HC Deb 09 February 1972 vol 830 cc1333-4
35. Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson

asked the Lord President of the Council what proposals he has for making the problems of excessive population growth better understood in the community.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. William Whitelaw)

The significance of population growth in this country is at present being studied by a panel appointed as promised in the White Paper Cmnd. 4748.

Mr. McNair-Wilson

While I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the reply may I ask him whether he is not taking a slightly complacent view of what is a clear-cut problem? May I draw his attention to a letter signed by a series of estimable doctors in the Lancet in which they pointed out that births in the United Kingdom annually exceed deaths by 300,000 and that by the end of the century we will be faced with at least another 10 million people, if not another 15 million? May I impress upon my right hon. Friend, since the United Kingdom now stands eighth in population density in the world, the need for an intensive and massive national educational campaign using television, newspapers, posters, lectures and so on, to make the ordinary person aware of the problem?

Mr. Whitelaw

I would accept at once what my hon. Friend says about this being an important problem which raises many difficult and vital issues. The Government were right to respond to a recommendation of a Select Committee of this House and set up a Population Panel. They have agreed that a particular Minister, alas myself, should be responsible for answering in this House all questions on this matter. This is right. The Population Panel is an extremely erudite body and I am hoping to meet it in a week or two to discuss these matters.

Mrs. Renée Short

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is not erudite bodies we need to deal with the problem? [Laughter.] Would he not agree that there is now so much opinion on both sides of the House in favour of this move that his right hon. Friend ought to appoint a Minister to be responsible for the whole question of population policy? In the meantime does he not think that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services ought to have regard to the representations made by the B.M.A. and other bodies about the provision of adequate facilities through the National Health Service both for family planning and for carrying out terminations of pregnancy?

Mr. Whitelaw

I appreciate all that the hon. Lady has said about the importance of this subject. I have been given the somewhat dubious privilege of answering these matters in the House and that I will seek to do, whatever be my qualifications one way or the other. [Laughter.] I do not wish in any way to make a laughing matter of this problem. It is right that the Population Panel should be given the opportunity to consider these matters. At the same time I will certainly put the representations which she has put to me to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services.