Commons Sitting of 25 March 1970

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

  PLYMOUTH AND SOUTH WEST DEVON WATER BILL
  Ordered,
  That the Bill be read a Second time Tuesday, 14th April, at Seven o'clock.

  STANDING ORDERS (PRIVATE BUSINESS)
  The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Sydney Irving): I beg to move, That the following amendment to the Standing Orders relating to Private Business be made:
  Table of Fees, page 100, line 8, at end insert:
  'Where evidence is sound recorded … 5–0'.
  In view of the pressure of Select Committee work and the shortage of skilled verbatim shorthand writers, it has been decided, with the approval of the Services Committee, that tape-recording may be used for taking down evidence, should this become necessary.
  There is no item in the Table of Fees laying down the appropriate fee for such an operation. The amendment will fix a fee of 5s. per folio, which I commend to the House as a reasonable sum for this service.
  Question put and agreed to.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  BOARD OF TRADE

    European Economic Community
    Mr. Martenasked the President of the Board of Trade how many industrial companies with headquarters in the United Kingdom have subsidiary companies in the European Economic Community.
    The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Roy Mason): About 500.
    Mr. Marten: Is it not rather curious that that is the same figure as that given on 2nd May last year? As those 500 on include nearly all Britain's large companies, does not that dispose of the suggestion that if we do not join the Common Market we shall have to set up companies in the Common Market?
    Mr. Mason: It is not without reason that I said "about 500." I was not specific either when I gave the reply last year or this year. About 500 is about right. [Interruption.] I cannot be specific, so it is about 500. It is as simple as that. It is a very small figure in relation to the firms that could be involved, because there are 24,000 British companies.
    Mr. Heffer: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the growth of international companies is an increasing problem, especially as regards control by the independent Governments? Is it not important that we face this matter when we discuss the question of entry into the Common Market? Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is absolutely essential that there should be a mechanism to control the international companies in the interests of the people as a whole?
    Mr. Mason: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for that question. If we were members of the European Economic Community we could, right from the outset, join in the establishment of the European company statute and the setting up of an institutional framework to supervise the European company.
    Mr. Martenasked the President of the Board of Trade which British industries will profit and which will not profit

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    if Great Britain joins the European Economic Community.
    Mr. Mason: As indicated in the recent White Paper, entry into the European Economic Community will provide both greater opportunities and greater competition for British industry as a whole. But there are too many uncertain factors including the timing and conditions of entry to make it possible to estimate the effects on individual industries.
    Mr. Marten: If the right hon. Gentleman cannot estimate what industries will profit and what industries will lose, how on earth can it be honestly said that entry into the E.E.C. will be profitable? What help are the Government considering for those industries that will not profit, or will lose, by entry? They must have some.
    Mr. Mason: The "about 500" companies with subsidiaries in Europe, that I mentioned in reply to Question No. 1, are already benefiting from having subsidiaries there, but they would benefit much more if we were in the Community. The hon. Gentleman has no doubt read the report of the C.B.I., which is very much in favour of entry.
    Mr. Henig: Is it not the case that it would be our best-organised and most advanced industries that would benefit most from entry into the Common Market? Is not this, therefore, an extra reason for getting on with industrial organisation, because the pay-off will be so great?
    Mr. Mason: Of course, the firms that could respond very vigorously to the new situation in good time are likely to gain most from it.
    Mr. Ridley: Does the right hon. Gentleman's insistence that it is a good thing to have European subsidiaries mean that the Government have at last been converted to the importance of having overseas investment all over the world?
    Mr. Mason: The hon. Gentleman keeps coming back to overseas investment. I have told him time and time again that it is on the increase. In the three-year period 1966, 1967 and 1968–69 we increased overseas investment by a total of about 22 per cent. The sum of £1,000 million has been invested overseas during that time. A great deal of investment is
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    taking place in this country, and that would not go into the E.E.C. either.

    London Airport (Firemen's Strike)
    Mr. Onslowasked the President of the Board of Trade what estimate he has formed of the cost to the British Airports Authority and to British airline operators of the strike of firemen at London Airport, Heathrow.
    The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Goronwy Roberts): It is not possible to give an authoritative figure at this stage. but the net income loss to the British Airports Authority and the Air Corporations together may be of the order of £½ million. This figure includes an estimate of earnings foregone as well as various extra costs. I have no figures for British independent or foreign airlines.
    Mr. Onslow: Is the Minister aware that the country has some cause to be grateful to those who helped to ensure that the loss was not a great deal more than the figure he has given? Would he agree that it is intolerable that a small group of politically-motivated men should be able to hold the public to ransom in this way?
    Mr. Roberts: Everyone would agree with the hon. Gentleman's proposition, and would look forward to a happy outcome of the extant inquiry.
    Mr. Arthur Lewis: Would it not be as well if workers like these were treated as generously and expeditiously as the chairmen of nationalised boards, such as Aubrey Jones? If they were treated on the same basis, there would be no strikes.
    Mr. Roberts: All workers, whatever their function and status, should be treated generously and expeditiously.

    Air Traffic Routes
    Mr. Onslowasked the President of the Board of Trade whether it is his practice to consult the appropriate local authorities before approving changes in air traffic routes.
    Mr. Goronwy Roberts: Not in every case.
    Mr. Onslow: Is the Minister aware that there is a good deal of confusion about his intentions regarding the routes to be followed by traffic taking off from Heathrow in a westerly direction? Will he undertake to make his intentions known in detail to all local authorities affected and to all hon. Members representing constituencies in the area? Will he confirm that he is willing for his Department to be represented at any public meetings which may be held to discuss these proposals?
    Mr. Roberts: The hon. Gentleman and most hon. Members know my attitude on the general question of consultation. As regards the specific route which he has in mind, I am studying this with a view to deciding what kind of consultation would be appropriate. I have deputed a member of my Department to attend a public meeting in the past, and I would study any request for doing so in the future.
    Mr. Rankin: Does any legal obligation rest on my right hon. Friend to consult any of the local authorities which may be affected by changes in air routes?
    Mr. Roberts: I do not think there is a legal obligation; but, nevetheless, I regard it very much as an obligation.

    Nitrogenous Fertilisers (Dumping)
    Mr. Joplingasked the President of the Board of Trade what was the length of time between his taking action to prevent the dumping of nitrogenous fertilisers and the making of a formal complaint to him.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody): The anti-dumping application was dated 22nd December. The first Order imposing provisional charges was made on 13th February and came into operation on 20th February.
    Mr. Jopling: is the Minister aware that it seems possible to get much quicker action taken over the dumping of chemicals and things of this sort than over the dumping of food? Why does the hon. Lady's Department seem much keener to protect British chemical manufacturers than British farmers?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: What seems obvious is that it is very difficult to get over to hon. Members opposite that this is not so. There have been two applications in respect of agricultural and horticultural products since the anti-dumping laws were altered. The rape seed—which is a facinating thought—application was made on 14th August, 1968. The Board advertised its acceptance for investigation on the 30th, and provisional antidumping charges were imposed on 30th November. There are not different criteria for industrial goods and agricultural produce, and hon. Members opposite do not assist either the farming community or themselves by continually saying that there are.

    National Exhibition Centre
    Mr. Sheldonasked the President of the Board of Trade what further representations have been made to him since his decision concerning the choice of site for the National Exhibition Centre; and what replies he has sent.
    Mr. Mason: Since my decision to support the National Exhibition Centre proposals of the Birmingham City Council and the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce and Industry, I have received representations on the proposed location of the project from a wide range of interests and my replies have been based on the statement I made in the House on 28th January last.—[Vol. 794, c. 1534–8.]
    Mr. Sheldon: Has not there been a remarkable volume of protest about the siting of this National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham? Surely, when siting the shop, the shopkeeper should have regard to the customers' and not to his own interests?
    Mr. Mason: I think that initially that is right. But a lot of people have since talked to the Birmingham local authority and Chamber of Commerce, and my impression is that the opposition is on the wane.
    Mrs. Knight: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he has made a most excellent decision? Much preparatory work has been done and the financial and other support of the Birmingham Corporation and Birmingham Chamber

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    of Commerce has started the venture efficiently and enthusiastically.
    Mr. Mason: I am obliged to the hon. Lady for her comment. The Birmingham Chamber of Commerce and local authority are pressing ahead with their application. I have already seen some of the sketch plans.

    Notice to Airmen No. 763
    Mr. Wigginasked the President of the Board of Trade why greater use is not made of the Decca twin-track procedure promulgated in Notice to Airmen No. 763 issued on 11th November, 1969.
    Mr. Goronwy Roberts: Only a minority of aircraft are at present fitted with the necessary equipment.
    Mr. Wiggin: What steps is the Minister taking to encourage more airline operators to fit this equipment and thus enable greater use to be made of air space and create more efficient management of air traffic control?
    Mr. Roberts: I assume that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the Decca area navigation system. Decca was among the pioneers in this field. We have in the past given considerable support to its efforts by seeking the international acceptance of this system, and we continue to do so. We advocate its use at every possible opportunity.

    Stock Accumulation
    Mr. J. H. Osbornasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is satisfied with the adequacy of official figures about stock accumulation by manufacturing industry and the distributive trades; what was the change during 1964; and how this compares with the changes in 1969 and to date this year.
    Mr. Blakerasked the President of the Board of Trade what recent examination he has made of the need for adequate official figures about stock accumulation by the distributive trades; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Mason: I believe that the statistics give a reasonable indication of the movements in stockbuilding by the distributive trades which is an appreciable and variable component of total demand. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Technology
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    is responsible for statistics of stocks held by manufacturing industry.
    Mr. Osborn: Is the Minister aware that he contradicted himself on 25th February? In col. 1180 of the OFFICIAL REPORT he said that distributive trade stocks increased in the first three quarters, and in col. 1181 he said that they had decreased. There is a good deal of confusion, although apparently the stocks rose in the last quarter. Can he state what the position is now and what the trend is for 1970?
    Mr. Mason: The hon. Gentleman should not pull me up too sharply. He should check whether it is volume or value, or 1963 prices or post-devaluation prices. There can be a lot of confusion, as I recognise. Stocks held by the distributive trades are high by past standards in relation to economic activity. The relation of the stocks to the gross domestic product increased sharply during 1968 to a peak in the first quarter of 1969. Although it has fallen since, it remains higher than the average in most earlier years, including 1964.
    Mr. Blaker: The right hon. Gentleman will be aware from our correspondence that I believe that the replies which he gave on 25th February were, to say the least, misleading. However that may be, should he not use consistent language? If his publications refer to "value at constant 1963 prices", should he not use that expression in answering questions in the House instead of talking about volume?
    Mr. Mason: It is very difficult to change a practice which has been in being for a long time, especially when one has to go through the official stocks figures, as the hon. Gentleman has done. But the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) has a Question down for Written Answer this afternoon. The reply is lengthy, and all the figures will be in it.
    Mr. Barnett: Would my right hon. Friend consider setting up an inquiry to consider why we have held, and do hold, in this country a higher ratio of stocks to the gross domestic product than most of our industrial competitors in the world? This is very much more important than the points which hon. Members

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    opposite are trying to make so much of.
    Mr. Mason: I do not think that an inquiry is necessary. If my hon. Friend tables a Question or raises the matter in an Adjournment debate, we can give him adequate information.
    Mr. Ridley: The Minister's reply to the Question was most misleading. May I press him on the fact that the ratio of stocks to the gross domestic product in this country is very much higher than that of our competitors? Is he content with this situation? If not, what does he intend to do about it?
    Mr. Mason: I do not see any reason to do anything about it at the moment. It is high in relation to economic activity in the country; but that is not necessarily a bad thing. It depends how high the percentage is.

    Gatwick Airport (Night Flights)
    Mr. Hordernasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will give an assurance that the number of night flights from Gatwick will not exceed the number of night flights from Heathrow in 1971.
    Mr. Goronwy Roberts: The number of night movements at Gatwick are likely to be much less than at Heathrow both during the summer and during the whole of 1971. The numbers of jet movements only will depend upon the restrictions imposed at both airports in the summer of 1971.
    Mr. Hordern: The Minister is aware that I was referring to jet night movements in 1971. Why should people who live near Gatwick have to suffer from jet night movements more than people who live near Heathrow? When will the Minister be able to give a firm date for the number of jet night movements from Gatwick in 1971?
    Mr. Roberts: As the hon. Member knows, I have put in hand a review which will come to a conclusion about the number of night jet movements from Gatwick which should be allowed from 1971 onwards. Heathrow, as the Wilson Committee recognised, is unique in the number of its users and the number of people affected by flights to and from it.
    Mr. Rankin: Will my right hon. Friend pledge himself to resist all attempts to
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    restrict the expansion of Britain's air services?
    Mr. Roberts: I pledge myself only to keep in proper balance the national need for air services and the needs of amenity. Both must be considered. I hope that the review which I have put in hand will give us a pilot scheme on which to base any decisions that may be required at other airports.
    Mr. Hordern: On a point of order. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

    Trans-Atlantic Charter Flights
    Mr. Corfieldasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will publish the letters he has sent to British independent airlines referring to licensing restrictions on trans-Atlantic charter flights if they do not voluntarily limit their inclusive-tour flights to a prescribed percentage of incoming scheduled flights; and by what authority he imposes such restrictions in the absence of any appeal from a decision of the Air Transport Licensing Board.
    Mr. Goronwy Roberts: The letters did not refer to any United Kingdom restrictions upon United Kingdom airlines. They informed interested British airlines of policies in Europe towards trans-Atlantic inclusive tour charter flights by foreign carriers and mentioned quantitative controls under our Air Navigation Order permits, which do not apply to aircraft registered in the United Kingdom. It would not help British operators to publish letters consulting them regarding foreign competitors and possible dealings with foreign countries.
    Mr. Corfield: Am I not right in saying that at least some of the letters enjoined the operators not to put on more charter flights than would be represented by 60 per cent., or some other definite percentage, of the total number of scheduled flights over the North Atlantic?
    Mr. Roberts: I do not think that that is quite so. The letters were common form: they were intended to be information for the operators and an indication to them of the guidelines which the European countries generally had in mind and

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    to which we adhere. The hon. Gentleman mentioned a figure of 60 per cent. I should like to look a little more deeply into that. The figure I have in mind is 1 per cent. of scheduled flights in a preceding season.
    Mr. Leslie Huckfield: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that charter operators in the United States, including foreign operators, stand accused of some 70,000 violations of the regulations laid down by the Civil Aeronautics Board? Will he bear in mind that some of the violations have been committed by one of the prominent British independent carriers, Caledonian Airways? Will he make sure that the Air Transport Licensing Board is fully aware of these violations before further decisions are taken?
    Mr. Roberts: I am sure that the A.T.L.B. will bear all appropriate considerations in mind.
    Mr. Corfield: Will the hon. Gentleman remember that what his hon. Friend has mentioned are accusations, that there has been no hearing and there have been no findings?
    Mr. Roberts: The hearings are pending.

    Civil Aviation (Air Navigation)
    Mr. Corfieldasked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he is taking to extend the concept and use of area navigation for aircraft both nationally and internationally.
    Mr. Goronwy Roberts: I would refer the hon. Member to the answers which I gave to Questions from my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) on 2nd December, 1969, and 20th January, 1970. Efforts to obtain international acceptance of the need for area navigation capability for civil aviation and to establish an international standard are continuing. Progress nationally is largely dependent on this but there is already limited approval to the use of area navigation systems here and in the United States.—[Vol. 792,cols. 278–9; and Vol. 794, cols. 109–10.]
    Mr. Corfield: Particularly in view of the spread of these systems in the United States, will the right hon. Gentleman consider offering some incentive to operators of aircraft flying into or out of the
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    United Kingdom to fit this equipment? As it enables them to take advantage of weather conditions and so on, if they are assured that they will be given the advantage of priorities in landing and taking off if using this equipment, that will offset the economic cost.
    Mr. Roberts: I take note of what the hon. Gentleman said. We have done everything we can, and continue to do so, to popularise to all our foreign partners the advantages of this system. I will see what further steps we can take.
    Mr. Brooks: Will my right hon. Friend recall that last year there were 38 collisions and about 2,000 near-misses in the United States alone and that this confirms that there is a danger, not least in this country, arising from aircraft not having this precision area coverage facility?
    Mr. Roberts: I do not think that those two facts can be too closely related.

    Consumer Credit
    Mr. Blakerasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will take steps to bring check trading within the legislation governing the control of hire-purchase and of hiring.
    Mr. Barnettasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will introduce further legislation on consumer credit protection; and if he will make a statement.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: I think we should first await the report of the Crowther Committee.
    Mr. Blaker: Is the hon. Lady aware that with the present severity of the hire-purchase controls the practice of check trading is growing notwithstanding the Chancellor's appeal for restraint which he made in December, 1967, and that this is causing great difficulty to many retailers? If we are to have such laws, ought they not to be applied fairly to all?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: I have some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's point of view. There is no doubt that old established traders who do not go in for this form of trading are suffering and that it is used as a means of evading hire-purchase controls. This is something of

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    which we are aware. As soon as we have the Report of the Crowther Committee, we will study how best we may put its views into operation.
    Mr. Barnett: Will my hon. Friend ensure that special attention is given to the disgraceful racket of second mortgages, particularly among the type of small finance company which takes advantage of young couples who, for instance, need to borrow a deposit towards buying a house and who are charged extortionate rates which are frequently obscured by all sorts of means so that people do not really know what sort of rate they are paying?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: I realise that particularly young couples, when under enormous pressure to find accommodation, will occasionally enter what are unsatisfactory agreements. I hope that people will take care before signing these agreements. I must say that we are keeping a close watch on this type of development.
    Mr. Hall-Davisasked the President of the Board of Trade when he expects to receive the Report of the Crowther Committee on Consumer Credit.
    Mr. Mason: Within the next six months.
    Mr. Hall-Davis: Has the committee commissioned any special studies of check trading or other matters within its terms of reference? If so, will those studies be published in advance of the committee's report?
    Mr. Mason: I do not think that there will be any studies published in advance of the report but the committee will be taking into consideration the problem of check trading.

    Hotels and Catering (Economic Development Committee)
    Mr. Hall-Davisasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement about the work of the economic development committee for hotels and catering.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Reports on the work carried out by the Hotel and Catering Economic Development Committee are published from time to time
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    by the National Economic Development Office. I understand that copies of these publications are available in the Library.
    Mr. Hall-Davis: What progress has been made towards implementing a feasibility study for a nationwide system of computerised reservations? If occupancy could be increased by improved reservation systems would not that be of assistance to profitability and therefore an incentive to investment in the industry?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: This is the sort of development which we are hoping to see very soon. A considerable amount of activity is taking place and we hope to be able to bring some definite news to the House before long.

    Small Businesses
    Mr. Kenneth Bakerasked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he proposes to take to assist in reducing the present problems of small businesses.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: The problems of small firms are currently being examined by a committee of inquiry, with Mr. John E. Bolton as chairman, which was appointed by my right hon. Friend the former President of the Board of Trade. When we receive its report we will consider what steps should be taken.
    Mr. Baker: Would not the hon. Lady agree that small business men in every part of the British economy are being affected by the Government's policy of squeeze? As the President of the Board of Trade is responsible for hire-purchase restrictions and regulations, when will he relax them? That does not have to wait until the Budget.
    Mrs. Dunwoody: We must not add two and two and make five and a half.
    There is no doubt that small businesses are experiencing considerable difficulty because of credit restrictions, but they also receive the benefit of the assistance of many Government grants which the present Government offer them and which were not available before.
    Mr. Heffer: Will the Committee be inquiring into the position of the small shopkeeper, particularly in working-class areas, who has a major problem and who

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    sometimes works extremely long hours for very little return?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: I see no reason why evidence should not be taken about the position of small shopkeepers as they would come within the terms of reference and might be precisely the sort of people that we have in mind for this study.
    Mr. Ridley: Is the hon. Lady aware that the unavailability of credit for expansion and investment is one of the serious inhibiting factors on small businesses, particularly industrial businesses? Will she have a word with her right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to see what he can do to help in this respect?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: I am aware that the hon. Member has been waxing eloquent on the fact that the Government make available particularly cheap money for export and that he has expressed disapproval of this. I draw to his attention the fact that by using these methods we assist small businesses to export.

    Property Bonds
    Mr. Kenneth Bakerasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will take steps to regulate the sale of property bonds.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: The Board of Trade is examining, in consultation with interested bodies, the desirability and practicability of legislation extending control over property bonds.
    Mr. Baker: Why is it taking so long to draw up relatively simple regulations to protect the small investor? Does there have to be a major public scandal in this sector before the Government act?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: That is a totally unjustifiable suggestion. The hon. Member should know that all firms which sell any form of life assurance are already covered by existing Acts and can be controlled by the existing powers of the Board of Trade. It is precisely because we feel that property bonds create other difficulties that we are having talks with the people who have detailed knowledge in the industry with a view to seeing whether any alteration of the law is needed.
    Mr. Ridley: Since, however, the Board of Trade now has 18,000 civil servants
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    and very few responsibilities, would it not be possible for the hon. Lady to get on and do something about this important matter?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: The hon. Member, who spends most of his time being peevish about the success story of the Board of Trade, must try occasionally to rise above doing so. There is no doubt in my mind that the detailed work that is being done in this direction will, when we get the results, be precisely the sort of consumer protection for which the Board of Trade is becoming very well known.

    Service Industries (Investment Incentives)
    Mr. Fletcher-Cookeasked the President of the Board of Trade what proposals he now has for providing incentives for investment by the service industries.
    Mr. Mason: I have no proposals at the present time for further incentives.
    Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: Since, under the old system of investment allowances, the service industries shared this advantage with manufacturing industry, whereas they now get no advantage comparable to the investment grant to manufacturing industry, what proposals does the right hon. Gentleman have for redressing this unfairness?
    Mr. Mason: I thought that the service industries had done very well, because they get tax allowances if they haxe expenditure on plant and machinery, they get Local Employment Act assistance if they are large service industries in development areas, they get investment grants if they purchase new computers or ships, the shipping companies have considerably benefited and in the case of hotels we have given incentives for hotel development also.

    Sea-Search and Rescue (Committee's Report)
    Mr. Wolrige-Gordonasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has yet received the report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Sea-Search and Rescue in the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Goronwy Roberts: We have just received the Report and are at present

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    studying it. I propose to have copies prepared and make them available to hon. Members and will then make a statement.
    Mr. Wolrige-Gordon: In thanking the Minister for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that there seems to have been confusion and duplication in this field during recent months, with the result that sometimes men engaged in this important and valuable service have spent many hours trying to be of assistance but in the event have been able to achieve nothing? Will the right hon. Gentleman consider this seriously?
    Mr. Roberts: I think that that point will be covered generally by the report.
    Dame Irene Ward: As there seem to be an enormous number of committees in progress under the Board of Trade, may I ask whether we could be given a list of the committees now in action and their terms of reference, and when we are likely to have reports? Every Question is answered by the various Ministers by saying that reports are being prepared or investigations or inquiries are being made. I am sick of inquiries. I want a little more action.
    Mr. Roberts: Perhaps the hon. Lady will put down a Question indicating exactly what she requires.
    Dame Irene Ward: I have just said what I want.

    Fraserburgh Lifeboat Disaster
    Mr. Wolrige-Gordonasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has received the report of the inquiry into the Fraserburgh lifeboat disaster; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Goronwy Roberts: The Royal National Life-Boat Institution has sent me a copy of its own confidential inquiry into the disaster. In view of the public concern over this disaster my right hon. Friend has decided to order a formal investigation into the accident to the lifeboat under Section 466 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894. The Royal National Life-Boat Institution has told me that it would welcome this.
    Mr. Wolrige-Gordon: Is the Minister aware that this is a wise decision which will be widely welcomed, particularly in the North-East of Scotland, and not
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    least by those connected with the lifeboat service?
    Mr. Roberts: I am sure that that is the general view, particularly in Scotland.

    Committee on Invisible Exports
    Mr. Ridleyasked the President of the Board of Trade when he next proposes to meet the Committee on Invisible Exports.
    Mr. Mason: No date has yet been arranged.
    Mr. Ridley: When the President next meets the committee, will he tell them that he is now prepared to publish the figures for Government invisibles separately from private invisibles? Will he also agree to publish separate figures for the different branches of invisible earnings, because there is a woeful lack of information to the public at the present time concerning invisibles?
    Mr. Mason: I am doing what I can to help the invisible exporter and, indeed, publicising our efforts more than they have ever been publicised before. The hon. Member is, however, a little out of date. He will notice that the breakdown of invisible earnings between the private and the Government sectors is now shown in both the quarterly and the annual balance of payments statistics. We cannot get the returns fast enough for it to be done monthly.

    Information Division
    Mr. Ridleyasked the President of the Board of Trade how many public relations officers are now employed in his Department; and how many were employed on 31st March, 1964.
    Mr. Mason: There is no separate grade or class of public relations officer, the duties being included in those of the information officer class. There are at present 40 of this class employed in the Board's Information Division. On 31st March, 1964, there were 26.
    Mr. Ridley: Can the President explain why it has been necessary to double the selling when he is doing half the business?
    Mr. Mason: The hon. Gentleman should do his arithmetic a little better than that. My hon. Friend has reminded

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    him of his rather peevish, niggling, anti-Government and particularly anti-Beard of Trade manner. He should have bothered to have seen the extent to which it was necessary to increase the information officer class. In 1964 the Board of Trade became the E.F.T.A. centre for Whitehall and since then we have taken over the whole of the shipping division, all marine affairs and the vast field of civil aviation, and we have increased activities in export promotion. Those are the reasons for the increase in the number of officers.
    Mr. Heffer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there can be no valid criticism of the increase in numbers? Especially as it would appear that the Opposition spend the whole of their time in denigrating the good work that the Department is doing, is it not important that the public should know the truth about the fine work that the Department is getting on with?
    Mr. Mason: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for that remark. I always feel that we are extremely reticent and modest in what we are doing.

    Herel Investments Ltd.
    Mr. Laneasked the President of the Board of Trade what has been the progress in his investigation of alleged offences by Herel Investments Ltd.; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: The inquiries by the Board of Trade under Section 109 or the Companies Act, 1967, in relation to Herel Investments Ltd. have taken longer than expected and are not yet complete. Proceedings have had to be taken against a former officer of the company for failure to produce its books and papers. In the meantime, the Board of Trade and the police are pursuing their inquiries regarding the company.
    Mr. Lane: Will the hon. Lady pursue this matter really vigorously, although realise that it is complicated, because my constituents and others who appear to have been defrauded are anxious not only for redress themselves but for restraint upon any further business acivitities by the head of Herel Investments, Dr. Fifield?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: I am aware of the difficulties facing some of the hon. Member's constituents and I assure him that we are taking active steps to assist them. He will have realised from my Answer that proceedings have already been started.

    Turnhouse Airport, Edinburgh
    Mr. Dalyellasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make an official visit to Turnhouse Airport, Edinburgh.
    Mr. Mason: I have no plans to visit Turnhouse in the near future.
    Mr. Dalyell: I remind my right hon. Friend of the many thousands of visitors who will come to Edinburgh for the Commonwealth Games, is he aware that many of the industrial troubles which occurred at Turnhouse last year are, unfortunately, likely to recur? Some of us have great sympathy with the people who work there and feel that they should be paid the same rates as those who work at Prestwick and other B.A.A. airports.
    Mr. Mason: I am aware of the difficulties at Turnhouse. I gather that negotiations on rates of pay and so on are in progress, and I think that we had better leave it at that at this stage.
    Mr. William Hamilton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the terminal facilities are a scandal? It is a virtual slum in which both workers and passengers are having to be kept. It is like a cattle market when an incoming plane is delayed by half an hour. Will he look into this and get things moving during the next financial year?
    Mr. Mason: I am aware of the difficulties, especially in the light of the fact that the Commonwealth Games will probably cause more traffic at Turnhouse. But I hope that the improvements already in hand will alleviate most of these difficulties.

    Airports (Control)
    Mr. Dalyellasked the President of the Board of Trade what plans he has for transferring airports under his control to the control of the British Airports Authority.
    Mr. Mason: There is only one proposal before me. I have no other plans.
    Mr. Dalyell: Has not the B.A.A. got the expertise and know-how to cope with the problems to which my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) referred on Question 25? Is my right hon. Friend aware that some of us are more concerned with staff conditions even than with the passenger conditions, which, as my hon. Friend said, are bad enough?
    Mr. Mason: I am satisfied that the B.A.A. has the expertise and knowledge and I hope I shall be able to announce a decision about Turnhouse's future after the reappraisal of the future of the runway has been concluded.

    Foreign Aircraft (Insurance Cover)
    Mr. Allasonasked the President of the Board of Trade what insurance cover against damage to the public is required of foreign aircraft operating into Great Britain.
    Mr. Goronwy Roberts: None by United Kingdom legislation, but apart from any requirement which the laws of his own country may place upon him the responsible foreign operator will of course make provision against the absolute and unlimited liability imposed by Section 40(2) of the Civil Aviation Act, 1949.
    Mr. Allason: If a foreign operator prefers to take a risk and go bust if he does have a serious crash, surely that Act will not bite on him.
    Mr. Roberts: Responsible operators, I am glad to say, are very greatly in the majority. I know of no case where action has been taken under Section 40 of the 1949 Act in which there has not been full satisfaction for the people in this country. However, I agree that the situation is not entirely satisfactory. It turns on our success and the success of others in obtaining international agreement on how to effect improvements.
    Mr. Brooks: My right hon. Friend has twice qualified his answer by the use of the term "responsible private operators". Does he not agree that there is also the problem of the increasing use of light
    1422
    aircraft, not necessarily foreign, which have in recent months appeared to have been involved in near-misses?
    Mr. Roberts: My hon. Friend refers to privately-owned light aircraft in this country. That is another matter. Perhaps he would care to put down a Question.
    Mr. Corfield: The right hon. Gentleman implied that there was some difficulty in enforcement. Surely it is perfectly easy to enforce regulations of this sort by simply impounding an aircraft not covered by insurance that lands in this country.
    Mr. Roberts: That could be done, but I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman and I would agree when assessing the repercussions of so acting. My reaction is that it might lead to a good deal of difficulty—even more difficulty than is implied in the not entirely satisfactory present situation.

    Exports (Barter Deals)
    Mr. Barnettasked the President of the Board of Trade if it is his policy to encourage barter deals in order to promote growth of exports; and if he will make a statement.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: We gain from being paid wherever possible in money rather than in goods. But when firms need to enter into barter deals in order to secure export orders, the full range of normal Government services is available to them.
    Mr. Barnett: One appreciates the difficulty of laying down firm rules in such cases, particularly when it depends, for example, on the ability of a person selling an aircraft to dispose of millions of tons of apples, but is there not evidence, in the amount of trade being done by international competitors in this direction, that we are perhaps losing trade because of additional help being given by foreign Governments to their exporters in this direction?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: We have no definitive statistics on this point. British firms quite often enter into barter deals not brought to our attention because there is no reason why they should be. In a situation where a firm is likely to lose

    1423
    a contract altogether if it does not enter a barter deal, it is up to that firm to judge on commercial grounds whether it is worth accepting the terms offered. If we found that it was causing difficulty for businessmen we would be prepared to look at any evidence my hon. Friend has.
    Mr. Blaker: Where goods come to this country as a result of a barter deal with a Communist country, do the anti-dumping laws apply in the same way as to other imports?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: Many such goods coming to this country are controlled by quota and anything brought into this country is subject to the normal legislation, which includes anti-dumping provisions.

    Africa, Asia and Latin America
    Mr. Juddasked the President of the Board of Trade what action he has taken following the Duncan Report to promote trade in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
    Mr. Mason: The emphasis of our trade promotion in these areas has not changed since the Government received the Duncan Report in July, 1969.
    Mr. Judd: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, as far as his Department is concerned, the sections of the report dealing with such areas were crassly shortsighted and are completely dead and buried, and that the Department will take every opportunity to promote British exports to these future vitally important markets?
    Mr. Mason: We certainly do not accept the sharp distinctions in the Duncan Report. Our trade promotion efforts continue to be supported in these markets. Since the report came out last July, a total of 38 missions have been approved by the British National Export Council to these areas.
    Mr. David Howell: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree, in addition to the point that a growing body of opinion thinks that this aspect of the Duncan Report is completely on the wrong lines, that, instead of trying to turn our diplomatic service into business, far more
    1424
    would be achieved by giving our businessmen and salesmen greater tax incentives to be exporters?
    Mr. Mason: I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman himself went on the wrong tack at the end of his supplementary question. It is right that more of our representatives abroad should be commercially-minded. I am satisfied that, with the 210 such posts that we now have abroad, a change has taken place to the benefit of our exports.

    Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya
    Mr. Juddasked the President of the Board of Trade what has been the total increase during the past five years in British exports to, and imports from, each of the following countries, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya; what has been the percentage change in the United Kingdom's share of these markets; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. Mason: With permission, I will publish the figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT. In total, United Kingdom exports to these countries increased by over 80 per cent. and imports from them by about 50 per cent.; our share in their imports remained unchanged at 28 per cent.
    Mr. Judd: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that, with some notable exceptions, British industry has been too lax about getting in on the ground floor of these rapidly expanding markets? Will he do everything possible to promote British trade with Africa north of the Zambesi?
    Mr. Mason: That we are doing. We are providing an export service to British exporters which is unparalleled in the world.
    Mr. Shinwell: In view of my right hon. Friend's statement, which we welcome, indicating a vast expansion of our trade with new Commonwealth countries, what is all this nonsense about the Common Market?
    Mr. Mason: My right hon. Friend does not appreciate that many of these developing countries will not and cannot for some time be able to take sophisticated manufactured goods from an

    1425
    advanced industrial country like ourselves.

    Zambia

    Tanzania

    Uganda

    Kenya

    Increase in United Kingdom exports (f.o.b.)

    £'000

    20,253

    8,368

    4,663

    17,053

    between 1964 and 1969.Per cent.

    Per cent.

    133 (*)

    84

    83

    51

    Increase in United Kingdom imports (c.i.f.)

    £'000

    29,396

    1,658

    11,940

    6,370

    between 1964 and 1969.

    Per cent.

    39 (*)

    7

    216

    33

    Change in the United Kingdom's share of imports into each country between 1964 and the twelve months ending October, 1969 (†)

    Per cent.

    31

    -17

    -2

    1

    (*) Increase between 1965 and 1969. (No separate details of trade with Zambia are available for 1964).

    (†) Change in share expressed as a percentage of the share in 1964.

    Civil Aviation (Development and Promotion)
    Mr. J. H. Osbornasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will give responsibility to the Civil Aviation and Development Programme Board, or to another board, in view of advances in civil aviation equipment, to co-ordinate, develop and promote civil aviation, including airports and airport facilities, for conventional take-off and landing, vertical take-off and landing, and short take-off and landing aircraft in the provinces, and the pattern of internal airline services.
    Mr. Goronwy Roberts: No, Sir. The development and promotion of civil aviation is the responsibility of the Board of Trade. The Civil Aviation Research and Development Board has been set up to co-ordinate research and development for civil aviation equipment other than aircraft engines. As the hon. Member is aware we propose to introduce legislation to set up a Civil Aviation Authority to be responsible for economic and safety regulatory functions.
    Mr. Osborn: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the decision not to proceed with an airport at Todwick means that neither Barnsley nor Sheffield are on the air map? What steps will he take to promote facilities to encourage internal scheduled airline services for provincial cities, using S.T.O.L., V.T.O.L. and other light aircraft?
    Mr. Roberts: The Civil Aviation Research and Development Board, whose function I tried to define, does not engage in research. It endeavours to pull together, in its reports, the efforts and
    Following is the information:
    researches on questions of equipment other than those which are dealt with by the Ministry of Technology. I cannot at the moment give a conclusive answer on whether it should address itself to what the hon. Gentleman suggests. In the case of V.T.O.L. and S.T.O.L. it very well might.
    Mr. Rankin: Would my right hon. Friend agree that many of the advances advocated in the hon. Gentleman's Question are now proceeding at Glasgow Airport and would proceed more quickly if it were not for the hindering tactics of the British Airports Authority?
    Mr. Roberts: I cannot accept my hon. Friend's conclusion, but I agree that some very interesting and useful experimentation and accomplishments have taken place at Glasgow Airport.
    Mr. Corfield: May we be assured that, in regard to the studies which are being carried on by the Ministry of Technology into V.T.O.L. and S.T.O.L. potential, his Department and, perhaps even more particularly, the Ministry of Housing, are in close contact throughout, because these matters are much more widely important than simply the Ministry of Technology?
    Mr. Roberts: I can give that assurance. I know how close the co-ordination is between my Department and the Ministry of Technology. I have no doubt that the Ministry of Housing is also closely concerned.

    Trade Protection Societies (Debt Collection)
    Mr. Fletcher-Cookeasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is

    1427
    aware of the recent increase in the number of debts sent by businesses for collection by trade protection societies; and what action he proposes to take.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Yes, Sir. I have, however, received no recent or significant complaint about trade protection societies, and I do not contemplate any action at the present time.
    Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: Since the rate of business failures is rising alarmingly, and many trade creditors are losing their money, would the hon. Lady consider whether it is not right to redefine the term "fradulent trading", since many people are trading much too long, even though, under the present restrictive definition, it is impossible to bring them to book?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: I am prepared to look at this point, because it astonishes me how easily people appear to obtain long lines of credit when it must be obvious that they cannot pay.

    Civil Aviation (Security)
    Mr. Michael McNair-Wilsonasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will make a statement on the outcome of the European civil aviation meeting in Paris on 3rd March.
    Mr. Goronwy Roberts: Yes, Sir.
    The emergency European meeting about security of civil aviation, held in Paris on 3rd and 4th March, was attended by representatives of 19 European administrations. United Kingdom representatives played an active part.
    At the meeting information was exchanged on risks and safeguarding measures. Arrangements were made for exchange of such information on a continuing basis. The meeting recommended establishment of airport committees on security at each of the main European airports. The meeting also resolved unanimously in favour of an Extraordinary Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organisation to deal with security of aviation world-wide.
    A copy of the report of the European meeting is being placed in the Library.
    As the House will know from the reply to the hon. and gallant Member for Knutsford (Sir W. Bromley-Davenport) on 19th March, requests made accordingly
    1428
    by 10 European States, including the United Kingdom, have caused an Extraordinary Assembly of I.C.A.O. to be convened, and the I.C.A.O. Council plans that the Assembly will meet in Montreal on 16th June.
    Mr. McNair-Wilson: Has a security committee been set up at Heathrow as a result of this meeting? Can the hon. Gentleman shed any light on new screening procedures which may have been introduced?
    Mr. Roberts: Measures had already been taken at Heathrow broadly on the lines, and in some respects overtaking the lines, indicated by the emergency meeting in Europe.
    Mr. John Mendelson: Are the Government pressing ahead, in accordance with the assurance of the Foreign Secretary in the House, with an arrangement among the Powers concerned to hold responsible every Government which allows on its soil the preparation of criminal attacks on civil aviation?
    Mr. Roberts: I think that my hon. Friend should follow that up with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, who has declared the Government's broad intention.

    Handley Page Ltd.
    Mr. Goodhewasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will hold an inquiry into the takeover of Handley Page Limited by the Cravens Corporation.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: My hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology explained in the debate on 12th March why the Board of Trade does not consider that an inquiry would be justified.
    Mr. Goodhew: Is the hon. Lady aware that there are shareholders who are very anxious about the fact that, when the receiver was appointed on 3rd August last year, no statement of affairs as at that date was produced, as required under Section 372 and Section 373 of the Companies Act, 1948, and that the first statement of affairs appeared on 30th November and that they regard this as inadequate and inaccurate? Is there anything which she can do to help them?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: We have at present no evidence to enable us to act under the Companies Act, but I am prepared to look at any extra evidence which the hon. Gentleman brings to my attention.
    Mr. Orme: Is my hon. Friend aware that the workers in this industry, particularly in this firm, are gravely concerned at events and at the fact that they have not been properly compensated and that money is owing? They are asking for a public inquiry. Will she not look into this matter again?
    Mrs. Dunwoody: I sympathise with any workers involved in the liquidation of a company for which they have worked for a considerable time, because they face considerable difficulties. I am afraid that the Companies Acts do not give us any powers which we could possibly use in this sort of field. Under our present powers, we have no justification for interfering at present.

    Romania (Minister's Visit)
    Mrs. Renée Shortasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement about his visit to Romania.
    Mr. Mason: I visited Romania from 9th to 11th March at the invitation of Mr. Burtica, the Romanian Minister of Foreign Trade. I had very useful discussons with a number of senior Romanian Ministers on a variety of trade issues of mutual interest and, in particular, on the prospects for the continued expansion of British exports to Romania.
    Mrs. Short: May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the considerable increase in trade between ourselves and Romania, which I believe shows the most sophisticated increase of all Comecon countries. How much increase is likely in the current year in our trade with Romania? Would my right hon. Friend follow up this highly successful visit with other East European visits, so that we may show a similar increase in trade with those countries?
    Mr. Mason: Trade is increasing between ourselves and East European countries, and my hon. Friend is right to draw attention to it. Total trade between ourselves and Romania has
    1430
    doubled in the past three years and our exports have trebled in that time. There is £80 million-worth of irrigation projects under discussion and £30 million-worth of aircraft projects.

    Air Navigation Systems
    Mr. Michael McNair-Wilsonasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will make a statement about the stage which Euro Control has reached in evaluating the comparative merits of the hyperbolic area coverage and vertical omni-range and directional area coverage air navigation systems.
    Mr. Goronwy Roberts: The first phase of trials of a hyperbolic area coverage system has been completed and a report is in process of completion. Trials of a vertical omni-range and directional system are due to start later this year.
    Mr. McNair-Wilson: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, with the increasing rise in civil aviation, the fixed beacon system alone is no longer adequate? Would he make representations to this effect to his European colleagues?
    Mr. Roberts: I do not agree that it is inadequate. I agree that it is right for us to press for an area navigation system, partly for maximum utilisation of air space, and partly for safe separation.
    Mr. Leslie Huckfield: Is my hon. Friend aware that both B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. are already fitted with this equipment? What steps will be take to extend the fitting and requirement for fitting of this equipment to the independent sector of British aviation?
    Mr. Roberts: It is true that substantial sections of the British airline industry are fitted with this system. We constantly point to its advantages, but it is commercially for the operators to decide whether they can usefully add this to their equipment.

