Commons Sitting of 24 July 1972

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

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

    European Economic Community
    Mr. Rostasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what facilities have been provided for Government-assisted visits to European Economic Community countries for trade union officials.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Anthony Royle): Trade union officials have taken part in visits and conferences organised by non-governmental bodies which receive financial support from Her Majesty's Government. Her Majesty's Government are considering what further financial assistance can be given in this field.
    Mr. Rost: While welcoming that reply may I ask my hon. Friend to do more to get more trade unionists to visit the EEC countries, particularly countries such as Germany, where the standard of living has been rising so much faster than ours and where industrial relations are so much better? Is there not a great deal to be learned by sending our trade unionists over there, to a country where the law is obeyed and where genuine productivity bargaining helps the country as a whole?
    Mr. Heffer: The law was obeyed under Hitler too.
    Mr. Royle: I would not like to make any comments on my hon. Friend's last remarks. Many visits and exchanges take place, financed by the trade unions. Over the years many trade unions have had
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    close contacts with the European trade union movement. We have received no requests for assistance from trade unions but would be prepared to consider sympathetically any proposals they might put to us for assistance in this field.
    Mr. Deakins: Would it not help if members of British management were also invited to go to Germany to see how industrial relations operate there?
    Mr. Royle: Many members of British management visit Europe, including Germany, regularly and many more will be going in future.
    Mr. Milneasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions have taken place with the Europe Movement concerning its future rôle and activities following Great Britain's entry into the European Economic Community; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Anthony Royle: No formal discussions have taken place although the European Movement, along with other private organisations which receive aid from Her Majesty's Government, keeps the Foreign and Commonwealth Office informed about its future plans.
    Mr. Milne: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that that answer is rather vague in view of the tremendous propaganda efforts of both political parties assisted by the European Movement prior to our decision on entry? Is it not time that concrete proposals were made about this movement so that we would know precisely where it stood during the Common Market discussions and what finances were available to it?
    Mr. Royle: It is not for me to comment on the plans of a private organisation. The European Movement has played a valuable part in the past in promoting contacts between British people and other Europeans and will, I am sure, continue to do so. The British Council for the European Movement has as its patrons my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe). The Director is Mr. Ernest Wistrich.
    Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether plans for the

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    European Economic Community summit meeting to be held in October have now been finalised; and what recent official communications he has had with the French Government on the subject.
    Mr. Blakerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about the latest state of preparations for the summit meeting of European Economic Community and applicant countries.
    Mr. Martenasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what items have now been placed on the agenda for the Common Market summit meeting by Her Majesty's Government
    The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Geoffrey Rippon): On 19th July I attended in Brussels a further meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Community and acceding States devoted to preparation for the European summit conference. The meeting made significant progress in finding common ground. With regard to the agenda, there is general agreement that economic and monetary union will be a priority item, including industrial and regional policy. These are meetings of Ministers of the ten Governments concerned and summit preparations are a matter for multilateral agreement.
    Mr. Hamilton: In view of the fact that this meeting is likely to take place while the House is in recess, may I ask the right hon. and learned Gentlemen to give an undertaking that the House will have the opportunity of debating this matter so that it can give guidance to the Government about what it would like on the agenda? Is the Minister aware that we on this side would very much like to be assured that the Socialist principles embodied in the Tory Government's Industry Bill will not be jeopardised by the French, the Germans or anyone else in the EEC? Will he give an undertaking that the Government will not allow themselves to be compelled by the French to return to fixed parities—it is obvious that there is some pressurising—if the Government feel that they ought not to do so?
    Mr. Rippon: Debates are not a matter for me. Subjects have been raised in
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    the House from time to time. I can assure that hon. Gentleman that there is no difficulty, and I think this is understood now by the House as a whole, about our present regional policies. We want to see them taken a stage forward in a wider European context. As to monetary policy, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made perfectly clear that it is our intention to return to fixed but adjustable parities as soon as possible.
    Mr. Blaker: Is it not clear that one of the subjects to which the enlarged Community will have to give most careful attention in the early stages is the relationship between the Community on the one hand and the United States and Japan on the other hand? Is my right hon. and learned friend satisfied that the Government are giving adequate thought to that subject in preparation for the summit meeting?
    Mr. Rippon: In the original preparations for the summit we broke down a potential agenda under three headings, one of which was the external relationships and responsibilities of the Community. The external relationships of the Community must comprehend the matter to which my hon. Friend has referred.
    Mr. Marten: Surely the whole philosophy behind the European Communities Bill is that we should debate these matters and give guidance to delegates going to meetings of this sort. Will my right hon. and learned Friend reconsider that matter? Secondly, if the Government do not get concrete and satisfactory undertakings about industrial and regional policy, will they take a robust line at the summit meeting and say that we shall not go in until this and other important matters are properly settled?
    Mr. Rippon: I do not think my hon. Friend has ever understood the nature of the Community we are joining. We are not joining a machine; we are joining a living organism in which we shall participate. None of the problems which my hon. Friend sometimes suggests arise in relation to our regional policy, but we shall be making our contribution. On the question of debates, we have made several proposals about the way in which the House might deal with matters in

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    future and I hope that, with the Opposition's co-operation, we shall make some progress shortly.
    Mr. Milne: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the conference between the non-applicant EFTA countries and the enlarged EEC is to take place at the wrong time? It should have preceded any of our negotiations with the EEC if we had any hope of achieving the type of Europe we wanted because, tied as we are by the European Communities Bill and the Community regulations, the prospects of success for the Sixteen are much dimmer than they would otherwise have been.
    Mr. Rippon: The hon. Gentleman is suffering, like others of us, from a lack of newspapers. There is another Question on the Order Paper about the position of the non-applicant EFTA countries. But all these matters were concluded by the agreements reached on Saturday.
    Dame Joan Vickers: As three of the countries which are joining are not members of WEU, will the question of defence, and particularly the co-ordination of defence, be discussed?
    Mr. Rippon: That is a matter which comes within the purview of the Heads of Government. It does not come within the purview of the EEC treaties as such.
    Mr. Shore: We know that no agreement has been reached to have a summit meeting, let alone agreement concerning the agenda. I should like the right hon. and learned Gentleman to make clear that he has no intention of being browbeaten by the threat of not having a summit meeting into making premature and disadvantageous agreements before the summit takes place in the hope that it will take place. That is a real threat. Secondly, may I reinforce the plea of my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) that the range of matters to be discussed at the summit are the kind of matters on which the House should be consulted and given the chance of expressing its views before agreements are reached in Brussels?
    Mr. Rippon: There is nothing unusual about a meeting of Heads of Government to discuss a wide range of matters. This is a meeting of Heads of Government in a particular context. I can give the right
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    hon. Gentleman the assurance he requires that there is no question of our being browbeaten or entering into unreasonable agreements in advance of the summit.
    As for the date on which the summit will be held, the Dutch Foreign Minister, who presided over the meeting of Foreign Ministers, said at the conclusion of the proceedings:
    "No one suggested today that there should be any going back on the April decision to hold the Conference in October."
    That is the present position and we are making the preparations on that assumption.
    Mr. Knoxasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a further statement about the future relationship with the European Economic Community of those European Free Trade Association countries which will not be joining the Community on 1st January, 1973.
    Mr. Rippon: Special relation agreements between the Communities and the European Free Trade Association non-candidates were signed in Brussels on Saturday, 22nd July. I would ask the House to await the statement which I would propose, with permission and for the convenience of the House, to make tomorrow.
    Mr. Jay: Has the Chancellor noticed that the non-candidate EFTA countries have obtained all the benefits of an industrial free trade area without any of the crippling burdens of the common agricultural policy?
    Mr. Rippon: They have certainly obtained some of the benefits but not all of the benefits which come from full membership. We have often debated this matter in the House and we have said that it would not be suitable for us to be other than full members of the Community. As the right hon. Gentleman may have noticed, the Swedish Foreign Minister, in Brussels on Saturday, made the point that for all of them the way was still open for further and deeper association with the Community.
    Mr. St. John-Stevasasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will make a further statement of Government policy on the relationship between Great Britain

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    and the European Economic Community in the light of recent developments.
    Mr. Rippon: Her Majesty's Government are firmly committed to full membership of the European Communities and continue to work to this end along the lines set out in the statement by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 17th June last year.—[Vol. 819, c. 643–5.]
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: Can my right hon. and learned Friend say whether any progress has been made towards agreement on the siting of European institutions? Would it not be reasonable if an agreement could be reached along the lines that the political secretariat should be in Brussels and the European Parliament should be sited either in Paris or in London as its permanent home?
    Mr. Rippon: The siting of all these institutions is a matter for agreement between the parties.
    Mr. Foley: Has the right hon. and learned Gentleman considered the question of association in the context of association of all the African States instead of simply the former French and British colonies?
    Mr. Rippon: All the developing independent members of the Commonwealth have been offered the choice of association or a trade agreement. I think that is something which will be discussed further in the months and even years ahead. The dependent countries have the offer of Part IV association.
    Mr. Marten: As my right hon. and learned Friend implied earlier that I did not understand the European Communities Bill, can he explain how he gives the same impression to the House when he is answering questions?
    Hon. Members: Answer.
    Mr. Arthur Lewis: Let us have an answer.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. If hon. Members wish to ask supplementary questions, they must rise to their feet.
    Mrs. Hart: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman correct the statement he has just made? As far as I am aware, India, Pakistan and the countries of Asia are developing countries but association has not been offered to them.
    Mr. Rippon: I apologise. The right hon. Lady is perfectly right. There is the offer to the Asian Commonwealth of the extension of trade, and discussions will take place on that.
    Mr. Meacherasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what proposals he is considering for the October summit conference of European leaders concerning trading relations with the less-developed countries of the southern world.
    Mr. Rippon: As I have told the House, the summit conference will concern itself with the Community's external relations and responsibilities. The issue raised by the hon. Gentleman will no doubt arise under this heading of the agenda.
    Mr. Meacher: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that increasing aid programmes and lowering tariffs are of little use if the countries of the Ten permit the terms of trade of the developing countries to deteriorate seriously? Would he say why the British Government have blocked the very sensible suggestion for linking trade with international monetary reform by awarding the developing countries special drawing rights as required for trade development?
    Mr. Rippon: I have great sympathy with what the hon. Member has said. As for linking development aid with special drawing rights—it is one of the matters which came up at Santiago—that sort of issue is quite likely to come within the ambit of consideration at the summit of the Heads of Governments. I assure the hon. Member that certainly these matters are very much in the minds of our partners in the Community as well as our own.
    Mr. Richard: The right hon. and learned Gentleman should not be quite so bland on this subject. It is a matter of deep concern to this side, as it is indeed to the developing countries. Whatever one's views about the desirability or otherwise of Britain's accession to the EEC, one of the things which a number of people would expect the Government to push hard at the summit is precisely the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher), and I would have thought that the right hon. and learned Gentleman would have had

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    something more definite and firmer to say in this respect.
    Mr. Rippon: I certainly have no wish to be bland about it. It is a matter of deep concern which has been expressed throughout the debates which we have had on the European Communities Bill and other occasions, and I have emphasised our very great concern that the enlargement of the Community should lead to an increase of effective aid to developing countries. I am sure that ought to have high priority.
    Mr. David Steel: Will not the Chancellor of the Duchy give us a firmer assurance on this subject? Trade between the under-developed world and the EEC is extremely important. We hope that the subject will not simply be allowed to arise but that he will see that it is definitely discussed at the summit.
    Mr. Rippon: The Foreign Ministers at their meeting in Brussels have been determining the heads of the agenda. We have pressed that one of the items should be the external relations and responsibilities of the Community. Clearly the whole question of development aid is inherent in the concept of external responsibilities. What I cannot do is to say what the Heads of Government will say in their communiqué.
    Mr. Deakinsasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he intends to make regular statements to the House following each meeting of the European Economic Community Council of Ministers that he attends.
    The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Sir Alec Douglas-Home): After entry there will be frequent meetings with the Communities at ministerial level. Not every meeting will warrant a statement; but Ministers will keep the House fully informed of developments in the Communities.
    Mr. Deakins: Does the Secretary of State appreciate that his reply is very unsatisfactory to those of us who want to see parliamentary control extended over his activities in Brussels and those of his right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster?
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    Surely the House is now entitled as of right to regular and detailed statements on all the official meetings attended by the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor of the Duchy in Brussels and Strasbourg.
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: My interest is to see that the House shall be informed, but it does not necessarily follow from that that every meeting has to be reported upon. The Government have suggested the setting up of a special ad hoc committee to consider how best the House should be informed on these matters. I hope that the suggestion will be accepted because there is a need for the House to be properly informed. I think this is a way in which it could be considered.
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Would my right hon. Friend agree that it will be more important for the House to have a debate before he goes to meetings of the Council of Ministers so that we can discuss the subjects which are to be raised and, if necessary, give guidance to my right hon. Friend?
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: It is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to consider how often debates shall take place. I have no doubt that there will be many debates before I go to meetings of Foreign Ministers in Europe. I think that various parts of the House should meet together to seek to discover the most practicable arrangements to be made for keeping hon. Members informed.
    Mr. Spearing: Will the Foreign Secretary confirm that his statement applies to all Ministers and not simply to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster? Will he consider the suggestion that every Minister should make a report in writing and in public after meetings of the Council of Ministers?
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: The statement applies to all Ministers, not only to my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy. Instead of making pledges in advance that reports will be made on every meeting—because at some meetings, to my own knowledge, there is nothing worth reporting—I think it would be worth considering which meetings should be reported to the House and what information should be given.
    Mr. Scott-Hopkinsasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will propose the setting up of a political secretariat for the European Economic Community when he next meets the Foreign Ministers of the six European Economic Community countries.
    Mr. Rippon: We believe that a modest secretariat to service meetings of Foreign Ministers could be useful. We would be ready to discuss this at the appropriate time with our partners in the enlarged Community.
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I am grateful for that reply. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that this matter should be settled and agreed by the Foreign Ministers before the summit meeting at which the final cachet will be given?
    Mr. Rippon: The purpose of the Foreign Ministers' meeting is to prepare the agenda, not to determine the results. It is not necessary that this matter should be dealt with at the summit itself. It could be decided by agreement at any time.
    Mr. Maclennan: Is it not undesirable to establish a secretariat which would diminish the authority of the Commission and, if the emphasis is to be on the development of political control of decisions in the European Community, should we not seek to strengthen the powers of the European Parliament?
    Mr. Rippon: Certainly it should not cut across the powers of the Commission or our ideas for strengthening the European Parliament. There is an area of responsibility for Foreign Ministers which goes beyond the scope of the treaties themselves. This is why we feel it necessary to have some liaison.
    Mr. Crouch: May I remind my right hon. and learned Friend that quite apart from the setting up of a secretariat and any question of strengthening the European Parliament, everybody in the House is concerned that we should strengthen this Parliament and our acquaintance with the various problems as we go into the Common Market? Will he give urgent consideration to appointing a Select Committee or Committees to con-
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    sider this and all other questions arising from our position in the Community?
    Mr. Rippon: I sympathise with what my hon. Friend has said. These matters are being pursued through what are called the usual channels.

    Afghanistan
    Mr. Dodds-Parkerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Common wealth Affairs if he will make a statement on his official visit to Afghanistan.
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: My visit to Afghanistan from 5th to 6th July was both interesting and valuable. I had an audience with His Majesty King Zahir Shah and had talks with the Prime Minister, Dr. Zahir, and the Foreign Minister, Mr. Shafiq. Our talks included the situation in the subcontinent and the economy of Afghanistan.
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: Will my right hon. Friend see whether there are any projects which his right hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development might investigate and possibly co-ordinate with similar projects in Iran and Pakistan?
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: Yes, Sir. We have done quite a lot in the way of economic assistance and development aid for Afghanistan. We have agreed to provide a loan of up to £240,000 for new animal feed plant and £100,000 worth of water pumps and well-drilling equipment which will be delivered shortly. We propose to undertake a £100,000 hydro-geological survey of the Hari Rud basin. There are a number of projects for which aid can properly be used and they are going along adequately.

    French Nuclear Explosions
    Mr. Juddasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what consultations he has now had with Commonwealth Governments concerning the environmental consequences of the recent French nuclear explosions in the Pacific; and whether he will make a statement.
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: The subject of French nuclear testing naturally came up in my recent discussions with Australian and New Zealand Ministers. As to the environmental consequences of the tests, data collected by our health

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    monitoring team on Pitcairn Island are available to any Commonwealth Government which asks for them. The reports of this team to date show no increase in radioactivity over the normal background level.
    Mr. Judd: In the light, however, of the Stockholm conference and all the accumulated long-term medical and scientific evidence produced since 1945, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, on reflection, his remarks were singularly ill-informed and ill-timed? Can he assure the House that his failure to make forceful representations to the French Government is not just another example of the refusal of the British Government to do anything to upset Mr. Pompidou at this juncture?
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I follow exactly the same practice as that followed by the Opposition when they were in Government. We have made no protest. We have made it clear that we felt there should not be testing in the atmosphere.

    Spanish Foreign Minister (Discussions)
    Mr. Biggs-Davisonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will make a statement about Gibraltar.
    Mr. Kaufmanasked the Secretary of Stats for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what are the dates of his planned official talks with the Spanish Foreign Minister.
    Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will make a statement on his recent official discussions with Senor Lopez Bravo, the Spanish Foreign Secretary, on the question of Spain's blockade of Gibraltar; and to what extent he granted concessions to Spain to use Gibraltar's airfield.
    Captain W. Elliotasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the future relationship between the United Kingdom and Gibraltar.
    Mr. Roy Hughesasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will now make a statement about his official discussions with the Spanish Foreign Secretary.
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: As the House knows, the Spanish Foreign Minister paid an official visit to Britain from 19th to 22nd July. We had useful discussions on a range of matters of mutual interest including the question of Gibraltar. The talks were, of course, confidential. I will, with permission, circulate the communiqué in the Official Report.
    Mr. Biggs-Davison: While I am sure we welcome the talks with Señor Bravo, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he can assure the House that Her Majesty's loyal subjects in Gibraltar with their fervent desire, overwhelmingly expressed in a referendum, to remain British under British sovereignty will be upheld?
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: Yes, I made clear from the start of talks with Señor Bravo, in Madrid and subsequently here, that we could not agree to arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another State against their freely and democratically expressed wishes. That is the Preamble to the Act of Parliament, so we have to observe it.
    Mr. Kaufman: Is the Foreign Secretary aware that just as he failed in his attempt to sell out the people of Rhodesia to the Fascist Smith, so he will fail in any attempt to sell out the people of Gibraltar to the Fascist Franco? Will he tell the posturing Señor Bravo to lift the blockade on Gibraltar and allow British subjects there to live as British subjects in peace?
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I do not accept any of the first propositions put by the hon. Member. They are very typical of him and I do not intend to reply to them. What I would say is that I said to Señor Bravo that if the restrictions on Gibraltar could be lifted, a totally different atmosphere would be created.
    Mr. Arthur Lewis: Without revealing any of the confidences which have been entered into, can the right hon. Gentleman confirm or deny that there have been discussions on the granting of facilities or privileges to the Spanish Government concerning Gibraltar airport? Was that discussed?
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I think it was mentioned, but it was not mentioned for any length of time.
    Captain Elliot: Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that there will be no unilateral change in the present constitutional position which exists between this country and Gibraltar?
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I have said already to the House that there will be no variation of what is written into the Act of Parliament—if that is what my hon. and gallant Friend means. The wishes of the people of Gibraltar would have to take precedence if the constitution in any way were to be changed in the future.
    Mr. Goronwy Roberts: I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman would like to help us and give the House an assurance that there will be no change in the constitutional status of Gibraltar without the full-hearted consent of the people and representatives of Gibraltar.
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I think that is what I have just said, but if the right hon. Gentleman wants me to say it again, I do.
    Mr. Jay: Does the Foreign Secretary think it was a wise decision to enable the people of Gibraltar through a referendum to express their own wishes about their country's future?
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: Some referenda are good and some bad.
    Following is the text of the Communiqué:
    The Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Don Gregorio Lopez Bravo, accompanied by Sra. de Lopez Bravo, paid an official visit to Britain from 19th to 22nd July, 1972, at the invitation of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the right honourable Sir Alec Douglas-Home.
    Sr. Lopez Bravo, accompanied by Sra. de Lopez Bravo, was invited to the Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace on 20th July where they had the honour of being presented to Her Majesty the Queen.
    On 20th July Sr. Lopez Bravo called on the Prime Minister, the right honourable Edward Heath, for a general discussion.
    The meetings between the two Foreign Ministers marked a further stage in the discussions which they had held on earlier occasions and notably during Sir Alec Douglas-Home's visit to Spain from 27th February to 1st March, 1972.
    They provided an opportunity for a wideranging examination of international developments and of relations between Britain and Spain. In this context Ministers reviewed the opportunities which now exist for creating a new, closer and comprehensive relationship between their two countries.
    Sr. Lopez Bravo outlined Spanish views on the future of Gibraltar: Sir Alec Douglas-Home undertook to give these careful study. The Ministers felt that working together in this fashion was the best way to make progress towards a satisfactory solution and agreed to discuss the matter further at their next working meeting in October.
    Sr. Lopez Bravo also called on the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the right honourable Geoffrey Rippon, for a discussion on issues arising from the enlargement of the European Community. Mr. Rippon emphasised that Britain looked forward, as a full member of the enlarged Community, to playing an appropriate part in the development of Spain's relationship with the European Economic Community.

    South-East Asia Treaty Organisation
    Mr. Dalyellasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will put in the Library a copy of his speech to the South East Asia Treaty Organisation conference at Canberra.
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I did so on 12th July.
    Mr. Dalyell: As a matter of curiosity, may I ask why the Foreign Secretary inserted into his brief on this occasion a rather snide attack on the Americans for, of all things, helping to run down the British Empire too quickly, and why was this subsequently denied in a great flurry by the Foreign Office?
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I do not think it a bad thing to remind the Americans occasionally of what they did.

    USSR (Academician Benjamin Levich)
    Mr. Greville Jannerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Common wealth Affairs whether, in view of the representations made by the Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society concerning the plight of Academician Benjamin Levich, of Moscow, he will now make recommendations on his behalf to the Russian Government.
    The Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Joseph Godber): As Ministers have made clear on many occasions, we have no locus standi to intervene with the Soviet Government in such cases, however distressing they may be.
    Mr. Janner: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Academician Benjamin Levich has now been appointed to a

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    fellowship at University College, Oxford, and that he has been refused permission by the Soviet authorities to come to this country? In the circumstances, does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that he would have a locus standi, and if I am able to provide him with particulars of the appointment and of the refusal will he undertake to examine the position with a view to making representations on behalf of this brave and distinguished man?
    Mr. Godber: On the first point, no; I was not aware of that factor until the hon. and learned Member mentioned it. Certainly I would be glad to look into it, if he would like to send me details, to consider whether anything can be done.

    Arab Organisations (London Office)
    Mr. Clinton Davisasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations have been made to him by Governments of Arab States concerning the proposed opening in London of an office representing Arab terrorist organisations.
    Mr. Godber: None, Sir, but a number of Governments have been in touch with us about the possibility that the Palestine Liberation Organisation might open an office in London.
    Mr. Davis: Will the right hon. Gentleman specify more clearly what sort of representations have been made by other Governments? Is it not a fact that the Foreign Office has been in touch with representatives of this terrorist organisation and that discussions have taken place? To what extent have they taken place? Does not the pusillanimous attitude of the Government about this whole issue owe more to the politics of oil than to the politics of humanity?
    Mr. Godber: I reject entirely the comments of the hon. Member. There has been nothing pusillanimous about this. We were asked what the law was in this country. We gave the correct answer and I am sure the hon. Member would not have wished us to give an incorrect one.
    Mr. Tapsell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is a widespread belief in Arab capitals at the present time that
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    the opposition to the opening of this organisation's office in London is being inspired by Israeli pressure. Will he make it absolutely clear that those of us on both sides of the House opposed to this organisation being allowed to open such an office would be equally opposed to terrorist organisations coming from Israel, Ulster or anywhere else and opening offices?
    Mr. Godber: Yes. I do not think this is a question of pressure from organisations. As to the law of this country, I and others have made it abundantly clear that there is nothing to prevent an organisation from opening an office in this country, but there is a great deal against individuals who are connected with terrorist organisations being involved. This is where the visa system has been operated in the past and it has always been effective.
    Mr. Paget: So we may take it that there is no objection to the IRA opening an office in London?
    Mr. Godber: That is not what I said. I was referring to organisations whose activities are not outside the law.
    Mr. Hugh Fraser: But surely, quite apart from what Arab or other countries feel about it, my right hon. Friend is aware that there is fury in this country that terrorists should be allowed to open an office here.
    Mr. Godber: I must repeat that this organisation as such is not a terrorist organisation. [Hon. Members: "Oh."] There are, no doubt, those who are members of it—certainly of some of the other organisations—who come within those terms, but the PLO as such is not a terrorist organisation. It is part of the Arab League. It has representatives who attend regularly at the United Nations in New York and it is the only political organisation which represents Arab refugees. It is, therefore, not right to refer to it in that way. I have indicated the way in which we can maintain control, and that is the position under British law.
    Mr. Davis: On a point of order. In view of the grotesque and unsatisfactory way in which my Question was answered, I give notice that I shall seek to raise this matter at the earliest opportunity.

