many regard as no more than a witty summary of our present ailments in committee structure there would be little point in pursuing it. But we find that there is throughout the whole of our report a constant reiteration of some of the more fundamental points which Parkinson's Law tried to illustrate.
  We found that—and we were told this, again, on the upholstery matter—that
  "every number you thought of got multiplied by three".
  This was because the various rationalisation procedures for the Services had not been completed at the time that this joint committee was sitting. This multiplication by three is also relevant to the examination of the work of the Land Commission because, as paragraph 167 of the Public Accounts Committee indicates,
  "the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources, for the purpose of determining the office accommodation and number of staff the Land Commission would require, had estimated that the work load in four or five years' time would be 300,000 cases annually. The Commission were unable to explain how the Ministry had arrived at this figure, but the Commission's comparable estimate of the work load in four or five years' time was between 100,000, and 150,000 cases"—"
  a ratio of between two and three times the original.
  However, not only was there ambiguity and uncertainty as to how the original estimate of 300,000 had been made—a

  1561
  figure which was seriously over estimating the work load—but there was considerable under estimation, or so we were told, by the Ministry of the complexity of the levy work and, therefore, to some extent these two together would cancel out. This is simply a cancellation of errors and we should not be too sanguine or complacent about the situation which these errors revealed.
  The Public Accounts Committee went on—as the chairman had emphasised—to draw attention to the difficulties of estimating the staff requirements for work of a novel kind. I was certainly concerned that the likely load of levy work should have been so greatly overestimated, with the result that excessive numbers of staff were recruited.
  It is rather difficult for those of us, even on the Committee, who have access to accounting officers for interrogation to be altogether satisfied with the explanations that we are given about the problems brought before us. One of the surprising statistics that we were given in relation to the Land Commission was that by December, 1968—the date on which we took evidence—only 46·2 acres of the whole country had been handled by the Commission under its land dealing functions. Indeed, by March, 1969 about two years after vesting date—only about one square mile of the whole country would have been so acquired by it for its various purposes.
  It may be argued that this is quite understandable—that it is complex and difficult work, and uncharted. Nevertheless, in my view it might have been wiser for staff to have been built up more slowly rather than excessively quickly, and to have avoided the inevitable problems which were subsequently brought out by our Committee.
  I want to quote the good Professor Parkinson again. He refers to
  " organisation strangling itself at birth. Examples abound of new institutions coming into existence with a full establishment of deputy directors, consultants and executives, all these coming together in a building specially designed for their purpose. And experience proves that such an institution will die. It is choked by its own perfection. It cannot take root for lack of soil. It cannot grow naturally, for it is already grown."
  When I think of the institutions which, during the course of the year, we were
  1562
  to examine and which come under this general criticism, my mind turns to the Board of Trade. We referred to the Board of Trade in our Report, and in some strong language. Professor Parkinson has an account of a building where an institution such as that which he was discussing, which has overgrown functions
  " The outer door, in bronze and glass, is placed centrally in a symmetrical façade. Polished shoes glide quietly over shining rubber to the glittering and silent lift. The overpoweringly cultured receptionist will murmur with carmine lips into an ice-blue receiver."
  So it goes on. The impression given is that this is an organisation of vast efficiency.
  Professor Parkinson says:
  " In point of fact, you will have discovered that this is nothing of the kind. It is now known that a perfection of planned layout is achieved only by institutions on the point of collapse."
  We have to bear in mind that many functions of the Board of Trade—that splendid building in Victoria Street—have now been absorbed elsewhere.
  But we were not concerned with the fundamental problems of the structure of Government. We were concerned with the problems of the canteens, especially in Scotland. There is a section in paragraph 201 of our report in which we point out that
  " The Committee of Public Accounts of Session 1952–53 were informed that, although some of these canteens were being run at a loss which fell on the taxpayer, it was not the Board's policy to subsidise them; but losses continued and the Committee of 1961–62 were told that the Board were still making enquiries into how to deal with them. The Estimates Committee of Session 1962–63. recommended that intensified efforts should be made to transfer the responsibility for running the canteens to the tenants who use them."
  But although the years roll by and committees go on making the same point, and the Department apparently accepts it, this year we still have the same problem brought before us. As we say in paragraph 204:
  " Your Committee notes with concern that it is 16 years since a previous Committee of Public Accounts were informed that it is not the Board's policy to subsidise canteens on industrial estates."
  This is splendid progress. After 16 years, we are now getting somewhere apparently on this one.

  1563
  I feel that Professor Parkinson can be quoted here on canteens:
  " Just as for a quick verdict we judge a private house by inspection of the W.C. (to find out whether there is a spare toilet roll), just as we judge a hotel by the state of the cruet, so we judge a larger institution by the appearance of the canteen."
  There is a truth here about the Board of Trade's functions. The point is a serious one.
  There was also criticism of the Board of Trade over the leases for factory rentals. This is certainly a much more serious point, in that it involves substantial sums of public money. Indeed, in paragraph 197, we find the following:
  " The Board informed your Committee that a study of a sample of cases showed that the deficit of f-6 million on Income and Expenditure account in 1967–68 would have been substantially reduced, if not eliminated, if rent revision clauses had been included in leases since 1953."
  The Board of Trade had explanations for the delay since 1964 in introducing such clauses, as had been suggested by the Treasury at that time, but, for the reasons which are given in detail in the Report and which I will not read, the Committee did not accept those excuses. The House will be able to study this in detail and judge where our critique of the Board was justified or not. I certainly think that it was.
  We say in paragraph 205 that there is a lack of vigour in dealing with financial questions by the Board of Trade, but on the costs of Concorde there was not only a lack of vigour but, I think, a lack of candour towards the House. Parkinson made the point long ago. He called it the "Law of Triviality", which means that the time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved. This has been repeated so often that we regard it as an obvious truism and no longer even bother to smile, but it is a fundamental point when considering the saga of Concorde.
  I have spoken in the House perhaps a dozen times on the Concorde and I suppose that there seems little left to say. Yet there is surely much left to say about a situation such as now faces us.
  When I entered the House, and was on the Public Accounts Committee in May of 1966, we were told that there was an escalation in costs to upwards of £500
  1564
  million for total research and development. This in itself was a staggering increase in the figures which, until then, had been before this Parliament. It also included £50 million for contingencies. So at least there was an assumption that this calculation of £500 million was based upon some sensible forecasting of the costs which were likely to be incurred for following years. In fact, nothing of the sort has happened.
  I know that we are now punch drunk with statistics, and that an extra £230 million on top of £500 million leaves us befuddled: it does not matter any longer. I find, talking to hon. Members and particularly to members of the public, that we have now lost all sense of what this means. But what the escalation means is that, for every week during the last seven or eight years, an extra £1 million and more has been added to the research and development bill of Concorde—an average annual escalation of costs of well over £50 million.
  This is surely serious. We are spending a great deal of time on the problems of upholstery and all sorts of other no doubt worthy causes, but when we get on to these huge sums, it then seems that perhaps two or three minutes is all that we can devote to them, bewailing the fact that we have no control over the Executive and also, I suspect, the fact that the Executive now has little control over the project.
  But there are serious matters in our report this year which the House should have brought to its attention and which have not yet been mentioned. Until this year, we were under the impression that upwards of a third of the total research and development expenditure would be reclaimed by the British and French taxpayers via a levy on sales, so that, of the £500 million, we could have expected perhaps £160 million back. I am talking now of the two countries, of course.
  Now, however, not only has the research and development cost gone up by about 50 per cent., but the estimated one-third recoupment is not nearly likely to be realised.
  Mr. Terence L. Higgins: Would the hon. Gentleman clarify that for me? Is that because of the increase in costs or because there is expected to be no fully realised revenue so far as sales are concerned?
  Mr. Brook: I could put my dilemma in trying to answer that simply in this way: we have not yet—perhaps my hon. Friend can clarify this—been given any precise figures about the actual cost at which Concorde will be sold. We have no idea, in other words, what levy would be chargeable or, indeed, could be chargeable so that the plane could be sold widely. Clearly, the more the levy, the lower the market. Estimates of the market themselves vary enormously. Some are of 200 and some go up to about 300. So there is a number of built-in variables on which there is, perhaps inevitably, a good deal of ambiguity. But it seems fairly clear that the likely levy per aircraft cannot exceed £2 million.
  If this is so, of course one can start doing various sums. These have been made by Mr. C. B. Edwards, a lecturer in economics at the University of East Anglia, who has produced to my knowledge the only detailed cost-benefit analysis of the Concorde project. But when we on the Committee are given broad general answers in the course of our interrogation, we are never able to probe in the way that the hon. Gentleman now seeks to probe—or if we do, we simply cannot get precise answers.
  The difficulty again is that the £730 million itself will certainly not be the last word, the final figure. The report says that if the development costs were to go up by more than some 15 per cent., a fundamental redesign of the aircraft would probably be involved. Maybe so, but this seems to imply that we can absorb—and probably will have to absorb —an increase of about 15 per cent. A 15 per cent. increase on £730 million is a lot of money—over £100 million.
  If we add that on, we have a total of about £840 million on our R and D. So if we recoup a full third, nearly £600 million would still be down the drain. But this, we are now told, is most unlikely to be realised, so the total subsidy from the English and French taxpayers to the Concorde could be at least £700 million and possibly, when the final bills come in, nearer £800 million.
  So much has been said about this that one feels almost helpless to add to what seems to me one of the most scandalous and disgraceful episodes in the whole history of parliamentary control of expenditure.
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  This cost-benefit analysis by Mr. Edwards was carried out as a private initiative. The conclusions he reaches may be unsound, ill-founded and incorrect but they are valuable since we in this House have never been given any alternative authoritative cost-benefit analysis of Concorde.
  Before the M1 was built a complete study was carried out and it showed, in cost-benefit terms, that it would be a healthy investment. The same sort of detailed analysis, encouraged by officialdom, proved the same before the Victoria and Euston line was built. Since Parliament has never been given an analysis worth talking about for Concorde, it is interesting to note Mr. Edwards' words. Although this may be the last occasion on which I shall speak about this matter, there are many detailed figures in the document produced by Mr. Edwards—I will not state the statistics because they would be burdensome to the House—which should be examined by the Government.
  1 Mr. Edwards states, on page 8 of his report:
  " Working with the benefit of the hindsight which we have on the project so far, what is the net cost to the British economy of Concorde likely to be? On the assumption of a total research and development cost of, say, £900 million, a jigging and tooling cost of £100 million, a development period from 1962 to 1973, a profit per aircraft of £2 million, and a sales figure of 200 aircraft between 1973 and 1980, the net loss of the project at a discount rate of 8 per cent. p.a. is shown to be … £483 million … there is a loss to the U.K. economy of about £240 million from Concorde assuming sales of 200 aircraft and a `surplus' per aircraft sold of £2 million; with a sales figure of 140 and the same ' surplus ' the loss to the U.K. economy would be about £260 million."
  Clearly, if there are greater sales, the loss will be correspondingly less. There are countervailing arguments such as the benefit to the balance of payments and the technological spillover, but these too have never been spelt out in detail.
  I am in favour of output budgeting, an accounting technique by one which defines goals and has a breakdown in costs in terms of that target. However, we have had the Concorde target for a long time and we have been completely unable to control the costs involved. The problem must be profoundly one of management accountability, involving both Governments and firms.

