HC Deb 27 January 1970 vol 794 cc1436-51

3.12 a.m.

Mr. George Younger (Ayr)

I am very grateful for the opportunity, although the hour is late, to talk about the subject of the expansion of education in Scotland.

Both the main political parties are committed to the steady expansion of education in Scotland, and the object of this debate is to take stock of the progress we are making towards our objectives. The main objective which overshadows all others at this moment is the raising of the compulsory school-leaving age from 15 to 16. This was originally adopted by the last Conservative Government to be implemented in 1970, but, unfortunately, the present Government had to abandon this date because of shortage of money and resources; but they are now pledged to implement this reform in 1972. This is, therefore, a critical moment to take stock of our progress towards this aim and to ask whether the Government have learned the lessons of their earlier postponement so that there may be no doubt this time that in 1972 it will happen.

Let us first look at the total expenditure on education in Scotland and see what the trends have been. It increased between 1965 and 1969 by about 40 per cent. in its face value. This might make us feel quite satisfied.

However, it has to be said that this is nothing particularly new, for the increase in the four years 1960 to 1964 was almost exactly the same—39.6 per cent. We must, therefore, look at these figures in the light of the rises in the cost of living during the respective periods if we are to see the true meanings of their real value to education, and the real value is what is critical.

Between 1960 and 1964, applying the factor of the rises in the cost of living during that time, the real value increased by about 24.4 per cent. Between 1965 and 1969, under the present Government, the cost of living has risen greatly, by an average of 4.7 per cent. a year, and this is the factor which has to be applied to get the real value of education expenditure in those four years, and it is found to have increased by only 12.5 per cent. In real terms, therefore, the rate of expansion has been slashed by approxiper cent. This can be regarded only as mately half, from 24.4 per cent. to 12.5 extremely serious if we mean to carry out the policies which the Government accept as their aim.

We must look at the educational problems which the Government are facing in the light of this expenditure. The number of pupils for whom we are catering is now rising again. In 1960–64, when the growth of expenditure in real terms was double what it is now, the number of pupils in Scottish secondary schools was more or less static. There was an increase over that period of only 0.18 per cent. In the four years up to 1969, it increased sharply, by approximately 4.9 per cent. Taking only pupils in secondary schools, where the impact of the raising of the school-leaving age will be greatest, the contrast is even more marked, the first period showing a drop of 2.6 per cent. and the second a rise of 8.3 per cent.

Expenditure per pupil tells the story in perhaps a more eloquent way, for this increased between 1960 and 1964 from £352 to £450, a rise of nearly £100, whereas in the latest four years under the present Government it rose from £450 to only £468, a rise of only £18.

I turn to expenditure on school building where we have had some good years and some disappointing years recently. Here, again, the story is of growth slowed down. Since 1964, under the present Government, work done annually on school building has increased from £23 million to £35 million, an increase of more than 48 per cent. However, this compares with an increase of no less than 78 per cent. in face value between 1960 and 1964; that is, from £13 million to £23 million. Moreover, the present Government's increase of more than £11 million between the annual figures for 1964 and 1968 has to be modified by the very steep rise in building costs during the period, and on a conservative estimate that £11 million must be reduced by soriething more than £5 million if it is to be expressed in real terms.

If proof were needed of the rise in building costs, it is plain to see in the costs of providing school places. This has risen from £343 in 1964 to no less than £422 in 1968, an increase of 23 per cent., which happens to correspond closely with the published figure of the increase in building costs generally during that period.

It is against that background that the needs of education authorities in Scotland must be seen. Those authorities have the task of implementing the Government's policies on the ground. They are assessing their needs and asking the Government for the resources to carry them out in this critical few years. How are they getting on? I believe that there is mounting evidence that they will not get the resources that they believe they need to do the job.

For example, Lanarkshire has recently been in the news, having had its original requests for the period 1970–72 reduced by £2 million. West Lothian, having said that it needed £2,060,000 over the next two years, has so far been given only £500,000, or less than one-quarter of what it requested. Renfrewshire, having said that it needed £3,260,000 over the next two years, has so far been restricted to only £2,300,000. The county convener of Renfrewshire has publicly stated that this is not adequate to his needs in carrying out the policies which are required to be carried out.