    Vietnam
    Mr. Dykesasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the latest situation in Vietnam and Her Majesty's Government's efforts in helping to secure realistic negotiation for peace.
    Mr. Sproatasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the latest situation in Vietnam, in the light of the British Government's responsibilities as co-Chairman of the Geneva Conference.
    Mr. Anthony Royle: I have nothing to add to what I told the House in answer to Questions on 12th June and 3rd July.—[Vol. 838, c. 981–6; Vol. 840, c. 25–27.]
    Mr. Dykes: I express some disappointment at that reply. Does not my hon. Friend agree that at this particularly delicate stage in the developments in Vietnam it ill behoves anyone, in whatever country, for whatever reason, to undermine the official American position of medium-term disengagement combined with short-term resistance to Communist aggression and thus jeopardise the chances of a realistic settlement later on?
    Mr. Royle: I sympathise with the tone of my hon. Friend's supplementary question. We welcome the decision of President Nixon and the Government of South Vietnam to resume negotiations in Paris. We can only hope that the North Vietnamese will be ready to negotiate seriously and constructively. Formal sessions were held on 13th and 20th July and there have been some secret talks between Dr. Kissinger and Mr. Le Due Tho, a member of the North Vietnamese Politburo, but it is too early to say what progress has been made.
    Mr. Whitehead: Whilst the negotiations are going on there is ever-intensifying bombing of civilian targets and dykes in North Vietnam. What information has the hon. Gentleman had from representatives in Hanoi and what has he said about it to the United States?
    Mr. Royle: Any reports that we receive from the consulate general in Hanoi are confidential. I have no reason to believe that the Americans have departed
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    from their present policy, which is to attack only military targets and targets related to the North Vietnamese military effort. President Nixon has recently reiterated that policy.
    Mr. Sproat: Does not my hon. Friend agree that there is mounting evidence that General Giap and his Soviet advisers made a serious military error in attacking South Vietnam in this way at this time? Will he comment on the Press reports that this could be the last throw of the ageing junta which has held power in Hanoi for over a generation?
    Mr. Royle: I do not think I can comment on that. All I will say is that we regard the proposals recently put forward by President Nixon as positive and constructive, and we hope that the North Vietnamese will show their desire for peace by making a suitable response.
    Mr. Richard: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the situation in Vietnam has been delicate for at least seven or eight years? Is he further aware that the policy of silence pursued by successive British Governments in the hope of inducing a better negotiating position for the United States and North Vietnam has proved to be extraordinarily unsuccessful over the last seven or eight years? Is he further aware that his communications from Her Majesty's Consulate General in Hanoi are confidential because he wishes to make them confidential and for no other reason? Cannot he be more forthcoming?
    Mr. Royle: I think the hon. and learned Gentleman will agree with me that the situation in Vietnam has been delicate for nearly 25 years, not just for seven or eight years. It is not right for the hon. and learned Gentleman to accuse the Government of doing nothing. We are not making thoughtless and useless public comments. On the contrary, in the present situation we believe that every possible chance of international conciliation should be explored. I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman will agree that the present Government, like their predecessor, consider that the Geneva Conference may yet have a rôle to play in restoring peace and stability in Indo-China. It is a forum where all the interested parties, including Laos and Cambodia, are represented.
    Mr. Wallasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on British assistance to Vietnam.
    The Minister for Overseas Development (Mr. Richard Wood): The Government of Vietnam last year accepted the offer of a loan of £1 million to be spent on British goods and services in connection with projects which are the subject of discussion between our two Governments. We have established an English language teaching centre in Saigon and are considering proposals for a joint technical education project. I expect that about 25 Vietnamese will be trained in Britain this year at our expense.
    Mr. Wall: Now that the Government of South Vietnam are winning not only the battle for the hearts and minds of the people but the military battle against the Communist aggressor, should we not do more for this ravaged country which has been fought over for more than 30 years?
    Mr. Wood: I think that this is a quite considerable contribution. If more projects come to light in the future and they can be fitted into the aid programme, I shall be willing to consider the possibility of continuing our aid to this needy country.
    Mr. Frank Allaun: Would not the best way to assist Vietnam be to ask Mr. Nixon to remove his armed forces—not just the Army but the Air Force and the Navy, which are decimating the country and are being greatly increased?
    Mr. Wood: If I were to undertake the full answer that that question deserves. I might get in the way of other business following my reply.
    Mr. Sproat: Will my right hon. Friend look again at the possibility of increasing the original £10,000 worth of aid given in April, since the number of refugees for which it was made has increased three or four times?
    Mr. Wood: I shall continually look at the possibility of further relief. But the voluntary societies are themselves adding to that £10,000, and I understand that to a large extent the relief needs are being met.
    Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Would it not be better to spend that money on medical aid to North Vietnam rather than to propping up the despotic military régime in the South?
    Mr. Wood: I think it would be better if the war were ended and the régime in the North took the same view.

    Gilbert and Ellice Islands
    Mr. Bryant Godman Irvineasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what progress is being made with the plans for economic viability in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Anthony Kershaw): Progress under the Development Plan, first drawn up in 1970 and revised annually thereafter, is satisfactory. The most promising economic projects are fisheries development, the Merchant Marine Training School and family planning. Expanded copra production is also receiving encouragement, but present world prices are a deterrent. I hope to visit the colony during the Recess.
    Mr. Godman Irvine: Has any progress been made with agricultural co-operation schemes, particularly in view of the difficulty of the system of land tenure in which consideration is given to small areas on which only one tree is growing.
    Mr. Kershaw: That is one of the most difficult problems with copra and other agricultural production. It has been necessary to lower the tax on copra exports and consider increasing the subsidy. If we can get this going in the way my hon. Friend advises, it will be advantageous to the economy.
    Mr. Foley: What degree of priority is attached in terms of aid and trade to Britain's colonies as distinct from Commonwealth countries?
    Mr. Kershaw: I cannot reply to the general question but it is encouraging that in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, because of greater expertise and progress in the colony, it has been possible for it to absorb three times as much aid this year as it did before, and this is a good augury for the future.

    European Conference on Security and Co-operation
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will take the initiative at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation meeting this autumn to prepare for the East-West security conference, for multilateral force reduction, with a view to securing a 25 per cent. saving in military expenditure by all countries involved.
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: The conference on security and co-operation in Europe and mutual and balanced force reductions are separate though related issues. We in NATO are still awaiting a response from the Warsaw Pact countries to our invitation to discuss force reductions. I see no cause for a fresh initiative now.
    Mr. Allaun: Will the Foreign Secretary show a little more enthusiasm? Would it not be a real prize if we could achieve this saving in our country's resources without loss of security and with a gain to security from the further development of detente?
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: Yes, Sir. I think that a mutual and balanced force reduction conference will take place parallel with a wider security conference, and there we shall seek to achieve a reduction in armaments. At the moment I do not think there is any fresh initiative that can be taken to prepare for mutual and balanced force reductions. The former Secretary-General of NATO offered to go and talk this matter over with the Russians, but they have not responded. If the Russians wish to make another suggestion we are wide open to it.
    Mr. Sproat: Will my right hon. Friend continue to reject the naïve and simplistic arguments that do not include recognition of the important piece of arithmetic that the Warsaw Pact forces heavily outnumber the NATO forces, often by as much as three to one?
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: Yes, and of course the comparative proximity of Russia to the area and its distance from the United States will make it extremely difficult at best to get an agreement, but it is worth while to search for one.
    Mr. Goronwy Roberts: Does the Foreign Secretary reject the suggestion that the percentage argument is not naïve and simplistic? As he well knows, it appeals to the Soviet Union and her allies as a basic method of approaching questions of disarmament. He will not, I am sure, close his mind to a proposal of this nature if and when it is made.
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: No, Sir, but it is for the Russians now to show how they wish to approach the mutual balanced force reduction talks. They have rejected NATOs suggestion, which was a sensible one, and I hope they will come forward with a fresh suggestion.

    Falkland Islands (Airstrip)
    Mr. Luceasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will report on progress for the construction of the permanent airstrip in the Falkland Islands; when he proposes to start and complete construction; and how much it will cost.
    Mr. Kershaw: The Governor has applied for a grant of £1615 million for the construction of the permanent airfield. This is being considered and I hope that an early decision will be reached. If the application is approved construction could, barring unforseen difficulties, be started by August, 1973, and completed about May, 1975.
    Mr. Luce: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but is he aware that the islanders at present have totally inadequate and temporary passenger links with the outside world and urgently wish for better communications? Will he therefore ensure that this permanent airstrip is constructed as urgently as possible?
    Mr. Kershaw: Yes. I think this is the best we can do. It is a big job which will have to be put out to tender properly. Construction difficulties are considerable, but we nevertheless appreciate the importance of this.
    Mr. Foley: Will the Minister say what degree of interest the Argentine Government are showing in this project?
    Mr. Kershaw: The Argentine Government are co-operating in the provision of a temporary airstrip. I am sure they see that this is for the good of the islanders,

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    and it will give them satisfaction as well as ourselves.

    East African British Citizens (Entry Permits)
    Mr. David Steelasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many British citizens of East African origin are known to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to be temporarily resident in other countries while awaiting entry permits to the United Kingdom; and whether he will list the countries involved and the number of applications for permits received in each.
    Mr. Kershaw: Fifty-six United Kingdom passport holders of Asian origin who sought to reach the United Kingdom from India without waiting for the issue of special vouchers are known to be at Turin and 21 are at Boulogne. Most of them are believed to have had connections with East Africa. In addition, two persons from East Africa who have attempted to jump the queue for special vouchers are known to be in Spain.
    Mr. Steel: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that this country, and only this country, has the right to offer them a place of residence? Will he confirm that in whatever country they are situated they may still apply for entry permits? May I ask what happened to the six people who were sent back to India last week and who were then returned by the Indian authorities to this country? Apart from the distress caused to those individuals, will the hon. Gentleman say who paid the bill for this exercise?
    Mr. Kershaw: The Government have recognised the special position of United Kingdom passport holders of East African origin. That is why special arrangements have been made. Our duty is not only to ensure that they receive all the help we can give them but also to make sure that this country is not overwhelmed by a sudden influx of up to 250,000 people who may have the right. This is the purpose of the degree of control which we have thought necessary to introduce.
    Dr. Miller: Does not the hon. Gentleman think it monstrous that 75 citizens who hold British passports should be
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    bullied and thrown about from country to country? Is it not about time that we showed a spirit of British compassion and allowed these British passport holders into this country?
    Mr. Kershaw: We have been able to make arrangements which are for the general good both of this country and of others. These provide for an orderly introduction of these passport holders into this country. If people wish to try to jump the queue, this is not in the general interest and they should not be allowed to do it.

    India (Mr. Mirza Yusuf Hussain)
    Mrs. Knightasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps he is taking to secure the release of Mr. Mirza Yusuf Hussain, a British subject, presently held in custody by the Indian authorities.
    Mr. Kershaw: Since March, 1972, the High Commission in Delhi has made 16 written and oral representations to the Government of India about Mr. Hussain and on 17th July it received confirmation that he is in custody and in good health. The Indian Government are in touch with the Government of Bangladesh about Mr. Hussain's release and the High Commissions in Delhi and Dacca will do all they can to achieve this.
    Mrs. Knight: In view of the agony of mind of this man's wife, who is a doctor in Britain, will my hon. Friend seek to speed up the efforts he is making for Mr. Hussain's release? Is he aware that Mrs. Hussain has been working since last August for the release of her British civilian and totally innocent husband who has been accused of no crime whatever? Is it not monstrous that a British subject should be kept under duress for so long?
    Mr. Kershaw: The difficulty was that while Mr. Hussain was in Pakistan he held dual nationality and we did not have a right to intervene until March of this year. Since then we have made a large number of oral and written representations. It is now the position that the Indian Government have said that as he is a joint prisoner of both the Bangladesh and Indian Governments, the Bangladesh Government have to agree before he can be released.

    China (Development Experience)
    Mr. Juddasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what studies have been undertaken by the Overseas Development Administration into the relevance of Chinese development experience for development policy in bilateral and mulilateral programmes; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. Wood: No comprehensive studies have been undertaken, but information on the development techniques of China and of other countries which is relevant to our own programmes is carefully examined by my Department.
    Mr. Judd: Will the right hon. Gentleman agree that the experience of China, particularly in agriculture and rural development in terms of intermediate technologies, is highly relevant to the needs of the developing world? In view of the better diplomatic relations which exist between Britain and China, will he give an undertaking that his Department will make a study in depth of progress in China?
    Mr. Wood: We are undertaking researches into this very important subject. If any of the Chinese experience is relevant to this research, and it may well be that this is the case, those who are carrying out the research will take it into account.
    Mrs. Hart: Following the successful visit of the Under-Secretary of State to China, will the right hon. Gentleman consider the possibility of sending a team of officials to China to look specifically at the development question?
    Mr. Wood: I shall certainly consider any suggestion of that kind.

    Indonesia (Aid)
    Mr. Dalyellasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about recent discussions on British aid to Indonesia, held in Jakarta.
    Mr. Wood: My right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) a report on his recent visit, in
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    answer to her Question on 18th July.—[Vol. 841, c. 95–6.]
    Mr. Dalyell: How does the Foreign and Commonweath Office see the future of British-Indonesian trade relations over the next year or two?
    Mr. Wood: There appeared to both my right hon. Friend and me on my earlier visit to be a very considerable possibility of increased trade. As a reflection of this, the very considerably increased aid now flowing from this country to Indonesia should increase the flow of trade in future years.

    Department of the Environment Expenditure
    Mr. George Cunninghamasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps he has taken to avoid a repetition of the in correct charging to the Overseas Aid Programme of £424,000 of expenditure on the Department of the Environment Votes, Class VI, 5, A, for 1972–73.
    Mr. Wood: None. The mistake has already been corrected by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment.
    Mr. Cunningham: How did it happen that the right hon. Gentleman's Department allowed nearly £½ million of expenditure to be improperly booked to the Minister's own aid programme? Surely this is not just a matter for the Department of the Environment but one for his own defences.
    Mr. Wood: The hon. Gentleman is making heavy weather of this, and he knows the answer to that question since it was contained in my right hon. Friend's original answer. The hon. Gentleman knows that there were certain items included in the £545,000 which could not be charged to the aid programme and the reasons for it.

    Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok
    Mr. Pavittasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is his estimate of the United Kingdom's contribution to the first three-year phase of the development programme of the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok.
    Mr. Wood: The British contribution during this period will be just over £1 million.
    Mr. Pavitt: How does that compare with the contributions from other countries? What success has the board of trustees had in soliciting further aid from British industry or from charitable institutions?
    Mr. Wood: I shall have to make further inquiries about the second part of the hon. Gentleman's question. Dealing with the first part of it, we are roughly on an equal footing with Canada. The AIT hopes that Japan and the United States will play a greater part than that. But we are playing what might be described as an intermediate part between the United States and Japan on the one side and the smaller donors on the other.

    Colombo Plan
    Mr. Pavittasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many countries are now members of the Colombo Plan; and if any extension of memberships is planned.
    Mr. Wood: The answers are 24, and none at present.

    Crown Agents (Stevenson Report)
    Sir Bernard Braineasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he has received the report of the committee, under the chairmanship of Sir Matthew Stevenson, which has been inquiring into the status and functions of the Crown Agents; and if he will make a statement.
    Mrs. Hartasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he has now received the Stevenson Report on the Crown Agents; and if he will reconsider his decision on its publication, in view of the public importance of the relationship between Her Majesty's Government and the Crown Agents.
    Mr. Wood: I have received the committee's advice and with permission I will circulate a statement in the Official Report. Briefly, the committee found that the interests of the Crown Agents' principals and others concerned would best
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    be served by the continuation of the whole range of services which the Crown Agents provide. I welcome these findings, which reinforce my confidence in the Crown Agents' work for their overseas principals. I also accept the committee's recommendations that there should be a clearly defined status, structure and responsibility for the Crown Agents and that they should bear appropriate liability to taxation. I am considering how these conclusions can best be given effect and I will later make a further statement. I would like to record my gratitude to the committee for its advice. Since most of the Crown Agents' work is for independent Governments, it would not be right to publish the report.
    Sir Bernard Braine: Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that the changes he has in mindare in the best interests of the overseas principals? Secondly, bearing in mind the very long and valuable service that the Crown Agents have given their Commonwealth principals over very many years, will my right hon. Friend confirm the impression that a good many of us have had for a long time that the Crown Agents are continuing to serve their principals with skill and integrity?
    Mr. Wood: I have every confidence in the integrity of the Crown Agents, and I agree with my hon. Friend about the value of the work they do for their overseas principals. In my opinion the value of that work will be enhanced by changes of the kind I have it in mind to make.
    Mrs. Hart: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that when I spoke to him on the telephone last week and he told me that his reply might be too long to give orally, I had no idea that in addition to refusing to publish the report he would issue a statement of the results of the report only in a Written Answer? This is quite disgraceful and it astonishes me. May I put this point to the right hon. Gentleman? Is he aware that in the light of recent discoveries about relationships between civil servants and Governments and between Ministers and Governments following the Poulson investigations, it is irresponsible and inconceivable that a full report should not be published, though not necessarily containing the evidence given by other countries? One can understand that that would

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    not be possible. But is it not irresponsible on behalf of the Government not to publish the findings of this report since they relate to the relationship between employees of the Government and the Government itself?
    Mr. Wood: Perhaps I might begin by setting the right hon. Lady's fears at rest about the longer statement that I mean to issue. I assure her that it will contain no surprises. I have summarised it adequately in my shorter answer. As for what she terms the irresponsibility of not publishing the report, I think it would be utterly irresponsible to publish a report which I undertook at the time that I set up the committee would not be published, for reasons that the right hon. Lady knows. What is more, knowing what the right hon. Lady does about the relationship between the Crown Agents and their principals, I am certain that if she were standing at this Dispatch Box she would take the same view.
    Mrs. Hart: As one who initiated this report towards the end of the period of the Labour Government, I must tell the right hon. Gentleman that I should not take the view he is now taking. I accept that evidence given by other countries should remain confidential but I do not see why that should preclude publication of the conclusions of Sir Matthew Stevenson and his colleagues, and I do not see why the House and the public should be kept in the dark about the reasons why they have come to the conclusions they have.
    Mr. Wood: When the committee was set up, with the concurrence of my right hon. Friend, so that the whole relationship between Her Majesty's Government and the Crown Agents could be examined—which, incidentally, impinges on the Crown Agents' relationship with the principals—I undertook that the report would not be published. It is on that basis that the inquiry has taken place. Therefore it would be utterly irresponsible if the report were now to be published.
    Following is the statement:
    I told Parliament last November that I had appointed a Committee under the chairmanship of Sir Matthew Stevenson to consider the need for any changes in the status, functions and financial operations of the Crown Agents. I now have the committee's advice.
    It surveyed all the Crown Agents' activities, which include a very wide range of services on behalf of nearly 300 overseas principals. The committee found that the Crown Agents are providing competent and economical services, of great value to their principals overseas, and that their interests and those of Her Majesty's Government and the remaining British dependencies, are best served by the continuation of this full range of services I welcome these findings, which reinforce my confidence in the Crown Agents' work for their overseas principals.
    The committee, however, commented on the constitutional position of the Crown Agents, and the Government's undefined residual responsibility for them. The committee recommended that there should be a clearly defined status, structure and responsibility for the Crown Agents, and made some suggestions for consideration. The Crown Agents, but not their subsidiary companies, have Crown exemption from taxation. The committee recommended that they should bear an appropriate liability to it. I accept these recommendations and am considering how best they may be given effect. I will later make a further statement.
    The main overseas principals have been told of these conclusions, which I believe will further strengthen the Crown Agents in their special relationship of trust with overseas Governments, built up by their long-established activities on behalf of all their principals. I will get in touch with the main overseas principals again as plans develop.
    I am extremely grateful to Sir Matthew Stevenson and the members of his committee for their thorough work and wise advice.
    Since most of the Crown Agents' work is for independent Governments, it would not, as I made clear in my statement last November, be right to publish the report.

    Tanzania (British Farmers)
    Mr. Sorefasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement over the position and future of British farmers in Tanzania and their threatened expulsion.
    Mr. Kershaw: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) on 3rd July.—[Vol. 840, c. 1.] Although President Nyerere has stated that large-scale private farming is eventually to be phased out, there is no reason to think that British farmers will be obliged to leave in the near future.
    Mr. Soref: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in The Times on 30th June President Nyerere was quoted as saying "There is no future for Europeans in socialist Tanzania. In the long run this is no country for you"?

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    Is it not time there was a protest from Her Majesty's Government to Tanzania about its racialism, which is an example of the black Fascism occurring increasingly in countries on the African continent? Is it not time that the rights of British subjects in those countries were upheld by this House?
    Mr. Kershaw: We have received no concrete proposals in this regard. Land transfer in Tanzania is not a matter of fundamental economic importance to that country. Since what we do in this case is likely to have considerable repercussions on what we might have to do in other cases, we must study it extremely carefully.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Speaker: Order. I think it would be for the convenience of the House if I exercised my discretion and varied the normal order of our affairs to allow the Leader of the House to make a statement about business now.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Robert Carr): Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Today's business has been rearranged so that, instead of the debate on the Expenditure Committee's report on defence, there will be a debate, for about three hours, on Northern Ireland. This will arise on a Motion for the Adjournment of the House. This change has been made possible by the help and co-operation of the Expenditure Committee, and I should like, if I may, to express my gratitude to it and, indeed, to anybody else who may have contributed to this end.
As to Thursday's business, it has been suggested that it would be more convenient to hon. Members interested in the National Health Service (Scotland) Bill [Lords] if the remaining stages were brought forward to the end of the business announced for Wednesday, and I am certainly willing to arrange accordingly.
Mr. Harold Wilson: The House will be grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his announcement. Clearly a debate on Northern Ireland is very urgent.
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Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that after that three-hour debate the business for today will continue to be what he announced last week—namely, the National Insurance Bill—and that that will come on at roughly the same time as we would have expected?
Secondly, should there be any other developments in the next few hours which require a change of business, will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to make a statement tomorrow concerning any further changes for this week?
Mr. Carr: The answer to both those questions is "Yes".
Sir H. Harrison: Whilst I fully understand the desire of the House for a debate on Ulster today, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether the debate on the report of the Expenditure Committee will be taken before we rise for the Summer Recess?
Mr. Carr: I certainly hope that will be possible. It is my intention to arrange it if it can possibly be managed.
Mr. Loughlin: Whilst appreciating that it is difficult for the Leader of the House constantly to change his business for this week, in view of the serious crisis which is developing, arising from the imprisonment of the five dockers, may we have a debate on that matter either tomorrow or Wednesday?
Mr. Carr: It would be wrong of me to pre-empt a decision of yours, Mr. Speaker, to a request which might be made but has not yet been made. If such a request were made and you were to give a certain answer to it, no doubt other things would follow.

INDUSTRIAL SITUATION
Mr. Prentice Mr. Prentice (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the industrial situation.
The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Maurice Macmillan): The dockers are on unofficial strike in nearly all ports throughout the country. There has been some industrial action in sympathy in other industries. This action is in protest against the imprisonment of five dockers for refusing to obey a court

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order. This order had been made in relation to a complaint by Midland Cold Storage Limited that blacking led by the men concerned was ruining its business. As the court explained in its judgement, the order was made to provide a period of truce while the merits of the complaint were examined. The court drew attention to the fact that the men concerned had rejected the constitutional processes of their own unions and the joint negotiating machinery of their industry.
The Government have all along recognised that the pace of technological change in the docks is giving rise to serious human problems. We accordingly welcomed the establishment of a Joint Special Committee on the Ports Industry, under the joint chairmanship of Lord Aldington and Mr. Jack Jones. This committee, which includes lay dockers, was set up by both sides of industry to seek agreed solutions, and it has worked hard to produce an interim report on this complex problem in six weeks.
My right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries and I saw the joint chairmen of the Special Committee this morning prior to a meeting later today at which the committee will finalise its report and publish it this evening. The joint chairmen indicated the committee's broad conclusions and conveyed to use its request for financial assistance over and above industry's own award to enable the measures it had in mind to go ahead. We said that the committee could count on a sympathetic response from the Government bearing in mind the industry's special problems—technological and social. We made it clear that Government assistance would start as soon as normal working is resumed in the ports.
The Joint Special Committee has made real progress in getting to the roots of the present troubles in the docks. I am sure that the whole House will wish to join with me in expressing gratitude for the hard and persistent work that it has done. Its report will show what can be achieved by discussion and negotiation. I believe that when the general body of dockers see the report they will recognise that unofficial blacking is not the way to achieve a solution and that the approach adopted by the committee
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is the only way to reach sensible arrangements that are fair to all concerned.
Mr. Prentice: The Industrial Relations Act has now placed the country in the crisis about which we warned the Government for a long time. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the most remarkable fact about his statement is that he did not once mention the effect of the Industrial Relations Act on this situation? Will he acknowledge the sequence of events which has occurred and persuade some of his right hon. Friends to stop fudging the issue and pretending that the situation could have arisen even if the Act had not been on the Statute Book?
Is it not clear that there is a sequence of events from the beginning of an action in the court by employers under the Industrial Relations Act leading to the arrest of these five dock workers and, inevitably, to the kind of reaction by dockers and other workers of which the Government had been warned throughout all the debates on this legislation?
If the country is to be rescued from the mess into which the Government have plunged it, will the Secretary of State recognise that this can now only happen along two lines? The first is the acceptance of the Jones-Aldington recommendations. I am sure we all agree with the tribute the right hon. Gentleman has paid to the members of the committee, who have clearly done a considerable job in a very short time. I also welcome what he said about Government financial help. I am sure we all agree that the Government have responded quickly to this, as well they might in view of the mess into which their policies have plunged the country.
Will the right hon. Gentleman honestly acknowledge that, whereas the report might readily have been accepted last week, it will be ten times more difficult to get it accepted this week in view of the events of the last few days?
Will the right hon. Gentleman then go on to recognise the vital point that the Government's pride is the least important element in this situation, that as long as the Industrial Relations Act remains on the Statute Book we shall be plunged into ever greater economic difficulties and ever greater jeopardy concerning respect for the law of this

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country, and that, therefore, the Act must be repealed or at the very least suspended without further delay?
Mr. Macmillan: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for what he said about the work of the Jones-Aldington Committee and about the Government's quick response. The fact that the Government welcomed the setting up of the committee and were ready to respond so quickly was due in part to the unions concerned failing to produce any solution to the problem without our help.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Government's pride. It is not, as he made clear earlier, a matter of the Government's pride; it is a matter of the rule of law. As the right hon. Gentleman said,
"I have no sympathy at all for Bernie Steer and the others gaoled. They were wrong to organise picketing and blacking against the policy of their union. They were even more wrong to defy the court."
The right hon. Gentleman went on to complain that he thought that the Act was bad law, but he also said that it was the law and that nobody could claim to be above it.
This is not a situation that was created or introduced by the Industrial Relations Act. The Industrial Relations Court made that plain, and in giving judgment it said:
"The reason is not to be found in the Industrial Relations Act so much as in common fairness and elementary justice."
In the Chancery Court it was made plain in the judgment of Mr. Justice Megarry that
"it is not a case of dockers fighting to save their jobs, but of dockers fighting to take the jobs of others by putting Midland's business in peril. That is the law of the jungle, but the law of the jungle is not law, but force."
Mr. Driberg: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that some of us do not accept the Establishment myth that bad laws must be obeyed? On the contrary, we look to the respectable tradition that bad and stupid laws should be resisted and defied. Some of us agree with the five dockers in prison that the Industrial Relations Court is worthy of contempt. The sooner that court is dismantled and the Act repealed the better.
Mr. Macmillan: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman should take that line, especially because if this court were dismantled precisely the same judgment
1322
would have been given by the Chancery Court under the 1906 Act.
Mr. Hugh Fraser: Will my right hon. Friend confirm again that if the solicitors of the firm concerned had gone to the Chancery Court rather than to the Industrial Relations Court the same situation would have arisen as the one with which we are faced today?
Mr. Macmillan: I cannot anticipate the judgment of any court, but the Chancery Court made it plain that in its view the only reason why it could not give judgment in this case was that it was an industrial matter and should be judged by the Industrial Relations Court. The court went on to say:
"Those who obtain jobs in that way"—
that is, by putting the jobs of others in peril—
"might in their turn have their jobs taken from them by other people with greater power or cunning. It is the weak who would go to the wall, both employers and employees. It is the function of the law to protect the weak against the unfair use of power."
I think that that indicates to my right hon. Friend what the situation in the Chancery Court would have been.
Mr. Harold Wilson: Is it not improper for the Minister to be saying what the courts would have decided?
Mr. Macmillan: I did not say that.
Mr. Wilson: Is it not a fact that the obiter dicta of Mr. Justice Megarry referred to what was currently before him? Does not the right hon. Gentleman recall that even on some of the actions which he has initiated the decision of the lower court has been set aside by the Court of Appeal and further appealed to the House of Lords? Would it not be better for the right hon. Gentleman to stand by his responsibility for this Act?
Mr. Macmillan: I am not seeking to evade my responsibility for the Act, nor have I made the slightest attempt to anticipate the judgment of any court. Every word that I have said is a quotation from a judgment or, as the right hon. Gentleman prefers to call it, in the case of Mr. Justice Megarry, an obiter dicta.
One thing that is quite clear is that this situation was not created by the Industrial Relations Act. The action would have been illegal in any case, and it is