    Airways Corporations Joint Pension Scheme
    Mr. Fortescueasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that the management trustees of the Airways Corporations Joint Pension Scheme have refused to convene a meeting of

    1431
    members as required by statutory regulations when requested by any 50 members; and if he will take steps to ensure that a meeting is duly held.
    Mr. Goronwy Roberts: I am aware of the complaint made against the management trustees of this scheme. This is not a matter in which we could properly intervene, as we have no responsibility for the administration of the scheme. The complainants might like to seek legal advice.
    Mr. Fortescue: But is the hon. Gentleman aware that the regulations passed by this House specifically state that the trustees must—I repeat, "must"—convene a meeting if they are asked to do so by 50 of the members? Is he further aware that a requisition signed by over 2,000 members was sent to the management trustees last July, which is now nine months ago, and that no meeting has been held, because the trustees refuse to convene one? If it is not possible for him to take some action about this, will he please consider what can be done?
    Mr. Roberts: It is not possible for my right hon. Friend to take direct action. I take note of what the hon. Gentleman has said. I will inquire as to the reasons for this delay. Perhaps that may help, together with the fact that the hon. Gentleman has raised the question and I have answered it in the way I have.

    Aircraft Flight-path, Bebington
    Mr. Brooksasked the President of the Board of Trade what are the minimum height requirements for aircraft proceeding over the Borough of Bebington along the flight-path approaches to Speke Airport; on how many occasions in the past six months these requirements have not been fulfilled; and what steps he will take to minimise the risk to householders, factories, power generating plant and oil storage tanks within the borough.
    Mr. Goronwy Roberts: No specific minimum heights are required in the case of aircraft flying over Bebington in the course of landing or practising approaches to landing at Speke airport in accordance with normal aviation practice; no unusual risk exists in the borough in so far as such operations are concerned and it is not proposed to introduce any special restrictions.
    Mr. Brooks: Does not my right hon. Friend recognise that in this area some extremely volatile petro-chemical products are stored, there is a vast amount of industry and the population are very apprehensive about the possibility of accidents? Is he also aware that in the last six months there has been a considerable increase in the number of inquiries and complaints that have been received, including one to the effect that an aircraft narrowly missed the chimney of a local power station?
    Mr. Roberts: I am interested in what my hon. Friend says about complaints and inquiries. These must have been local. I have not received at the Board of Trade any complaints or representations from the area. This does not mean of course that there are not keen apprehensions among the people, and my hon. Friend might wish later to have a word with me about this.

TEXTILE INDUSTRY (STRUCTURE)
The Paymaster-General (Mr. Harold Lever): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will make a statement about the structure of the textile industry.
My right hon. Friend the then President of the Board of Trade told the House on 30th June, 1969, that the Government had decided to call a halt for a period to further mergers between the larger firms in the textile industry. He made it clear that, while the standstill should not be seen as a bar to further major rationalisation at a later date, the Government would have to be satisfied that the benefits to the public interest of the merger outweighed the disadvantages of reduced competition.
On 23rd December, last I.C.I. announced that, subject to the agreement of the Government on the issues of public policy involved, it intended to make a bid for the whole of the share capital of Viyella International Ltd. and to enter into discussions with Carrington & Dewhurst concerning the terms of a merger of that company with Viyella.
My right hon. Friend the Minister of Technology accordingly established a small group under my chairmanship to consider the structure of the textile industry in the light of this initiative by

1433
I.C.I. and to advise on the best policy for it.
I was assisted in this task by my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Employment and Productivity, as well as by Sir Joseph Lockwood, the Chairman of the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation, and Sir James Steel, the Chairman of the Textile Council. I have discussed the problem very fully with the major interests concerned, including the trade unions.
In the light of this review, the Government have decided that the standstill should continue, subject to the following important modifications:

1. I.C.I.'s proposals will not be referred to the Monopolies Commission and will be allowed to proceed subject to certain undertakings. These are:

(i) I.C.I. should reduce its shareholding in the combined company to not more than 35 per cent. as soon as practicable, and, if this has not been completed within 12 months, it undertakes not to exercise more votes than if it had;

(ii) it should not use its shareholding at any time to influence the two companies in their choice of fibres or other materials;

(iii) the board of the combined company will have an independent chairman of standing: there will be independent non-executive directors and I.C.I. will provide only one director.

2. Proposals by other fibre producers to make acquisitions in the manufacture or distribution of textiles will be considered on the same basis and the Government will look for acceptance of similar terms and conditions. They will in any case have to be satisfied under the monopolies and mergers legislation, having regard to the share of the market or of particular sectors of the market for textiles already held by the acquiring group, that the benefits to the public interest outweigh the disadvantages of reduced competition.

3. A code will be drawn up, in consultation with the fibre producers, designed to prevent unfair trading in fibres. The code will cover such
1434
matters as prices, terms and conditions of sale, the supply of goods, fair trading practices and disclosure of information. To give effect to this statement of policy, the Government will as necessary make use of existing powers to refer proposed mergers or monopoly situations to the Monopolies Commission and of the powers to be taken under forthcoming legislation to make references to the Commission for Industry and Manpower.

During the course of my inquiry it became evident that if the Lancashire sector of the industry was to compete successfully with imports by 1972, when it is intended that the quotas should be replaced by a tariff on Commonwealth imports, a substantial increase in the rate of re-equipment was needed. The Government attach great importance to this and are considering how it may be achieved.
There is one helpful decision in this connection which I can mention now. The House will recall that on 22nd July last year my right hon. Friend the then President of the Board of Trade also said that the Government were prepared to consider an application by the Textile Council for an increase in the depreciation allowances for textile machinery.
I am pleased to say that the Board of Inland Revenue has considered the council's application and has agreed that the annual allowance for textile machinery used in the cotton and allied textiles industries, and worked for three shifts, should be increased to 25 per cent. the maximum permissible under existing legislation.
This new policy will mean that major textile firms will be strengthened while they maintain their freedom of raw material choice, and that the many efficient medium and smaller firms, protected by the code for fibre producers, will be able to take advantage of all opportunities to play their full part in the textile industry's future.
I believe, therefore, that the proposals will be in the best interests of a strong and internationally competitive textile industry.
Sir K. Joseph: We welcome the Minister's announcement about depreciation at the end of his statement, but does

1435
he not agree that, although uncharacteristic of his own person, the whole procedure smacks of the Star Chamber approach? Had this proposal by I.C.I. been referred to the Monopolies Commission, the House and the country would have had a voluminous report, with ample evidence. As it is, we have only a relatively long, but, in absolute terms, brief statement on which to assess the reasons for the Government's decision.
Secondly, will the Minister tell the House what legal basis there was for the Dell diktat or for this attempt at Lever legislation? The Dell diktat lasted only six months. What is the legal basis for the freeze imposed by the Government then or now?
Thirdly, but for the non-legal freeze the shareholders of the companies concerned might have expected a bid from other bidders. Is there any legal barrier now, subject to the normal risk of reference to the Monopolies Commission for monopoly reasons, to bids for these companies? I hope that the Minister will take a note of these questions; he made a statement lasting six minutes.
Fourthly, does not all this flow from Courtaulds' vertical operations? Did the Government consider treating I.C.I. and Courtaulds in the same way, that is, limiting their interests in outlets to minority stakes only? When will the code to which the Minister referred be effective? Will the disclosure of trading results under the 1967 Companies Act——
Mr. Michael Foot: On a point of order. Is it conducive to the good conduct of the affairs of the House that a whole series of questions should be put from the Opposition Front Bench which, if they were answered in absolute detail, would mean that the time of other hon. Members was taken up? If Opposition spokesmen are to be accorded the facility of being given statements in advance, cannot they use that privilege with some regard for the interests of other hon. Members?
Mr. Speaker: As the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, the statement was a long one which called for a number of questions. I hope the Minister will take note of the hon. Gentleman's hint and not reply in too great detail.
Mr. Peyton: On a point of order. Can you say, Mr. Speaker, to what extent you find it valuable to have the constant assistance of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) to advise you on your duties?
Mr. Speaker: I do not recall that the hon. Gentleman frequently gives me assistance.
Sir K. Joseph: Is the Minister aware that I carefully pruned the large number of questions raised by his statement to the minimum relevant?
Will the Minister see to it that under the 1967 Act separate trading results for fibre production, on the one hand, and textile trading, on the other, are published by the companies concerned?
Lastly, what does he expect will be the attitude to his statement of overseas fibre producers who provide investment and employment in this country?
Mr. Lever: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for pruning his questions and will try to answer the meagre number remaining.
In the first place, he asked why this matter not sent to the Monopolies Commission instead of being dealt with by the working group. The answer is that what was required was a speedy investigation so as to give a result which could enable I.C.I. and the other parties concerned to make appropriate decisions at the earliest date.
This bid of I.C.I. was made specifically subject to the consent of the Government. It was not a case of the Government imposing a condition. It was I.C.I. itself that required the Government's consent before it was prepared to proceed.
The only legal basis for any statement of Government policy is the appropriate monopolies legislation. Any person may take any action he likes within the law, but it is right that the Government should make clear, so far as they can, the guidelines of their policy likely to be implemented. This is very much to the convenience of the industry.
I would say to the right hon. Gentleman that most people in commerce would regard this sort of inquiry as being far more useful, ignoring its chairman, than a long philosophical investigation

1437
by the Monopolies Commission, which is not suited to every example that has to be considered, although, of course, it has its uses.
The right hon. Gentleman asked whether I have considered limiting Courtaulds in the same way. What he probably means is whether I have considered reducing its shareholding in all the forward companies, similar to that which I.C.I. will have in the Vyella-Carrington and Dewhurst matter. Having considered all the aspects I do not think that it would be in the interests of the textile industry to apply retrospectively to an organisation terms and conditions which suited the present situation, but which would result in unjustifiable disruption and inconvenience if applied retrospectively.
As for the point about separate accounting, I am doing my best to ensure wider and more detailed information than has been the case in the past.
Finally, the right hon. Gentleman would be wrong to suppose that this decision will cause any inconvenience or difficulty to overseas fibre producers who produce in this country.
Mr. Barnett: As it is unlikely that I.C.I. will be able to hive off enough shares to get below the 35 per cent. and would, therefore, have virtual control, despite what my right hon. Friend has said about voting, would he not be prepared to let others have the same sorts of rights, that is to say, in regard to the Courtauld bid for English Calico? Does this still apply only to the five major companies in the industry? Are take-over bids allowed by the other bigger companies of foreign competitors?
While I accept what my right hon. Friend said about the need for a speedy decision now, would he not agree that there is a need for a rather more philosophical approach, as he put it, by perhaps putting this matter to the new C.I.M. to get its view on what it considers to be the right grouping in the textile industry in this country as a whole?
Mr. Lever: Life must go on even in advance of the C.I.M. I am sure that that body will be useful in giving us guidance when required on specific problems that are referred to it. This problem was rightly referred to a working group, including
1438
the Chairman of the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation, Sir Joseph Lockwood, the Chairman of the Textile Council and my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Employment and Productivity.
So far as effective control is concerned, far from my being troubled about the matter I feel that there will be considerable advantage in making the necessary contribution that I.C.I. has to make in the matter of international marketing, improvement of the financial side of the company and the like. At the same time I am satisfied with the undertaking I have been given that there will be no interference by I.C.I., irrespective of its percentage shareholding, in the fibre choice of the Vyella-Carrington & Dewhurst Companies.
Mr. Richard Wainwright: In announcing the increased depreciation for only a limited section of the textile industry, the right hon. Gentleman admitted that the Board of Inland Revenue was limited in choosing depreciation rates under legislation which dates from a long time ago before obsolescence attained its present importance? In the light of this, will the right hon. Gentleman remind the Chancellor of the Exchequer that this legislation hampers any competition with countries where depreciation is more generous to the efforts of textile industries?
Secondly, in choosing the rather elaborate board structure with an independent chairman and several non-executive independent directors, has the right hon. Gentleman given sufficient attention to the need for a dynamic and continuously responsible board as well as one which will observe due restraints?
Mr. Lever: I will certainly bear in mind the hon. Gentleman's remarks about depreciation. The directors on the board will be in addition to the executive directors. I hope that they will all be dynamic, ingenious, helpful and constructive. As a matter of fact, I myself shall not be appointing them, nor will I be running the company.
Mr. Oakes: Will my right hon. Friend accept that many of us in Lancashire accept the need for speed in this matter and congratulate him on bringing speed into this matter instead of it going to the Monopolies Commission? What effect will this have on the level of employment

1439
in the industry and what effect will the proposals have on redundancy and did the trade unions which he consulted agree with the proposals that he has put forward?
Mr. Lever: I could not submit the proposals in any detail to the trade unions before announcing them to the House, but I am satisfied that they will win the support of the trade unions because they advance the security of employment of their members by bringing the strength of I.C.I. forward to some extent into the textile industry. This will improve job opportunities and will not reduce them.
Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: Since the right hon. Gentleman attributes more importance, as indeed I do, to I.C.I. having only a minority control in the new grouping, what prevented him insisting on fair shares in this matter by providing that Courtaulds should only use minority voting in its enormous captive outlets in the textile manufacturing industry since they already have about 31 per cent of the weaving end alone?
Mr. Lever: The hon. and learned Gentleman must know that there is all the difference between making a decision about covering future action which will apply to Courtaulds as much as I.C.I. and retrospectively enforcing upon firms which have been allowed to take certain action over a long period of years a new code of behaviour significantly altering their shareholding, voting rights and the like. I do not say that in matters of fundamental importance one would not be justified in doing that, but I think there is no justification for doing what he implies I should have done.
Mr. Sheldon: Although I understand that I.C.I. may be forced to divest itself of some of its shareholding, what is important is that in the early stages it will appoint the new board and the senior management. Even if it is successful in divesting itself subsequently of part of that shareholding, the management and the board previously responsible to I.C.I. is unlikely to treat it as just another firm.
Mr. Lever: My hon. Friend is wrong in supposing that the management appointments will be a matter for I.C.I.—either the senior or junior appointments. I would have thought that the
1440
management, in the first stage, would be as it now is, and that the new board of directors will make such management changes as will become desirable in time. Since the board will be appointed by I.C.I. it will consist, on the one hand, of the executive directors among those working there at present and new directors, non-executive of a manifestly independent character, who will take over the running of the company.
Quite apart from the obligation of the board not to allow I.C.I. to interfere in the fibre choice of the company, I have a specific pledge from I.C.I. that it will not interfere. I have every confidence that it will be observed. There are remedies should that not be so, though, of course, I am implying no lack of confidence in I.C.I.
Mr. Kenneth Baker: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his solution is likely to be a bad one because it is so artificial? Is not the real solution to the problems of this industry that which has been adopted in other countries, to have separate fibre, clothing and textile companies, instead of deciding to dance to Lord Kearton's tune?
Mr. Lever: The hon. Gentleman alleges that I dance to Lord Kearton's tune. Lord Kearton does not come into it.
This is a matter of I.C.I.'s application. This was not an invention of the Government, but a commercial request impelled and motivated by commercial purposes. The Government's problem was to decide on what basis this commercial motivation should be restricted so as to preserve the public interest and the interests of employment and prospects in the textile industry.
The hon. Gentleman allows himself an off-the-cuff statement about the difficulty of verticalisation in other countries. This would deserve more careful study than his broad generalisations.
Mr. Peyton: To what extent does the right hon. Gentleman's statement imply the early demise of the Monopolies Commission? If it does not, can other industrial concerns expect such privileged treatment and expect to be excused from the embarrassment of long philosophical discourses by the Monopolies Commission?
Mr. Lever: What would have resulted on the specific application would have been necessarily far broader in character than was required by the situation. I.C.I. was not exempted from anything. The matter was considered just as it would be with any other company. If it was thought desirable in the public interest—it is no good the hon. Gentleman shaking his head. He was not there. I was.
The matter was considered to decide as far as possible whether the public interest required a reference to the Monopolies Commission. We decided that it did not, thanks to the satisfactory undertakings which we have received. Any other firm is open to similar treatment.
Mr. Tom Boardman: The right hon. Gentleman justifies his procedure on the ground that speedy investigation was necessary. Surely he recognises that this applies to every proposed merger. Why depart from the procedure in this case? If he does so, will it be the standard that the Government will adopt in all other cases, and will they introduce new legislation to give effect to it?
Mr. Lever: I hope that the Government will always consider in any proposed merger what is the right mechanism for dealing with it. Here we are dealing with an application within a period of standstill declared by the Government last June, if my memory serves me right, and my addition works it out somewhat differently from the six months referred to repeatedly by the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph). Perhaps he will check his counting.
The Government were faced with an application by I.C.I. in which the company indicated that it did not wish to proceed unless the Government approved the proposals that it had to make. In those circumstances, the procedure for determining the issues involved was very appropriate, useful and reasonably speedy.

HALLMARKING
3.54 p.m.
Mr. Jerry Wiggin: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the various statutes so far as they relate to exemptions from compulsory hall-marking of gold and silver wares, and to provide for the compulsory hallmarking of wares made of platinum.
Pure gold and pure silver are soft metals. They wear away and lose shape when made into wares unless they are alloyed with copper and other base metals. This necessary adulteration provides the dishonest with an opportunity for fraud, and it is fraud that is not easily detected by the eye. It is, therefore, necessary to set standards for the content of gold and silver and hallmark those wares which pass that standard.
I do not think that I would be exaggerating if I said that hallmarking is the oldest form of consumer protection in the world. There is some possibility that even the Romans used it, and the first Statutes in this country were introduced in England in 1300 and in Scotland in 1457.
The process of hallmarking consists of submitting the article, normally by the manufacturer, in a semi-completed state to one of the assay officers. A sample is physically scraped from all parts, including each link of a chain or hinge or bolt which might make up the article being assayed. A part of the scrapings is taken and tested for its purety and content. The other part is placed in the Diet Box.
I am sorry that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not in the Chamber. In his other capacity as Master of the Mint, he is responsible for taking the Diet Box once a year and testing its contents to ensure that the assay offices are doing their job. He requires a deposit of several hundred pounds from the assay masters to ensure their honesty.
Once it has been established that the article is up to the necessary standard, it is marked with the mark of the maker, the year, the assay office at which it is marked, and the standard of the metal. The minimum standard for gold in this country is 9 carats, or nine twenty-fourths. For silver, it is 925 parts in 1,000. My Bill proposes that platinum should be

1443
included at a standard of 950 parts in 1,000.
The hallmarking laws are of great value to the public, who receive a guarantee of quality. They are of value to the manufacturer who has an easy and reliable method of quality control and who is also protected against dishonest competition. They are of value to the retailer, who is relieved of the responsibility of checking articles. Finally, they are valuable to Government Departments, the police, Customs and Excise, exporters and many others.
It is worth bearing in mind that the vast majority of gold and silver articles are worth less than £10. Therefore, the protection which is given to them is all the more important, since the purchaser of an article costing perhaps several thousand pounds is not only likely to be careful about the content of the metal, but also perfectly capable of protecting himself, whereas the vast majority of people who buy a ring, a cigarette case, or some other small article look to the assay offices and the hallmarking laws for protection. Moreover, it is not only the first purchaser who is protected, since the article is protected throughout its life by the mark.
The assaying is carried out at present in this country by four assay offices. They are the Wardens and Commonalty of the Mystery of Goldsmiths of the City of London, incorporated by charter in 1327; the Incorporation of Goldsmiths of the City of Edinburgh, incorporated by charter in 1687; the Guardians of the Standard of the Wrought Plate within Sheffield, created by Statute in 1772; and the Guardians of the Standard of the Wrought Plate in Birmingham, incorporated in 1824. Perhaps I might say that I am very proud that my family have been Guardians in Birmingham for more than 100 years without a break. It may be that that is why I am interested in this Bill.
Although the first Statute that was effective was in 1300, there was an Ordinance in 1238 dealing with the matter. However, the Statute of 1300 is of the greatest first interest and provides that no one is
"… to work gold worse than the touch of Paris",
1444
and that the wardens are to go from shop to shop amongst the goldsmiths
"… to assay if their gold be of the same touch."
This early method of assaying consisted of rubbing the article against a stone and comparing the mark so made with a mark made by a needle of known content.
Over the years more and more Statutes were added. One in 1757 made counterfeiting hallmarks a felony punishable by death. In 1772, a milder attitude was taken and the penal penalty was replaced by transportation for 14 years. As far as I know, those laws have been repealed.
But in the present day we find the noble Lord, Lord Denning, then Lord Justice Denning, saying in a judgment in 1952:
"I would observe that in 1856 and 1879 Select Committees said that the law as to hallmarking was uncertain owing to the number of statutes in which it was to be found; and they expressed the opinion that the consolidation and amendment of the law should be carried out without further delay. Now, 73 years later, in 1952, I may, perhaps, be permitted to express the same opinion."
And, 18 years after that, perhaps I may also express the same opinion.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, said in answer to a Question on 28th January, after a little heart-searching within the Board of Trade, I think:
"We are satisfied that reform of the law should be based on compulsory hall-marking of gold, silver and platinum wares, with limited exemptions. Extensive consultation on the complex details will be required before we can propose legislation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th January, 1970; Vol. 794, c. 1522.]
The Stone Committee, set up by the Conservative Government to examine the matter, said:
"Our principal recommendation is that a compulsory system of Assay and Hallmarking should, subject to certain exceptions, continue for all articles having a gold or silver content, and should be initiated for all articles having a platinum content, …"
I am delighted that the Government are preparing a full and comprehensive Bill, but I am sure that I would not be making an unreliable guess if I said that they will not introduce it this Session. On the return of a Conservative Government it is possible that we shall have more urgent matters to deal with. This short Bill would remove some of the worst anomalies and, I believe, satisfy

1445
the trade, the assay offices, manufacturers and retailers as a temporary measure. It will include platinum, a metal four times more valuable than gold. There is a Clause to apply protection to the descriptive words. It is interesting that in all these Statutes no one has said so far that gold shall be gold and silver shall be silver. My Bill would include that statement.
The main anomalies have been in exemptions, so we propose to abolish all previous exemptions and to include a limited list. I shall not go through them as they are all in the Bill. At least one is of great importance to our export industry and is much needed.
This matter is of vast public interest. Almost every individual has an article that he or she values and treasures. The New Yorker carried a quarter page advertisement inviting the public to write in for particulars about hallmarking, and over 15,000 people applied. When Woman carried a similar advertisement last year 28,000 people applied for particulars. I am sure that the matter is of interest throughout the country and in many countries abroad.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Wiggin, Earl of Dalkeith, Mrs. Knight, Mr. Lawler, Mr. Julius Silverman, Mr. John Smith, Mrs. Joyce Butler, Mr. J. H. Osborn, Mr. Hooley, and Mr. Blaker.

HALLMARKING
Bill to amend the various statutes so far as they relate to exemptions from compulsory hallmarking of gold and silver wares, and to provide for the compulsory hallmarking of wares made of platinum, presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 17th April and to be printed. [Bill 133.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  MISUSE OF DRUGS BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Mr. Speaker: Before the debate begins, may I announce that I have not selected the reasoned Amendment standing in the names of the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Peter M. Jackson) and other hon. Members—
  That this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Misuse of Drugs Bill on the grounds that the Bill omits any reference to the most dangerous drug currently available, namely tobacco; notes the comment of Sir George Godber, the Ministry of Health's Chief Medical Officer, that some 75,000 deaths occur a year as a result of smoking; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to introduce, during the current parliamentary session, legislation which was outlined by the Minister of Health in reply to a Parliamentary Question to the honourable Member for Falmouth and Camborne on 23rd October 1967.
  This will not affect the debate at all. The points made in the Amendment, together with others for and against the Bill, may be made during the debate.
  I have a considerable number of hon. Members who wish to speak. Reasonably brief speeches will help.
  4.6 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. James Callaghan): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  Drug-taking is a scourge. We know far too little of its causes or consequences. The law has a part to play—hence the Bill—but it is by no means the only agency, because law enforcement which attempts to control personal consumption is difficult. I emphasise at the outset that there is a need for a concerted effort in the legal, social and medical fields. The Bill on its own, although it would serve a useful purpose, would by no means deal with the problem, which is growing so fast today.
  Compared with even three years ago, the pattern of misuse of drugs is much more complicated and more serious. Then, the main problem was a sharply increasing growth of heroin addiction coupled with a widened use of pep pills, cannabis and L.S.D. Drug-users, even that short while ago, tended to go for a single drug of their choice. Today, the increase in

  1447
  heroin addiction has tapered off, almost certainly because control by the treatment centres of supplies to addicts has reduced the amount available to potential new addicts in the black market. But there is a more sinister side. Some would say that because of this very control many addicts have resorted to substitute drugs.
  Indeed, two years ago, in 1968, there was an epidemic of "fixing" by amphetamines which was largely fed by the activities and over-prescribing of no more than two doctors in London. It could be stopped only by a voluntary scheme for restricting supplies to hospital pharmacies. Many of the needle-users—a term to which I shall return later—then turned to methadone, a narcotic used by some treatment centres to wean addicts off heroin and made available for general practitioners to prescribe. They are free to prescribe it.
  I want to give an indication of the measure of the problem, and the speed with which addiction can come upon us. There are now just over 2,000 registered addicts of heroin. Of these, 700 are under the age of 20. But as a result of the increase in the over-prescription of methadone in 1969 alone 337 cases of addiction to methadone first came to the notice of the Home Office. Methadone ampoules now command much the same black market price as heroin did before the 1968 restrictions. More recently—within the past 12 months—some addicts have taken to the highly dangerous and destructive practice of injecting themselves with barbiturates.
  The use of cannabis and amphetamine tablets is also spreading widely through the country, and is probably more extensive than it was. I regret to say that recently there has been a revival of insterest in L.S.D. As the picture has unfolded, the dangers of particular drugs have become more significant. Amphetamines and L.S.D., for example, are now regarded as more dangerous than they were. The valuable Report of the Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence, published earlier this week, shows this very clearly. I understand that one of the members of the Advisory Committee will be leading for the Opposition in this debate. The really new feature, however, as with the so-called "needle-users", is the wide range
  1448
  of substances taken by experimenters and more habitual users.
  It therefore comes to this. We can draw comfort from the fact that heroin addiction appears to be less of a threat, and that convictions for drug offences in the first half of 1969 were no more than 10 per cent. higher than in the same period in 1968. Nevertheless, the possibilities of much more serious and new trouble are very real, first, because it is difficult to predict what the pattern of misuse will next be, and those exposed to it have become much more vulnerable.
  Second, there are evil men who see a profit in exploiting misuse, and have greater resources and greater opportunities for doing so, whether by manufacturing new drugs for this market or by smuggling and trafficking. Third is the speed of change in fashion for drugs, which is so depressing; and fashions can be spread by such a handful of irresponsible medical practitioners.
  This has meant that our defences are far too inflexible against these evils. The legislative scene is static, but the drug scene is constantly changing. There is a need for different treatment of different groups. The addicts of the hard drugs—those who are on heroin, or have been weaned from it and are on methadone or are injecting barbiturates—are very sick people, unable to face the problems of life, unable to come to terms with life or with their fellows. These people need help and understanding and treatment. At the other end of the scale are the youngsters who experiment for kicks. Most of them escape the worst consequences, but some are caught in the web at regular intervals.
  I have already referred to the problems that are alleged to have been caused by the reduction in the pool of surplus heroin by the treatment centres with the consequence that attention has been diverted to other drugs. It follows that our success in dealing with this problem can be measured not in terms of individual drugs—it would be wrong to concentrate on heroin—but in treatment, and our success in handling the overall situation. The surplus in the pool of methadone could be reduced at once if no more than a dozen doctors would prescribe less liberally than they are prescribing today. The Bill will give me powers to ensure this.

  1449
  I am glad to say that there is little evidence of illicit, Mafia-type, black market heroin being available in this country. There has been a recent revival of interest in L.S.D. because it has become available in the form of coloured tablets which originate in the United States, where its manufacture is frequently financed by criminal interests. Clandestine laboratories are being found in this country. The profits are enormous. There have been arrests—the last arrest was as recently as September, 1969. But detection poses considerable difficulties for the police, though I assure the House that a strenuous effort has been mounted. There is close co-operation between the Metropolitan Police and the United States Federal Bureau of Narcotics.
  There is some evidence, however, that London is for some drugs a staging post, and is used as a centre by those who are acquiring drugs in one country, using London, and then passing them on to a third country. It is, therefore, important that we should clean up this trade and this traffic, as the Bill will give us power to do.
  There are close connections between this traffic and crime—indeed, the traffic itself is criminal—just as there have been close, but not such close, connections between gaming and crime. If we really are to get at crime by the roots and get down to its causes—I believe that an attempt is being made to ensure this through the various powers in the Bill—we must control the import, manufacture and supply of drugs, which is of the essence if we are to avoid the enormous profits which pan otherwise be made by criminal interests.
  I have referred already to a serious development in the last 12 months in the problem of injection of barbiturates by addicts, who inject it directly into their veins. The injection of barbiturates in this way is an even greater hazard to health than is heroin or methadone. A further problem is the use of the needle for injection. It seems to some addicts almost as though the process of injection itself is as important a the drug they use—hence the term "needle-cult."
  I have myself seen the consequences of the injection of barbiturates in the persons of patients who have practised this cult upon themselves. Anyone who is
  1450
  tempted to experiment, or who believes that we are taking this problem too lightly, could not see without feelings of shame and pity persons who have lost fingers as a result of injections of this sort; others with fingers twice the normal size, which become mere stumps; others with gangrenous limbs, and ulcerated hands and feet. I have seen this for myself.
  I recently asked to meet a group of addicts. We sat down. They wanted to tell me about their problems, and obviously I let them do so, because many of them are very self-centred, lost souls, who can only be attracted to a new idea once they have been able to talk about themselves for some time. We had a conversation, and at a certain stage 1 said to them—and these were men sitting around me with the exact kind of deformities I have just described—"Will you look at it from the Home Secretary's point of view? If you were Home Secretary, what would you do if you had to legislate?"
  I will tell the House what this group told me—and these were youngish men, except for one, using the worst kind of drugs—heroin or barbiturates or bath. They said to me: first, keep drugs away from children; second, punish the pushers with the utmost severity; and, third, do not legalise cannabis. To be entirely fair, one of them believed that if cannabis were legalised now he might be able to take himself off some other drugs, but I must say that no other member of the group believed it.
  Nevertheless, although the use of cannabis is illegal, I fear that its use is growing. Its users are drawn from all sections of the community, and it is being supplied from the black market. There is a large amount of amateur and semiprofessional smuggling by British visitors to such countries as Morocco, Lebanon and Afghanistan. A number of British subjects have been arrested abroad very recently for drug offences.
  The general situation here is not encouraging, and I do not pretend, as I have already made clear, that legislation will deal with the whole problem. I repeat: there is a need for co-ordination and co-operation between all agencies and individuals working in the field. The social, educational and medical

  1451
  approaches are as important as the legal approach.
  The Bill authorises the development of other and different approaches as, for example, the setting up of the Advisory Committee itself, which will enable a broad view to be taken of these problems. Clause 32 gives power for the conduct of research in various manners, because the roots of the drug problem lie deep in the construction of our society, with its emphasis on material success, as well as in the personality deficiencies of the individual.
  As for the law and the part it can play, our present Statutes have substantial weaknesses which I can summarise. Separate Acts deal each with only limited number of drugs. There is no power to control manufacture, supply or export of certain drugs. There is no control over the number of manufacturers of and dealers in certain drugs. If a new drug is scheduled under the 1964 Act, all those who already have authority to possess and are on the register for existing drugs automatically have their authority extended whether they need it or not. The law preserves an artificial distinction between narcotics and other drugs which is now outmoded, and the law is slow to operate. These are the deficiencies.
  So the purposes of the Bill are, first, to establish a broadly based Advisory Council of informed people drawn from many spheres which will have the responsibility of constantly watching over the rapidly changing scene and of making recommendations to the Home Secretary.
  Secondly, there will be a technical committee, called the Expert Committee, which will have the necessary expert knowledge to examine the restrictions needed to check abuse and ascertain how far they are necessary for medicinal or scientific purposes.
  Thirdly, the Bill will give powers to act quickly, subject to Parliament's approval, after expert technical advice has been given.
  Fourthly, subject to the appropriate precautions, the Bill will enable action to be taken against doctors who prescribe irresponsibly and who can be, and have been, the main source of supply of a new drug. By their actions they can
  1452
  create a cult in a matter of months. These provisions will also apply to pharmacists. There are up to 10 or 12 doctors in the country at present who could help to lessen the drug cult. It is almost impossible for us to deal with them until we get the Bill.
  The Bill will strengthen powers to get information about drug taking so that we are not hampered in taking countervailing measures. It will lay down the conditions under which drugs may be held when required for medical purposes, and it provides for substantial penalties, especially, for the pushers and traffickers, on whom the penalties will be very severe.
  The Advisory Council will replace the present non-statutory Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence, which has worked very energetically over the past three years under the chairmanship of Sir Edward Wayne and has produced important reports on a variety of drug problems. I wish to thank all those who have served on the committee. My hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) and the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes), who will be speaking today for the Opposition, have served consistently. I, and I am sure the House too, thank them both for their continued work.
  I am delighted to have the opportunity to say this, especially as the committee's latest report on amphetamines and L.S.D. has been published in time for our consideration of the Bill. The committee will no doubt be pleased to see that the Bill gives effect to a number of its proposals in the report and, indeed, to most of its suggestions generally for statutory changes.
  To return to the new council, my colleagues and I propose that it should have a strategic planning rôle, working closely in conjunction with the Medicines Commission, the Poisons Board, the Research Councils and interested Departments on the problems of treatment, rehabilitation, education and research. We propose, moreover, that it should be directly concerned in the making of any regulations or orders prohibiting production and supply, in the classification of drugs, and in advising on questions arising on the international control of drugs. The Expert Committee will have an essentially tactical rôle: planning new controls and

  1453
  control procedures and monitoring existing controls. That is contained in Clause 1 and Schedule 1.
  I want now to make a few comments about Clause 2 and Schedule 2. These establish a three-tier classification of drugs for the purposes of the penalties provided by Clause 25 and Schedule 4. The object here is to make, so far as possible, a more sensible differentiation between drugs. It will divide them according to their accepted dangers and harmfulness in the light of current knowledge and it will provide for changes to be made in classification in the light of new scientific knowledge.
  Schedule 2 has been drawn up on the basis if the lists of drugs controlled by the 1965 and 1964 Acts in order, and no more than this, to provide for a smooth transition to the new system of control.
  Class A contains all the internationally controlled narcotics except six which are less strictly controlled under the International Single Convention, cannabis and cannabis resin. It also includes nine hallucinogens regarded by the World Health Organisation Expert Committee as especially dangerous. Class B contains cannabis and cannabis resin, and the five most important central nervous stimulant drugs, about which the World Health Organisation Expert Committee has also expressed concern, which are controlled under the 1964 Act. Class C contains nine less potent central nervous stimulant drugs controlled under the 1964 Act.
  We have taken those lists of drugs and attempted to put them into the Bill in the order in which we think they should be classified of harmfulness and danger. This classification can be changed if the Bill has parliamentary support, as I trust and believe it will.
  The Poisons Board has been reviewing these lists in the light of the proposed lists in the Bill, and it may have some recommendations to make to me for changes. If it becomes necessary to add a new substance to the Schedule to the 1964 Act, it will be my intention to secure that it is also added to the list of drugs controlled by the Bill before it becomes law. There are times when one has to move as quickly as that.
  1454
  Schedule 2 does not include any of the barbiturates. Hon. Members may ask why this should be so, in view of my comments.
  Hon. Members: Yes.
  Mr. Callaghan: I hope that I have said sufficient to show that it is neither an oversight nor a sheer omission. First, as I have said, Schedule 2, as introduced, essentially aims at maintaining the present lists, although more realistically classified. Secondly, the wide use of barbiturates makes effective prevention of intravenous misuse very difficult to achieve. It is easier to achieve classification when there is little or no medical use for a drug. One can then get proper control easily and ensure that it is carried through.
  But there are genuine and legitimate medical uses for barbiturates. Therefore, the question of misuse of barbiturates must be considered with some care. It has recently been referred to the Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence by the Poisons Board. I have asked the committee to advise me as soon as possible whether certain barbiturates should be included in the Bill and what conditions, if any, should be laid down. I think that that is the answer to those who ask why they are not in the Bill now.
  I am following the procedure that would be followed under the Bill by getting technical and expert advice from people who will be able to draw up the necessary classifications and the limitations. I shall then ask the House to act upon that advice. But until I receive that expert advice I do not propose to add these barbiturates. The advantage under the Bill will be that as soon as there is a recommendation in favour of inclusion I shall be able, under Schedule 2, to be able to add them immediately, subject to parliamentary assent. Indeed, if I receive a recommendation while the Bill is going through the House, I shall be able to add it by means of an Amendment to the Bill either here or in another place.
  Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas: I am following the right hon. Gentleman's most persuasive argument with great interest. But as over half the suicides in this country take place through the taking of barbiturates, should not this

  1455
  matter have been gone into earlier so that some control of barbiturates could have been included in the Bill?
  Mr. Callaghan: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman appreciates the speed with which these fashions change. The problem of barbiturates has literally been brought to my notice only within the last few months. I do not believe that the fashion has existed on a major scale for more than 12 months. Some would argue probably less. The hon. Gentleman has demonstrated that there is a need for speed in these matters. But this is not a long-standing problem of any major proportions so far as I am aware. Therefore, because it happens so quickly it is important that we should be able to act quickly. The Bill will enable that to be achieved.
  As I have said, the Poisons Board and the Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence are currently considering the question. The House will not want to push me to come to a conclusion on a technical matter like this—indeed, I feel obliged to resist it—until I hear the committee's view on what should be included, how it should be included, under what conditions, and so on. This is the sensible way to proceed. I say to the hon. Member and to others that nobody knows what may happen next in that field, and what we shall be looking for in six months' time. This is the overriding case for the severe powers taken in the Bill.
  There are three new offences aimed at the trafficker. Clause 4, subsections (2) and (3), create a new offence of being in any way concerned in unlawful supply or production of a controlled drug. The phrase "in any way concerned" is the important one.
  Paragraphs (a) and (b) of Clause 8 for the first time make it an offence for occupiers or persons concerned in management of premises knowingly to permit unlawful production or supply to take place on their premises. Here the important word is "knowingly".
  Clause 5(3) creates a new offence of possession with intent unlawfully to supply. This is a most important provision—"possession with intent unlawfully to supply." It has been a feature of American and Canadian law for some time, and, I am advised, has been found
  1456
  of considerable value to them in dealing with those found in possession of substantial quantities of illicit drugs.
  Some would argue that there would be some attractions in framing this provision in more precise terms so as, for example, to set a maximum quantity and that if a person were found in possession of more than that maximum quantity he could be deemed to show intent to supply. But I have adopted the simple form of provision to allow the court itself to decide on the evidence in front of it, as to the quantity seized and other relevant facts, whether the accused had any intent to supply or not. The new penalties for trafficking should leave no room for doubt—those who deal for profit in this trade deserve very severe punishment. I know that most people take that view, both in this House and elsewhere, whatever their attitude to the drug taken.
  For drugs under Part A of the Bill—that is opium, heroin, morphine, L.S.D., and so on, and for those in Part B—including cannabis and injectable amphetamines—the maximum penalty for trafficking will be 14 years, imprisonment. For most of these drugs the maximum penalty under existing legislation is 10 years and for some, such as L.S.D. and injectable amphetamines, there is no comparable offence at all. In addition to increasing penalties for the trafficker the Bill elaborates a definition of the offences and, in particular, it creates the new offence of possession with intent to supply, which itself will carry the higher penalties.
  For unlawful possession, the maximum penalties have also been revised. Because we have tried to make a realistic schedule, some penalties have gone down and some have gone up. For drugs under Part A, the maximum penalty will be seven years, a reduction from 10 years in the case of some drugs like heroin, for the user not the trafficker, but an increase from two years to seven in the case of L.S.D.
  For drugs under Part B the maximum penalty will be five years—this will apply to the cannabis taker for whom the maximum penalty has previously been 10 years—but there will be an increase from two years to five years in the case of injectable amphetamines. For the less dangerous drugs under Part C the maximum penalty will be two years.