Ayrshire has had its original needs reduced from £5,700,000 to £4,300,000, according to a Parliamentary Answer to me only yesterday, or a cut of 25 per cent. Wigtownshire, concerning which a Parliamentary Answer was given yesterday to my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis), has had its original application reduced from £1,400,000, which it considered was necessary, and has so far been given only £80,000 in the first of the two years concerned.

Glasgow is the greatest problem of all. It has to cope with the brunt of the teacher shortage and the problems of massive redevelopment all over the city, not to mention the fact that many children in the city have today to make do with part-time education. If ever there was an educational priority area, it surely is, and must be, Glasgow. Its need, however, according to the education authority, is £23 million for school building over the next few years, yet this has been restricted in the first year to £2½ million, and in the second year it looks as though it will get only about £6,698.000. Glasgow, too, has made it clear that it cannot meet its obligations within these totals of what appears to be available.

Surely, all this evidence points to the conclusion that at this critical time for Scottish education, facing, as it is, its greatest challenge in a generation with the raising of the school-leaving age, the resources made available for education by the Government are dangerously thin for the job that has to be done.

The growth in education, instead of increasing faster as was expected, is actually slowing down severely. Unless the Government realise this now and take action before it is too late, we shall be reduced once more to relying on our education authorities and teachers to step into the breach and muddle through somehow when the crisis of staffing and accommodation becomes acute in three or four years' time.

All Governments have to be careful in their expenditure, and inevitably have to refuse all sorts of desirable aims in the interests of economy. The tragedy of the present Government is that their appalling mismanagement of the economy and their failure to get growth make them unable to provide the money which is so clearly necessary if education is to he expanded as we all want. It is essential that the Government should realise this now and rearrange their priorities so that the growth rate in education can again increase.

I was glad to hear my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod) say last Wednesday, in the debate on public expenditure, that he regarded education as one of the top priorities for the future. I hope that this debate will at least show that there is real cause for concern at the resources available to carry out our aims. Money spent on education is a direct investment in our future. We shall neglect this to our peril in the years to come.

3.25 a.m.

Mr. Ian MacArthur (Perth and East Perthshire)

The House will be very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) for raising tonight the general question of the expansion of education, and for bringing forward facts and statistics which illustrated his argument so admirably. I hope that the Minister will take careful note of the figures which my hon. Friend has given, and make some reply to the general argument tonight. My hon. Friend referred in some detail to the progress of the school building programme, and I want to refer to one or two of those points, and also to put some other questions to the Minister.

My hon. Friend reminded the House that the Government's programme of economic mismanagement caused the raising of the school-leaving age to be postponed from 1970 to 1972. It was a sad consequence of incompetence, but it must have brought relief to the Secretary of State for Scotland, for it was clear that the school building programme, so long delayed, would not be completed by 1970. The decision to postpone the date by two years has got the Secretary of State off the hook. It has given him two extra years in which to prepare for this educational challenge.

The building programme was lengthened, as the Minister reminded us a few months ago. It is appropriate now, early in 1970, the year when the leaving age was to have been raised, that we should take stock of the position and determine the extent to which the school building needs of 1972 will be met.

The Minister himself is in no doubt. I asked him last Wednesday if the final allocations for the period up to 1972 would meet the needs of the local education authorities and enable them to be ready for the raising of the school-leaving age. He replied: Yes, I can give that assurance."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st January, 1970; Vol. 794, c. 486.] This simple answer had a cheering ring of confidence, but if we look at the evidence so far available it sounds more like unjustified complacency.

The House will recall that the Government allowed the school building programme in Scotland to fall alarmingly during their first years in office. The position improved later on when we entered the 1967–1970 period. There was a high completion rate last year, and we can expect a high completion rate this year also. That appears satisfactory, but it is clear that the rate of completions will fall after this year, and that is because the rate of approvals last year was halved. During the first 11 months of 1968 the value of school building approved was £26–5 million. During the first 11 months of 1969 the value fell by half to £13–7 million.

The Minister has argued that a fall in approvals was to be expected, because, in his view, the main bulk of approvals and starts for the meeting of the raising of the school-leaving age had already been given to education authorities so that the accommodation would be ready in good time. If we accept this argument, that the main bulk of need has been catered for, it must follow that the balance of need will be met between now and 1972 despite the sharp fall in the approval rate.