1323
unfair, and it is still open to those who are now in prison to appeal if they wish to do so.
Mr. Edward Taylor: Would my right hon. Friend confirm that this action by the shop stewards has been carried out without authority or support from the TGWU? In the present difficult situation, is not my right hon. Friend entitled to a straight statement from the Opposition about whether they support acts of anarchy against legislation, introduced by a Government who were democratically elected to bring it in?
Mr. Macmillan: I understand that the TGWU and other unions involved were not supporting any of the action in blacking the lorries going into the Midland Cold Storage Depot. I hope that the same is true of right hon. Gentlemen opposite.
Mr. Eadie: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he is a member of an Administration that is becoming more and more politically accident-prone when dealing with the whole question of the economy and industrial relations? Is he trying to say that the action which he has allowed to go the courts out with the control and jurisdiction of Parliament is going to help the Aldington Committee in getting a settlement? Does he not agree that what his Government have produced is industrial anarchy, and that people of this country have to suffer because of their incompetence?
Mr. Macmillan: I do not agree that the Government are accident-prone in industrial relations, except on the definition of the hon. Gentleman that they are prone to accident when seeking to defend the weak against the strong and to bring the rule of law into an area where it is conspicuously needed.
Mr. John Page: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many people in the country feel that the dockers now in prison have sought this pseudo-martyrdom for political rather than industrial reasons and that in this anarchistic attitude they are being egged on by hon. Gentlemen opposite?
Mr. Macmillan: I think that my hon. Friend is right in saying that those now
1324
in prison have made a fairly strong effort to get there, and I have no doubt that their motives are those which he attributed to them.
Mr. Atkinson: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the docker shop stewards could purge their so-called contempt by accepting the Aldington Report? If that is so, can the right hon. Gentleman explain why Sir John Donaldson took the decision that he did to imprison the shop stewards when he must have known the date of publication of the report? Why do the Government want the shop stewards in prison at a time when the report will be discussed by the wider dock movement?
Mr. Macmillan: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is quite aware of what he is suggesting. He is suggesting that the matter of purging contempt of court or of committing people to prison is a matter for the Government. It is not. It is a matter for the court, and it is important that the Government should not seek to interfere with the judiciary.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: I have received notice of an application under Standing Order No. 9, and I think I should take it now.
Mr. Harold Wilson: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the industrial situation following the committal to prison of the five dock workers."
This is not the time to comment on the issue, but that it is urgent, justifying priority over announced business, will not be contested. The docks are at a standstill, the movement of food and raw materials is precluded and food processing and marketing are held up. Equally, I submit that there can be no doubt that it is specific, fulfilling a test which always has to be satisfied in these matters, and this is clearly and undeniably an issue on which the Government carry the gravest responsibility.
Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman gave notice that he would ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific

1325
and important matter that he thinks should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the industrial situation following the committal to prison of the five dock workers."
I am quite satisfied that the matter raised by the right hon. Gentleman is proper to be discussed under Standing Order No. 9. Does the hon. Gentleman have the leave of the House?
The leave of the House having been given—
Mr. Speaker: The Motion for the Adjournment of the House will now stand over until the commencement of public business tomorrow, when a debate on the matter will take place for three hours, under Standing Order No. 9(2).
The Motion stood over under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) until the commencement of public business tomorrow.
Mr. Kaufman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. When the Leader of the House makes his Business Statement tomorrow will he tell us what will happen to the Opposed Private Business set down for tomorrow?
Mr. Speaker: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will make note of the point.

ORDERS OF THE DAY
  SUPPLY
  27TH ALLOTTED DAY],—considered.

  NORTHERN IRELAND
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Humphrey Atkins.]
  3.50 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. William Whitelaw): This is a short debate arranged at short notice, I believe for the convenience of the House, about the serious events in Northern Ireland over the last weekend. I shall seek to meet the mood of a short debate by making a short speech in order to allow as many other hon. and right hon. Members who wish to take part to do so. I hope also in these circumstances that it will be thought right if I do not give way to too many interruptions of one sort or another but allow my hon. Friend at the end of the debate to reply to any points which may be raised.
  As the House will know, the city and people of Belfast suffered a murderous sequence of explosions last Friday. Most of the 27 explosions in Belfast that day occurred within a 3½-hour period in the afternoon—at a time when, and at places where, high civilian casualties must have been expected and intended. No adequate warnings were given. Nine civilians and two soldiers were killed and about 130 civilians injured, many gravely. I need hardly point out that all sections of the community were indiscriminately affected by these outrages.
  Of the nine dead two were Roman Catholics; of the 130 injured at least 40 were Roman Catholics; of the casualties 53 were men and boys and 77 were women and girls.
  The full horror of these events will have been seen by many hon. Members on television, and from what I saw over the weekend of some of the damage I do not believe that what was shown was an exaggeration of what happened. I am sure the House will wish to join with me in expressing sympathy to the families of all those involved in this wanton attack

  1327
  on innocent men, women and children. I am grateful for the immediate support given to Her Majesty's Government at the time by the Leader of the Opposition on television and since by the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees).
  After the appallingly bloodthirsty and criminal events of last Friday there cannot be any remaining shred of support for the men who perpetrated them. Even those sections of Roman Catholic opinion throughout the world which have traditionally identified themselves with, and, perhaps, sometimes given the benefit of the doubt to any group of men who claim to speak for the Irish Republican movement, can surely no longer continue to uphold the men who were responsible for Friday's horrible catalogue of slaughter.
  Supporters of the Republican move-men in this country, in Northern Ireland, in the United States and elsewhere, will no doubt notice the revulsion in some sections in the Irish Republic. Hon. Members will have seen, for example, an article in the Dublin Sunday Independent of yesterday in which the editor condemned Friday's terrorist brutality in the strongest possible terms. I think I should quote some of his words:
  "We cannot change the past, however much we regret its record. But if we wish to restore the honour of our people, now is the time to act. We must break the paralysis which leaves the good name of the Irish people in the hands of unscrupulous men. And we must find a way to make restitution for our failings."
  Since Parliament at the end of March entrusted the Government with complete responsibility for all administration in Northern Ireland we have made the most patient and reasoned effort to secure the end of violence. No one can deny that. No one can deny, therefore, that Her Majesty's Government have now an absolutely unchallengeable right to ask the House, the country and, indeed, the whole world for their support in an absolute determination to destroy the capacity of the Provisional IRA for further acts of inhumanity. It has degraded the human race, and it must now be clear to all that its sole objective is to promote its aims by violence and by violence alone. Let no one be taken in by the propaganda that this organisation puts out in its constant campaign to discredit the security forces. I have seen examples of it already, and I hope that the media will not be deluded by it.
  1328
  We are dealing not with a struggle between two communities but with a force that is the enemy of them both. I very much agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys), who said on 10th July that the breakdown of the truce meant not that our policy of reconciliation was in any way mistaken but that our patience and tolerance would give us moral strength and popular backing to adopt a policy of greater firmness if and when we considered it appropriate.
  Since the ceasefire, as I told the House last Thursday, the Army took measures to protect civilian life and its own position in Lenadoon. It has also on other occasions taken action to prevent intimidation of Catholic families in other areas. Immediately the Secretary of State for Defence and I arrived in Belfast on Friday evening we authorised intensified military operations against the Provisional IRA. Since then the security forces have carried out a number of searches for arms, explosives and terrorists not only in Belfast but throughout the whole of Northern Ireland. Over the weekend they have succeeded in locating more than half a ton of explosives, much bomb-making equipment, 2,000 rounds of ammunition, 19 weapons, and the IRA Land Rover which had been used in the Ballymurphy area. Twenty-three barricades in the Falls, Ballymurphy and Anderstons town areas of Belfast and in Armagh have been removed.
  In the 24-hour period ending on Saturday morning the security forces were involved in 103 shooting incidents but in the two succeeding 24-hour periods the number dropped to 58 and then to 22. A large number of hits on gunmen have been claimed, 26 since Friday in addition to more than 150 since the end of the ceasefire. Considerable numbers of people have been arrested on suspicion. Of these 30 have been charged with criminal offences, and the rest have been released, except for eight who are in custody and two whom I have detained.
  These operations will, unfortunately, mean danger and inconvenience and some hardship to innocent people in certain areas. But in the face of the outrages committed last Friday I believe that the people will see such measures to be necessary and justified and that they will support the security forces in their

  1329
  difficult task. They must know that unless violence in their area can be ended there can be only misery ahead for them and for the whole of Northern Ireland.
  At this stage I pay tribute to the Army, including the Ulster Defence Regiment and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, on whom the burden of carrying these measures through is very considerable.
  I want now to tell the House of the twin objectives of Her Majesty's Government policy in Northern Ireland. Our first objective must be to destroy the capacity of the Provisional IRA to terrorise the community. There can be no hope of any future for the people of Northern Ireland if this terror is allowed to dominate the situation. In destroying the Provisional IRA's capacity to terrorise the community, it must be our objective to maintain the understanding and good will of all communities in Northern Ireland, and I know that the minority community feel an equal sense of the shock and horror of last Friday's attacks as there is throughout the community.
  Our second objective is to pursue urgently our aim of finding a new basis for the administration of Northern Ireland in which the minority will have a true part to play and in which we can work towards measures that benefit Northern Ireland as a whole rather than favouring one community or another. It is no doubt the object of the Provisional IRA to disrupt our search for this solution. But I must tell the House that the Government are not prepared to see their efforts towards searching for a political solution disrupted or interrupted by terrorism. I have already begun the consultations which I mentioned earlier to the House with a view to setting up a conference of political parties in Northern Ireland to see what common ground can be found in the working out of a political solution. This week I have arranged to see Mr. Faulkner and to discuss the conference with representatives of the Alliance Party, the Republican Labour Party, the Liberal Party and the Northern Ireland Labour Party. I have also invited representatives of the Social Democratic and Labour Party to discuss these matters with me, and such discussions will continue. The restoration of peace and confidence is, clearly, essential for the final
  1330
  setting up of new political institutions, but I am not prepared to be halted in the search for these by acts of terrorism.
  It must be the duty of everyone in Northern Ireland who cares for the future of the community not to allow himself to be provoked. In this connection I was very glad to hear that my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) had spoken out strongly against the Vanguard proposal for a rent and rates strike. I was also pleased to note that he was very strongly supported by the former Minister of Development in the Northern Ireland Government, Mr. Bradford, who said that it would be madness to obstruct the Government and the security forces at the present time. Some other Unionist leaders have spoken likewise.
  Last Friday surely proved to the House, to all people—the North and South of Ireland, and, indeed, to people throughout the world, that the tragic events of that day were not the actions of a minority community seeking to redress grievances which, rightly or wrongly, they harbour as a result of the past. These must surely be obvious as the methods employed by a small group of killers who will stop at nothing in pursuit of their aims and who care nothing for innocent human life.
  In these circumstances, I confidently ask the House for its support in the continuing military measures which Her Majesty's Government will take against the Provisional IRA and, indeed, also for the political objectives of Her Majesty's Government in Northern Ireland.
  4.4 p.m.
  Mr. Merlyn Rees: There will be only one Front Bench speaker from this side, to make more time available for back bench speakers.
  If there had been no change of business, we should have asked for a debate under Standing Order No.9, reflecting our concern over the events of Friday, just as I sought a Standing Order No. 9 debate in February at the time of the deaths in Derry.
  The Secretary of State has said that there were nine deaths on Friday. The first announcement was of 11 deaths. It tells us something of what happened

  1331
  that it took the pathologist to tell us there were nine bodies and not 11. The Secretary of State has also said that 140 were injured. We add our sympathy to the families to the sympathy expressed by the Secretary of State.
  The deaths merit an Adjournment debate, showing our concern equally with our concern about those of Deny. I hope that world opinion will be as much moved by the events of Friday as it was by the events in Deny a few months ago. As I said on Saturday, in death there are no double standards.
  Friday's events are important also because they, and the Secretary of State's response, mark a turn in the affairs of Northern Ireland which must be discussed in the House. There were those in Belfast on Saturday who saw fit to announce changes in policy. The Secretary of State has told us today how he sees things. Our view is clear. It is based on the policy put forward over recent years by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), that there is no long-term military solution to the problem of Northern Ireland. We regard the Stormont policy of internment of last August as a mistake. It alienated the mass of the minority population, who are anyway, in the sense of the word often used by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) in another context, already alien by the nature of the State set up 50 years ago.
  But we support firmly the security forces when they seek out killers and gunmen. We support firmly stronger security measures against the pedlars of gelignite. It is the easiest form of warfare to fill a car or a pram with gelignite and leave it. The Government must look again, as I am sure they are doing, at the easy movement of arms and bombs. If it means ringing the centre of Belfast and other areas with controls and checks, so be it. So be it if it raises problems for majority or minority.
  Is it clear to the Army what its rôle is? Is the Secretary of State for Defence to play a greater political role? Has there been a change in the Government's policy towards the no-go areas?
  1332
  The view that now obviously prevails among the IRA—it was put to me in Dublin by some one trying to assess the situation for me—is that if civil war had continued in the 1920s, if the battle had gone on for another six months, a united Ireland would have been achieved. In my view, Lenadoon was not the basic reason for the end of the truce. The reason was a belief that quick unification would not come from the ceasefire. Well, by its actions continuously over the years and by its response last week, the IRA, in my view, has put the possibility of unification further ahead.
  We want to be clear about what will happen to those arrested. Internment was, and would be, unproductive. Those detained must be brought before the courts. Can the Northern Ireland legal system deal with those arrested? Is the prosecution system effective to cope? Is the court system capable of dealing with the situation?
  My next question concerns interrogation, because already stories about interrogation are beginning to come out. Does the Prime Minister's statement post-Parker on 2nd March still apply? He said then that
  "the techniques which the Committee examined will not be used in future as an aid to interrogation."—[Official Report, 2nd March, 1972; Vol. 832, c. 744.]
  It matters to our good name, and it is certain that within the next day or two the stories will be coming out and world opinion will be listening to them.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath): I assure the hon. Gentleman, the House and the country that that statement remains absolutely as I made it in every respect.
  Mr. Rees: I am grateful to the Prime Minister. He has answered in the spirit in which I put the question. It will not be long before the stories are circulating, and it is important to have the situation clear.
  There is no doubt that the UDA's reaction to the initiative, its marching and masking, was one reason for the support given to the IRA in Belfast. It created fear. In today's Guardian—I am one of the few who have a copy and I

  1333
  have a market price—Mr. Simon Hoggart reports:
  "The UDA would begin attacks designed to eliminate the Provisional IRA later this week."
  I hope that the Secretary of State will see the UDA and tell it that the House and the country would want the security forces to treat the majority/minority who take the law into their own hands in the same way.
  The IRA has a view of the UDA which leads me to think that it would welcome a confrontation. Would that there was a Western Desert where they could meet and sort things out. There is widespread feeling in this country that it would be just retribution if the two extremes were killing each other, but, in our view, it must be prevented as the bloodbath would involve the innocent.
  What will the Army's role be if the UDA carries out its threat at the end of this week? We would not be prepared to see our troops being shot at by both sides. The consequences of action must be made clear to the UDA. Loyalty to the Crown means only that the forces of the Crown act in defence of the community.
  The Secretary of State turned to the long-term solution. In the midst of our concern for the short term, it is proper that we should look ahead. The right hon. Gentleman told us about the talks and the local elections, which I am sure will continue. It appears that there will be a conference soon. The Government must now consider what will happen if no agreement is reached. The thought is growing on me that as right as we were to remove Stormont, it is the lack of a place where politicians can talk which increasingly raises problems in Ireland. It matters to have a legislative assembly, but there must be no return to Stormont, and security must remain here. There may well in the short run have to be an imposed solution, and a provisional assembly might be provided.
  I was glad, as I am sure was the right hon. Gentleman, to receive a copy of a memorandum put forward by the Rev. Eric Gallagher, of the Methodist Church of Northern Ireland. With my Welsh background, I am glad to see that the Methodist Church is putting its mind to the political problems of the area in which it lives. The political vacuum must be
  1334
  filled soon, but it must not be filled in a way which will bring moderates into the limelight. It is the only way for the twentieth century to reprimand the seventeenth.
  There are those who profess to believe that in March the implementation of direct rule and the bringing of security to Westminster ended a halcyon situation in which all was well. It was not. It was right to make those changes. It is equally right now to act, within the law, against those who proceed by terror—to act against all private armies. It is right also to work for conciliation and for a political structure which is, in the words of The Times, "fair to both communities".
  In the nineteenth century successive imperial Governments oscillated between conciliation and coercion. Our security forces must act against terror. We must never forget the difficult job which we as politicians impose upon them, but we must not oscillate and swing to other extremes. We must always remember, whatever the problems of the day, that there is no military solution to the Ireland problem. That is still the basis from which we on this side will judge all present and future policies.
  4.17 p.m.
  Mr. Stanley R. McMaster: I intend to be brief so that as many right hon. and hon. Members as possible will be able to speak. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench will understand if I do not elaborate on certain matters as I would do if I had more time.
  The Labour Government, which were in office when the troubles originally broke out in 1969, and the present Government have clearly been pursuing the wrong policy in Northern Ireland. Law and order has broken down. I was pleased to hear the firm opening statement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The statement contrasted markedly with the statement made a little earlier concerning the docks. When a situation occurs such as that which is afflicting this country in the docks, it is all very well for Ministers to say that law and order must at all costs be established in Northern Ireland; but that is not what the Government have been doing over the past three

  1335
  years. The terrible death toll, of which the House is well aware, is now over 450 persons, many of whom, as we heard in the analysis given by my right hon. Friend, were women and children, boys and girls, innocent parties whose lives have been cut short by the terrible action of the terrorists.
  To consider the deaths in Northern Ireland and the countless thousands who have been horribly mutilated in explosions and then to listen to the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) speaking of a political solution being necessary in Northern Ireland, is living in an atmosphere of total unreality. Surely it must be clear, as it always has been to all hon. Members on both sides who have represented Northern Ireland constituencies, that the men who have been causing the trouble in Northern Ireland, the Irish Republican Army, are not prepared to accept a democratic political solution.
  That is what the trouble is about. When one speaks of a political solution one must immediately ask "What is the problem?" Is it a political problem which faces us in Northern Ireland, or a problem which arises from the fact that there is a small group of people who will stop at nothing to impose their will upon the majority? It is a matter of great regret that many hon. Members in recent debates confused the IRA with the Roman Catholic Church. All too often we hear that the trouble arises from rivalry between Catholics and Protestants. The fact is that the problem arises between a small group of Republicans, who are not, and have never been, representative of the Northern Ireland Roman Catholic community. I speak from a lifetime's experience. It is true that the group operates from certain well-known Catholic areas and has created no-go land in those areas. I wish that my right hon. Friend had said a little more about his intentions regarding the no-go areas.
  The two past Prime Ministers in Ulster—Major James Chichester-Clark, now Lord Moyola, and Mr. Brian Faulkner—both called for strong measures from the Westminster Government. The truth of the matter is that these firm measures in Northern Ireland have been requested ever since the troubles broke out. Ever since the Army was first introduced, in
  1336
  1969, the security of Northern Ireland has rested firmly in the hands of Westminster, first, in the hands of Labour Ministers and, more recently, in the hands of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence. It was he who decided what kind of action should be taken against the terrorists.
  Mr. Maurice Foley Mr. Maurice Foley (West Bromwich) indicated dissent.
  Mr. McMaster: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head. How could an unarmed police force, a police force which, as a result of the recommendations of Lord Hunt, had given up its arms, be expected to stand up to the terrorists in the Bog-side, who were armed with armalite rifles, with an arsenal of bombs and even with anti-tank guns, and who now, we are told, even have mortars? How could an unarmed police force stand up to those? It was the soldiers who were called in who had to take the proper and appropriate action against the terrorists.
  Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: Would the hon. Gentleman help the House? Hon. Members will be interested in his answer. Leaving aside for the moment his criticisms of his own and the previous Governments, does he or does he not support his right hon. Friend's speech and the policies that he outlined this afternoon?
  Mr. McMaster: I thought that I was unwise to give way in a short debate, but I will deal with that. I did not approve of the political initiative taken by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, as I made perfectly clear at the time. The political solution has, clearly, failed. The actions of the Government in the last three days show that the attempt to achieve a political solution has failed, that the attempt to appease the IRA by talking to it is completely hopeless for dealing with the present situation.
  I should like to know how it is that we demand of the dockers who have been put in prison for contempt of court that they follow the laws of the country, and yet hon. Members have spoken to gunmen and have talked with terrorists who are responsible for the murder of a growing number of United Kingdom citizens and against whom, apparently, no action is to be taken. What has happened about our laws concerning consorting with

  1337
  known criminals? What steps were taken to see that the leaders of the IRA, Sean McStiofain, and others, were arrested and tried for the offences for which they have been responsible?
  Time is not on the side of the Government in this country. It must be clear from any impartial examination of the situation that has developed in Northern Ireland—even a cursory examination—that it has become steadily worse. In 1969 there was no heavily-armed IRA, and even when the political initiative was taken the IRA was not armed as it is today. The advice of military leaders in Northern Ireland was that most of the leading members of the IRA in Northern Ireland had been interned and that their command structure was broken and that the IRA was totally disorganised. It was only when my right hon. Friend took over, when the Northern Ireland Government were suspended, that the IRA was able to reform in Belfast and in other parts of Northern Ireland.
  Mr. Whitelaw: My hon. Friend has attributed views to what I assume to be military spokesmen, and he has reported what they are said to have said. I know of no evidence for those reports, and I do not accept them for a moment.
  Mr. McMaster: Then my right hon. Friend and I must disagree about that. I should have thought that anyone who studied the records of events in Northern Ireland and the steadily increasing violence would say that the evidence spoke for itself. The very fact that the IRA is armed as it now is shows that it has been able to use the time put at its disposal by the low profile policy of my right hon. Friend, the policy called in Northern Ireland the "softly, softly policy". The IRA, the Republicans, are those who have benefited. Surely the troops in Northern Ireland were strong enough to restore law and order in the no-go areas one, two, or even three years ago. Plainly, the British Army is not the organisation that has become stronger with the passage of three years. Who has become better prepared to withstand any attempt to restore law and order in the no-go areas? The answer is the Republican side, and only the Republican side.
  Mr. R. T. Paget: Was not the hon. Gentleman's contention
  1338
  proved by the factories and arsenals discovered as a result of immediate search?
  Mr. McMaster: Yes.
  I am concerned about the steps which were taken over the weekend. I should like to know what the change of policy is. I heard one Army officer saying on the BBC on Sunday that the Army had searched only houses where it was known that there were arms. Why were not those houses searched previously? Has there been any change in policy? If not, what is all the fuss about?
  I should like my right hon. Friend to deal particularly with the suggestion that martial law should now be introduced in Northern Ireland. The only way to deal with a terrorist organisation such as the IRA, which is prepared to intimidate witnesses and shoot witnesses, as the IRA a few months ago shot a 'bus driver in my constituency because he recognised the man who had hijacked his bus, is to set up military courts, courts which can act rapidly and expeditiously in bringing men to justice.
  I have my own views about the policy of internment, but if one is not prepared to intern, martial law is the only alternative to meet the challenge of the Irish Republican Army, for it has been clearly established, to my regret, that the ordinary processes of justice are not sufficient to deal with this problem.
  4.28 p.m.
  Mr. J. Grimond: I should like to start by expressing my sympathy for the victims of another appalling batch of atrocities last Friday and our admiration for the troops and others who have to deal with the situation in Northern Ireland. I should like to congratulate the Secretary of State on his speech this afternoon. We support his policy. Even at the end of his speech, I was not clear whether the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) supported it or not—I take it not—but we certainly support it and in particular we support the continuation of firmness with a determination to find a political solution.
  It is complete nonsense to suppose that there will ever be peace in Northern Ireland without a political solution. The province cannot indefinitely be ruled by

  1339
  martial law. I sympathise with the Secretary of State in his determination to stick to the general line of his policy and to make no judgments upon incidents about which there is any doubt and to try to be as little provocative to the general mass of the people in Northern Ireland as he can be.
  But there are some things which other people can and should say. The first thing that I want to say is that I detect a note in the voices of some people from Northern Ireland, not least in the voice of the hon. Member for Belfast, East, which seems to imply that the present situation in Northern Ireland is in some way the fault of the British or of the Secretary of State.
  It would be fruitless to job back over history. But if 60 or 70 years ago the Home Rule Bill had been passed we would never have reached the state of affairs we have today. As for the last 10 to 20 years, it is pretty stiff for the Ulster Unionists to come to this House and say that it is the fault of other people when they supported discrimination against their Catholic fellow subjects for years and years and offered them considerable provocation.
  I also notice a myth growing up that somehow or other nothing was achieved in Ireland without violence from the IRA. The historical truth is that the IRA has never achieved anything except murder and violence and the indefinite postponement of the unity of Ireland. Redmond had obtained better terms for Ireland than those eventually accepted by the IRA and their colleagues. Had there not been that degree of violence long ago, probably by now we would have had a Council of Ireland and we might have been some way towards the unification of Ireland with a fair degree of agreement.
  It is very easy to prey upon the consciences of the British people and to make them feel unhappy about their behaviour in the past. I can remember, when the Nazis first started, being told that we must not be hard on them because after all the Treaty Versailles was a very bad Treaty. In this case I wholly agree with the Secretary of State that we do not have it on our conscience that the trouble in Ireland today is due
  1340
  to us or to him. It is now up to all reasonable people to support him in the efforts which he is making with great determination and courage to enforce law and order on the one hand and to find a political solution on the other.
  We cannot brush aside the fact that this cannot be done without the wholehearted agreement of the great majority of the Northern Irish people. I entirely agree that these atrocities, worthy of Fascist thugs at their worst and with the same motives, are the work of a small minority of Irishmen but they have had the fears of the different communities in Northern Ireland to play upon, they have had tacit support in the "no-go" areas. It surely should be clear now that the Irish have everything to gain by coming forward and talking with the Secretary of State, trying to find a solution to their difficulties in their own country.
  I read the American papers and even now there are letters in them saying that the IRA is to be excused on the grounds of British oppression. That is a complete nonsense. It cannot be too widely known that the IRA is perpetrating atrocities worthy possibly of the Mau-Mau but no one else in the last 30 or 40 years without any justification whatever. Africans with far greater grievances have never behaved like this. A sensible line would be for the elected representatives, for people of all shades of opinion in Northern Ireland, to discuss a period of direct rule with certain participation by the people of Northern Ireland through their elected representatives.
  I agree that there must be some centre of democratic life in the six counties. I also say that in the long run if we can get rid of the IRA the right solution is some federal arrangement of Ireland. As long as it remains, unity of Ireland is impossible. One noticeable thing is that oddly enough until violence broke out we were growing closer to Eire in economic and other ways. Had there not been the violence and these "no-go" areas I believe that the chances of unity might have improved still further.
  What then are the alternatives? This, too, must be squarely said otherwise we mislead the people of the six counties. the alternatives are the violent reactions which we hear talked about in Ulster,