  1567
  May I conclude with a final reference to Parkinson. My hon. Friend the Member for Heeley regretted that it was apparently impossible to work out what the right level for nurse staffing in hospitals should be. I have some reservations about this and about the Committee's strictures on the subject, for there are inherent difficulties in working out such a level and perhaps one is asking for trouble in trying to work it out. It may be not only possible but perhaps undesirable to imply that there should be some sort of straight forward calculation which enables us to tell whether a hospital is under-manned or over-manned; or, since we are speaking of nurses, over-womaned.
  It is curious to note that if one looks at the increase in full-time nurses between 1964 and 1968—for which figures were made available to the Committee—one sees that the increases correspond almost precisely to Parkinson's Law. Parkinson says that the calculation which gives the number of new staff required each year in any service is given by the formula
  100 (2 km +1)/Yn%
  Expressed as a percentage, it would be between 5·17 and 6·56 per cent., irrespective of any variation in the amount of work, if any, to be done. One is tempted to smile at such a formula, but 1 am not sure that one should because 1 have found that a simple calculation reveals that the number of nurses increased during the period 1964 to 1968 by 5·5 per cent., which is within Parkinson's calculation.
  I have suggested that there is a continuing problem facing the House and that we must take what is occasionally regarded as a jocular matter more seriously. I refer to the problems of bureaucratic extravagance which Parkinson's Law tries to identify. We must take these problems more seriously.
  This is a time when it is easy to be complacent and say,
  " There is a large volume of evidence and many complaints to support the theory of extravagance, but this evidence and those complaints relate only to what went wrong. Volumes could be published showing all the things that went right."
  But when
  1568
  I study the evidence before us—notably that applying to Concorde, the saga over the canteens and the business of the upholstery ordering—I wonder whether we are seeing only the tip of the iceberg and whether we need more effective surveillance and more rigorous management accountability than we have been accustomed to hitherto.
  6.6 p.m.
  Mr. Terence L. Higgins: This is essentially a parliamentary, rather than a partisan, occasion. By tradition, however, it is usual for a speech to be made from the Opposition Front Bench, and it is with pleasure that I make that speech.
  I have had the pleasure of listening to the entire debate and the speeches have revealed the importance of the matters before us. I am particularly glad of the opportunity to express my personal thanks—I am sure that the whole House will join me—to the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) for the tremendous amount of work that he did and the success which the Committee had in looking after our affairs under his chairmanship.
  In his speech, which was full of charm and elegance, my right hon. Friend stressed the great work which the Committee had done and particularly the fact that there had always been a quorum. Given the size of the Committee and its comparatively large quorum, that showed how well the Committee undertook its work.
  I share the feeling of the hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Macdonald) that I am, so to speak, an ordinary shareholder in that I am not a member of the Public Accounts Committee. I assure him, however, that it has been refreshing to listen to the debate.
  It is sometimes said in the Press-1 was glad that the Press paid considerable attention to these Reports when they were first published—that there are certain hair-raising examples of expenditure examined by Committees of this sort. To mix metaphors. 1 suggest that the Committee was in the position of looking for a needle in a haystack because there was a vast area of public expenditure to be examined.

  1569
  The Committee had the difficult task of pinning down areas where some abuses might have occurred and commenting on them. It was a difficult task, considering the small number of abuses in relation to the total amount of Government expenditure. It is vital that this work should be done and perhaps my right hon. Friend the Chairman of the Committee, as a former Treasury Minister, has been in the position of gamekeeper turned gamekeeper. We welcome his expertise and effectiveness in this matter.
  It was clear from the example which my right hon. Friend gave that stringent cross-examination took place over the question of the multiple hiring of married quarters in Germany. When a defect of this kind is found it is right that it should be brought out by the Committee, then on the Floor of the House and that the Government should take every possible step to prevent a recurrence. This can be done only if every case is considered with great care and if every point that needs pursuing is pursued.
  On 14th August, The Guardian had this to say:
  " The worrying feature common to most of the mistakes is not that there are many of them or even that they are very large but that they are the mistakes of a kind that ordinary businessmen would never make."
  That is not invariably true. In the case of the multiple hiring, the failure was not one of commercial judgment but one of administration, and it is on the commercial aspect that I now want to speak.
  My right hon. Friend pointed out that the Public Accounts Committee has now been in operation for more than a hundred years, but the economic environment in which it is operating is very different. Whereas in the last century it was just a question of sticking to clearly understood accounting techniques, in an age of inflation and in a period when we have had a very much faster rate of economic growth than we had in most periods of the 19th century, different economic methods are applicable. Moreover, we have today many financial techniques which were not available then, and the computer has given us greater powers of calculation.
  That being so, I should like, first, to take up the point that emerged from my intervention in the speech of the hon. Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks). The
  1570
  reference to the Public Accounts Committee in Standing Orders is:
  " There shall be a select: committee, to be designated the Committee of Public Accounts, for the examination of the accounts showing the appropriation of the sums granted by Parliament to meet the public expenditure, and of such other accounts laid before Parliament as the committee may think fit…".
  to examine, and so on.
  It will, I think, be the general view of the House that it would be wrong for the work of the Committee to be concentrated purely on the cost side, because many of the matters into which it looks inevitably have not merely a cost aspect, but a revenue aspect in those circumstances, and looking at it from the commercial point of view it:is very important that both aspects should be brought out This was clearly recognised in the Committee's Report in page xxii. Incidentally, I must say that I find it difficult to switch to and from Roman numerals when going through such a long report.
  The Report states:
  " Your Committee were also informed that in consequence of the present cost escalation, the proportion of total development costs of Concorde which could now he recovered in the production price would probably be a good deal less than the one-third previously contemplated."
  It is important in this context that we should look not merely at the cost side but at the revenue side.
  I make no comment at all on the desirability or otherwise of the Concorde project—we are not concerned with that today—but it is relevant to look at the debate we had in Standing Committee on the Industrial Expansion Bill in March last year. Pursuing this point about the revenue likely to arise from the Concorde project, the Minister of Technology replied to a point I had made about market research which had been carried out.
  The right hon. Gentleman said:
  " This is a complicated and interesting question. The market here is the airlines, and it is not for us to interrogate their passengers about whether they would prefer to go rapidly to New York in a big aircraft or more slowly in a ship. The co-ordination of passenger demand is an airline responsibility, and the customers for Concorde are the airlines themselves. Therefore, if one is looking at the market point of view, one looks at it in terms of airline options and possible orders, and it is not possible for the Minister of Technology to do an analysis of passenger preference."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E. 19th March, 1968; c. 432.]

  1571
  Those words bring out the very important point that if we are to appraise whether or not public money is being properly spent, we must look at projects which are essentially commercial in nature and make sure that we get a reasonably accurate view of what the money is being spent on, and what we can expect from it. It is these two sides that are very important and which come out implicitly in much of what the Reports say with regard to the Concorde project.
  In addition, the Committee has shown its concern with the objects of the policy. Here, again, I must say that it is not always entirely clear whether one is concerned with prestige, economic development, balance of payments, buying foreign exchange at a premium, technological spin-off, or whatever it may be, and while the Committee is primarily concerned with the cost side it is quite right to emphasise the point about the one-third coming back. It is important to look at these things in commercial terms.
  A more general point is that, generally speaking, because we are in an inflationary situation, it is right that we should look at all these matters in terms of replacement value rather than historic cost—if I may use a little technical jargon. It is no good looking at a project in terms of what it cost originally: it is necessary to allow for the effect inflation has had on the actual value of the asset expressed by means of a constant measuring rod. Here I want to take up two particular points to which the Committee has referred.
  The first refers to regional policy, and one can take as an example of what 1 have just been saying the break clauses in the factory leases in regard to development policy. The Committee has rightly brought out the fact that this is a quite extraordinary situation where, apparently. the Board of Trade, in particular, has sought to use the historic cost approach rather than look at what the influence of inflation is likely to be in order to further policies of regional development.
  If one reads the interesting passages on this point in the reports one sees that gradually it is recognised that because there are other regional policies, such as investment grant policy, or R.E.P. policy,
  1572
  it is felt necessary to use this historic cost device to achieve an object of policy which was not really the original intention of Parliament. Therefore, in an inflationary situation it is very important to look at the thing in this way, rather than in purely accounting terms. I am very glad, if I may say so without presumption, that this point is well taken in the example I have just quoted.
  Similarly, with many projects it is very important—and the same example will serve me—to look at the project over the expected life of the asset. Here we have factories which are expected to be leased for, at any rate, 21 years. We now have many new capital budgeting techniques involving discounted cash flow, and so on, which have had the effect of making many commercial concerns look at the rate of return they are likely to get over the life of the asset. Adopting that approach, one cannot get into a muddle with regard to these factory leases. If it is that sort of project, it must be looked at in commercial terms of the life of the asset, rather than just taking the picture at an individual moment of time.
  One general point may be made here, because it is becoming increasingly important in both commercial life and Government service. Given that we have a relatively high rate of economic growth compared with the last century, one needs to see the other side of the coin, which is that the relative cost of labour compared with capital is rising. That means that if one is investing in a particular project, the right thing to do is not to take the relative cost of capital and labour at the time of making the investment decision, but the relative cost of capital and labour to be expected half way through the asset's life. This is increasingly done in commercial life, but has not become as widespread as, perhaps, it should when ordinary Government decisions are taken.
  This brings me to another major point which has come out of this debate. Time and time again people have said, "We do not have the full information"—or what, in commercial terms, would be a capital proposal. I seriously wonder whether it should not be the case that at any rate, the Public Accounts Committee, or perhaps Members of Parliament themselves—perhaps the documents could be put in the Library—should not have,

