§ Mr. StodartI beg to move Amendment No. 20, in page 26, line 34, leave out '1973' and insert '1976'.
The Act referred to in Clause 32 is the Hill Farming Act, 1946, which ended in 1963. When an Amendment was moved in Committee to extend the termination date for claims under the 1946 Act from 1973 to 1978, in order to allow schemes in the pipe line to complete their journey through it, hon. Members were interested and, indeed, astonished to learn that the average time taken for 413 a scheme from the first application to final completion was about 13 years in Scotland and about 11 years in England and Wales.
On that basis, only schemes which were initiated in the early 1960s would have much chance of being completed by 1973. But, of course, it is only right to emphasise two points in this connection. First, average figures can be misleading and in this case the spread of cases is very wide. Secondly, the Hill Farming Act was extremely comprehensive and the majority of projects grant-aided under it will be eligible under other legislation which is not subject to termination in 1973. The sufferers, so far as grant is concerned, will be the houses on hill farms, because houses—shepherds' houses amongst others—are excluded from grant altogether under legislation other than the Hill Farming Act.
In many other projects, such as the improvement of buildings, or the installation of electricity, or the making of roads and bridges, the rate of grant under other legislation which may adopt schemes which are unfinished by 1973 is lower, even at 35 per cent., and that is allowing for the 10 per cent. increase from 25 to 35 per cent. One must remember that the higher rates of grant which were announced three weeks ago will not apply after 1973 anyway, as they are to last for only two years. Anything that is unfinished in 1973 will therefore be back to the 25 per cent. grant instead of the 50 per cent. which it gets under the Hill Farming Act.
In Committee, both sides were entirely agreed, as we so often are on hill farming matters, that no action should be taken which would make things in any way more difficult for a section of the industry which at the moment does not have to look for its problems, and our anxieties centred around the projects which would not be finished by 1973. The Under-Secretary was kind enough to say that he would see what information he could give us before Report, and he followed that assurance with a letter which he sent to me.
I hope that he will not think that I am extremely ungracious when I say that it is because of what he said in his letter, together with further information which I have received from another source, that we nave reintroduced this subject tonight 414 with a plea for a compromise date, a compromise between 1973 and the date of 1978 which was suggested in Committee. We have now suggested 1976.
The hon. Gentleman has told me that the value of outstanding work is now about £10 million of which £4½ million is in respect of work which other schemes do not cover. He said, too, that these figures might be on the high side, because several schemes tended to fall by the wayside for one reason or another. I am not very encouraged by his reaction to what we debated in Committee, for £4½ million is a great deal of money for the hill areas and the work involved badly needs to be done.
I have received figures from a single estate which will interest hon. Members. There are 27 unfinished schemes on this estate dating from 1951 to 1967. In value terms, the work still to be done is £138,000 of which £73,000 will be coverable by other schemes. That leaves work that will be downgraded in grant or ineligible for grant after 1973 of £66,000. The values I have quoted were the figures when the applications were put in, several of them many years ago. Of these 27 schemes, nine were approved by the Department as recently as 1963–67. Remembering this average figure of 18 years, schemes which were only approved as recently as 1966 or 1967 have very little chance of getting through by 1973, which is within only six or seven years. Costs are rising fast, and, since the schemes were estimated, prices have totally changed. So the total outlay of £139,000 could be £200,000 at present prices, and the £73,000-worth of downgraded or ineligible work could stand at £100,000.
The Minister might say—this was my first thought—that people should, at all costs, get on with work which will fall out of grant by 1973. But it is probably impossible to concentrate exclusively on those operations. The picture is of an estate and its tenants trying to achieve by 1973 an expenditure of £100,000—these are the priority schemes—or, more reasonably, nearer £150,000 altogether. That is a very tall order, in the present financial situation of hill farming. I hope that the Minister will persuade the Chancellor—I suspect that it is he who is pressing for the termination of these 415 payments by 1973—that this is a serious matter and that there will be an extension of three years to get this important work done.
§ Mr. George Brown (Belper)The argument of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) has some merit——
Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. Is the right hon. Gentleman seeking to speak? If he is I must propose the Question, That the Amendment be made.
§ Mr. BrownI will make a speech, but I did not think that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) had sat down.