  1341
  the pouring of troops into the "no-go" areas, martial law, suggested this afternoon, widespread arrests. All that results from that is another 20 years of suspicion and hatred. The only other alternative, and I would not recommend it but it is possible, is to say to the people of the "no-go" areas, "You cannot have it both ways. You cannot remain part of Britain and take all the social services, expect us to make good all the damage you have caused, and at the same time shoot at our troops and claim the privilege of continuing anarchy." If people want to do this then at least the areas next to the Border should be returned to Eire.
  There is nothing sacrosanct about the six counties. They are the result of compromise. They are not the whole Ulster; the borders might well have been different. It might be in the long run that the only alternative will prove to be that the people of those areas should return to Eire. I do not believe that anyone would like this. I do not believe that the people of those areas would like it, but it must be said quite clearly that we cannot continue with a situation in which a section of the community takes all the advantages of being in the community and rejects all the responsibility for paying its rates, sharing its burdens or taking any responsibility. We have, after all, obligations to other and more deserving communities elsewhere.
  The alternatives to the Secretary of State's policies are certainly worse than what he might gain if his policies are supported. But the present situation cannot continue. I appeal to everyone in this House and in Ireland to face the alternatives and to make up their mind whether they really want civil war, whether they really want Ireland further fragmented or whether they are prepared to go forward with what may be a difficult period of negotiation with the different interests in Ireland, supporting a man who certainly has not shown himself antipathetic to the justified demands or fears of the minority.
  If, at the end of that period he can achieve an acceptable solution, he will have achieved something which no-one else has so far achieved in the history of Ireland. It will be a remarkable performance. If he fails, the only alternatives are civil war or the disruption of
  1342
  Ulster. Let it be clear that the alternatives lie before the people of the six counties. They cannot shift the responsibility on to the Secretary of State or this House.
  4.36 p.m.
  Mr. W. F. Deedes: Most of us share the reflection of the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) that the horrifying events of Friday marked a turning point in our affairs in Northern Ireland. The policy of conciliation need not be ruled out, nor should the continued search for a political solution. I share the hon. Gentleman's view that in the long run we shall find that this will probably have to be imposed rather than having interminable discussions round a conference table, the delegates to which will in themselves prove a difficult issue to resolve. Reaching conciliation by means of accommodation with the IRA is now emphatically out, and nothing that restson such an accommodation will be either workable or acceptable.
  In my view, it was not the day-to-day grievances of Lenadoon or elsewhere which caused this savage break but the innate, unremitting hostility to a policy by which we have to stand. It is the conclusion of the IRA that the ultimate solution will not be, and cannot be, the one which they prefer which I believe to be the mainspring behind its efforts. We shall mislead ourselves if we believe that local incidents, however provocative, lead to the kind of scenes some had to witness and most of us witnessed indirectly on Friday.
  A real danger is that before the degree of military intervention of which my right hon. Friend has spoken can be seen to be effective others will move into action. To avoid a battle on two fronts, the Army will have to be allowed to fight more effectively against the real source of the mischief. Naturally, at this point my right hon. Friend will not lack critics disposed if not to condemn then severely to criticise the policies for which he has been responsible since March. He will have to face that, and I have no doubt he will, as part of the risk which he courageously undertook. But this is not a view which I share.
  I have been reluctantly driven to the conclusion, notwithstanding the loss of life since March, the damage to property

  1343
  and the hideous risk entailed, that we have been through an inevitable phase. I am not unconscious—and I do not believe that any hon. Member who has been involved in the affairs of Northern Ireland can be unconcious—of the balance of forces which weigh upon the Secretary of State and Her Majesty's Government. We dwell on the fact that what has been happening has been happening in part of the United Kingdom, and because it is within the United Kingdom so its seems to us it is our sole responsibility and to be dealt with in a manner which we determine. I wish I had the confidence of some of my right hon. and hon. Friends that that is absolutely so. In reality, great forces are engaged in this struggle, and they are not confined to Northern Ireland, to the Republic or even to this country. Passions are engaged over a great part of the world, and we all know why that must be so.
  I have never felt disposed to belittle the consequences. We could defy them in our policy. I have never felt disposed to belittle the consequences of doing so, and I believe that it has been imperative to demonstrate to the world what obstacles there were and still are to a conciliatory policy in Northern Ireland. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is entitled to remind some of us that it is barely six months since the main call made to Her Majesty's Government was for a political initiative. That is, rightly or wrongly, rightly where the pressure lay. Now the call is for stronger military measures, and most of us recognise that that call must, to a degree, be met, and met at once.
  In the course of the bitter demonstration during the last six months some ground has been lost tactically. I do not doubt that, nor can anyone else who has discussed matters on the ground, certainly in the city of Belfast. It is fair to add that, in my view, in the wide ambit, strategically if you like, some essential ground has been gained. This time we must see it through. I do not think that we can again switch quickly. There must be limits to flexibility, or at least limits to the flexibility which we require of our military forces.
  Anyone who visits Northern Ireland, and particularly the two principal cities, has reason to marvel at the skills and morale of the soldiers. I have never taken
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  the view that the latter is to be taken for granted. The soldiers have no quarrel with the rôle in which they have been cast. They say "It is our job to defend the Realm and to adapt ourselves to any methods which may have to be used." They have said to me "To say, as some Members of Parliament declare, that we are hopelessly miscast and misused in Northern Ireland is altogether false." That is a remarkable attitude after 2½ years for soldiers, some of whom are on their third and fourth tours of duty. But it is an attitude which imposes certain responsibilities on us here because it is they, not us, who face the final realities. Therefore, a balance must be struck.
  We have in the soldiers a matchless instrument to fulfil our requirements. In strengthening the military hand of the Secretary of State, we do not have to fear, as some might, that the soldiers will run amok or that there will be senseless killings, atrocities, and so on. They have a very high degree of skill in adjusting themselves to what is required of them by the Secretary of State and others.
  It would be vain and impertinent to suggest in detail what measures the military policy must include. I hold the view, for example, that there is a limit to what can be done in the central area of Belfast by passive guarding, searching and watching, and that more active steps will have to be taken to deal with those who are acclimatised to the passive stance and are disposed to find ways round it. It is not simply a matter of meeting violence with violence. It is a question of asserting, as we must, that in territory for which we have responsibility power cannot be won by sheer ruthlessness and horror. To accept that would bring us to the end of the road.
  Enough has happened in a beastly way, particularly last Friday, to teach us that lesson. I can only pray that before we embark on what is likely to be a testing and prolonged ordeal that lesson will not be lost on the world at large.
  4.44 p.m.
  Miss Bernadette Devlin: Probably the confusion in Northern Ireland is best represented when soldiers appear on television and talk like politicians and politicians appear in the House of Commons and talk as if they are soldiers.

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  This debate has been brought about because of what happened in Belfast last Friday. Let me say at the outset that I have condemned, and publicly condemned, the horrific aspect of the bombing campaign last Friday and its effects on the people of Belfast. I have consistently said to and of the Provisionals that the bombing campaign in Northern Ireland does not work and that it must be stopped. But let me make it perfectly clear that I do not say that from the same viewpoint as the majority of people. I certainly do not say it from the same viewpoint as the major parties in this House. I do not say it solely on grounds of the hardship which it brings to our people. I count the statistics of the dead in Northern Ireland in terms not of how many Roman Catholics or Protestants were injured or killed but of how many human beings were injured or killed.
  It is difficult for the people of Northern Ireland to understand when a new horror arises on the face of British public opinion or a new horror confronts itself to Members of this House and the people of this country. Although it may seem difficult for people in this country to understand, the people of Northern Ireland have lived with this situation since 1968. That leads me to ask, without horror or callousness, of the Members of this House who speak of the bombing on Friday how many of them remember the number of deaths which occurred in the Abercorn disaster or how many people died in M'Gurk's Bar. Fifteen people died in M'Gurk's Bar. I do not say it out of callousness or disrespect or disregard for the number of people who died, but it is a fact that what happened in M'Gurk's Bar is forgotten in Northern Ireland. It is forgotten by all but relatives and friends of the people killed in that bar, as indeed are many disasters, because living with fear and with no prospect of peace has become a way of life to the people of Northern Ireland.
  Members of this House talk about finding a political solution to the problem. They do not understand the problem, not because, as hon. Members opposite may say, the Secretary of State is too soft or because people in Northern Ireland may be of the opinion that the Secretary of State is an evil man who delights in sitting at home plotting the deaths of civilians and planning the movement of
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  troops and repression in Northern Ireland. Things are not that simple. The trouble is that Members of this House and the Government do not understand the basic problem of Ireland, as a whole.
  In view of the discussion we had on the business preceding this debate, I find it difficult to understand how Members on this side of the House can say to the Government that bad laws in Britain must not be obeyed and that it is right for the people of Britain to resist bad law, but that bad laws are good enough for the people of Ireland. Members on this side of the House say that the Tory Government are incapable of governing and solving the problems of the people of Britain, that they have brought the people of Britain to industrial anarchy and near general strike, and yet they think that the same Government are capable of solving the problems of Ireland. Hon. Members cannot have it both ways.
  The Tory Government and the present policies cannot solve our problem because it is seen in this country only when the people of Ireland make a noise. People talk about our problem in 1968. They talk about the problem which we had in the 1920s. They talk about the problem which we had in 1916 and the one we had in 1798. Each time it was a different problem to this House but it was a problem of the Irish being violent and not obeying the laws, not respecting Britain's authority and refusing to accept the rule of law and order.
  Our problem has been exactly the same. Governments and people in this country have listened only when we have said, "We shall have no more of it". The Government and people of this country have heard of our problems only when there has been violence. Small wonder, then, that the people of Northern Ireland react to their problems with violence. It is the only way this country has ever been made to listen to what is happening in Northern Ireland. Generation after generation has suffered exactly the same problem.
  Whether this country likes it or not, it is not a problem of our being against the British people. We do not blame the British people. We have the same problem as the British people: it is the problem of the British Government. We do not object to the British people.

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  We do not blame them. We share common problems with the dockers. They are beginning to see our problems in Northern Ireland. They do not like the way the Government try to repress them. They fight for their case peacefully, but when they discover that the Government bring in laws which change what were their peaceful methods into illegal ones, they refuse to lie down, and find that doing things which once were legal now leads them into gaol. I warn the Government of this country that they will never solve the problem of Northern Ireland by their present methods, and every time they gaol another docker they will need plenty of CS gas for the docks of Britain, because the people will not lie down. They will not lie down in Northern Ireland.
  Our problem in Northern Ireland is the British presence. However horrific the activities of Friday, however horrific the violence and bombing, those actions do not invalidate the case. Because the Provisionals fight the wrong way that is not to say the Provisionals should not fight. They are fighting the British presence and British imperialism the wrong way. I have always said that, but I will not say to them, "Stop fighting". I ask them to help build a mass movement. They cannot overthrow the Government by bombing and though they may terrorise some people the British Government will not fall by that means. What we have to fight is the same situation as there is in Britain where the poor are poor, and the weak are weak, and the rich get richer on their backs.
  It is not the way to solve our problems to talk in this House about a military solution. I ask the House to remember that there is no military solution for one simple reason, that we have had the problem for 800 years, and for 800 years the House has tried to solve it with military solutions. My hon. Friend the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. McManus) is here today and the Provisionals are here today. If the House's military solution works tomorrow, I say beware of the day after tomorrow, and next week, and next year, and next generation, because they will be back. It is meaningless to talk of a military solution or even to talk of reconciliation as the Government speak of it,
  1348
  because the only reconciliation there can be with the people of Northern Ireland is through the ending of British domination in Northern Ireland, and the ending of Roman Catholic and Protestant separatists and the introduction of real politics.
  I for one am sick to death of hearing about the money which, it is said, is poured into Northern Ireland, and about British workers pouring money into Northern Ireland and of Irish workers using the money which is poured in. The profits roll out of ICI and they roll out of Courtaulds. They do not go into the pockets of British workers who put in the money in the first place but into the pockets of British capitalists who have made the problems in Northern Ireland and in Britain.
  When we in this House talk about a political solution let us remember that the only political solution is an independent republic for Ireland. There will be no military solution because it does not work. I was talking to an old woman in Belfast. She has never been a bomber, but may be she reflects the fact why nobody will ever end the Provisionals by a military solution when she says, "You have got to finish it this time because I have been to too many gravesides before."
  4.55 p.m.
  Rev. Ian Paisley: At the outset of my speech I should like to make it clear on behalf of the majority in Northern Ireland that we are not part and parcel of the United Kingdom because of a military presence or because of any British domination. We are part and parcel of the United Kingdom by the freely expressed will of the majority of that people, a will expressed over and over again in the ballot box. I am convinced that many of the minority in Northern Ireland, too, if they had opportunity to say so free from terrorist domination, would say that they would want to remain part and parcel of the United Kingdom. The loyalty of the people in Northern Ireland to the United Kingdom keeps them in the United Kingdom and they want to remain part and parcel of the United Kingdom. That should be made perfectly clear in this debate. The military presence has nothing to do with it.

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  I do not think that in this debate any of us from Northern Ireland should deal in recriminations. Many of us could say many things, and we could say them very strongly and with great sincerity and honesty, but I think that the situation in Northern Ireland is of such a serious nature that this House, having taken responsibility for the government of Northern Ireland, has now to face that responsibility in the present situation.
  There is a long-term view of what must be undertaken. There must be some coming together between the majority and the minority for the common good. There must be a synthesis of both communities. I would say that that will not come about by imposition from this House but by those communities getting together and both of them realising that there will be nothing left for either of them if they are not prepared to face the stern reality of the situation. That is the long-term view which we must keep in mind.
  What are we dealing with this afternoon? We are dealing with an emergency situation. We are dealing with the fact that there are in Northern Ireland a number of organised thugs and murderers who are not interested in democracy, who are not interested in the viewpoint of either the majority or the minority, but who are interested only in overthrowing the State and are interested only in bloodshed and anarchy and murders of the most violent type.
  Last night it was my sad duty to go to the Royal Victoria Hospital to visit some members of my own church who suffered in the blast, and I sat by the bedside of a woman who probably will never get back home. I realised as never before that this awful thing in our midst, this cancer in the body politic in Northern Ireland, has got to be healed.
  I welcome the statement by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland that the Government are determined to deal with the capacity of the IRA to sow terror in our community. I trust that the Government will carry out that policy with all the power they have at their disposal. One question that everyone in Northern Ireland will ask and that should be answered from the Front Bench today is: how is the capacity of the Provisional
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  IRA to be smashed? How are we to deal with this pernicious cancer in our midst? It is all very well for the troops to go into an area and make a large number of arrests. What will happen after these arrests are made? The figures we have heard today show that only a small number will be brought before the courts.
  There is a massive organisation of crime in Northern Ireland in an unstable society. There are pressures on all sections of the community. I utterly deplore the call by Mr. Craig's Vanguard movement for a rent and rate strike and for anarchy among the majority people. That would lead to the total economic collapse of Northern Ireland. I welcome the statement made by the UDA today that it totally dissociates itself from that policy. We should welcome a statement by any section of the community—whether we agree with that section or not—that it will not encourage anarchy. Anarchy will not defeat anarchy. Lawlessness will not defeat lawlessness. The only way in which this movement can be put down is by the Forces of the Crown, who must be supported by all law-abiding citizens in the duty that lies before them.
  This is an emergency situation and, therefore, it is impossible for the ordinary courts of the land on common law principles to deal with the matters that must be brought before them. A suggestion was made, but not elucidated, by the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) about how the courts should deal with the situation. I warn the House that the reintroduction of mass internment would not be the way to deal with it. Internment has failed, and it would fail again. That is not the way to win the battle. Internment would also militate against a longer-term solution for the minority.
  The Criminal Law Revision Committee has recently produced a report which contains certain suggestions for dealing with crime in a stable society, a society that is not suffering the massive onslaught of organised crime that is occurring in Northern Ireland. Let us not call the men who carry out the crime members of an army. They are a gang of thugs, a gang of men who care for no one and who will kill even their co-religionists to further their diabolical ends.

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  Let me give an illustration. Sergeant Willetts gave his life in Springfield Road Police Station to save a youngster who was in that police station when a bomb went off. A young man concerned was arrested and he made a statement in which he told how he made the bomb, how he planted the bomb and how he was responsible for that outrage. Yet because the onus was on the Crown to prove in a court of law that the statement was a voluntary statement, that young man walks scot-free in the streets of Belfast today. That is the situation with which the Government must come to grips. At the last assizes in Belfast 30 men confessed to various crimes, some of them the most diabolical murders, but no prosecution was entered by the Attorney-General against them. Because of common law principles those men could not be brought to trial.
  I remind the House what the Criminal Law Revision Committee has said:
  "We need hardly say that we have no wish to lessen the fairness of criminal trials. But it must be clear what fairness means in this connection. It means, or ought to mean, that the law should be such as will secure as far as possible the result of the trial is the right one. That is to say, the accused should be convicted if the evidence proves beyond reasonable doubt that he is guilty, but otherwise not. We stress this, although it may seem obvious, because fairness seems often to be thought of as something which is due to the defence only."
  I say that fairness is due to the community, and a way must be devised by the Government to deal with the emergency situation.
  Hon. Members may say that it is all very well to point out these things but what is the answer? I suggest that the time has come for a clear distinction between two types of crime in Northern Ireland: ordinary crime; and crimes that are against the State; crimes against public order and crimes that are aimed at the pulling-down of the structure of our society. It may be argued by the lawyers that there is no precedent for such a distinction; but there is no precedent in the United Kingdom for the reign of terror in Northern Ireland. There is a suggestion of such a distinction in British law in that murder and treason are reserved to certain courts and cannot be tried in an ordinary court of law.
  I suggest that an Order in Council should be introduced, renewable every 30
  1352
  days, to deal with those special crimes. I suggest that there should come within this category all crimes that have to do with firearms offences, the Explosive Substances Act, public order, riotous behaviour, killing and maiming either by firearms or by explosives, or attempting to kill or main by firearms and explosives. I would add another new temporary offence. It would be an offence for a person who was required to say whether or not he was a member of an illegal, proscribed organisation to say he was not prepared to answer that question.
  People accused of these offences should be brought before a military court—and here I agree with the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster)—consisting of three military officers with legal training. As far as possible the common law practices should be followed and the person being tried should have the opportunity of legal representation. I suggest that hearsay evidence, which would not be admissible in a jury trial, should be admissible where such evidence establishes the guilt or otherwise of the person accused. I would also change the onus of proof, and put the onus on the defence to prove that a statement made by the accused person is not a voluntary statement. This is an emergency situation, and something must be done radically, clearly and almost immediately.
  The people of Northern Ireland have borne a great number of tragedies. There has not been one bloody Friday; there have been scores of bloody Fridays. I say to the House that we have not much time. Some of us in Northern Ireland have sought as best we can to keep people from reacting. I appeal to the people of Northern Ireland not to react, but to leave this matter to the forces of the Crown. The Government and every hon. Member in this House have a responsibility in this matter.
  Perhaps my suggestions will be shot down. I do not care how this matter is dealt with, but I say that it must be dealt with. If it is not dealt with—and I say this with great reluctance—I shall wonder whether it will be worth while for me, as a Member of this House, to come here if the House is not prepared to accept the responsibility of giving to every citizen in Northern Ireland the right to be protected and to live in peace.
  5.12 p.m.
  Mr. John P. Mackintosh: It is with some termerity that Members with English or Scottish constituencies take part in this debate but I am encouraged to do so having listened to the speech made by the hon. Lady the Member for Mid-Ulster (Miss Devlin). She said that anybody who does not come from Northern Ireland cannot understand the situation there. I sometimes think when I go to Belfast and even to Dublin, particularly to Northern Ireland, that it is only those who come from outside who can properly comment on recent events in Northern Ireland.
  I speak as one who went across originally in sympathy with the civil rights movement and who listed the categories of discriminations practised against the minority. I remember studying discrimination in local government, housing and employment. The discrimination meant, as the hon. Lady said, that one community was living on the backs of the other community in Northern Ireland. I remember adding these discriminations together and discussing the political solutions. But I must tell the House that at that time and today I do not think that the total list of discriminations is worth the death of one single individual. Indeed, it is not worth the broken leg of one person. When I think of the conditions in which the Catholic minority, or whatever one cares to call them, is living in Northern Ireland, I think that it adds up to a fine standard of living compared with that of many other people in the world. Considering these difficulties and discrimination, what we want to see is fairness and justice but not at the cost of any of the atrocities which are being committed today.
  One has to engage in a psychological exercise to understand how fear has built upon fear until people are prepared to destroy the very area in which they live simply because they are further down the housing list than somebody else or fail to get a better job. This is not the way to achieve one's goal. There is clearly a deep rooted fear which goes to the very ethos of the life of people in the community and we must somehow get round it.
  I originally supported the views of the minority in Northern Ireland and advocated the necessary reforms. I hoped
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  that the O'Neill experiment would come through and it did not. I supported the civil rights movement and the results of its activity began to appear in a reform programme announced by the Stormont Government, though it was largely forced through by governmental pressure from this country. These reforms still did not have the effect we wanted in winning back the confidence of the minority community in Northern Ireland and I then accepted the argument that some major gesture was needed to show that what we were trying to do was genuine. We tried to show that we were forcing these reforms through in the name of a better community life between the sectors of the population.
  As early as 1970, shortly after the General Election, and again in the summer of 1971, I publicly advocated in this House direct rule. I advocated that the Government should abolish Stormont. I accepted that even if the reforms were forthcoming, because they came from those who had practised discrimination, one could not expect the minority in Northern Ireland to believe in them. We could not expect the minority to take these things on trust when they came from a group which had been associated with memories generation after generation of majority domination. I advocated direct rule as a gesture to show that an impartial outside force was seeking to break through to the minority and inviting them to participate in the building of a more satisfactory community in Northern Ireland.
  I regret that the idea of direct rule came one and possibly two years too late. I am not saying that it has now come too late but it would have had more impact if it had come sooner; it would then perhaps have been possible to win the minority community's confidence.
  I hoped against hope that the right hon. Gentleman's policy, even though late, would have the effect of bringing about a political solution, as was sought by the Opposition Front Bench and was asked for by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond).
  What is the core of the political solution? The core must be either to get meaningful negotiations with the leaders of the IRA, the Provisional leaders of the Catholic community or, if that is impossible, to separate these people from

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  the bulk of the people who they say they are leading. It is regrettable that negotiation with the Provisional IRA has proved to be impossible. The reason it is impossible is that they do not just want reform in Northern Ireland or the abolition of Stormont. Their basic condition for peace in Northern Ireland is a change in the situation which could never be conceded by the British Government because it would have to be imposed on the people of Northern Ireland by British forces. This solution, the unification of Ireland, will not be accepted by the million majority in Northern Ireland, nor could it be enforced by the Government of their Republic because they have neither the will nor the strength to do it.
  We cannot give terms to a minority which involve British coercion of the majority and which will transform one kind of civil war into another kind of civil war. If these are the terms for which the IRA is asking as a political solution, then it is impossible.
  If that is the situation there is only one political solution left. It is that somehow one must separate the majority of the Catholic community, who I believe do not want revolutionary socialism nor do they want incorporation in the Republic. I think they want to live in confidence, peace and justice in Northern Ireland as do the supporters of the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley). If such a political solution is possible, I will support the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in everything he does to try to achieve it. But I have a deep fear that it will not prove possible to make this separation between the IRA and the Catholic community or to find among them an alternative leadership.
  I, like many other hon. Members, have visited spokesmen of the Catholic community, mainly Catholic clergymen, who are quieter and who are not violent, but who have tried to do what they think right. There was a brief moment in Londonderry a few weeks ago when I thought they would succeed in giving the sort of alternative leadership which was necessary. But we are caught in a terrible dilemma. On the one hand we are told "Let us get through to the Catholic community that we want to see justice and an end to discrimination even if it means the
  1356
  abolition of Stormont" as proof of our bona fides or genuineness. But what happened? Internment was cut down and a truce arranged only to be followed by a renewed outbreak of bombing and destruction. When this fails, we are told to go the other way and sit on the IRA, but then it is said that all this does is to confirm their leadership of the Catholic community. This is the vicious circle from which we have been unable to escape.
  I should like to follow the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland in pointing out to the Catholic minority what is likely to happen if they continue to accept IRA leadership and to continue to back up that leadership in every way and to fight with it, in episodes such as those that occurred last Friday. And do not let anybody say that we have forgotten what happened at M'Gurk's tavern and the Abercorn Rooms. These are marks on our whole being. I feel agonised with every death I hear about in Northern Ireland and anybody who has gone through the ruin and rubble of Belfast must feel the same.
  Let us be clear that if we cannot separate the IRA from the Catholic community we must say to the Catholic community that there are two possibilities. One is civil war; that is some version of the idea of pulling out the Army and letting the majority assert itself and take its own retribution on the minority. But no one would advocate this. It would be a disaster. It would be terrible. But one day it may come about if the present state of affairs persists.
  The alternative, at which the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland hinted, is the Sudetenland policy, the cession of border Catholic areas to the Republic and telling those in the minority community in Belfast and in the interior of the North that if they are not prepared to allow normal life to become possible, they must leave. This Sudetenland, or Polish corridor, policy is appalling in its brutality, its cruelty and its destruction of property rights and established patterns of life. But there will come a point where the escalation of the present horrors will pass the horrors of this possible policy, at which point therefore it will become realistic.