  1573
  where it is relevant for projects, the normal form of capital proposal showing the cost side and the revenue side which is expected. This I know is a somewhat revolutionary viewpoint, but perhaps it should be considered.
  Inevitably one jumps from paragraph to paragraph in reports such as these. I now wish to discuss the Local Employment Act, 1966—loan for the drydock. I listened to the contribution made by the hon. Member for Chislehurst and I take the point he made in endorsing the view of the Committee that in future any loans should be secured. I had a little difficulty in fully understanding the point, however. He had a difficult task and he explained it very clearly, but I had difficulty at one stage of the argument. I understood him to say that it would not be the case that loans of this kind would involve a nil failure rate. I can understand what he was arguing, but if one links that with what he said about full security for the loan I am not clear whether he suggested that a nil failure rate should not result in loss for the Government.
  Mr. Macdonald: I understand the point the hon. Member is making. On reflection, it is possible that I did not make myself quite clear. I was arguing that in all cases it is proper to take security, but I do not think it possible, even by having security, in every case to be so careful and meticulous that we can ensure that the Government never lose any money, nor do I think we should aim at that high degree of certainty.
  Mr. Higgins: This is a complicated point. It may be that with pleasure one could discuss it with the hon. Member outside the Chamber. I understand that the Committee's view was that generally there should be full security for loans of this kind. This is not unreasonable because there is a clear distinction between loans on which the Government do not expect to lose the capital sum and the existing system of grants. These should be brought into closer relationship. I found this point fascinating as concerned with the percentage of the total investment which should be put up by the operators of the scheme.
  Recently for development areas we were in a situation where with a 40 per cent. investment grant, 40 per cent. of
  1574
  the total cost was paid by the Government, and this means that a number of projects are undertaken which otherwise could not have been undertaken. On the basis of that cash flow it may be possible for those receiving the grant to raise a considerable sum of money and, given that that is the situation in a development area, the tendency will be for the total equity contribution put up by the promoters of this or that project to be closer to the limit of one-third, which the Committee thought an unsatisfactory level, than the one half which it thought would be the right and proper level for any individual entrepreneur to put up. This raises some very interesting points. I thought the study which the Committee has made of this case a stimulating one which hon. Members should consider very carefully.
  I make a final point with reference to over- and under-estimating. This is a difficult area because, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, traditionally there has been the feeling that a Supplementary Estimate is in some sense a terrible thing and ought not to happen. I am sure my right hon. Friend was right in saying that this is something which is not regarded with quite such horror as it was in the past. When one is looking at the Estimates and saying, "We think this is the amount of money which ought to be spent on a particular project", in some areas, particularly that of overseas aid, we seem to have got into the position in which the estimated figure is never actually achieved. That is because, although the ceiling is put at that point, for various reasons projects fall out and the total always falls below the estimated figure.
  As my right hon. Friend said, there is a case perhaps for changing our thinking a little, though not to a great extent, about whether one under-estimates or over-estimates. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley) pointed out that we need accurate estimates and that one should get as close to the true expected figure as possible.
  Those of us who were not members of the Committee are glad that this debate has taken place. It has emphasised the important work which the Public Accounts Committee does. The tribute which my right hon. Friend paid to the Comptroller and Auditor General for the

  1575
  important work he does was wholly justified. We shall look forward with interest to the comments to be made by the Treasury Minister. The Treasury Minute is very abbreviated and a number of points which have been raised in the debate are not covered by it.
  I hope that the Minister of State will be able to give some answers to the highly complex but nevertheless most important questions that have been raised.
  6.26 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Treasury (Mr. William Rodgers): I shall do my best to help the hon. Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins). Coming to this kind of debate for the first time, I have been struck by the extent to which hon. Members have commented more on the report of the Select Committee than on the Treasury Minute. I would detain the House unreasonably if my main contribution this evening was merely to repeat what is said in the Treasury Minute if there was nothing of additional value to be said. What I think is clear to the House is the tremendous importance which we attach to the work of the Committee and the attention which its report is given.
  The right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) in introducing the Report, with the advantage of having been on the inside, said that he was sure it had had a considerable impact on the conduct of government. I noted what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks), especially about Concorde. I respect his impatience in so far as there has sometimes seemed to be delay in getting full information. That notwithstanding, I think it still true to say that the P.A.C. Report has a very considerable impact. I should like to feel that the Treasury Minute on this occasion has been acceptable and shows an agreeable willingness to take account of the views of the Committee. My feeling is that it is forthcoming and conciliatory because we recognise that in a number of cases the Committee has put its finger on important points and made criticisms which are justified.
  This is, of course, the most distinguished and important of House of Commons Committees. As a very new
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  Treasury Minister, it is interesting to me to see how the role of the P.A.C. very much chimes with what the Treasury is often trying to do. An unusual aspect on this occasion for a Treasury Minister is that normally Treasury Ministers are blamed for things for which they are not responsible and held accountable for the collective decisions of Ministers. On this occasion there is little criticism of the Treasury, except perhaps where it has not been tough enough. So it is pleasant so early in my experience at the Treasury to find that people are sometimes on my side.
  Whereas the Treasury performs its important function with regard to government as a whole, and sometimes has its own criticisms of other Departments, which perhaps may be read between the lines of the Treasury Minutes, it is most important that the Select Committee, and, therefore, Parliament, if I may say so without disrespect, should stand behind the Treasury, prodding it forward, giving it support, but occasionally, if the Treasury leans too much one way or the other, pushing it back into line. If I were to speak of a partnership in this respect, again I hope I should not be disrespectful to a Committee which, being a Committee of the House, is, at the end of the day, sovereign.
  I add my own tribute to the Committee's work and to its members, both past and present. Its Report can be read with fascinated interest by anyone. To say that it is bedside reading is perhaps an exaggeration, but some of the exchanges, including some which the right hon. Gentleman quoted, are fascinating. Although the debate has not been very fully attended, those who read HANSARD may thereby know what they have missed and perhaps remedy it by reading the report.
  As for the Chairman, inevitably anything that I say will in a sense be a poor thing compared with what members of the Committee have said of him. He is held in the very highest regard by the House. When I was preparing for this debate and thinking what might be said and being reminded that the epitome of reports was to be brought up to date, I found the right hon. Gentleman's name on the front of this copy—
  " Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed "

  1577
  as long ago as 5th February, 1952. It is a very long and distinguished record, and we are greatly in the right hon. Gentleman's debt.
  Then there is the Comptroller and Auditor General, who, again, has a very special relationship. He is, I think I am right in saying, the servant of the House and of the Committee. Yet he has a Department under his own control. I do not know whether this is unique in the accounting methods of Parliaments. Whatever may be said about the need for further sophistication in the methods of the control of expenditure, his role is a very important one and his own personal service is most highly esteemed by the House.
  Considering what was said earlier, and perhaps the slight feeling expressed by members of the Committee that their own labours were not always fully noted, I was interested to see the very considerable comment there was at the time of the publication of the Report. For example, the Financial Times said that the report was as absorbing and salutary as ever. Having made some comments on the question of the control of public expenditure and the system of public accounting, it went on to say this:
  " It is very hard to see how there can be any substitute for the psychological value of a high-powered parliamentary committee which can cross-examine senior officials and cause them to justify the minutest details of their public transactions."
  On the day that that leading article appeared, there was a great deal of comment in the newspapers, which shows that the report was taken note of and is highly regarded outside the House. In that respect, because we all like to look for some reward or recognition of our labours, I do not think that the Committee should have any worries.
  I do not intend to detain the House for long, because much of what has been said today has been comment on the report. I shall not repeat what has been said in the Treasury Minute. The matters which mainly concern the House and upon which there have been repeated comments are: first, the purchase of upholstery cloth; secondly, the Land Commission; thirdly, the Board of Trade; fourthly, multiple hirings; and, fifthly, Concorde.
  On the first of these I have nothing to add. In so far as the Committee failed
  1578
  —I would not admit that it did—to make clear its criticisms, and in so far as the Treasury Minute may have implied that we did not in very large part accept it, the comments made today have emphasised the shortcomings which the Select Committee saw, and I can again say that the points have been noted.
  The Ministry accepts that the selection process must obtain the best value for money. Having listened to what has been said, I appreciate how the Committee came to wonder whether former procedures were the best for that purpose. As the House knows, and as the Committee now knows, there has been a change of procedure. The further comments made on both sides, if one can speak of both sides of the House in a debate of this kind, will have been noted.
  The very difficult task with which the Land Commission was faced was appreciated by the Committee. Had transactions reached or exceeded the level which might have been expected, the staff which it had in mind might have been inadequate for the purpose. In the last resort, in this sort of sphere when it is a matter of implementing the wishes of Parliament as embodied in legislation, it may be better to be on the safe side.
  As I think the House knows, and certainly as the Committee recognised, the peak number employed by the Land Commission—this was in January, 1968 —then still fell considerably short of the total staff planned for at the beginning. The Treasury Minute points out that the number of staff has since been reduced. I would not say that this makes a great deal of difference, but from 1st October to the end of October there has been a further reduction of two. I am sure that in the light of what the Committee said every step will be taken to ensure that further reductions are made as far as possible and as far as is reconcilable with the proper work which the Commission continues to undertake.
  On the question of the Board of Trade, again I think that the House will know that this was a matter upon which there was a difference of opinion between Departments, as from 1954 onwards the Treasury was suggesting to the Board that there was a case for introducing rent revision clauses into the leases for factories on the Board's industrial estates.

  1579
  In defence of the Board, it should be said that it was anxious that the terms of these leases would represent an effective inducement to firms to go to development areas and also an assurance to those areas of a continuity of employment on those estates.
  Now is not the time to enter into the argument. I simply say that because I think that the House will recognise that, on the one hand, the Treasury was carrying out its proper duty, as I think that the Select Committee has recognised, and, on the other, the Board had in its mind an important policy reason for not moving as fast and as far as otherwise we would like.
  On the question of the multiple hirings, I have noted very carefully all that has been said today and the strong words that have been used. Some interesting points have been made about the much wider question of placing responsibility and the extent to which we have, by the creation of the Parliamentary Commissioner, abandoned in part a practice which the right hon. Gentleman referred to as Ministerial accountability.
  It is now recognised that such is the detail of government that sometimes, if a Minister is properly responsible to this House for policy, he cannot be involved in a day-to-day way in all the details of his Department. I think that this is a very important and interesting point which I am sure hon. Members may wish to develop on future occasions.
  For the moment, I simply say that the question of disciplinary action against individuals was considered carefully by the Department but, because of the number of people involved and the lengthy period of time, it was not possible to allocate blame to individuals on the evidence available. It has, however, been made clear to all concerned that an extremely serious view is taken of what has happened. A new and strict instruction has been issued to remedy the weaknesses in financial and administrative control which allowed the failure so rightly condemned by the Committee to occur.
  As the right hon. Gentleman and his Committee will appreciate, this is something where the Treasury is greatly concerned. It is not only an administrative
  1580
  failure, if I may put it that way, but respect for proper procedures that is involved, and unless these procedures are followed there can be no control of expenditure of the kind which the House and also the Treasury require.
  I turn now to the question of the Concorde. Here again, I think that I can express some sympathy for most of what has been said about this today. I respect, in particular, the strength of view expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington. He has expressed his view often and I know how strongly he feels about the escalation in costs of this project. He had some wise things to say and some points, upon which the hon. Member for Worthing has also reflected, about those who might or might not appear before Select Committees, but this has wider implications than those of the Concorde project.
  But we are quite clear as to the need to keep the House of Commons informed of increases in costs. I was asked by the right hon. Gentleman about what is meant by the words, "earliest practical opportunity" for informing the House. I understand that they mean as soon as the facts are clearly established, making proper allowance in the public interest for the problems which arise from this being an international project and from the commercial considerations involved.
  I think that the right hon. Gentleman himself went out of his way to make the point that his Committee fully understands the complications of a project such as that of the Concorde, and in that context I can certainly give the assurance which the House wants and for which the Committee has asked, and which I think we gave, although perhaps in guarded terms, in the Treasury Minute. It is a fair and important point and I am sure that, in particular, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Technology has taken note of it.
  As the House knows, my right hon. Friend told the House on 10th November that the agreed Anglo-French estimate of £730 million is being reviewed to take account of the devaluation of the franc and certain adjustments to the programme. He undertook to inform the House as soon as practicable—to use the familiar phrase—of the results of this review. The House will appreciate that

  1581
  this would not be the time—and I am not in any case in a position to do so—to add to what we said or to anticipate his statement. But I can repeat his undertaking to keep the programme under review and to balance the estimated development cost against the estimated return on our investment.
  Mr. Higgins: Presumably, also, the estimated production costs at the earliest time they are available.
  Mr. Rodgers: I take that point, which the hon. Member for Worthing himself took from my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington when he referred to the possibility of recouping some of the development costs from the sale of the aircraft. Very complex calculations are involved here. If I had the information, I do not think that now would be the time to give it to the House. But, as it happens, I do not possess it, so it would be right to wait for my right hon. Friend, who, I am sure, will note what has been said. I undertake to draw to his attention the matters he raised about Concorde and also to draw the attention of other members of the Government to the other matters raised in the debate.
  This has been a short debate but a most useful one, and I know that the right hon. Gentleman and the Committee and the House, from wide experience, can take it that all that has been said in the report and in the debate is of the greatest importance to us in the Government and that we shall take full account of it.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House takes note of the First, Second and Third Reports from the Committee of Public Accounts in the last Session of Parliament and of the Treasury Minute on those Reports (Command Paper No. 4191)."