The hon. Gentleman was making an interesting and, up to a point, convincing argument that certain hill farmers should not be precluded from getting grants because of an action and because of time. This would mean the expenditure of more public money. What puzzles me is that last night his hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Peter Walker), the shadow Minister of Housing, told people on television that the Conservatives would spend less public money than the Labour Government. How can one do that one night and come in the next night, after midnight, when one expects that no one is really listening, and beg for more money? This is one of the most ridiculous things by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite. It is not so much ridiculous as cheating.
§ Mr. Ian MacArthur (Perth and East Perthshire)The Government are.
§ 12.15 a.m.
§ Mr. BrownThis is double-talk. I repeat, I was impressed by the hon. Gentleman's argument. He did not make a bad point, but hon. Members opposite cannot do that tonight, after midnight, and go on television and appeal for votes by saying, "We will spend less". I ask the Conservatives to make up their minds. Do they want to spend more? Do they want to spend less? If they are going to spend more on hill farmers in Scotland, from whom are they going to take away? They cannot at one and the same time spend more and and spend less. They cannot spend more unless they take away from somebody else. There is an awful lot of double talk going in this House, 416 and it ought to be shown to be such, even at 12.15 in the morning.
§ Mr. Michael Noble (Argyll)I am not certain that I can altogether answer the right hon. Gentleman's point. He has, I know, taken a considerable interest in these sorts of problems in the past. As I understand the position, the money for these hill-farming schemes has already been allocated; so it is not a question of spending more but a question of the time in which the money is to be spent.
I should like to speak for a few moments on this problem. As the House knows, I am very much interested in it, and have, over the years, made a great deal of use of these hill-farming schemes. As I see it, over the last number of years the hill-farming schemes have been of enormous benefit to a very wide range of people in the areas which I represent and which many hon. Members know about. The problem has continually been raised in this House and in every area where hill farming exists—the problem how to find the extra money over and above what the Government have, quite generously, given in grants for extra production. There has consistently been a number of farmers who have said, "We would like to take advantage of a scheme to increase our productivity but we simply cannot find the money."
This has been one thing which has delayed, perhaps, the full use of the scheme as Parliament in its wisdom suggested it, and I think this is one of the reasons why, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) said, these schemes have taken a fairly long time to complete. The money was just not there. In the time-scale, perhaps the farmer hoped it would be when he was drawing up a scheme. Also, again as my hon. Friend said, Parliament in its wisdom decided to use this type of scheme as against specific grants, because Parliament wanted a complete overhaul of the farms concerned so that they would become viable not just for a year or two but, hopefully, for a number of years.
I have had a good deal of experience of this, discussing ideas and schemes with the Department's officials, who came and asked me what my plans were for five or ten years and how I saw the whole picture developing. In this matter, as in 417 many other industrial matters—and they are not totally dissimilar—it is extremely difficult to forecast over 10 or 12 years exactly how one thinks one's production will go. If one is lucky one gets it right for the first three or four years, but then, beyond that, all sorts of things change—prices change, markets change, methods change, scientists bring in new ideas, and one wants to change one's ideas with them, if one is to treat one's scheme seriously.
In the time I have dealt with these schemes, both on my own account, and with many of my constituents, the Department, broadly, has been extremely co-operative and sensible in allowing people to change schemes as conditions have changed, to make alterations not only in the whole scale of a scheme but in the details of it. This has been a continually changing pattern and I think it has been of benefit to the farmers and, probably, to the country as well. These schemes have, as a result, lasted for a considerable time, and that, broadly speaking, has been of benefit to the nation.
I hope that the Government will look favourably on the Amendment because at this time, perhaps more than any other—I am thinking particularly of sheep, but the same applies to hill cattle—a great many new ideas are being developed and the results of the small and large-scale experiments which are being carried out will have a profound effect on the whole industry in the next 10 to 15 years.
The information which we now have is at an early stage and needs to be developed. A number of friends of mine have schemes which could probably be used to take advantage of some of these new ideas. However—in saying this I am not making a political point; the Government accept this as much as I do—at present there is an acute shortage of cash in the whole hill farming community. We need not argue whether this is due to Government action or the weather. Judging from the weather over Easter—I spent most of the Recess on my farm—and the results of the February Price Review, which may or may not bring a little cash into hill farming areas, there will undoubtedly be a slowing down of the already slow 418 pattern of development of schemes in this industry.