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  The main feature of the new offences and penalties is the clear distinction between offences of trafficking, carrying very severe penalties, and offences of possession which are still treated seriously but carry less severe penalties. Under previous legislation where both trafficking and possession was dealt with under the same penalty it was necessary to provide a wide margin to deal with traffickers who could rarely be caught in the act of supply and, therefore, had to be dealt with for the offence of possession.
  With the new definitions and with the new offence of possession with intent to supply, it is no longer necessary to provide so wide a margin. But I emphasise that penalties for possession are still very substantial and are, in some cases, being increased because of new knowledge of dangers of certain drugs and the need to provide the strongest possible sanctions against large-scale traffickers. The maximum penalities for possession are higher than the courts have usually imposed in practice for possession.
  The courts have usually gone well under it. I think that the reason is that they have regarded the top figure as more appropriate to those who were trafficking. I believe that those concerned in the courts will welcome the proposed range of penalties which should give them ample discretion to deal suitably with the first offender, the persistent offender and the trafficker who can be charged only with possession, but from the evidence in whose case the court may draw more serious inferences.
  Now I come to the position of the doctors. The Bill is not intended to interfere with sound medical practice or the jurisdiction of the General Medical Council as regards "infamous conduct in a professional respect". But, as the Advisory Committee's report brings out—the report published on Monday—neither the General Medical Council nor its Disciplinary Committee are ready-made bodies suitable for enforcement of restrictions under the Bill.
  For example, it would be difficult for them to deal with statutory notification of addicts or prohibition of supply of specified drugs to addicts without a licence or of those forms of irresponsible prescribing and supply of controlled drugs which do not amount to "infamous conduct".
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  I mean, by irresponsible, careless or negligent prescribing or unduly liberal prescribing with bona fide intent, which may justify curtailing the doctor's authority in relation to controlled drugs in order to stop a supply for misuse, but not justify the drastic course of disqualifying him altogether.
  How will such a doctor come to notice? By evidence of failures to notify addicts subsequently notified by other doctors, and of unlicensed supplies to such addicts, by routine inspection of records of prescriptions in pharmacies and of prescriptions received centrally under the National Health Service; by police reports and "grapevine" indication that he has attracted a clientele of "junkies".
  The detailed safeguards for this position are contained in Schedule 3 providing for a whole panoply of panels, tribunals and advisory bodies. I shall not go into the details now, because they are set out clearly there. But the House, in considering this matter, will want to know that the British Medical Association has been fully consulted at all stages and agrees that the procedure contained in the Bill will not only meet the purposes of the Bill, but contain adequate safeguards for its members. I therefore commend that procedure to the House.
  Another important element in the Bill, which I have emphasised time after time, is its flexible nature. I have emphasised how a new drug can be thrown up almost at a moment's notice. There was a new hallucinogen—the peace pill—which was reported last week in the United States. It is reputed—and I have not had time to see the detailed examinations—to be ten times more powerful than L.S.D. If that drug appears here the flexible nature of the Bill will enable such a drug to be added as soon as parliamentary procedure has been gone through and an expert report has been obtained on its medical character or the failure of it to have any medical necessity.
  I shall be able to add a drug to the Schedule with relative ease, for the true dangers are not immediately apparent; amphetamines, for example, have been moving up the scale of danger for some time. Particular forms of misuse, for example, injection or mixing with other drugs, may make a relatively harmless drug a source of great danger. The Bill

  1459
  therefore provides for the drugs to be classified into three groups according to relative harm with the power to move drugs up and down the list or, indeed, out of the list.
  Amphetamines appear in both Class A where they are injectable preparations and in Class B where they are not injectable. In recognition of the real dangers of amphetamines, and based to some extent on the very valuable report which was prepared for us by the Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence, amphetamines have been up-graded, so to speak, from Class C. L.S.D. which is now scheduled at the Class C level under the 1964 Act will become a Class A drug under the Bill.
  What does it all add up to? The Bill makes it possible for the first time to construct comprehensive codes of control, based on the advice of experts familiar with the United Kingdom problems, to restrict the availability of drugs and substances produced by the "underground" in whatever way is necessary to keep them out of the hands of those who have no lawful need for them, and these can include manufacturers, doctors, and research workers, or young people.
  Clause 32 points the need for continuing research and authorises it. Research is now going on at many universities and other institutions, financed partly by the Home Office and sometimes not, and the Home Office itself is conducting direct research. It is true to say that there is a broadly-based effort divided into three main groups. There are the biochemical and pharmaceutical studies. Second, there are the clinical and treatment studies. Third, there are the social and psychological descriptive studies. I should be very ready to make available to any hon. Member interested a complete list of the studies going on in all these fields.
  This is a machinery Bill, and to bring its provisions into force it will be necessary for me to fix different times as quickly as I can establish the requirements. It will be a complex task. I have already undertaken detailed consultations with the interests concerned, because of the wide-ranging nature of the powers. I have had a great deal of help from everyone who has been consulted on the preparation of the Bill. I
  1460
  look forward to further assistance during the Committee stage. We shall consider any Amendments put forward with a view to achieving the objects of the Bill in a sympathetic way, and there will be no attempt to resist them merely because they may come from any particular quarter.
  The Bill will prove to be an important new weapon in the fight against the spread of drugs, but I repeat what I said at the beginning. The Government's policy is based on the need for a concerted effort in the medical and social fields as well as in the field of new legislation. None of us can forecast what the next generation will make of drugs or drug taking. I have seen some rather frightening forecasts about that. But, at least, while we in this generation are searching for the causes of drug taking, let us not be responsible for any weakening in our attempts to stamp out what is at present a dreadful scourge. We know too little, even about the so-called benign drugs, to take any risks. As for the rest, their immediate and visible consequences are too dreadful to behold.
  4.43 p.m.
  Mr. W. F. Deedes: The House is grateful for the exposition of the Bill which the Home Secretary has given, and particularly for his description of the scene which it is designed to meet. With almost everything the right hon. Gentleman said about it most of us will strongly agree, especially about the limits of the law, about our lack of knowledge—which I strongly endorse—and about the speed at which fashions in drug abuse change, this last being the factor which makes the Home Secretary's work so difficult. I know that the right hon. Gentleman will bear with me if, a little later on, I am disposed to speak rather more critically of the Bill itself.
  Although there are, undoubtedly, some good things in the Bill—it is certainly flexible, for the Home Secretary is giving himself, perhaps rightly, very wide powers—my criticism in general terms is that the Bill dwells heavily on powers and penalties and too little, perhaps, on the people involved. As the right hon. Gentleman himself made clear—he is well aware of it—this is not simply a chemical problem but it is primarily a human problem. As the Bill stands—I

  1461
  know that it has been so interpreted outside the House—it goes a little short on positive ways in which to help people, especially young people.
  Broadly, in my view, the Bill suffers from a certain dichotomy—whether to convey a social purpose, or whether to carry a political effect. I noticed last week that most of the headlines describing the Bill used the word "crackdown". In so far as the Bill purports to be a tightening up of penalties for trafficking, that should not be seen out of perspective. I myself should not be disposed to make too much of the difference between 10 and 14 years' imprisonment for traffickers. These are my preliminary reactions, and to justify them I shall do what the Home Secretary did and for a few moments take a rather wider conspectus of the drug scene and look at the Bill later in that light.
  I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that we have a disturbing and, I fear, deteriorating social problem here, perhaps more complex than many realise. In parenthesis, I think it reasonable to take up the point which my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) and the hon. Gentleman the Member for The High Peak (Mr. Peter M. Jackson) seek to make and to put this in the context of other health hazards such as smoking and drinking. These matters must not be seen out of context. But it is not reasonable to declare that drugs are relatively unimportant in relation to those other abuses. Any suggestion that they are is calculated to mislead, or could easily mislead, the young.
  I do not believe that the public anxiety on this matter is misplaced. Much of it is stimulated by the reports of the social havoc which drugs are causing in America. As far as my knowledge goes, most of these reports do not exaggerate. It is now reckoned—I shall not dwell on this—that half the secondary school children in America, about 71 million teenagers, are familiar with marijuana. We should not make too much of comparative statistics—for several reasons, they may be misleading—but there is one valid object lesson from America which causes me anxiety in relation to the Bill.
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  America has had Draconian penalties for the misuse of dangerous drugs—heroin, marijuana, the lot—and she has tried hard to enforce them, yet abuse in America has spread like an oil fire in a timber shed, and more particularly during the last year or two.
  In this connection, I echo what the Home Secretary himself said. What the law can do to cope with this epidemic is surprisingly limited. The law can do only so much. This Bill can do only so much. I absolutely support the right hon. Gentleman in saying that we had better start by recognising that.
  I acknowledge the contribution which the Bill makes to the protection of the young, yet it seems to me that we shall need a more positive approach. We shall need a more positive social philosophy. This will not be easy, because we are so much in the dark. We have no major study, as, perhaps, we should, in the epidemiology to guide us. We can from time to time get only a little light on some of the corners. Moreover, we confuse and handicap ourselves by trying to treat the drugs problem as a whole.
  In reality, we have not one but, I believe, three separate social problems here, each different, each calling for separate diagnosis and prognosis. I shall attempt to analyse these before looking at the Bill.
  First, there is the massive licit prescribing of stimulants and depressants—emphetamines and barbiturates for adults. Second, there is the rapid spread of illicit hallucinogens, marijuana and L.S.D., with virtually no medical use. Third, we have the small but dangerous minority not simply on narcotics but, as the right hon. Gentleman said, "on the needle", injecting not only heroin but a wide variety of substances. These are separate problems although they impinge on one another.
  The first, the licit prescribing of stimulants and depressants, is a main concern of the Bill. In my view, it is by no means the least disturbing aspect.
  The figures speak for themselves. For amphetamines—that is, stimulants—there were nearly 4 million prescriptions under the National Health Service in 1968. The position on barbiturates is far more serious. The Secretary of State for Social Services earlier this month gave me an

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  Answer indicating that there were about 15 million barbiturate prescriptions. The true figure is nearer 17 million. To this must be added 3 million prescriptions for phenobarbitone and 2½ million for Mandrax, the most widely abused drug. That is excluding hospitals and private practice. There are perhaps 2 million people in this country who need these drugs to support life or procure sleep. As Lord Brain recognised some years ago, that is serious enough.
  But there are three other factors. First, these are drugs of dependence. To get somebody off barbiturates can be almost as difficult as getting him off narcotics. Secondly, the margin between a therapeutic and a fatal does is very small. The year before last the prescribing of barbiturates averaged 80 tablets a prescription—roughly four times the fatal dose. Thirdly, it is the overspill from this vast licit prescribing which provides the drugs which the young abuse and which, at the beginning of this epidemic, they were using most widely.
  Secondly, there are the hallucenogens—marijuana and L.S.D. As the Secretary of State recognises, there is a deepening crisis in law enforcement concerning marijuana. It is difficult to exaggerate its gravity. Lady Wootton hazarded the guess that there are between 30,000 and 300,000 people on marijuana. We do not know. If somebody were to say that the figure was 1 million, I would not be disposed to argue. There is no question that very large quantities of marijuana are being smuggled in, and very profitably. I wish that I felt that the new maximum penalties would discourage this. They may do so. My own small sphere of work for the Home Office convinced me that distinguishing between possession and pushing of marijuana is sometimes very hard.
  Marijuana can no longer be regarded as a wayward habit of young nonconformists, I say, unrejoicingly, that it has become a widely accepted social habit. I am left in no doubt about that. We may deplore it, but we must face the fact. Lady Wootton said that there was an element of protest. That is right. But, in my view, we have moved some little way beyond that. What disturbs me is the number of intelligent and other-
  1464
  wise law-abiding citizens I have met who have formed the conviction that prohibition is wrong and even damaging to our main purpose.
  In my view, we have failed to make our case against cannabis credible. We have relied, as America relied with disastrous results, too much on the big stick. We need credibility as well as severity. The real question mark is the risk—perhaps the very big risk in social terms—of the long-range psychological effects of this drug. I am not seizing on the evidence that we have had this morning about the alleged contribution of drugs to Pinkville, although I know that drugs are now a number one problem in the United States armed forces. If substantiated, that could illustrate something which we know and of which the young do not take sufficient heed, namely, that this drug has variable effects on different personalities and in different contexts. That is one of its chief dangers. We urgently need more data on the long-term effects.
  I welcome Clause 7, which I understand will make lawful experiment with cannabis under proper supervision. The sooner the research which we need into the long-term psychological consequences can be put in hand the better. It will take not less than five years to obtain the answers. Pending that, I wholeheartedly endorse the view of the Home Secretary and others that the risks to the health of society as a whole from habitual use by large numbers of people may be very high.
  It is not simply a matter of private rights. The apparently innocent short-term consequences of this drug may be wholly misleading. Our message on this drug should be more credible than some of the messages which we have sent out. It should be quite simple: we do not know, and until we know we say "No" and stick to that.
  Mr. Peter M. Jackson (The High Peak): I am following the right hon. Gentleman's argument carefully, but, for the sake of balance, he would be forced to agree, would he not, that on an examination of the long-term effects, which I agree should be made, it may well be proved that there is no long-term damaging effect?
  Mr. Deedes: We do not know what the psychological long-term effects are. Until we know, we must make it clear to the

  1465
  young that we do not know and that we maintain prohibition.
  Thirdly, there are the narcotics, to which the Home Secretary referred—now more accurately called the "needle cult". There is reference in Clause 9 to opium pipes. It would be more realistic to refer in the Bill to needles and syringes, though I am aware that probably they cannot be controlled.
  The Home Secretary mentioned the decline in the number of narcotics addicts. I will not quarrel with the figures he may have or compare them with the figures which I have. My view is that we do not know how many people are using heroin. We do not know how many are illicitly using methadone, which is the substitute drug.
  Our plans and methods were greatly disorganised by the methylamphetamine epidemic of 1967 and 1968 and now by the habit of injecting barbiturates. The figures for the injection of barbiturates are very worrying and they have to be added to the number of people who are on the needle cult. Much of it is not notifiable, and this worries me. I see nothing in the Bill which would make the use of the needle with drugs other than narcotics notifiable, and there should be something in it about it.
  What troubles me is that our intelligence system is so deficient. We must get a better early warning system. We must know more of what is happening in schools and youth clubs. The trouble is that too many schools do not want to know. It is first said that there is no drugs problem. Then one day there is a charge and the next thing is that the school or the district knows that there is a drugs problem.
  Those are the three main spheres. They are fundamentally different, and in a sense they call for different remedies. I turn to the Bill in the light of that analysis. The guts of it are the new penalties and powers for the doctor in Clause 10 and 17. It is a very unfortunate that the Bill can address itself only to amphetamines. I accept what the Home Secretary said about the need for expert advice. I am sorry that expert advice on barbiturates was not sought earlier. I know the reason for that, and it is no good crying over spilt milk. But the prescribing of amphetamines has been going down—doctors have seen the
  1466
  dangers of this—but, by contrast, the prescribing of barbiturates is going up alarmingly, despite the rapid increase in the use of non-barbiturate tranquilisers. However, the main feature is the Secretary of State's considerable powers over the medical profession's right to prescribe.
  When the 1967 Act began that process with heroin, I foresaw that it was only the beginning, and I said so. I knew of the difficulties of the Ministry of Health in not being able to persuade the General Medical Council to accept responsibility. I predicted that doctors would live to regret the decision which was taken. That warning was followed by a deafening silence from the profession. The General Medical Council declares that over-prescribing cannot be dealt with under the infamous conduct provisions, although recently they have done just this in the case of one doctor. This is for the medical profession. Part of my creed is that professions, whenever possible, should discipline themselves.
  I accept the need for this step, in the light of what the Home Secretary has said, and I also deplore it. The powers of surveillance over doctors and the sanctions which the Bill gives against them dismay me. Clauses 10 and 31 give the Secretary of State virtually carte blanche. But I decline to be plus royale que le roi. If this is what the doctors want, they must live with it. I hope that they may see the reason for persuading the G.M.C. to alter its procedures and take a rather bigger hand in these affairs. I accept that part of their difficulties and part of our difficulties is not only the one or two black sheep to whom the Home Secretary referred, but the existence of a number of grey sheep in this profession who, in this sphere, cause a good deal of difficulty.
  As well as this, the Secretary of State assumes powers to monitor dispensing and prescribing in Clause 17. If we are to do that, we should pay very close attention to the Canadian system. It is on a smaller scale than ours, but it offers, with a very small staff, an early warning system over the whole field of dangerous drugs, and it is well worth examining in that light.
  On the Bill's contribution to the second category, hallucenogens, there is a compromise on penalties between what the Wootton Committee proposed and what

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  the Home Secretary has done. I make no comment on that. I stress the need for flexibility here, as he has done. The Americans had mandatory minimum sentences for those found guilty of possessing cannabis. They have now, under their new Act, given the courts complete discretion for a first offence, and I am sure that that is right. Our courts could make more use of discretion for a first offence if we had a wider range of facilities for those whom the court deems dependent on drugs. The lack of these facilities is one of the real weaknesses in law enforcement on dangerous drugs.
  The Americans have another new provision, which I think attractive. For anyone over 18 caught pushing drugs to anyone under 18, and at least three years junior, the penalties are doubled. I do not say that we should go as far as that, but that approach, which carries with it the idea of protecting children, which, as the Home Secretary said, the addicts themselves stress, should be one of our main objectives.
  This Bill is mainly about young children, or it should be, and the unnerving thing about this epidemic is the way, certainly in the United States, in which the age of infection creeps downwards. I do not want to see that happening here. At least we now have cannabis and L.S.D. in the right compartments. This lysergic acid, which is perilous stuff, shows how much in the dark we are. I have no idea how many people are using L.S.D. and I doubt whether the Secretary of State and his Department have much idea.
  On narcotics, perhaps because of the 1967 Act, the Bill has nothing new to say. We must not mistake quiescence for progress. The figures are higher than the right hon. Gentleman believes. I know that we reduced the intake of pure heroin, which means nothing, unless we know how much of the substitute drug like methadone, is now being used.
  The hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop), who shares responsibility with me on the committee, may say something later about the work of rehabilitation, which he knows more about than I do. Our social framework for rehabilitation leaves much to be desired. It is scanty to a degree. All the
  1468
  arrangements for those who appear before the courts having used narcotics urgently need revision. The chance is that these customers opt for 12 months' probation and then slither between an overworked probation service and an overworked treatment centre, This is not good enough. All my experience suggests that we must have one or two more hostels and halfway houses.
  Money is a difficult subject, but perhaps we should consider very small selective aid to organisations and institutions which are also making a major contribution to this field. The Home Secretary will be attacked for his provisions for research. I know that this derisory figure of £10,000 is not the whole story. There are many other things going on, but if we take all the research which is in hand, it still, in my view, falls below the scale and the breadth we need.
  We are hamstrung by ignorance and it is because of this ignorance that, in the eyes of the young—by no means all of them defiant young—we are losing credibility. This is a point to stress. This is the real urgency in getting more information. There is a crisis of confidence between us and the young people of this country. After all, we have the monopoly of the means for finding out. I do not think that we can go on unscientifically asking young people to take our word for it and, to some extent, letting the policemen take the can back. I am saying nothing about enforcement, for certain reasons, but they urgently need the reinforcements which more knowledge can bring.
  As the right hon. Gentleman said, the Bill only touches a corner of what confronts us. I grant its flexibility, and it is useful, in that the Home Secretary has powers to do much as he pleases, but even this will not work unless he can find out soon what he needs to do and then apply action there quickly and perhaps more imaginatively.
  He is served, as I have reason to know, by a band of devoted and able civil servants. What I now say is no disparagement to them, but it is questionable how far a Government Department is shaped to cope with a problem like this. I grow doubtful whether it can apply the positive action in many directions which we need.

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  I have an open mind about anything resembling a National Drugs Commission. That would be a body not simply to stop things happening but to start making things happen. I hope that the Home Secretary will also keep an open mind about this. I stress again the diversity of this problem. No one can doubt that medical props for sleepless adults or hard-pressed housewives represent quite a different problem from that embodied in this cult for mood-changing, self-manifesting drugs, the hallucinogens.
  On balance, it is this hallucinogenic field which troubles me most deeply. This is where the young are most deeply involved. I thought that Peter Townsend, leader of the "Who" pop group, came very close to this the other day in a letter to the Press, when he wrote:
  "The very fact that a young person is willing to take the chance of using drugs indicates a fairly desperate state of mind. Perhaps more desperate than even the young person realises or cares to admit."
  This cult is not all mischief. It would be much simpler if it were. It owes something to the tyranny of peer groups, to protest, to a sense of injustice aroused by the attitudes of ourselves here, to what they think is an intolerable attitude from those of us who smoke and drink. There are also deep forces at work here, on which I will not enlarge now.
  Suffice it to say that I do not think that they can be disposed of by moral indignation or even by a new schedule of penalties. This drugs problem is about human beings, and, with a Bill like this, it is necessary to remind ourselves of that over and over again. We have two main instruments—research and education. We must stop fumbling over education and begin better equipping those who hold positions of responsibility for young people. That is where it must begin.
  In many places all over the country, people are groping towards some kind of community effort, some sort of structure which can make a contribution, perhaps the main contribution. I am in touch with some of them and I think that Government Departments are.
  I wish that they were in touch with rather more, because ultimately, if we are to defeat this problem and stop too many young people from damaging themselves,
  1470
  there must be a bigger social effort. I do not think that the Government can organise that with youth counselling and so on, but they can encourage it and they must foster it. Somehow, we must get more of the young on our side. We cannot win this battle unless we get more on our side.
  Mr. Callaghan: I agree with a great deal of what the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) is saying, but I beg him to believe that the young are on our side, that the overwhelming majority of young people are firmly opposed to the misuse and abuse of drugs.
  Mr. Deedes: I am saying only that among those who are not miscreants there is still scepticism. I am anxious to overcome it and we will overcome it only with knowledge, which we must acquire.
  The best service we can render in giving the Bill a Second Reading is to say with some humility to anxious parents and others that this Bill cannot solve all of the problem for them. We can only provide a framework for social action. We recognise our limitations. Only more knowledge, more understanding and a united effort will see us through and see our children through.
  5.12 p.m.
  Mr. Arthur Blenkinsop: I greatly welcome the way in which the debate has started this afternoon. On the whole, it has a more informed and better atmosphere than previous debates have had. We must all welcome that. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for the way in which he opened the debate and to the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) for his valuable contribution.
  I particularly welcome the fact that no extreme claims are being made for the Bill. We start with the clear understanding that the field which the Bill can hope to cover is bound to be limited, that we cannot escape our own responsibilities in the situation facing the country just by passing new penal measures, however necessary they may be. The more we can do to emphasise the wider responsibility which we all have, as well as those particularly involved in the social and health problems, the better and the less

  1471
  disappointment we shall have about the future.
  The three reports from the Advisory Committee have been of value in helping to improve the broad range of understanding of some of the problems, and I am sure that the further report on the particularly difficult issues of search and arrest and the powers required for those purposes will prove to be valuable in the later stages of the discussion of the Bill.
  I confirm that in spite of the volume of material on the subject, the facts are not easy to establish. It is true that there has been an unfortunately small amount of effective and valuable research. We cannot complain about the position in this country, because the material for research has not been available until relatively recently, and it has not been practicable to undertake the detailed research which is clearly needed and which inevitably takes a considerable time.
  It is right to keep emphasising that the situation changes rapidly. One of the great merits of the Bill is that it takes account of that. It is vital to see the drug problem as part of a much wider social problem. We shall not achieve success if we seek to deal with the drug issue in isolation from the wider social problem. This is well understood. It means that we have to develop our health and social services to deal with the problem among many others and not by itself.
  We live in a society in which there are about 300,000 alcoholics of whom 70,000 are seriously affected. Others are endangering their health with tobacco. But I agree with those who say that that does not diminish the seriousness of the drug problem and we have always to recognise its existence and the need for further action. We have to recognise, too, that we are encouraged by the fact that today education is helping young people to make their own decisions and to criticise established attitudes. It is the right of young people to establish an independent view and to experiment and this is one of the elements of experiment and we have to face that, too.
  The Bill can have only a limited effect and much is left for our welfare and information services, for our doctors and ourselves to undertake. I welcome the setting up of the two advisory bodies,
  1472
  because this will give some assurance that we shall have a continuing examination, a proper study of a continually changing problem, that it will be possible to bring forward fresh recommendations when required. There may be matters to discuss in Committee concerning the composition of those bodies, but I shall not mention them now.
  I welcome the effort to stop some of the main sources of misuse. I am a little surprised that the right hon. Member for Ashford should have expressed deep anxiety about the measures of control for the medical and other professions, although I recognise that he accepted their necessity. The medical profession accepts the safeguards that are provided. After considerable examination of the problem, all of us are forced to recognise the necessity for these provisions if we are to make the headway we want.
  I particularly welcome the provisions for temporary but speedy action under Clause 15, however difficult this may be. This is an essential element. Experience in other countries, for instance Denmark, has shown that something of this kind is needed. I hope that the opportunity will be taken to follow this up by getting a far quicker and more efficient check on prescribing beyond the prescription of what are now recognised as dangerous drugs. Almost every family today has a collection of drugs in its home. They are one of the subjects of normal conversation of adult society, let alone the young and the adolescent. It is not surprising, therefore, that there are some who are experimenting with drugs from their home, in the same way as young people used to experiment with tobacco. We need effective knowledge and understanding of what is happening in prescribing over the whole range, and I hope very much that the Bill will help us.
  I welcome the opportunity for further research provided in Clause 32. But all of us who have had experience in the matter know how complicated and difficult it is to set up really reliable research that will provide the information needed. It takes a wearingly long period to get an area of research opened out, both medical and social research. We are particularly lacking in knowledge in many

  1473
  of the social matters which we find very easy to talk about but have little hard evidence to go on.
  There may well be a good deal of argument about some of the penal provisions, but I welcome the attempt to distinguish between drugs and to provide for an effective system of review, because changes are bound to occur. I also welcome the effort to distinguish between possession and supply. How successful it will be, I do not know. It is easy to make it clear that we want to establish a distinction in the penalties imposed, but it will be very difficult to establish this in the courts from time to time. I well understand the problems that will face magistrates, but we must certainly try to distinguish.
  I would still want to see some reconsideration of the proposed penalties on summary conviction for first offenders, particularly with regard to cannabis. The Wootton Report made clear the anxieties felt at one time about the frequency of sentences of imprisonment for first offences. This was a little while ago. I very much hope that these can be avoided in the future.
  Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: Nothing has been said yet about the very real need for a method of treatment. Did the hon. Gentleman and the committee on which he served ever consider that the treatment could act as the deterrent, by the courts being compelled to sentence to a centre at which such treatment would be given? If not, why not?
  Mr. Blenkinsop: There has been a good deal of consideration of the question of compulsory treatment, and consideration is still being given to it. There is a brief reference to it in the report, but we felt it so important an issue as to require further and fairly detailed consideration. The matter was considered by the Brain Committee, which recommended against compulsory treatment. It is very doubtful whether the situation has so far changed as to make any alteration to that recommendation.
  Mr. Rees-Davies: That is a very interesting reply. In these rapidly changing circumstances the whole essence of the matter is that prison is no use, except perhaps for the pusher. Surely society
  1474
  demands that the addict shall be compulsorily treated to secure his reform, and therefore his rehabilitation into society?
  Mr. Blenkinsop: Very few people will agree. There is a division of opinion. That is why it is necessary to look at the matter very coolly and carefully. The great bulk of advice tends to suggest that without the willing co-operation of the person being treated there is not likely to be any progress. We have the benefit of a great deal of experience in the United States, which does not encourage us very far towards compulsion. I do not attempt at this stage to come down on one side or the other. I say merely that opinion is very divided about its value, and that the matter is being studied again. If it proves possible to provide further advice, I am sure that it will be provided.
  Mr. Callaghan: It is going much too far to say that prison is no use, because this is one place where provision is made for treatment, and although it is not directly compulsory a great deal of persuasion is applied in some cases.
  Mr. Blenkinsop: I should leave this point now merely by saying that in the report on rehabilitation for which I have some responsibility we urged that there should be proper research into the results obtained under existing compulsory forms of treatment and voluntary forms. We very much hope that this can be undertaken. There are circumstances in which compulsory treatment can be provided under our Mental Health Acts. But they are not applicable in most cases.
  Mr. Rees-Davies Mr. Rees-Davies rose——
  Mr. Blenkinsop: I shall not give way, because I do not think that I can allow this matter to be carried any further, as it is under study.
  Whatever penal provisions we make, we all recognise that they do not provide a cure. We are in a very much healthier position in this respect than many on the other side of the Atlantic who have, they freely acknowledge, been unfortunately placed in the past because they have so exclusively looked at the problem from the penal angle. They all appeal to us to take good note of their experience. So I am particularly concerned with the other action we can take

  1475
  which, together with the provisions of the Bill, can, I hope, make progress possible.
  We want to help to prevent addiction occurring. It is bound to be a slow and unglamorous process. We can do it by a multitude of agencies already in existence that need to be supported. It means, for example, an extension of counselling and help and advice in our ordinary welfare centres, in areas where this is necessary, for parents and younger people. It must be skilled advice from people with experience and knowledge of the situation. It is perhaps one of the most urgent needs of all that people should be able to know where they can turn for advice and help, because the matter affects so many families up and down the country.
  Sir Douglas Glover: The hon. Gentleman obviously speaks as an expert in the matter, and the whole House is looking for information. How many people on cannabis would feel that they wanted this help?
  Mr. Blenkinsop: There is plenty of evidence that parents as well as those taking one form of drug or another want advice. We have this evidence from those already approaching existing advice centres, some of which are not in a position to give any useful information. What I am stressing is that we want to use existing welfare agencies and add this provision to them, rather than necessarily thinking of setting up completely separate organisations. This needs to be part of our existing welfare organisation.
  We must help those already involved by an extension of day centres of which there are some already in operation. We need to look at their work, and take advice based on the results emerging from them. Many of the centres have been established only recently, so that it may not yet be possible to judge their work fully. But more provision is needed.
  We need, undoubtedly, to improve our existing in-patient and out-patient treatment facilities, which are yet by no means adequate. I quite understand the reason for its very often being difficult to persuade psychiatrists with knowledge of the problem, and psychiatric social workers, and others to take part in the work when they honestly feel that they
  1476
  are doing more valuable work in other directions where they believe that they can achieve more rapid results. Nevertheless, it is vitally important that these centres should be developed. Perhaps we should extend the range of their work.
  We certainly need to give more attention than we have in the past to rehabilitation. I am glad that some hostels are being established in London, and I hope that more will follow and will cover the whole range of cases. Some of the hostels being established deal purely with the addict who has now withdrawn completely from drugs, but we also want hostels for those under forms of treatment. I know how difficult that can be, and how difficult it can be to get the good will and understanding of people in the areas affected—that means us. That is why I say that this is a public matter, and not one only for the experts.
  We must learn how to live responsibly with the fact of drugs in our society. They can make an important contribution to our well-being, if properly used, medically, and it would be irresponsible and wrong for us to suggest a simple campaign against all forms of drugs without any understanding of the contribution they can make. There is no short-cut.
  I welcome the Bill. Some of us may wish to suggest changes, but it keeps the road open. That may be a modest claim to make for it but, in the light of the experience of other countries, it is a valuable claim. It will enable us to make use of new experience that is coming to us each day, month and year. Because of that, as well as for the wider reasons I have given, I believe that this Measure will make a real contribution to the containment and, I hope, to the solution of the problems that worry us so much at present.
  5.34 p.m.
  Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas: I congratulate the Home Secretary on the manner in which he introduced the Bill, but even more do I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes). I thought that my right hon. Friend got nearer to the heart of the problem than did the Home Secretary, who seemed to me to be placing too much reliance on the law whereas my right hon. Friend was looking at the actual social situation which

  1477
  exists. He was right, and I wish to support him, in what he said about credibility. The law cannot be effectively enforced unless it is accepted as having credible backing, and it is precisely on this point that the law is weakest.
  Having said that, I think that I can give the Bill a qualified welcome. It is as reasonable a Measure as one can expect in the present circumstances. The whole question of drugs is surrounded by emotions and fears, some of which are well based and some of which are not. In this situation, we must try to get a law which is as rational and helpful as possible. It is not so much a question of having a moral or an immoral law as of having a sensible or a silly law. The present Bill makes much more sense than does the present law.
  The danger is that the whole issue will be debated as part of a blanket condemnation or approval of the permissive society. That has not, mercifully, happened here so far, but it may happen later in the debate, and it will almost certainly happen in the debate outside the House.
  The truth is that the permissive society is a very complicated concept, and one cannot, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer did in a famous, or notorious, speech, equate the permissive society with the civilised society any more than with the totally uncivilised society. There are good aspects and bad aspects of this society. I approve of certain aspects—the abolition of capital punishment, the cessation of persecution of homosexuals and the ending of censorship of the theatre—but, as hon. Members know, I have some reservation about the abortion laws.
  What our society requires is not either a permissive law on drugs or a restrictive law, but a sensible law. The sensible law should be based on three principles which on the whole, I think that the Bill observes. First of all, drugs should be controlled. Secondly, they should be controlled more or less strictly according to their degree of danger. Thirdly, distinction should be drawn between different types of offence: pushing is one thing; possession is another.
  I should like, first, to deal with the principle of control. One drug for which a perfectly rational case can be made for
  1478
  the removal of restrictions is cannabis. One can say that without in any way, I hope, being described as a member of the pro-pot lobby. This, in a more oblique way was the point made by my right hon. Friend. There are thousands of people, many of them young people, but not all of them, who feel that the law should not interfere with the smoking of this substance.
  This is the measure of the crisis, and it is something of which the Home Secretary did not seem to be aware. It is that here we, as Parliament, are passing a law, and the question we must ask ourselves is: is there a sufficient moral consensus in the community to support that law? If there is not, we shall end up, not by getting rid of cannabis as a drug, but by bringing the whole of the law into disrepute.
  Mr. Callaghan: The hon. Member says that I was not aware of the question. Not only was I aware of it, but I answered it. The answer is that there is an overwhelming moral preponderance on the side of the controls which I am proposing.
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: I wish that I had the moral certainty of the right hon. Gentleman, and could speak ex cathedra in that manner. There are two points of view on this, and there is a section of the community whom we have to consider very carefully. It is the younger section of the community. The opinion of younger people may not be exactly the same as that of an older gentleman like the present Home Secretary.
  Having said that, once again it is essential to qualify it. On this issue, unlike others, I tend to be agnostic. We do not know what would happen if restrictions were removed from cannabis. We do not know what the effect would be on the individual or on society. Given that that is the situation, a legislature would be acting irresponsibly if it attempted at this point to take off the restrictions. However, I do not think that it is the same to say that this House ought to let it be known that this is the end of the matter and that this Bill will dispose of the problem. That is an illusion.
  We know with certainty that, once we take off the law, we cannot put it back on again, and that is the reason for proceeding with great caution. One can

  1479
  use research as a kind of incantation to avoid taking action or making up one's mind on a difficult issue. It is one subject where the need for research is very great, and I welcome the two bodies which are mentioned in the Bill, the Advisory Council and the Committee of Experts.
  We need an answer to one important question. Does the taking of cannabis lead on to the taking of heroin? If it can be shown conclusively that it does, the case for banning cannabis is made out completely, and no reasonable person in this House would oppose such a law, including the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot), staunch libertarian and staunch supporter of John Stuart Mill though he is. But we do not know the answer to that question. There is no evidence to show that many takers of heroin have started on cannabis. We want to know how many takers of cannabis do not go on to heroin, and we want to know the percentage of takers of cannabis who do——
  Mr. Peter M. Jackson Mr. Peter M. Jackson rose——
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: That was a rhetorical question, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Jackson: Will not the hon. Gentleman agree that a great many takers of cannabis also started on tobacco and alcohol?
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: I dare say that they did. They might also say that they started on milk or on water, depending on their social backgrounds.
  I turn secondly to the classification of drugs, and here I think that the proposed re-classification will be accepted by nearly all hon. Members as reasonable. Cannabis may or may not be an addictive drug and it may or may not have bad effects, but it is far less dangerous a drug than heroin and therefore it is common sense not to pass a law on the assumption that they are the same when they are quite different.
  I look back to Lady Wootton. She has not been mentioned in this context except very fleetingly and rather gallantly. However, the gallantry was not towards Lady Wootton but towards the Home Secretary, and it came from my
  1480
  right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford. After all, these proposals for reclassification are based on those put forward by Lady Wootton. When she put forward these proposals, poor Lady Wootton was denounced as having been got at by the pot lobby. That was the reaction by the Home Secretary. One is obliged to ask him now who has got at whom, because Lady Wootton has been proved right and a tribute should be paid to her. Under a certain amount of provocation, she behaved with great dignity. Instead of going off in a huff and resigning, she stuck to her guns and ignored the provocative remarks made about her by the Home Secretary who, after all, appointed her and her committee.
  Obviously L.S.D. is much more dangerous than cannabis, although I think that it is not as dangerous as heroin. But at any rate it is in the same class of dangerousness, and it is right that it should be re-classified in this way. I was surprised to hear the Home Secretary say that the use of L.S.D. was increasing in Britain. That comes as news to me. In other countries, amongst those who take drugs, the use of L.S.D. is declining. Certainly that is the case in the United States of America, where those most involved in the drug culture, precisely because they have learned of the harmful effects of L.S.D., have gone off it. I wonder whether more should not be done to make it known what a very dangerous drug it can be and whether there could not be more educational work done which could be a greater disincentive to taking L.S.D. than a penalty laid down by law.
  When one has said that about L.S.D., one must also recognise that it can be a very valuable aid in psychiatry. The report on L.S.D. and the amphetamines which has just appeared under-estimates the good that it can do as a psychiatric agent. It says rather drably and patronisingly that it can only be used as a psychiatric agent to help in psychosexual disorders, as though they were a tiny part of the area in which psychiatrics are involved. The vast majority of people in need of help are those suffering from psycho-sexual disorders. With the great strain on the National Health Service, it is difficult to get any kind of full-scale Freudian analysis, because it is extremely expensive. The advantage of L.S.D. is that

  1481
  in many cases it can provide a short cut to certain spheres of the unconscious which it would otherwise take a long and very expensive process of treatment to reach. While one should stress the undoubted danger of the drug, if it is uncontrolled, one should balance that by stressing that it has a very important part to play in therapeutic medicine.
  The third principle is the distinction between classes of offences, between pushing, trading and exploiting weakness, and possessing a drug. Obviously they are very different, and it is right in principle that a distinction should be made between them. However, I must emphasise the point made by my right hon. Friend that, while this is right in principle, it creates great difficulties in practice. I think that we are entitled to hear from the Government some further guidance as to how those who have to enforce the law are to distinguish between the two types of possession. Always, at the end, it comes down to the unfortunate policeman who has to enforce the law. How is he to distinguish between the two cases? I presume that it is desired that the law should be enforced very much more efficiently against those who push drugs than against those who merely possess them.
  That brings me to the administration of the law. In all spheres where morals are concerned and there is, therefore, a degree of difference and uncertainty—different cases, and uncertainty about whether the law morally applies or should be applied—the administration of the law is as important as the substantive law itself. This is true of censorship, for example. One does not want to turn over the administration of the law to a lot of busybodies. Dr. Johnson, the great lexicographer, said the last word on all such busybodies, when a lady who came to congratulate him on his dictionary said, "What I admire about it, Dr. Johnson, is that you have inserted no improper words", to which Dr. Johnson replied, "What? You looked for them, madam?"
  The same principle applies to the enforcement of the law here. Those who administer the law are entitled to ask some questions as to how the law is to be enforced. Is it sensible administration of the law to prosecute pop stars and other such persons who are prominent in
  1482
  the public eye and who, by that very form of prosecution, advertise their habits and commend them to other people? Is that a wise course for the law to follow? I put that as a question which those who are administering the law should answer.
  The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Elystan Morgan): I am not sure whether I am following the hon. Gentleman's point. Is he alleging that there is select, eclectic, prosecution, or does he say that pop stars should in some way be exempt from the general law?
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am raising a question about the administration of the law. It is surely common ground that the law is not being enforced on all those who take cannabis. That surely is a fact which everyone will accept. By the nature of things, the law can be enforced only on a certain number of people. I am asking, is it wise to select the people who are being selected for prosecution, when the principal effect is to advertise the use of the drug to people who admire pop starts and look upon them as idols to be followed or worshipped? This is a question that should be asked on the sensible administration of the law.
  I am concerned also about the searching of premises and the liberty of the subject. It was a case, which I raised in the House, involving the search of the house of Lady Diana Cooper under a drugs warrant in totally unjustifiable circumstances, which led to a new set of regulations being issued by the Home Office about applications for warrants, and so on. I want to take this opportunity of entering a caveat on Clause 23 of the Bill, which says that a justice of the peace may issue a warrant if he is satisfied by information on oath that there is reasonable ground for suspecting that an offence has taken place. May I stress that it is the will of Parliament that there should be reasonable ground for suspicion before anyone's home is entered on a search warrant. It is extremely important that drugs should be controlled, but it is equally important that the liberties of the subject should be protected.
  My third point is about absolute offences. I deplore the creation of absolute offences. I think that every criminal offence should require mens rea. There was the case of Stephanie Sweet

  1483
  where the House of Lords at the last moment put the matter right. I welcome the provision in the Bill that those who are responsible for premises should not be responsible at law unless they knowingly permit the use of the premises for drug taking. That again is a very important provision protecting the rights and liberties of the subject.
  That is practically my last word on this subject in this debate, but it is not the last word of this House or of the country on the matter. We would be deluding ourselves to think that the passage of the Bill into law will solve the problem; it will not. The Bill is a further contribution to the law. This discussion is a further contribution to the argument. I welcome the Bill, with all its limitations, because it consolidates the law and clarifies it. It introduces an element of rationality and an element of reasonableness into the law, but an element only, and for that reason I welcome the Bill and hope that it will receive a Second Reading.
  5.54 p.m.
  Mr. Eric Ogden: The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) has given an honest and informed speech and proved himself once again the last libertarian on the benches opposite. He mentioned and tempted controversy about the permissive society. He knows more about it than I do, and I will leave the backlash which he forecast to his hon. Friends. He welcomed the Bill, and I think the whole tenor of the speeches has been to welcome the Bill. The only real difference between the two speeches from the Opposition and that of my right hon. Friend was a difference of emphasis rather than a disagreement. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary talked about the Bill and put it into the social situation. The right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) spoke of the social situation and the Bill. There was no real difference between the points they were making; they supplemented or complemented each other. My hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) put the Bill in a wider context.
  One point which arose from the exchange between my hon. Friend the
  1484
  Member for South Shields and the hon. Gentleman who interrupted him is that the treatment of addicts to bring them back to what other people regard as normal health and normal practices should not be regarded as a penalty imposed upon them in the same way as people are penalised for breaking the law. It is desirable that people should be treated, by persuasion, information and education, but this should not be a penal imposition because they have taken drugs.
  The Bill will give the Home Secretary effective and flexible powers of control over drugs and their misuse. It has been said that the Bill gives him speedy powers, but I do not believe that they will be so speedy as some people forecast, certainly not in the control of every drug. The Bill gives him control over many drugs and the possibility or probability of other drugs being brought within its orbit as and when necessary. It is a good Bill and I join with those who have supported it.
  The Bill is widely based on the recommendations of the advisory committee, and from these benches I add my word of congratulation to the two hon. Members of this House who took part in the discussions of the advisory committee, the hon. Member for Ashtead and my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields. Although many hon. Members have a wide background of experience, this experience is not always used effectively as it has been in this case. It might be a good precedent to set, other departments to use more of the expertise and advice that are available in the House, not necessarily in Select Committees, but on matters such as this.
  Mr. Charles Pannell: The hon. Member seems to think that it is a new practice for hon. Members to serve on a committee. In the old days it was the reverse. Select Committees of this House preceded Royal Commissions. It might have been a good thing if Royal Commissions had never been set up and matters had been left to the House.
  Mr. Ogden: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that interjection, but I was not suggesting that this was a new idea or that previous practices, of which my right hon. Friend is more knowledgeable than I, set the precedent. All I am