  ESTIMATES
  Ordered, That during the present Session, notwithstanding anything in paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 80 (Estimates Committee), the Estimates Committee shall consist of Thirty-three Members:
  Ordered, That Mr. Lewis Carter-Jones, Mr. Costain, Mr. Paul Dean, Mr. Peter Doig, Mr. James A. Dunn, Mr. John
  1582
  Ellis, Sir Eric Errington, Mr. Fred Evans, Mr. Ted Fletcher, Mr. Hugh Fraser, Sir Richard Glyn, Mr. R. Gresham-Cooke, Mr. Will Griffiths, Mr. Hall-Davis, Mr. William Hamilton, Mr. David Howell, Mr. W. Howie, Mr. Leslie Huckfield, Mr. Arthur Lewis, Mr. Macdonald, Mr. Neil Marten, Mr. Ray Mawby, Dr. Miller, Mr. Stratton Mills, Mr. William Molloy, Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles, Mr. Eric Ogden, Mr. R. Bonner Pink, Mr. Roy Roebuck, Mrs. Renee Short, Sir Spencer Summers, Mr. Edwin Wainwright, and Mr. George Wallace be Members of the Committee:
  Ordered, That every Sub-Committee appointed by the Committee have power to admit strangers during the examination of witnesses unless they otherwise order:
  Ordered, That during the present Session the Committee have power to appoint persons with technical or scientific knowledge for the purpose of particular inquiries, either to supply information which is not readily available or to elucidate matters of complexity within the Committee's order of reference. —[Mr. McBride.]

  NATIONALISED INDUSTRIES
  Ordered, That a Select Committee be appointed to examine the Reports and Accounts of the Nationalised Industries established by Statute whose controlling Boards are appointed by Ministers of the Crown and whose annual receipts are not wholly or mainly derived from moneys provided by Parliament or advanced from the Exchequer; and of the Independent Television Authority, Cable and Wireless Ltd., and the Horserace Totalisator Board, and to examine such activities of the Bank of England as are not—

  (i) activities in the formulation and execution of monetary and financial policy, including responsibilities for the management of the gilt-edged, money and foreign exchange markets;

  (ii) activities, as agents of the Treasury, in managing the Exchange Equalisation Account and administering Exchange Control; or

  (iii) activities as a banker to other banks and private customers:

  Ordered, That the Committee do consist of Eighteen Members:
  Ordered, That Mr. Michael Alison, Mr. William Baxter, Mr. David Crouch. Sir Henry d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Mr. John Forrester, Mr. Norman Haseldine, Mr. John Horner, Mr. Roy Hughes, Sir Donald Kaberry, Mr. Richard Kelley, Mr. Russell Kerr, Colonel Lancaster, Mr. Ron Lewis, Mr. Michael McGuire, Mr. Ian Mikardo, Mr. J. T. Price, Mr. Nicholas Ridley, and Mr. John Smith be Members of the Committee:
  Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records, to adjourn from place to place and to report from time to time:
  Ordered, That the Committee have the power to report from time to time the Minutes of Evidence taken before the Committee:
  Ordered, That the Committee have power to appoint persons with specialist knowledge for the purpose of particular enquiries, either to supply information which is not readily available or to elucidate matters of complexity within the Committee's order of reference:
  Ordered, That so much of the Minutes of Evidence taken before Sub-Committee B of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries in the last Session of Parliament as relates to the Bank of England, together with the relevant Appendices, be referred to the Committee:
  Ordered, That Five be the Quorum of the Committee:
  Ordered, That the Committee have power to appoint Sub-Committees and to refer to such Sub-Committees any of the matters referred to the Committee:
  Ordered, That every such Sub-Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records; to report to the Committee from time to time; and to adjourn from place to place;
  Ordered, That Three be the Quorum of every such Sub-Committee:
  Ordered, That the Committee have power to report from time to time any Minutes of Evidence taken before such Sub-Committees.—[Mr. McBride.]

  RAILWAY ACCIDENTS (INQUIRY PROCEDURE)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. McBride.]
  6.48 p.m.
  Mr. Airey Neave: The early Adjournment enables me to raise this subject—which has been raised on several occasions before—at somewhat greater length than is usual, though I hope not at unreasonable length.
  This is not the first time I have raised with Ministers the nature of the inquiries into derailments and other incidents on British Railways. In February, 1966, a series of derailments occurred on the Western Region, some of them in my constituency on the line between Didcot and Swindon. I saw the right hon. Lady the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity, who was then Minister of Transport, and discussed with her the whole question of the procedures involved in regard to derailment inquiries.
  I thought that, in regard to some of these derailments, all of which occurred fairly rapidly within the first two months of 1966, formal inquiries were needed in each case. The right hon. Lady refused this request, in some cases because some of the derailments did not come within the categories in which such inquiries are usually held. I do not dispute that this was within the rules, but what I do dispute is whether those rules are always wisely upheld.
  That brings me to the two sorts of inquiry I wish to discuss so far as they affect accidents on British Railways. First, there are those to which the Minister of Transport, as she was then, referred as domestic inquiries by British Railways. Second, I shall refer to inquiries ordered by the Minister to be held in public or private by the inspecting officer, which are generally known as formal inquiries.
  The whole question of domestic inquiries—if that is the correct term—by British Railways should be reviewed. This was made glaringly obvious at Didcot, in my constituency, in the first week of September, when the 9.45 passenger train from Weston-super-Mare to Paddington and the 8.25 Weymouth to Liverpool passenger train almost

  1585
  collided, engine to engine, on the same line very close to Didcot Junction. Both were on the same track, and I believe that it is correct to say that they stopped about 150 yards apart.
  Fortunately, they were going quite slowly. No announcement was made then by British Railways Western Region, but, as one would expect, the local Press came to hear of the incident and as a result British Railways had to make a statement. I was informed, and got in touch with the Ministry of Transport.
  The incident is important for many reasons. First, it was declared to be technically impossible in view of the modern signalling system. Despite the fact that there has been a two-day routine inquiry, as British Railways describe it, we still do not know why two express trains should have been confronting each other on the same road.
  It automatically follows that there should be an inquiry into a near-miss by airliners over the Atlantic. Whilst I am not suggesting for a moment that aviation inquiry procedures are the same problem as on the railways, this was an exceptionally serious matter. Since there was no collision and there were no injuries in that case, there was no obligation on the Minister to hold a formal inquiry, though the Western Region has reported the result of its two-day private inquiry to him.
  I am indebted to several newspapers, including local newspapers, for information about this incident, and for their support. The movements manager of Western Region said revealingly to the Oxford Mail, which circulates in my constituency:
  " Because the railways do not publish the outcome of their routine inquiries, this does not mean that they have anything to hide."
  That statement demonstrates how important it is for British Railways public relations that the Minister should tell the House tonight that he will review the problem. What could be more damaging to British Railways than to have a private inquiry into two express trains halting a few hundred yards apart, with the leakages and so on to the Press which occurred, and a good deal of speculation about the cause of the accident?
  I do not advocate that every incident should be the subject of an inquiry, but
  1586
  all incidents of the Didcot type should be inquired into in public. My main argument for this is that the Minister clearly has a statutory responsibility for rail safety, and an incident like that at Didcot, involving two express passenger trains, comes within that responsibility.
  The right hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh), who was Minister of Transport when I went to the Ministry in September, made a big mistake in not ordering a public inquiry into the case, although it apparently does not come within the category where it is usual to do so. I have no doubt that much of the problem here is very strict adherence to rules which have existed for a long time. I am not questioning in this debate the principal Act or the Orders, and there is no need for me to do so. A general direction to British Railways could be given on the matter.
  As I hope the Minister will agree, the point is that where there is an incident on British Railways that does not involve passenger casualties, but involves a passenger train and passengers being put at serious risk, as in that case, the matter should not be left in British Railways' hands. There should be a formal inquiry, and it should not be regarded as a routine or domestic inquiry. The words "routine" and "domestic" inquiry into such a case appear absurd in the modern context, and should not be used.
  That is my first point about the first type of inquiry conducted by British Railways—that where there is potential risk of that character the Minister should order a formal and public inquiry.
  I now come to cases where a formal inquiry is ordered by the Minister. The particular cases I have in mind are the derailment at Lichfield in Staffordshire on 10th June, at Somerton in Somerset on 13th June, and Sandy in Bedfordshire on 23rd July. I have taken an interest in these matters since at least 1966, owing to the considerable crop of derailments that occurred on the Western Region in or near my constituency. The derailment at Somerton and Sandy involved passenger trains, that at Sandy occurring at 90 miles an hour. Happily, none of the 400 passengers was injured in that accident, but there were casualties a t Somerton.
  Those three accidents—one an accident to a freight train, at Lichfield, and the