It is not possible to get money from the banks or easily possible to borrow from other sources. The farmer must. therefore, generate it on his farm, and this presents him with a big problem. Even at this comparatively late hour, I urge the House to accept that a real problem faces those who are trying to improve their farms.
I agree that 1976 is six years ahead. but the cash must be generated before schemes can be carried out. In the areas about which I am speaking it is not always easy to get contractors to carry out schemes, even when they are agreed. Delays of six or nine months can occur. There are, therefore, genuine reasons why the Government should accept the Amendment, and I cannot think of a reason for rejecting it.
I accept the point of the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. George Brown) that we do not want to saddle the country with enormous extra expenditure But previous Governments have wisely committed this money and it would be regrettable if the hill farming community were deprived of part of it or forced to alter schemes, not because such alterations made sense but because, by bringing plans forward, they would gain an extra 10 per cent. or 20 per cent. This is a wise Amendment and the Government will not regret accepting it.
§ Mr. Hector Monro (Dumfries)My hon. and right hon. Friends put the case so well that I am sure the Minister will accept this very fair Amendment.
From reading the speeches he made in Committee, I think he did not bring out the reason why he wants the date 1973 to be put in. He spoke about applications outstanding, but he did not make a case for this specific date for the completion of the Hill Farming Act. He was not sympathetic to our case, although he was prepared to extend the Act it that was found necessary. It would seem much more simple to accept the Amendment and make the date 1976, which should cover most eventualities and allow completion of the Act without too much alteration of carefully scheduled programmes by hill farmers and estate owners who may have a number of hill farms leased to tenants.
419 The Minister said in Committee that there were still of the order of 1,400 schemes to complete. It has been highlighted tonight that shortage of cash in the hill-farming industry will make it extraordinarily difficult for those farmers to alter their plans so that they can complete them by 1973. My right hon. Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) has emphasised the very serious situation in relation to cash for improvement schemes at the moment. [Interruption.] I do not know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether the committee meeting going on at the end of the Chamber can be stopped.
No section of farming today is more short of cash than hill farming. I do not think the increase of 3d. a lb. on lamb will make a dramatic impact. It will certainly not mean the injection of cash which hill farmers need at the moment. In my constituency some of the finest hill farms are being taken over by the Forestry Commission or private forestry groups because hill farming is no longer profitable. The Minister ought to move as far as he can to help hill farmers by giving them an extension of the Act so that they can bring forward their schemes and, with luck, make their holdings more profitable.
The difficulty which my hon. Friends face tonight is that the Government are so stubborn. We all agree that the Act has been of tremendous value. It has provided new buildings, new roads, drains, fences and so on. Some of these items, of course, will be covered by grants under other schemes, but the whole essence of the Act was the gradual programming of the improvement schemes under carefully laid down schedules. It seems a great pity that for a matter of two or three years the Act might end on a disappointing note for hill farmers whereas, if we allowed it to play out time, it would not cost the Government more money but hill farmers would have the opportunity of obtaining the full benefit from a valuable Act. For this reason, I hope that the Minister will accept our Amendment.
§ Mr. GodberI support what my hon. Friends have said on this Amendment. The points which they have made are very convincing.
420 I must comment on the interjection we had from the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. George Brown). It is very nice to have him back in our agricultural debates. This recalls memories of old and happy days. We hope that he will spend many more hours with us. I suspect that he was on a false point tonight. This was money already committed, some by the Conservative Government and some by the present Government. I am sure that he would not wish any Government to dishonour any pledges they had given. On his wider comment, I would say that he was unwise to introduce that point in relation to agriculture where we have definite plans for containing public expenditure and we are entitled to take credit for those plans.
12.30 a.m.
Coming to the main issues raised by my right hon. and hon. Friends, I want to reinforce the points strongly. The figures given by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) were compelling. He reminded us that £10 million was outstanding, of which £4,500,000 was not covered by other schemes and will therefore be lost if proposals are not completed by the date the Order is introduced. I acknowledge that in Clause 32 the wording is such that it gives the Government flexibility and enables them to have a later date, but it is bad legislation to make a provision which they are clearly not going to use.