  1485
  saying is that here is one example of hon. Members being used in a wholly welcome and admirable way and that hon. Members should be used more in this way. I hope he will agree with me.
  The word "drugs" is an emotive word which has been misused in newspaper headlines, the news flash and in T.V. inquiries. The word has been misused and debased in recent years, and we are, all to a degree, guilty of this misuse. There is nothing new about drugs or their misuse. What have changed are the techniques of the production, distribution and information about them, which have outstripped the knowledge we have of how to use them properly how to control them. The dangers of the use of drugs are not always recognised.
  There are of course tremendous advantages flowing from the use of drugs. It would be almost impossible to find anybody in this House or outside it who has not benefited from the use of drugs at some time in his life. Indeed an enormous number of lives have been saved by the use of drugs in modern medicine. To put the matter in prospective, the proper use of drugs and medicines is right but it is misuse of drugs with which we are concerned today. Medicines and drugs must not be regarded simply as groceries or domestic hardware. Once we remember that fact we shall be in a better position.
  The Bill, as can be seen from its title, helps in this matter. It is the Misuse of Drugs Bill, not the Drugs Bill. In 42 pages, 39 clauses and 6 schedules it is a complicated challenging and useful Bill. I have no doubt that it will be improved in many ways in Committee. In his reply my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State might be able to give an indication that, although he will not have power to accept every change, changes will be considered. It will be the duty and responsibility of those hon. Members who serve on that Standing Committee to examine the different aspects of the matter and this should be treated as a practical Bill, not as a Party political matter. The Home Secretary will have many powers under the Bill, and I hope that the main result of the Bill when it is passed will be to help to halt drug addiction and to reduce it to a minimum.
  1486
  I should like to say a few words about the Amendment which appears on the Order Paper but which was not called, though one is not precluded from speaking upon it. It is ingenious and makes its point. When one sees the diversity of hon. Members who are supporting it, they comprise an almost unique alliance in the House. I would support the broad aims of the Amendment. Certainly the labelling of drugs has supporters in the tobacco industry. There are those among tobacco manufacturers who would not resist this idea too hard if they had the opportunity. However, I do not think that it would make any difference to the consumption of tobacco or nicotine. There is a possibility that the Home Secretary, if he could be persuaded to do so, could include nicotine under Clause II and Schedule II of the Bill. It seems somewhat remarkable that my hon. Friend the Member for The High Peak (Mr. Peter M. Jackson) should seek to reject the Bill on Second Reading when it provides the opportunity which he seeks.
  Mr. Peter M. Jackson: I should explain that I sought advice from the Table Office before I put down the Amendment. I was informed that an Amendment to be in order must include the words
  "That this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Misuse of Drugs Bill …"
  I generally support the Bill with reservations.
  Mr. Ogden: Many people will get a little worried about the remarkable degree of unanimity that exists in the House this afternoon.
  Mr. E. Shinwell: Has it occurred to the House that the reason why some of my hon. Friends want to prevent us using tobacco is that they think it detrimental to our health. But when we look at some of them, fragile, infirm almost decrepit individuals, some of them vegetarians, and then compare them with people like myself, heavy smokers, we must consider the consequences.
  Mr. Ogden: My right hon. Friend has made his point. I thought for a moment he was going to suggest that it had something to do with the Common Market.
  To come back to the Bill, I would declare my interest in that last November I was asked to serve as Parliamentary

  1487
  Adviser to the Council of Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, and I accepted the position. It has been a useful two-way traffic of information and advice. I have learned a great deal from them. At that time there was a report from a Select Committee about Members' interests and that recommendation made confusion worse confounded. The best thing I could do was to circulate to hon. Members whom I thought should be informed of the interest through Mr. Speaker and the Whips. I confess that I cannot remember whether I told the Home Office. At any rate if I did not, I am now informing the House of this fact.
  My right hon. Friend will be pleased, though not surprised, to know that the Bill is welcomed by the Pharmaceutical Society and by the 30,000 pharmacists in the country who one way or another will be affected by the provisions of the Bill, though they will probably have more work to do as a result of this Measure. The society receives a constant flow of information from its members about the supply of information on drugs either by prescription or across the counter. This information, particularly that relating to sudden twists and turns in the pattern of drug use and drug abuse, has convinced the society that the powers sought by my right hon. Friend are necessary and desirable and should be obtained as quickly as possible.
  It is a fact that as the drug problem has developed over the past two or three years, pharmacists have found themselves in an increasingly difficult and invidious position. They are the people who see the signs of over-prescription in particular areas. As the evidence accumulates when a patient presents a succession of prescriptions, they are the first ones who see it since they dispense them. They have a duty to dispense those prescriptions; indeed they have a contractual obligation to dispense National Health Service prescriptions.
  When they are convinced that prescriptions are being misused then they have to resolve that question. Their duty is to dispense a prescription lawfully presented to them, yet they have the wider ethical duty of deciding whether it is being done rightly and properly for the benefit of the patient. In a recent case a patient presented
  1488
  a pharmacist is one area with private prescriptions for Drynamil tablets, a mixture of amphetamine and barbiturate. Each prescription was for 50 tablets, one tablet to be taken twice a day. The prescription provided for a 25-day supply. Three days later the same patient came back with the same prescription for a further supply of 50 tablets. This matter was reported to the Pharmaceutical Society, then to the General Medical Council, and proceedings were taken for the removal of the doctor concerned from the medical register.
  The Times on 13th March said that over-prescription on drugs by a small number of "rogue doctors" operating mainly in London has been responsible for much of the development of the British drugs problem. My information is that it is a very small number indeed. But these doctors are a threat not only to the patients they treat—perhaps I should say maltreat—but are also a danger to the partnership that exists between the medical and pharmaceutical professions.
  I illustrate this point by recalling that towards the end of 1968 in order to control the prescribing of methylamphetamine there was a voluntary agreement to supply the drug through hospitals only. Then we saw one of the twists and turns in the pattern of drug abuse. Some doctors, and I emphasise they were very few, circumvented the agreement by prescribing amphetamine sulphate powder. This was the first time this had been used in this form.
  This practice was finally overcome by the pharmacists themselves issuing an edict that prescriptions for this powder would not be dispensed by pharmacists. This was the first time in its 128 years of history that this had happened in the Pharmaceutical Society. Later the British Medical Association took up the matter and decided that its members should not prescribe this powder. Some of these situations can be overcome and have been overcome. But in the main this large difference between the contractual obligations of the pharmacists to prescribe and the wider obligation involving ethics is still to be resolved.
  There are other practical points which I could mention, but I feel that these will be covered during the Committee

  1489
  stage. Certainly the whole matter of the use and abuse of barbiturates should be given serious consideration. The Bill so far as it goes—and it goes a long way—will help to control the situation and will assist in making things better for those whom it is designed to help. The Bill will give the Home Secretary great powers and responsibilities. It has been given a wide welcome today, and I see no reason why it should not speedily go on the Statute Book.
  6.10 p.m.
  Mr. Norman Miscampbell: I, too, give the Bill a general welcome. I have some sympathy with the Home Secretary for the speech which perforce he had to make. He was introducing a Bill dealing with the law on the subject of drugs. The rest of us can range rather wider and perhaps consider the social implications behind this problem. It has been a common and, I am sorry to say, growing practice of Governments to introduce Bills which can be stigmatised as enabling Bills so that a larger number of regulations can be mach under them. This Bill has that characteristic, but on this subject flexibility is a merit rather than a demerit.
  We are all conscious that we face a growing problem. I was glad to hear the Home Secretary assure us that as yet there is no evidence that criminal forces are largely involved in the drug trade in this country. But if experience in America is anything to go by the situation may change We must watch the matter carefully. It is not, however, on that aspect that I wish to dwell. The social causes of drug taking are many. It is impossible to place one's finger on any particular reason. Often people take drugs because of the boredom of the suburbs. They come from no one class. They come from the well-to-do and from the working class. One cannot put a racial basis or even a regional basis on it, although inevitably the drug takers congregate in our great cities.
  My plea is that we should consider very carefully the education that we are providing in this respect for the young and for their parents. I deal first with education for the parents. I have some sympathy with those who say that if parents take alcohol and smoke cigarettes, how can they reprimand a young boy
  1490
  who takes cannabis? I am not sure how far I go with that, but I accept that it is an argument. Far more important is this. Young people see their parents whenever they have a headache or the slightest thing wrong with them, resort to what is no more than the drug cabinet in the bathroom and take sleeping tablets and other aids to health, if they may be so called. They resort to drugs at every opportunity. When young people see this done as a family habit, they may well succumb to drugs when they meet pressures, as they will, later. Therefore, there should be education of parents in taking drugs which are innocuous or perhaps mildly innocuous.
  Secondly, there should be education for the young because they may fall into the trap partly through ignorance, and they should be helped in school with massive educational programmes which point out to them the dangers of the road which they may take. Families send their children to London. I suppose that 20 years ago many of them were sent here without their having any sex education. Perhaps that situation is changing. We know how often provincial families send their young daughters and sons to London and other cities without having given them any warning of the dangers of drugs. They go to universities where they meet social pressures. A large section of those in university have no moral objection to taking drugs.
  That is the atmosphere into which the young go and inevitably they may fall if they are susceptible. Because of ignorance, and in the face of social pressures to conform with others, they face a formidable challenge early in life. It is for us to ensure that they meet that challenge by using the knowledge drummed into them throughout their school years about the dangers which they face. Some people seem to think that if certain matters are not mentioned, if they are legislated under the carpet, the problem will disappear. It is absolutely certain that this problem will not disappear, and we might as well face that fact. I therefore ask for education for parents in example and for children as a warning.
  We should also expand as rapidly as possible the voluntary means of help for those who seek it. If a parent, seeing the warning signs in his child, can

  1491
  persuade the child to go for help, he should be able to get it. Some of the most distressing cases concern parents who are driven to desperation by the fact that they see their child going downhill and therefore take the course of going to the magistrates' court and reporting him. I can admire their courage, but I wonder whether that is the right way in which they shoud deal with the problem. I believe that there should be adequate alternatives before they have to take that disrupting course for their own family. There should be centres to which they can go and get voluntary help, which will be the basis of preventing their falling further.
  If the centres can be more widespread, I appeal to those who live near them not to attempt to drive them away. I have had experience of a centre in London. People living nearby were most resentful that addicts should get help in their neighbourhood. Without help, those addicts may disrupt society far more than if a few people's noses are put out of joint because they see them in difficulty late at night seeking desperately needed help. I hope that the Government will find the finance to provide the treatment which is so necessary and which should be available throughout the country. I make the plea that the rest of us should give all the assistance we can and not turn up our noses when socially beneficial centres are set up in our neighbourhood.
  6.18 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Foot: We have had extremely informative and enlightened speeches, not least that of the hon. Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell). It is with some diffidence that I seek to strike a note somewhat different from that sounded by most speakers. It is not that I do not think there are good proposals in the Bill. There are good proposals for dealing with the worst type of offenders, and with those who are knowingly aware of activities in their premises. It is satisfactory that the relevant Clause has been introduced in time to save the proprietors of Buckingham Palace from prosecution Under the original Bill, they would presumably have been liable to prosecution if it were true that pot was smoked in the lavatories of Buckingham Palace.
  1492
  I am glad to see that that matter has been attended to. I am sure that that is what appealed to the monarchical instincts of the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas).
  Mr. Miscampbell: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would find that the case of the Queen v. the Queen might be difficult to get on its feet in a court.
  Mr. Foot: It would have been extremely invidious if the question had been raised, as it could have been if the change had not been made.
  So there are good measures in the Bill, but there are also aspects which deserved to be scrutinised and criticised much more severely than they have been so far. I approach the matter with some diffidence. Until quite recently I approached the whole question of drugs with an attitude of ignorant, ill-informed horror. I think that that is the mood of many people who are unaware of how drugs are used and have been spread, and the reasons why people may become addicted. I think that it is the attitude of many older people.
  But an attitude of ill-informed horror is not a good one for legislating. The whole of my attitude towards at any rate a major aspect of the matter—the smoking of pot—was altered by reading the Wootton Report, one of the finest reports presented to Parliament over quite a number of years. Therefore, I was especially horrified by the immediate reception of that report by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, which was to seem to pour scorn upon it and dismiss it, although the report had argued its case with great care and responsibility. We have had tributes to other committees during the debate. It would have been gracious if the Home Secretary had taken the opportunity to withdraw the accusations which he made and paid a similar tribute to that Committee.
  Mr. Elystan Morgan: In our debate in February last year, my right hon. Friend made it quite clear that he was most grateful to the distinguished people who served on that committee. But many of us were aware of the inadequacies of that study. The committee interviewed only 16 persons, who did not include a magistrate, social worker, or, I believe, a probation officer.
  Mr. Foot: There may have been some inadequacies in the report, but that was not the way in which the Home Secretary dealt with the whole matter. I do not believe that it was proper for a member of the Government to dismiss in such a way the findings of those eminent people, who gave their time just as devotedly to preparing the report as those who prepared the other reports we have received.
  Therefore, I wish to present to the House, since the Home Secretary did not, some of the findings and recommendations in the Wootton Report not dealt with adequately in the Bill. The Observer on Sunday, in a front page inquiry by its staff reporters, said:
  "But pot smokers whom we have talked to take the new Bill as a broad hint to police and magistrates that they should do less to harass pot smokers and, instead, come down hard on those who smuggle and peddle hard drugs."
  No doubt the Bill does propose that the police should come down hard on those who smuggle and peddle hard drugs. I am all in favour of that, but it does not have the other implication, and the question is whether it should have included such ideas. My first ground for saying that is the statement by Sir Edward Wayne in his report to the Home Secretary in November, 1968, that:
  "… there is a grave and urgent need for further expert study of all aspects of cannabis use and its consequences for the individual and society".
  We have had some further reports, but is it maintained by the Home Secretary that in the presentation of this Bill we have had the urgent complete inquiry which alters the findings of the Wootton Committee about cannabis? Is that the Government's claim? If so, the details should be presented to us. We should be told exactly what is the nature of the report and what the recommendations are which altered the general findings on cannabis in the Wootton Report. As far as I know, no such study has been made leading to entirely changed conclusions.
  Pages 20 and 21 of the Wootton Report contained the statement:
  "We believe that the association of cannabis in legislation with heroin and the other opiates is entirely inappropriate and that new and quite separate legislation to deal specially and separately with cannabis and its synhetic derivatives should be introduced as soon as possible."
  1494
  There is some distinction in the Bill, but there is no entirely separate legislation. The report continued:
  "We are also convinced that the present penalties for possession and supply are altogether too high."
  It is true that the top penalty for possession of cannabis is reduced in the Bill, but that top penalty has never been applied, and so it does not seem to me that in that regard the Government have carried out the Wootton Committee's recommendation. They have rejected it, and we want to know the reason. We were not given an adequate explanation by my right hon. Friend today.
  It was one of the main conclusions of the report that there should be such a distinction between cannabis and the other drugs, because the committee was deeply concerned about the numbers of young offenders, found guilty only of having a small amount of the drug in their possession for their use, who were sent to prison as first offenders. One of the main reasons for its recommendations was to seek to overcome that. The committee said at page 29:
  "For the foreseeable future, however, our objective is clear: to bring about a situation in which it is extremely unlikely that anyone will go to prison for an offence involving only possession for personal use or for supply on a very limited scale."
  That recommendation is not fulfilled in the Bill.
  Mr. Peter M. Jackson: May I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the far more categorical and unequivocal statement by the Chairman, not the Chairman of the Sub-Committee but the Chairman of the Advisory Committee, Sir Edward Wayne, that:
  "The Committee is generally of the view that imprisonment is no longer an appropriate punishment for those who are unlawfully in possession of a small amount."
  Mr. Foot: The two statements reinforce each other. My hon. Friend's intervention strengthens the point. Both recommendations have been rejected by the Government. It is all very well for them to talk about wanting expert advice on these matters. They have had such expert advice on cannabis as on the other matters, but have rejected it with regard to cannabis. In many respects the question of what they will do about cannabis is more important than any of the others.
  Mr. Eric S. Heffer: Experts can be wrong.
  Mr. Foot: I am not suggesting that we should always accept the experts' advice, but it is a question which requires research and on which we need to take as much medical evidence as possible. As I have said, the approach of ignorant horror to these matters is not the way in which to deal with them adequately, particularly if approaching the matter in that spirit means that innocent people, including innocent young people, shall find themselves in prison. It was precisely to prevent that happening that the Wootton Committee reached this conclusion. It was not an ignorant committee, it was not one that was not concerned with weighing all these matters in the balance and trying to stop drug addiction among young people. Therefore, my hon. Friend should pay some respect to what it said. If there is an argument against the committee, let it be produced, but it has not been produced in the presentation of the Bill.
  Mr. Heffer: I certainly accept that the committee was high-powered. However, high powered committees in the past have not necessarily been correct in their ultimate decisions. I agree with the fundamental point that people should not go to prison for having cannabis in small amounts, but I think that my hon. Friend must accept that the use of cannabis can and does lead to the use of hard drugs in certain circumstances and that this is a most dangerous practice and one which surely everyone in the country should be deeply concerned about.
  Mr. Foot: My hon. Friend must not think that he was original in making that proposition. All those matters were fully considered by the Wootton Committee as well, and the Committee made the recommendations that I have read to the House in the light of having considered all the factors that my hon. Friend has just mentioned. [Interruption.] It is conceivable that such people are wrong. I am not saying that all expert committees are right. I am saying that, particularly in a debate in which hon. Members on both sides have said that special regard must be paid to what is the detailed research on these matters, and when both sides of the House have been pleading for more research, it is not very logical for
  1496
  the same House of Commons to throw out of the window without consideration the recommendations of one of the expert committees which has conducted the research into precisely the question my hon. Friend has referred to.
  It is very difficult for anyone to reach a certain conclusion on such a matter as that. As has been said, it is arguable that until we have more certain knowledge the country should maintain the ban on cannabis. I can well understand that argument, too. I say that the House should have proper arguments to weigh as to why the Government have rejected the major recommendation of the Committee that they themselves set up to look into the question.
  One of the main reasons I am concerned about this—I hope I shall have the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Walton on this—is that, as the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) indicated, there is a serious crisis in the administration of the law arising from the question of the smoking of pot and the regulations which are supposed to govern it and to prevent it.
  The right hon. Gentleman said that the smoking of cannabis is now a widely accepted social habit and, as a result of that being so, there is a deepening crisis of law enforcement. I believe that that is one of the most serious aspects that the House must consider. One of my complaints about the Bill is that it does not deal with that. It does not deal at all with the criticisms which have been made arising from the administration of the 1967 Act.
  One of the reasons I became interested in this matter was the extremely interesting reservation by Mr. Michael Schofield at page 39 of the Wootton Report:
  "Parliament had been led to assume that the purpose of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1967 was to deal with drugs such as heroin, but large-scale searches for cannabis are now made under section 6 of this Act. This section was put in as a late amendment and accepted by an unwatchful House of Commons almost without discussion."
  It was improper that we should have allowed it to go through without real consideration, especially as, as the right hon. Member for Ashford properly emphasised, this is especially a question of a clash between the law and alleged young offenders. They are the principal

  1497
  people with whom the argument takes place. Such young offenders are particularly vulnerable. It is particularly difficult for them to defend themselves or to know what their rights are against improper police activity against them.
  There is today a widespread feeling amongst large numbers of young people in certain areas—this does not mean to say the majority or anything like it—that police power is used against them improperly in these circumstances. The Wootton Report had plenty of evidence on this, so much so that it was largely on the committee's recommendation that the Deedes Committee, as it is called, was set up to examine the question of search and arrest and how it was operated, how the provision about reasonable suspicion was being applied.
  I quote what the Wootton Committee said in paragraph 31 on this subject. This was two years ago. I do not think there has been any diminution of this feeling in the last two years—
  "In the course of our enquiry, however, we have been made strongly aware both of concern about the effect of the exercise of these powers upon the relationship between the police and the public, and of the difficulties faced by enforcement authorities in recent years for which these wide powers of arrest and search have been thought to be essential."
  There are other diseases than the taking of drugs. I want to see the taking, spreading and sale of dangerous drugs stopped. I want to see the House applying itself intelligently and without hysteria to the question of pot smoking. This debate has done so to a greater extent than some of the previous debates.
  I also want to guard against what is an even worse danger than drug taking—that is, a deepening antagonism between certain sections of young people and the police, or the erosion of confidence in the police. That is a more serious matter than drug taking. It can lead to innocent young people being put in prison, although they have done something which, according to their social outlook and that of most of their friends and associates, is not a crime. If a young person is put in prison on that basis—believed to be innocent by those with whom he has been brought up and with whom he associates—he may indeed become a real criminal afterwards. These
  1498
  are some of the dangers against which the House must guard as well.
  I am sorry that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State did not think this question sufficiently important to deal with it in his speech. He set up a committee to look into the matter. I do not believe that we should let the Bill go through until we have had the detailed report and until we have examined it fully. It is not sufficient for the Government to say, "We shall have it in time to consider it in the Committee stage". This is an essential part of how we are to sustain confidence in the law and in the police.
  It is not a small question. It is not a question to be dealt with at the tail-end of a Session when we are trying to rush legislation through. We rushed it through before and, as a result, the law in many parts of the country has been brought into grave disrepute.
  Although I do not propose to divide the House against the Bill tonight, I shall certainly seek, in Committee and elsewhere, to secure the protections for the individual—in particular the young individual—which have not been provided under these Acts previously and which certainly should be, provided if the House genuinely believes in individual liberty.
  6.38 p.m.
  Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine: The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) has made some critical remarks of the work done in the Committee which considered the Dangerous Drugs Bill. I was a member of that Committee, but I occupied a position in which I could take no active part. Perhaps that was no great hardship either to myself or to the rest of the Committee, because there was not very much that I could have contributed at that time which would have been of the slightest interest to the Committee.
  Having had that experience, I thank the Members of the Committee for the education they gave me and the interest they inspired in me to inquire further into the way the Act, as it now is, has been working. I have had this opportunity, thanks to the assistance, which I gratefully acknowledge, of the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department and others.

  1499
  In my visits to some of these clinics certain things were borne in on me, so I decided to find out what we were hoping to achieve as a result of the Measure. I looked at the Second Reading speeches, and perhaps the best way of explaining what we then thought we were doing is to quote the words of the then Minister of Health. The right hon. Gentleman stated:
  "We hope that when more addicts come to the new outpatient clinics, more will agree to accept withdrawal treatment, and that more will then be rehabilitated and restored to a normal life."
  Having now had some experience of the working of these clinics, I wonder whether the then Minister of Health would have expressed himself in quite those terms.
  The clinics I visited were working extremely well and I express my thanks and approval to those working in them. Some problems feared by some people at one stage have not arisen. For instance, it was thought that some of the addicts coming to the clinics would be difficult or disturbed and would create problems. That has not happened to nearly the extent that was feared at one stage.
  The clinics seem to be trying to reduce the dosage to a manageable level so that addicts become useful citizens. The most helpful aspect is that very few people are coming as new addicts. That may be the result of dosages being reduced so that there is a smaller quantity that can be sold. But treatment is limited by the necessity to arrange things so that the addict will come back. That seems to be the most important factor of all.
  I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) that the rehabilitation service needs strengthening. One of the weakest parts of the organisation set up under the Act is that small numbers go for rehabilitation. I was most interested to hear the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) say, when asked about the possibility of compulsion, that compulsion was one of the matters under consideration but that few people would agree with it. He added that the Brain Report was against compulsion. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is not now present, because I believe that the Brain Report took the exactly opposite view that compulsion was essential.
  1500
  My main reason for intervening is that I have come to the conclusion that compulsion is essential if we are to deal with the problem, and if no other reason were available I would find it in the remarks of the then Minister of Health on the same occasion to which I have already referred. The right hon. Gentleman said:
  "A conference of psychiatrists has advised that from a given number of addicts very few will be willing to persevere through both withdrawal treatment and the subsequent period of rehabilitation. It would therefore be unreasonable to provide rehabilitation services initially for more than a small proportion of addicts."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th April, 1967; Vol. 744, c. 534.]
  If only a small proportion are likely to go through the withdrawal treatment, and all that we can hope for from the present organisation is at least more or less to stabilise the present position, we must face the fact that the only way to make any real progress is the use of compulsion.
  When I was in Hong Kong at the end of last year one of the things I looked into was how the authorities there were dealing with the narcotics. I am most grateful to those who gave me every possible facility and assistance. They showed me the extent of the problem and their methods of dealing with it, and took me to some of their centres. I spent some time with the Narcotics Bureau, and I visited rehabilitation centres.
  One thing that emerges quite clearly is that in Hong Kong they look at anybody brought in for any offence. If someone comes up for stealing a bicycle, for example, and there is any possible background of drug addiction, investigations are made. Quite apart from any other offence, that person may be sent to a rehabilitation centre for a period of a minimum of six months and a maximum of two years. One-third of any period is remitted for good conduct, which means that the offender is at the centre for anything from four months to two years. The important part of that arrangement is the sentence is indeterminate: how soon he will get out depends on his progress. That is one reason why it has been found that people at rehabilitation centres try to make the best of their time there.
  The whole object of their being at the centre is to programme their day so that

  1501
  they get into the habit of work. They are given work suitable to their then state of health. Some can only make baskets, while other make roads, or do other hard physical labour. Every effort is made to keep them in contact with their families. They can go home for funerals and weddings, and so on, and the way in which they behave at home and after they come back is a barometer of the success of their treatment.
  When they leave the centre they remain under supervision for 12 months. It is made certain that they have a suitable job available. They are put in touch with a voluntary organisation to help them over the difficult period following their release, and for those who have no relations there are half-way houses where they can be taken care of.
  At one of these centres I was shown 12 pictures, and was told that six were of prisoners at the beginning of their rehabilitation and the other six were of the same people on their leaving. I was asked to arrange them in pairs showing the same man, but I found it impossible. Not only did they look entirely different in health, but their features, the look in their eyes, and so on, were quite remarkably altered. These people are given the pictures to take out with them so that they have something to show that what was done for them was worth the effort.
  The other vital aspect of their treatment is that they are never given any drugs for a period of more than 14 days. They are given methadone for 12 to 14 days, but after that no drugs at all are prescribed. I said that I had been told that if a drug addict was cut off from drugs in such a short period there would be some difficult symptoms to overcome. I was told that that view was entirely wrong. In one hospital I saw men, only recently admitted, who had just been cut off from drugs. These people are treated for whatever other physicial troubles they may have—stomach ulcers, headaches, or anything else—but they are given no drugs at all.
  When I reported this to some of my friends here at home who deal with these problems, their reaction was to say that I was shown only the successful cases but that many died in great agony, and that I would not be told about these cases.
  1502
  I went to the trouble of inquiring whether there had been such people whom I had not seen.
  The Annual Departmental Report of the Commissioner of Prisons in Hong Kong shows that of the 6,677 people in prison during the latest period of 12 months ending do March 1969, 51 died. There is a list of the various reasons for their deaths, none of which appear to me to be directly related to withdrawal symptoms from drugs.
  During that 12-month period of supervision, again for the latest period, which is 1967, of the 420 released 261, or 62·14 per cent., were not convicted of any charge. Therefore, 62·14 per cent. were off drugs for at least one year after coming out of prison. It seems a significant success on which the people in Hong Kong might well pride themselves.
  I have been told that in this country the people who go to prison are least likely to be rehabilitated because detention here appears to have a different effect. I cannot resolve that difficulty. However, I was most impressed by the work being done in Hong Kong, and I thought it relevant to the matters that we are discussing.
  So far as the present Bill is concerned, Schedule 2 seems to have a completely meaningless distinction between Class A and Class B drugs. There have already been references to barbiturates not being covered by the Bill. I believe that many people concerned with these matters are bewildered by the way that the drugs have been set out in the Bill.
  One thing which would have a greater effect than anything else would be if the Home Secretary could ensure that drugs which can be used in these ways are kept in greater security. The number of cases of people who have obtained drugs by breaking into warehouses or chemist shops is too high. I commend to the Home Secretary the possibility of considering better security measures for dealing with dangerous drugs. This could make an important contribution to reducing the problem.
  6.54 p.m.
  Mr. Gordon Oakes: I was most interested in the description given by the hon. Member for Rye (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine) of what happens in Hong Kong. However, I think that he will agree, and that the House would

  1503
  hold to the view, that there should be separate responsibility for the health of an addict and for the punishment of drug offences. That has always been the basis of our legislation.
  In his closing remarks, the hon. Gentleman dealt with security. This is an important matter, which is dealt with in Clause 11. A great source of trouble in my constituency—no doubt the hon. Gentleman has found it in his—over the last 12 months to two years has been that chemists' shops have been broken into and have had drugs stolen from them by young people in particular.
  Throughout the debate hon. Members on both sides of the House—particularly the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes), the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot)—have suggested that young people in this country are supporters of drug taking. This is a myth. The vast majority of young people deplore the use of drugs and the ruin they bring to young lives. They want nothing to do with drugs. They would applaud this Measure just as much as older citizens. One difficulty is that if influential people repeatedly say that young people are supporters of drug taking or are tolerant of drug takers—they may be more tolerant of drug takers than older people—they will begin to think that they are missing out. They will believe that the fashion is to take drugs or to be interested in drugs and, being young people, they tend to go along the line of fashion. Therefore, it is a myth, certainly so far as the North of England is concerned, that young people are somehow or other so strongly pro-drug that if the police exercise their powers under the Bill young people as a body will find themselves in direct conflict with them. That is what my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale seemed to imply in his speech.
  Mr. Deedes: The point that I was trying to make was that a number of young people were sceptical of our reasons for prohibiting marijuana. That is not the same as saying that they support drug taking.
  Mr. Oakes: I accept the right hon. Gentleman's point. I shall refer to marijuana later.
  1504
  Another criticism has been that the Bill does not deal with education. It cannot. No legislation can deal with how the parent treats the child he finds turning to drugs or how the teacher educates his class on the dangers of drugs.
  The Bill does not deal with treatment. It is primarily designed to prevent the spread of drug taking, and it does so as comprehensively as could possibly be done in any one Measure.
  The law, as my right hon. Friend rightly said, is highly inflexible. Because it is inflexible and because fashions in drug taking change so rapidly, it is almost impossible for the Home Office or for the police to catch up with what is happening in the drug world. It is also very fragmentary, being scattered among a number of Acts of Parliament, and it is inadequate, as the Bill clearly shows.
  The Bill attempts to look at the various sources from which drugs come—whether imported, whether the result of over-prescribing by doctors, whether the result of lack of security in works or in chemists shops and, finally, the supplier.
  The majority of drugs in this country are imported—certainly heroin and cannabis. On 16th March, I asked my hon. Friend the Minister of State Treasury, about the number of offences of illegally bringing drugs into this country and the weight of drugs confiscated. The figures show a dramatic rise. In 1967 there were 58 people prosecuted and 434 lb. of drugs confiscated. In 1968 there were 102 people prosecuted and 2,196 lb. of drugs confiscated. In 1969 there were 184 people prosecuted and 807 lb. of drugs confiscated. That is an increase of 350 per cent. in the number of prosecutions over the last three years for illegally importing drugs. We know that that can only be scratching the surface, because drugs can be imported so easily in many ways by travellers from abroad with increasing travel facilities, by the increase in sailing, and by ships coming in and out where the coastguards and Customs cannot check.
  In Clauses 3 and 26 my right hon. Friend seeks to do the only thing that can be done in such circumstances. A detailed search of every person cannot be carried out. Indeed, it would be wrong for every person coming in to be subjected to

  1505
  a detailed search. What my right hon. Friend can do and has done in the Bill is to increase the penalties to such an extent that it is not worth a person's while to be caught smuggling drugs into this country.
  The very severest penalties ought to be handed out by the courts to anybody who imports any drugs referred to in the Bill in any quantity. When I say severe penalties, I mean that it should be the rule and not the exception that any such person goes to prison because people who smuggle drugs in in any way cannot be regarded with any sympathy whatever. They are doing it for considerable profit and may he ruining the lives of tens or hundreds of people in this country by such profit seeking activities.
  The hon. Member for Rye referred to another aspect of sources of supply—chemists' shops. In another question I asked how many offences there had been in which premises, excluding houses, had been broken into and drugs stolen. The figure for the first six months of 1969 was 210, so I imagine that there were more than 500 such offences taking 1969 as a whole. The difficulty and the danger of these offences is that the people who break into chemists' shops steal drugs and do not know exactly what the drugs are. If they take them themselves they may well kill themselves. Worse still, they may scatter them around or abandon them and children may pick them up. There has been a case of this kind in my constituency.
  The greatest possible security ought to be enforced in all chemists' shops, and by Government Departments. Exactly 12 months ago—Easter 1969—there was a surplus sale of Ministry of Health and Social Security goods and drums were bought by a manufacturer in East Anglia just for their worth as containers, but they were found to contain a drug which is on List A. Those drums were sold as surplus, showing a shocking lack of security in the Ministry. There must certainly be a considerable tightening up as we know how dangerous these drugs may be.
  On the question of supply, I am glad that the Bill refers not to supply for reward but merely to "supply". Here we come to the end of the chain. If a person supplies a drug to another person—whether for money or not—the dis-
  1506
  service done to that other person is enormous. The supplier should be punished for it. If a person is lonely or depressed or desperate and someone else supplies him with a drug the severest penalties ought to be meted out to that other person. This should apply particularly—as the right hon. Member for Ashford said—if the person given that drug is a young person or a child. It is a disgraceful thing to do and in such circumstances the court should impose particularly heavy penalties.
  I was intrigued, as was my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, by the argument of the hon. Member for Chelmsford about pop stars. I could not follow whether the hon. Member was saying that pop stars should lead a charmed life and not be prosecuted because of the publicity which would ensue or whether he was claiming that pop stars receive too much attention from the police because they are pop stars. If someone is a leader of opinion—whether it is political opinion or religious opinion—or is, as a pop star is, an idol of young people and commits an offence the police must prosecute. What I and a lot of people outside find astonishing is that some pop stars—the Rolling Stones in particular—have many times appeared before the court and on appeal have been fined—I agree heavily fined—whereas if a little girl in Bolton finds herself in trouble over drugs she ends up in Borstal. There is a feeling outside the House that too great a protection is given to pop stars in this direction.
  Mr. Peter M. Jackson: Would my hon. Friend not agree that a conclusion, other than the one which he has drawn, can be drawn from the examples he is now giving—namely, the one which points to the deficiencies in the present system of legal aid, because whereas pop stars have the economic wherewithal to secure adequate legal representation, the little girl in Bolton will often appear without such representation?
  Mr. Oakes: As a solicitor, I agree with any extension of legal aid, but this matter does not just involve the quality of the legal representation obtained. I think that the courts are in some way frightened of making martyrs of pop stars by sending them to prison. If they are leaders of public opinion, or of other people, and by their actions they induce

  1507
  young people to take drugs, that ought to be a factor taken into account by the court when it considers their penalty and treatment just as we as members of Parliament would expect to be far more severely treated if we committed an offence than would, very often, people outside.
  On the question of cannabis, the hon. Member for Chelmsford and my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale said that we have not made out a sufficient case against the Wootton Report, that we have not convinced people outside of the dangers of cannabis. The hon. Member for Chelmsford said that we do not have any particulars of the extent to which taking cannabis leads on to the harder drugs. This is believed, but there are no figures and there is no expert evidence on it. I refer to an article in the Daily Express today which deals specifically with this point and the person interviewed is no less than the President of the New York State Council on Drug Addiction. He is an expert on drugs, and in New York he has a problem on his hands that makes our drugs problem look absolutely minimal. He says:
  "Any teenager who smokes 'pot' more than ten times runs a one-in-five risk of getting hooked on more dangerous drugs."
  A one-in-five risk if he smokes more than ten times. He goes on:
  "Surveys in the United States allow us to assess the direct connection between marijuana and other drugs.
  One survey in particular among students showed conclusively that of those who smoked pot once a month, 22 per cent. went on L.S.D. and other drugs.
  Of those who smoked once a week, 49 per cent. went on to stronger drugs.
  The worst drug inheritance was among those who smoked pot every day-82 per cent."
  That 82 per cent. went on to some harder drug.
  These are the sort of figures which prove my right hon. Friend was absolutely right to reject the well meaning and considered advice given by the Wootton Report as regards any legalising of cannabis. There is a tremendous drugs problem in the United States and this is an expert from the United States speaking. He knows the problem at first hand from direct experience and my
  1508
  right hon. Friend was absolutely right to take the course that he did.
  Mr. Peter M. Jackson: I am sure that the House is very grateful for the quotation which my hon. Friend has just given. But nevertheless I think he would agree that some of the evidence radically conflicts with that which he has quoted and I should briefly like to——
  Mr. Speaker: Order. This is an intervention not a speech.
  Mr. Jackson: I do not intend to make a speech, but I want to draw attention to paragraph 29 of the Wootton Report which cites the most comprehensive survey which, as I understand it, has been undertaken into the relation of cannabis and hard drugs, was undertaken in New York, and suggests that there is no such relationship as my hon. Friend suggests.
  Mr. Oakes: The Wootton Report says one thing. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) has said that experts can be wrong. That may well be so. But here is an expert, a very distinguished expert, who counters that opinion, and he is a man who ought to know, being President of the New York Council on Drug Addiction.
  Little attention has been paid to clause 32. So far as I know, it is a completely new provision that the Home Office may spend money on research. I hope that a lot of money is spent on research into the drug problem. I hope that it is spent not only on the medical side, not only on treatment, but on the social side. As the Advisory Committee said in paragraph 33 of its latest report:
  "Effective understanding of the social and personal factors involved in the drug scene will require investigations in depth on a much more extensive scale than have yet been undertaken".
  We need that research. We need to find out why people, and young people in particular, find themselves in the mesh of drug taking. We need to know whether it is loneliness, whether it is fashion, whether it is desperation. What causes young men or women to throw away their lives by taking drugs so that their minds and bodies are gnawed by these dreadful substances? Yesterday, a young man was

  1509
  reported in the Press as making the terrible statement that he was 23 years of age but he did not expect to live to be 26.
  Mr. Speaker: I remind the House that I shall be able to call all hon. Members who wish to speak if speeches are reasonably brief.
  7.12 p.m.
  Dr. M. P. Winstanley: I speak as one of the few Members—I know that there are others—who have had practical professional experience of dealing with the problems of drug addiction and the treatment of it, and with the control of patients and their relatives, and so on. I am gratified that there are rather more than a dozen hon. Members present to benefit from my observations, if I may so put it, though I regret that neither Front Bench spokesman who is to wind up happens to be in the Chamber now, so that I may not hear answers or comment on what I say.
  I go straight to the point which the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Oakes) made about cannabis, and I take up, also, the remarks of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot), who spoke at length on this aspect of the matter. I agree with the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale that the Wootton Committee in general, and its chairman in particular, have been rather shabbily treated. In fairness to the Home Secretary, I think it right to add that much of the difficulty was created not by the nature of the report itself but by what the Press had to say about it.
  The Wootton Report as published was, in my view, a balanced assessment of the situation and the degree of risk. It gave a clear account of what was known and what was not known. But it was immediately interpreted, with the sort of instant wisdom which we have from commentators in the Press, as a plea for permissiveness towards drug taking. In fact, it was nothing of the kind, but, since it was interpreted in that way, the Home Secretary was put in a difficult position in that he had somehow to correct a false impression in the public mind. None the less, I agree with the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale that it might, perhaps, have been appropriate now to acknowledge that we owe a great debt to Baroness Wootton and that committee
  1510
  for giving us some carefully collected valuable information.
  As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) said, we know nothing like enough about cannabis. It is not right, therefore, either for me—who, perhaps, knows more than some—or for others to pontificate one way or another on this question. I entirely agree that we need study, and we must reserve our opinion until we have the result. But it is important that, in being careful about what we say now, we do not damage our credibility in the minds of those who consider our words. We have precisely the same problem in regard to smoking. It is no good giving the impression that anyone who takes one puff of a cigarette will drop dead before one's eyes with cancer. That would be known to be nonsense. None the less, the facts about smoking are known. One in 10 of heavy cigarette smokers ultimately develops lung cancer. But this means, equally, that nine out of 10 do not, and, with characteristic optimism, people hope that they will be among the nine.
  In talking about cannabis, we must be careful not to confuse what may be a satistical relationship with a causal relationship. The hon. Member for Bolton, West drew attention to the number of people who were cannabis takers or smokers and who had become heroin or hard drug addicts. That is an important piece of information, but he must not read too much into it. It is not true that the one automatically follows from the other, although there is a clear statistical relationship.
  I shall explain what I mean by illustration. If hon. Members were to go to Soho and visit any of the strip shows there—I do not say that they would—they would probably find that the front rows were occupied exclusively, or almost exclusively, by elderly men with bald heads. That is a statistical relationship. To say that there was a causal relationship would be asserting that observing scantily clad chorus girls at close range made one's hair fall out—which is not true.
  I ask the hon. Gentleman, who, I know, spoke with great sincerity, and others who have spoken with equal sincerity, not to make that mistake. I do not say, as some do, that there is no relationship. I say that I do not know At the moment,

  1511
  there is a statistical relationship, but we do not know that it is a causal relationship. However, as a word of warning, I can tell the House that there is a close similarity between the molecular structure of the basic alkaloid in cannabis and the molecular structure of morphine, the main alkaloid in the opiates. That is an important point and it may well be that, after proper study, we shall find that there are real dangers here. At present, we do not know, and the important need is to preserve our credibility. If we go about making statements which the people involved—who, with respect, know a great deal more than we do from a practical point of view—recognise to be manifestly untrue, they will tend to disbelieve us on the things which we clearly do know.
  I say no more about that except that I believe that when the history of drug addiction is written it will be seen that it was methyl amphetamine and the amphetamine drugs generally, and not cannabis, which provided the fatal link between the soft and the hard drug scenes.
  We should now be relating our concern about the misuse of cannabis much more to the drug itself and to the sub-cultural groups in which it is used than to its alleged role as a step towards heroin addiction. If we make too many assumptions now and make statements which are known by teenagers and young people, from their own experience, to be untrue, we shall destroy our credibility on some very important questions.
  I have been conscious, as other hon. Members have, that we have moved a little since we debated this subject in 1967 on the Dangerous Drugs Bill. I recall that at the end of my speech then I said that in passing that Bill we were dealing in the main with symptoms, and I hoped that we should follow on by dealing with the underlying disease. The present Bill, although it has many faults, which I shall wish to discuss in more detail on another occasion, is at least beginning to attack the disease. One cannot ignore that the principal cause of drug addiction is the existence and the availability of drugs of addiction. Anyone who wants to get rid of drug addiction must do something about reducing the number of drugs and
  1512
  reducing their availability. We are beginning to attack the problem in that way.
  If the medical profession should resent some of the steps which are being taken, it only has itself to blame. It is five years since the Brain Committee demonstrated clearly the very close association between over-prescribing of drugs and the development of addiction. Yet, during this five years, the medical profession has done almost nothing effective to cope with the problems of over-prescribing.
  I was interested in a leading article in the British Medical Journal this week. Referring to the hearing by the Disciplinary Committee of the General Medical Council in the case of Dr. Wood, it says:
  "Despite the cases of Drs. Petro and Swann, and despite the fact that Doctor Wood had been named two years ago in an article in the News of the World on doctors over-prescribing hard drugs, Doctor Wood had gone on supplying addicts month after month and the police had been powerless to stop him."
  It is clear that the G.M.C. did not see that it had any great role to pursue. Its president said, according to the article:
  "This Council is not required to act as, if I may so put it, a police authority for the medical profession."
  So I say, with this article in the Journal, that the profession
  "… should not be surprised that the Misuse of Drugs Bill contains provisions giving the Home Secretary power to suspend a doctor's right to prescribe certain classes of drugs."
  But I should have preferred the profession to put its own house in order. I am a little concerned about the extent to which, in various spheres of activity, we keep putting power into the hands of tribunals outside the courts. We are doing it again here. I would rather see the proceedings go through the courts, or, if not, remain in the hands of the profession. I agree again with that article when it says:
  "Only if the profession's own court is seen to function well can it oppose the proliferation of other non-judicial bodies to carry out tasks which are properly its own."
  Mr. T. L. Iremonger: Perhaps I have not followed the hon. Gentleman, but, if he is arguing that he would not like these powers put into the hands of tribunals, but rather going