  1587
  other two passenger trains at Somerton and Sandy—were due to buckled rails, and particularly the buckling of lengths of continuous welded rail. Investigation has been going on into those two accidents and their causes, the possible effect of hot weather temperatures on continuous welded rail, and other relevant matters. There has been a great deal of patient research by British Railways, especially into de-stressing processes with continuous welded rail.
  I pay tribute to the research work, which is of a very high standard compared with that in many other countries. Men are being trained in de-stressing on a special course, which is very welcome and very important in view of the possible use of continuous welded rail in the future.
  I make no technical criticism—I am not in a position to do so—of continuous welded rail. But what I have just said makes it all the more preposterous that for reasons for convenience—the only reason I can find after discussion with the right hon. Member for Greenwich, and after reading the letter he wrote to me on 2nd September—the Chief Inspecting Officer of Railways and his assistants should hold the technical part of the inquiry in private. This is entirely wrong. It has been made clear in the Press and statements from the British Railways Research Centre at Derby that British Railways have nothing to hide about continuous welded rail. If so, there is no reason why the results of the research into the buckling of rail should not be made public.
  I shall propose a new procedure for the inquiries. If there are no secrets involved, there can be no reason for the present out-dated method of inquiry. If matters of defence or security, or in certain cases discipline, were involved. I could understand the Minister exercising discretion and having the inquiry in private.
  The bare facts of the derailment or collision are inquired into in public in most cases, as happened at Somerton. What happened at the end of July was very unusual in some respects. I dare say that it has occurred once or twice before, but it was extremely wrong because the then Minister said that the inquiries into what happened at Lichfield
  1588
  and Sandy should be lumped together with the inquiry at Somerton which by that time had reached its second phase in private in discussing technical evidence.
  The result of this procedure, which I protested against most strongly at the time, is that there has been no formal inquiry into the derailments at Lichfield and Sandy. As I pointed out, the derailment at Sandy occurred at 90 miles an hour and involved 400 passengers.
  The right hon. Member for Greenwich, when he was Minister of Transport, told me in his letter of 2nd September that he could not agree to the examination in public or in private of witnesses to the Lichfield and Sandy derailments—he was referring not to the technical witnesses, but to the witnesses of the derailments—because they could add nothing to the knowledge of the inspecting officer. I was flabbergasted by that statement as one of the derailments involved 400 passengers and the train was travelling at 90 miles an hour.
  Lumping these three derailment inquiries together was very unwise because the facts of the three cases are not on all fours. The argument of the Minister and of the senior officials against me was that the buckling of the rail was known to the inspecting officer and that that was all that he needed to know. The result is that, even when passengers are injured, the technical evidence is heard in private. I do not believe that that is right.
  I am well aware that detailed and long investigations into design and laying techniques of continuous welded rail are required and into other factors which have a bearing on these derailments. But I do not like the present system. It has grown up over a long period. It is freely admitted that the inspectors, who are all men of high repute, gather experts round the table and then publish their report and the evidence which they think supports their conclusions. One has only to look at the inspector's report into two recent derailments to realise this.
  This is no reflection on the inspectors conduct. I am talking about the system. I am not attacking the continuous welded rail or trying to be alarmist. Many derailments have been due to outdated rolling stock rather than the condition of the rail. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary would say something about that.

  1589
  In an age when there are many people with a certain degree of scientific and engineering education there is no reason why the results of the research into derailments should not be given in public and recorded. I do not suggest that the research itself should be carried out in public—it may take a substantial time —but the conclusions of the research teams should be given in public before the inspector and not just discussed with him round the table.
  There should be absolutely no objection to the Press, especially the technical Press and papers interested in railway matters, being present during the inspector's hearing of the technical evidence because, as the Parliamentary Secretary knows—I certainly know from correspondence—there are many engineers and technologists who are not employed by British Railways but who take a great interest in research into railway tracks and methods and who may have some contribution to make. I do not see why the expert evidence should not be exposed to a degree of cross-examination or why, by adopting a more open procedure, other people should not be able to contribute to the information put before the inspector. It is not sufficient to say that the inspector already has a certain amount of information and that he can collect the rest privately.
  It has been said against me that I want something in the nature of a planning inquiry such as is conducted by an inspector of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. I am not suggesting a procedure like that. I am suggesting that the technical conclusions following from the research conducted by British Railways or other people should be given in public and that the technical Press should be able to report it. It is of considerable importance to railway staff that this should be done because there is a considerable delay before an inspector's report is published.
  On 2nd September, the then Minister, the right hon. Member for Greenwich, said—and he was referring to an investigation under the conditions which I am suggesting now—that it "would be much more difficult and complicated and would produce less comprehensive and valuable results". My view is exactly the opposite. As I have said, it is absurd that there should be no formal inquiry into derail
  1590
  ments like that which occurred at Sandy. There is a danger—and I do not want to stress it too much—that if this procedure continues in the present rather untidy and unintelligible way from the public's point of view people will say that there is something suspicious about the causes of these derailments. They are far too serious for such an arbitrary system to be adopted and the Minister must look at the rules again.
  If a Minister can order a public inquiry into the facts because there have been passenger casualties, is there any reason why he should not order a public inquiry into the causes of the derailment? It seems to be entirely a matter of convenience from the Minister's point of view that the inspectors do not want to be exposed to having witnesses before them in public who can be cross-examined.
  My argument is strongly supported by the fact that an inspector's report often is not published for over a year and sometimes a good deal longer. Therefore, the technical aspects of the causes of accidents are not available to the public or sometimes, I suppose, to railway staff. I have here one of the recent reports by a railway inspector into a derailment which occurred on 12th June, 1968, at Berkhamsted, published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office. It deals with freight liner accidents. Another one which is dealt with occurred at Auchencastle, in Scotland, on 14th June, 1968. The inspector completed the report on 25th July, 1969, and the Stationery Office published it on 7th October, 1969. This is far too long a delay in publishing such a report. This is a manifestly inefficient and old-fashioned system and it is not in the general interest that a delay like that should occur.
  The inspector's report draws out strongly the desirability of a public hearing. He refers to evidence in 1968 on track laying and hot weather temperatures affecting continuous welded rail. Both the derailments in 1968 referred to were caused by buckled rails, and, therefore, this information was extremely relevant to what happened in the summer of this year. Had the inspector's report been available, it would greatly have facilitated the knowledge of many people outside the inspector's immediate entourage and the managers of the

  1591
  regions. It is true that track tests and wagon tests take some time, but this evidence could have been published in 1968. The inspector looking at Berkhamsted and Auchencastle should have heard the technical evidence in public so that the evidence would have been known to the public in 1968 instead of in 1969.
  The points I have made are especially for the benefit of railway staff, of whom there are many in my constituency. The report of the inspector into the Berkhamsted accident goes into the whole question of destressing, and temperatures in the United Kingdom, and make comparisons with other countries. All this information was highly relevant and, even if it might have been difficult for the inspector to produce the report as rapidly as some people would have wished, one would have thought that he might have been able to do so by the end of 1968. If the technical evidence on destressing had been heard in public people would have greatly benefited from knowing 12 months before what were thought to be the technical causes of the derailments.
  The Ministry of Transport and the railways must break away from their rather Victorian rules and organise inquiries so that they give the most benefit to the railwaymen and to passengers.
  7.12 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Albert Murray): I am very grateful for the opportunity to clarify the position about inquiries into railway accidents, and I thank the hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave) for giving the Ministry that opportunity. I think the whole House is aware of the hon. Member's persistence in this and other matters, with which he has had great success.
  The hon. Member is mostly concerned about inquiries into accidents to trains, and into failures of rolling stock and permanent way that might have led to such accidents—the kind of accidents and failures that are inquired into by the inspecting officers of railways in the Ministry of Transport. I will, therefore, confine my reply as closely as I can to this kind of accident.
  I think, however, that it is worth reminding the House that the Railway Inspectorate, through its railway employ
  1592
  ment inspectors, holds a large number of inquiries into accidents to railway staff, in most of which trains are involved, though the accident is to the man and not to the train, but some of which are not connected with trains. I should also distinguish, right at the start, between domestic inquiries held by British Railways, over which my right hon. Friend has, of course, no control, and formal inquiries into accidents ordered by the Minister.
  Mr. Neave: Before the Parliamentary Secretary leaves domestic inquiries, will he comment on the near-miss at Didcot and my argument that that should have been the subject of a formal inquiry?
  Mr. Murray: I promise the hon. Member that I will come to that later.
  The Statute that empowers the Minister of Transport to order an inquiry into a railway accident is the Regulation of Railways Act, 1871, as very slightly amended, as regards railway staff, by two later Acts.
  Under Section 6 of the 1871 Act any railway company, and that of course includes the regional managements of British Railways and London Transport railways, is required to report to the Ministry certain specified accidents—these are any accident attended with loss of life or personal injury, any collision where one of the trains is a passenger train, and any derailment of a passenger train. Section 6 also empowers the Minister to make from time to time an Order specifying what other accidents of such a kind as to have caused or to be likely to cause loss of life or personal injury must be reported to the Ministry.
  The current Order made under Section 6 is the Railways (Notice of Accidents) Order, 1965, and it specifies in great detail what accidents and failures are to be reported, in addition to those specified in the Act. For example, it lays down that a goods train derailment, as well as passenger train derailments, must be reported, though it makes the proviso that it must have occurred on or affected a passenger line. It also lays down that collisions between goods trains must be reported, as must mishaps at level crossings, aircraft running on to the permanent way, and so on. It also makes the railways report such incidents as fires, which are a potential danger to people.

  1593
  and a wide variety of failures of rolling stock and permanent way, such as broken rails and tyres, slips in cuttings, failures of bridges and culverts, buckling of a running track, and so on, any one of which might have caused an accident even though it did not do so.
  The hon. Member mentioned the Didcot "near-miss", and I must emphasise that the Order does not require a report on a "near-miss"—an accident that nearly happened but was averted. I feel strongly that it would not be practicable to make "near-misses" reportable, because of difficulties of definition if for no other reason. I can, however, assure the House that when there is a serious "near-miss" the general manager of the region concerned would always send details of it informally to the Chief Inspecting Officer of Railways to keep him in the picture. The near-collision at Didcot on 6th September was a good example of this. No formal report was made to the Ministry, but the Chief Inspecting Officer was informally kept fully in the picture of what had happened.
  As a result of these provisions a very large number of accidents and failures are reported to the Ministry. For example, in 1968, the number of train accidents reported totalled just over 1,400, while nearly 1,600 failures of rolling stock and permanent way were reported. Many of the train accidents were of course of a very minor nature. There were, for example, 243 accidents involving open doors. I think I should remind all hon. Members of the dangers of this when we are commuting. When I have been travelling by train from Gravesend I have often seen people jump out and leave the door open, trusting that a porter will shut it.
  Sir Douglas Glover: The Minister is looking at me; I assure him that I always close the door when I get out of the train.
  Mr. Murray: I am just looking at the hon. Member because he is irresistible: for no other reason.
  As I was saying there were 243 accidents involving open doors, usually an open door on one train being struck by another train, and 87 cases of trains running into animals on the line. Much more seriously, there were seven collisions be-
  1594
  tween passenger trains, eight collisions between passenger trains and goods trains, light engines, or other moving vehicles, and 31 passenger and 336 goods train derailments. Only 22 of the failures actually caused accidents. Of the 161 failures of engines or multiple unit trains reported none caused an accident and of the 641 broken rails reported only two caused derailments.
  In view of these figures, I am sure that the hon. Member would agree that it would be neither desirable nor practicable to make formal inquiries into all the accidents and failures that are reported to the Ministry, or even into all the collisions and derailments. I should emphasise that the 1871 Act gives the Minister a permissive power to order an inquiry into a railway accident; it is not mandatory.
  Section 4 of the Act gives the inspector the necessary powers of entry and inspection, of summoning witnesses, and of demanding documents, etc., to enable him to probe into the circumstances of the accident, to examine it in depth, and to elucidate its cause. Furthermore, Section 7 of the Act requires the inspector to report to the Minister stating the causes of the accident and all its circumstances, and requires the Minister to make that report public. Such a procedure ensures that all the facts, when they have been established as facts, and all the theories when they have been properly argued out, are in due course made public.
  The details of all serious accidents are reported as quickly as possible to the Chief Inspecting Officer of Railways. If necessary, he is contacted at all hours of the day and night, whether he is in his office or his department or wherever he may be, if the matter is of a serious nature. He advises my right hon. Friend whether in his view an inquiry should be ordered.
  In reaching a decision a number of factors have to be taken into account. These include the seriousness, potential as well as actual, of the accident; the casualties—an inquiry is almost always ordered when passengers have been killed and usually when train crew have been killed; the extent of probable public concern; the technical features involved, whether for example the integrity of the signalling system or other safety feature seems to be in question; whether the