If the arguments are as compelling as my right hon. and hon. Friends have said, one should have a later date as the earliest terminal date, and if the Government say to us that they would not think of using 5th November, 1973, because of the reasons put with such force from this side, then they should write them into the Bill. We have put forward two dates—1978 and now 1976, and we think that 1976 is the earliest possible date against the history and the background of the time taken by any of these schemes.
The Minister did not want to hit the hill farmer who was struggling under difficulties and if this is so, he should accept our modest and fully justified Amendment.
§ Mr. BuchanWe have had an interesting debate and by no means the least 421 interesting point was that made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Be1per (Mr. George Brown). I was interested in the argument he advanced.
The Amendment is proposed so that hill farmers may get more money from the Government. That is the point. To a large extent, the arguments have come from the information I gave to the hon. Gentlemen so that we could have a proper look at the Amendment in assessing the position. It was only in the last sentence before I spoke that the right hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) picked up the point that the date is flexible:
…not being earlier than 5th November 1973".The point did not come up earlier. By that date, we are giving every applicant at least 10 years from the date of the submission of proposals because those had to be submitted by 1963 when right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite began winding-up the scheme. By that date, every applicant will have had 10 years to come forward with proposals and finalise them.In the majority of cases, this is 10 years after approval. The Amendment aims to extend this period by three years so that it would come 13 years after proposals, and we think this is too long. The hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) said that we should let it play out more time and that it could not cost more money. If it would be the same number of schemes coming in over an extended period, it would be merely taking more time and this would be the height of inefficiency.
§ Mr. BuchanI listened with great patience, but I do not see what there is to comment upon. It is profound truth.
§ Mr. NobleThe hon. Gentleman has not had to operate these things. A farmer may base a proposed scheme on the hope the Governments will give some element of expansion and, therefore, that if the number of cattle or sheep is increased extra cottages will be needed. If there has been a period of four or five years in which conditions—both the Government and the weather; I will not say which has been the worst 422 —have been greatly against hill farming, it may be that a farmer has not expanded as he had hoped and is not ready to start building his cottage. If a date not earlier than 1973 is written into the Bill, people will believe that the axe will fall on that date and may start doing things out of time in their scheme, in order not to lose the extra 15 per cent. or 20 per cent.
§ Mr. BuchanI do not want to get side-tracked to too great an extent, but I must point out an important point. Another scheme exists, and incidentally for the next two years at an increased rate of grant from this Government regardless of the weather, to which farmers can transfer for many aspects. The other section is the building aspect, for which they feel they cannot transfer. From a practical point of view, with a three years run-ahead, this should not create a practical difficulty in terms of timetabling. I point out to the right hon. Gentleman that I do know something about hill farming, though I do not have quite so large a possession in terms of hill sheep as the right hon. Gentleman has.
After the Committee's consideration of the Clause, I sent to hon. Members some statistics of schemes and work outstanding. These showed about 3,800 uncompleted schemes in the United Kingdom. I concentrated thereafter on those who had received formal approval after 1964—in other words, those who will not have had at least 10 full years to complete their programmes by 1973. The cost of works outstanding was of the theoretical order of £2½ million.
This seems at first glance to be a high figure, but the figure likely to be taken up is certain to be considerably less than this. First, about half of the total is in respect of items that could be done under other schemes at the same rate of grant—and, indeed, for the next two years at an increased incentive in that direction. For reasons of simplicity, some applicants already choose to switch schemes in this way; and this tendency will be greatly strengthened by the increases in the rates of grant announced as part of the Price Review determinations. Now, for example, land improvement will get a higher rate under the Hill Land Improvement Scheme, so it 423 would be reasonable to expect many to change. We expect an accelerating number to switch in the intervening period.
The point which is more difficult to assess is how much of the remaining £l¾ million—this is taking the ten years concept, which is a reasonable period in which to carry out works, even in hill land areas—is in respect of items which farmers have now no intention of providing. We believe that this is true in very many cases—that is, very many schemes for which approval has been given are not going ahead. Circumstances change over the years and we have found that many farmers now do not want to carry out works, particularly on housing, because the labour requirement has fallen, which they thought essential 15 years ago. We cannot assess accurately—nor can anyone—how much of this dead wood there may be, but we know that there is a considerable amount of it.