Also, if the Minister was justified in claiming last Wednesday that local authorities' needs would be met in full, it follows that allocations made to them for the period 1970–72 will be sufficient for those authorities to finance their needs. But I question this. The allocations for this period were to be made in two instalments. The first instalment has been made, but the second instalment has still to be announced, despite the fact that the Minister indicated last July that it could be expected by the end of 1969. Clearly, we will not know the whole position until these final allocations are made but the information we have received so far hardly justifies the Minister's claim that all will be well.

My hon. Friend has given alarming figures showing the wide gap between the local authorities' assessments of their needs and the allocations so far made to them. I will take just one of these examples and ask for further information about it. The case of Glasgow was raised in Written Questions yesterday by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galbraith). The Secretary of State blandly said in his answers to this and similar Questions that the education authorities were not asked to submit estimates of their total school building requirements. An answer of that kind is not good enough.

Even if no formal written submission was required, the right hon. Gentleman must have obtained some other form of estimate. If so, he should provide the information which is clearly what my hon. Friends were seeking, and in order to encourage him to do so I have tabled a Question for answer next Monday. If the right hon. Gentleman did not ask the local authorities for any form of estimate, how can he assess their needs? If he has not asked them to define their needs, on what basis did the Minister assure us last Wednesday that those needs would be met? Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will assist us by explaining the sequence of events at Glasgow.

Yesterday the Secretary of State said, in his reply, that the Glasgow Education Authority was not asked to submit an estimate. But he went on to say that last November the authority discussed with his Department what he described as lists of projects for the two-year period 1970–72, totalling some £23 million. What was the nature of these lists? Did they not, in fact, represent the local authority's estimate of need? He went on: The authority later drew up a programme amounting to £2.5 million in the first part of the period and £6.698 million in the second part."—[OFFICE, REPORT, 26th January, 1970; Vol. 794, c. 268.] What is the significance of the word "later"? What took place during the earlier discussions about the £23 million list? What pressure was put on the local authority by the Department? What cuts were made and what was the instigation to reduce the total figure to just over £9 million? What proposals were cut out in order to make this reduction of £14 million? The right hon. Gentleman's answer stated that the revised programme of £2.5 million for the first part of the period has been met by an allocation of £2.5 million. On this revised basis, over £6 million remains to be met by the second allocation.

Perhaps we can be told whether that sum will be provided. But even if the second allocation meets this programme of over £6 million, we must be told precisely how the original estimate fell by £14 million. This mystery of the vanishing schools must be cleared up. The House must be told which schools are now not to be built, in what circumstances they were removed from the list of projects and how this strange answer of the Secretary of State can conform with the hon. Gentleman's apparent assurance last Wednesday that the local authorities' needs would be met in full.

Our purpose in raising these matters tonight is to seek information. I know that the hon. Gentleman is determined not to put the raising of the school-leaving age in jeopardy yet again by lack of preparation. The assurance that I seek, and that I would welcome, is that his determination will be matched by his performance, and it is on that point that I have some doubt.

I have concentrated my remarks on school building but what matters at least as much is what is taught in the buildings and the quality of the teaching. We shall discuss in another debate the curriculum for the children who stay on for the extra year at school.

The teacher problem is also serious. We know only too well that there will be a shortage of secondary school teachers in Scotland in 1972. The figures I am about to give are those of the total estimated shortage. In some areas and in some subjects the shortage will be even more acute than the total figures suggest. Further, figures by themselves cannot illustrate the extra strain those who will be teaching the older children staying on for the extra year will have to bear. Many of these children will be reluctant pupils, therefore, there will be a great difficulty in teaching them. In an Answer last Wednesday the Minister told me that he estimated a shortage of 1,800 secondary school teachers in 1972. Last July his estimate was a shortage of 800. That estimate was made after the Government study on teacher deployment.

The Minister will, I hope, interrupt me if I have interpreted these figures wrongly, but I have checked them just now and that is my reading of them. What, then, has happened to cause this large change in the estimate of shortage? Why has the estimate been more than doubled in six months? What new factors have emerged from the Government's continuing study of the position? The Minister will appreciate our concern about this apparent inflation of the shortage estimate in such a brief time.