  1513
  through the courts, would I be wrong in thinking that the provisions of the Bill will enable the Home Secretary ultimately to pursue any offenders in the courts, whereas, if what the hon. Gentleman was advocating prevailed, it would be the General Medical Council, which is exactly the kind of tribunal which he would be doubtful about giving too much power to?
  Dr. Winstanley: I am not sure that I follow that argument. There is room for the courts here, but if we want to deal effectively with the problem of over-prescribing effective steps must be taken by the medical profession. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman accepts this. We must accept that we cannot do away with all the drugs which are potentially addictive. We cannot do away with all the drugs which might have various side effects and dangers. We must accept that, if a drug has powerful therapeutic effects, it is almost certain to have powerful side-effects. One of those side-effects could be its potential for creating addiction.
  Let us remember that we are dealing with a very large and complex field. There are about 5,000 different drugs in normal therapeutic use. Of these, about 1,500 are effectively different therapeutic substances. The other 3,500 are mixtures or different doses in different quantities. Of those 1,500, about 400 are substances acting on the central nervous system. It is these with which we are concerned.
  We are concerned in particular with drugs which fall into three main groups. The first are what I would call the response-reducers, like phenobarbitone—and also alcohol, incidentally, which diminishes the responses. The second I would call the response-enhancers, like amphetamine, for which I believe there is now, on increasing evidence, no real therapeutic necessity. This is a drug which we can get rid of, whereas we could not get rid of the barbiturates without causing great suffering in the therapeutic sphere. The third group are what I would call the experience-exchangers—L.S.D. and so on, the hallucinogens. In this field also, fall the hard drugs like heroin and the opiates.
  Let us remember also that there are roughly two million people in this country
  1514
  dependent on regular medication by a non-specific kind of therapeutic agent. These factors should be calculated. I am not talking about the people with diabetes, who need insulin, or anyone with a chronic disease needing certain kinds of treatment, but about the two million people who appear to be dependent on some form of regular medication—be it phenobarbitone to quieten them down, amphetamines to wake them up or a tonic.
  This does two things. First, it shows the extent of the danger in the amount of drugs circulating. Second, it points to the inadequacy of humanity at present in coping with its environment—or it may point to the inadequacies in the environment, which make it virtually intolerable to large numbers of people. These are things which we must clearly bear in mind. We must remember too—I am glad that we have done this today—to stop looking just at the drugs. We must look beyond their therapeutic action and properties at the nature of the individual who becomes addicted and the nature of his environment. All three things must be considered if we are to do the real job.
  In the long run, while legislation of this kind is necessary and will help by reducing the pool of drugs which are available, the only ultimate security which can be obtained by any of us on behalf of our children is to see to it in some way that they live in a kind of environment which does not subject them to the pressures under which they succumb to these temptations, or, alternatively, to see that they grow up the kind of individuals who can withstand temptations.
  We must think also of the kind of environment in which they live and the influence of the group. We must think of the effects upon teenagers of what becomes necessary and popular and a mode of group behaviour. We must think carefully of what we say about their activities and the possibility of what we say being counter-productive, when doing the opposite becomes almost a demonstration of maturity. No one in this House should go away with the idea that introducing efficient and effective legislation about the availability of drugs and then enforcing it, however vigorously,

  1515
  will answer this problem, because it will not.
  I am naturally concerned about treatment and I am also involved in it. While there may be a marginal rôle for compulsion in certain cases, it would be absolute folly to assume that one can deal with this whole problem by some kind of compulsory treatment. There may be scope among a small number of hard drug addicts, for some element of compulsion at some stage, but compulsion is not the way to deal with the whole problem. In our attitude to treatment, we must begin to be a little more flexible.
  I am particularly concerned about a case brought to me by another hon. Member, the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey), who asked me to deal with the case of a constituent of his. Dr. Eugenie Cheesmond, a psychiarist at the Parkside Hospital, Macclesfield. I have investigated the case along with the hon. Member for Manchester, Exchange (Mr. Will Griffiths). I discovered—I have had letters from many people, including people of great distinction and reliability in university life and so on. showing clearly—that Dr. Cheesmond, by a very interesting and unusual approach, has been able to cure a large number of hard-drug addicts by a scheme of treatment which seems almost revolutionary by taking them into her home, treating them charitably, humanely and with great understanding, but without any form of substitution therapy, with the use of no drugs at all. She did this at Macclesfield and the hospital was about to build her a purpose-built clinic to house those young people. Because of delay in making that purpose-built accommodation available, she took the young people into her house.
  Objections were raised, I understand, by people who did not fully understand what she was doing. It has been suggested that even the police raised objections that a number of young drug addicts were assembled in that way and that this lady was harbouring them. She was treating them, and successfully. As the Minister and other hon. Members know, she was later suspended from duty. There was a disciplinary hearing to decide whether, because of Press reports, she had brought the local hospital into disrepute. In the end she was exonerated
  1516
  of the charge and reinstated in her post. Having been reinstated, however, she has not been allowed to continue her work in treating drug addicts.
  I have a letter from the Joint Under-Secretary of State which ends by saying:
  "I only hope that she may find some opportunity to be of service to drug addicts elsewhere."
  I hope so, too. I hope that the Minister will find a way of enabling this lady, who has done such excellent work in curing drug addicts, to carry on with that work instead of being thwarted by, I believe, professional and, perhaps, other kinds of suspicion merely because her methods were unorthodox.
  I should like to say a word about the reasoned Amendment, which bears my name, concerning tobacco. This is in relation to our credibility. I would never suggest that this House could pass legislation to ban smoking. This House should aim to keep its legislation in accordance with public opinion at the time. We should try to lead public opinion and to establish the right climate. But we cannot ban smoking, at least while we have our present attitude to it. We must start to show that smoking is an extraordinary habit which we have all developed, grown up with and become accustomed to and which we now regard as quite normal. It is that kind of attitude which destroys our credibility in the eyes of young people, who cannot differentiate between smoking tobacco and smoking pot.
  Therefore, by putting down the Amendment, we merely seek to indicate that we in this House are aware that tobacco kills 75,000 people in this country every year, that it is, therefore, on the whole a very undesirable thing to consume and that we hope that presently the public will learn to accept this.
  We are asking for the legislation, which was promised to control advertising, and to control promotional activities like coupons—not to regulate the labelling of packets; that was included in a later Measure by the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro), but certainly I would welcome that, too.
  Of course, we will not vote against the Bill, but I hope that in tabling the reasoned Amendment we have at least drawn attention to the inconsistency of the existing position.

  1517
  When we look at the magnitude of the problem, not simply in this country, but the world over, we have from time to time to pause and begin to wonder whether the human experiment has been an outstanding success. We have to wonder how, in some way, we have created a kind of environment in which more and more people find it almost impossible to exist without some kind of artificial prop or support.
  I believe that we will only solve this immense problem by looking at the basic causes, by looking more clearly at the individual and his environment and at the kind of stresses and strains which exist. I hope that in the meantime, in dealing with the availability of drugs, we will at least continue to look at the whole problem with compassion, humanity and understanding. If we merely look at it as something that we can deal with by means of penal legislation, as certain as night follows day we will fail.
  7.35 p.m.
  Mr. J. T. Price: We are discussing this evening one of the more disturbing manifestations of what is called the permissive society. The right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes), in a most thoughtful speech, which I enjoyed and with most of which I agreed, said that he would not deal with that at this point in time. Surely, however, those of us who are interested as legislators and representatives of people in our constituencies are deeply concerned in this House not only with the technical out-fall, as it were, of drug-taking, but also of the moral consequences which lie behind it.
  In several speeches which I have been privileged to hear by other hon. Members, on both sides, one has been asked not to get hysterical about this. I would be the last person to get hysterical about most things, but I want to be rational about it. If this House means anything at all in the life of the nation, it should be a sounding board for at least a pronouncement on the moral aspects of questions like this.
  At the beginning of this century, the great German philosopher, Spengler, wrote a book called "The Decline of the West", which, no doubt, many of my colleagues have read. He dealt with many of the factors which, in his opinion, were
  1518
  undermining the whole basis of Western civilisation, of which we have been proud since the days of the Renaissance.
  I was considerably influenced by that book because although it was a gloomy and introspective book, it at least proclaimed that once men had lost faith in the old moralities, faith perhaps in conventional religious institutions, faith in conventional leadership, which had been the picture of previous generations, and faith in democratic institutions; when they lost that basic faith and loyalty, some central loyalty to the society in which they lived, either loyalty to their country, to their Church, if they were religious-minded people, or even to their party if they had political views; once the basis of their central loyalty to something collapsed, the basis of authority on which rested any moral behaviour also collapsed. Speaking from memory, that is a fair summary, as roughly as I can put it, of those ideas.
  Probably Spengler never anticipated that 50 years later the world would he facing another manifestation of the decline of Western civilisation—the resort to drugs—which one does not wish to magnify or exaggerate. It is not so bad, perhaps, in Western Europe as it is in the North American continent, judging by what we read and the sources available to us. Nevertheless, it is a very disturbing phenomenon.
  In my opinion, if I dare to say something undogmatic and, perhaps, exploratory as my own outlook on these matters, that phenomenon is at least a symptom of the fact that large numbers of young people in particular, who are likely to be the worst victims of drug addiction if they take to it early in life and ruin their lives—it may be a symptom that the kind of society that we have created for ourselves, the technological society with speed, wealth and affluence even and in which we have all wished to increase the standard of living and wish to increase it still further; if we have created a society which provides no ultimate satisfactions to mankind in terms of security for the future, where mankind is exposed to the constant threat of extermination by all the diabolical weapons of mass destruction which the world has invented in the atomic age, this would instil in mankind, particularly in the young, who are mostly intelligent and think deeply

  1519
  of these things, for which we do not give them enough credit, the thought that we have little future in this sort of world, in this kind of rat race, which offers rich prizes to those who are lucky in the rat race, and perhaps, an all-pervading anonymity on those who are not so successful, the sort of society in which life does not hold any real values of worth-while moral objectives for those who happen to have been born in the present generation. May not this background account for this atavistic, nihilistic behaviour?
  I apologise for developing this theme for longer than I had intended, but I believe that this lies at the root of the evil. I believe that young people, particularly in the universities, are finding a certain environment where the avant-garde is more likely to be found than in the more humble walks of life.
  Mr. Ogden: There is more avant-garde in Wigan and Westhoughton than in any university.
  Mr. Price: It depends what is meant by the avant-garde. I do not wish to be too derogatory and I am using the term avant-garde instead of referring to, say, Hampstead—I do not want to localise it too closely.
  Mr. Speaker: I hope that the hon. Member will now come to the Bill.
  Mr. Price: I have been addressing the House for less than five minutes, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that many hon. Members wish to speak, and I am merely briefly outlining what I regard as the background to this Second Reading.
  I hope that hon. Members will join me in giving every support to the Home Secretary to maintain some kind of legislative control over the kind of drug addiction which is becoming such a social evil in this country. But while we do everything legislatively to alleviate the difficulties and to arrest the progress of those young people who are on the downward path, I do not delude myself with the belief that people can be made virtuous by legislation. We have our differences across the Floor of the House about many subjects, although not about this, but we all agree that we cannot legislate for virtue.
  1520
  The onward march of mankind to a higher concept of what life is about, the life of beauty, truth and goodness of which Plato spoke more than 2,000 years ago, the objectives which inspired the early Socialists and other radical thinkers are not for those who take drugs. Those who need confirmation of what happens to drug addicts need only read a book famous in English letters and written 100 years ago by Thomas De Quincey—"The Opium Eaters". It was written in my native Lancashire, in Greenheys just behind what is now Manchester University. It shows the disintegration of a human being, of a human personality, as a result of the impact of hard drug taking—opiates in those days before anybody had thought of pot. Anybody who now thinks of taking pot should read that book.
  The hon. Member for Cheadle (Dr. Winstanley) is now the only hon. Member present who is a practising member of the British Medical Association. He has reminded us of the new drugs which have been invented and which are now filling the chests of thousands of doctors throughout the country. We have been reminded by the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) of the startling fact that the number of barbiturates legitimately dispensed by doctors all over the country runs into 25 million to 26 million a year—I included the other figures which he mentioned. This is to meet the administrative convenience of doctors who do not want to prescribe too frequently, but who over-prescribe every day of the week. It is this reservoir of over-prescribing which forms much the basis on which much of the drug traffic rests.
  I am advised that the so-called soft drugs, cannabis, pot, or marijuana, have no therapeutic use in medicine. They are clearly being imported in large quantities by all kinds of devices—concealed in motor cars or in the holds of ships. We require our Customs officers to take resolute action to prevent the smuggling of drugs, the most venal dirty traffic in the world and only partially controlled by the International Drug Control Commission which has operated from Geneva for at least 40 years.
  Now we have a great rash of the traffic all over the world because of the fantastic rewards to be gained by the awful

  1521
  people who sell the stuff in all the ports of Europe. Some hon. Members are a little soft-hearted. An example is the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) who has now left the Chamber. He imagines that it is possible to sustain the libertarian argument, that if people are prosecuted under the existing law or under the strengthened law of the Bill, we interfere with human liberty. I completely reject that thesis. I am as staunch a supporter of human liberty as any hon. Member here, but I distinguish clearly between the abstract ethical argument about human liberty and the bogus libertarian argument which is often foisted upon us in defence of things that cannot be defended.
  I welcome what the Home Secretary is doing in the Bill, limited though it is. I wish him every success in his effort and I hope that he will not weaken in face of the kind of avant-garde representations which may be put to him by the Wootton Committee or anybody else.
  7.47 p.m.
  Mr. Antony Buck: The hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) feels very deeply about this subject, as do all hon. Members. There are many things that disturb me, many social problems confronting the country which disturb me. We are all disturbed by the great increase in organised crime, by the increased violence at political or quasi-political demonstrations, by the increasing signs that freedom of speech, even at universities, is interfered with by a minority. All these social problems concern us all deeply.
  But the social problem which causes me a genuine and chilling fear is the increase of drug addiction. Cold fear is struck into my heart when I see what is happening. What is needed is not a raising of the temperature, but a deepening of concern. All the resources of the State, of the medical profession, the teachers and others, must be mobilised to tackle the problem.
  I do not think that I shall be accused of using exaggerated language, especially in view of the situation in America. A plethora of material about the American situation is available. Some facets have already been mentioned. When I was doing some research for my speech. I was struck by certain facts. For example, in New York alone on average three
  1522
  heroin addicts die every day—one of them a teenager. According to Dr. Dupont, head of the Narcotics Treatment Agency, there are in Washington alone no fewer than 15,000 heroin addicts, of whom at least half are juveniles. In a recent survey conducted in a Washington prison, no less than 45 per cent. of those coming in were found to be heroin addicts, and their average age was 19. It is estimated that half of what we would call indictable crime in New York has a connection with drugs. Those are very alarming figures. We must strive to see that the same sort of situation does not occur here.
  Even more worrying than the bare statistics I have just mentioned are the facts given in a recent article in The Times, entitled,
  "The Teenage Heroin Epidemic That Has Alarmed the United States".
  It said that teachers in the United States are
  "frightened of the addict and terrified of the pusher".
  One teacher was quoted as saying,
  "You don't tangle with a suspected pusher. It is dangerously big business."
  That is a terrifying situation. I was marginally reassured, but no more, by what the Home Secretary said about the absence of Mafia-type influence in the whole drug set-up in this country. This does not mean that we must for a moment relax our vigilance over the possibility of a Mafia-type control of the whole ghastly drug trade. The situation in America must not be allowed to develop here.
  The increased penalties in the Bill for trafficking in drugs do not make any substantial contribution to combatting the problem, save to mark society's determination to see that those convicted of the murderous offence of pushing hard drugs will meet condign punishment when they are caught. Even this will have very limited effect if steps are not taken at the same time to strengthen the police, and particularly the Drug Squad. I hope that we shall hear something at later stages of the Bill about such steps.
  I think that most hon. Members agree that the Bill is right to divide the drugs involved into three categories and provide differing punishments for offences relating to each. However, I remain very surprised and disappointed that it has still been thought right to exclude the barbiturates from the categories set out

  1523
  in the Schedules. I recognise that they have a very wide and valuable medical use, but why should it not be perfectly appropriate to make it an offence to deal in them outside the legitimate medical framework, and perhaps to be in possession of them if they have not been properly prescribed?
  The Home Secretary said that it was only recently that the problem of the barbiturates had been brought to his attention. I find that very surprising. In the very valuable Penguin Special on drugs by Mr. Peter Laurie there is a reference to an editorial in the Lancet in 1954, which said that the barbiturates were
  "true drugs of addiction"
  causing a risk that was
  "the least appreciated and most sinister"
  It is surprising and disappointing that the Home Secretary should only have heard of these difficulties only recently. I realise that there have been additional complications to the matter, and that it is made more desperately urgent because of the use of these drugs by injection rather than in other ways. But the problem has been with us for a long time and in his book, published in 1967, Peter Laurie points out that in many ways addiction to barbiturates is more pernicious than heroin.
  Mr. Ogden: The hon. Gentleman criticises my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for not taking action sooner, but as he made his criticism so strongly I am entitled to ask him why a succession of Conservative Home Secretaries did not take action between 1954 and 1964. That is a much longer period than that for which my right hon. Friend has had responsibility for the matter.
  Mr. Buck: The hon. Gentleman may well be right. I do not say that everything done by a past Home Secretary was absolutely right. It might well have been appropriate to act way back then. I am making no party point, though if I were seeking to do so I could make it more strongly against the present Home Secretary than Home Secretaries some years ago before the problem was so great. I was expressing my disappointment that it has not been thought proper to include barbiturates in the provisions of the Bill. Even if I am wrong about that, it is legitimate criticism of the present Home
  1524
  Secretary, and possibly past Home Secretaries, that it was not thought appropriate to refer the matter to a committee of the Wootton type.
  We had the original report on cannabis a little while ago. Since then we have had a report on amphetamines and L.S.D. Why has not the problem of barbiturates, which advisers in the Home Office must have known was increasing, been referred to a committee, especially as it is a particularly pernicious form of addiction?
  The effects of addiction to barbiturates are horrific. The withdrawal symptoms are even more "catastrophic"—the word Mr. Laurie uses—than the symptoms of withdrawal from heroin. Mr. Laurie describes withdrawal as follows:
  "During the first sixteen hours the patient appears to improve, becomes more coherent and behaves better. Then he becomes apprehensive and progressively weaker so that he can hardly stand; his hands and face begin to shake, and if his forehead is tapped above the bridge of the nose, his eyelids flutter uncontrollably …"
  After the next stage psychoses begin. The patient may see
  "little people, giants, absent relatives, animals, insects, birds, snakes, fish and so on;"
  The withdrawal symptoms of those being weaned from this type of addiction certainly sound quite as horrific as those in the case of heroin, if not more so.
  Taking barbiturates is the most popular form of attempting suicide, and it is second to coal gas as the most successful form. So in Committee I hope that we shall hear a lot more about why it has not been thought appropriate to deal with barbiturates and also why it was decided not to refer the matter much earlier to close investigation. I am disappointed that the Bill does not deal with this aspect. One of the earlier committees on this problem estimated that enough of the drug was distributed each year to provide 20 tablets per head for the population. There is wide distribution and a bad addiction.
  I approve of the idea of division into various categories of drugs. Similarly, I am in sympathy with the division of offences into trafficking and possession. But the House should not delude itself into thinking that this change will have a very marked effect. In dealing wth possession of drugs up to now, the courts have

  1525
  taken into consideration such a distinction. Sentencing has been very much on that sort of basis. A person who has only had a small quantity of, say, cannabis on him has rarely gone to prison, whereas a person with a large quantity on him—enough, say, to make 500 reefer cigarettes—has generally received a substantial sentence because the judge will have investigated whether trafficking has been going on. The sentence will have been on the basis of trafficking if the person has been found with a substantial quantity on him. Even given substantial terms of imprisonment, however, I do not think that the categorisation in the Bill will make much difference, and in Committee we shall want to study closely the wording of these provisions because of certain difficulties which could arise and which might even assist the trafficker in drugs. In principle, however, to emphasise the difference between mere possession and trafficking is right.
  Another aspect which disappoints me a little is that we have heard so little about what it is proposed to do about the appropriate provisions dealing with research. It is disappointing to find that the Preamble to the Bill states that it is proposed, at least ab initio, to spend only about £10,000 on research. The whole theme of the debate, perhaps more than any other, has been emphasis towards the need for additional research and knowledge. When one discovers that only about £10,000 is to be spent on research, one wonders whether even now great urgency is being shown by the Government towards the problem, which is, or is likely to be, of awful dimensions if we do not take considerable steps of a fundamental character to tackle it so that we can prevent arising in this country the terrible situation which exists in the United States.
  8.3 p.m.
  Mrs. Renée Short: I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on his speech. It was very humane. He took a broad and sympathetic view of a serious problem, and throughout the debate, from both sides, great concern and compassion have been shown for those who become hooked on drugs, hard or soft.
  The hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) spoke with some knowledge of the
  1526
  position in the United States. Fortunately, our situation is not as serious as that. Nevertheless, one does not wish to become complacent. On the other hand, one does not want to panic, either. One has to steer a difficult course between the two extremes. In the United States, as the hon. Gentleman said, drug trafficking has reached a highly lucrative situation, particularly in some of the large cities. What horrifies me absolutely is the addiction among school children in the United States. For example, it has been stated that from five to 100 children in every New York high school are on heroin—this is apart from those on other kinds of drugs—and that 224 teenagers die each year from heroin in New York. That is an appalling situation and we cannot be complacent about what happens here. It is becoming one of our most disturbing social problems and is growing considerably.
  I have taken a considerable interest in the problem of drug addiction since 1965. In August, 1966, I raised the matter on an Adjournment debate, and have been looking up the figures I quoted then. The number of addicts known to the Home Office in 1959 was 454; the figure for 1965 was 927—roughly double. The 1970 figure is likely to be 2,782 registered addicts and this means that there has been a threefold increase since 1965, which is a very much more rapid rate of increase than formerly. What is even more horrifying is that there are likely to be 764 addicts under the age of 20—a fivefold increase over the 1965 figure. Of this number, 709 are on heroin. This is a measure of the seriousness of the rate of increase of this appalling social problem. That is what concerns me most of all.
  I know that hon. Members are concerned about smoking and alcohol addiction, but drug addiction is something which affects young people. Three of the things that one can say about drug addicts in Britain are that practically all of them are white, that all of them are British-born and that all of them are under 25. One can say those things with certainty. Most of the alcohol addicts are middle-
  aged or elderly. [An HON. MEMBER: "Careful."] I had better not say anything about hon. Members. I am not so much concerned about middle-aged men as I am about young people, school

  1527
  children, who are hooked on hard drugs. I know that this causes my right hon. Friend as much concern as it causes me.
  I support the increased powers which my right hon. Friend proposes. One of the most important aspects is that which deals with over-prescribing by doctors. There are two sources of supply of drugs for the black market, apart from the traffickers who bring drugs into the country—these are over-prescribing by doctors and burglary or breaking into chemists' and manufacturers' premises.
  My right hon. Friend has had a great deal of patience with the medical profession and I support entirely in the measures he now feels it necessary to take. The hon. Member for Cheadle (Dr. Winstanley), the only doctor who has spoken in the debate, when he quoted from a professional article, told the House what the position is. He said that it is up to the medical profession to put its house in order. But it has shown a singular lack of interest and alacrity in taking steps to deal with the problem, and my right hon. Friend is entirely justified in what he proposes to do about it. In view of the Swann and Petro cases, it is abominable that other members of an honoured and honourable profession should follow this dreadful path and should not have ceased over-prescribing, which has supplied enormous quantities of hard and soft drugs to the black market. No one will quarrel with what my right hon. Friend proposes to do about doctors who over-prescribe.
  I also support what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary wants to do to ensure that the safeguards are not used unwisely or irresponsibly. Although one worries about the plethora of advisory committees and tribunals of all kinds which are constituted, we should support the committee which he proposes to set up, because it will provide a safeguard against the unwise use of the Bill.
  Another point concerns the security of premises. I raised this matter five years ago and I was assured that regulations were being drawn up to cover this problem. Whenever one reads the annual reports of chief constables, one finds that a considerable number of cases of breaking and entering chemists' shops, for example, are brought to light. The Chief Constable for the West Midlands reported
  1528
  that last year there were 13 such cases and that in the main the drugs which are stolen are amphetamines. This indicates that the link with the young person who dillies and dallies with drugs—first as an experimental kick and then going on to hard drugs—is stolen amphetamines. This is a lucrative source of supply. I am pleased to say that in the West Midlands last year 12 cases were detected and action was taken.
  I support up to the hilt the increased penalties which my right hon. Friend proposes for the pushers of drugs. No only increased fines but tough prison sentences should be the lot of people who are caught putting other people on drugs. This is a most dreadful and heinous thing to do, particularly with children at school. There are undoubtedly pushers who are supplying drugs to school children. They are not necessarily other young people or school children. It will be difficult for my right hon. Friend to identify people who are doing the pushing and for whom prison sentences are necessary and indeed essential.
  I support hon. Members on both sides of the House who have spoken about the rather curious omission of barbiturates from the Schedule to the Bill. The right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) mentioned the enormous number of prescriptions for barbiturates. I understand that about 17 million prescriptions for barbiturates, are dispensed every year and that is about 7 per cent. of all National Health Service prescriptions. About 3,000 people die in this country every year from drug poisoning, and 2,000 of them die from barbiturate poisoning.
  I should have thought that it was fairly well proved that there is a good deal of knowledge about barbiturates and that it is not a new problem. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that what is new is the latest development of mainlining barbiturates which have been dissolved in water or boiled milk and which are often used with heroin mainlining, which is absolutely horrifying. The over-prescribing and over-consumption of and death from barbiturates are known factors, and they put a considerable burden on the National Health Service, because about 2 per cent. of all the people admitted to hospital each year are admitted for barbiturate poisoning. I hope that my right hon. Friend will act

  1529
  quickly in putting babiturates in the Schedule.
  I understand that one of the most horrifying experiences of doctors and nurses in hospital casualty departments occurs when patients are brought in suffering from the enhanced and potentiated effect of barbiturates used with heroin and other drugs. It is difficult to deal with these cases. It is clear that there are the same sources of supply of drugs under this heading as of other hard drugs. They are obtained only by doctor's prescription or by breaking into the premises where they are stored, and I do not exclude hospital pharmacies from that. A considerable responsibility rests on the medical profession, and my right hon. Friend is reinforced in the action which he has taken.
  What I do not understand in connection with the over-prescribing of drugs is why my right hon. Friend did not act on the proposal of the chemists' organisation, the Pharmaceutical Society, which, I understand, recommended to him that a central record should be kept of all prescriptions for drugs liable to misuse. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State would say why my right hon. Friend rejected that advice by experts who know all that there is to know about the handling and mishandling of drugs. After all, this body represents most of the pharmacist—about 30,000 of them—who have to deal with the hazards of their profession and job vis-à-vis those who are out to get drugs illegally and who are closely concerned with the way in which the medical profession is using and misusing drugs. They see the prescription forms. Such a record would be kept of doctors working under the National Health Service and doctors prescribing privately where there is obviously an enormous amount of over-prescribing. I therefore ask my right hon. Friend to give thought to this matter.
  In the area with which I am particularly concerned, the West Midlands, most of the arrests for the possession of drugs brought to the notice of the police in 1969 concerned cannabis. There were 98 arrests, compared with 67 arrests in 1968. Of those, 83 were for unlawfully possessing cannabis and only two for supplying it. It appears that the use of cannabis in the West Midlands,
  1530
  as in the London area, is increasing, although I do not say that my right hon. Friend should have gone further in removing the use of cannabis from all control. There is much that one does not know about the effect of cannabis on areas of the brain and on the deterioration of the personality. A great deal more research is needed into the effect of cannabis, as indeed more research is needed on many other drugs.
  I am concerned about the way in which we treat young people who are found in possession of hard and soft drugs. Three years ago my Sub-Committee of the Estimates Committee did an extensive investigation into prisons, borstals and detention centres, and two years ago our report was debate in the House. During the investigation we visited many prisons, borstals and detention centres in England and Scotland. It was brought home most powerfully to us that prison is not the place in which to put drug addicts, and that detention centres are not places to which to send young people who are arrested for the possession of drugs. The people who take drugs are, almost without exception, all highly disturbed people. They are not normal people, otherwise they would not take drugs. I cannot emphasise too strongly that highly disturbed youngsters should not be sent to detention centres, and I hope that the advice which has been given to my right hon. Friend by the Advisory Committee will not be followed.
  Boys who are admitted to Borstal for various offences need much more diagnosis. As has been said, in Hong Kong even youngsters who are charged with stealing bicycles are automatically tested for drugs. This has been done here in a pilot scheme, and it was found that as many as 30 per cent, of a borstal intake had experience of drugs. This shows that young people brought into borstals should automatically have a urine test to find out whether they have been on drugs.
  Once it is shown that there is a history of drug addiction, the next thing is treatment. To prison system is not able to treat addicts who go into prison or borstals, or women going into Holloway. There are not enough psychiatrists to give the constant care and attention which drug addicts need for any kind of treatment. There are not enough doctors

  1531
  in the prison medical service. After discharge from prison, there are not enough probation officers and after-care facilities. Above all, there are not enough hostels in which young people who have had cures effected within the prison system can have continuation of care, treatment and supervision before finally going back into ordinary life. On discharge from prison or borstal people often go back to the place where they were previously able to get their supplies of drugs, so that the treatment carried out within the prison system is a waste of time and scarce, skilled, trained staff.
  There is an enormous need for much more preventive and curative work to be done within the prison system, but this means spending much more money. My right hon. Friend may not be very popular if he asks the House for money for prisons and prisoners. Some people would regard that as a wicked waste of money, when there are so many other causes on which the money could be spent. But we are concerned with rescuing the young from drug addiction, and most reasonable and sensible people feel that this is money which should be spent and which would be well spent.
  We do not have enough establishments like Feltham. The doctors working there are enthusiastic and dedicated, but they are also frustrated. Of more than 300 boys who needed psychiatric guidance and supervision, it was possible to provide only for less than one-third of them and they were unable even to give sufficient guidance to that one-third. We need to take a complete new look at the way the medical service is deployed within the prison system as a whole, the psychiatrists, the medical psychologists and the social workers, to see whether we are using the limited resources we have to the best effect in the right area.
  My right hon. Friend should be courageous about asking for money for his service. He should attempt to be generous in helping voluntary organisations which have set up hospitals and advisory centres like the very good addiction advisory service, the Association for Prevention of Addiction, that is providing help and guidance to many young people and their parents who go in need of it. If we can provide more hostels
  1532
  under skilled direction, this is one way of helping to rescue young people who are not in a position to get that sort of help today.
  Therefore, I support what my hon. Friend said in his speech and support the Bill, with the reservations that I have made. If I have the opportunity to sit on the Committee that considers the Bill there are one or two areas in which I should like to see Amendments made, but certainly the Bill will provide great help to many young people in need of it.
  8.30 p.m.
  Mr. T. L. Iremonger: The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renée Short) was brave to examine the possible repercussions of this Bill on the penal system. I had not intended to dwell on that aspect. I want to suggest that the House should look at the Bill from two points of view and it would be fair to mention first the one on which, it would seem to me, the verdict of the House would be most complementary.
  The Bill is timely and valuable in one particular respect. I am sure that the Mafia is moving in. I thought that the Home Secretary was over-complacent about that, though I hope that I am being over-pessimistic. But the Mafia is being harried in the United States and is looking for new fields. It has had a setback in its plans for profiting from the gambling industry in this country and is ready and waiting to switch to the drug traffic. Therefore, the Bill, in making penalties more severe, is helpful and good. But it is no use just writing penalties into Bills. Everything will depend on the police and the way in which the provisions of the Bill are enforced and the degree to which it is possible for the police to develop the special kinds of skill and experience necessary to deal with the kind of people who are behind the big international drug traffic. I hope the Bill will be fully exploited by the police in that respect.
  Apart from that aspect, the Bill—and I do not mean this unkindly to the Home Secretary—is comparatively useless and irrelevant. It is as useless as applying face powder to the pustules in a case of smallpox. It is purely cosmetic, purely negative and useless in comparison with the only kind of treatment which will

  1533
  cure the underlying ill which is the occasion of this Bill, and that is vaccinatory treatment. That is a much deeper process than any purely penal matter can possibly be. It is that metaphor involving the difference between cosmetics and vaccine which is at the heart of the whole secret of success or failure of this House and any Government in influencing the health of society.
  What we are concerned with in the Bill—and we are only touching the outer fringe of it—is the greatest single social and moral change that has ever affected any civilised society. The phenomenon of the pot and drug cult will affect the future of every single person under the age of 25, more than any other single factor that has ever affected any generation in history. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) was right in saying that this Bill, and the problem which gives rise to it, is essentially about young children and their future.
  In trying to form a proper judgment on the Bill and how far it can help us, there are three things to consider. We need to know more. We are desperately ignorant about this whole subject. We need to be more vigilant. And we need to be more effective, in a way in which the Bill cannot possibly presume to claim to be effective.
  We need to know more about the long-term psychological effects of cannabis and the degree to which it affects different people, bearing in mind that it affects people in different ways in different circumstances. We need to know more about the state of mind, the attitude and the psychic difficulties of those to whom the pot cult is a new way, a new hope of assuaging their suicidal despair.
  The Journal of Social Psychiatry, in its autumn, 1968, edition had an extremely penetrating and well-informed article on the motives which made young people take to pot. We need to know more of the kind of reality which that article was exploring.
  We need to know to what extent drugs, and what drugs, are truly different in kind from the age-old narcotics with which mankind has always sought to palliate his neuroses and psychoses. My right hon. Friend was very wise when he said that, unless the whole attitude of the Legislature and the Government to drugs
  1534
  in general and pot in particular can be made credible, we can only discredit the House and the whole of society in the attitude that we take to them.
  We need to know more. The only crime is indifference. Prejudice is greatly preferable to indifference, better than nothing. We have plenty of prejudice. My own prejudice is that cannabis leads to heroin. I think that even the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Peter M. Jackson) will allow me that prejudice.
  Mr. Peter M. Jackson: The hon. Gentleman may indeed claim that prejudice. I go further and say that it was my own until I looked at the evidence.
  Mr. Iremonger: One may find that one's prejudice is mistaken. But we do not know and, until we know, we are not really able to cope with the underlying difficulty that this Bill faces.
  The only possible basis on which we can legislate is that of knowledge conscientiously gained and dispassionately assessed. We do not have that knowledge. I hope that in one respect, as I will indicate a little later, the Bill will be positively helpful to us in our efforts to know a little more.
  I say that we must be more vigilant. My right hon. Friend said that we must know more about what is happening in schools and youth clubs. He then implied that, to a large extent, we do not want to know. At the moment, I am engaged in an exercise in connection with the Bill which exemplifies the dangerous kind of complacency which prevails. I am sending a circular letter to the heads of all the secondary schools in my constituency, to the leaders of all the youth organisations and to other appropriate people, such as the head of the technical college, the president of the students' union and so on, asking for comments on both the background and the details of the Bill. I am hoping to gather those comments not only from those to whom I have addressed the circular but also, if it is possible to ascertain them, from the staff and pupils in the schools.
  The origin of my attempt to make this contact is a talk which I gave only a short time ago to a first-class youth organisation in my constituency at a meeting attended by about 30 young

  1535
  people of the Voluntary Service Overseas type, in the course of which I opened my mind to them and tried to gain their reactions to matters of common concern.
  They were aggressively confident that Parliament was irrelevant to the problems of the day and that they were not consulted in matters which had a direct bearing on them. I said, "Let us consider how far Parliament is irrelevant to the situation of people under 25". I mentioned abortion, divorce and drugs, three subjects absolutely at the centre of the life, individually and collectively, of the generation coming to maturity now.
  They conceded that the matter of drugs was important. I said, "This is as much your responsibility as mine. What do you think about it?" I am, therefore, trying to gain, from the people most directly concerned in my constituency, knowledge of their reaction to the proposals in the Bill. My initiative has so far had a somewhat mixed reception. To some extent it has been welcomed, but I hope that it will be welcomed generally.
  Doubts have been expressed whether this is a good thing to do. Some say, "There is no problem of drugs among the youth of Ilford. We need not be concerned about this. It is a pity to put ideas into people's minds. Let us keep the party clean". I thought this confidence touching, but I fear that it is the confidence of the ostrich.
  This complacency, particularly by some parents, is widespread and can become dangerous. The beginning of the vigilance in this matter is to invite active participation—I think that is the fashionable word—in assessing and solving the problem from the generation most directly affected by it with most experience of it. That is the first prerequisite of success.
  Concern of this kind by hon. Members will not always be welcomed. Indeed, it may be resented. I suggested to the head of a school that I should discuss merely constitutional problems with senior pupils. I was told that my visit would be unwelcome and that, when the presence of a "politician" was required, I would be informed. Hon. Members
  1536
  are used to being insulted by experts and that sort of thing does not cause us personal distress. It indicates, however, that attempts to establish contact with those most affected by the problems which the Bill is designed to cope with will not always we well received. In that respect the Bill cannot help, though the Home Secretary cannot be blamed for that.
  What are we to do? How are we to be effective, and to what extent can the Bill help us with the fundamental difficulties? My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell) put his finger on it when he used the dread word "education". Most problems usually result in those who are trying to solve them using that word. It is sometimes a facile recipe. Indeed, I have come to the conclusion that nobody can be educated. I am profoundly convinced, however, that people can, and frequently do, educate themselves. It is possible to give some slight encouragement to people to educate themselves; and in the end they will be educated, so we need not put too fine a point upon it.
  In this respect, Clause 32 is most seminal, hopeful and constructive. This is the Clause which will allow for research. The proper vaccine, as opposed to cosmetic, approach consists in education, but I have little confidence that we have any idea of how such education should be achieved, and we need research to find out. I hope that one of the first objectives of the research and experiment to be conducted will be to evolve a technique of education which will help to solve the problem which has caused this phenomenon of the pot cult. How are people educated so as to form values, standards and inner convictions.
  I am not, myself, by any means certain how to educate people in this respect. But I am absolutely certain how not to educate them, with any hope of success, in this respect. The way not to do it is for an authority figure to go down and say, "Do not take pot. Do not go on the needle". The result of that sort of technique will be that those who are not going to take pot or go on the needle will not do so, and those who might do so certainly will.
  There probably has to be a more subtle, more Socratic, more therapeutic community type of approach. It would

  1537
  not be appropriate to elaborate such concepts on Second Reading. I hope that the Home Secretary will examine possible methods, that the Secretary of State for Education and Science will concern himself with it too, and that this will be made the proper concern of the teacher training colleges. I should like to hope that the Select Committee, or at any rate its Sub-Committee on Teacher Training, will concern itself about it and make submissions to the House as to how the most effective educational process to save people from the pot way can be evolved and imparted to teachers under training.
  Here the Bill can help, for this surely should be a prime function, under Clause 32, of the Advisory Council to be set up under Clause 1. The Home Secretary said that one of the functions of the Advisory Council would be to concern itself with education. I hope that this is the kind of education, the kind of concept it will develop and the kind of difficulty it will try to assess and solve.
  That search for education to help the lost to find themselves is the only creative, constructive and radical approach to the problem of the pot society and the mystery of the sick yearning of the soul of which it surely must be a symptom.
  Penalties in that sort of context—in that sort of perspective—are obviously only tinkering and trifling with the problem. We need only consider the experience of the United States. I was in the United States looking at American prisons, both in the States and federally, in 1965. The prisons there were full of drug offenders. I always reckon that what prevails in the United States will prevail here in anything from five to 15 years. One could see what was coming here. Now the drug problem is an all-pervading cancer in the United States; and there is no lack of laws and no lack of penalties there.
  Therefore, though the penalties may be of some use if they can be enforced against professional peddlers, I do not think that they will go to the root of the problem of the disease. It is to the Bill's credit that Clauses 1 and 32 provide for experiment and research. It will be the duty of the House to be vigilant and zealous in ensuring that these opportunities are fully exploited.
  8.49 p.m.
  Mr. Peter M. Jackson (The High Peak): I congratulate the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Iremonger) on his initiative in mailing copies of the Bill to headmasters, youth club leaders, and other people who are in contact with the younger generation. I like to think that other hon. Members will take a similar initiative in respect of what is undoubtedly a generational problem. In conversation, I find the permissive attitude to drugs which, in a sense, I do not share, is generational.
  With my congratulations of the hon. Member I would couple a criticism of the Bill. It was published only on 11th March, so we have had a surprisingly short period of time in which to study it. I hope therefore that the Committee stage will be delayed in order to give the many interested parties an opportunity to study the terms of the Bill.
  The Motion standing in my name and the names of other hon. Members draws attention to another scourge which I feel to be of far greater importance than that with which the Bill seeks to deal. I refer to tobacco smoking, with which I link alcoholism. It is outrageous that a form of drug addition, and that is how I regard tobacco smoking, which kills annually, according to the estimate of Sir George Godber, some 75,000 people, should not be dealt with more seriously by this Government.
  I know that many hon. Members have said that we cannot legislate against smoking—I am realistic about that—but we can take steps to prevent people from starting the habit. I very much welcomed the initiative that was taken by the then Minister of Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson), in his discussions with the tobacco industry, when he sought a voluntary agreement to restrict the level of tobacco advertising and other promotional activities. I also welcomed the decision taken by the Government in 1965 to ban the television advertising of cigarettes.
  That being my attitude, I was glad to see the reply given to my hon. Friend who is now Joint Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security on 23rd October, 1967—and I underline