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  We must break through and point out that those of us who supported the claims of the minority in Northern Ireland to justice, fair dealing, an end to discrimination, and an end to a political régime loaded against them, that we shall not support them to the length of denying that the majority also have rights and that we shall support those rights in that we cannot see civilised life in Northern Ireland totally destroyed.
  The minority must appreciate that they have to break loose of IRA leadership or the consequences will be too appalling for anyone, including them, to imagine.
  5.22 p.m.
  Mrs. Jill Knight: I have the temerity to address the House briefly because I spent most of last week among the bullets, bombs and blood of Northern Ireland. I learned a great deal there that is not generally recognised here unless it is by hon. Members who have seen what is happening. Following all I saw and heard last week, I rejoiced to hear what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said today about the new aim being to destroy the power of the IRA. My right hon. Friend is an honourable man. He has announced this to the House, and we must go forward with the notion that this is our new aim.
  One ought not to doubt the difficulties involved. Where the no-go areas exist it would seem to be perfectly possible for the British Army to deal with them. However, there are women and children inside the no-go areas. I have no doubt that if our soldiers, possibly with loud hailers, told the people an attack would be made and asked that the women and children should come out, the IRA would not allow them to. I have no doubt that the British Army is capable of dealing with the IRA. So far it has not been enabled to do so. No one can deny that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has bent over backwards in an effort to avoid the carnage which will have to come before the IRA is beaten.
  We heard today that last Friday was a catalyst. The tragedy is that there have been many others. I am desperately afraid that last Friday's incidents will fall into the background, just as the Abercorn incident did. Last week, I saw the house lived in by two young girls under 20
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  both of whom lost both legs and one of whom also lost an arm at the Abercorn Rooms. At Easter there was a mother of 14 whose killing was also supposed to be a catalyst, because it caused a march by the women who said that this could not go on any longer. However, 78 people have been killed already this month. We must not allow last Friday to fall into the background as just one more incident.
  There has also been the most foul torture. A young boy of 20 bought himself out of the Royal Air Force recently in order to go back to Belfast to be with his father and mother because of the danger there. He got a job as a mental nurse. He was taken by the IRA when he was coming off duty. He was tortured viciously and unbelievably and left to die from a bullet placed so that it would not kill him quickly. There must be no forgetting about any of these incidents if they stiffen our resolve to beat the power of the IRA.
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that the new steps which are to be taken will mean danger, inconvenience and hardship to some people in certain areas. But Members of this House who have been to Belfast and Londonderry have no doubt that already for many months past there has been danger, inconvenience and hardship to hundreds and hundreds of people in many areas. This is nothing new.
  Last week, I went out of my way to speak to the women of Derry and Belfast. One group of women in Belfast said to me, "It is all very well you coming from Whitehall where they talk about internment. But don't you understand that it is we who are the internees here? We cannot safely go out to the shops. We cannot go out at night." They pointed down the road to an intersection and told me that it was impossible for their children to run and play here. At the end of the intersection was an area from which IRA gunmen were sniping. If any child as much as strayed into the inser-section there was liable to be shooting. Indeed, I was told that several children had been shot there.
  I went to a big timber yard in Belfast. The night before my visit the IRA had tried to burn it. I was given a copy of the chairman's annual report. Perhaps I might read one paragraph of it. It says:
  "The three weeks ending the 13th May were the worst we have experienced since

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  August, 1969. During this period we had 80 bomb attacks with approximately 250 petrol bombs."
  The labour force in that timber yard is roughly 50–50 Catholic and Protestant.
  "The Army commenced the erection of an observation post inside our perimeter wall, during daylight, but this had to be stopped as the sniper fire was too intense. After one man had been wounded and a number of near misses, it was completed during the hours of darkness. They then decided that a second post should be erected and, when partially completed, a contractor's…mechanical excavator was hijacked at gunpoint. This machine suddenly appeared outside our wall and the driver raised the bucket until he could reach the military observation post, which was pushed over and smashed. He then systematically began demolishing 50 ft. of our perimeter wall. During this incident there were three soldiers present guarding the observation post, but the excavator continued to demolish our wall whilst a barrage of bricks and bottles were pelted at the Army. The soldiers were asked to shoot the driver or at least shoot the machine in some vital part—they replied that they were not allowed to shoot at anything except a gunman, and then only if he was pointing his gun.…On another occasion the Army watched a stolen Land Rover, with IRA painted on the doors, parked on the other side of our wall handing out machine guns, rifles etc.…the soldiers had their rifles trained on them…but they were not allowed to fire and no action was taken."
  The Army could have handled the situation long ago had their hands not been tied firmly behind their backs. When I asked the managing director of the timber yard what had happened the night before when there was difficulty over fire-fighting arrangements and why he had not called the police, he stared at me and replied, "Good gracious. The constabulary cannot come here, you know. "This is not even in a no-go area. For us in Britain it is incredible to think that there are areas where even the police cannot go.
  I want to put one question to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. It is to ask him to say categorically that he will cut off the gas, electricity and other services to people in the no-go areas who have not paid their bills for about a year. I spoke to one group of women 50 yards from a no-go area. They said, "How do you think we feel? We pay our rent and rates, and our gas and electricity bills. Just up the road they get all these services for nothing."
  While I cannot support the views of those who feel that they must retaliate,
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  I fully understand why they feel this way, but it is clear from what my right hon. Friend said today that there will be on need to retaliate. I thank God for that fact. But will my right hon. Friend now take this step with regard to the no-go areas? At the moment the British taxpayer appears to be financing them. This at least surely must stop at once.
  5.30 p.m.
  Mr. John Mendelson: Under the impact of the events of Friday I do not believe that anybody can begin to try to urge any advice on the Secretary of State without first expressing his own horror at the kind of policy to which those who are parading as the romanticised leaders of a so-called revolutionary movement committed themselves behind the bus station in Belfast. That must be clearly stated. The television companies and the other news media should not continue to give aid and comfort to the romanticising of these people. The time has come to make it quite clear that they are criminal gangsters, not political leaders, and that they ought to be treated as such. It must be clearly understood that their purpose is not to bring about anything like a Marxist revolution in Northern Ireland or anywhere else. These people are supported and financed by the right wings of some of the political parties in the Republic of Ireland. They have nothing to do with any international Marxist movement.
  In a recent statement by one of the main leaders of the Provisional IRA I discovered a detailed critique of what they consider to be the long-headed left-wing of the nationalist movement. They said that these were atheists and they wanted nothing to do with them. We must be very clear about the movements involved. There is nothing in the philosophy of the leaders of the Provisional IRA that can, by any stretch of the imagination, be linked with anything called a left-wing or Socialist philosophy.
  Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: What difference would it make if they were linked with a Marxist movement? Would that make them any more forgiveable?
  Mr. Mendelson: I hope this will not be a point-scoring debate. It is far too

  1361
  serious for that. It is clear from what I have said over the years that, no matter what their inclinations, those who commit themselves to carrying out acts not only like those we witnessed last Friday afternoon, but the brutal murder of British soldiers by shooting them in the back and the shooting of some of their own members in the knee to cripple them for life because they did not or would not behave as their leaders wished, would be equally condemned by me. These people have nothing to do with the kind of left-wing Socialist movements we see in different parts of the world and we ought not to confuse them with such movements. It is clear that people who commit themselves to such activities cannot possibly be partners with anybody in any political solution. They have nothing to do with what the Government or the Opposition have talked about as a political solution.
  For what it may be worth, I should like to put my opinion on record. Nothing that the right hon. Gentleman has either done or said since he took this heavy burden on his shoulders has led me to believe that he had such people in mind when talking about a political solution. I will grant to any Minister in such a responsible position the right to decide in any week or on any day the kind of people with whom he will deal in order to save lives. However, it is for the rest of us and for the news media to make certain that we do not accept the kind of explanation that one leader of the IRA tried to give after the terrible events of last Friday when he said to some news reporters that he had given an hour's warning. That man, in the face of the horror which occurred on Friday afternoon, and accepting responsibility for it, used the excuse of having given an hour's notice, making it appear important whether he had or had not and as if it were better than if he had not. We ought to get away from all this reporting in great detail of giving notice by telephone, as if an act of barbarism were turned into a civilised political action merely because somebody picks up the telephone and gives an hour's notice of an explosion.
  We must be clear that the political implications remain the overriding consideration for the Government. I regret
  1362
  that the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) is not present. He has been here a good deal of the time. I make no complaint. However, he let fall a very dangerous sentence at the beginning of his speech today. When giving advice to the Secretary of State, as he was entitled to do, he said that it must now be clearly realised that unless the Government take over this operation of dealing with the IRA forces on the other side of the argument will do the job themselves. The right hon. Gentleman produced that as an argument in favour of the Army being used. That is no argument at all. It is the worst kind of abdication for any right hon. Gentleman to urge upon the Secretary of State that if the Government do not do the job with utter severity, as it must be done, then other extremists will do it.
  I agree that we all have our responsibilities. There is unanimity of demand that the Government must deal with the Provisional IRA in the severest possible manner. However, there is the grave danger that they will then say to the leaders of the UDA or of the Vanguard movement, "It is all right. We will see that the job you want to do will be done by the Armed Forces". Our Armed Forces are there with the consent of this House for only one reason: to protect those who want to go about their peaceful occupations. They are not there to carry out a sectarian policy which some leaders of the UDA might want.
  I should like to quote the housing problem. It was unfortunate that, after the official housing authority had given approval for 16 families to move into certain houses, they were not allowed to move into them. I have studied the housing problem in Northern Ireland since 1969. No problem is more serious. Fanatical talk goes on on both sides among the extremists about having advanced a few houses in 1936, as one woman told me, and having had to take a few steps backwards in 1969, as another woman told me on the same occasion. Those who know the situation will not underestimate the housing problem. It was unfortunate that, in the face of a threat of violence from some leaders of the UDA, we did not insist on rehousing those 16 families the same evening after the properly appointed housing authority had decided they should be moved in.

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  However, what has happened has happened. What matters is the future.
  Mr. Whitelaw: In fairness, the whole problem was extremely complicated and has since been surrounded by propaganda of all kinds from both sides. Discussions were still going on with my officials. Another meeting had been arranged at which I believe the whole problem could have been settled quite peacefully, but the matter was taken out of their hands by force.
  Mr. Mendelson: I am glad to hear the Secretary of State say that. I hope he will be equally firm in future. There were people on the side of the IRA who did not wish for a peaceful settlement of the problem. They should have had no hand in the matter. Those people must be removed. They must not be romanticised as political leaders, but put on trial and put behind bars. I hope the time has come when those people will not be able to take part in such discussions, but will be arrested when they appear on the scene.
  If a similar situation occurs again during the next few days and the housing authority gives approval for a group of Catholic families to move into a number of houses the right hon. Gentleman will have the same duty to use all the security forces to enforce such a decision as he has, with the unanimous consent of the House, to move severely against the IRA. This debate would be incomplete if we decided to be one-sided because of our feelings of condemnation for the leaders of the Provisional IRA.
  That brings me to the political situation. The right hon. Gentleman deserves the support of us all in the appeal that he has made this afternoon for political and other organisations to meet him next week. One part of his policy which he must maintain if he wishes to have the support of fair-minded people is his determination to find a political solution. For many years I have voiced the grievances of minorities, and they have been real grievances. I have always understood the peculiar difficulties of my colleagues in the Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland, but they should now respond directly and immediately to the right hon. Gentleman's invitation. They ought not to wait upon further
  1364
  events. I know that the position of my hon. Friends is peculiarly difficult, and I do not under-estimate their difficulties, but they must, nevertheless, respond to the appeal that has been made.
  I appeal to my hon. Friends to respond immediately and take part in these discussions, first, because a political solution must be found as quickly as possible and, secondly, because it must be understood why it is not possible to allow the proposals which have been made by the leaders of the IRA to be regarded as a contribution to the finding of a political solution.
  An examination of those proposals shows that there has been a complete shift from the main demands of the Civil Rights Association and all those democratic movements in Northern Ireland which for many years have fought against discrimination. When, as a group of Members, we went to Northern Ireland in 1969 we were told by 90 per cent. of the people whom we interviewed that they wanted an end to discrimination, a new housing policy and the abolition of Stormont. It is important to put that on record so that the allegation which is sometimes made that the association and the IRA are one and the same thing can be refuted. It is a wholly untrue allegation. During our visit in 1969 people did not say, as the IRA leaders have recently been saying, that they wanted what they called a decision by all the people of all Ireland about what is to happen to the Border.
  That is the claim which the leaders of the IRA are putting forward, and the language which they are using means that they want to coerce the Protestant majority in Northern Ireland. That is what they mean. That is what they want to do. They want to use violence to bring about their ends, and it does not matter whether it is somebody else who uses that violence. Clearly no hon. Member would support any such aim, and as long as the Army is being asked by the Government to prevent any such thing happening the Government will have the support of the House of Commons. At the same time, however, it must be made clear that in the discussions that are proceeding, or will take place in future, there must not be any declaration by the Government that it is for ever impossible for people who desire to see the ultimate

  1365
  re-unification of Ireland to play a peaceful and responsible part in those discussions.
  The issue now is the setting up of new institutions in Northern Ireland, the creation of a system of government which will allow all groups—minority and majority—to play their proper part. The issue now is not that of attempting to impose a change in the Border, and we must not exclude the participation of sincere and convinced Republicans who believe that peaceful discussion is the only means that can properly be used to find a solution to the problem.
  It is that kind of extremely difficult balance that will have to be made when these political discussions begin. Meanwhile, it is right for the rest of us to take a firm stand and call upon our colleagues, particularly in so far as they are Socialists and democrats in Northern Ireland, to come out openly and publicly against the IRA, to support the Government in their campaign against them and not to shield or help them. If they do that they will receive the continuing support of many of their friends in this House and in the country.
  5.46 p.m.
  Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas: The first thing that I want to do in my brief contribution to this important debate is to express my sympathy with the feelings of my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster). I do not think that anyone who has not visited Belfast in recent weeks can know the extent of the destruction in that city and the deep resentment of its citizens at the destruction of a city in which they took the greatest pride. Therefore, however much I may disagree with the conclusions which my hon. Friend draws, I sympathise very deeply with the sentiments which he has expressed, because he was speaking not only for himself but for the citizens of that city who have suffered so much.
  The conclusion which I draw from these events is in total contradiction to that drawn by my hon. Friend, because I find myself in complete agreement with everything which the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said this afternoon. We are considering his statement and debating this whole subject under the threat of the tragic events of what I suppose will
  1366
  now become known as "Bloody Friday", taking its place in that long procession of bloody days which are marking the history of Northern Ireland. I hope that we shall still be able to make that kind of distinction in the future, and that not every day in the week will become equally blood-spattered.
  These events have shocked and horrified the whole of the civilised world, and no one, I think, has been more horrified than the Catholic community both in Northern Ireland and in the Republic as well. My right hon. Friend drew attention, quite rightly, to the recent leading article in the Sunday Independent. The Irish Independent is perhaps the most influential of all the papers in the Republic, and I think it is significant of the shock which these events have produced that that paper should have produced that particular leader.
  I hope that that leader will influence the Prime Minister of the Republic, Mr. Jack Lynch, to move even more strongly against the IRA than he has done so far. I hope, too, that it will encourage church leaders, on whichever side of the Border they find themselves, to throw their moral and their institutional weight on the side of the forces of peace and in condemnation of terrorism.
  I do not believe that these events, dreadful as they have been, in any way undermine the policy that has been followed by Her Majesty's Government. It was the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) who referred to this policy as a vicious circle. I prefer to regard it as a policy which is centred on two poles. The first of these poles is the reconciliation of the two communities in Northern Ireland, which has been forcefully described by some people, in an effort to discredit the policy, as appeasement to the IRA. That has never been the Government's policy. There is all the difference in the world in trying to bring the two communities, composed of decent, law-abiding people, together, and appeasing the gunmen of the IRA.
  The other pole of the Government's policy has been to pursue the terrorist. There is no evidence that the terrorists have been able to increase the forces at their command because of the change in policy which started on 24th March. There may be strongly-held opinion to

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  the contrary but there is no evidence of it and it should not be repeated as though it were a fact when it is opinion, no more no less. All the evidence is that the violence was escalating anyway.
  Those two poles have to be borne in mind by the Government in formulating their policy, and it may well be at some time that the policy has to move towards one pole and away from the other. That is right, because if both objectives are not kept constantly in mind they both may be lost in the end. Anyone trying to look at the situation rationally will realise that the policy being followed by the Government is the only policy that any Government could follow. I do not believe it to be the ideal solution. There is no ideal solution to the problems of Northern Ireland. There are only choices between evils and there are only choices between courses, every one of which has risks and disadvantages and is fraught with peril.
  The short-term policy of the Government is clear and is perfectly reasonable. Equally, I believe the long-term policy to be right because it rests first on the principle that the majority in the North shall not be separated from the United Kingdom against their will, and we all accept that in the House, and that there shall be a fair deal for everyone in Northern Ireland irrespective of their religious affiliations. Who in the House could disagree with that policy?
  There is a third aspect of Government policy about which we have heard very little in recent weeks but which is equally important, and that concerns the economic reconstruction which is essential if the standard of life of the Province is to be maintained. The financial burden of Northern Ireland on the United Kingdom is very great. I do not complain about that, but it must be recognised. It is not generally known how much economic activity has continued in Northern Ireland. Economic activity has continued at a remarkable rate and it is extremely important that the impression should be corrected that the economic life of the Province is in ruins. Although it is under great stress it has not reached that stage. Before the House adjourns for the Summer Recess I hope we shall hear the promised economic statement about the Government's plans for the future of
  1368
  Northern Ireland and I hope that attention will be drawn to what has been achieved in the Province.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) referred to the events of last Friday as "the turning point". They may well prove to be so, but not necessarily in the sense that he meant. I have learned in my experience, such as it is, that in Northern Ireland nothing is ever as bad as it seems and that nothing is ever as good either. Therefore, while the events of last Friday are uppermost in our minds, while there is reaction of despair, I believe there is also room for hope. The IRA, as has been repeated again and again in the debate, has been revealed by Friday's events as a gang of thugs which cares nothing for anyone's life, whether that life be a Catholic life, a Protestant life or an agnostic life. The only point on which I agreed with the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Miss Devlin) was when she said that she did not care how those lives could be categorised denominationally because they were all human beings. Today she lent her views to the condemnation of the outrage on Friday.
  I express my agreement with the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) who said that if these events went on much longer there would be virtually nothing left to fight over in Northern Ireland. Another point that has come out during the debate has been that the bipartisan policy on Northern Ireland still exists. That is vitally important because we face not only criticism within the United Kingdom, but also largely hostile world opinion. I do not say for a moment that world opinion is justified, but it must be borne in mind as one of the factors of the situation and it is easier to repel ill-informed and prejudiced criticism with a united front than if we are divided. I congratulate the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) on his contribution to the debate this afternoon.
  A further point which has emerged is that in a situation as fluid as that in Northern Ireland any decisions which must be taken can be taken only by the man on the spot. Ultimate responsibility resides with Parliament but no one who is not present in Northern Ireland, who is not watching the situation closely

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  and for himself from week to week and day by day, can possibly hope even to begin to take the right decisions.
  It was very easy to criticise the Secretary of State, but it is more fitting that we should be glad that in this situation of unparalleled difficulty we have someone in command in Northern Ireland of the integrity and dedication and unselfishness of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, because these are the qualities that are needed to bring peace to the Province, if anything can do so. He will go from the debate knowing that he has the support of the overwhelming majority of the House and, what is more important, the overwhelming support of the majority of the British people.
  5.58 p.m.
  Mr. R. T. Paget: There are two points I wish to raise with the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas). The first is the line that we have not heard very much in the debate, that Mr. Lynch could be persuaded to pull the chestnuts out of our fire. I am sure that that is a delusion. Even if Mr. Lynch had the will he has neither the authority nor the power to run that policy nor to prevent Southern Ireland from being a haven for the criminals from the North.
  The other point I should like to take up with the hon. Gentleman is the curious belief that there have been most praiseworthy efforts to bring the religions together, but there has been no appeasement of the IRA. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Chelmsford was present when the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight), in a most moving speech, described what was happening—the Army held back from taking action against the IRA, which it saw arming and doing every kind of thing. If that was not appeasement, what is? There was the granting to the IRA of authority over tracts of country, the no-go areas, in which it was treated as carefully as though it were a neutral power with whom we must not quarrel. If that is not appeasement, I do not know what is.
  I think it was Sir Winston Churchill who said that the justification for recrimination is the avoidance of repetition. If I recriminate tonight, that must be my excuse. I served my novitiate in
  1370
  politics in the days of appeasement. I saw and felt and suffered as we moved from the naval agreement to the Rhineland, and from the Rhineland to Munichand the rape of Czechoslovakia, and then into the phoney war. I remember the speeches being made behind Mr. Chamberlain then. They might have served as the perfect model of the speech of the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes). We were told then that it was an inevitable phase, something which had enabled us to re-arm for the day which we of course foresaw, that it was necessary in order to establish our desire for peace to the world, so that we should be justified when it came to war. It did not work that way. It worked to raise the power of Hitler, the power of his forces, the power of his arms, but above all the power of his authority, which became unchallengeable. As for our reputation, it became only one for decadence and pusillanimity.
  The same thing has happened here, and appeasement is still appeasement even if it is given the new and trendy name of "conciliation". I have seen this policy going on, from our loss of nerve at Derry, where we failed to support our troops; from the orders given to the troops, which prevented them from defending themselves; from the sacrifice of Stormont; and on to the appointment of the Secretary of State. He was warned then, but instead of his heeding the warnings we have had the no-go areas acknowledged and kept; the lowering of profile, which gives a free had to the IRA; the internees released to reinforce the IRA; and negotiations with the IRA. Negotiations with men who are dedicated to violence are just as futile and just as mischievous whether they take place at Berchtesgaden or Cheyne Walk.—[An Hon. Member: "Or Rhodesia?"]—I will not be diverted.
  The right hon. Gentleman was warned when he took office exactly what would happen, and it has happened. Now he tells us what we urged him then, that the destruction of the IRA must be the first priority. It should have been the first priority then. It is the more difficult now, because the period of appeasement, or conciliation, if that term is preferred, has enormously strengthened the hand of violence by establishing not merely its success but its authority.

  1371
  1 do not believe that any kind of half-measure is still available. There are really only two available measures. The first and by far the most brutal is to go and leave the civil war to be fought. The second is to assert authority, and it cannot be asserted from our present weak position. Martial law is now absolutely necessary. In the present situation we cannot make the Army carry out a police rôle under the restraints of civilian law. It simply does not work. In the long term it is much bloodier and more cruel, because it means letting the casualties mount.
  The Commander-in-Chief in Northern Ireland should be given the full executive authority. He should have the right to make decrees and set up courts and courts-martial. There are few people—possibly nobody living—who have done more to secure the abolition of capital punishment than I have. I still believe that capital punishment is utterly wrong, utterly unnecessary and utterly immoral—in conditions of peace. But in conditions of war, such as the present, when a sentence of imprisonment is no deterrent, because everyone knows that with the peace will come amnesty, and that imprisonment merely adds to the chance of promotion in the new regime, the men who do the kind of things that happened on Friday must take the risk of death, and it must come by court-martial.
  Mr. Gerald Kaufman: Will my hon. and learned Friend give way?
  Mr. Paget: No, I will not.
  Mr. Kaufman Mr. Kaufman rose-—
  Mr. Paget: I have said, "No". Sit down.
  The problem now seems to me very clearly defined. The present command has failed. We must have a new command, and in the circumstances it must be a military command. That military command is, of course, temporary. With the defeat of the IRA, civilian law returns, and then it behoves us to be as just in victory as we have been firm in war. That is the time for the political solution. That is the time to remember that Stormont was not just. I do not say that it was as unjust as some people pretend,
  1372
  but the way the Catholic minority was treated was not a just way. The new law must make it absolutely clear that every grievance is dealt with and cleared. But that can happen only after we have won.
  At this point what we require is resolution. We must give our forces who have to do the winning, because this has become a military problem, and nothing but a military problem, the military means of solving the problem.
  6.9 p.m.
  Captain L. P. S. Orr: Perhaps one of the most useful contributions to this debate so far has been that of the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson). His total and utter condemnation of the Provisional IRA, delivered with so much sincerity and understanding of what it really was, has done a great service to the House and to the people of Ulster.
  The hon. Gentleman's point about the media romanticising the Provisional IRA was also of enormous value. If there is one thing that has tended to raise the temperature and to infuriate people in Ulster, it is the romanticising of that gang of cut-throats and bloody murderers into some kind of national heroes.
  It would be easy for me to make an angry and bitter speech. That would be popular in Ulster where, after the long events that led up to Friday, people are naturally angry and bitter. They are angry and bitter because in many ways their analysis is like that of the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget). They regard the policy of the last four months and possibly before that as a policy of weakness and appeasement. However, there is no great purpose in making an angry and bitter speech, popular though it may be. We must examine what has happened up to now with the clear intention of trying to learn from those events what is best for the future. It is easy to ask the questions which are asked widely in Ulster—"Why were not the policies adopted by the Army over the weekend adopted before bloody Friday? Why did so many have to die?"
  We must look at a few simple points which have arisen. First, we are entitled, in the light of what the hon. Member for Penistone said, to ask my right hon.