Further, the estimate last July was that the shortage would increase from 800 in 1972 to 2,800 in 1973. The shortage for the first year is now estimated at 1,800. What is the Minister's estimate of the shortage in 1973? If the shortage in 1972 is to be 1,000 more than was estimated six months ago, does it follow that the shortage in 1973 will be similarly increased to 3,800? If so, what steps will the Minister take to meet this problem? Will he hold further discussions with the teachers, because it is they who will carry the consequential burden?

Since we last debated education in Scotland we have had the benefit of the public expenditure White Paper, which we debated last week. This makes surprisingly small provision for growth of educational expenditure at the very time that the educational system will be subjected to unusual strains. There is a general contingency reserve, but if we consider the growth that there has been in educational expenditure over the years, and the inevitability of continuing growth, even without these additional strains, there must be some questioning of the basis of the Government's calculations.

We must also ask if the needs of the local education authorities, the teachers and the children in their care can be fully met. My hon. Friend reminded us just now that the real increase in expenditure on education in Scotland rose over the years 1961–62 to 1964–65 by 24.4 per cent. Over the three years starting in 1965–66 the increase in real terms fell to 12.5 per cent. We now find that this lower rate in real terms is to be continued during these coming years, just as the school-leaving age is raised. Indeed, the rate will be slightly lower. The projected increase in Scotland for the three years 1968–69—1971–72 is 12.1 per cent. It appears, therefore, that education may receive a lower priority in the allocation of Governmental expenditure.

My hon. Friend rightly said that money spent on education is not simply money spent but is money invested in the development of the brains and skills which our country will increasingly require. He rightly emphasised the need for expansion in education, and it is depressing to note, in the light of this White Paper, that the rate of expansion, already halved by this Government, shows no sign of responding to the growing pressure on our educational system.

2.40 a.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Bruce Milian)

I had understood that when the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) chose this subject for debate he wanted to turn his mind to some of the problems involved in the raising of the school-leaving age in 1972. I am sorry to say that nothing in his speech contained the slightest hint of a constructive suggestion for dealing with any of the problems which will arise in that connection, and certain areas of the problem he left out completely. He said nothing about teacher supply, nothing about curricular development. I grant that his hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacAn hur) said something about teacher supply, but I found nothing of a constructive nature in his remarks, either.

The hon. Member for Ayr seemed to feel that we ought to spend more money on education. He has a habit of saying that we ought to be spending more money on virtually everything else in Scotland. It is an extraordinary attitude for the hon. Gentleman and hon. Members opposite to take on all these items that what is wrong with Scotland is that we are not spending enough money. This comes from hon. Gentlemen who at the same time feel that taxation is too high and that we ought to reduce public expenditure.

I need not elaborate on the incompatibility and hypocrisy of this attitude. Since it is well documented, I can be excused from doing so at this early hour of the morning.

Mr.:MacArthur rose—

Mr. Millan

I will not give way. I have hardly begun yet.

Without going into the various figures, which, incidentally, I do not accept, I wish to make a point on the matter of expenditure. The hon. Gentlemen opposite made great play of the increase in expenditure not being significant. I should like to know in what particular areas of expenditure over the last few years in education in Scotland they feel we have been deficient. This is quite apart from the matter of school building, to which I shall come in a moment. I should be interested to hear about them since there has been no question of any particular complaint on this score.

It is not my impression that education authorities in Scotland, whatever other complaints they may have made against the Government in education policy or practice in the last few years, have made any serious complaints about the Government in terms of the amount of money they have been allowed to spend on educational expansion. There are sometimes difficulties about school building, but, apart from that, I am not aware that education authorities in Scotland feel that they have not been able to do what they want to do in terms of teacher recruitment and educational expenditure generally. I have no reason to believe that the position will change in the few years covered by the White Paper on expenditure.

To come to the complaint about school building, I will give a little of the background. I would remind the House that in 1966 the Secretary of State announced that education authorities in Scotland would be authorised to start school building projects to a total value of £24 million a year, which was later increased to £26 million a year, in each of the years 1967 to 1970. This was not, of course, a reduction in expenditure, but a considerable increase, because the rate before the announcement was made was running at about £17 million. That was the kind of programme that we inherited from the party opposite. The increase to £26 million was rather more than a 50 per cent. increase.