  1539
  that date. The then Minister of Health stated:
  "After more than a year of negotiations, it is now clear that no further progress is possible by voluntary agreement. As hon. Members know, cigarette smoking is a serious danger to health and a major cause of preventable deaths. In view of this, the Government have decided to introduce legislation in due course to take powers to ban coupon gift schemes in relation to cigarettes, to control or ban other promotional schemes, to forbid or limit certain forms of cigarette advertising, and to limit expenditure on advertising of cigarettes".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd October, 1967; Vol. 751, c. 1328/]
  Since then several Parliamentary Questions have been put down to ask what progress is being made in this respect. The last Question on the subject was replied to on 3rd November, 1969, when the Minister responsible said that he had no intention of introducing legislation during the current Session.
  I regard that reply as outrageous. Any Government should get its priorities right, and this is a matter which should be given a high priority. In conversations with Ministers responsible, the argument put forward has been that there is just a plain lack of parliamentary time. The necessary Bill is already drafted, and I am informed that if any hon. Member wished to have it as a Private Members Bill he would get Government assistance. The Government are not prepared to give time for a Measure to deal with a form of addiction that could have very considerable consequences on the health and well-being of the nation, whereas they are prepared to give parliamentary time for this present Measure, necessary though it may be. It is proper to have on record the concern felt by many hon. Members that the Government have not given proper priority to this Measure.
  I want briefly to deal with the question of cannabis. My hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) has stated the argument clearly. Like him, when I first thought about it I had a feeling of black horror. I could not understand the taking of drugs, particularly intravenously. I found it completely repellent. I regard any form of escapism as something to abominate—be it through alcohol or smoking.
  I was extremely critical of those who approached me with a request to sign the advertisement which appeared in
  1540
  The Times on 24th July, 1967, which, among other things, called for the smoking of cannabis on private premises. Having looked at the Wootton Report and read other pieces of research on the problem I am not sure—I ask the House to note that I am not sure—I would come to the same conclusion to which I came when I was approached and asked to sign that advertisement.
  I hope that hon. Members will make up their minds on the evidence. It is, therefore, proper to look at the evidence.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Oakes) quoted the opinion of a drug administrator in New York. I should like to counter that by drawing attention to what I understand is a major study that was undertaken in the United States in 1944. Talking of cannabis, it concludes:
  "It was not a significant addiction-producer itself, nor a serious channel to other addictions."
  This view is endorsed by work undertaken in this country, which is quoted in the Wootton Report, by Mr. Bender in his paper on drug addiction in adolescence. He writes that cannabis
  "only occasionally is followed by heroin usage, probably in those who would become heroin addicts as readily without marijuana."
  I gather that the effects of these two drugs are very different—the former is hallucinogenic and euphoriant, whereas heroin is a depressant.
  If my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) were here, I would draw his attention to the research which has been undertaken, which I know has influenced his attitude to the smoking of cannabis, in which there does not appear to be evidence to suggest that the addiction or the practice—I gather there is no such thing as marijuana addiction—does not escalate. If there was the causal relationship which my hon. Friend asserted, one would find a more even distribution of registered heroin addicts. I am sure that the Home Secretary will confirm that three-quarters of the registered heroin addicts on the Home Office list live in London. No one would assert that three-quarters of those who consume cannabis live in London. Therefore, that figure is significant.
  Similarly, one would not expect to find that under 3 per cent. of those on the Home Office list originate from Pakistan

  1541
  or the West Indies, because the smoking of pot in those countries is institutionalised. The practice of pot smoking is more common among the immigrant groups from Pakistan and the West Indies than the figure would appear to indicate. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the Wootton Committee, in paragraph 51, concluded:
  "It can clearly be argued on the world picture that cannabis use does not lead to heroin addiction."
  There are other passages, which have not been quoted today, to which I think I should draw attention. First, paragraph 29:
  "Having reviewed all the material available to us we find ourselves in agreement with the conclusion reached by the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission appointed by the Government of India (1893–1894) and the New York Mayor's Committee on Marihuana (1944), that the long-term consumption of cannabis in moderate doses has no harmful effects."
  It concludes in paragraph 32:
  "There is no evidence that in Western society serious physical dangers are directly associated with the smoking of cannabis."
  Mr. Ogden: My hon. Friend makes the point that the long-term moderate use does not cause any danger. But if he goes back to his Motion on the Order Paper, would he agree that the long-term moderate use of tobacco is also not dangerous?
  Mr. Jackson: This is a powerful argument and one which I am certainly prepared to consider. On the strength of the evidence at present available—and I would readily accept that it is not as satisfactory as one would want—the evidence suggests that whereas tobacco smoking is harmful and alcohol in excess is harmful, pot smoking is not.
  I quote now from paragraph 70 of the Wootton Report:
  "But we think it is also clear that, in terms of physical harmfulness, cannabis is very much less dangerous than the opiates, amphetamimes and barbiturates, and also less dangerous than alcohol."
  What are my right hon. Friend and the Government doing about the problems of alcoholism? Precious little I suggest. It is estimated that there are about 125,000 alcoholics and something under a quarter of a million additional persons who take alcohol in excess.
  I quote a passage from the accompanying letter written by Sir Edward Wayne.
  1542
  The question of penalties has been touched upon by my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale, but I think that it is appropriate to refer to it again. Sir Edward said:
  "The Committee is generally of the view that imprisonment is no longer an appropriate punishment for those who are unlawfully in possession of a small amount"
  —of cannabis. I think that the Committee was correct in coming to that conclusion and, given the evidence at present available—I admit that it is perhaps not as satisfactory as it might be—I would have thought and hoped that the Home Secretary would have accepted it.
  Mr. Callaghan: What?
  Mr. Jackson: The views of Sir Edward Wayne that a prison sentence is not the appropriate penalty for the possession of a small amount of cannabis.
  I remind my right hon. Friend of the attitude taken in the seventeenth century and the eighteenth century to tobacco smoking, and I think it would be interesting to read the opinion of a person then in authority—namely James I—in his "Counterblaste to Tobacco"—
  "Tobacco, that outlandish weed,
  It spends the brain and spoils the seed
  It dulls the sprite, it dims the sight
  It robs a woman of her right."
  I do not know that there is any evidence to demonstrate that, but I put it to my right hon. Friend—I am not merely being facetious—that if there were any association between the smoking of cannabis and robbing a woman of her right, he would find that there would be a very little problem of cannabis smoking.
  Mr. Callaghan: Does it not follow from the great attack which my hon. Friend has made on the evils of tobacco smoking that if James I had tried to get the same Bill through Parliament—if he believed in Parliament—about tobacco smoking as I am doing about drugs, he might not now be making his observations about the number of deaths caused by tobacco smoking?
  Mr. Jackson: I take the point. All I would say in counter to it is that on the evidence at present available——
  Mr. Callaghan: Yes, that is it.
  present available does not suggest that cannabis is in any way injurious.
  Mr. Jackson: Yes, the evidence at

  1543
  I should have liked to develop the libertarian argument, but I do not have time. I should like to have suggested that it would perhaps be more appropriate to deal with cannabis smoking in the same way as the excess consumption of alcohol and that if a person became aggressive or a nuisance steps should be taken to restrain him.
  In conclusion, I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to an argument which has been canvassed by the National Council for Civil Liberties, which has published a couple of excellent reports on this matter, suggesting that studies of the situation in the United States show that where there has been a clamp-down on the supply of cannabis the result has been an increase in the consumption of heroin.
  It has not been said so far in the debate that attitudes in this country are changing, and people are becoming more liberal-minded. This has certainly happened in Canada, and I imagine that what I am about to say may cause my right hon. Friend some alarm. A news report appearing in the Sheffield Morning Telegraph in January this year said that Mr. Pierre Trudeau had stated that the Canadian Government intended to legalise marijuana, and that there was to be a moratorium on further prosecutions. I do not necessarily rely on newspaper reports, so I asked the Library to check that story. It is able to confirm that the story is in substance correct, and the Canadian Government are awaiting a report from a committee, the Le Dain Commission.
  Opinion is not only changing in this country. It is changing throughout the world. I hope that my right hon. Friend will, therefore, consider adopting a somewhat more flexible view than he has shown so far in placing cannabis resin in Schedule 2, Class B.
  9.7 p.m.
  Mr. Marcus Worsley: It is some time since the House had a major debate on the drug question, and I am glad that hon. Members on both sides have taken the opportunity presented by the Second Reading of this Bill to have a wide-ranging discussion. It has been wide-ranging, ending up with the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Peter M. Jackson) showing himself to be a secret cavalier, rather to my surprise.
  1544
  It is sometimes said that we pay too much attention to this problem. One of the merits of the debate has been to underline the numerically small size of the problem. I emphasise the word "numerically". Different speakers have given different figures for the size of different aspects of the problem. The Home Secretary spoke of 2,000 heroin addicts, which surprised me, for I thought that the figure was higher than that. But, whatever it is, the number is small in absolute terms, and, as the hon. Member for The High Peak reminded us, it is much smaller than the numbers involved in either the chronic alcoholism problem or the smoking problem. I hasten to add that I do not wish to involve myself in the internecine warfare on the benches opposite between those who believe that smoking is the passport to a long life and those who follow the cavalier point of view.
  What must concern us, however, is the exceedingly rapid growth of the drug problem in recent years, by which I mean the last decade. It was the 1960s which showed a completely different approach and attitude, and an explosive growth of the problem. The hon. Lady the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renée Short) was right to point this out. The growth has not been explosive in this country alone. It is in no sense a British problem.
  As the hon. Member for The High Peak pointed out, if the drug problem were to reach the scale of the chronic alcoholism problem it would be more serious than alcoholism is now. Because of the explosive growth in numbers, we must look at our policies and legislation with a very special care. Therefore, I am glad that although this is the last day before the Recess we have had such a full debate. It is not easy for the House to give policies and legislation of this kind the care they deserve because most of us are largely ignorant of the problem. We are not brought up with it; there is no folk wisdom to guide us. In that respect the problem is quite different from nearly every other problem we discuss here. Most of us are very much at sea in the matter.
  Worse than that, there is an absolute lack of knowledge about much of the drug question, as my hon. Friend the

  1545
  Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Iremonger) forcefully pointed out. This is largely because intensive research has started only recently. Because of the recent growth of the problem, the material for research has only recently been available, so it is inevitable that there should still be a great shortage of knowledge.
  With all respect to the hon. Members for The High Peak and Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot), that is also true of cannabis. Millions of words have been expended on the controversy, and these have been echoed in today's debate. On cannabis, as on other subjects connected with drugs, our conclusions can only be very tentative. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) was right to point this out.
  A number of problems are involved. For example, I do not know how the Canadian Government would get over the problem of legal supply. Leaving these questions aside, I do not see how any responsible society could conceivably legalise cannabis in the present state of uncertainty about its effects. The Wootton Report has been quoted, but it is not the only document concerning cannabis.
  Mr. Blenkinsop: The Wootton Report did not recommend the legalisation of cannabis.
  Mr. Worsley: I did not wish to give that impression, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for pointing that out.
  The Wootton Report was softer on cannabis than many other reports, some of which have come out subsequently. I should like to refer the House to some of the recent statements by international organisations. This is an international problem, and it can only be solved internationally. I detect an increasing concern about the effects of cannabis, first, about its direct medical effects, particularly on the liver, and second, about its relationship to the use of other drugs. This is not just a question of whether it leads on to the use of heroin, which was always thought to be a problem. There is also the question of its reactivating effect, for instance, on L.S.D. In other words, there is a relationship between cannabis and other drugs that we have by no means got to the bottom of. I agree with many hon. Members, on both sides,
  1546
  who say that the essential thing is that we should learn as much as possible about this drug and other drugs as quickly as we can. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) said, this is not the end of the matter. The debate will continue.
  In that context, I hope that when the Joint Under-Secretary of State replies to the debate he can say a little more about the progress of research in this country. The £10,000 figure has often been mentioned; I know that that is rather a token. I hope that the hon. Gentleman can say a little more about the international aspect of research. I understand that the Narcotics Commission is taking the initiative for an international programme of research. I should like very much to know whether we are taking part in it and, if so, what part we are taking. It is only if countries pool their resources and knowledge effectively that we can get very far.
  I stress the research aspect because it seems to me that this is the nub of the matter. Indeed, the debate has reflected this. The contents of the Bill are about penalties and penal law, but in this, as in any other matter, the law can be effective only if it has the weight of public opinion behind it and if it is thought to have the force of reason behind it also. This was emphasised by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford and the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale in approaching the matter from rather different sides.
  Compared with the totality of the drug problem, the Bill, as the Secretary of State admitted in opening the debate, is really peripheral stuff. It will be ineffective or even, conceivably, deleterious unless it is part of a much broader strategy. I shall return to that theme presently.
  Meanwhile, I should like to make a few comments on the Bill. I am sure that the Government are right—and I think that the House has accepted this—to bring some selectivity into the Bill. To introduce selectivity by having different penalties for different things does not, of course, imply condonation of a lesser offence, any more than we condone burglary by making the penalty for it less than that for murder. It shows, however, a scale of values, and this is valuable. What I am not so sure about is whether

  1547
  the Government have got this part of the Bill quite right. There are many points that we can follow up in Committee.
  I understand that the Government's objective is to indicate by the permitted scale of penalties, first, that trafficking is more serious than possession and, secondly, that some drugs, for instance heroin, are more serious than others, for instance cannabis. The Bill, however, increases the penalty for permitting cannabis to be smoked on premises from 10 to 14 years; it leaves the same maximum penalty as for the same offence with heroin. It does not seem to me that this quite fits in with what I understand to be the objective of the Bill. I wonder whether the Government have got this quite right in terms of their own objective.
  Many hon. Members, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) among them, have said a great deal about leaving out barbiturates. I understood the Secretary of State to say that he had asked his Advisory Committee to give him a report on this. As the problem of barbiturates has been known for some time, I cannot help regretting that the question of barbiturates was not referred to the Advisory Committee at the same time as it was asked to deal with the question of amphetamines. This would have seemed a logical grouping, rather than putting L.S.D. into this group.
  I should like to know the time scale. I have been looking up the two previous reports—the one I have just mentioned and the one on cannabis—and I see that, from the beginning of the sub-committee to the publication of the report was in each case 18 months. I should be grateful to know on what date this was sent to the committee and therefore on what date we can expect a report. In view of its obvious concern about this issue, the House will appreciate the piece of information.
  The physical bulk of the Bill relates not to the penalties but to the control of doctors and other professions, including pharmacists, and also to the handling of drugs. Perhaps in that context we can hear something about the regulations for the handling of drugs for which the Government have had powers for some
  1548
  years. Have there been such regulations? If not, are they expected soon?
  On the general question of these controls, I agree with the Secretary of State that we must have a more flexible system. But the price of a flexible system is to give the Government and the Home Secretary of the day more power. The Bill indeed represents a dramatic increase in Ministerial power. Flipping through it when I first got it, after seeing some of these powers, I was rather appalled by the title of Clause 22, "Further powers to make regulations". In Committee, we shall have to go through these powers with a toothcomb to see whether they are really needed and whether they need to be so widely expressed.
  We need to watch this Government very carefully in these matters. With all respect to the Minister I regard this Government as addicted to the taking of increased powers in several fields. We shall lock at this with great care, not only from the general political point of view, but also from the very important point of view of the way in which we gaily increase the responsibilities of the police in terms of offences, without always fully appreciating what a strain that places on their reserves of manpower. So we shall look at these powers with great care.
  Mr. Callaghan: The hon. Gentleman is entitled to sit on the fence if he wishes now, saying on the one hand that he recognises that there is a need for powers and, on the other, that he wants to scrutinise them, but I hope that, on Third Reading, he will say whether he regards the powers which are taken as essential or not, and that he will not try to get away with a general political comment that he does not trust this Government in these powers. In other words, I hope that he will promise me that he will make up his mind.
  Mr. Worsley: That is a fair question; I will certainly give that promise.
  One aspect of this which is relevant is the powers taken over the medical profession. I echo something said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford. It is something I have said in previous debates, and which I still feel. I still believe that at least some of these powers—this is relevant to the right hon. Gentleman's intervention—would be

  1549
  better exercised within the normal disciplinary procedures of the profession.
  It is characteristic—I understand that the hon. Member for Cheadle (Dr. Winstanley), whose speech I did not hear, said this—of a profession to have a responsibility for disciplining its own members. It is a guarantee of independence and with medicine it is also a guarantee of clinical freedom.
  For this reason, in Committee we should look at these powers, particularly as in recent months the General Medical Council has for the first time taken proceedings against certain doctors in this connection. My prejudice here is for putting the maximum responsibility on the profession rather than to exercise Ministerial powers.
  I do not see in the Bill nor in the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman that much is being done by the Government about the necessary overall approach to the problem. The right hon. Gentleman spoke about a concerted effort, but not enough effort is yet being made. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell) spoke about the need for education and the spread of knowledge in schools to pupils and teachers and parents. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North also spoke about this subject.
  What are the Government doing about it? What is their advice? What do they regard as the right approach? How is knowledge best spread in the schools? Is it best to talk to teachers and pupils together? Should that be done by a qualified police officer, or someone within the school who has been instructed? One would like a lead. Unless we make much more progress in this respect and unless we entirely accept that it is only by knowledge of the subject that we shall make progress, we shall not get very far.
  What about the social problems thrown up by drug addiction? The hon. Member for The High Peak mentioned comparable cases and I have instanced the chronic alcoholic and layabouts generally. These are probably the most neglected of the social problems in the community. We do little about them. We talk a great deal, and I am glad that we do, about the disabled and the old, but we are all too
  1550
  willing to allow this group in the community to be forgotten because it consists of people who tuck themselves away out of sight. I appreciate that they are hard and expensive to deal with, but we have to tackle the problem.
  I doubt whether the problems of the drug addict are very different in character from, for instance, those of the chronic alcoholic. I suspect that they need social support in much the same way if they are to have a chance. As the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) said, they need advice and counselling. I have boundless admiration for those who engage in this work. In my constituency there is an institution of which my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford and I have the honour to be vice-presidents—CURE—which seeks to bring addicts back into the community, and it often succeeds. Hon. Members may have seen a recent television film which put over what it does marvellously well. It is tough work and often disheartening. There is a need for more help and more understanding from both local government and the Government, including—and one must face this—maremoney.
  I agree with my right hon. Friend, however, that a little money would go a long way. It would give a sense of encouragement where there is now too little. It is, of course, like every one of these decisions, a matter of priorities. As my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester said, this problem must have high priority and, with the facts he and others have given about the United States and the lessons about what could happen here, it must have priority. It is also true that, very often, a little money spent in the right way will save money in the long run. As my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North said, there is also the difficult problem of housing. These people are not necessarily welcome neighbours.
  All this is part of the overall approach which the Government must have, although it is by no means all of it and perhaps not even the most important part of the responsibility which the Home Secretary has at present. The fact is that this problem bears on every Department of State. For that reason there is, as the right hon. Gentleman said, need for a concerted effort, and I should like

  1551
  to see more signs of that concerted effort in the Departments of State.
  I want to finish by telling the House what the word CURE, the title of that institution in my constituency, stands for. It is care, understanding, research and education. That is not a bad summary of the other side of the problem, the side of the problem which this Bill does not attempt to tackle.
  9.31 p.m.
  The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Elystan Morgan): We have had a constructive debate. Every right hon. and hon. Member who has spoken has to some degree shown approbation for the main provisions of the Bill. Even the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Worsley), despite one or two rather petulant political barbs, was generous in his supporting comments for the Bill in general. Other hon. Members have shown clearly how seriously the House views the problem of drugs—a problem which has become progressively more acute over the last ten years.
  Drugs do not constitute any new human vice, but the conditions of modern life have given the problem almost illimitable prospects of escalation. This was the point made in a powerful speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price). Not only have drugs an escapist and perhaps masochistic attractiveness in themselves, but they have a tendency to compound in a disastrous way current diseases in society and its culture. Drugs very often fuse with personal inadequacies, with adolescent frustrations, with the horror of anonymity, with the allurement of experimentation. It is obvious to all of us that drugs very often fulfil a rôle as a method whereby one generation shows contempt for what it regards as the complacency, humbug and miserable materialism of an older generation.
  The right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) asked an important question about research. The Home Office is awaiting advice from the Medical Research Council. The Council has three working parties whose reports together with give the Home Office a schedule of priorities with regard to research projects. I understand that their reports will be to hand some time later this year.
  1552
  Last year the Home Office made a survey of research projects throughout the length and breadth of Britain and found that there were no fewer than 47 projects on drugs being undertaken. I am glad to inform the House that the Home Office Research Unit has recently been reinforced to deal with research on drugs.
  The right hon. Member for Ashford also asked about hostels. The Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence recommended in its report, entitled The Rehabilitation of Drug Addicts, which was published last year, that four special hostels for patients withdrawn from drugs should be established in the London area. I am glad to be able to tell the House that good progress has been made with establishing such hostels. Several voluntary organisations have projects in hand, and two of them, in particular—Feather-stone Lodge at Forest Hill, promoted by the Community Drug Project at Camberwell, and the Helping Hand at Iver in Buckinghamshire—are proceeding with the support of the local health authorities concerned. There is some danger that more places will be provided than there are withdrawn addicts to fill them.
  A more difficult need to meet is that of hostel-type accommodation for addicts still under treatment. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has asked his officials to discuss with representatives of the hospital authorities and the local health authorities in the London area how this need can be met.
  The right hon. Member for Ashford raised the question of barbiturates. The Advisory Committee's terms of reference give it a semi-independent role. The Committee chose to consider cannabis, amphetamines and L.S.D. Implicitly it has not thought from 1967 until the present time that the issue or the misuse of barbiturates was so important as to give that group of drugs precedence over the others which it has examined.
  My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary did not say that the question of barbiturates had just been brought to his attention. What he said was that the problem of injecting barbiturates was about three months old and that it could not possibly be more than 12 months old. The Advisory Committee was invited some weeks ago to look at the problem of barbiturates. As my right hon. Friend

  1553
  the Home Secretary said, it will be asked to tender its advice at the earliest possible moment.
  The hon. Members for Chelsea and Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell) said that in the past regulation-making powers have been included in legislation which otherwise had the general guise of being consolidating legislation and that this Government were more prone to fall into that temptation than other Governments. I can set the minds of the hon. Gentlemen at rest. The main novelty of the Bill is not in new regulation-making powers. The Bill contains the basic restrictions against import, export, production, supply and possession and the substantive provisions for withdrawing the authority of a practitioner after conviction for a drug offence whereas the Dangerous Drugs Act, 1965, one of the pieces of legislation which will be subsumed in the Bill, leaves most of these matters entirely to regulations. In other words, we are doing the exact opposite. We are spelling out in the body of the Measure powers which in previous legislation had been left largely to regulations.
  The hon. Member for Chelsea raised the question of international research. The United Nations Division of Narcotic Drugs in Geneva has a laboratory which acts as a focus for research, mainly into opium and opiates, but increasingly of late in relation to cannabis. A scheme of corresponding scientists has been set up in recent years, and five or six United Kingdom scientists are conjoined in a series of studies of the chemical aspects of cannabis. As the House probably appreciates, social research is rather outside the United Nations group at present, and that is why we are waiting for the Medical Research Council advice.
  My hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) raised the question of the possible compulsory treatment of persons who are addicted to drugs. He will probably remember that the second Brain Committee in its report recommended that there should be power to retain a voluntary patient for a brief period when going through the crisis of withdrawal. I am informed that Lord Brain himself, after the report was published, agreed with the then Minister of Health that the Government were right not to introduce this provision into the Act of 1967. Medical opinion is divided
  1554
  on this matter, and the Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence is studying the matter at the moment.
  The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) confessed to certain nagging doubts about each and every part of the Bill. He asked how the distinction between the simple possession of drugs and possession for the purpose of supply could be made. A court seized of this matter would have to look at all the circumstances of the case. Very often the sheer quantity of drug involved will give the magistrates or the jury a good clue as to whether it was intended for mere possession or for supplying to another person. In any event, it will be possible to charge a person either with alternative summonses or with alternative counts in the indictment. The hon. Member for Chelmsford raised a serious point when he said that he had no confidence whatsoever in the present drugs law in relation to cannabis being administered evenly and fairly. He went so far as to suggest that certain persons were selected for prosecution. There is no evidence whatsoever of such selectivity as is alleged. There is no question of discrimination against any persons or groups of persons. Where information is obtained by the police, the police act upon that information. It is ironic that the very case which the hon. Member for Chelmsford quoted of Lady Diana Cooper, although it was in a mistaken situation, clearly shows that such discrimination does not exist.
  The cannabis issue was debated by the House fairly fully in January of last year. This point was raised by the right hon. Member for Ashford, the hon. Member for Chelmsford, the hon. Member for Cheadle (Dr. Winstanley) and, in the most powerful way, by my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot). It has been suggested by a number of speakers that we have not yet made out the case against cannabis. I ask whether such an assertion is correct. Is it not a fact that international bodies have been making out such a case as this for a very long time?
  In 1925 cannabis was condemned by a League of Nations Committee consisting of Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Italy,

  1555
  Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States. All those countries except three reported in favour of complete prohibition, the exceptions being the delegates of Britain, the Netherlands and Canada. This was because it was uncertain at that time whether there was a potential though not actual medical value in cannabis resin.
  The point has been raised, as it was raised in the debate in January last year, that there may possibly be a causal connection between the taking of cannabis and later heroin addiction. As the House is aware, an article was published 18 months ago by Professor Paton, Professor of Pharmacology at Oxford. There are three points in that article to which I wish to direct attention.
  Professor Paton first makes the point that the age at which most persons come to cannabis is somewhere around the age of 16 to 17, whereas the age at which people come to heroin tends to be a year or two later, at 18, 19 or possibly 20. Secondly, Professor Paton produces a graph showing two lines, one setting out the convictions for cannabis offences and the second the reported number of heroin addicts as reported to the Home Office. The graph is shown over a period of two years and those two lines are almost exactly parallel.
  The third point the Professor makes, which has been raised by a number of speakers in this debate, is that there is very great danger in maintaining that between 80 and 100 per cent. of heroin addicts at one time or another took cannabis. He pointed out that such a statement is completely meaningless because a high percentage of such people must at some time have drunk water or milk, or worn brown shoes or whatever it may be. The difference between such a comparison and the comparison between heroin addiction and cannabis is that both in the case of cannabis-taking and heroin addiction, one is dealing not with a universal pattern but with a restricted practice. Professor Paton makes his own estimate of one in every 2,000 of the population being a cannabis taker—in other words, ·005 per cent. of the population.
  Mr. Blenkinsop: If my hon. Friend is making so much play with the evidence
  1556
  of Professor Paton, it is only fair to say that his view is challenged vigorously by other eminent scientists.
  Mr. Morgan: That is certainly so. I am not maintaining that this should be regarded as the authoritative declaration and as the last word in this connection. I am saying that those three points made by Professor Paton raise very grave doubts whether there is this causal connection between cannabis-taking and heroin addiction.
  Mr. Peter M. Jackson Mr. Peter M. Jackson rose——
  Mr. Morgan: I am sorry, I will not give way. I have not very much more time. The point was made by the hon. Member for Chelmsford that although on the one hand if it was established that there was this causal connection clearly cannabis should be dealt with severely, if on the other hand such a case should not be made out the person would be completely guiltless. But this is not the case. There is a substantial case, over and above any question of casual connection between cannabis and heroin, to be made out against cannabis. It is a hallucinogen, as is L.S.D., and as are the synthetic preparations from cannabis, tetrahydrocannabinols. These and other drugs are all in Part A of Schedule 2, that is, they are listed alongside heroin.
  It has been said that we did not have a mandate with regard to cannabis, because it was essentially a young people's activity and the vast majority of young people felt either neutral about it or in favour of legalising it. Not only is there no evidence in support of such a contention, but I am absolutely certain, from everything I have seen, that the vast majority of young people completely abjure and condemn cannabis. In so doing, they are completely in line with the mores of society——
  Mr. Deedes: I have said this once and must say it again. My point was that so many young people were sceptical of our reasons for prohibiting marijuana. That is what I said.
  Mr. Morgan: I accept the correction. It is not exactly as I put it, but in the end it comes to exactly the same thing. The right hon. Gentleman asserts that, if one took a poll of young people in Britain today, one would find that they

  1557
  were sceptical about the taking of cannabis being regarded as a criminal offence. This is the point which I absolutely challenge, with the greatest respect to the right hon. Gentleman.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale asked what happened to the Wootton Report recommendation that there should be substantial research into cannabis. The report was submitted to the Home Office in December, 1968. Even if the whole scientific world had been waiting with bated breath to take up research on cannabis, the results could not possibly have been available by today. But there have been several difficulties. First, Section 5 of the 1965 Act absolutely prevents the use of premises for the smoking of cannabis, whether for research or any other purpose. The Bill overcomes this, and Clause 22 will allow it.
  Second, the Wootton Committee listed in paragraph 74 a wide range of matters related to the dangers of cannabis on which research was needed, and added in paragraph 75:
  "The present legal position is unhelpful to research."
  Third, setting up relevant research requires a proper co-ordination which is why the Government have been awaiting the advice of the Medical Research Council on priorities.
  My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Mr. Peter M. Jackson) raised several interesting questions which I am afraid I cannot follow now. He laid it at the door of the Home Office that we were completely callous and indifferent to the problem of alcoholism. In fact, the Home Office has a study of this matter at the moment and we expect a report before long. He then said that, after the clamping down on cannabis in the United States, it was found that the number of heroin addicts rose sharply. There are two points here. First, if he maintains that this was anything other than a coincidence, he is saying that cannabis is addictive, something which has not yet been accepted by medical authorities, so far as I know. Second, if it is anything but a coincidence, there must be some causal connection between cannabis and heroin. That is the very factor which has been denied by my hon. Friend
  1558
  and those who support him in supporting cannabis.
  The right hon. Member for Ashford raised the question of notification for drugs other than narcotics. This is the case under the Bill. There is power in Clause 10(2)(g) which would be available for any controlled drug. The question is whether the clinical signs of addiction to any controlled drug, for example, amphetamines, are such as make it possible and reasonable to impose an obligation on the medical profession.
  Some hon. Members have maintained that it is not necessary to give the Home Secretary the substantial powers which it is proposed to confer on him by Clauses 13 and 15 in relation to restrictions on doctors. The powers to withdraw a practitioner's authority to prescribe proscribed or controlled drugs are an elaboration, accepted without reservation by the professional bodies concerned, of the provisions of the 1962 Regulations.
  I maintain that this is necessary because although in respect of doctors the General Medical Council has a long established responsibility for dealing with cases of infamous conduct in any professional respect, the Bill seeks to deal not with conduct that is infamous in the accepted sense.
  I am confident that the Bill, which deals widely and comprehensively with the subject, will remain a viable piece of legislation for a very long time. Without plunging to the gloomiest pessimism, most hon. Members will agree that, as in the case of nearly every other country, we are more likely to err on the side of underestimating than of over estimating the magnitude of the danger with which we are confronted.
  In 1961 the Interdepartmental Committee on Drug Addiction, chaired by that very eminent neurologist Lord Brain, produced a report which concluded that the incidence of addiction to hard drugs was not a serious problem and was unlikely to increase. The report recommended against the proposal which was before it to register addicts and to limit the discretion of prescribing doctors. I suggest no censure on the Members of that committee, because they came to conclusions founded on the best evidence then available to them. Its estimates, as we now know with the benefit of hindsight, were

  1559
  grossly inaccurate. By 1964, when the Brain Committee was reconvened, considerable damage had been done. There were far more recruits to the taking of dangerous drugs, the bulk of the new recruits being young people.
  The vast majority of citizens will not regard the Bill and the increased penalties contained in it as being unduly harsh, against the background of the grave problems which we face in this sphere. I am sure that public opinion accords with our own; that the heaviest weight of the law should be reserved to those who commit the offence of possession with intent to supply. Society cannot be squeamish in dealing with those who traffic in, and profit from, human misery, degradation and death.
  The Bill manifests the Government's consciousness of the gravity of the potential peril and their absolute determination that the people of this country, and especially the young, are entitled to live their
  1560
  lives as free from the shadow of this threat as the efforts of Parliament can safeguard.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

  MISUSE OF DRUGS [MONEY]
  Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
  Resolved,
  That, for the purpose of any Act of the present Session to make new provision with respect to dangerous or otherwise harmful drugs, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any expenses incurred by the Secretary of State under or in consequence of the provisions of that Act.—[Mr. Elystan Morgan.]

  BACON CURING INDUSTRY (STABILISATION SCHEME)
  10.0 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Hoy): I beg to move,
  That the Bacon Curing Industry Stabilisation Scheme 1970, a draft of which was laid before this House on 12th February, be approved.
  The aim of the bacon curing industry stabilisation arrangements is to provide such assistance as the industry may require in order to maintain and improve its position in the British market. This Scheme will continue the present arrangements and will apply to bacon produced during a period of approximately three years from 1st April next. This is the maximum period which the Act allows.
  Hon. Members will recall that a Scheme was approved by the House at this time last year for a period of six months and this was subsequently extended for a further six months. Schemes were made for these comparatively short periods because the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation was conducting an investigation into the structure of the industry and also into the effect of the stabilisation scheme, and of other possible forms of support, on the performance of the curing industry.
  As hon. Members will be aware, the I.R.C. has completed that part of its investigation which relates to the stabilisation payments and has reported to my right hon. Friend. It is still considering with the firms concerned its ideas about the structure of the industry. As is the normal practice, the report and advice given to my right hon. Friend by the Corporation was of a confidential nature, but it may be helpful to the House if I indicated their general lines, as they form the basis of the Scheme which is now before us.
  In so far as it covered the same ground, the Corporation found itself in all material respects in agreement with the views expressed by the Committee of Inquiry into the Bacon Curing Industry which was set up by the E.D.C. for Food Processing under the chairmanship of Mr. R. S. Worth. It considered that the pig processing industry as a whole was neither more nor less efficient within its sphere of operation than most other sectors
  1562
  of British industry, although some sectors of the industry might be better managed.
  The more successful United Kingdom companies were no less advanced in technical or managerial performance than overseas pig processors, although it was probable that a major advance in the industry would be achieved if pigmeat production and processing were more closely integrated.
  Mr. Michael Noble: When the Joint Parliamentary Secretary and I were on the other side of the channel about a fortnight ago, I was informed by the French that the British were far ahead of any other European country, even the best of them. I am merely querying the right hon. Gentleman's statement that we were not worse.
  Mr. Hoy: I said that it was probable that a major advance would be achieved if there were more integration, but I was not denigrating the industry. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, opinions were expressed about our industry's ability at the function which he and I were attending.
  The Corporation concluded that there was a wide range of performance by individual companies but there were several successful and well-managed smaller companies in which the smaller scale was offset by flexibility and other advantages. Although the I.R.C. is considering further the question of structure, it does not consider that there is an urgent need to promote mergers among these smaller companies.
  The I.R.C. came very firmly to the conclusion that the stabilisation arrangements should be continued on a more permanent basis to give both bacon curers and pig producers the confidence to invest; it did not consider that there would be any advantage at present in making any radical alterations in the formula for determining payments and levies.
  As the House will be aware, neither the present Scheme nor the one before us tonight includes any actual figures since a certain amount of flexibility must be allowed in the Scheme given the continually changing prices of bacon and the need to be able to make minor changes in the operation of what is a

  1563
  fairly complicated formula. What is laid down are the criteria which Ministers must take into account when making payments or collecting levies.
  One advantage of this method is that it made it possible to introduce at the beginning of January this year the changes recommended by the I.R.C. These changes took account of increased costs and provided for some return on capital and also made allowance for a better conversion rate from pigmeat to bacon and a higher return to curers from the sale of offal. These various changes to some extent cancel each other out, but the net effect is that curers on average would receive something of the order of 6s. more per cwt. In the light of the careful investigation—especially of curing costs—made by the I.R.C. and all other relevant factors, the Government were convinced that an increase of this size was justified.
  I should like to take this opportunity to express the thanks of Her Majesty's Government for the prompt and efficient way in which the Corporation carried out its investigation and for the clear way in which its advice was expressed.
  It is, of course, wrong to look at the payments under these arrangements simply as a dole or a sort of cushion for the industry. We hope that it will be a spur to greater effort.
  We recognise the long-term needs of the industry. The Government want the supply of British bacon to increase if this can be achieved on the basis of increased productivity and increased competitiveness. To a large extent, of course, this will depend on the industry's own efforts but, as well as making the new Scheme for the full period permitted by the Act, the Government, in any future consideration of policy affecting the bacon industry, will continue to pay full regard to the industry's need to plan ahead for investment, development and research. Account will also continue to be taken, among other relevant factors, of the arrangements for bacon production and the level of support prevailing in the main supplying countries.
  It is the Government's belief that, given the improved opportunities for home supplies provided by the determinations
  1564
  that have been made under the Bacon Market Sharing Understanding, given the greatly improved payments under the stabilisation arrangements, and given the controls that have been put on the export of its raw material—pigs and pigmeat—the bacon industry should be able greatly to improve and strengthen its position.
  I should stress that the stabilisation arrangements have—from their very beginning in December, 1966—been on the basis that when there is a marked improvement in their position, bacon curers would be required to pay a levy which would, over time, recoup the Government for expenditure incurred through the stabilisation payments. The proposed Scheme maintains this basis.
  The Scheme is based very much on the Scheme which was approved by the House last year. Some minor changes have been made in the light of a year's experience of the working of the Scheme. The main change has been the omission of the words:
  "and any other considerations which appear to the Ministers to be relevant"
  in paragraphs 8, 9 and 10. These words have been considered to be too general, and to leave too much discretion in the hands of Ministers.
  We have therefore tried in the new versions of these paragraphs and in the definition of bacon to specify all the considerations that the Ministers will take into account.
  I should emphasise that we are not making any changes in the basis of the calculation of payments. The Scheme will continue to be based on the weekly application of a standard operating margin to the current cost of pigmeat and the sale price of bacon. The Select Committee on Statutory Instruments has drawn attention to the fact that paragraph 6 of the Scheme does not specify the kind of records, returns and other information that the Minister may require under notice. I think it right to point out that precisely the same wording was used in the previous Scheme, and no objection was taken then.
  It is, indeed, not easy to specify in precise terms all the possible types of records that might be required, but I can give the House the assurance that only information will be required of curers that is absolutely essential in order to make payment or collect levies under

  1565
  the Scheme. I do not believe that there have been any complaints from curers that we have placed any inordinate burden on them in obtaining the information we must have to operate the Scheme and to make payments to them. I think that there can be no doubt that a long-term scheme of this sort is what the bacon curing industry needs to allow it to develop sensibly and with confidence, and I therefore commend the Scheme for the approval of the House.
  10.15 p.m.
  Mr. James Scott-Hopkins: It is difficult to deal with this Statutory Instrument without having had a sight of the I.R.C. report. I am grateful to die Minister for giving us the details that he has of what the report contains, but unless we see the report it is difficult to make a proper assessment. Naturally, the Minister has extracted those parts from the report which support the Scheme that he is putting forward.
  I stress that this Scheme is to run for two years and eleven months. The Minister has argued that this is necessary, and the I.R.C. report has suggested that it is necessary, to give stability to the industry. The 1969 Scheme has been in operation for about a year, yet there seems to be no question of stability being brought about in the industry. Does the Minister think that by this Scheme running for two years and eleven months stability will be introduced into the industry? Or, after that period, shall we have another of these Statutory Instruments giving yet another subsidy to the bacon-curing industry?
  I have always queried whether this was the right method, or whether we in this House should say to the bacon-curing industry: "When you make a loss, or when you are liable to make a loss, we will give you a subsidy; but when you make a profit, we will take some of that profit from you."
  Paragraph 8 contains some extraordinary wording. I agree that it is the same as paragraph 8 of the 1969 Scheme. I accept the Minister's criticism that I did not criticise the 1969 Scheme. Perhaps I should have done. But there is no mention of what percentage return on capital is considered adequate for the calculations that the Minister is making for the stabilising payments. The Minister
  1566
  should tell us, because this is part of the calculation which is needed. The capital employed is an essential factor for the purpose of calculating whether a bacon-curing firm is or is not making a profit.
  We have a similar situation in paragraph 10. Again the criteria have not been laid down. At least, we have had no explanation of what the criteria are—nor had we in the 1969 Scheme. I took the trouble to read through the short debate on the original 1969 Scheme. I am not talking about those who are already registered, but those who might wish to apply for registration in future. The Scheme is drawn so widely that anybody who cures bacon can apply to be registered. No criteria are laid down whether the Minister shall or shall not accept them.
  I draw attention to an oddity to be found in paragraph 5 of the Scheme. The opening words are:
  "Every person who carries on business as a bacon curer …"
  A little lower down in the same paragraph the reference is to a person who is "curing bacon". Those two different expressions are used, but they do not mean the same. I do not wish to flog the point, but there is a difference between a person who carries on business as a bacon curer and a person curing bacon.
  Next, how did the Minister arrive at the figure of 6s. per cwt.? What makes 6s. the right sum? Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will explain.
  At this late stage, after having had a Scheme running for a year, one cannot say that there should not be continuation, but I want to know why it should run for almost three years. Would not one year have been better? Is there to be a permanent subsidy for this part of the farming industry which is a purely commercial operation? Is the Minister certain that there is not too much capacity? I am not for a moment suggesting that the I.R.C. should go in and merge firms compulsorily or even bribe them to merge, but is the hon. Gentleman certain that capacity—which, presumably, has increased by over 32 per cent. from the time when I occupied his post—is right and that there should not be a further contraction in the industry to make it more efficient? How much more money do we have to pour into it to allow it

  1567
  to continue to supply bacon for this country, presumably at a loss?
  I wonder whether the Minister has thought the matter through sufficiently and whether this Scheme is right in the long term for the bacon industry.
  10.18 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Mills: We welcome the Scheme, though with some reservations. My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) seems to have more reservations than others have, but it is true that the Scheme has been of benefit to curers and to the industry as a whole.
  We have several questions and observations to put to the Minister. In the preamble, there is a reference to Section 38 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1968—
  "for the purpose of avoiding undue fluctuations in income arising from carrying on the business of curing bacon …"
  This is really the reason for the Scheme, to stop these fluctuations. The fluctuations depend very much on Government policy towards pig producers. This is the main point I make. Pig producers have a considerable part to play in stopping the fluctuations. Sufficient pigs must be produced to meet curers' needs; otherwise, violent fluctuations will occur, the exact opposite of what the Government want and what the Scheme is designed to achieve.
  We have already seen fluctuations due to an insufficient number of pigs. The simple truth is that there are not at present enough pigs to meet the needs of the bacon curing industry and the pork market, let alone the export trade. One would like to do all three, but there is not at the moment enough raw material to satisfy both the curing industry and the pork market.
  The Government have sought to stimulate the production of pigs. I question whether it is enough.
  It is vital to get this matter of raw material right, and to get the right numbers. We cannot expect the bacon curing industry to fulfil its commitments without the raw material. We want it to take a larger share of the home market. That has been the Government's intention, and we welcome that. But it looks as though the target will not be reached. The bacon
  1568
  curing figures at present are disturbing. They show a drop of about 600 tons a month over the summer months. The current level of production is 2,800 tons.
  Is the Minister satisfied with the level of production of store pigs, the raw material for the industry? Is he satisfied that the bacon curing industry has enough to produce the high quality bacon that the nation requires? The December returns show a one per cent. drop in the number of sows and gilts, which are the beginning of it all. Without the sows and gilts we cannot get the store pigs, and without the store pigs we cannot have the bacon.
  The sample survey on 14th January showed that there are 83,000 fewer pigs under two months old—a very significant drop in the numbers. I welcome the three-year period proposed in paragraph 1. It is a fairly Icing extension of the stabilisation period. We realise that the curers are now relying on the Scheme, and the proposals help to promote confidence in the industry, which is so important. This confidence will soon disappear if the curers cannot find the necessary pigs. We do not want a situation in which we have insufficient pigs to meet the requirements. This would spoil the opportunity we have to supply an increased proportion of the home bacon market under the new understanding. If we can do that it will make a substantial contribution to import saving.
  I am slightly disturbed to see that South Africa is allowed to have a share, small though it is, in the agreement. I do not believe that this will help confidence in the industry. Indeed, confidence will slip away if that sort of thing continues on a large scale.
  I notice that under paragraph 6 returns have to be made and information given. What is the latest position on the total tonnage of bacon cured? Perhaps my fear is unfounded, but are we still slipping back in the production of home bacon?
  What is the number of registered curers? Has the industry started a further programme of rationalisation of factories? My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West is rightly concerned about that. One of the original intentions of the financial contribution by the Government was to