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  Friend the Secretary of State for a clear undertaking that neither he, nor his Ministers, advisers, or any emissary on his behalf, will ever again sit down with representatives of the Provisional IRA.
  Mr. Whitelaw: My hon. Friend can have that now.
  Captain Orr: I am deeply grateful to my right hon. Friend. That is a pledge which will be regarded with satisfaction in Ulster. There is a widespread view, which undermines public confidence in Ulster, that the low profile adopted by the Army until this weekend allowed the Provisional IRA not only to regroup and to catch their breath, but to get large increases of supplies which made the events of July so particularly bloody. It must be remembered that Friday was not a day alone. There were 11 people killed on Friday but there were 78 deaths in July. I agree with the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Miss Devlin) that statistics are not of great importance. One human life lost is as bad as the loss of hundreds and thousands of human lives.
  None the less, one can measure the extent of the viciousness of the IRA campaign by the escalation of violence. We would like to hear from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State whether the period since the so-called truce with the IRA led to a strengthening of the Provisional IRA position. If it did, then we required an undertaking that such a thing shall not be permitted again.
  We should not have another truce with the IRA. A truce is something which is two-sided. If evil men lay down their arms and desist from evil, they must be pursued and brought to justice. There must never again be anything like a truce with them. The purpose of a truce by the Provisional IRA is, first, to buy some time, and, secondly, to find an excuse for breaking the truce when it is ready to do so. It will break it in such a way as to make the British Government, the British Army or someone else responsible for the breaking of the truce. It is fair to ask that we shall have no more truces with these evil men.
  I hope that my right hon. Friend will say something about the Army's present policy. It is true that he has rightly asked the House for backing in a clear determination to achieve the first objective of policy, the destruction of the
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  IRA's potential. But we should know a little more about how that will be achieved, a little more about what is called the selective response. We should know whether this will be selective as to areas or selective as to time. We should know exactly what my right hon. Friend means by destroying the IRA's potential.
  It is plain that the present legal system in Ulster is not sufficient to deal with the people who are arrested by the Army. I am told that 100 people have been arrested in the Army's activity since last February. My right hon. Friend will correct me when I say that about 30 are being dealt with in various ways.
  Mr. Whitelaw: Charges are being made against 30.
  Captain Orr: What has happened to the other 70? We should know something about the remainder. Were they arrested and casually detained for no particular reason? Were they arrested and detained because they were suspected, and has evidence come forward since which shows that they should have been released? There will be considerable concern amongst the majority that 100 people were detained and that charges have been preferred against only 30.
  It is undoubtedly true that the legal system is not satisfactory in these wartime conditions. However, I do not go so far as the hon. and learned Member for Northampton. The situation does not require martial law and courts martial. I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) that a military court is the right kind of court. However, we must see whether there is a possibility, in the present situation, of devising some kind of special court which could be renewed from time to time on an emergency basis and under emergency legislation and which would disappear when the threat against the security of the State disappeared. That would be a more helpful approach. I hope that my right hon. Friend will have something to say about that.
  One other question has been raised—the position of the Ulster Defence Association. It is very important in this context to say that the UDA is, so far as I understand it, not an armed force. One

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  must condemn the idea that there should exist any armed forces outside the control of the Crown, but one must also notice that the existence of the UDA points to the fact that there are thousands of decent citizens in Ulster who are prepared to play a leading and active part in the defence of their homes, their lives, their children, their property and their future. I suggest therefore to my right hon. Friend that he should look very carefully at finding some method by which those people who are prepared to put time, energy and everything else at the disposal of the general proposition of defending life and home, are put in the service of the Crown and under the control of Her Majesty's Government.
  Mr. Kevin McNamara: The hon. and gallant Gentleman will realise that every reason which he has just advocated for the establishment of the UDA was also originally advanced by the IRA for its own establishment. As has been pointed out by the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster), the IRA did not exist in 1969. Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman therefore continue the argument and say what the Army should do about barricades erected by these so-called law-abiding people, how they should be dealt with, and how action should have been taken in the interregnum, during which they made dispositions in their areas, all of which were quite rightly reported in the British Press?
  Captain Orr: I am astounded to hear the hon. Gentleman say that the IRA ever wished to serve under Her Majesty. The proposition I am making is that there are many people who are wishful of defending their homes and lives and property and who would do it in the service of Her Majesty if a way could be found. The day the IRA or others like them would do that, one would rejoice.
  My right hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) touched upon the point that it is extremely important that Her Majesty's Government and the information services under their control should make certain that no myths are created out of the activities of the Army over this weekend or, indeed, out of the necessary activities which have to follow now. This is
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  absolutely crucial, because the myths will already be in preparation. People will already be preparing the stories of brutality; the dossiers of offences against the person will now be being created. It is vitally important not only for world opinion but for anybody who wishes to sustain Her Majesty's Government, if they are now to take the proper course, that these myths should be dealt with in advance, should be pre-empted, that every effort should be made by every resource known to the Government to prevent them from arising.
  I turn to the future. I was one of those who objected strongly in this House to the Government's initiative, so called. I said that it would produce an interregnum during which there would be maximum insecurity on the part of the majority and that there would be every incentive to the men of violence to step up terrorism in order to influence the final result. My right hon. Friend is now entering into discussions with the parties. It is very important that certain things be done very rapidly in the political sector. The longer the vacuum remains, the greater the danger.
  It is essential that Her Majesty's Government very soon lay down at least the framework. They must at least say what options are not open. There must be certain options which are denied, so that no one in London, Dublin, or in Ulster, in any political party or in any section of the community, can say, "We will now fight for this". The Government should make it plain beyond peradventure, even if the parameters are imposed in the end by the Government, what the limits are. We can then discuss the nuts and bolts of any agreement afterwards. It is an easy thing to get down to detail, provided one knows what the options are. This is the most vital thing that my right hon. Friend should do. He should also bear in mind that these parameters should have the broad consent of the great mass of the people of Northern Ireland. If he will do this and reply in this sense to us, then we shall wish him well in trying to defeat this horrible and ghastly conspiracy against us.
  Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I am grateful to right hon. and hon. Members for the

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  way they have co-operated with the Chair by speaking briefly. I very much want to call two more hon. Members from the Opposition benches and one from the Government back benches before I call on the Minister to reply. We have about 35 minutes left.
  6.27 p.m.
  Mr. Frank McManus: The hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) gave the House—I do not know whether it fully appreciates it—a fairly accurate insight into the workings of the Orange Unionist mind. He said that in the Ulster Defence Association there is a fine body of men willing to serve under the Crown. He is saying again what that most notorious, perhaps, of all Prime Ministers of Ulster, Lord Brooke borough, said when faced with a similar situation. He said, "Let us give these men the official seal", and the result was that we had the B Specials—a body which the Labour Government were forced after a long time to disband. We are hearing from the hon. and gallant Member a call for the re-establishment of the B Specials, albeit under a different guise.
  The hon. and gallant Member says that the Secretary of State should set the limits and that then there can be discussions. He is all for discussions once the limits have been set. If that had been the case already, and we had all agreed, Stormont need never have been abolished because there could have been a forum for discussion. However, those same people the hon. and gallant Member is talking about discussed for 50 years in Stormont the things which they want to discuss again and they never got anywhere. That is why Stormont had to be abolished. No one could get anywhere in Stormont unless they toed the Unionist Party line.
  The hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) constantly amazes me by still sitting on this side of the House. Why he is not on the back benches opposite, I cannot discover. He is the only advocate of the "get in or get out" policy which is supposed to be current in the corridors of Westminster at the moment. He argues the case fairly well. Does he forget so easily? Britain got in and had to get out of places
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  like Aden, Kenya and Cyprus. Does the hon. and learned Member wish Ulster to be another Aden, or Kenya or Cyprus?
  The policy he advocates is, "Let us get in and hit them hard. Let us give them a bloody nose and then let us get out to show how we believe in democracy. Then the natives will fight amongst themselves and the world will cry its praises of the Mother of Parliaments and realise how once one removes the restraining hand the natives go wild."
  I regret to say that we are probably at the end, or at the beginning, of a cycle. I remember that a year ago almost to the day the Home Secretary announced the fearful decision to introduce internment. That was the beginning of the cycle of military repression. Subsequently, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition said that the IRA, all terrorists, must be crushed and that of course it would be inconceivable for any Minister of the Crown or Her Majesty's loyal Opposition to have anything to do with such monsters, and they used all sorts of other names. Next, the Leader of the Opposition was talking to these people and describing them as responsible and disciplined, and then we had the Secretary of State talking to them and the Leader of the Opposition talking to them again. That was the first cycle, and now we are starting it all over again, for they have become even more inhumane monsters than they were and we are to return to military repression.
  Cannot the House of Commons get a few simple facts into its head? The first is that repression failed in the past and will fail again. I do not care how many troops or how many new vehicles or how many new weapons the Government put into Northern Ireland: if they commit themselves, as they clearly intend, to military repression, they will fail as they have failed before.
  It may be that in six months the Prime Minister will announce in the House, with regret, the departure of the Secretary of State and the appointment of a hardliner or soft liner, and it may be that the Secretary of State will go the way of Brian Faulkner. But if they commit themselves to more military repression, they will solve nothing and they will have

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  another think coming, a deep and tragic think.
  Whoever comes to the Dispatch Box in six months to try a new tack, no matter how many more lives have been lost and no matter what the disillusionment, frustration and terror endured in Northern Ireland, the problem will be as it always has been. I have stated it on a number of occasions and I do so briefly and finally to the Secretary of State. The problem is the problem of the Orange Unionist power structure, the structure of power that the Orange Unionists have built for themselves with the tacit approval of this House and fostered for more than 50 years. That they will not surrender and that is why their most famous catcall is "No surrender".
  To maintain that power they must keep down the Catholics. For as long as they feel that they have the support of the British Government, so long as they feel that they can drag the British Government behind them in keeping down the Catholics, so long they will not allow any change in Northern Ireland, because any change is a threat to their power base, to their power structure, and therefore they cannot allow it.
  For the Secretary of State and the British Government to solve this problem they will have to declare, as the New Statesman said, that the path to reunification is the proper path of development and that it is their intention to remove themselves from a position of influence in Ireland. If they do not say that, if they do not confront the UDA and the boasters about arms who say that they will fight to stay British, if they do not confront them as they should have done 50 years ago, there will never be progress. If they do not say as I have suggested, most assuredly there will be no solution to the Irish problem and the Government and the Secretary of State and many other Governments and many other Secretaries of State will fail as they failed in the past because they failed to confront the central issue of the Irish problem.
  6.35 p.m.
  Mr. James Kilfedder: I appreciate that I have only a few minutes in which to take part in the debate, but I feel that I ought to speak.
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  The Oxford Street bus depot, where the IRA atrocity was committed on Friday, served the people of my constituency and two of my constituents were killed in that horrific explosion. I can understand the grief and the anger of the people, and I share it. But in the midst of that anger and the devastation and the agony, we the people of Northern Ireland, the law-abiding majority, still seek a reconciliation with the decent members of the minority, and that reconciliation is our wish. I trust that my right hon. Friend will call this conference with the elected representatives so that we can get down to discussing the future.
  But we will have no reconciliation with the men of violence, the gunmen who are out to destroy Ireland, as they have always wanted to destroy Ireland. I remember that after the Irish Free State had been established a nurse was murdered by the IRA. A stone was tied round her neck and she was thrown into a river. That was typical of the Irish Republican Army.
  When I heard on television that the Army had discovered hundreds of pounds of explosives and also detonators in an empty house in the Markets area of Belfast and when the Army announced that it believed that this was the nerve centre of the bombing assault on bloody Friday, I wondered what was in the minds of those who were bereaved or maimed. What must they have thought? If the Army had not been following the low key policy dictated by the Government, but had searched for bombs and ammunition and explosives, the people who were killed last Friday might still be alive.
  I know that the low profile policy which was instituted by my right hon. Friend was instituted by him as an act of faith. I accept that and I know how he must feel to see his policy fall in ruins. But he cannot say that he was not warned. We urged him repeatedly in the House and elsewhere to search out and destroy the IRA before it destroyed our Province. As an Irishman, I hope that I do not again see the spectacle of mangled bodies of men, women and children being shovelled into plastic bags, pieces of limbs being packed into plastic bags. The slaughter of the innocents on bloody Friday is the crowning success, the grand spectacular, of the Irish Republican

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  Army's bloody assault on ordinary decent people and ordinary decent standards of behaviour.
  When the Army, acting on intelligence, searched selected houses after that atrocity, many of the householders alleged that the Army had smashed then-homes and abused and assaulted some of the occupants. I ask my right hon. Friend whether it is not a fact that the IRA manufactures damage after a house has been searched in order to give some semblance of truth to false and malicious allegations about the soldiers. These allegations are then given widespread publicity by the news media. This has been going on for years. From the very beginning, the IRA has employed to the full and manipulated to its advantage every medium and every modern trick of propaganda. It has the best publicity organisation in Europe with a gullible Press listening avidly to every lying report.
  Some years ago, I asked my right hon. Friend to consider the establishment of special courts. Once again I appeal to him to set up courts to deal with these criminals. I also asked him to consider establishing either a state of emergency, or martial law, in Northern Ireland.
  I should like to say how much the people of Northern Ireland would welcome a message of support from Her Majesty the Queen, at least to those bereaved and maimed. The Ulster people feel themselves isolated, cut off from the rest of the United Kingdom. It would do a great deal to make them feel that they had not been abandoned to the evil men who manipulate the violence if the Queen were to send a message or, better still, was to broadcast to the entire nation.
  6.38 p.m.
  Mr. Stanley Orme: Listening to the whole of the debate and observing the seriousness with which it is taking place, I tend to agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. McManus) that we may be at the end of an era, at the end of a cycle of the tragic events in Northern Ireland.
  As one who has played some part, if a minor part, in Northern Irish affairs since 1964, having made many visits to
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  the North and to the Republic, at times I have almost despaired, and I am sure that the Secretary of State himself, for short periods, such as those following the tragic events of last Friday, must have despaired, too.
  I need not spend much time on the events of last Friday, other than to say that there has been unanimous condemnation of them in the House. I support everything that has been said about the actions of the Provisional IRA. I say that as one who has consistently supported the elected representatives in this House, and has supported my hon. Friends, although I have often disagreed with them on specific items of policy. A very courageous stand has been taken by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) and other members of the Socialist Democratic Labour Party, living as they do within Catholic communities. I understand the pressures that have been brought to bear upon them.
  But if we consider the situation that exists at the end of this cycle we see that it is essential not to lose sight of the political objectives in any action that we take. I urge the Secretary of State, in his difficult task and especially in connection with the search that is being made for those who perpetrated the outrages on Friday, not to let the pendulum swing to the other extreme. Probably everyone in the House will agree that the division that now exists between the two communities is deeper than it has ever been. It is the depth of that division which creates fear both among the Protestant and among the Catholic community.
  At times, the Catholic community support the elected representatives and then, for different reasons—because of their fear—they support the IRA, just as the Protestant community support their elected representatives on occasion and still give support to the UDA.
  Some of my hon. Friends and I recently had a very full and frank discussion with the Lobby of Unionist Women which came to this House. When I asked one of them, "If the UDA takes up arms, what will you do?", she replied, "Mr. Orme, I shall not condone it, but I shall not condemn it." Exactly the same argument is used by the Catholic community because of the fear that now exists.

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  At the moment we are looking for a political initiative. I do not believe that it will resolve the Irish question, because I believe in the unification of Ireland. I believe that it will ultimately come. The Provisional IRA may have set it back for 10, 20 or even more years by its actions. It will not achieve it by bombings and killings. Those who campaigned for civil rights in a peaceful manner between 1965 and 1968 probably achieved more than the Provisional IRA has achieved through all the bombings and killings that have since taken place.
  The realisation that injustices existed in Northern Ireland penetrated to this House and to this country. We realised that something had to be done about them. But we are now faced with short-term political objectives that have the aim of removing some of the fear. In this regard the talks that are to take place are essential. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson), I urge my friends in the Socialist Democratic Labour Party to play a full part in those talks. It is the Provisional IRA that is maintaining internment; it is not the SDLP, which has striven to get internment removed.
  When we go into these talks we must not circumscribe them with conditions that will make them fail before they start. It must be possible for Protestants to stand by their conviction that they should remain in the United Kingdom and should preserve the existing links, but it must also be possible for the minority to say that they want a united Ireland, and that they will work openly and freely within the Northern Ireland society, acting in a political manner, to achieve that united Ireland. If we do not start from that position we shall get nowhere.
  I was in the Republic last week, and I met Mr. Lynch and other political leaders. The editorial in the Sunday Independent will probably have come as a shock to many hon. Members. They may say, "What has happened in the Republic; these are people who have so often supported the IRA, and who are fearful of them." Nothing could be further from the truth. The courage of Mr. Lynch and the other leaders of the Republican Government has been outstanding—no less than that of the Irish
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  Labour Party, which took a deliberate stand against violence which threatened the destruction of the party. It carried its stand against violence by an overwhelming majority in its conference at Wexford. It cannot be ignored in the talks that are to take place. The Irish Labour Party will not come with demands of this, that and the other, and unity tomorrow, but it is part of the Irish equation. At the end of the day the Irish people, North and South, will resolve this problem.
  I urge the right hon. Gentleman to look upon the Republic as a friend in this situation—a friend that wants to help, and not to hinder. Despite the dark forebodings of this debate, I believe that there is still hope. There cannot be a military solution; there can be only a political one.
  6.47 p.m.
  The Minister of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Paul Channon): The House will agree that this has been a short but outstanding debate. Most hon. Members will also agree that it has been a very realistic one, in view of the ghastly situation that we face in Northern Ireland. Those who have taken a small part in the events of the past few months know the agony and the misery that the people of Northern Ireland have had to put up with, and I am sure that it is the wish of every hon. Member that that agony should be brought to an end at the earliest possible date.
  The House has shown itself to be united in its abhorrence of what took place last Friday, although I cross swords with the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Miss Devlin); I have not forgotten the Abercorn incident and the M'Gurk's Bar incident; nor have the people of Northern Ireland, and nor have hon. Members. Far too many ghastly incidents have taken place in Northern Ireland—some even worse than those that occurred last Friday. They will not be forgotten for a long time. They are part of the catalogue of miseries that the people of Northern Ireland have had to face for the past three years.
  I should like to say how much I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) in the tribute that he paid to the British troops, security forces and the police, in view of what

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  they have had to undergo in the past few years in their testing and prolonged ordeal. They have behaved in a way in which no other army in the world could have behaved, and they deserve the highest commendation of the House.
  The hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) asked about the movement of arms and explosives, and what measures have been taken to restrict such traffic. There has been extra security in the cities of Belfast and Londonderry, but the situation is extremely difficult. These measures cannot be wholly effective, I fear, but everything that can possibly be done is being done. Further measures may be taken in the future. The security forces keep such measures under constant review. They inevitably involve some inconvenience to those who live and work in those areas.
  Many hon. Members raised the question of the system of courts and the law—the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley), my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) and my hon. Friend for Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) and the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), in his own way. They all spoke of the system of courts and the law and questioned whether the present system and the present rules of evidence are sufficient to deal with the situation. It was suggested by some hon. Members that for offences against law and order, special courts and special procedures were needed. All I would say at this stage is that these questions are constantly in the mind of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the mind of my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General. I know that they will note with interest what has been said on these matters, which are extremely complicated, as any hon. and learned Member will appreciate.
  Several hon. Members have raised the question of the conference, and my right hon. Friend has made it clear that he hopes that there will be a conference of the people of Northern Ireland to see whether they can work out a solution to their problems. He has listed some people he will see this week, and there will be plenty of others that he will wish to see. He will wish to see representatives of the Democratic Unionist Party and of
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  other political parties in the province to see what common ground may exist and how we can set up such a conference, which I take it to be the general wish of the House should proceed.
  One further point on the legal system was raised by the hon. Member for Leeds, South. We have already made an Order in Council providing for additional sittings of the criminal courts. That will also be of some modest help in the next few months. The hon. Member for Leeds, South, also asked about the attitude of the British Army should there be people who wished to take the law into their own hands. He expressed the matter very clearly when he said that those who were loyal to the Crown must ensure that only the forces of the Crown dealt with law and order in the community. That will remain the policy of the security forces and the policy of my right hon. Friend, although it is true, as has been pointed out, that the UDA has condemned the irresponsible idea that there should be a new rent and rates strike.
  Captain Orr Captain Orr indicated assent.
  Mr. Channon: I am glad to have my hon. and gallant Friend's acclamation. Nothing could cause more hardship to a section of the community than that it should embark upon such a fruitless course as a rent and rates strike which would cause terrible hardship to those involved without doing them any good. People in the community must pay for the services which they expect the community to provide.
  I should like to emphasise what has been said about propaganda. We have already seen examples of what will be said about the activities of the Army by those who wish us ill. I implore hon. Members not to be taken in by the mischievious propaganda that is already pouring out and will continue to pour out on this subject from people who wish to pretend that the Army is behaving in an irresponsible way. The Army has every intention of carrying out its duty with full responsibility. It has clear instructions—to prevent damage, to reduce it to the minimum, and to cause the minimum possible hardship, although there is inevitably some inconvenience to those involved in certain areas of the community. There will be people who will seek to exploit this issue for their own ends. I am sure that the House

  1387
  will not be fooled by such people, although there may be some outside who will be fooled, although I hope not.
  Hon. Members has said that there can be no military solution to the problem of Northern Ireland. There must be both a military and a political attempt to solve the problems of Northern Ireland. Both must be used. I was asked about the "no-go" areas by some hon. Members. I know the strength of feeling in the House and in Northern Ireland over the existence of the "no-go" areas in general. Of course it is intolerable that such areas should exist in Northern Ireland at all. Hon. Members will not expect me to go into any detail on the measures that might be taken to deal with the situation, as these must be security measures. My right hon. Friend has expressed the Government's view upon the issue many times in the past, and I know the views of hon. Members about these matters.
  Mrs. Knight: May I ask my hon. Friend a specific point which I do not think concerns security, and that has to do with cutting off gas and electricity from these areas.
  Mr. Channon: It would be a little difficult to cut off the gas supply from the Bogside since the gas works is actually in the Bogside. I note what my hon. Friend said. I do not think that she will expect me to go into that any further. It is an extremely serious matter but I cannot go further this evening.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) raised the question of the economic help that might be given to ease some of the critical problems in Northern Ireland. As he knows—my right hon. Friend announced this to the House some time ago—already a study is going on to see what measures might be taken to help in easing the critical unemployment and economic difficulties in Northern Ireland. I note what my hon. Friend said, but I am not in a position to announce further measures to the House.
  Rev. Ian Paisley: Will the hon. Gentleman assure the House that he will keep in mind the difficulties experienced by owners of business premises that have been bombed and which have outstanding rates bills?
  Mr. Channon: I note what the hon. Member said. He will know that my right hon. Friend has already announced some extra help with the rates relief scheme for the city centres. The problems that many businesses have had to face in these and other areas have been put to me very forcibly.
  Anyone who has been in Northern Ireland over the past three or four months since my right hon. Friend took up his office will know of the extra ordinary difficulty in trying to cope with the problem which the Province presents to us. Anyone who has heard this debate and the differing views expressed will see how extremely difficult it is to find a solution capable of achievement in the short term. If the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster will forgive my quoting hex, she said that it is impossible to have a military solution and impossible to have a political solution—
  Miss Devlin Miss Devlin indicated dissent.
  Mr. Channon: If I have misquoted the hon. Lady I will gladly give way. I understood her to say that all British Governments over the past 50 years have been to blame, we are in this mess, and there is not much we can do to get out of it. If that is so, it is rather a gloomy view.
  Miss Devlin: I do not wish to accuse the hon. Gentleman of arrogance. I did not say that there was no political solution. I simply said that the right hon. Gentleman was incapable of finding it.
  Mr. Channon: That may be so, but that is a different matter. The hon. Lady has not helped us in the search for a solution by her contributions in recent years. If she will come forward with some constructive way in which we can achieve a political solution, or if her hon. Friend the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. McManus) would do so, the whole House would be indebted to them. So far on the whole, with respect to them, they have concentrated on the destructive side, telling us what is wrong without actually telling us what is right. That is the responsibility of everyone in Northern Ireland, not only to complain and to recriminate about the past—and anyone who has been to Northern Ireland knows how much of a sense of history there is and

  1389
  how much recrimination there is about the past—but to come forward with constructive proposals for the future. Otherwise what hope remains for the Province?
  Mr. A. W. Stallard: My hon. Friend the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. McManus) is too modest. May I commend the hon. Member to read the pamphlet recently produced by my hon. Friend dealing with a political solution and then to come back with some comments.
  Mr. Channon: I have read the hon. Member's pamphlet. What all of us can agree about is that if we have constructive views about the future of Ireland, whether or not they are controversial, the way they should be pursued is politically, in the political arena. No one—I do not accuse the hon. Member of this—should attempt to impose his political views by force upon that community. Those who do so are setting back for a very long time the future of the cause in which they believe. If that be so, it would be just, because it would be quite wrong that people should be able to bomb others into a solution which they would not otherwise have countenanced.
  We must try to solve this problem, difficult though it will be, both militarily and politically. The whole world knows that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made every endeavour in the past few months to give the extreme exponents of republicanism or of any other political view in the political spectrum the opportunity of coming forward with ideas. He has given the extreme exponents of republicanism the opportunity of ending their terrorism and of talking about political objectives. They have been given every chance to do that, but, alas, they have spurned their opportunities.
  What conclusion can follow? Virtually the whole House agrees that the security forces must be able firmly and vigorously to respond. They have done, and they will continue to do so. However, Her Majesty's Government's policy remains the same—to end the violence and to provide a new political framework for Northern Ireland. We have had a short debate on this crucial issue—perhaps the gravest political issue confronting this country—and we hope that we can look
  1390
  to the backing of the House in the pursuit of those twin ends.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Francis Pym): I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL
  Not amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL

    New Clause 1
    DEATH GRANT
    'In the National Insurance Act 1965, in Schedule 4, there shall be substituted for that Section of the said Schedule 4, as amended by Schedule 3 of the National Insurance Act 1969, which refers to the payment of death grant, the following provision: —
    "(2) Death grant, where the person in respect of whose death the grant is paid was at his death—

    (a) under the age of 3

    £50;

    (b) between the ages of and 10

    £60;

    (c) over the age of 10

    £70" '.

    —[Mr. O'Malley.]

    Brought up, and read the First time.
    7.1 p.m.
    Mr. Brian O'Malley: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
    The purpose of the new Clause is to increase substantially the death grants payable under the National Insurance contributory system. If it were accepted, the grant to adults over the age of 18 would be raised to £70 from £30 in the case of younger recipients and £15 in the case of male contributors who were 55 years or over and females who were 50 years or over in July, 1948.
    The Clause also seeks to make payable much larger death grants in respect of children and young persons. Whereas the family of a young person who dies at the age of 16 may be entitled, contribution conditions being satisfied, to £22·50, if the Clause were accepted the family would be entitled to a death grant of £50.
    We discussed this subject, albeit briefly, in Committee, and the Under-secretary of State informed us that the

    1391
    total cost of accepting the proposals in the Clause would be about £25 million. The facts relating to these proposals are not in dispute. They reveal an aspect of our national insurance arrangements which should not be allowed to continue. The present level of death grants is indefensible and for that reason the Under-secretary of State felt obliged in Committee to reconsider the situation. He said that he would examine between the Committee and Report stages, although without commitment, the present level of death grant. I am rather disturbed that there is no Government Amendment on the Amendment Paper increasing people's entitlement to death grants.
    The death grant introduced in 1949 was set at £20. It was not increased until nine years later, in 1958, when the level was set at £25. A further nine passed until, in 1967, the grant for adults was fixed at £30. There has been no increase in the grant since.
    There have been several features of the system of national insurance death grants since 1949. First, there have been increases only every nine years. Secondly, under successive Governments of differing political persuasions, it has been the custom to raise the grant at the time of general upratings. Thirdly, the value of the grant payable has fallen substantially in real value, in spite of the fact that there have been two increases—in 1958 and 1967.
    It is therefore important to see what was expected of the grant when it was introduced. It was first commented on in the Beveridge Report. A universal funeral grant was one of the recommendations of the Beveridge Report. Beveridge suggested £20 as a reasonable estimate of
    "the necessary expenses of a decent funeral for an adult"
    including a margin for cemetery fees. This was the figure adopted by the then Government and enacted in the National Insurance Act, 1946. It is clear therefore that at the time the death grant was intended to cover the full cost of what Beveridge described as "a decent funeral".
    In 1949, under the agreement with the National Association of Funeral Directors, the maximum charge for a simple funeral,
    1392
    including a hearse, four bearers and one following car, was £20. The corresponding figure for 1972–73, which was given to the Standing Committee by the Under-secretary of State only a fortnight ago, on 13th July, is £69·75. Therefore, when the agreed figure for the minimum cost of what the Beveridge Report described as a decent funeral was £20 the death grant was £20. Now in 1972 the death grant stands at £30 and there is no Government Amendment or new Clause to increase it, although the minimum cost for a funeral, as stated by the Under-Secretary of State himself, is £69·75.
    The Consumers Association booklet called "What to do when someone dies" says—and this is some little time ago—
    "Generally, the total cost of a funeral, including burial or cremation fees, is unlikely to come to less than £75."
    That was when the minimum charge was £64, and £69·75 was mentioned by the Under-Secretary on 13th July in Committee.
    So the facts speak for themselves, and it is not surprising, in these circumstances, that there have been parliamentary Questions in which complaints have been made obviously reflecting the disquiet and concern in the constituencies that the level of death grants is really inadequate for the present time.
    A tragic situation exists. I should like to quote from a cutting from The Guardian dated 13th July this year. It is headed "Widow's shock at open grave" and says that a widow, aged 28,
    "went to put flowers on her husband's grave two months after his death and found it had not been filled in but had planks over it. Mrs. Pleasance, of Berkeley Road, Broxtowe, Nottingham, who has five young children, has asked her M.P. to take up the case. An official at the Wilford Hill Cemetery, Nottingham, said the coffin had been put in a public grave because Mrs. Pleasance could not afford a private plot. 'The grave is being kept open to take other coffins. It could be two weeks before it is filled in.' "
    So here we are 30 years after the introduction of the national insurance system set up by the Labour Government and people are still being buried, as they would say in my area and, I have no doubt, in other areas, as paupers, and that is because the national insurance system has been allowed to deteriorate and not even allowed to keep pace with costs in this area of its operations.