In January, 1968, the decision was taken to defer the raising of the school-leaving age by two years to 1972–73. Subsequently, there were some adjustments in the school building programmes of the local education authorities, hut these adjustments were minimal.

Before the adjustments resulting from the deferment of the school-leaving age, in the three years to 1970—for which the original programme was about £78 million—the amount of building starts is likely to be something like £89 million. In other words, far from the programme being cut or held back, by 1970 it is likely to be ahead of schedule. As I said in answer to a Parliamentary Question last week, we have been happy that this progress has been made. It means that many of the major projects which are required for raising the school-leaving age have been able to start earlier than they are required for the deferred raising of the age in 1972–73, and will be ready in good time.

I made it clear in my speech in the Scottish Grand Committee in July, 1969, that, because of the considerable increase in the period up to 1970, if we took the whole programme period as we were then looking at it, as a five-year programme from 1967 to 1972, and maintained the rate of starts in that five-year period at an average of about £25 million a year, in the two years remaining from 1970 to 1972 the amount of starts which would be expected would inevitably be at a lower level than in the period which we are just finishing up to March, 1970.

It is remarkable that we should be having these complaints about what is inaccurately described as a cut-back or run-down in the school-building programme, when the fact is that when I announced this in July, 1969, it caused virtually no comment. I announced it in the course of a debate in the Scottish Grand Committee, and there was virtually no debate on this. That was because it was recognised by all hon. Gentlemen at that time that we were dealing with a very considerable school building programme. That is still the case.

As for the period from 1970 to 1972, in August, 1969, we issued a circular about school-building starts from April, 1970. At that time, we gave provisional figures for the first part of the period 1970–72. Apart from some of the malicious interpretations of the school-building programme by hon. Gentlemen opposite and others, there has been a certain amount of genuine misunderstanding. The figures which have been allocated so far refer only to the first part of the period from 1970 to 1972. When we sent out the circular, we asked the authorities to tell us which further projects they thought they required in the remainder of the five-year period, taking us up to 1972, to make adequate provision for the raising of the school-leaving age. We said that we would take account of those lists of projects in making the allocations for the second part of the period.

The reason why the allocations for the second part of the period have not been made, although I hoped originally that that might have been done by the end of 1969, is simply that we have been taking account of the various representations made to us by local education authorities in the lists of projects which they have sent us. But I hope that we shall, within the next month, be able to send the allocations for the second part of the period to the authorities concerned.

It is fairly clear from this explanation that it is not possible in any meaningful way to talk about authorities not being given enough money to meet what they think are the demands on school building for the raising of the school leaving age until the second part of the allocations has been made and the authorities are able to see what the total allocation for the two-year period will be. When that has been done, each individual authority can see, and we can see for Scotland as a whole, how the allocations that have been made are likely to match what the authorities and what we in the Department consider are the requirements for the raising of the school-leaving age.

I was asked about Glasgow specifically. Because of the explanation that I have given, I do not think I need go into the Glasgow figures in any detail. However, since the figure of £23 million for the two years has been quoted, may I say that I have met the authority about this and I consider it to be a completely unrealistic figure for a two-year programme. We have only to consider it in relation to the Scottish figures that I have mentioned, which are record figures in terms of the five-year period between 1967 and 1972, to see that it is completely unrealistic to talk in terms of starting secondary projects to the value of £23 million in Glasgow over a period of two years. If I had said to Glasgow, "Go ahead and do that", there is not the slightest chance that it would have been able to start anything like that amount over a two-year period.

When I met the Glasgow education authority I said that I should like its officials and mine to go over its lists of secondary projects as it saw them to see whether we could have a revised programme which the authority felt would meet the needs of the raising of the school-leaving age. That revised programme was also quoted in the answer that I gave on Monday this week. The allocations to Glasgow for the second part of the 1970/72 period will have to wait until all the allocations for all the authorities in Scotland are given in the near future.

On the general question of school building progress in Scotland, approvals and starts over the period from 1970 to 1972 are likely to run down from the extremely high levels that we have been working to. But in terms of completions the figures are now going up substantially. This is sensible. We have to have high approvals and starts figures to gel high completion figures for completed buildings for the raising of the school-leaving age.