Under our proposals, farmers know that they have two years of exceptionally attractive rates of grant in which to carry out works which can better be done under other schemes. They know that they have at least 3½ years from now to complete those items which cannot be so transferred. We would have thought that the chopper was coming down next Tuesday at 12 o'clock, but there are 3½ years, which should be an adequate period of notice to get the work done. But we shall be consulting the organisations concerned to see whether they can produce evidence that a longer period is necessary. If we find that it is, we shall certainly give it.
It was a Conservative Administration that applied the first closing date in 1963. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have always been very keen on arguing the case for efficient administration and keeping down costs. When we are doing precisely this I would have thought that we would have their support. It would be thoroughly
§ bad administration to play out time, to let these schemes run on longer than absolutely necessary, tying up the efforts of staff who are badly needed for other work. We hear so often about the number of civil servants, and I have no intention of tying up staff who could be more fruitfully employed. We are not inflexible about 1973, but 1976 is much too long.
§ Mr. StodartI do not think that the Minister presented the case fairly when he said that people will have had 10 years in which to get the thing cut and dried. In other words, he said that it finished before 1963, that applications had to be in then and that by 1973 it will have had 10 years. But he and I know that some of the schemes put in in 1963 were not approved by the Department until 1967. That is the relevant date to take this from, not the date when the applications were put in. I am not saying that there are many of these cases; they are a minority. I do not know the productive capacity of the hon. Gentleman's Department, but the fact remains that the schemes cannot start until approval is given by it.
The hon. Gentleman says that the date is flexible, but it is the earliest date—1973—that people will scramble after, and there is absolutely no certainty for what he said tonight that work that is not done then will be favourably treated. There is great difficulty in getting tradesmen to do work in the remote areas. It is much more difficult than around big cities.
For these reasons, and because of the unsympathetic and wholly unreasonable reply of the hon. Gentleman, we propose to divide the House.
§ Question put, That the Amendment be made:—
§ The House divided: Ayes 105, Noes 129.
425| Division No. 96.] | AYES | [12.43 a.m. |
| Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead) | Brinton, Sir Tatton | Dodds-Parker, Douglas |
| Archer, Jeffrey (Louth) | Brown, Sir Edward (Bath) | Doughty, Charles |
| Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n & M'd'n) | Bruce-Gardyne, J. | Drayson, G. B. |
| Awdry, Daniel | Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&M) | Eden, Sir John |
| Baker, W. H. K. (Banff) | Campbell, B. (Oldham, W.) | Elliott, R. W (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.) |
| Biffen, John | Chichester-Clark, R. | Emery, Peter |
| Black, Sir Cyril | Clark, Henry | Fortescue, Tim |
| Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.) | Crouch, David | Foster, Sir John |
| Body, Richard | Crowder, F. P. | Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh(St'fford & Stone) |
| Bossom, Sir Clive | Davidson, James (Aberdeenshire, W.) | Gibson-Watt, David |
| Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward | Dean, Paul | Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.) |
| Brewis, John | Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford) | Glover, Sir Douglas |
| Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B. | Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry | Sharples, Richard |
| Goodhart, Philip | MacArthur, Ian | Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby) |
| Grant, Anthony | Mackenzie, Alasdair(Ross & Crom'ty) | Silvester, Frederick |
| Grant-Ferris, Sir Robert | McNair-Wilson, Michael | Speed, Keith |
| Gurden, Harold | McNair-Wilson, Patrick (NewForest) | Stodart, Anthony |
| Hall, John (Wycombe) | Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J. | Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M. |
| Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury) | Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C. | Taylor, Frank (Moss Side) |
| Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere | Mills, Peter (Torrington) | Temple, John M. |
| Hawkins, Paul | Miscampbell, Norman | Tilney, John |
| Hiley, Joseph | More, Jasper | Wall, Patrick |
| Hill, J. E. B. | Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh) | Walters, Dennis |