    1393
    I should like to quote secondly a letter which my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) has received, one of many from all over the country. An elderly man in receipt of supplementary benefit who has also been disabled as a result of war service for this nation writes:
    "My late wife who passed away last June paid her full national insurance contributions all her working life. She was insured fully in her own right. All I got for death grant was £15. The funeral costs were £92·05. I would not like her to be buried by the council in a pauper's grave. The death grant should be 20 weeks' flat rate pension for the very poor on supplementary pension."
    That reminds us that a number of old people in this community who have paid into the National Insurance Scheme for up to 10 years do not even receive the £30 death grant, which for them is reduced to one of £15. In the National Superannuation Bill which the Labour Government tried to put through before the last General Election intervened the conditions were to be relaxed for the payment of death grant and one would have been able to receive such a grant if the income received in any one year was £325. Compare that with the situation, operated under successive Governments—I am not making a party point—where a man or woman could contribute for 10 years to the National Insurance Scheme and not even then get an adequate death grant, not £30 but £15 instead.
    In our nation 2 million retirement pensioners are receiving supplementary benefit and almost another 1 million are having to depend on supplementary benefits to be able to live at all in accordance with the minimum standards laid down by the State. In those circumstances, the House has a responsibility this evening to look at the implications of the present system of national insurance death grants and at the proposals in the Bill.
    While we have these very large numbers of poor people, and among the poorest are the old, and particularly elderly widows, the Supplementary Benefiets Commission will not normally make a grant for a funeral at all unless the bill has actually been paid and a commitment undertaken, on the ground that it is the responsibility of the local authority to bury a person whose family cannot themselves afford the burial.
    7.15 p.m.
    We in this House should be deeply aware that numbers of our constituents throughout the country deeply resent what many of them regard as the stigma of means testing even under the supplementary benefits administration as it exists today. If they dislike that, how much more strongly do they feel at the idea of a local authority burial in what they would describe as a pauper's grave, as the letter which my right hon. Friend received and I have quoted described it?
    Of course, it is the case that many people, both the elderly and otherwise, although I am thinking particularly of the elderly, have the penny policies which they have paid over the years, Some of them have bigger policies, but many people have no policies at all. It is interesting to notice that even in 1970, 843,000 policies of this kind, death insurance policies, lapsed. I would guess that the amount of insurance cover is inadequate amongst people who are now in their 60's or their 70's, perhaps even in their 80's. In areas of high unemployment in the 'thirties and in the 'twenties very substantial numbers of such penny policies, often paid during the closing decades of the nineteenth century, were allowed to lapse. Many old people, and, of course, young ones, too, do not now have adequate insurance cover. That may be because they have families, children, who will help with the cost of burial, but because of the break up of the larger family units—and that has been an aspect of society in this country, particularly in the post-war period—there will be large numbers of people who have no immediate family, no children, to help.
    There is a case for the House to agree to the restoration of the situation which existed at the inception of the National Insurance Scheme at the end of the Second World War, namely, that the death grant paid through the national insurance contributory system should provide enough for a person to be buried decently, as Beveridge said; and even a little more, for people like to bury their own decently. I know it is not as fashionable as it was, but they still like to buy some black and mourning clothes, and to give the relatives and others who come to the funeral some sustenance afterwards.
    In the circumstances, I hope the Government will have considered the need for the death grant to be of those proportions which Beveridge and the then Government, and, indeed, both parties in this House, thought it should be. It is a bad reflection on successive Governments that this grant has been allowed to decline in real value as it has during the years. There are strong grounds why we should seek to re-establish the death grant as our predecessors in this House established it in 1946. Both reason and humanity are on the side of this Clause and I hope, therefore, that the Government will be able to accede to our proposal.
    Mr. R. A. McCrindle: The hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) invariably puts a persuasive case when he addresses the House, and he has found in me a more ready response this evening that on some other occasions when he and I have taken part in debates on national insurance. I give qualified support to new Clause 1. It is high time the death grant was increased. I have as authority for that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State. During the earlier part of this Session the hon. Member for Coat bridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) and I directed questions to him on the subject of the death grant, and it would not be an unfair paraphrase of his reaction to say that, subject always to the sense of priorities which the Government must bring to social matters, the increase of the death grant must be close to the top of the list.
    In Committee my hon. Friend argued that the average period which has elapsed between increases in the death grant has been approximately eight years, thereby giving the impression that we should have to wait eight years from 1967 before consideration could be given to an increase. I hope my hon. Friend will not put that argument tonight. I am sure he will recognise that there has been a more sustained period of inflation under both Governments since 1967 than applied hitherto. For that reason alone, there is an argument for increasing the death grant.
    The blunt fact is that one simply cannot bury a person for £30 in 1972. The last occasion on which I was closely involved with a funeral was on the death of my father in 1967. The minimum burial cost
    1396
    at that time was more than £30. How much will it be in 1972? As the hon. Member for Rotherham said, there are still a great many paupers' burials. I always remember someone saying to me that it was bad enough to live as a pauper, but worse to die as a pauper. These are all arguments in favour of moving towards an increase in the death grant.
    I am, however, not too happy about the Clause as it is presented. The hon. Member for Rotherham did not deal in sufficient detail with the substantial percentage increase which his figures produce. I think I am correct in saying that he is asking for an immediate increase of 133 per cent. in the adult grant. Percentages can mislead and bewilder. I know that he will say that £70 is the average cost of burial, but with priorities having to be taken into account it is perhaps asking the Government to move rather fast to increase the burial grant by 133 per cent. at one step.
    Mr. O'Malley: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point of view as a Government back bencher. If the Under-secretary of State will say that he accepts the principle of a move towards the Beveridge concept but cannot go the whole way, I should welcome such a statement just as much as the hon. Gentleman would.
    Mr. McCrindle: I welcome that statement from the hon. Gentleman. It would be unrealistic to expect a movement of 133 per cent. at one go.
    May I put into the mind of my hon. Friend another thought to which the hon. Gentleman did not refer? There are already three different grades of death grant, and the Clause would take note of and perpetuate those three gradings. Is it impossible to accept that the people who are in greatest need of an increased death grant are those who are on supplementary benefit? Would it not be administratively easier to accept a figure as high as £70 to apply only to people who are in receipt of supplementary benefit? I would hesitate to say this if I were introducing an entirely new principle, but this principle has been enshrined in the payment of death grants since the scheme's inception.
    I hope my hon. Friend will take account of the points I have made. I

    1397
    accept that priorities must be kept in mind by any Government, but I respectfully suggest to my hon. Friend that one priority for the future is an increase in the death grant.
    Mr. Alec Jones: I rise briefly to support the new Clause. Over the years the House has naturally concentrated on the old age pension and unemployment and sickness benefit, but I agree with the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. McCrindle) that the time has come to deal with the other benefits which are part of the National Insurance Scheme. The death benefit has tended to be forgotten. We should either accept a fairly substantial uprating of the death benefit or say that we no longer see the need for it. To allow the death grant to remain at a level which is insufficient to meet the need for which it is intended is a serious disservice.
    In Committee we had arguments about different percentage figures showing the rise in the cost of living and argued whether the rise in the cost of living was the fault of one Government or the other. Whatever the argument might be for the increase in the cost of living, the cost of dying has risen proportionately and the cost of dying is a heavy burden on ordinary working-class families. In the part of the world from which I come it is the ambition of all the older people to have a decent burial, and it is a matter of great worry and concern to them in their later years that they shall be buried properly and with dignity. The least we can do for people who have given years of service to the community is to ensure that they are buried with dignity.
    The National Insurance Scheme based on the Beveridge Report was intended to meet human need whenever it arose. The average family is under a severe financial strain at the time of death and that strain is greatest amongst the elderly and the lower paid.
    For those reasons I support my hon. Friend and look forward to the Under-secretary of State's reply. I had hoped that he might have leapt up immediately and shown a more friendly response.
    Mr. Robert Boscawen: I, too, look forward to a welcome from my hon. Friend for an increase in the death benefit. The new Clause providing for an increase is on the right lines. I think
    1398
    that an increased death grant is more of a priority today than was the maternity grant 25 years ago.
    I support the Clause and I hope that even if it is necessary to be selective and exclude people who are paying large amounts of estate duty, those who are on a lower level of income will receive an increase in the death grant. I hope that my hon. Friend will agree to the new Clause.
    7.30 p.m.
    Dr. Tom Stuttaford: The hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) is a good psychologist; he realises the fear among elderly people of dying poor. If they are ill they wonder whether they will have a council funeral, a pauper's grave, and this weighs heavily on their minds in the last few weeks of their life. It also weighs on their families. Perhaps it is the final mark of failure in anybody's life to think that he will go to a pauper's grave. If one visits any rural churchyard one can easily spot the pauper's grave, lying unmarked.
    The grant which was laid down by Beveridge to cover complete funeral expenses now hardly meets the cost of the cars to the graveyard. Nobody has yet mentioned the problems involved in the death of a young child. Once again, the family will have to bear the expenses of the funeral. These expenses are readily borne because the family will want to render a last service to that child. But they will find themselves facing a bill of £40 or £50 and will receive only £9 or £10 in grant.
    Many hon. Members will expect, if not an increase in the death grant this year, certainly an increase in the very near future. I hope that a clear assurance will be given so that this matter can be chased up within the next year or so. We hope that we shall not have a woolly, vague ministerial assurance, but an assurance that means what it says. If we do not get an increase in death grant this year, we shall want one next year. If we do not have any action on this matter, I have a nasty feeling that there will be many abstentions on this side of the House if the question goes to a Division.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Paul Dean): This short debate has understandably brought from both sides of the House concern that, when death

    1399
    comes, the family involved should be able to ensure that the last rites are given in a decent and proper manner. I am sure nobody would disagree with that, and it is important that we should all have that consideration in mind. I must equally ask the House to consider this matter along with a whole series of other priorities, many of which are met in this uprating Bill and others which we shall consider on future occasions.
    As my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. McCrindle) said, the effect of the new Clause would be to make a very substantial increase indeed. The effect would be to increase the standard rate of death grant by 133 per cent. from £30 to £70, and the reduced rates of death grant payable in respect of children and juveniles by percentages ranging from 455 per cent. for those under three years of age to 211 per cent. for those between 10 and 17 years of age. A full-rate death grant would also become payable to persons who were within ten years of pensionable age in 1948 and who, at present, qualify for only half-rate grant. The total cost of implementing the new Clause would be about £25 million per year. Therefore, it would mean a substantial increase in the amount of expenditure.
    The rate of grant when introduced in 1949 was £20. It was increased in 1958 to £25, and in 1967 to £30. In other words, the general pattern up to now has been an increase about every nine years, this being the gap between the last two increases. I assure the House that this does not necessarily mean that the Government's mind is closed until another nine-year period is up—which would take us to 1976. I gladly give that assurance, although that has been the interval which has occurred under Governments of all political complexions since the grant was first introduced in the Beveridge scheme after the war.
    It is true, as was said by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley), that the existing grant does not cover the cost of the funeral. Indeed, the intention of the grant all along has been to make a contribution towards the cost of a funeral rather than necessarily to cover the full cost. I fully accept that the full cost is not covered now and was not
    1400
    covered under the previous Administration. It is also true that in the early years the grant met a bigger proportion of the cost than it has tended to meet in recent years. I fully accept that that is the case.
    Mr. O'Malley: I am afraid the hon. Gentleman has been wrongly briefed. It is not the case that in the early years the death grant almost by accident just about covered the cost of the funeral. It was a matter of policy which both the coalition and then the Labour Government accepted that the death grant was intended to cover the full cost of "a decent burial". That was a matter of policy which the Labour and Conservative Parties accepted. In the years which have followed both political parties have tended to drift away from that concept. I think it is time this tendency stopped.
    Mr. Dean: Although it is true that in the very early days the grant was just about the cost of a funeral at the minimum standard, nevertheless a great many people understandably wished to have a funeral at higher than the minimum standard. The amount has never covered the cost of a funeral at other than the minimum standard. It is equally true that the part of the cost which the grant has covered in recent years under all Governments has tended to go down.
    The hon. Gentleman mentioned the half rate for people within ten years of pensionable age in 1948. This could be said to be favourable terms for a grant which in the 1946 Act was regarded as a grant based on contributions. It was a new benefit under that legislation and there was no corresponding benefit in the preceding schemes.
    This matter has been examined on a number of occasions by Governments of all political persuasions and has been looked at by the National Insurance Advisory Committee, but it has always been concluded that the present arrangements should stand. The expense of the funeral does not fall entirely on the surviving spouse or children. The first charge is on the estate; in the majority of cases resources are available from the estate from insurance, from trade union funds, from savings of various kinds and from national insurance death grant as well.

    1401
    The hon. Gentleman quoted the example of funerals of elderly people who perhaps had not had much opportunity to save when working during the 1930s, but I am sure he will also recognise that in the large majority of cases the children help, and indeed are glad to help, with the cost involved in the funeral expenses. We have to consider the matter in that context.
    The hon. Member for Rotherham mentioned the situation under supplementary benefit. My hon. Friend the Member for Billericay and my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford) mentioned the possibility of having a higher level of grant for those who might be in need—in other words, those who are drawing supplementary benefit. I assure my hon. Friends that the Government will carefully consider this possibility when we review the death grant arrangements.
    I remind the House of the arrangements which exist at present. The Supplementary Benefit Commission has no power at the moment to provide for funerals as such. Where no arrangements have been made, local authorities have a statutory duty to ensure burial or cremation. Where they do so, they can recover the costs from any national insurance death grant, the estate, or the persons legally responsible for the maintenance of the deceased before his death. Similarly, the hospitals in England and Wales may arrange for the burial or cremation of deceased patients.
    Should the Commission be approached for help before a funeral is arranged, the person concerned will be told of the responsibility placed on local authorities and hospital management committees, so that he may consider approaching the appropriate authority. Local authorities and hospitals are unable to accept any responsibility after a private funeral has been arranged. In these circumstances the Supplementary Benefit Commission as an exceptional measure will consider the possibility of allowing an exceptional needs payment, but only in relation to the circumstances of the person who incurs the funeral debt. The Commission's responsibility to a supplementary benefit claimant ceases on his death. That is the position at the moment.
    I come back to the point that I made at the beginning, that this debate very
    1402
    understandably has brought out the desire in all parts of the House for an improvement in the death grant arrangements. Inevitably the Government have to consider this case, for which certainly we have sympathy, along with all the other priorities that there are. I cannot think of one feature of our Welfare State arrangements and our social security system where it would not be possible to make out a strong case for substantially increased expenditure. But inevitably Governments have the difficult task of allocating priorities where they should lie.
    In this Bill there is a substantial increase in a wide range of benefits for those who are still alive. Together with the supplementary benefit and other arrangements, the total increase amounts to no less than £500 million, and this comes very quickly on the last uprating which took place last year. This is the first of the annal reviews. If one considers this suggested cost of £25 million and balances it against some of the other improvements in the Bill, I hope that the House will feel that at any rate on this occasion we have our priorities right.
    Dr. Stuttaford: My hon. Friend is missing the point slightly. The death grant is important mainly to the spouse who is left behind and who is still alive. It is important to the man who is dying but who is alive at the time. This is not a grant to a man after he is dead. It is the thought that the grant will be there which is helpful to a man in his dying weeks. Above all it is helpful to his surviving spouse when he has died. Furthermore, there is no distinction between the estate of a poor man and that of his widow. His savings will almost always revert to his widow, so that the money comes from his widow whether or not it has to come out of the estate.
    Mr. Dean: I quite agree. I do not seek to argue against that thesis. How ever the Government have to consider this proposed expenditure of £25 million along with the other expenditure proposed in the Bill. For example, the cost of the pension to the over-80s this year when the uprating comes into operation is £24 million. The cost of the attendance allowance is £25 million. The cost of the invalidity allowance package is £27 million.

    1403
    I suggest to the hon. Member for Rotherham that he ought to address himself to this important point: If he wants the Government to spend more this year on this grant, he should say which of the allowances that I have read out, all of which have much the same expenditure, he would suggest sacrificing this year in order to put his proposed increase in its place.
    I assure the House that the Government are very sympathetic to what has been said and that this plea for an improvement in the death grant will be considered very carefully by next year's uprating along with all the other priorities which inevitably must be considered at the same time. In the light of what I hope has been a sympathetic and realistic response, it may be that the hon. Gentleman will feel able to not to press his new Clause.
    7.45 p.m.
    Mr. O'Malley: The Under-Secretary's response was neither sympathetic nor realistic, as he knows very well. This new Clause and the principles underlying it have been supported in general terms by hon. Members on both sides of the House. It is clear that there is a terrible human problem here, and it arises from an aspect of our national insurance system which has been neglected for many years under successive Governments. I welcome the general support that this proposal has received.
    The Under-Secretary began by pointing out that the Clause involved a very substantial increase on the existing rates for the payment of death grant. It does, and I said so in my opening sentences. I should have understood if the hon. Gentleman had said that he could not accept the Amendment but that, because of the strength of the case and because of the principle involved, he would attempt to go a little way towards meeting it.
    It was here that the hon. Gentleman was badly briefed. At the end of the Second World War the principle underlying the death grant accepted by both political parties was, in the words of the Beveridge Report, that the level of grant should meet the full costs of "a decent burial". Hon. Members on both sides of
    1404
    the House are seeking a statement from the Government that they wish to move again towards the implementation of that principle. However the hon. Gentleman has given no indication that they are prepared to accept that. On the contrary, he has argued that the death grant has never provided, except almost by accident in some of the earlier years, the full cost of a burial of minimum standard.
    All that the Under-Secretary was able to say was that the Government's mind was not closed. Anyone who has been in this House for any length of time knows what that means when a junior Government spokesman is put up to answer a debate under pressure. The same phrase was used two years ago about the proposal of the late Iain Macleod to increase family allowances, and presumably the Government's mind is not closed to that one, either.
    Surprisingly, the Under-Secretary went on to suggest that old people today who were 55 in the case of men and 50 in the case of women and who were making contributions in 1948 were being treated generously under the system if they received a £15 death grant for up to 10 years' contributions.
    The hon. Gentleman said that successive Governments had examined this system and had concluded that it should stand. However that is not true, as I pointed out in my opening speech. Clearly the Under-Secretary was not listening to me. In the Crossman superannuation proposals the situation had changed very much in terms of superannuation conditions. It is not good enough to say that the Government will look at whether the supplementary benefit system can be improved the next time that we have an uprating.
    The Under-Secretary has not satisfied right hon. and hon. Members on this side of the House. Whatever right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite do in voting on this new Clause, I cannot believe that the hon. Gentleman could have satisfied any impartial person, not even any back bencher wanting to be as helpful and kind as possible towards his own Front Bench and Government, a feeling which I fully understand.
    In those circumstances, I have no hesitation in saying that the hon. Gentleman's reply was disgracefully inadequate.

    1405
    I therefore suggest that we should vote for the new Clause and hope we may have some support from hon. Members opposite. The Under Secretary has not come up with any suggestions to end, even eventually, the tragic and terrible human problems which are uncovered when one examines in detail, as we have in the debate tonight and earlier in Committee, the facts surrounding the payment of the national insurance death grant.
    Sir Brandon Rhys Williams: I intervene only briefly as I did not hear the earlier stages of this interesting debate. The hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) made a good case for an increase in benefit. I listened attentively to his remarks, but I feel I must put this question to him: who will pay more into the system if, as he proposes, more should be paid out?
    This is a two-sided equation. It is easy for right hon. and hon. Members opposite to put forward convincing arguments for bigger benefits for this, that, or the other category; but if they are to be honest and to put a case before the British public which will be seen to be realistic, they must at the same
    time say where the money is to come from.
    Mr. O'Malley: The hon. Gentleman must not waste the time of the House like this. He ought to know, because he is alleged to follow these debates and this subject, that we have made suggestions about the level of the Exchequer contribution. The hon. Gentleman knows what has been said not only by backbenchers in this House, but by trade union leaders, about the level of contributions, and so on. It really is unfair, unreasonable, and rather foolish of him to start raising this kind of red herring at this stage of a debate on this subject.
    Sir B. Rhys Williams: I apologised when I began my remarks for not being here during the whole of the debate. Naturally I give the hon. Gentleman the undertaking that I shall certainly read all that has been said and hope I shall find, in view of his intervention, that he has made specific recommendations on this point.
    Question put, That the Clause be read a Second time.
    The House divided: Ayes 145, Noes 162.

    Division No. 311.]

    AYES

    [7.53 p.m.

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

    Driberg, Tom

    Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick

    Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

    Eadie, Alex

    Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

    Armstrong, Ernest

    Edelman, Maurice

    Lomas, Kenneth

    Ashton, Joe

    Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

    Loughlin, Charles

    Atkinson, Norman

    Evans, Fred

    Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

    Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

    Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

    McCartney, Hugh

    Baxter, William

    Foot, Michael

    McElhone, Frank

    Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

    Ford, Ben

    Maclennan, Robert

    Bidwell, Sydney

    Galpern, Sir Myer

    McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

    Bishop, E. S.

    Gilbert. Dr. John

    McNamara, J. Kevin

    Blenkinsop, Arthur

    Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury)

    Marks, Kenneth

    Booth, Albert

    Golding, John

    Marsden, F.

    Bradley, Tom

    Grant, George (Morpeth)

    Marshall, Dr. Edmund

    Broughton, Sir Alfred

    Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)

    Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

    Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

    Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

    Meacher, Michael

    Buchan, Norman

    Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

    Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

    Carmichael, Neil

    Hamling, William

    Mendelson, John

    Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

    Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)

    Millan, Bruce

    Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

    Hardy, Peter

    Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

    Clark, David (Colne Valley)

    Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

    Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

    Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

    Hattersley, Roy

    Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)

    Coleman, Donald

    Houson, Emlyn

    Moyle, Roland

    Concannon, J. D.

    Horam, John

    Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

    Conlan, Bernard

    Hughes, Mark (Durham)

    Ogden, Eric

    Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)

    Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

    O'Halloran, Michael

    Crawshaw, Richard

    Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

    O'Malley, Brian

    Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)

    Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)

    Orme, Stanley

    Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)

    Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

    Oswald, Thomas

    Dalyell, Tam

    Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

    Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

    Davies, Ifor (Gower)

    Jones, Dan (Burnley)

    Pardoe, John

    Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

    Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

    Parker, John (Dagenham)

    Deakins, Eric

    Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)

    Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

    Dempsey, James

    Judd, Frank

    Pavitt, Laurie

    Devlin, Miss Bernadette

    Kaufman, Gerald

    Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

    Doig, Peter

    Latham, Arthur

    Pendry, Tom

    Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

    Lawson, George

    Pentland, Norman

    Perry, Ernest G.

    Spearing, Nigel

    Watkins, David

    Prescott, John

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Weitzman, David

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Stallard, A. W.

    Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

    Probert, Arthur

    Steel, David

    White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

    Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

    Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)

    Whitehead, Phillip

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Strang, Gavin

    Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

    Roper, John

    Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

    Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

    Rose, Paul B.

    Taverne, Dick

    Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

    Short,Rt.Hn.Edward(N'ctle-u-Tyne)

    Thomas,Rt.Hn.George (Cardiff,W.)

    Woof, Robert

    Sillars, James

    Tinn, James

    Silverman, Julius

    Torney, Tom

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Skinner, Dennis

    Wainwright, Edwin

    Mr. Joseph Harper and.

    Small, William

    Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

    Mr. James A. Dunn

    Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)

    Wallace, George

    NOES

    Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

    Haselhurst, Alan

    Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)

    Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)

    Havers, Michael

    Page, John (Harrow, W.)

    Astor, John

    Hayhoe Barney

    Parkinson, Cecil

    Atkins, Humphrey

    Heseltine, Michael

    Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

    Awdry, Daniel

    Hiley, Joseph

    Price, David (Eastleigh)

    Beamish, Col. Sir. Tufton

    Hill, James (Southampton, Test)

    Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.

    Benyon, W.

    Hornsby-Smith,Rt.Hn.Dame Patricia

    Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

    Blaker, Peter

    Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

    Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

    Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

    Hutchison, Michael Clark

    Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

    Body, Richard

    Iremonger, T. L.

    Redmond, Robert

    Bossom, Sir Clive

    James, David

    Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

    Bowden, Andrew

    Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

    Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

    Braine, Sir Bernard

    Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

    Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

    Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

    Jopling, Michael

    Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)

    Bullus, Sir Eric

    Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

    Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

    Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

    Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Campbell, Rt.Hn.G.(Moray & Nairn)

    Kershaw, Anthony

    Sharples, Sir Richard

    Carlisle, Mark

    Kilfedder, James

    Shelton, William (Clapham)

    Chapman, Sydney

    King, Tom (Bridgwater)

    Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)

    Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

    Kinsey, J. R.

    Speed, Keith

    Churchill, W. S.

    Kitson, Timothy

    Spence, John

    Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

    Knight, Mrs. Jill

    Sproat, Iain

    Clegg, Walter

    Knox, David

    Stainton, Keith

    Cooke, Robert

    Lamont, Norman

    Stanbrook, Ivor

    Cordle, John

    Lane, David

    Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

    Cormack, Patrick

    Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

    Crouch, David

    Le Marchant, Spencer

    Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

    Crowder, F. P.

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Taylor,Edward M. (G'gow,Cathcart)

    Dean, Paul

    Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

    Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

    Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

    Loveridge, John

    Temple, John M.

    Dixon, Piers

    Luce, R. N.

    Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret

    Drayson, G. B.

    MacArthur, Ian

    Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)

    Dykes, Hugh

    McLaren, Martin

    Trew, Peter

    Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

    Madel, David

    Tugendhat, Christopher

    Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne,N.)