  1595
  accident is one of an isolated type or one that fits into an accident pattern or trend and warrants investigation for that reason; whether a particular lesson needs to be made public; and whether the facts might best be elucidated in some other way. The inquiry when ordered is held by one of the inspecting officers of railways.
  A point I must stress is that when an inquiry is ordered it is in no way a court for the determination of legal responsibility of any kind. It is made into the technical aspects of the accident and its aim is to enable the inspecting officer to advise the Minister about the cause of the accident and of any measures that should be adopted to prevent a recurrence. The recommendations made by the inspecting officer cannot be imposed on the Railways Board, but they are always carefully considered by it and they are usually adopted. They have indeed led to the adoption of many safeguards that have benefited both the travelling public and railwaymen. The House is well aware that the hon. Member has a great many railwaymen in his constituency.
  Such an inquiry into a railway accident is necessarily held in two parts, The first aims to establish the facts of the accident and its immediate cause by the examination of those who actually witnessed it and those who were immediately involved. Where the cause of an accident lies in the actions or neglect of one or more of the persons immediately concerned, the public hearing of evidence is of vital importance. But I must stress the word "immediately". In some cases, such as some of those in which continuous welded rail track has buckled, the track may have been laid some years before it buckled and had not been disturbed since. This was indeed so at Sandy except for normal routine maintenance. And at Lichfield it has taken the region concerned a long time to dig back through the records and establish the history of the track. Ordinary inquiries into Sandy and Lichfield would only have established the immediate and vital fact that the track had already buckled before the train reached it, and that this was not the result of any action or omission by those immediately concerned with the track. This was already known to the Chief Inspecting Officer
  1596
  when he advised my right hon. Friend not to order separate inquiries into these two derailments.
  The second part of an inquiry however —and this has proved true in the case of the inquiry into the Somerton derailment—very often involves extremely detailed and prolonged technical investigation into the possible causes of quite simple facts disclosed by the first part. Such investigations will involve conferences and discussions with a wide variety of technical and scientific experts. The procedure is informal and flexible and much of its value depends on the fact that the inspecting officer can rely on the willing co-operation of all grades of railwaymen. There is, I believe, complete trust in the absolute impartiality and professional integrity of the inspecting officers, and the hon. Member gave them their rightful credit.
  At such discussions the various experts can speak their minds frankly and freely, in a way they might well not be prepared to do when subject to formal cross-examination. There is, of course, plenty of cross-examination by, and argument with, their fellow experts and, as a result of these close contacts between professionals, various theories and views are freely propounded and thoroughly discussed, and their values are assessed. Such discussions must necessarily be held in private: it would indeed be practically impossible to hold them in public, and if the attempt were to be made the investigation would be made much more difficult and complicated and would almost certainly produce less comprehensive and valuable results. We believe safety might well suffer.
  The second part of the inquiry, particularly if technical matters are involved may also necessitate the testing of equipment, and of theories, and the tests may be complex and widespread—the making of trial runs, and the reconstruction of events may be involved. None of this can practicably be carried out "in public" and neither, in the current investigation into continuous welded rail track, can the consultations that are being carried out with foreign railway administrations facing similar problems. I need hardly say that the British Railways Board is sparing no effort to find the right solutions to this problem and, as always, it is giving the inspecting officer every

  1597
  help. The inspecting officer is responsible for ensuring that all necessary tests are carried out and for full discussions with the Board's officers. He then has to make a full report to the Minister and this is always published.
  This method has been well tried and has been shown to work. The technical evidence, when complete, has been weighed and balanced—and the inspecting officer can call for advice at all stages from experts in the fields concerned—and that evidence and his conclusions from it are then made public. If, however, the discussions and tests which are spread over a period were to be held in public and a theory that is later proved wrong by test were to be given early publicity, much harm might be done and the public misled or even unnecessarily alarmed.
  I recognise that the inspecting officer's final report can take a long time to produce, and then some time to print and publish. This is often inevitable because the investigations take a long time and the report must be very carefully prepared. My right hon. Friend has therefore given instructions that, as soon as the inspecting officer has reached any early conclusions in the continuous welded track investigation or can report any firm progress before the whole investigation is complete, he is to make an interim report. This, like the final report, will be published.
  It may help the House to put some of these matters in perspective if I say that sometimes, when Questions are answered in thes House, the figures appear more alarming than they really are. The number of accidents has admittedly increased. However, taking an average over the last 10 years there has been one passenger fatality in a derailment in 145 million passenger journeys, and one passenger fatality in a significant collision in 186 million passenger journeys.
  The hon. Gentleman will know that the number of reportable accidents caused by the derailment of passenger trains has remained fairly constant, although those involving goods trains have increased. One of the problems is caused by the use of short wheel-base wagons, and measures are being taken to deal with that. For instance, in 1968, my right hon. Friend approved the necessary investment for the construction of 250 four-wheeled, long
  1598
  wheel-base wagons on an experimental basis, and in August, he approved the Board's proposal to build 3,200 wagons at an estimated cost of £12,700,000. Measures are also being taken by the B.R.B. on C.W.R. track. The ballast shoulders outside sleeper ends are being widened, and steps are being taken to ensure that the ballast is well up to sleeper top level. Various other methods are also being used to improve stability in C.W.R. track.
  I hope that what I have said has helped the hon. Gentleman in his quest for a solution to the problem and clarified it as we see it.
  My right hon. Friend considers that the present procedure for holding inquiries into railway accidents is sound, sensible, and right. It gets results, and he does not consider that it should be altered.

  50p COIN
  7.32 p.m.
  Sir Douglas Glover rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. 1 take it that the right hon. Gentleman has indicated to a Minister, as he has not indicated to the Chair, that he wishes to raise a new topic on the Adjournment.
  Sir D. Glover: Mr. Speaker. I have indicated my desire to speak on the Adjournment to the Minister of State, Board of Trade. He does not appear to be here at the moment, but I passed him a note to that effect when he was here for the previous debate and told him that it was my intention to raise the subject of the 50p coin.
  I see that the hon. Gentleman has just come into the Chamber. He will be aware that there is a Motion on the Order Paper, signed by a good many hon. Members,
  "… regretting the confusion inevitably caused by the introduction of a metal 50 penny piece, urges the Chancellor of the Exchequer to replace it without delay with an appropriate paper note of equivalent value."
  I cannot speak of the experiences of other hon. Members, but I find not only in my constituency but in my home town, where I do a great deal of household shopping, increasing and. growing hostility to the new coin. Shopkeepers have

  1599
  related to me at least a dozen instances of old-age pensioners, possibly due to their simple-mindedness or because their eyesight is not so good, handing over a halfcrown and a 50p coin thinking that they have tendered 4s. 6d. and, as a result, risking the loss of 8s.
  There is enormous hostility in the minds of the public in that the new coin is so difficult to distinguish from what we know as the 2s. piece. Although it has this odd shape, the edges are so narrow that, in the dark, it is very easy to confuse it with the present 2s. piece or the new 10p coin. It is even more difficult to distinguish it in the winter when one is wearing gloves. Probably taxi-drivers represent the one section of the population to be in favour of them. Certainly, after midnight in the cold weather many people will, by accident, give tips of 10s. instead of 2s. It is a very bad coin, and something should be done about it.
  The shape is unsatisfactory, as are the size and the look of it. The shape is such that it is so nearly round that, as I have said, in the dark and when wearing gloves, people will not realise the difference between 50p and 10p. In fact, Mr. Speaker, before you called me, I took out the coins from my pocket and I had to study them for some little time before deciding that there was not a 50p coin among them. I have seen the coin very often, but I cannot tell the difference between it and the new 10p piece. The ridges do not stand out in any remarkable way, and I believe that there is a great danger that people will give away far more than they intend.
  The size, too, is wrong. A coin which is the equivalent of 10s., in my view, should be bigger than the coin which is worth only one-fifth of that amount so that automatically one knows that it is a coin of greater value.
  And the look is wrong. We spend a great deal of time in the House discussing tourists. The new coin, in appearance. is about the cheapest one that we have. I believe that many tourists, Americans especially, will throw them away as if they were quarters and not realise until they have been in the country for a week that they have spent all their foreign currency.
  In normal conditions, the Government could rise in their wrath and say that we
  1600
  took a decision and that it must stand because it will cost a lot of money to put it right. However, this is one of the few occasions in our history when the Government can put matters right and make a profit. Perhaps I should get permission from M.I.5 before disclosing this horrifying fact, but the coin is worth more melted down than it is as currency. If that is the case, and there is an overwhelming body of opinion in the country that the Government have made a mistake in evolving the coin, it can easily be withdrawn.
  I am not attacking the Minister of State. I know that this matter was not decided in the Cabinet Office. The Government took advice from the Mint, and leading artists were commissioned to design the coin. Here is an opportunity, when there is overwhelming opposition to the coin, to alter the system or the policy and make a profit on the deal.
  One of my hon. Friends from Edinburgh reckons that if the Government called in all the coins and melted them down they would make a profit of £4 million. As the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Gwilym Roberts) and I know, £4 million is a lot of money. If this can be done and we can thereby make the public happier, then I think that we should do something about it.
  I am not speaking in a vacuum about the problem. Although admittedly it is only a small part of our society, the Isle of Man has produced a very attractive 50p note to carry out the function that this new 50p coin will perform for us. If the Isle of Man can do it, then we should do the same.
  I do not know about the experience of other hon. Members. but it is quite fascinating to go shopping. If a customer gives a £1 note for 20 cigarettes, a pound of apples or 2 lbs. of sprouts, the shopkeeper does not give him his change just like that. He gives him his change and then puts alongside it this awful 50p piece, and says, "Watch that, Guv'nor. Otherwise you will lose it." This is the attitude of the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper has not reached that attitude by accident. He has reached it because he finds his retail customers hostile to the new coin.
  Mr. Gwilym Roberts>: Is it not really a matter of getting accustomed to the new coin? This