While completions at the secondary level in the 11 months to November, 1968, were only £7 million, in the 11 months to November, 1969, they were £18½ million. In other words, we are getting the completions that we require for the raising of the school-leaving age.

A tremendous number of schools are now being built. The total amount of school building under construction, for example, at the end of November, 1969, was £47 million, compared with £31 million at the end of 1967, so there is a tremendous amount still to come. If we take the number of school places rather than the financial figures, again the figures are very impressive. For example, in secondary projects in 1966 22,000 places were started; in 1967 27,000 were started; in 1968 52,000 places were started, and in the first 11 months of 1969 42.000 places were started.

So the figures show an increase which will be reflected in the figures of completions that we shall have up to 1972. I therefore say that on the school building side—and this confirms the answer that I gave last week—I am confident that the problems of accommodation will be met by the time the raising of the school Leaving age takes place.

When I say that, I am not pretending that there will not be any difficulties in particular authorities and in particular schools. Whenever a major change of this sort takes place, it is inevitable that there are difficulties in particular places. It would be unrealistic to think that we can avoid these altogether. I have no doubt that many authorities will feel that in their schools the problems are very difficult of solution. But I make the point again that, generally speaking, this will not be true. We shall have provided the accommodation for the raising of the school-leaving age, and any problems, however difficult they may appear to the authorities concerned, will be manageable, and in many cases will be strictly temporary in the initial stages of the raising of the age.

I turn, briefly, to the question of teacher supply, which was raised by the hon. Member for Perth and East Perth-shire. This is a very substantial subject indeed, with considerable implications for the raising of the age, and for a number of other things, too. The only point that was really put to me was about the difference between the estimate that I gave in an answer last July about what the shortage of secondary teachers might be in 1972–73, and the estimate which I gave a week ago, which showed an increase. There are a number of reasons for this. I think that perhaps I might remind the hon. Gentleman that the estimates of teacher surplus and shortage which I gave last July were very considerably different from those which had been published in our 1967 annual report. What is more, the figures given last July provided, on the whole, a very much more encouraging picture compared with those published in the 1967 report.

The reason for this increase in the secondary field is not a simple one. There are a number of complex factors involved, but there are two which I ought to mention. First, there is the increased tendency to stay on beyond the compulsory school-leaving age, something that we keep getting manifestations of as newer figures become available. Second, there are changes in the Government Actuary's forecast of the school population.

One reason for this is that because we are reducing emigration the number of children staying on at school is likely to be higher. This is an incidental effect of the reduction in emigration, and it has an effect on the estimates of teacher demand. It does not have an effect on teacher supply figures because during this short period these have not been subjected to the same kind of adjustments. However, there is this increased demand, leading to different figures for shortage.

The figure of shortage is increased in 1972–73 from 800 to 1,800, and in 1973–74 from 2,800 to 3,100, a very much smaller increase. In other words, the position will be rather worse in 1972–73, and not very much worse in 1972–73 compared with the previous estimate, but these figures are worrying, and the House and hon. Gentlemen opposite know the various measures which the Government are taking to deal with them.

There is nothing in anything that has happened over the last six months to make the overall assessments of the difficulties of teacher supply very much different from those which I gave in the debate in the Scottish Grand Committee in July last year. I said then that although this was a difficult problem, and that I was much less optimistic about solving it—I was dealing with the difficulties in school building—nevertheless I thought that with the various measures which the Government were taking, and with the better information that we would have available—and that information will be improved considerably by the staffing survey which was carried out last week, the results of which will be available in about two months' time—the problem was manageable.

To sum up, I do not accept that expenditure has not been sufficient to meet the demands which the local authorities have been putting to us. I do not accept that we shall be faced with an unmanageable school building situation in 1972–73. On the teacher supply side, we shall have serious difficulties, but the measures which the Government have already taken and will take between now and 1972–73 will reduce the problem to manageable proportions, enabling us to raise the school-leaving age an objective which all of us on both sides want to achieve—and thus make a considerable improvement in Scottish education from which the children concerned will gain a substantial educational benefit.

Mr. Speaker

Order. We are about to begin the 11th of 23 debates. So far, 53 hon. Members have spoken, since most of them have responded to my appeal for brief speeches. At the present rate, if nothing happens, we should finish by six o'clock in the evening. I appeal again for reasonably brief speeches.