  1569
  help the industry into a position where it could look after itself. We should know what progress has been made in the rationalisation of factories. There has been over-capacity for a very long time, and the scheme was designed to have these matters put right.
  What is the total amount of levy that has been paid by the industry? What is the total amount of the stabilising payments that have been made by the Government? Who is doing best out of the deal? We would like to know the exact figures.
  I take note of what was said in the Press notice given out by the Ministry on 29th December when it referred to changes in the bacon curing industry stabilisation arrangements. I notice, however, a small paragraph which states:
  "A fuller statement of Government policy in this field will be made when the new Scheme is laid before Parliament."
  We have not had that statement. There may be a reason for this, but we are entitled to know something more about the Scheme. We had that firm promise in the Press notice that before the Scheme was laid before Parliament, we would be given that information.
  It is interesting to note that the Press statement also said:
  "This will also cover the other aspects of the I.R.C.'s report."
  Perhaps, therefore, the Minister can help us and let us know——
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister would be out of order if he discussed other things than the Scheme.
  Mr. Mills: Yes, Mr. Speaker, but this is intimately connected with the Scheme which is before us tonight. That is what was stated in the Press notice about the Scheme, but perhaps I am wrong again and I bow to your Ruling.
  The Ministers have considered the advice which has been given by the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation, but I think that the industry as a whole is concerned that the Ministry has not discussed this matter with them. The Farmer and Stockbreeder of 6th January this year said that
  "The curers are unhappy that the I.R.C. reported direct to the Government without discussing its conclusions with the industry, but further talks are to be held with the
  1570
  Minister on other recommendations which may be in the unpublished report."
  We have to accept from the Minister that the full report cannot be publicised, but, at least, the main points could be discussed with the industry. All this is again a matter of confidence, which is vitally important to the bacon-curing industry.
  We note tonight that as a result of the advice from the I.R.C. report, the curers have had a weekly payment of about 6s. per cwt. in return. It would be interesting to have from the Minister replies to the points raised by my hon. Friend about how that sum is made up and why. When can we expect something back from the curers in return? This is another considerable sum of money. It is adding up all the time. We want to hear something about the reorganisation of their industry.
  We thus have an industry which is seeking expansion. It has put much of its house in order although we believe that there is much more to be done. The industry now has the confidence of the Scheme, which is to continue for three years, and this should help considerably. I repeat, however, and I do not apologise for over-emphasising, that quality raw material is essential, otherwise the industry cannot make the progress that it could—it has the strength, the possibility and the know-how to do it—and must make in the interests of the country and to help in import saving.
  We welcome the Scheme. We have reservations. We want to see signs from the industry that it is putting its house in order. Perhaps the Minister will be good enough to answer the various points that have been raised.
  Mr. Noble: On a point of order. I find myself in some slight difficulty, Mr. Speaker, as perhaps do other hon. Members. In commending the Scheme to the House, the Minister referred several times to the report which he has had from the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation. My hon. Friends ask, quite rightly, what else is in the report which the Minister has not, perhaps, confided to the House. I hope that in replying the Minister may be allowed to refer to that report. If not, the House will be in difficulty when the Minister bases his argument on a report which the House has not seen.
  Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman is on a good point. I said that the Minister could not refer to that part of the I.R.C. report which had nothing to do with the Scheme. He may refer to those parts which have to do with the Scheme which we are now debating.
  Mr. Noble: Further to that point of order. So far as I know, the I.R.C. report is concerned entirely with the Scheme. That is why I asked for your guidance, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Scott-Hopkins: On a point of order. You will notice, Mr. Speaker, that this Statutory Instrument has no date. I have not met that before. Other Statutory Instruments have a date. It is the practice of the House for Statutory Instruments to state the date when they are laid and the date of their coming into operation. As the date when the Scheme was laid before Parliament is not included, does not that mean that it is invalid?
  Mr. Speaker: It is usual to have a date, but it is not invariably the case.
  Mr. Scott-Hopkins: But is not the Scheme invalid? Is not that the precedent.
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member asked for my Ruling and I have given it. If the House passes the Scheme tonight, it will have been passed and it will be valid.
  10.33 p.m.
  Mr. Hoy: It will be remembered that I gave the date when the draft Scheme was laid and I am surprised that the right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) should have raised the point. As regards the I.R.C. report, he knows that many Governments have had inquiries of this kind, involving confidential reports to Ministers. He is himself connected with an industry which has supplied information, and I am certain that he would have taken it ill if any confidential information which had come the Government's way had been made public.
  I said that the I.R.C. was considering the whole industry with the firms concerned, and any proposals will have to be considered by Parliament. I pointed out that the evidence was given in confidence, and I am certain that many sections of the industry would take it ill if, having supplied the evidence for the
  1572
  purpose of a consideration of the reconstruction of the industry, they found that it was disclosed for other reasons.
  I was asked how the figure of 6s. was calculated. I thought that I made it clear that it took account of increased costs, provided some return on capital and made some allowance for the change in the conversion rate from pig meat to bacon and for a higher return to the curers from the sale of offal.
  I was asked why a period of three years was chosen. I was glad to hear the hon. Member for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills) agree that this was the right period. If the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) had been here at the time, he would have remembered that we were told that one year was no use to the industry.
  Mr. Scott-Hopkins: It was not said by me.
  Mr. Hoy: As the hon. Member was not here at the time, it would obviously have been difficult for him to have said it. We were told that the industry wanted a longer period for planning ahead. We think that the period of three years will permit the industry to plan with more confidence than would have been permitted by a period of six months or a year.
  I was asked about the registration of curers. All people curing bacon are required to be registered because the obligation to pay levies rests on the whole industry even if an individual curer does not want to benefit from the payments. I was asked about the return on capital. The I.R.C. allowed for the capital in its costings on which the new rate of payment is based, but the Scheme is not based only on this, but on all factors relevant to bacon production policy.
  Mr. Scott-Hopkins: The hon. Gentleman has said that return on capital is part of the increased cost. It is very difficult for us to follow his argument, since he keeps on quoting the I.R.C. report. We do not know the percentages or figures which that report took into account. Would he please consider placing in the Library a copy of the report, so that we can judge for ourselves?
  Mr. Hoy: I could not promise that; it would be the very thing which I said

  1573
  that we could not do, and no government have ever agreed to do it. When the hon. Gentleman himself was in my office, information was supplied to the Ministry which he would not publish because it was given in confidence.
  Mr. Noble: The hon. Gentleman has misinterpreted what I was trying to do. Mr. Speaker said that the I.R.C. report had nothing to do with the Scheme, but I asked him to allow the Parliamentary Secretary to answer straight questions about what the I.R.C. had said on specific points. I was not asking the Minister to put the report in the Library. What does the I.R.C. say is a fair return on capital in this industry? I am not asking for confidential information: these are factual parts of the report which the hon. Gentleman should be able to tell the House.
  Mr. Hoy: I was saying that we would not disclose certain figures about particular companies.—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman is a little talkative. If he would wait a minute, I might give him some more information. I have to reply to the points made in the debate.
  The hon. Member for Torrington asked me whether the pig supply would be adequate. We obviously hope so. Pig prices were increased by Is. a score in the Review. He spoke about a certain amount of under-supply to meet home needs, and indeed I agree about the three needs he spelled out. We had to take action to prevent the export of pigs. This may be one cause of the fall in curing which he quoted. Some people were taking a very quick return and this might not make for a successful industry. I would certainly hope that people will not go too far in this direction.
  In answer to the question of the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West, about paragraph 8, the information called for does not differ from what we have required in the past. The hon. Member for Torrington not only welcomed the Scheme but outlined a very good reason for it. This industry went through a period of fluctuation in prices to the curer and the producer, and this is why, in 1966, we introduced a new policy to cure that situation.
  He also asked me what the payments were. From December, 1966, to March, 1970, payments are expected to total £23½ million. This is a lot of money.
  1574
  Levies in 1969 produced £60,000. The hon. Member said in the last debate on this subject that some people should not object to paying and I agree. We are introducing a Scheme for three years, which we hope will give confidence and stability to an industry which we all hope will prosper.
  Mr. Peter Mills: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my question concerning the Press notice and a full statement of Government policy.
  Mr. Hoy: I referred to it at the beginning of my reply. I outlined what we had done and pointed out that the second part, namely, the structure of the industry is still being considered by the I.R.C. and by the industry itself.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Bacon Curing Industry Stabilisation Scheme 1970, a draft of which was laid before this House on 12th February, be approved.

  FERTILISERS (AMENDMENT) SCHEME
  10.40 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Mackie): I beg to move,
  That the Fertilisers (United Kingdom) (Amendment) Scheme 1970, a draft of which was laid before this House on 18th March, be approved.
  The Amendment has two main purposes. It extends for one year the provisions of the 1969 Scheme, which would otherwise expire on 31st May, 1970, and it provides for the subsidy rates on fertilisers delivered to farmers from 1st April, 1970, to 18th March, 1971, to be increased.
  The House will be aware that an important part of the Annual Review package which my right hon. Friend announced last week was a cash injection of £10 million into the industry through the mechanism of the fertiliser and lime subsidies. The draft Scheme is designed to give effect to this award in so far as the fertiliser subsidy is concerned. It will add £9 million during the year in question to a subsidy commitment that would otherwise be about £33 million.
  The average increase in rates of subsidy works out at about 20 per cent.

  1575
  The calculation of individual nutrient rates takes account of an expected increase in demand for fertilisers, resulting from the increased subsidy and from the long-term trend in demand. As a proportion of gross cost, the subsidy will rise from 22½ per cent. to 27 per cent.
  The Government's aim in giving this temporary boost to the subsidy is that farmers should derive immediate benefit. We have, therefore, proposed that it be paid from the day after the Review announcement, 19th March. To do otherwise would in any case cause a serious hold-up in deliveries of fertilisers—and at a peak time of the year—with farmers asking that their deliveries be delayed until they could claim the higher rates of subsidy.
  The nature of the legislation does not enable us to alter the subsidy retrospectively, hence the starting date of 1st April given in the Scheme. But we believe that it would be the wish of Parliament to avoid delay in introducing the higher rates of subsidy and we therefore propose, subject to the approval of the Scheme, that the higher payments in the period 19th March to 1st April be made ex gratia. I think that the House will agree that this is a desirable and sensible way to proceed.
  I should like, in passing, to refer to the prices of fertilisers. Hon. Members will be aware that these have remained commendably steady for some time. We should not wish to see the increase in subsidy to farmers dissipated through higher prices and are glad to have the assurance of the principal fertiliser manufacturers that, exceptional circumstances apart, they will hold their prices in the coming twelve months.
  It has often been stated in debates on the fertiliser scheme that the general policy of the Government is to contain the cost of the subsidy as consumption of fertilisers increases. Over the last ten years, the subsidy has averaged about £32 million a year and has varied but little from that figure from year to year. That general policy remains unchanged. The increase for which this Amendment Scheme provides is intended as a once-for-all addition to farmers' resources, and without further change the rates of subsidy will return to their 1969–70 level on 19th March, 1971.
  1576
  These proposals are, therefore, that the fertiliser scheme be continued for a further year until 31st May, 1971, and that there should be an increase in subsidy rates for a period of one year. I am confident that the House will wish to approve these desirable measures.
  10.44 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Jopling: On behalf of the Opposition, I am grateful to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary for explaining the Scheme, but he left a number of matters unanswered. As he said, the background is the Price Review and I shall make suggestions and ask questions about the review and the impact of these proposals.
  Paragraph 3 of the Scheme contains an amendment to the principal Scheme, which is the Fertilisers (United Kingdom) Scheme, 1969, to delete in paragraph 5(2) of that Scheme the words "in special circumstances". This amendment allows the Minister to receive applications more than three months after delivery in other than special circumstances. Under the original Scheme he could do this only in special circumstances. Why is this necessary? Have some claims had to be disallowed because they did not constitute special circumstances? None of us would wish to stand in the way of payments in these circumstances.
  Secondly, will the Minister say why this bonus on the fertiliser subsidy has been made only for one year? The Price Review, of which this Scheme is a part, is full of these short-term bribes. Never in any previous Price Review have there been so many short-term concessions over a one-year or two-year period.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot discuss the Price Review on this Scheme.
  Mr. Jopling: I am referring to the Scheme, which relates to the Price Review. The general trend of fertiliser subsidy rates over the years has been down. It has been the stated policy in successive Price Reviews that it has not been necessary to keep expenditure level as fertiliser usage has risen. The rate is now to go up, and the Minister has said that on 19th March next year it will drop again. Rates which fluctuate in this way are extremely disruptive in the farming industry. The Labour Party has always

  1577
  had a rooted objection to the "stop-go" policy; yet this is a classic example of it. There is an old saying that a farmer should live as though he would die tomorrow but should farm as though he would live for ever. This yo-yo approach is extremely bad for farming and for the manufacturing industry.
  Normal trading in the fertiliser industry will be disrupted when this 20 per cent. bonus on the subsidy rate stops on 18th March next year. The rates are to rise to the level of five years ago, although over the last five years the Government have gradually been bringing them down. Before the middle of March, 1971, farmers will rush to buy fertilisers so as to have the benefit of the higher subsidy rate. This is what happened in May last year when there was a much smaller fall in the rate from 1st June, 1969. There will be a flood of orders before the rate drops by 20 per cent. in March, which will be only three months earlier than the normal period of ordering. This sudden panic rise is bad for fertiliser manufacturers. It is also a little unfair to farmers, certainly to the prudent farmers who have already bought and taken delivery of their fertilisers for this season. It will do little to help the majority of farmers.
  Has the Parliamentary Secretary seen the report in today's Eastern Daily Press by Mr. James Christie in which he says:
  "A leading Norfolk merchant told me last week that in his view about 90 per cent. of the compound fertilisers and 70 per cent. of the nitrogen required for 1970 had been delivered before the Review decisions were announced. If we accept these figures it means that the benefit farmers will derive this year from this arrangement will be about £2 million and not £10 million as the Minister suggested."
  That is not strictly right, because on fertilisers it is only £9 million, but the point is entirely relevant.
  I turn to the question of fertiliser usage in general which is so much influenced by the rates of subsidy in the Scheme. What is the long-term position of fertiliser usage? I hesitate to embarrass the Parliamentary Secretary by referring to the National Plan, but his Department is almost the only one left which reckons it is sticking to that Plan. 'The projections in that document were that between 1964–65 and 1970–71, to which the Scheme refers, it is estimated
  1578
  that the usage of fertiliser will rise from £125 million to £150 million—a rise of 20 per cent.
  As the Minister embarks on the final year of the National Plan projections, I hope we shall be told whether we are on a course to achieve those objectives. Are we on the course suggested by the "Little Neddy" projections suggesting an increase of £41 million per annum in fertiliser expansion between the years 1966–67 and 1972–73? It is important that we know whether the industry is moving towards these targets which were set.
  There is no doubt that usage of fertilisers is now slowing down. The Minister's White Paper admits this in paragraph 44, on page 20 where we are told
  "Fertiliser usage has increased steadily but the rate of increase has slackened off during 1969–70."
  My eyebrows were raised on seeing that statement, because it has been an open secret in the fertiliser industry for a long time that up to a few months ago deliveries were considerably lower than at present. It is no use the Parliamentary Secretary saying that it was because of shortage of credit that farmers had not taken delivery of fertiliser during last year and in the early part of this year. He as a practical farmer knows that farmers have a choice between the early delivery rebates and the farm storage scheme. Under that scheme it is possible to take delivery of fertiliser in June or July, to receive the subsidy from the Government in August and to pay the merchant in March the following year. There is no excuse for farmers to say that, because of shortage of credit, they did not take up delivery of fertiliser in the summer and autumn of last year. If farmers had wanted fertiliser, shortage of credit should have been no barrier. Under the farm storage scheme more money would have been generated by the payment of the subsidy.
  It is obvious that, having cut back on other things, farmers doubted if the extra expenditure could be carried. Lately we have heard about the number of tractor registrations being down—I understand that they were down by 20 per cent. in January compared with January last year—and now we are cutting back on the use of fertilisers, which represents probably the most dangerous cut-back of

  1579
  all. Would the Minister give the figures of fertiliser uptake for the 1969–70 season?
  The projected figures relating to last year's fertiliser subsidies given in the Price Review White Paper are disturbing. The latest forecast for last year, 1969–70, gives the total at £33·7 million. But we have been told that the estimated total for next year, 1970–71, is £32·8 million. There will, therefore, be a drop of about £900,000 between last year and next year; and this, of course, has a direct bearing on the Scheme we are discussing.
  My guess is that there will be a drop in fertiliser subsidies next year. I hope I am wrong. I will be delighted, though surprised, if the Minister says that fertiliser usage in 1969–70 will prove to represent an increase over the previous year.
  We were told in the Price Review White Paper that the higher rates would be paid on all deliveries made on or after 19th March, so that farmers would begin to benefit at once. The Minister's remarks tonight underlined that assurance. However, from reading the White Paper we gather that this bonus on the fertiliser subsidy will become effective only from 1st April. I appreciate that the Minister went some way towards explaining this when he said that no hon. Member would object to the period between 19th March and 1st April being an ex gratia payment period.
  I assure the Minister that I would be the last to stop farmers who took delivery of fertilisers in this 12-day period from receiving this payment. However, I am extremely unhappy about the way in which we have been asked tonight to give the Government power to make ex gratia payments of this sort. I am reluctant to agree to this course of action. The Minister implied that there was no other way of doing it, but it should not be beyond the ingenuity of the Government to find a constitutional, Parliamentary way of making these retrospective payments. The course proposed horrifies me.
  The Government are behaving unreasonably in this matter. The Minister should reconsider the issue and find a constitutional way of allowing these payments to be made. I have no objection
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  in principle to the payments being made, and I assure the Minister that if he proposes a parliamentary, constitutional course of action, my hon. Friends will facilitate its speedy passage through the House. I strongly object to Parliament being circumnavigated in this way, and I trust that the Minister will think again. Generally speaking, we welcome this scheme. It is perhaps not done in the right way and it would have been better, instead of making one large influx, to have had a longer term solution on the end price paid to the farmer for his product. I hope the Minister will answer my questions.
  11.0 p.m.
  Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: I would make three comments on the speech of the hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling). He is on good ground when he says that it is not a reprehensible but a regrettable principle to make ex gratia payments for which there is no authority in the Statutory Instrument dealing with them. I am not certain that those payments could not be challenged in the courts. I hope, because I want these payments to run from the date in March which the Minister mentioned, that he will look at this and see if he can put it in proper form.
  I do not share the horror of the hon. Member for Westmorland at the prospect of farmers going to buy fertilisers in vast quantities because the price might go up. I thought that it was one of the principles of the Conservative Party to have a free market.
  Bulk purchase on a fixed price system would be more acceptable to the benches opposite than to the Tory Front Bench, on whose behalf the hon. Member for Westmorland spoke.
  Mr. Jopling: The difficulty is entirely with the manufacturers who have been very disturbed this year about facing the problem of moving fertilisers out of the factories on to the farms, in view of the shortfall in output last autumn. If, on top of that, there is to be increased demand, I was disturbed that those who wanted fertilisers next spring might not get them.
  Mr. Thorpe: I do not have the same compassion for the fertiliser manufacturers and the same concern about the terrible conditions in which they operate,

  1581
  behind a 19 per cent. tariff and antidumping duties passed by this Government at the drop of a hat, but we of course do not have the same close relationship with Fisons as the Conservative Party if their balance sheets are to be believed.
  I welcome the Statutory Instrument because I welcome the extension of the Fertiliser Scheme. It is introduced against the backdrop of a £10 million contribution under the Price Review. Particularly in respect of nitrogenous fertilisers, I ask whether the 6s. 3d. rate of contribution gives the taxpayer, the farmer and the Treasury value for money.
  When I heard the Minister flourish in a supplementary, like a rabbit out of the hat, a statement that the manufacturers had agreed to a standstill for a year, I could think of no industry which could better afford it. It is common knowledge that with modern techniques, the manufacture of nitrogen from waste products of oil refineries is becoming much cheaper, and for many years—I refer to nitrogenous fertilisers—I.C.I. had a virtual monopoly which is now shared by Fisons with which the hon. Gentleman is familiar, and Shell and Albright and Wilson.
  Although there are no formal price-fixing arrangements in this country, there is price leadership, and farmers are compelled to pay the price listed by the manufacturers, subject to merchants and farmers getting any discount. The fact remains that enterprising merchants and co-operatives have been getting calcium ammonium nitrate from the Continent in increasing quantities. Notwithstand-the 19 per cent. duty, devaluation, and import deposits, they have been able to do so at a price still below that of British manufacturers. Many of us hoped that as major manufacturers would be reducing their list price. If it had done so, the figures in this Statutory Instrument for nitrogenous fertilisers might have been different; farmers' prices might have been reduced, and there might well have been a smaller sum under this head in the Price Review and there might in consequence have been more money for other desirable objectives.
  But, instead of reducing their prices, the manufacturers troop along to the Board of Trade and ask for an anti-
  1582
  dumping duty. The Board of Trade, helpfully and obligingly, says that there is a prima facie case; and as from 19th February there is a provisional duty of £9 a ton on imports of calcium ammonium nitrate, ammonium sulphonitrate and ammonium nitrate from Belgium and Germany and as from 12th March, a similar duty in respect of imports of those substances from Austria, Italy and Sweden, and £6 a ton from the Netherlands; and behind that the British manufacturers, who in this Statutory Instrument we are being asked to pay money to, are sheltered.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman is getting away from the Scheme and discussing the antidumping tariff.
  Mr. Thorpe: Obviously I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am merely suggesting that it is because of the current prices prevailing in Britain for nitrogenous fertilisers that we are being asked to provide a certain sum of money in this Statutory Instrument. I am suggesting that the figure which we are being asked to vote tonight at the rate of 6s. 3d. a ton could be considerably reduced were there adequate competition in the market. I believe that that point is relevant when we are discussing the particular financial provisions which are part of the £10 million scheme announced in the Price Review, to which the Joint Parliamentary Secretary has made reference, and contained within the Statutory Instrument.
  Mr. Michael Noble: I hope that I am not leading the right hon. Gentleman further astray. His point is an interesting one which the House should discuss fully, even if not on this occasion. Is it not a fact that the only method by which the Board of Trade can operate anti-dumping laws is if the fertiliser is imported into Britain at below its cost of production? If that is so, is not part of the right hon. Gentleman's argument against Fison and I.C.I. not relevant?
  Mr. Thorpe: I hope that you will allow me to answer that question briefly, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because the right hon. Gentleman is in error.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: What troubles me about the remarks of both right hon.

  1583
  Gentlemen is that they are now getting into argument for or against the question of protection for the industry. This is not the purpose of the Scheme. An incidental reference may be in order, but no more.
  Mr. Thorpe: I bow to your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I, incidentally and parenthetically, say to the right hon. Gentleman that Section 4 (2) of the Customs Duties (Dumping and Subsidies) Act, 1969, stipulates that the criterion involved, and certainly involved in the case of fertilisers in this case, is the price at which the goods are sold for consumption or use
  "in the ordinary course of trade in the country"
  of origin. By that criterion I do not think that the Board of Trade has a very strong case.
  All I am saying is that before we vote a certain sum of money for this Scheme, with which I find myself in principle wholly in agreement, it would certainly be more comfort to know that the price which the farmer will have to pay for these fertilisers, and therefore the share in this subsidy which will be enjoyed by British manufacturers, was a price which was competitive in world markets and was not artificially subsidised by a 19 per cent. tariff, and now by a temporary £9 a ton duty which, under a protectionist Government—one such Government seems to follow another—we shall probably see made a permanent feature of the Secheme when that expires after three months.
  Finally, I see that for those who are keen about the price of nitrogenous fertilisers referred to in this Statutory Instrument, objections to the proposed antidumping duties have to be put in in writing to the Board of Trade by 31st March. Accordingly I propose to post to the Board of Trade a copy of my speech in HANSARD tomorrow.
  11.15 p.m.
  Mr. Marcus Kimball: The Scheme follows the Price Review. In effect, it is a terrible admission about the effect of the credit squeeze and, above all, of the shortage of merchant credit now available to farmers in the fertiliser industry.
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  The White Paper on the Annual Review and Determination of Guarantees, 1970, at page 21, paragraph 45, states that
  "farmers have tended to delay their purchases".
  This is because farmers have not had the available money for their purchases of fertiliser.
  Cutting out the farm storage scheme, which is not a very attractive proposition for many farmers, let us take the case of the farmer who in the past has had the money available to buy and pay for his fertilisers. The cheapest time to buy fertilisers is in June for use in the following autumn or spring. The average June rebate on a ton of fertiliser or plant food is 45s., but for 100 tons or more the special discount averages £5. This is what I am advised by most of the merchants. So that fertiliser bought in June for use in the coming year, instead of costing an average of £34 12s. 1d., taking off the June rebate and the £5 a ton special discount, will cost a farmer in a reasonably sound business position to buy fertiliser about £27 7s. 1d. a ton. In the revised Scheme which has been brought in, all that the Government are offering is an increase in the subsidy of approximately 30s. a ton.
  The real hardship that arises under the Scheme is that early purchase has been made impossible for many farmers because of the shortage of merchant credit and the credit squeeze as a whole. Because of Government action, farmers are losing about £7 5s. a ton on fertiliser, and the Government, by way of a makeup for the Price Review, make the measly offer of 30s. a ton. This is the state of the industry.
  I asked my own suppliers of fertilisers about merchant credit. They said that last year the average time for people paying their bills for fertilisers, even with the extra bonus for settlement within the month, was two to three months; but such is the credit squeeze and the difficulty that farmers and merchants are expecting that the average time for settlement of fertiliser bills is now about five months.
  I should like to press the Minister on the question of dates. I understand that in the past the fertiliser year, as such, has operated from 1st June to 31st May in any single year. The White Paper,

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  on page 21, para. 45, makes a song and dance about the extra 30s. being effective from 19th March. My hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) and the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Liberal Party have already pointed out that there is no legal authority for the payment of the extra subsidy between 19th March and 1st April, which is the date given in the Scheme. Therefore, the Minister must find some way to authorise this payment. If he is able to authorise the payment for the 12 days from 19th March, and if he wants to help people, why cannot he back-date the payment to 1st June last year? This is the only way to make the Scheme effective. If he can deal with 12 illegal days, he had better get down to dealing with the whole year if he has any intention really to help the industry.
  Merely increasing the use of fertilisers will not restore fertility to farming. The Minister knows this, as a farmer in a large way himself. We shall not restore fertility to the industry by increasing the fertiliser subsidy. We need constructive Government action to help us with a profitable break crop. The depressing feature of the Scheme is that there is no encouragement to help with break crops. Sugar beet and beans were totally neglected in the Price Review. The one crop which helps in my constituency to restore fertility is sugar beet. Sugar beet is a big user of fertiliser, about 7 or 8 cwts. per acre, but all that the Scheme does is to help sugar beet by about 10s. an acre—a pretty poor compensation. That will do nothing to restore fertility to the land or help with break crops.
  There is no point in feebly tinkering about with production grants. The only way to help the industry is to increase the price of the end product.
  11.18 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Noble: I shall not detain the House for long, for by good fortune my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball) has taken up the matter which I wished to raise. Apparently, the Minister is able to make an ex gratia payment back to the date of my birthday—which gives me no great satisfaction as I put on all my fertilisers early, as other farmers may have done. This is a curious state of affairs, since in all the discussions at the time of the announcement of the Price Review
  1586
  the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Agriculture explained that it was impossible to back-date payments before 19th March. If that was impossible, will the Parliamentary Secretary explain—I am not prepared to pass the Scheme until he does—how he can ask the House to approve the making of ex gratia payments for 12 days, or whatever it may be. It is parliamentary nonsense.
  In the earlier debate, we heard his right hon. Friend the other Joint Parliamentary Secretary explain that it was not possible for him to talk about some I.R.C. report. That was nonsense. He was deliberately dodging the issue at the time. Now, we have another Minister from the same Department. I hope that he will not dodge this issue.
  This fertiliser Scheme is concerned only with nitrogen, phosphates and potash, and we shall at a later stage in the year discuss the whole problem of lime. I suggest seriously that, if we are concerned about the fertility of a great deal of our land, particularly in Scotland, it is nonsense to talk about fertilisers which have an effect only after the lime has been put on and not talk about the lime problem. I am trying carefully to keep within order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I seriously suggest for a future occasion that the Minister should take this point into account, in order to help the farming community.
  Now, a passing reference to the question of dumping, which was raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe). I know, because I have been in the export market for a considerable period, that if one tries to export goods to other countries at below the price at which one is selling them in this country they will refuse to accept them. So I think that the right hon. Gentleman may be on a fairly good point, but I am not sure that it is as good as he thinks.
  11.20 p.m.
  Mr. James Scott-Hopkins: There is absolutely no justification and no authority in the Scheme for the Minister to pay a penny for the 12 days between 18th March and 1st April. That is clear. Presumably he will tell the House that after the Recess he will come back to us to get retrospective authority.

  1587
  Last weekend I received a deputation of farmers in my constituency, and they particularly talked about the increase in the fertiliser subsidy. The point they made was that most of them had already ordered fertiliser and had had it delivered, although they had not paid. They are excluded from the increase unless the Minister can find a way to make it retrospective to 1st June, 1969. Yet these will be the fertilisers that will be used on the land now and later on in the autumn. It is wrong that they should be excluded.
  The present situation regarding farm credit, and particularly merchant credit, is extremely difficult. The terms of credit which have been customary in the industry are now severely curtailed. There have been many cases of great hardship. The farmers who came to see me told me of many instances when they would have bought the fertiliser but had been unable to do so. Even this modest increase will not be sufficient to allow it to be bought in the quantities that it should, because the other side-effects of the squeeze and present conditions of restriction have not made things easy for the industry. This is a pity, because I do not believe that the increases in the Order will have the full effect which the Minister hopes, and which his right hon. Friend said they would in his Price Review statement, owing to the restrictions and difficulties outlined by my right hon. and hon. Friends.
  11.23 p.m.
  Mr. Mackie: The main point raised by hon. Members opposite has concerned the ex gratia payment for the period from the day after my right hon. Friend's Price Review announcement until 1st April. A great deal of consideration has been given to the method of paying this, and the method chosen is the only reasonable one to hand. Members connected with the legal profession, like the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe), have made the point that the payment might not be legal; but nothing will be paid until after the Order has been approved by Parliament. If there are any other suggestions—[Interruption.] Do hon. Members not want the farmers to receive the payment?
  Hon. Members also asked why this date had been chosen. "Why not go
  1588
  back to January, or last June?", they asked. But, whatever date we chose, some farmers would complain that they had bought their fertiliser the previous month. Fertiliser take-up has been pretty well the same year in and year out. I have with me an average of the years——
  Mr. Kimball: Surely, if the Government are going back 12 days, the convenient date to go back to is for the whole fertiliser year, to June, 1969.
  Mr. Mackie: There is a great difference between 12 days and nine months. We are using the day after the announcement was made. It was simply to prevent a lot of farmers for those 12 days in the middle of spring, when many people are taking deliveries of fertiliser, holding up the taking of deliveries and embarrassing merchants and manufacturers for the two weeks concerned. Hon. Members opposite will realise that they are completely unreasonable about this when I show them a graph of fertiliser take-up during January, February, March and the rest, which shows that the fertiliser take-up is generally from the beginning or the middle of March onwards. If a farmer does not get it this year, he gets it next year. Those of us who have taken it in early could obviously afford it. Therefore, we will get it next year. If we like, we can take in two years' supply next year.
  Mr. Jopling: I wish to question the hon. Gentleman about legality and Parliamentary procedure. Will he acknowledge that under paragraph 4 of the Scheme, to which I referred, the ex gratia payment is illegal, as the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) suggested? Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to face the Public Accounts Committee? If he means to go on with what he proposes to do, I should feel constrained to write to the Public Accounts Committee about it. We are the first to want farmers to get this payment, but, above all, we must act in a proper parliamentary way and we must not condone any illegal payment of funds. Will not the hon. Gentleman agree that payment as he proposes would be illegal?
  Mr. Mackie: There is nothing illegal about an ex gratia payment if the House passes the Scheme. [HON. MEMBERS: "We are not going to pass it."] If hon.

  1589
  Members opposite will not pass it, well and good, but——
  Mr. Thorpe: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He is saying that he would like these payments to run as from 19th March. That is accepted. On that basis, anyone who tomorrow reads this Statutory Instrument, which I hope will be passed, will see that, in law, the payment can run only from 1st April. There is nothing in paragraph 4 of the Scheme which refers payment back to 19th March. That date is 1st April. No matter what the Minister says about wanting to make an ex gratia payment to anybody, unless it is provided for in the Statutory Instrument he has no authority for doing it.
  Mr. Mackie: I have been at the Ministry of Agriculture nearly six years and I have seen ex gratia payments made. I am quite sure that the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) and other hon. Members, including the right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble), who has been in government, know very well that ex gratia payments are in order. I simply say that we shall make this ex gratia payment—it may not he in the bit of paper which the right hon. Member for Devon, North is flaunting about—for these 12 days on fertilisers delivered during that time. This has been done on many occasions.
  If the House tonight says that we must not do it, well and good, but I presume that they want farmers to get payment. If they do not, they know what to do tonight.
  Mr. Noble: I understand the Minister's problem. Ex gratia payments are made on a number of occasions to meet individual problems which do not fall within the category of whatever the problem is.
  The point which I made to the Minister, however, but which he has not tried to answer, is that when these new arrangements were announced, the Minister of Agriculture was specifically asked why it was not possible to make payment back to the earlier date when a great many people had got it. He said that this was not parliamentarily possible. Now the Joint Parliamentary Secretary asks us to do some under-cover fiddle to get him out of the difficulty—[Interruption.] I am not exaggerating. This is a
  1590
  parliamentary under-cover fiddle to get him out of a slight difficulty. I should like the hon. Gentleman to say why his Minister said that it was impossible and yet he is proposing some ex gratia fiddle which he hopes we shall pass.
  Mr. Mackie: The right hon. Gentleman has used some extraordinarily exaggerated language. It is not impossible. We could pay back for 20 years if we sat down to think about it. The point is irrelevant. [Laughter.] The hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) laughs, but it is irrelevant.
  As I said earlier, how far back should we go? I pointed out that the take-up of fertiliser in the year is pretty level. The up-take has been less for various reasons—perhaps because of the credit squeeze. All those who have not taken it up will be better off this year. We gave a great deal of consideration to this point because it would have upset the whole thing not to have paid it from the day after the announcement was made.
  To proceed——
  Mr. Jopling Mr. Jopling rose——
  Mr. Mackie: —and I am going to proceed. The hon. Member for Westmorland asked why it is proposed to omit the words "in special circumstances" from paragraph 5(2) of the principal Scheme. There have been circumstances in which we have had not to pay a fertiliser subsidy, and we want a flexible system in which we can allow the subsidy to be paid when farmers make mistakes, as they sometimes do.
  The hon. Member for Westmorland asked why only one year? We made it plain that this was a cash injection. It has nothing to do with stop-go policies. It is a cash injection of £9 million. The hon. Member for Derbyshire, West used the expression "a fiddling little amount". It is a little over the average of the Conservative Party's price review for nine or ten years.
  Several hon. Members have said that manufacturers will be embarrassed next spring. They have had a year's notice. They could warn their customers of what might happen. There need by no panic buying.
  The hon. Member for Westmorland asked about the drop in the estimate. The reason is that last year we reduced

  1591
  the subsidy, which we have wanted to be a steady £32 million.
  The right hon. Member for Devon, North mentioned manufacturers' profits. Their accounts for this year do not show that they are getting excessive profits. There is considerable competition now, where there was not at one time. I do not want to hide behind the fact that the Board of Trade deals with dumping, but farmers as well as fertiliser manufacturers take advantage of the anti-dumping Act, so they should not complain when other businesses get the benefit.
  I have answered the point of the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball), who also talked about a "measly" 30s., about going back over the whole year. He mentioned break crops. But they are outside the Scheme. The right hon. Member for Argyll said that lime was not mentioned. A lime scheme will be introduced later in the year. I agree that the two go together, but because of the increase in the fertiliser subsidy, we had to bring in this Scheme now.
  The hon. Member for Westmorland asked whether the production of fertiliser was increasing. In 1965–66, there were 1,449,000 nutrient tons—this is taking the three together—and for this year the forecast is 1,765,000 tons, which is just about up to target.
  I know that some hon. Members are not happy about the ex gratia payments, but I should like to hear any better suggestion. If they do not want the farmers to get this, they know what action to take.
  Mr. Noble Mr. Noble rose——
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman has exhausted his right to speak.
  Mr. Noble: I was hoping that the Minister would answer the questions.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Fertilisers (United Kingdom) (Amendment) Scheme 1970, a draft of which was laid before this House on 18th March, be approved.