  1601
  is true of any coin in the first few weeks of its introduction. But after a time I feel that people will treat it with the contempt, if I may use that word, that they treat the rest of our coinage.
  Sir D. Glover: They will certainly treat it with contempt, because it is rapidly losing any value. I thank the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to make that point. I do not think that his argument is valid. We had no difficulty about the new lop piece. It is this one coin that has created the controversy.
  I do not know about the hon. Member for Bedfordshire. South—he may live in a totally different world—but I have not found anybody yet who has a good word to say for the new coin. I have found some people who are neutral who say, "Well, I suppose we will get used to it". But I have not found anybody who has said, "It is a jolly good coin. I am glad that we are using this coin of this shape and not a note". All I got from people was a very guarded neutrality. But the great mass of the people are very hostile to the shape, size and look of the new coin.
  Mr. Eldon Griffiths: Hear, hear.
  Sir D. Glover: If it were to cost £20 million to make the change I could understand the Government being so rigid in their attitude. But if by changing the system the Government would make a profit, because the price of nickel is so high, surely this is the moment for them to come clean and say: "All right. If you do not like it we will alter it and make a profit on the deal".
  What astonishes me is the way we approach these matters. For instance, I think that the change in our system to decimalisation ought to have been done on the basis of 10s., not the £. We shall have the most complicated decimal system in the world, purely because the Government of the day arbitrarily took a decision and did not, as far as I can make out, consult anybody but the so-called experts who usually travel round signing cheques and never change any money. They did not talk to Joe Soap in the pub, in the shop, and so on, about the form of currency we were to have.
  I am a simple minded chap who always thought that the whole basis and advan
  1602
  tage of decimal currency was that it could be divided by 10 and that that automatically gave the result. If it cannot be divided by 10 to give the result, what is the advantage? To a foreigner, our new system of coinage will be even more complicated than the present system. The only justification for changing the present system is that we think it too complicated for the foreigner—for example, our half-crown is not the equivalent of something else in another currency.
  Mr. Eldon Griffiths rose
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harry Gourlay): Order. Before the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) gives way, I should draw his attention to the fact that any change in the system would involve legislation, and it is not in order to discuss changes in legislation on an Adjournment debate.
  Sir D. Glover: I give way and accept your Ruling implicitly, Mr. Deputy Speaker. But I should think that on an Adjournment debate, when discussing and arguing about a particular coin in our system, it is within the rules of order to refer to the nonsense created by that coin. Had it not been for past events the coin would not exist.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Yes. But the hon. Gentleman must not suggest that the system should be changed.
  Sir D. Glover: I willingly accept your Ruling. In fact, I should be in awful difficulty if I did not, so I had better leave that point.
  I apologise to the Minister for the short notice that I gave about this Adjournment debate. However, I did not know when we started our Business today that the important debate, as I thought, on the Report of the Public Accounts Committee would finish as early as it did. There was enough meat in that report to have kept us here until the early hours of the morning. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not think that I sought to raise this subject out of vicious spite.
  I suppose I might have had an opportunity to raise a different subject. At the moment, there is the teachers' strike. There has been trouble with the dustmen. All sorts of different things have been

  1603
  happening. But in the last six weeks I have received more correspondence about the 50p coin than anything else. People have expressed their opposition to it, their dislike of it, and their fear that it will cost them money because they will give it away when they should not. They have asked me to do what I can on the Floor of the House to get the system altered before it is too late. Therefore, I thought it my duty, as a Member of Parliament, when the opportunity arose, to raise the matter on the Floor of the House.
  Recently we have had Questions asked about this coin. From the replies to those Questions the general impression appears to be that the Government will not alter it. That may be the Government's decision. All I can say is that when there is an opportunity to alter something which will not cost money but will make a profit and will give satisfaction to the great mass of people in this country—we are supposed to live in a democratic society—then we have a responsibility and a duty to make that alteration. The Government could justify not making the alteration if it would cost the State a lot of money. But that is not the situation. Therefore, I ask the Government, before this matter goes too far, to accept that the general view of the great mass of the British people is that this coin is wrong in shape, size and design and ought to be altered for their benefit. Before it gets too far into our history, I ask the Government to think again.
  7.50 p.m.
  Mr. Gwilym Roberts: I am sure that the House will forgive me if I leave shortly after making this very brief intervention. I have another commitment. Like the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover), 1 had not intended to take part in this debate, but I happened to be here when it began. I opposed the hon. Member in the 1959 General Election.
  Sir D. Glover: Unsuccessfully.
  Mr. Roberts: Unsuccessfully. Since then I have supported him in the House on some aspects of decimalisation. I did so especially in defence of the 6d. piece. But I am not with him this evening.
  1604
  The hon. Member suggested that the general reaction to this new 10s. piece was hostile, but the other day I heard very eloquent testimony in its support. It came from a blind man, who said that for the first time in his life he was able to tell the difference between 10s. and £1. I agree that he represents only a small section of the community, but it is an important section, and the new coin is benefiting it.
  The hon. Member further said that the shopkeeper isolates the coin as though it were a monstrosity which had to be kept apart and pointed out to the shoppers. It is purely a matter of usage. The difference between the introduction of this type of coin and that of the 3d. piece is that this coin is a much more valuable one, and the shopkeeper is consequently extremely anxious that the customer should be able to identify and value it. When the customer is more used to it—and that will not be in a matter of weeks or months; it will be a year or more before he becomes used to it—it will be passed over the counter to the general public in the same way as is any other coin, without hesitation.
  The hon. Member also alleged that this coin was not convenient to the foreigner. The very justification for decimalisation —if there is a justification for the whole process—is the advantage that it brings to people who are used to decimal currencies. In some cases foreigners are used to having coins of quite a high value.
  Sir D. Glover: Can the hon. Gentleman tell me of any country that has a currency based on the equivalent of £1, and not 100 cents?
  Mr. Roberts: I am with the hon. Member on that. But I am on a different plane of argument. I do not argue with him about the £ unit. I have always felt that the may be the wrong unit, and that it might have been far better to have had a 10s. unit. But from the general point of usage this coin will not produce any difficulty for a foreigner who is used to the decimal system.
  The hon. Member today is a little off beam. He is placing far too much weight upon the initial reaction of the public. I feel a warm glow towards this coin. That glow which will gradually spread among members of the public.

  1605
  The hon. Member was quite wrong when he said that the Government will not change their mind on this matter. I have been present at Question Time when this matter has been raised, and I have got the impression that the Government are merely waiting a reasonable time so as to ascertain public reaction.
  The Government are giving the public time to decide. If, in a year or 18 months, the public are still as resistant and hostile to this coin as the hon. Member suggests I am sure that they will follow his lead and withdraw it. But it is still too early to judge this coin properly, and I feel that it may yet make a valuable contribution to our currency system.
  7.55 p.m.
  Mr. Eldon Griffiths: I cannot refrain from commenting on the remarks made by the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Gwilym Roberts). His view seems to be that it is better to wait until a thundering big mistake has been made before putting it right. I would have thought that logic lay with my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover), when he said that if a mistake has been made the time to rectify it is at once. I cannot see much sense in protracting an experiment until the mistake has achieved an outstanding degree of costliness.
  I also disagree with the rather grand submission that we shall get used to the coin. Of course we shall get used to it—because we shall have no choice. Hobson's choice will be our only one in respect of this coin, which I now have in my hand. It will be the only 10s. unit in the country. It is called 50p, but I am old-fashioned, and regard it as a 10s. piece. The question that the hon. Member should ask is whether it is a better coin than the alternative—the existing 10s. note. He says that he has a warm glow for this seven-sided effort. I can only tell him that I have an even warmer glow for the 10s. note, which I find extremely convenient for many reasons, not least because it is easy to carry.
  I hope that the Minister will tell us in some detail whether or not the Government made it their business to discover how the public would react to a seven-sided coin. Did the Government conduct
  1606
  any experiments? My hon. Friend asked whether they had consulted Joe Soap in the pub. I should like to know whether they even consulted Joe Soap in the House of Commons. I very much doubt whether any consideration was given to the views of hon. Members, who are supposed to represent the people. I hope that the Minister will tell us what consultations he has had with the people that matter.
  I am not asking whether he consulted so-called experts in numismatics, or whether he went into the question of base metals or other metals with people in the Treasury. I want to know how many housewives or shopkeepers he consulted before this coin was agreed to as part of our currency. I suspect that the Government had only one reason for introducing this coin, and that that reason was based on cost. Perhaps they can show that the 10s. note wears out quicker and therefore costs a little more to keep in circulation than does this lump of metal. This coin still wears out our pockets and purses, and all sorts of other things, but the Government do not care about that. They do not care about our purse or our wallet, we all know that; what they care about is that it might save a little on the cost of keeping the 10s. note in circulation.
  A very much better approach would have been to ensure that the 10s. note, an excellent item of currency, was made of better paper, so that it did not wear out so rapidly and the problem which the Government are trying to solve with this miserable coin would have been solved more intelligently. So I want to know whom they consulted and the reason for introducing this coin, if it was not to save a little money for the Treasury at the expense of the rest of the country.
  My objections to the coin are those of many of my constituents, especially shopkeepers. When they tot up in the evening, it is much easier for them to bundle up their notes than to pull together all these large and rattling coins. I suspect that shopkeepers will continue to object to this very real difficulty.
  Sir D. Glover: This is a very interesting point. I used to be in the retail business. When we totted up on Saturday nights it took as long to tot up £10-worth of coins as perhaps £500-worth of notes.
  Mr. Griffiths: My hon. Friend speaks from experience: he has actually done it. He of all Members of the House knows that this is the last thing the Government considered. If they had consulted him and others like him, they might not have made this mistake.
  The second group who concern me are housewives, who may be confronted with five or six of these wretched things. In a housewife's purse they are far more awkward to carry than the equivalent number of notes. But which housewives were consulted by the Government? Will they consult housewives' organisations now? I hope that the Minister of State —in spite of his conversation with the Whip—will take note of this point. If this is an experiment, they should find out the views of housewives' organisations.
  The third group are the least of us all, the mere males. I have recently been in the United States, South Africa and elsewhere. When I arrived back at London Airport and was presented with one of these things, I naturally assumed that it was a 2s. piece—
  Mr. William Hamling: The hon. Member must have been absent-minded.
  Mr. Griffiths: Yes, but there are many like me. I think that my reaction was typical.
  I looked at this object and wondered what it was and whether I had got off at the wrong airport. When I discovered that I was in London and that, in my absence, the Government had perpetrated this thing, I began to examine it in some detail. I do not know whether you have ever done this, Mr. Speaker, in the quietness of your own private life, but this is a most perverse little job. There is a representation on one side of our Sovereign and all of us would agree that it is a charming likeness. But the date, 1969, comes after the letters D.G.REG.F.D. and on top of the Crown, instead of underneath, where we have been used to finding it, lo, these many centuries.
  I am old-fashioned enough to believe that there is some merit in keeping the date where it has always been and I cannot see why this mania to change everything has got into the Treasury or the Mint so they must put the date in a different place.
  1608
  Then I look at Britannia. We have heard much of Britannia in this House. Before I had the pleasure of sitting here, I listened from the Gallery to one of the hon. Member's hon. Friends being described as "a Britannia" by no less a person than the late Sir Winston Churchill. But Britannia on this coin no longer comports with my idea of Britannia. There is a rather stuffy and sedate lion peering out from the back of her skirts. There is a shield rather on one side which looks a very uncomfortable shield to sit on. Then she has this fork over her right shoulder. The combination of this rather superior lion and the askew shield and the general figure of Britannia, who is holding out, I think, three ears of corn, seems an extraordinary hagiology to have on the back of one of our coins. So I agree that this coin's appearance is not attractive to British people.
  Also, I do not like the seven sides. I do not know why we have to have seven sides on a coin. The hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South, who made a speech and then left, no doubt for a very good reason, said that it was important for those who are blind, and I recognise the force of that. But his argument comes slightly unstuck because the blind people I know have no difficulty distinguishing between a 10s. note and a £1 note, because the £1 note is larger. Therefore, this argument is simply "phoney", and a slander on blind people, who can make this distinction between our existing notes because of their different sizes.
  The nations of the world are coming more closely together and it is important that those who travel, as I do, should have an easy familiarity with the currencies with which they are asked to deal. One of the striking things about our European neighbours is that Germany, France, Belgium and Italy are moving towards units of currency which are almost the same size and look very similar. It may be a mark piece, a new franc, a gilder or a Belgian franc, but the currencies are similar and will eventually form the basis of a common currency in Europe.
  I understand that it is Her Majesty's Government's policy to seek association with the E.E.C. The Minister of State, I know, is a strong supporter of this policy, as I am. I should have thought that a little foresight would have led the