| Holland, Philip | Murton, Oscar | Ward, Dame Irene |
| Hooson, Emlyn | Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael | Wiggin, Jerry |
| Howell, David (Guildford) | Nott, John | Williams, Donald (Dudley) |
| Hunt, John | Osborn, John (Hallam) | Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro) |
| Iremonger, T. L. | Peyton, John | Winstanley, Dr. M. P. |
| Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford) | Pink, R. Bonner | Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick |
| Johnston, Russell (Inverness) | Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch | Worsley, Marcus |
| Jopling, Michael | Pym, Francis | Wright, Esmond |
| Kershaw, Anthony | Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon | Wylie, N. R. |
| Kimball, Marcus | Ridley, Hn. Nicholas | Younger, Hn. George |
| King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.) | Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES: |
| King, Tom | Scott, Nicholas | Mr. Hector Monro and |
| Kitson, Timothy | Scott-Hopkins, James | Mr. Walter Clegg. |
| NOES | ||
| Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) | Golding, John | Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire) |
| Anderson, Donald | Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth) | Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw) |
| Armstrong, Ernest | Gregory, Arnold | Moyle, Roland |
| Ashton, Joe (Bassetlaw) | Griffiths, Will (Exchange) | Newens, Stan |
| Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.) | Hannan, William | Norwood, Christopher |
| Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham) | Harper, Joseph | Oakes, Gordon |
| Bagier, Gordon A. T. | Harrison, Walter (Wakefield) | Ogden, Eric |
| Bence, Cyril | Hazell, Bert | O'Halloran, Michael |
| Bidwell, Sydney | Henig, Stanley | O'Malley, Brian |
| Blackburn, F. | Hooley, Frank | Orme, Stanley |
| Booth, Albert | Horner, John | Oswald, Thomas |
| Boston, Terence | Howell, Denis (Small Heath) | Page, Derek (King's Lynn) |
| Bray, Dr. Jeremy | Hoy, Rt. Hn. James | Palmer, Arthur |
| Brooks, Edwin | Huckfield, Leslie | Park, Trevor |
| Brown, Rt. Hn. George (Beiner) | Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey) | Parkyn, Brian (Bedford) |
| Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.) | Hunter, Adam | Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred |
| Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch & F'bury) | Hynd, John | Pentland, Norman |
| Buchan, Norman | Jackson, Colin (B'h'se & Spenb'gh) | Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.) |
| Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn) | Jeger, Mrs. Lena (H'b'n & St.P'cras, S.) | Price, William (Rugby) |
| Carmichael, Neil | Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.) | Richard, Ivor |
| Coleman, Donald | Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West) | Roberts, Albert (Normanton) |
| Concannon, J. D. | Lawson, George | Rodgers, William (Stockton) |
| Conlan, Bernard | Leadbitter, Ted | Rose, Paul |
| Crawshaw, Richard | Lee, John (Reading) | Rowlands, E. |
| Dalyell, Tam | Lestor, Miss Joan | Shaw, Arnold (Ilford, S.) |
| Davidson, Arthur (Accrington) | Lewis, Ron (Carlisle) | Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney) |
| Davies, E. Hudson (Conway) | Loughlin, Charles | Sillars, J. |
| Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.) | Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.) | Silverman, Julius |
| Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford) | MacDermot, Niall | Spriggs, Leslie |
| Davies, Ifor (Gower) | Macdonald, A. H. | Tinn, James |
| Doig, Peter | McElhone, Frank | Varley, Eric G. |
| Dunwoody, Dr. John (F'th & C'b'e) | McGuire, Michael | Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley) |
| Eadie, Alex | Mackie, John | Walker, Harold(Doncaster) |
| Edwards, William (Merioneth) | McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.) | Wallace, George |
| Ellis, John | McNamara, J. Kevin | Watkins, David (Consett) |
| Ennals, David | Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.) | Wellbeloved, James |
| Evans, Ioan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley) | Mahon, Simon (Bootle) | Whitlock, William |
| Faulds, Andrew | Marks, Kenneth | Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch) |
| Fernyhough, E. | Marquand, David | Willis, Rt. Hn. George |
| Fletcher, Ted (Darlington) | Mendelson, John | Wilson, William (Coventry, S.) |
| Forrester, John | Millan, Bruce | |
| Fraser, John (Norwood) | Miller, Dr. M. S. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES: |
| Galpern, Sir Myer | Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test) | Mr. R. F. H. Dobson and |
| Gardner, Tony | Molloy, William | Mr. James Hamilton. |
| Garrett, W. E. |