  HILL LAND IMPROVEMENT SCHEME
  11.38 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Mackie): I beg to move,
  That the Hill Land Improvement (Amendment) Scheme 1970, a draft of which was laid before this House on 18th March, be approved.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: It would be convenient, I think, to discuss at the same time the Motion to approve the Hill Land Improvement (Scotland) Amendment Scheme. 1970.
  Mr. Mackie: The Scheme is made under Section 41 of the Agriculture Act of 1967. It amends the principal Scheme, which came into operation in August of that year, which has given 50 per cent. grants for a wide range of land improvements, together with a supplementary 10 per cent. grant on drainage works benefiting hill land. The amending Scheme increases the rate of grant for two years to 60 per cent. Drainage in hills, which is so important, will continue to attract the 10 per cent. supplementary grant, and since the basic rate for drainage will be 60 per cent. drainage benefiting hill land will be grant-aided for two years at a rate of 70 per cent.
  It is proposed that the higher grant should be paid on all applications received and all approvals given during the two years commencing 19th March, 1970, which is the date following the Minister's statement to the House, thus giving the earliest possible encouragement to further investment. Very good use has been made of the 50 per cent. grants available under the land improvement scheme since its introduction in August 1967. Throughout the United Kingdom, more than 30,000 applications have been approved at an estimated cost of almost £11 million. During the current financial year, 1969–70, applications have been coming in at the rate of more than 1,250 a month and claims for the drainage supplement at almost 400 a month.
  The new rate of 60 per cent. applies to all improvements covered by the Scheme—improvements to land, reseeding, reclamation, fencing, water supply and so on. The 60 per cent. rate of grant

  1593
  proposed in the Scheme, together with the other measures which the Government are introducing, will give further help and encouragement to hill farmers so that they may invest in further improvements to their land. I am sure that they will do so and thereby increase the productivity of their land and the profitability of their businesses.
  11.41 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Jopling: On behalf of my party, I should like to say that we are grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary for telling us in broad terms what is in the new Scheme, although there are several questions to be asked. Much of what was said in the previous debate applies to this. Why has it been possible to make this Scheme retrospective to this magic date of 19th March, 1970? I point out, in passing, that even if we had not passed the previous order, if the Government had wanted to make ex gratia payments, our refusing to pass the Order would not have stopped them.
  Here we have another of these short-term panic measures which the Government have brought forward to try to tide them over the little time that they have left in the seat of power. They are just trying to see out their time before they cast off their responsibility and leave my party to pick up the bits, as it so often has in the past.
  Agriculture, and particularly the hill farming sector, need long-term remedies. These short-term shots in the arm, of which this is only one, are not the right solution for the long term. The difficulty, as the order underlines, is that basically it is the system that has gone wrong. It is because the system is wrong that the industry has become run down and because the industry is run down, the Government are applying these short-term shots in the arm—in this case for two years—to try to tide things over for a little longer.
  I know that I shall be out of order if I extol the virtues of the levy system of agricultural support, but although this 10 per cent. increase in the hill land improvement subsidies is welcome, it is a sign of the break up of the present system of agricultural support which the Opposition regard as out of date.
  1594
  The National Farmers' Union has raised two matters with me. One of the improvements which the Scheme does not mention and yet which is vital for hill farmers is buildings. Apart from simple shelters on hills, building improvements are not eligible, but it becomes more and more important for the viability of hill farms for there to be facilities for wintering livestock. I wonder whether the Parliamentary Secretary will have another look at this. I hope that he will consider increasing the 40 per cent. building grant under the farm improvement scheme to 60 per cent. under this Scheme, for this would be a great help in the hill areas.
  A minor point with which the union is concerned is that whereas for drainage improvements the creation of grips is a valid improvement, under the Scheme it is not possible to get grant aid for cleaning them out. This is a big and heavy job and, as I know from my own constituency, there is a great shortage of labour in the hill areas and the job is therefore hardly a paying proposition. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will look at the problem of cleaning out of grips, consulting the N.F.U. about it.
  Under the Scheme, farmers are to get 60 per cent. grant on hill land improvement Schemes. The problem will be where to find the other 40 per cent. There is a grave depression in the hill farming areas. All hon. Members are aware of the difficulties farmers have got into and which have been vociferously expressed in recent months. The hill farming sector has been hardest hit of all British agriculture in the last few years. The Government have talked loftily over the year about the need to preserve the hill farming economy. The Leader of the House, when Minister of Agriculture, talked loftily about its importance.
  The Government's reaction to the situation has been typical—to set up another board. Indeed, they set up two rural development boards which were supposed to do great things to improve the viability of hill farming. They have done no immediate good and there is still serious depression in the hill areas. One figure will demonstrate this with clarity. There has been a tragic drop in sheep numbers over the last few years. The national sheep flock is a good guide to the prosperity of the hill areas. British farmers

  1595
  have, since 1964, lost a large part of their share of the domestic lamb and mutton market. In 1964, they had about 43 per cent. of the market; today that share is about 33 per cent. Such a fall shows to what extent the hill areas and the hill farmers have been getting the hardest end of the Government's policies.
  We welcome the scheme and hope it will do good, but we are not sure where these farmers will find the other 40 per cent. of the money. Many farmers could well improve their land, but even with a carrot of 60 per cent. they will still find it impossible to find the rest of the money needed. We hope the Scheme will do good but we have our doubts.
  11.48 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Noble: I am a hill farmer and a sheep farmer and therefore have considerable interest in this Scheme. I also represent the part of Scotland which has the largest number of sheep in that country. If I speak partly in my own interest, I am certainly speaking in the interest of my constituency as a whole. What my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) has said is deadly true. He referred to this as being in some ways a panic measure. I do not believe that it is. I believe that it was carefully calculated, that it is part of a scheme which the Government have produced in order to give farmers in the hill and other areas a feeling of wellbeing which I doubt whether they can sustain.
  There are a few people—I hope to be one of them—who will be able to take advantage of the grants and benefit from them. But the vast majority of hill farmers in Argyll will be unable this year to take advantage of the Scheme. I have spoken about this to all the N.F.U. branches in Argyll, and the money required to take advantage of the Scheme is not available. Nothing that the Government have done, either in the Price Review or in any other form, is making it possible for people to use this Scheme, admirable though it may be.
  The Minister is blowing out his cheeks. He produces fat lambs—he is a pretty fat lamb himself—but my constituents cannot, and they get nothing out of the Review to enable them to benefit to any noticeable extent from the Scheme. I shall be delighted if the Minister is able
  1596
  to say to me in a year's time that the hill farmers in Scotland, and in Argyll in particular, have been able to take up their fair share of the large sum of money which he says is available.
  This is a good Scheme. I am interested to see that it can be dated back to my birthday, whereas the other one could not. I look forward to knowing how the Minister explains this. It is no use telling the agricultural community that they will get an extra £20 million, if the hill farmers are not able to produce the other £20, £30 or £40 million out of their own pockets. This is pure dishonesty, and that is why I do not believe the Scheme will work as the Minister and I hope it will.
  11.52 p.m.
  Mr. Alasdair Mackenzie: I welcome the Scheme, because the 10 per cent. increase will be a considerable help if the farmers can put up the rest of the money. This is where the trouble arises. No sector of the industry is in a worse position to put up the extra money required, and what is so disappointing is that one can see no hope of improvement in the immediate future.
  It may be generally agreed that there is great potential for expansion in the hill and upland areas, but there are various question marks hanging over the industry. There is the question of whether we go into the E.E.C., which hill and upland farmers dread, and there is the difficulty of assessing the prospects if we go over to the levy system. Hill and upland farmers are worried about these points, and that is why they are reluctant to invest even the small amount of capital available to them.
  There is also the question of forestry versus sheep, and this needs to be clarified. Some of the finest sheep grazings in the country are going over to trees. It is a different matter when poorer grazings and land of marginal grazing quality which has not been improved for many years go over to trees. It is entirely wrong that high quality grazings, where large sums of private and Government capital have been injected for drainage, fencing, reclamation and farm buildings in the last 20 years, should go over to trees. There is a definite imbalance if, on the one hand, we are paying

  1597
  out grants to improve units and make them viable and, on the other hand, units are allowed to go over to forestry. This matter should be seriously considered before launching out on large scale improvements. I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to look again at this question and to endeavour to produce something like a policy for the future use of hill land. It is clear that the time has come for there to be a fair apportionment of hill land as between sheep and forestry.
  I know that the extra money under this Scheme will be welcome, and I hope that it will be taken up. However, I am still convinced that the hill farmer will find great difficulty in finding the rest of the money, even though this amount would appear to be generous. We must first do something to put our hill farms into better shape.
  11.56 p.m.
  Mr. James Scott-Hopkins: I, too, welcome this Scheme. Anything that helps the hill farmers must be welcomed. In my part of the country in the Peak District, there have been many problems for the farmers. Although this used to be a great sheep area, in recent months the sheep population has sadly declined. These farmers will find difficulty in finding the remaining 40 per cent. of the money that is needed to carry out these improvements.
  Does the Parliamentary Secretary know how the Scheme has been progressing? Is a check being kept on whether land in the Scheme is being maintained as to drainage, fencing and so on? One has felt that nobody has needed help more than the hill farm schemes, but it has been difficult to ensure that maintenance has been carried out. The forces of nature soon take over and one is back to where one started. How far up the hill will these improvement schemes operate? They should cover the whole of the hill area in regard to fencing, drainage and so on, and presumably there is no limit as to how far up they may go.
  We all know that there is a great deal of hardship in the hills. My hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) gave a figure relating to the drop in numbers of sheep. I can quote the drop in income of one small hill farmer in the Peak District, whose income has
  1598
  fallen from £834 to £510. This is an appalling figure. I do not know how that man, who has a wife and child, is expected to live on such a sum. I do not know how he will be able to pay the remainder of the sum. Nevertheless, I conclude by welcoming the Scheme but wishing that it went further.
  12 midnight.
  Mr. David Steel: While I welcome the new Scheme and the increased rate of grant at 60 per cent., I wish to make it clear that the complaints which have been made by hon. Members are not confined to their areas.
  It was impressed on me strongly, in advance of the Price Review, that of all sectors of farming—I know this to be true from my experience of the Scottish Border—the hill farmers have suffered the most as a result of their income having dropped over the years. Given the present level of interest rates, it is doubtful whether they will be in a position to take advantage, in an appreciable way, of the 60 per cent. scheme. Not only will many of them not be able to afford to do so, but some will not be able to obtain credit to meet the remaining 40 per cent.
  I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Alasdair Mackenzie) spoke of the comparison with forestry. This matter has affected the Scottish Border areas more than any other part of the country. There is great disquiet among the hill farming community about the financial incentives given, I admit properly given, to private forestry. As a result, however, there is a direct incentive for the hill farmer to sell his land to private forestry companies, which can take advantage of the financial incentives.
  The taxpayer—the person who will be paying the extra 10 per cent. which the Government are offering under this Scheme—is entitled to ask, "How do I know that the Scheme will be effective and will enable hill farmers to remain in business?" In the recent past advantage has been taken of the Hill Land Improvement Scheme at the taxpayer's expense, only to be followed, within a year or two, by the sale of land. In one case in my constituency trees were planted right up to the door of a cottage

  1599
  which had been built but which was never occupied.
  Are the Government really serious in their intention to keep the hill farm as a viable part of home agriculture? I suspect—although I have not had a chance, since the publication of the price Review White Paper, to check with my local N.F.U.—that the extra 3d. on sheep which is given in the Price Review, while being excellent, may not find its way in sufficient quantity to make an appreciable difference to the hill farmer.
  In other words, I fear that we may be going through a shadow exercise of approving a Scheme which, on paper, is excellent and appears to make the position of the hill farmer improved, but which, in reality, will not go to the heart of the matter because it will leave the hill farming community in the same state of uncertainty as it has been for the past few months.
  12.3 a.m.
  Sir John Gilmour: My hon. Friends and hon. Members of the Liberal Party have made some interesting contributions to the debate. It is regrettable that not one back bencher is present on the benches opposite to speak for sheep farmers, particularly those in Caithness and Sutherland.
  It has been pointed out that hill and upland farmers face a real difficulty, despite the Price Review. Whatever the Review does by way of putting something into the end product that they produce, there will be no extra money for these people until the late autumn of this year.
  The fertiliser Instrument has come too late this year to help them. Hill and upland farmers face the difficulty that if the weather goes against them at harvest time, there will not be a market for stores, with the result that the extra 3d. will not reach them. Is the Minister certain that the extra 10 per cent. is all that is needed to make hill and upland farming viable?
  The points that have been made about sheep farming versus forestry underline the fact that there is not sufficient profitability from quite good land, let alone bad land, for the continuation of sheep farming. As good land is going, the Minister must show how this 10 per cent. increase will be enough. I should
  1600
  like to underline the point which my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) made about buildings. I understand that this Scheme refers back to the 1967 Act, which in Part III, Section 41(2), says:
  "the … Minister may prescribe"
  improvements
  "in the scheme as being in his opinion improvements which will improve the productivity of hill land used for agriculture."
  If, as a result, a hill farmer puts buildings on his land which allow him to rest the land, to alter the time of grazing, thus assisting him to support a larger number of stock, does this fall within Section 41(2)? The Parliamentary Secretary has been making play with the fact that he can make ex gratia payments under another Scheme. Surely he could do this under Section 41? Is this so?
  The Minister gave us to understand that about 1,250 applications were coming forward under this Scheme at present, and this presumably means possibly about a month's or two months' delay between the putting forward of the schemes and starting them. Possibly, something like 1,000 schemes have been approved. In the light of the change in the rate of grant, is it open to farmers to withdraw their schemes and to resubmit them?
  If we can make ex gratia payments from 1st May to the date of the birthday of my right hon. Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble), which appears to be the witching date in this debate, is it not possible for those people who have applied in good faith to reapply? It is like the story of the wise and foolish virgins, but in this case it is the foolish virgins who get the best of it. That is basically wrong and the wise virgins should get something out of it as well.
  12.8 a.m.
  Mr. Mackie: This is always an interesting debate on hill land farming. I should answer the point as to why this can be back-dated unlike the fertiliser Scheme. This is a Scheme where there is simply a question of approval and there is no question of buying anything. The farmer puts in an application and gets an approval.
  The hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) and other hon. Members suggested that hill farming was run down, but it is the one side of the sheep industry which has shown a rise in numbers.

  1601
  The drop in the numbers of sheep has been in the lowlands and not the highlands. Incomes for sheep farmers have been a little up compared to others, but not where there are hill sheep and cattle. These are down 10 per cent., and compare with farming incomes in general for which 1968–69 has been a bad year.
  The hon. Member for Westmorland made an extraordinary statement: that if only he could use the levy system he could support hill farming today. If only he had seen the horror on the face of the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Alasdair Mackenzie). How much would he have to raise the price of beef to allow the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty to get £35 10s. on his hill calf? That is the amount of subsidy on the cow and calf. The hon. Member for Westmorland should go home tonight and it will take him all night to work it out. Then he will be horrified.
  M, Jopling M, Jopling rose——
  Mr. Mackie: Before the hon. Member interrupts too quickly, how much would he have to raise the price of beef to get £9 on the heifer and £11·5 on the bull calf? He should be patient and work it out before he makes statements like that. Now I will give way.
  Mr. Jopling: My party has made it clear in its proposals that it does not wish to interfere with the production grants.
  Mr. Mackie: What is the Hill Land Improvement Scheme but a production grant? It is the same system. The hon. Gentleman can go home and work out also how much the price would have had to have been increased to pay for the Hill Land Improvement Scheme.
  The hon. Gentleman also talked about maintaining grips. I have been asked this by farmers in his area, notably by Mr. Allen in Cumberland. The Government having made a grant for the putting in of drains, it is the farmer's duty to maintain them. It is not reasonable to give maintenance grants when grants have originally been given for installation. We have worked on the principle that maintenance is the farmer's job after the grants have been made.
  Several hon. Members raised a point about buildings. There are more farms
  1602
  in the hill areas that should come under the Government's farm structure scheme than in any other area. If grants were given for the erection of permanent buildings, many of them might be wasted. Hon. Members must know that cattle and sheep shelters come under the terms of the scheme but not permanent buildings.
  R.D.B. has been mentioned. It has been going for only 6–8 months in the hon. Gentleman's area. He should give it a chance to operate before criticising it.
  Nearly every hon. Member who has spoken has said that farmers will not have the cash to take advantage of these grants of 70 per cent. for drainage and 60 per cent. for other things. For drainage only 30 per cent. of the necessary money must be found by the farmer; and for other schemes only 40 per cent. The figures do not show what hon. Members have alleged. In the last three months there have been 3,440 applications. In the comparable period for the previous year there were 3,370. So in what everybody has been saying has been a bad year the number of applications has risen.
  Mr. David Steel: What are the figures for Scotland?
  Mr. Mackie: I will write to the hon. Gentleman and give him that information.
  From February, 1969, to January, 1970, out of a total of about 17,000 applications received, 15,987 were approved, at an estimated cost of about £6 million. I was asked whether a farmer who had had a scheme approved could withdraw and start again. He can. We cannot prevent him from doing so, providing that he has not yet started work on the scheme. Any farmer who has had a scheme approved can withdraw and start again, and get the extra 10 per cent.
  We have repeatedly told hon. Members opposite that they talk fanners into thinking that they cannot afford things. But the figures do not show this. Hon. Members should study the figures. There is money to be found—15,987 hill farmers are finding it. The number of applications received in the last three months showed an increase of 70 over the number received in the corresponding period of 1968–69.

  1603
  I turn to the difficult question of hill farming land going to forestry. The taxation position is to the advantage of private forestry. These people are obviously able to pay more for the land, and it is attractive to farmers to sell it to them. I am sure that the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty would not like any Government to take sufficient control—I gather that is what he wants us to do—to stop this kind of thing. We cannot do that.
  Mr. Alasdair Mackenzie Mr. Alasdair Mackenzie rose——
  Mr. Mackie: I know the point that the hon. Gentleman will make. He will say that he does not want us to take control, but to give enough money so that forestry and sheep farming can hold their own.
  Mr. Mackenzie: The point is that large sums have been spent in the past 20 years to make hill farms viable units. It therefore seems wrong, when a man has fenced, drained and reclaimed land and put up buildings, that it should go to forestry.
  Mr. Mackie: I agree it is a pity that that should happen. But if we are to have private ownership of land and allow people to please themselves, it is difficult to stop it happening. There is enough land. Forestry is complementary to agriculture. If not, it should be. It is in many countries which I have visited, and I should like it to be so in this country. I know how keen the hon. Gentleman is on stock. He, probably rightly, thinks that in some cases this should not happen.
  Derision has been poured on the 3d. a lb. on the fat sheep. The hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) did not seem to think that it would trickle back. He must agree, because he is a Common Marketeer, that with a levy it will trickle back. I know that the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. James Davidson) is not of the same opinion, but I cannot answer for divisions within parties.
  The hon. Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Gilmour) raised many "ifs" about things happening. We all know that things happen in farming. The industry has good and bad years. If this and that happens, said the hon. Gentleman, sheep farming would stop altogether. He was being very depressing.
  1604
  The hon. Gentleman raised a point about buildings, which I have answered. He also asked whether a farmer could withdraw, and I have answered that point.
  The only point that I have not answered was that raised by the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) about whether we will follow up the Scheme with another. The Scheme has only been going since 1967 and we do not know whether the improvements will be maintained. However, we will look at this point. Like the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty, I think that it is a pity to spend a lot of money on a Scheme and not see any return.
  I hope that the House will accept the Scheme. I think that, generally speaking, most hon. Members approve of it.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Hill Land Improvement (Amendment) Scheme 1970, a draft of which was laid before this House on 18th March, be approved.
  Resolved,
  That the Hill Land Improvement (Scotland) Amendment Scheme 1970, a draft of which was laid before this House on 18th March, be approved.—[Mr. Hoy.]

  AGRICULTURAL INVESTMENT (GRANTS)
  12.18 a.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Hoy): I beg to move,
  That the Agricultural Investment (Variation of Rate of Grant) Order 1970, a copy of which was laid before this House on 18th March, be approved.
  The purpose of this Order is quite simple. It gives effect to the increased rates of agricultural investment grant and investment supplement which were announced by my right hon. Friend in the Annual Review Determination last Wednesday. The agricultural investment grant, paid under Section 31 of the Agriculture Act, 1967, was, until this Order came into operation, at the rate of 10 per cent. of expenditure incurred on fixed equipment, plant or machinery, and on

  1605
  long-term improvements to land for the purposes of agricultural businesses.
  This Order increases the rate to 30 per cent. The new rate will be paid on approved expenditure incurred between 19th March this year and 30th September, 1971. If an item is being bought under a hire purchase or similar agreement, paragraph 3(2)(b) of the Order provides that it may qualify for the increased rate of grant if the initial payment is made within this period.
  The Order also increases from 5 to 15 per cent. the rate of investment supplement which under Section 33 of the 1967 Act is payable in addition to farm improvement grant approved under Section 30 of the Act. The effect of this increase will be that items qualifying under the Farm Improvement Scheme will attract grant at the rate of 40 per cent. of approved expenditure. The higher rate will be paid on proposals received or approved within the two-year period commencing on 19th March.
  The value of all the increases, of which these are part, is expected to be some £20 million or more, but the precise figure will depend on the response.
  It will be noted that the rate of agricultural investment grant has been increased for a shorter period than the rate of investment supplement. This is because items eligible for investment grant will be eligible for grant under the Farm Capital Grant Scheme. The rate of grant will be higher—40 per cent. as compared with 30 per cent.—but for some items, such as buildings, there will be a requirement that the Department's approval must be obtained before work is started. There is no such requirement in connection with investment grant, so we have to allow sufficient time for the completion of work on items started before the new Scheme comes into operation. We think that 18 months is sufficient for this; if work has not started by the time the new Scheme is introduced, an application may be made under that Scheme for the higher rate of grant.
  These considerations do not apply to the other grants which are being increased, because to qualify for all of them approval must be obtained before work commences, and no more applications will be accepted for these grants
  1606
  under existing arrangements after the new Scheme commences.
  It is our belief that these and other increases announced in the Annual Review will provide a valuable stimulus to the investment which is essential if the industry is to maintain its justifiably proud record of productivity and efficiency. I invite the House to approve the Order.
  12.22 a.m.
  Mr. Bryan Godman Irvine: Although my fertilisers arrived on the day before the Annual Review, I am happy to tell the Minister and the House that a little scheme which I hope will qualify for an investment grant has been delayed, through reasons unconnected with anything under my control, so I am just as interested in this Order as anybody else.
  We are grateful to the Minister for letting us have a slight clarification of what the Order will cover, but it is still not quite clear to me. In the Explanatory Note, we are told that the Order applies to the investment grant payable under Section 31 of the Agriculture Act, 1967. The right hon. Gentleman made clear that there is another Order or Scheme to come which will deal with something else. We shall greatly appreciate it if he will clarify the matter so that all farmers, including me, will know exactly what is covered.
  In the two paragraphs of the Review White Paper which lead to the Order now before us, there is reference to the downturn in the number applications in respect of schemes which would qualify. The Minister, no doubt, has some information about the downturn which, perhaps, is not available to me, but I can turn to two places for information, and these show a fairly dramatic downturn.
  On page 43 of the Price Review White Paper, dealing with the farm improvement applications made for 1969–70, the estimate given is £14·3 million. For 1970–71 it is £15·5 million. As the rate in 1969–70 is 30 per cent., the figure that I understand would therefore become available is £50 million. In 1970–71, £15·5 million at 40 per cent. comes out at only £39 million. Therefore, the downturn that has led to this Order is a matter of £11 million in one year. This is a very

  1607
  significant matter which should be explained by the Minister a little more clearly than by the one word "downturn" in the Price Review.
  In the National Farmers' Union Press release there is a reference to a paper on hidden depreciation. I do not know whether the Minister has seen it. I have not. If there is something significant there which he could tell us about, that would also be of interest.
  We on this side of the House welcome the Order, but we come back to the point raised in connection with various Schemes tonight, that anybody who talks to the farmers will be left in no doubt that they will have great difficulty in finding the cash to meet the additional amount, small as it may be.
  In Table A on page 36 of the Price Review it will be seen that the income of the farmer in 1964–65 was £447 million. The figures for 1969–70 are £535 million. Since 1964–65 many things have happened which have led to a little matter of a 25 per cent. decrease in the value of money. I need not tell the Minister what those various items are. Not the least of them was devaluation. If the amount for 1964–65 was corrected to allow for the fall in the value of money, it would represent about £600 million in purchasing power today, whereas the figure we find here is £535 million. Here again is a very serious deficit, which is an indication of why the farmer cannot find cash to take advantage of the Scheme.
  The figures in the raised sample are £429 million in 1964–65 and £418 million in 1968–69. When they are corrected for the real value of money today they are seen to be very significant. Therefore, I have no hesitation in saying that the farmers will have the greatest difficulty in finding the money to pay even that small amount that will be required under these Schemes and the Order. Even if they could do so there are two other difficulties. Most of them have their overdrafts extended to the furthest limit and cannot take them any further. Second, if they could get an overdraft, a rate of interest of about 10 per cent. is not a very attractive proposition.
  When we get to 60 or 70 per cent. being paid, that is a dangerously high figure. Therefore, it is right that the
  1608
  Minister has said that this will be a matter that will last only two years. It may be necessary at the moment, but it is not a figure at which it would be healthy for agriculture to operate for very long. Perhaps the Minister could tell us how the money will be paid—whether in two sums or one.
  I commend the Order to the House.
  12.30 a.m.
  Mr. James Scott-Hopkins: I wish to raise two quick points. I interrupted the Minister when he spoke about "work" commencing as being the operative word in the context of application of the grant. Can he define what is meant by "work"? We have had the question in the past of whether it is the first shovel going in or the man coming on to the land. What is the definition? This is a small point, but if the right hon. Gentleman can define it now, he will save a lot of annoying legal issues later.
  Secondly, this is the grant under the 1967 Act which covers those items of fixed equipment, plant, machinery, and so on, which are not covered under the Farm Improvement Schemes. The only thing that it does not include is a dwelling-house. Has there been any change in policy recently whereby, if buildings are put up on bare land—if a farmer applies for buildings to be put up on absolutely bare land—the scheme will apply to those buildings?
  A case has recently been brought to my notice concerning a small unit of land, which is not necessarily a viable unit on its own, which is bare of buildings but, because of the recommendations of one of the Minister's officials, will become a new unit. Farm buildings are to be put on the bare land. I understand that those farm buildings and the equipment to go into them will now qualify for grant, not merely the existing 10 per cent., but the new, increased rate of 30 per cent. If this is so, I entirely and utterly disagree with it.
  If must be the wrong policy to give grants for buildings and machinery which are to go on to bare land unless there is certainty that the new unit to be formed will be viable under the most strict criteria. If that is so, I have no objection and I am all in favour of it. Basically, of course, I welcome the Order.

  1609
  If the Minister will answer the two points which I have raised, I shall be grateful.
  12.33 a.m.
  Mr. James Davidson: I should like first to say how warmly I welcome the Order. I have only one or two points to make to the Minister. In principle, it is, perhaps, a pity that although the percentage has been raised, the ceiling is not a little lower, because I fear that what will happen is that a very large proportion of the money that is allocated under the Order will go to a few large schemes, to farmers who can afford to find the other part of the money, and not to a large number of smaller schemes, which is where I should like the money to go.
  The emphasis under the Order is on fixed rather than mobile equipment. Again, from the point of view of export orders, this is, perhaps, a pity, because the country would benefit most from stimulus to tractors, forage harvesters and that sort of equipment rather than to fixed equipment which is made largely by firms which are dependent chiefly on the home market for the installation of their products.
  I agree with most of the points raised by the hon. Member for Rye (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine), who raised most of the points to be raised on the Order. I am very interested in what sort of equipment will or will not be eligible. There will necessarily be anomalies, of which I mention three. I take it that grain storage equipment, because it is fixed equipment, will be eligible, and yet, for example, the equipment which a farmer might buy to produce prop corn—propionic acid-dressed grain—which will keep more or less indefinitely, and which we tried ourselves last season with great success, will presumably, because it is mobile and can he moved about, not be eligible although it is every bit as much a way of enabling grain to the stored as a fixed grain storage bin or silo. A grain drier will be eligible because it is fixed, and yet a forage harvester, which is an absolutely essential part of the process of preserving grass for forage, will not be eligible because it is mobile and not fixed. Mechanical feeding equipment installed in a byre or piggery or any other form of livestock building presumably will be eligible and yet a tractor which takes feedstuffs to
  1610
  feed livestock outside the farm will not be eligible.
  I should like confirmation that what I have said about these three examples is correct. Perhaps the Minister would explain why fixed equipment performing basically the same function as mobile equipment is eligible for grant whereas mobile equipment is not. If the object is mechanisation of our farms and increased efficiency in the farming industry, these can be little difference whether it stems from fixed equipment or mobile equipment.
  I reiterate that I warmly welcome the Order and the previous Orders and look forward to hearing the Minister's answer.
  12.36 a.m.
  Mr. J. E. B. Hill: I welcome these increases, but they should have been made some time ago, because the Government were warned many times from this side of the House that the rate of capital investment in agriculture was not keeping up. If the Government were to realise their own selective expansion programme, it was obvious that it was not sufficient merely to keep up the rate of investment but that the trend needed to move more steeply upwards. This has not happened. Surely, the claims in the White Paper of increases of 10 and 13 per cent. are expressed in current values and not in real terms. The actual in creases are markedly less.
  I reinforce the argument that it is essential that sufficient credit should be forthcoming to enable farmers to take advantage of the grants now proposed. In East Anglia the Government's policy as it affects the banks has resulted in many schemes being deferred. I should like to quote from a letter which I have submitted to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary from Barclays Bank, Norwich, dated 24th February, 1970:
  "On the question of farm expansion, the ceiling imposed by the Government in November 1967 had the effect of precluding us from assisting other than by guiding our customer to other sources of finance, e.g. the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation. And in reply to your specific enquiry, we have certainly had to discourage a number of projects which we would have unhesitatingly supported had conditions been otherwise. Such cases are frequent and extremely frustrating, not only for the customer but also for the banks".

  1611
  When I put that letter to the Parliamentary Secretary, he replied:
  "It is inevitable that if the restrictions on bank lending are to bite, there must be cases in which credit is refused. Although agriculture has priority for bank lending, that priority cannot be absolute; bank managers must have some regard to the needs of non-priority customers".
  It is surely undeniable that the effect of the credit policy has been to force the deferment of schemes and the downturn of investment, which the Government are trying to correct.
  It is no good the Minister replying that there have not been difficulties. When I submitted the Minister's reply to the bank, I had the further answer:
  "I can only say that my experience, and that of my colleagues from all over the country who are dealing with farmers' finances every day, is substantially different from the information received by Mr. Mackie's department".
  That summarises the difficulty. That may refer to only one region, but unless more credit is forthcoming, farmers will not be able to take advantage of these new grants in the time during which the grants run, which is until September of next year.
  May I therefore ask the Minister whether he can expedite the payment of grants in this period since it is clear that farmers not only have to find the 60 per cent. of the total amount but for a period have to find 100 per cent. of the cost, as usually the manufacturers need to be paid and are now asking to be paid promptly?
  There is the further point that banks often have to ask farmers to finance the improvements on a longer-term basis, and they recommend them to go to the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation. When we last debated agricultural credit the Financial Secretary to the Treasury accepted that, because of non-variability of interest rates during repayment, the whole subject of A.M.C. mortgage rates was worth looking into. It is undoubtedly a further deterrent to farmers to have to incur loans when the high current rates of interest have to run throughout the whole of the period of the loan. Surely it is now time for the difficulty, which amounts to a distortion, to be considered, and I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will say something about it.
  12.43 a.m.
  Mr. Hoy: The hon. Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. J. E. B. Hill) selected only one area of the country, and the situation there might not apply generally. He knows as well as anybody in the House that the Government gave agriculture the same credit priority within the banks' lending ceilings as was given to the export industries. We did so because we thought that this would be of considerable help to farmers; we have done our best in this respect.
  I was asked which items were eligible for grant. When making his statement, my right hon. Friend said that there would be a considerable increase in the number of items eligible. I will not list all the things which will be included, but they are mainly fixed items, although there is a slight qualification to that which should please the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. James Davidson). They are mainly permanent buildings, excluding dwelling-houses, but including glasshouses and frames, poultry houses and permanent yards, loading platforms, silos, provision for gas and electricity other than for dwelling-houses, fencing including hedges, walls and gates, and a host of other things.
  The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West was concerned that large firms might collect too much of the money, and thought that we might have put the ceiling too high. This is the first time that we have imposed a ceiling, and we hope that it will prove to be helpful.
  I was asked when payment would commence. I am told that people prefer to pay for work when it is finished and, therefore, payment of grant is usually made when the work is finished, but there is a possibility that it can be paid by instalments if approval has been given. As to bare land, investment grants are payable when a unit becomes viable. Grant-aided investment for building and works was at a record level in 1969. Only recently have there been signs of a down turn. As regards mobile equipment, if it does the same work as fixed equipment it may well be covered, but I will check.
  The hon. Member for Rye (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine) asked for the following figures: in 1967 applications numbered 48,135, the investment on which grant was paid was £46–2 million, and the value

  1613
  of approvals was £55 million. In 1968 the figures were 53,297, £50·9 million and £62 million respectively, and in 1969 they were 47,956, £59·6 million and £62·9 million. These are the latest figures I have.
  The hon. Member feared that the farmer's share was too high at 70 per cent. We had a meeting this week with representatives from all over the country. Those who spoke said that it would have been more attractive if it had been increased. This is the same with every grant: if one increases it by 10, 20 or 30 per cent., it is always said that if it were raised by another five per cent. it would be even better. One has to hold the line somewhere and fix the grant at rates which one thinks will encourage the industry, but one also has a responsibility to the taxpayer.
  I think that that covers all the questions, and I hope that we can now have the Order.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Agricultural Investment (Variation of Rate of Grant) Order 1970, a copy of which was laid before this House on 18th March, be approved.

  COUNCIL HOUSE COMMUNITIES
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]
  12.48 a.m.
  Mr. Hugh D. Brown: If I was guilty of any discourtesy to the House on Monday, 6th March, it was not intentional. For my share in that mistake, I have had to listen to three hours of agricultural debate, although there is not a farmer in Provan, and that is punishment enough. I had thought that farmers were early bedders, but obviously it is only the gentleman variety that we have in the House.
  I want to change the subject and deal with the Report, "Council House Communities: A Policy for Progress". My hon. Friend and I are always unfortunate in Adjournment debates: they always seem to be at six o'clock in the morning or some other unearthly hour, when there is no great interest. Also interesting is the fact that the last time we had an Adjournment debate it was on
  1614
  the previous report from the sub-committee on Scotland's older houses, the Cullingworth Report.
  It is appropriate that I should discuss this report, because my constituency contains the largest number of council houses of any constituency in the country. Two schemes—Blackhill and Easterhouse—were specifically mentioned and, worse perhaps, photographed in the report. But I am not complaining about that.
  I want to compliment the committee on the thoroughness of the report. Not enough public recognition is given to the unpaid service which members of such committees give. But that does not mean to say that I shall not criticise, though perhaps mildly, both the committee and the Government and the general system of issuing reports. This is the third report issued by the Scottish Office which I think has been badly handled. For example, a report from the Joint Working Party on Community Relations included a recommendation, among other things, about the infamous Easterhouse wall. No one was consulted locally, and I say that advisedly. The result has been that the proposal has been dropped because of lack of local support.
  Secondly, there was the report called "School and Community", by Catherine Lindsay, issued a couple of months ago. This was a research project sponsored jointly by the Scottish Home and Health Department and the Scottish Education Department. This dealt with two comprehensive schools in my constituency, one Catholic and the other non-Catholic. Although it was an excellent piece of research work, there were some controversial matters in it which had political implications.
  It is unfortunate that, when this report was published, no one thought of sending a copy to me, although I got a copy of it two days afterwards. I suggest again that this is due to lack of proper appreciation of what could have serious political implications in any constituency, certainly one that gets as much attention as my constituency does in this report. I was, naturally, a bit incensed about this.
  I put a series of questions to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, who replied by letter on 17th February. He did not answer all my questions, one of them being how often and when this sub-committee had visited the

  1615
  schemes it was reporting on. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will pay some attention to this aspect of the contents and publication of these reports.
  I want to deal with three main points of the report: first, the internal improvements in the older schemes; secondly, the environment and amenities of the post-war schemes; and, thirdly, and probably most important, the effect on the house building programme. I am shocked by the apathy and scandalous indifference of the Glasgow Tory Progressive group towards the housing needs of the citizens of Glasgow. I strongly resent the suggestion of the leader of that group that I and my Labour colleagues in Glasgow are somewhat ill-informed on this subject. I have not received a copy of his 17 points, although it is two days since he said it would be sent to all hon. Members. I have a hard enough job in this House getting a copy of the Scottish Daily Express, quite apart from receiving any letter from him.
  I turn, first, to the improvements in the internal fittings of the old houses. In Glasgow, under the 1919 Act, about 4,600 houses are being rewired at a cost of about £120 per house, making a total of about £600,000. This is only the start of something which should have been done years ago. It is not generally known by the public, and I doubt whether it is known by many members of the Corporation of Glasgow, that the Government grant is just short of £300,000. The public and the corporation should know the amount of money involved in improving the older council schemes or houses referred to in the report.
  On the second aspect of this, the environment and amenities of post-war schemes and the rehabilitation or improvement of the amenities, may I refer to the shocking decision by Glasgow in the experimental unit 4 scheme in Easter-house, in my constituency, involving 1,300 houses. The original proposal, which was almost identical to the recommendations of the sub-committee's report, was that there should be a general provision made for car parking, better cleansing arrangements and landscaping—all the things which we have perhaps neglected in the past. This scheme has been in existence only for 10 years, and already it is recognized
  1616
  by planners, councillors and the Government that something needs to be done to make it a better community. There is nothing wrong with the people, but there are certain deficiencies.
  The corporation has cut the proposed scheme from £80,000 to £15,000. Has any application been made to the Government to contribute towards this under Section 59 of the Housing (Scotland) Act, 1969? In case the Minister does not compliment me, I had better do it myself. I was the only hon. Member to draw attention to the fact that this was a very important Section and I hoped that local authorities would take advantage of it.
  Paragraph 141 of the report draws attention to this Section and suggests that the powers should be clarified, although my right hon. Friend in an interjection during the debate of 17th June, 1969, in column 333, made it clear that the powers covered grants for amenity purposes in council schemes. The Glasgow Corporation should be reminded that money is available for this.
  The most serious aspect of the report is the recommendation in paragraph 48:
  "but we are firmly of the opinion that, if the only way of rescuing existing schemes from further deterioration is a cutting back of the rate of new house building, then in many areas this would be justified."
  This is a rather dangerous recommendation, when it is obvious that the Tory and Progressive Group in Glasgow needs no encouragement to cut back the building of new houses in the City and outside.
  May I refer to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow. Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) on 11th March this year, when he said that the total starts in 1969 for local authority, S.S.H.A. and all other houses were 1,551. This is the lowest figure on record since there has been a house building programme.
  I refer also to the statement made in the Glasgow Herald of 12th March, where underspending of £9 on the 1969–70 estimate of £25·1 million was highlighted. The estimate for 1970–71 is a reduction of almost £4 on the 1969–70 figure. Even in financial terms, which I know do not always correspond to the actual programme that is completed, there seems

  1617
  to be an intention to cut back on the expenditure and, therefore, on the number of houses provided.
  There has been a tremendous fanfare of trumpets about the tremendous saving to the ratepayers. This seems to be the only matter in the minds of some of the leaders in the group at the moment. We need a more responsible attitude in measuring the cost to the community.
  I conclude by mentioning specific demands and the grant position in relation to Section 69 of the Act. I hope that my hon. Friend will consider the appointment of community association leaders or officers in terms of the report. In paragraph 80 an example is given in Edinburgh, I do not like to concede that Edinburgh is ahead of Glasgow, but it looks as if that is the case in this respect. It would give a tremendous boost to voluntary organisations even statutory bodies if, in schemes like Blackhill and Easterhouse, community association officers were appointed, partly paid for by the Government and partly by local authorities. It could be treated as a pre-Wheatley experiment.
  Lastly, I would conclude by suggesting, indeed, demanding, a public and independent inquiry into all aspects of Glasgow's housing problems. This would include examining cost procedures, the cut back in programmes of new houses, improvements and redevelopments, cost of overspill, including the shambles at Erskine, and the availability of sites in Glasgow. There is in the Glasgow Herald of 3rd March an astonishing quotation from what was said by the leader of the Conservative group, Derek Wood:
  "In some cases developers have had planning permission in principle for many years and have not gone ahead with private building."
  Even that aspect alone is worth examining. One of the councillors concerned has called a special meeting in Blackhill this week, a meeting to which the report has given impetus.
  I hope that my hon. Friend will look in a kindly way on the suggestion of community association officers. The Glasgow people deserve more than just the leader of the progressive group and the Minister of State, for whom I have great regard, being locked in mortal strife as paper tigers, with all the controversy in the Press. The Tory Progressive majority in Glasgow is a luxury that we
  1618
  can ill afford. I know that my hon. Friend will take his due part in the public debate, but he also is more concerned about the building of more houses, and I hope that he will use his influence to that end.
  1.3 a.m.
  The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Dr. J. Dickson Mahon): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown) for raising this subject and for his remarks. I would much prefer it if Glasgow Corporation looked carefully at its present programme rather than that it should conduct a debate in public. It was not my intention that we should have a debate in the newspapers, although I am quite willing to take part. In fact, I am grateful to the Scottish Daily Express for providing a platform.
  On the question of a general inquiry about the present Glasgow plans, not only about council houses generally but about council house building, on 29th January my noble Friend the Minister of State was able to get agreement from the corporation to set up a joint working party of officials from both the Scottish Development Department and the corporation. I hope that this working party will complete its deliberations next month. I hope that my noble Friend will be able to meet the corporation in May.
  I have referred in the newspapers to the fact that Glasgow should pull its socks up during the next six weeks. I meant that it should get down to the factual process of examining the sites which it claims are there to be developed.
  I am sorry that my hon. Friend has had a difficult experience with a report on an educational matter, but, of course, I am not responsible for education. As for the report of the Joint Working Party which made a proposal about the Easterhouse Wall, that body was set up by my right hon. Friend as the result of intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan), the Joint Under-Secretary, and the Glasgow Corporation, when it was thought to be a good idea to make certain proposals regarding parts of my hon. Friend's constituency.

  1619
  The purpose of the report was to advise the corporation of the difficulties involved in certain new housing areas, and all but one of the recommendations related entirely to the corporation's own powers. It was, therefore, for the corporation to decide whether particular recommendations, including the one about the Easterhouse Wall, should be accepted and implemented.
  The question of the wall is, therefore, not a matter on which the Secretary of State could decide but one on which the corporation must decide for itself. The Easterhouse Community Development Committee raised this matter, but it is really one for Glasgow Corporation. I understand that the corporation has refused to go ahead with the building of this wall, despite the Joint Working Party's view that, in the interests of the community, there was a case for building it. I must add that it is a good report. It is not right in all its recommendations, but no report ever is. I have yet to read one that is unanimous in all its views.
  Under Section 59 of the Housing (Scotland) Act, 1969, to which the Sub-Committee referred—I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Sir James Miller and the members of that body, who worked extremely hard—we provided, for the first time, for special grant assistance towards the improvement of the amenities of residential areas. This was, of course, conceived in the context of the improvement of older houses, particularly the areas of 19th century tenements in the cities, but we purposely made the legislation of wider application so that other areas needing attention could also be grant-aided if necessary.
  When the 1969 Act was going through Parliament I emphasised that it would be necessary to limit the grant to cases where the proposed improvement of the environment was to be carried out in conjunction with the improvement of houses. We have before us proposals from certain local authorities and we are looking at these closely. But the answer to my hon. Friend's question is that none of those received so far have come from Glasgow. That is not our fault. Glasgow cannot get a grant unless it asks for one, and, naturally, if it does not ask, it will never get a grant. We cannot repeat
  1620
  this too often. The corporation must put proposals forward before we are able to examine them, and then we can agree or disagree with them.
  On the question of improvement grants for council houses individually, in 1968 there were discussions between Glasgow Corporation and the Scottish Development Department about grants towards rehabilitation work on pre-war council houses. The work proposed by the corporation included the rewiring of electricity installations, the renewal of bathroom and sanitary fittings and the replacement of sink units.
  It was explained to the corporation that the bulk of the work was appropriate to the housing repairs account and was not eligible for improvement grant. The corporation was told that work costing about £3·1 million would qualify for grant. This was mainly the installation of power circuits in houses which, when built, were wired for lighting only.
  It has been the policy of successive Governments that improvement grant is payable only for work on subsidised houses where that work is for the provision of amenities which were previously lacking and not for work of repair or replacement. This was originally set out in the Scottish Development Department's Memorandum No. 54/1964 and we repeated it in the new Scottish Housing Handbook Bulletin No. 2, issued last December.
  The report, as my hon. Friend emphasises, draws attention to a problem we cannot afford to neglect. We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that in many parts of Scotland houses which are good in themselves are in an environment which is unsatisfactory by modern standards. There are areas of land lying derelict and drying greens which have become deserts. They lack adequate shops and social facilities and are the victims of both vandalism and neglect.
  The report points out that these conditions, if not checked now, will lead to a cumulative deterioration in both the physical and social conditions of the area. Tenants will lose heart and give up trying and houses in the area will become difficult to let.
  The problem is important. We all know about it, but few local authorities

  1621
  have so tar taken much trouble to improve such areas. The report recognises certain things and suggests a combined operation. That is perhaps the key to the whole thing, but if departments of local authorities, police, social work, housing managers, roads and parks, do not work together, we will not get the right solution. Our local government committee structure at present does not always lend itself to the kind of framework for action necessary in those areas.
  Nobody who has read this report fully will doubt the need for urgent action. It points out the needs of some areas mean individual suffering—children being brought up in areas deprived of proper environment—and that this can have a permanent effect on those children. The report records that skilled workers have been put off by the appearance and character of the housing which is sometimes offered. It is not just a social case, but an economic and industrial case.
  We have a stock of over 700,000 local authority houses which represents a capital investment of over £2,000 million. Many of these houses still have 40 or 50
  1622
  years of life and represent assets which should not be run down prematurely. It is important that we get ahead with the report's recommendations.
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State intends to draw the attention of local authorities to the problems which exist or may arise in various spheres and, in circulars, will suggest solutions. We shall consult local authorities about what is done in Edinburgh and about my hon. Friend's suggestion about community leaders. We want to hear suggestions. Above all, we want action, and action by Glasgow.
  That does not mean that we should be reducing or accepting the reduction of any housing expenditure. If the Tories want to save money on housing, they have no alibi that they cannot spend money on the improvement of stock. We want them to do that. My hon. Friend has done a service in emphasising their inadequacy tonight.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at thirteen minutes past One o'clock.