  1609
  Mint, the Treasury and Ministers at least to try to make our largest and most valuable coin similar to those European currencies.
  Instead of this, they have created something which is unique—a seven-sided 50p piece—and they have, therefore, taken a backward step.
  There is merit in coins increasing in size as they increase in value. For example, in the United States they have the dime, the quarter and the 50-cent piece. Certainly, they made a mistake in having the nickel slightly larger than the dime, but they regretted it. The broad philosophy of American currency is to increase the size of coins as their values increase. I should have thought that a sensible and logical British people would consider that the sensible way to organise our coinage, but the Government think differently.
  Instead, the Government have produced a coin which is neither particularly bigger nor smaller. It just has more size. This is neither logical nor sensible. Sometimes in a nation's history there can be too many changes in too short a time. Indeed. I am sometimes tempted to start a political party for leaving some things alone.
  Mr. Gwilym Roberts: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that he is already a member of a political party the whole principle of which is to leave things alone, be they good or bad?
  Mr. Griffiths: There are many things which 1 wish had been left alone under Labour. I was about to mention some of them, although I would be out of order if I mentioned too many.
  We have recently seen proposals to change our telephone book, to paint our postboxes yellow instead of red. While many of them may be desirable, and some may even be useful, people sometimes get fed up with everything being changed without good reason and without their being asked. That is the burden of my criticism about the 10s. coin.
  In his usual temperate way the Minister will not regard my remarks as offensive when I tell him that in my constituency these coins are not known by the name of our Sovereign, but as "Wilsons", because they are manysided and two-faced. This may be an unfair way for me to attack the coin,
  1610
  but it is fair to tell the Minister that this illustrates the dissatisfaction of many people both of the Government and of their coinage.
  We should have been consulted, but we were not. The Government should have recognised the merits of increasing the size of the coin with its value. They now have an opportunity to get out of their mistake at minimum cost. Indeed, it is conceivable that they could make a profit in that if they abandoned the 10s. coin now, it would soon become a collector's item and be extremely valuable within a few years. I am sure that the Minister will accept the logic of the arguments that we have adduced about this wretched object which should disappear from our midst as soon as possible.
  8.14 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Treasury (Mr. William Rodgers): The hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) was kind enough to let me know 45 minutes before he rose to his feet that he intended to raise this question tonight, so I have no complaint on that ground.
  I too, agree that this is a serious subject, though I would have preferred to have discussed it in different circumstances and at a different time. Not that on such an occasion would I have been able to have come forward with the sort of undertakings for which I have been pressed. I do not think I could have been able to say more than I shall say tonight about how the coin was chosen and why some of the strictures passed on it by hon. Gentlemen opposite are not wholly fair.
  As for the design of the coin—the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) used his full descriptive powers to tell us what we already knew —I personally regard it as a rather beautiful piece of work. Whatever might be said against it on other grounds there should not be any criticism of those who designed it, from the point of view of its appearance and style.
  I do not deny that there is some concern about the coin. Like many other people. I still tend to refer to it as a ten-shilling piece. That is not a bad thing and not necessarily a criticism because all of us must adjust over a time to the coming of decimalisation. The fact

  1611
  that I rather like it and find it convenient —I find all 10s. notes dirty and torn—and the fact that I can put a 50p coin in my pocket in about half a second whereas it takes me more than a minute to take out my wallet to put away a 10s. note are reasons why it makes better sense to me. However, I undertake to consult my children about this. It is my impression that they, of a different generation, find this a convenient coin to have and much prefer it to 10s. notes which get torn in their money boxes. A nice shiny coin is more acceptable to children than a dirty piece of paper not much different from what they draw on and play with. Thus, some of the strictures against the coin are somewhat unfair.
  I am sympathetic in so far as a new coin of this kind is bound to create some problems and lead to certain misunderstandings. There are those who find it difficult to accept something new. In particular, I have every sympathy with old people, who find the adjustment to something new like this not only perhaps rather difficult but a little uncongenial as well.
  On the other hand, I could not go as far as my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Gwilym Roberts) and speak of a warm glow. Nor could I go as far as the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds in his frigid distaste for the coin.
  Some people, it is true, have expressed dislike of the coin, but from my personal experience it is not necessarily that customers do not like it but that shopkeepers believe that they may not want it. I have been in the position of being asked by a shopkeeper, "Do you mind having one of these?", referring to a 50p coin. I have replied, "Not at all. I think they are rather good", to which he has replied, "So do I". I believe that the feeling has been engendered that it is not an acceptable coin, since we acquire these habits of mind from what we are told and what other people believe.
  The view expressed tonight about the coin by hon. Gentlemen opposite is not necessarily representative of opinion in the House as a whole. My hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, South showed in a powerful way that on this side there are those who think that the
  1612
  coin is right. I well remember, when this matter was discussed at Question Time on 4th November, the hon. Member for the Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. John Smith) saying that the new 10s. coin was not at all bad. This is, therefore, not a matter between the parties and it is certainly not a matter on which there is any unanimity of feeling that a mistake has been made.
  Sir D. Glover: The hon. Gentleman will realise that my hon. Friend the Member for the Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. John Smith), whom I love dearly, always takes the minority view.
  Mr. Rodgers: Were there to be a free vote I think that the hon. Gentleman would find that his hon. Friend was not taking the minority view on this occasion but that he, the hon. Member for Ormskirk, was in that category.
  The decision to bring in this coin was certainly not made hastily. Nor was it an arbitrary decision of Government. The first Report of the Decimal Currency Board was published by order of this House as long ago as 10th July of last year and set out fully the circumstances in which a coin of this kind was decided upon. It was the Decimal Currency Board which advised the Government on specification for a new coin and its Report gives some account of how it was decided that a seven-sided coin might best serve the purpose. It states that the shape was suggested by its own technical member who was, at that time, President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
  Both hon. Members opposite referred to the characteristics of the coin; to its material, its size and its shape. I ask them, if they are in any doubt, to inquire more fully, if they wish, of the board about the circumstances in which it considered the specification. The board did consider various types of metal and different sizes and shapes. It decided that brass would not hold its colour or lustre for long, and could be confused with cupro-nickel in poor light. Bronze was associated with low value coins. That was why the board decided to recommend the cupro-nickel coin. As to size, experience shows that very large coins are unpopular in every day use and for that reason it was considered that the size recommended was likely to be right.

  1613
  Again, the board carefully considered what the shape should be. It decided that the coin could not be round as it might be confused with other coins. It considered the possibility of four, seven, 10 and 12 sides. It then had very full consultations with, among others, banks, retailers, transport organisations, consumer interests—and I stress the consumer interests—and organisations representing the blind or the partially sighted. In addition it commissioned an investigation by the Applied Psychology Unit of the Medical Research Council. It conducted tests in which housewives— and before hon. Gentlemen are contemptuous, I may say that these were tests in which housewives themselves were asked to recognise different coin shapes.
  On this point it can be argued that the Board should have consulted this group of individuals or that, one particular shopkeeper or another, but I think that the board, whose responsibility this was, had very full consultations, indeed. It took the best advice available to it in the circumstances, and if it made a mistake in its recommendation—which I cannot concede—it was not out of indifference to the importance of the issue or due to a failure to look very closely at the possibilities of consumer reactions.
  Mr. Eldon Griffiths: I have two questions arising out of that statement. First, why did the board decide to have a coin? This is not clear. Secondly, the Minister said that the board consulted all these people, but what did the people say when they were consulted?
  Mr. Rodgers: The hon. Gentleman's first point bears on what he said about cost. He suggested that in some way a decision made on grounds of cost was, as I think he put it, a Treasury decision. That is a very interesting argument, because a decision on grounds of cost, because a 50p coin lasts a great deal longer, would not be made in the interests of the Treasury but in the interests of the tax-payers as a whole. Whether the decision itself was right or wrong, surely it was a proper consideration for those who were faced with deciding, whether having a coin would, in the long run, save more
  1614
  of the taxpayers' money than having a note. That is a proper and fair criterion.
  As the House will probably know, the coin may have a life of 50 years, whereas the note has a life of only a few months. There is, therefore, here involved a point of the greatest importance, even though it may be argued now whether or not the decision was right—
  Sir D. Glover: The wallet I am using has notes in it: I have been using it for 10 years. The trousers I am wearing are about five years old, and both pockets, because they have had coins in them, have been repaired.
  Mr. Rodgers: With respect, that argument cuts several ways. At the moment, I am concerned only to answer the question put by the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds and the short answer is that the coin does save the taxpayers money and that is an important consideration which should not be needlessly overlooked. As I have said, in my own personal experience there are considerable advantages. I will find it less wearing on my suits to put a 50p coin in my pocket than to have to take out my wallet every time I want to put a note in it. In that personal sense I shall be better off than hitherto because of the coin. These are matters of personal taste: they cannot ultimately be matters on which the Government can have a clear view.
  The decision was made on the best available evidence. The Decimal Currency Board carried out the proper responsibilities given to it, weighed all the advantages and made the appropriate recommendation. I understand now that there is some anxiety and some concern. I am certainly not arrogant enough to suggest that this coin should simply be accepted, and that, irrespective of the way public opinion moves, we should say that having decided upon it we shall never change our course. But to change the course immediately would be as mistaken as to be arrogant enough never to consider change. We shall watch very carefully how things go, we shall note public reaction to the coin, and we shall take account of it in whatever decisions are made.
  Sir D. Glover: Before the Minister sits down, I should like to say how much I appreciate his courtesy in replying to this debate at very short notice. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) and I have had a reply to our arguments far more full than
  1616
  we probably had a right to expect. We are very grateful to the Minister.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-seven minutes past Eight o'clock.