    Marten, Neil

    Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin

    Emery, Peter

    Mather, Carol

    Vickers, Dame Joan

    Eyre Reginald

    Mawby, Ray

    Waddington, David

    Fell, Anthony

    Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

    Walder, David (Clitheroe)

    Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

    Meyer, Sir Anthony

    Wall, Patrick

    Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

    Mills, Peter (Torrington)

    Ward, Dame Irene

    Fletcher Cooke, Charles

    Mitchell,Lt.-Col.C.(Aberdeenshire,W)

    Warren, Kenneth

    Fowler, Norman

    Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

    Weatherill, Bernard

    Fox, Marcus

    Moate, Roger

    Wells, John (Maidstone)

    Fry, Peter

    Money, Ernle

    White, Roger (Gravesend)

    Gardner, Edward

    Monks, Mrs. Connie

    Wiggin, Jerry

    Gibson Walt, David

    Montgomery, Fergus

    Winterton, Nicholas

    Goodhew, Victor

    More, Jasper

    Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

    Gower, Raymond

    Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

    Woodnutt, Mark

    Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

    Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

    Worsley, Marcus

    Green, Alan

    Mudd, David

    Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

    Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

    Murton, Oscar

    Younger, Hn. George

    Gummer, J. Selwyn

    Neave, Airey

    Gurden Harold

    Nott, John

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)

    Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

    Mr. Tim Fortescue and

    Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

    Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)

    Mr. Hamish Gray.

    Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

    Question accordingly negatived.

    New Clause 3
    DISQUALIFICATION
    'A person who has lost employment in an employed contributors' employment by reason of a stoppage of work which was due to
    1408
    a trade dispute at his place of employment shall not be disqualified from receiving unemployment benefit so long as the stoppage of work continues unless that person is participating in the dispute or is directly interested in it and except in a case where, during the stoppage of work, he has become bona fide employed elsewhere in the occupation which he usually follows or has become regularly

    1409
    engaged in some other occupation'.—[Mr. O'Malley.]
    Brought up, and read the First time.
    Mr. O'Malley: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
    This is the first occasion during the debates on the Bill, at any rate since the Second Reading, on which the Secretary of State has been present. I was not present during the Second Reading debate, and the right hon. Gentleman was not a member of the Committee. The right hon. Gentleman is present on a timely occasion to debate an appropriate new Clause because we last discussed the subject which the Clause raises on the Report stage of the Social Security Act, 1971.
    If I may say so in no unkindly way to the right hon. Gentleman, on that occasion he was in considerable difficulty on two grounds: first, because there were no good rational arguments why he could oppose the proposals which are now put forward in the Clause. One could infer from what was said and what was not said by Government spokesmen that they accepted the recommendations of Donovan to do away with the grading or class provisions. Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman was in difficulty with his back-benchers, some of whom after listening to the debate for only a short time realised that something very wrong and disturbing was happening.
    At the end of the debate, when the Labour Opposition voted, the right hon. Gentleman, having been driven into a corner by both the Opposition and his own back-benchers, made it clear that he had given a commitment, albeit a limited one.
    "to discuss with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment at a later stage whether the industrial climate of the time justifies the Government in considering at a suitable legislative opportunity an extension of the Donovan recommendations."
    The right hon. Gentleman was at pains to point out that it was not his fault that that had not been done. He said:
    "I am not the Minister who will have to make the main decision."—[Official Report, 8th July, 1971; Vol. 820, c. 1630–4.]
    But the right hon. Gentleman is the Minister who is to reply to the debate, and I ask him to bear in mind his com-
    1410
    mitment to discuss this matter with the Secretary of State for Employment.
    It is timely and appropriate not only that the Secretary of State is present for this debate but that we should be discussing this Clause today, because it seeks to remove a blatant injustice in one aspect of the law which impinges upon industrial relations. We are debating the Clause at a time when industrial relations are being poisoned by the Government. The chaos which their policies have produced and the disruption which they will continue to create can be brought to an end only by changing the policy.
    We have seen the Government change their policies in other areas. One could hardly expect them not to be prepared to do so. No one who has heard the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry could suggest for a moment that the Government will not respond to events. We know all about the lame duck policy. The Secretary of State for Social Services is alleged to believe in the free play of market forces—precisely the principle which the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry was putting forward only a short time ago. The Government changed their mind about that, and therefore we can expect them having brought the country to the brink of chaos, to start looking for changes in policy in order to restore industrial relations to some degree of sanity.
    It would be inappropriate to say to the right hon. Gentleman that the first thing the Government can do to improve industrial relations is to scrap the Industrial Relations Act. We are not discussing that Measure. But if the Government are not prepared to do that they can a least make a useful start by accepting the Clause and thus accepting the recommendations of the Donovan Commission which they implied they accepted but were a little frightened to implement.
    It has generally been accepted since the introduction of unemployment benefit in national insurance legislation dating back to the early years of this century that there are three elements in the insurance scheme. First, to provide benefit for those out of work because of industrial changes and economic fluctuations; secondly, that workers on strike are not entitled to unemployment benefit, and, thirdly, that nevertheless, where there are

    1411
    circumstances in which workers are put out of work through strikes, they should in some circumstances remain entitled to unemployment benefit.
    The circumstances briefly are these. If the strike is not at the worker's place of employment his entitlement to unemployment benefit is not affected. I do not wish to discuss the phrase "place of employment" this evening, because it is not relevant to the Clause, although it raises its own problems. Second, entitlement to unemployment benefit is not affected if the individual worker is not participating in, financing or directly interested in the dispute. The phrase "financing" is not in the Clause and I shall deal with that later. Third, the worker put out of work as a result of the strike is still entitled to unemployment benefit if, in addition to not participating in, financing or being directly interested in a dispute he also does not belong to a grade or class of workers, some members of whom were participating in the dispute, financing it or directly interested in it. That is the existing legal situation. I shall briefly explain what the Clause proposes to do to that situation.
    Mr. James Dempsey: Will my hon. Friend develop that argument? Has he experience of the situation where if a worker belongs to a trade union which is involved in strike action, although he is not directly connected with it nevertheless he can be accused of being connected and denied his unemployment benefit?
    Mr. O'Malley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point, which I shall deal with. In the Clause we are seeking to implement proposals recommended by Donovan and implicitly accepted by the Government. We have omitted the word "financing" precisely to meet the point raised by my hon. Friend. What does financing mean? Quite clearly, if a man is unemployed he is in no position to be making large payments to some of his fellow workers who are on strike. The term "financing" has acquired a significance over the years to mean that a worker who belongs to the same union as the men in dispute is regarded as financing that dispute and therefore has been debarred from receiving unemployment benefit.
    1412
    The Donovan Commission rejected that existing legal understanding and interpretation of the law on pages 253–255 of its report, which I shall not spell out in detail because we have discussed it many times. Briefly, the ground on which Donovan rejected the financing provision has been, first, that it involves an interpretation of the relationship between the individual and his trade union, which is difficult if not impossible to sustain, and second that it might be argued that it would lead to encouraging unofficial strike action rather than official action through the union. The third ground was that if a union so wished it could avoid the financing provision by an amendment to its rules to enable members to leave the union in the period of a strike in order to get unemployment benefit. That would lead to chaos in labour relations, and that is not something I would think the Government would wish to encourage.
    Donovan pointed out that in practice the financing provision could lead to substantial and serious injustices. It is on the grounds proposed by Donovan and explained in pages 253℃255 that the Clause seeks to change the law by leaving out the financing provision. The Clause seeks to remove the grade or class provision. There is no need for me to explain it in any detail because it has been debated a number of times in recent years. It was touched upon in the debate on the Social Security Bill by the Secretary of State, as I mentioned earlier. It is perfectly clear and it has been accepted on both sides that the grade or class provision has led in the past to substantial injustice. It is interesting to quote some of the comments of the Donovan Report on this provision. On page 251 paragraph 975 it says:
    "The capricious results which the provision can and does produce are themselves some indication of the invalidity of the assumption which underlies it."
    Donovan gives examples of how badly the system works and says that often the term "grade" or "class" is not defined in the Act. On page 252 paragraph 978 the report says:
    "The grade or class provision has an administrative advantage, that once the grade or class is identified, and once it is established that any member of it is participating in, financing, or is directly interested in the dispute, detailed inquiries into the position of other

    1413
    members can be avoided. They are disqualified forthwith."
    And then
    "Administrative convenience however is not much of a commendation for a provision which is also capable of considerable injustice."
    I am moving the Second Reading of the Clause under the impression that there is little serious and informed opinion which would wholeheartedly oppose the recommendations of the Donovan Report on these aspects of the law.
    The country this evening could be on the brink of prolonged industrial chaos. The subject we are discussing touches upon the question of industrial relations, of the attitudes of men on the shop floor and of the attitudes of men all over the country, not only in the docks. As a result of the Government's policies, they are today angry men.
    If the Government wish to establish a dialogue with the Trade Union Congress and with the individual trade unions they must give an indication that they are prepased to listen, that they are prepared to move and to act in a rational manner, even if only minimally. The proposals in our Clause were in the process of being drafted into legislative form by the last Labour Government. Last year, which is an age ago in terms of industrial relations, the Secretary of State said he was not responsible for the matter and he wanted to discuss it with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment. What has happened to that discussion? Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that this is an appropriate time, indeed, one of the most appropriate times, for him to accept and to implement the Clause, containing as it does the proposals of the Donovan Commission?
    Mr. Stanley Orme: Does my hon. Friend recall that when he and I and the Secretary of State were on the Standing Committe considering the Social Security Bill last year the Secretary of State said that he believed in the principle but that it was not the opportune moment? He meant that it was not politically the opportune moment. Does not my hon. Friend agree that now would be an opportune political moment to implement the Clause?
    Mr. O'Malley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Anyone who takes a contrary view must be in political terms almost incredibly dense, because this is precisely the time when a realistic dialogue must be established between the trade unions and the Government. For that reason it is a very appropriate time for the Government to accept the Clause. They would be accepting not merely the proposals of a Labour Opposition but the proposals of a weighty and informed Royal Commission. They would be accepting and implementing proposals which they have already implicitly accepted in previous Sessions. I hope that the Secretary of State will say that an attempt on the long road to establishing reasonable relations with the trade unions has begun, and that therefore he will accept the Clause.
    Mr. Bruce Millan: I fully support everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) said. The present arrangements give rise to injustice.
    I want to raise a specific case in my constituency. I have written to the Secretary of State for Employment about it, and I understand that the office of the Secretary of State for Social Services is also informed about it. Several months ago at the Rolls-Royce factory in Hillington, Glasgow, the management and shop stewards represented on the work committee entered into a new wages agreement involving job evaluation and measured day work. I understand that both management and men looked upon it as a considerable step forward in industrial relations in the factory. A short time ago 120 polishers put in a claim for regrading under the agreement. The management took the view that the claim was not justified. The significant point is that the works committee of shop stewards also took the view that it was not justified, and therefore refused to support it. It is a works committee with a considerable reputation for militancy, yet it said that the claim would upset the balance of the agreement that had been rather painfully reached.
    The 120 polishers concerned went on strike on 9th June. A number of polishers in another grade not involved in the dispute stayed at work, and the whole factory stayed at work. There were strenuous.

    1415
    attempts by all concerned to get the polishers to go back to work. The local officials of the General and Municipal Workers Union, the union involved, told the men that they were willing to support their claim on its merits. Incidentally, I take no sides as to the merits of the claim. But those officials said that they would support the men only if they called off their unofficial strike and went back to work. The national officers of the union were involved only after the direct intervention of a national officer from London, who came up to Glasgow to a special meeting. The men were persuaded to go back to work, and did so on 3rd July.
    It was obviously a situation in which everybody behaved with a considerable sense of responsibility. But before the men went back to work on 3rd July the management found it necessary to lay off, for just over a week, 1,100 other workers, because of the dispute. Those workers had not supported the strikers. Most of them were not even members of the same trade union as the strikers. They had supported their works committee in repudiating the claim of the 120 men who went on strike. Yet, because of the provisions of the 1965 Act, which I understand was a consolidating Act, taking in provisions which pre-dated it considerably, the 1,100 men laid off were disqualified from unemployment benefit. It is an absolutely absurd and damaging situation in the context of industrial relations.
    The case is going to a tribunal, and it may be that the tribunal will reverse the insurance officer's decision. From my inquiries I understand that the kind of situation I have described is not uncommon. It arises time and time again because of the operation of the grade or class provisions of the present rule. It is intolerable that the present statutory situation should be allowed to continue.
    In the factory in question, which has had more than its fair share of troubles because of the general situation of Rolls-Royce since the bankruptcy at the beginning of last year, the new agreement represented a big step forward. But among the men concerned there is now a considerable sense of disillusionment.
    1416
    They had abided by the agreement and supported their works committee. The works committee had supported the management. The management have supported the 1,100 men who were laid off in their claim before the insurance officer. It is as disturbed about the situation as are the men. I have spoken to a representative of the management again this afternoon. Yet despite the support of the management before the insurance officer, the claim went against the 1,100 men who were laid off.
    I am not sufficiently expert in this matter to know exactly what is required to put the law right, but I am willing to be guided by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham and others who have put down the new Clause, who are far more expert than I am. What I say is that in the light of the experience I have described, which is not uncommon, there is an incontrovertible case for making the change that the Clause would make. It would be only political cowardice and a complete disregard of the justice of the situation if the Secretary of State rejected the Clause. I hope very much that he will accept it.
    The Secretary of State for Social Services (Sir Keith Joseph): I hope that my participation for the first time after Second Reading in the debates on the Bill will not be taken in any way as impugning my hon. Friend the Undersecretary, in whom I have total confidence, but I thought that the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) and her hon. Friends would have a legitimate cause for grievance if I, having made some comments on this important question a year ago, did not stand up to cross-examination on it this evening.
    Of course, if the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) were to be believed, this could be taken as a matter on which all the arguments were on one side. But, as he very well knows, very few political arguments are like that.
    8.30 p.m.
    There are some complicated arguments at stake, and I am responsible for some aspects of those arguments. It is a responsibility which I share with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment, who is more involved than I am in

    1417
    the decision which has to be made. It is true, as the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) said, that last year I made the commitment of undertaking to consult my right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State for Employment about the possible timeliness of reconsidering the Government's view on this aspect of the Donovan Commission's Report. That was the extent of my commitment.
    I carried out that commitment about six months after I had made it. I consulted my right hon. Friend and he and I came to the conclusion that it was not then timely to reconsider the Government's view on this aspect of the Donovan Commission's recommendations. I so informed the Trades Union Congress, which had been in touch with me, and I also informed the House by Answer. I carried out my commitment, but the conclusion did not go the way that hon. Member opposite wished. However, the Donovan Commission came to a conclusion on a set of arguments which had been put before it. Of course, its conclusions had to be taken seriously. There are social security implications in the decision as well as industrial relations implications.
    Regarding social security, it is true that the Department and successive Ministers have despaired over the years of finding a perfectly just solution to the problem. If one course is taken, there is no doubt that in some cases contributors to the national insurance fund will be inadvertently contributing towards and supporting people who in one form or another are either indirectly involved in, or likely to benefit from, a strike. Of course, that is not the object which successive Governments have sought. They have sought to retain a precise neutrality regarding lock-outs or strikes.
    The attempt to enable insurance officers who carry out quasi-judicial functions to decide quickly and, as near as possible fairly, who is entitled and who is not entitled to unemployment benefit or supplementary benefit poses severe difficulties. With all the criticism which has been levelled at the present position of the law, it has been found broadly possible for insurance officers to make their decisions relatively quickly. That is not the end of the story but it is a factor to be taken into account.
    It would not be right for me to pretend in my present position to be an expert on industrial relations. I can only lean on things which experts say. The experts have said that it is conceivably possible as the law now stands for colleagues of those on strike who do not approve of the strike to exercise more of a restraining influence as to the taking of strike action or the length of a strike if they do not automatically receive unemployment benefit during any lay-off due to a strike than if they do receive benefit. That is an opinion which has been widely expressed and was put strongly to the Donovan Commission by the Department of which I am now the head during the time when the Department had a Labour Minister.
    It is true that the Donovan Commission, having considered that advice, came to a conclusion against it. It is also true that my predecessor, the right hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman), disowned his Department's advice, as any Minister is entitled to do. Nevertheless, the fact is that a Labour departmental Minister authorised the giving of advice to the Donovan Commission which laid great emphasis upon the perhaps slender restraining influence of the present state of the law.
    Mr. Harold Walker: The right hon. Gentleman referred to unnamed experts, described the industrial relations effect of not implementing the Donovan recommendations, and invoked in aid an official of his own Department who submitted evidence to the Royal Commission. If this is an industrial relations issue, the officials of the Department of Health and Security, no matter how expert they may be on other subjects, are not the best people to invoke in self-descriptions of expertise.
    Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that all those experts, whether from his own Department or elsewhere, had the opportunity to submit evidence to the Royal Commission? Many of them did so, and the Royal Commission unanimously turned them down. Are not the members of the Royal Commission the experts to whom we should be turning and recognising as such? The Government, during the passage of the Industrial Relations Act last year, repeatedly recited the Royal Commission Report in spite of our doubts as to the

    1419
    accuracy of that relationship. Will they not now acknowledge the reliability, authenticity and strength of the powerful arguments used by the Royal Commission in refuting the so-called experts whom the right hon. Gentleman invokes in his arguments?
    Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Gentleman has sufficient experience of Government to know that no Department would lightly enter upon another Department's domain without the agreement of that Department. This was Government evidence, approved no doubt by both Ministers concerned. I have no knowledge of whether they did approve because previous papers are closed to an incoming Government, but it would be odd if evidence to a most important Royal Commission were given by officials without the approbation of their respective Ministers. I think that I can ask the hon. Gentleman to accept that evidence given to the Royal Commission, as it happened, by officials of my Department, was approved by both respective Ministers.
    The evidence was overruled by the Royal Commission. I went so far as to say in 1971 that I thought that no Government could afford to ignore the views of the Commission and that the Government would have to take them seriously into account. I did not go further than that. I added—and my comments are still very relevant—that in the tide of strikes that were then engulfing the country it would be temerarious, unduly risky, to seek at this stage to consider changing the law, since there was not only the question of the slender perhaps, restraint that the present law may in some circumstances bring to those either about to embark on a strike or on strike, but another matter, on which I want lightly to touch—lightly, because who can tell whether it may be true, but it is a possibility.
    It was said in evidence to the Royal Commission that it might be possible if the law were changed for a small group of key workers to bring all work to a standstill in the knowledge that other members of the union not directly interested in the dispute would qualify for unemployment benefit. That is something the Government have to take into
    1420
    account. I am not the Secretary of State for Employment. I know that this is an argument that would have to be taken into account before making any informed judgment on the Donovan recommendations, and I know that when I consulted my right hon. Friend, as I undertook to do, he, for a whole range of reasons which it is not my responsibility to know, understand or pass on to the House, gave for his part of the conclusion that the time was not ripe.
    Mr. Millan: Why is it not the right hon. Gentleman's responsibility? He has made great play about the fact that the evidence given under the Labour Government must have been approved by the then Minister of Labour. Why does he not have responsibility for the advice now being passed on?
    Sir K. Joseph: I have the responsibility of advising the House on whether to adopt the new Clause. I carried out my commitment to consult my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment. I communicated the Government's decision after that consultation. I am explaining now because I made a commitment to consult him, and I am seeking to explain that I fulfilled that commitment. I am further explaining some of the factors which must enter into the Government's mind in making the decision that the time is not yet ripe to advise the House that reconsideration of this aspect of the law in the light of the Donovan recommendations should be recommended.
    Mrs. Barbara Castle: We are getting a curious amendment of the doctrine of collective responsibility. We have had the rather disarming manner of the right hon. Gentleman, who is an expert in that form of disarmament, at any rate, in saying that he has fulfilled his commitment because he made certain representations to the Secretary of State for Employment. The right hon. Gentleman is reporting a decision as though it had nothing to do with him as though he therefore did not have to give reasons for it. I have been a member of a Cabinet and I have had to answer for all sorts of subjects which overlap between two Departments. Would be please give us the reasons why he thinks that this proposal should not be accepted?
    Sir K. Joseph: Certainly. As I said at the time in 1971—and it is so now—it is my view as a member of the Government that, in view of the present industrial situation, it is not yet timely to reconsider the Government's attitude to this recommendation by the Donovan Commission. That is a clear acceptance of responsibility in that I undertook particularly to consult my right hon. Friend, because just before the last debate on this subject I had had discussions with the Trades Union Congress, which had asked me, as the House had asked me, to have those consultations. I took part in a joint decision and that is the responsibility which I am meeting this evening.
    I accept that there is, certainly in the passages from which the hon. Member for Rotherham quoted, a case for the Government at the right time seriously to consider the pros and cons of a change in the law. I cannot commit the Government to what their decision in due course at the right time will be. All I can say is that the position has not changed enough since we last debated the issue for me to advise my hon. Friends or the House that the new Clause should be accepted.
    Mr. Alec Jones: Would the right hon. Gentleman give us some idea of when he thinks the right time is likely to occur?
    Sir K. Joseph: The Government must watch the industrial position before deciding when the time is right, must they not?
    All I am asked to do this evening is to come to a conclusion for the Government on the new Clause, and that I have done. But there may be some clinching evidence that hon. Gentlemen will be able to adduce to show why the time is imminent when a reconsideration would make sense. All I can say at the moment is that neither of the speeches so far has gone near to showing that to be in the balance of public interest against the dangers that I have mentioned. The dangers of an unintended use of the National Insurance Fund, the danger of removing however small a restraint on strikes that some of those concerned do not wish to occur, the dangers of removing some restraint on the promulgation of strikes, the dangers of the manipulation of the National In-
    1422
    surance Fund, have not been discounted by hon. Members, and unless they can argue so powerfully as to remove a possibility of risk to the national interest, I must advise my hon. Friends that this is a Clause that the House would not be wise to accept.
    Mr. James Dempsey: When my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) was speaking, I interjected to draw his attention to the experience of some of us North of the Border. I thought that the right hon. Gentleman would be in his usual concise and logical form, but tonight he won first prize for waffling and he spoke all round the subject. He made no effort to get to the grass roots of the problem.
    It was unfair of him to quote some small sect which differed from an enormous trade union and to condemn it for depriving men of work by its malicious activities. If I had put such a question to him at Question time, he would have said that it was hypothetical and would not have answered it. Tonight he gave us a hypothetical question and a hypothetical reply.
    8.45 p.m.
    That is not good enough. It is of no assistance to decent men and women who are genuinely out of work because of a strike to which they have in no way contributed. That is the important qualification that I ask the Minister to examine. I have had experience in my constituency of part of the productive effort coming into conflict with the employers and causing an industrial dispute which has deprived other employees of work although they have in no way been involved, directly or indirectly, in bringing about the dispute. Upon going to the employment exchange these people have found that benefit was disallowed, on the ground that they were members of a trade union part of whose membership was in dispute with the employers. Because their trade union was looking after the interests of a portion of workers who were in dispute with the employers, the other members of that union were denied benefit.
    If a person did not belong to a trade union—if he refused to join and to pay his 10p a week—he could draw benefit from the employment exchange. Is that

    1423
    the impression that the Government wish to give to workers? Are we to induce them not to belong to trade unions—to discourage them from joining their own union organisation? That seems to be the logic of the right hon. Gentleman's reply.
    Does the Minister honestly and sincerely think that the men and women I have in mind, who are neither directly nor indirectly involved in a dispute but are merely its innocent victims, should not be entitled to unemployment benefit? Or is the Minister merely carrying out the diktat of the Cabinet? He should state where he stands, now that the chips are down.
    The new Clause tries to remove this injustice—and it is a tremendous injustice, especially for the working man who is dependent on his wages from week to week to maintain his wife and family. It is essential that he should receive the benefit to which he is entitled. After having contributed every week to the fund he should be entitled to draw from it in time of need. Would the Minister pay insurance to any authority if he thought that it would not give him his entitlement when he needed it? He would never insure himself or his car if he thought that he would not get benefit when it was due. Why should he expect the worker to pay insurance contributions only to find, when the need arises for him to apply to the fund, that his claim is totally rejected, for no logical or sound reason?
    That is what the Donovan Commission recognised. They were experts. They examined the Government's evidence, they examined the trade unions' evidence, and they examined miscellaneous evidence, before arriving at the conclusion that this was a downright injustice. After that collective expression of expert opinion the Minister should have the decency to say, "We will accept this. We are satisfied that the present situation is unfair. We are convinced that it is unsound, and we believe that it is indefensible. Therefore, the Government should decide to accept the recommendation and, as a result, to agree to the new Clause".
    That would be reasonable. It would be quite fair. This is not a question of scoring party points; this is a question of the
    1424
    rights of working people who invest their lives in industry not only for their own benefit but for the benefit of the nation. The acceptance of the Clause would be an indication that at long last the Government believe that the time is ripe for these people to have the benefit of their insurance contributions when the occasion arises. I do not know what the Minister means when he says that the moment is not appropriate. We were told before the war that it was inappropriate, during the war that it was the wrong time and after the war that it was premature. When is the time? Under which circumstances will the Government act?
    Have we to reach some stage in our society when there is no industrial unrest—no strikes—no dissatisfaction in industry—when we reach Utopia? Is the right hon. Gentleman waiting for the millenium before we have this reform? In our democratic society there will always be instances, no matter how exceptional, of disputes between employers and employees. If we have to wait until all of those have been eliminated and we are sailing smoothly in a sea of economic development then I would guess that I shall have gone from Parliament and the Minister will have gone, too, before the reform is introduced.
    Surely the basic consideration must be the economic well-being of the employed worker and his family. Surely that must be the fundamental consideration in the minds of the Government. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider his attitude, to have further thoughts on the matter and to play fair with the working people of this country, to ensure that the working man who insures himself against unemployment has an inalienable right to receive unemployment benefit when he becomes unemployed. He should have this right particularly if he is laid off as a result of some industrial dispute over which he has no control and to which he has neither contributed directly nor indirectly.
    The Government should realise that the economic situation is difficult enough, that industrial relations are sufficiently poisoned without adding petrol to the flames. A fine gesture in the direction of conciliation would be for the Minister to get up and to accept this Clause which wipes out a long-standing injustice.
    Sir B. Rhys Williams: Anyone who has heard this debate must say that the arguments on both sides are extremely finely balanced. I compliment the hon. Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey). His impromptu remarks bore such marks of sincerity and know ledge that it would be true to say it was his contribution which most convincingly made the case from the benches opposite. I noted one of his remarks. He said it was a downright injustice and that it should go. If I could offer him a thought in exchange it is that our entire national insurance system is a downright injustice and should go because it is so riddled with anomalies and loopholes and false thinking. From the very start it has been based on shoddy arithmetic and now the finest thing which this Government could do would be—
    Mr. Alec Jones: To resign.
    Sir B. Rhys Williams: The hon. Gentleman is putting words into my mouth. The finest thing the Government could do would be to end national insurance and to replace it by a new system based on honour, generosity and comprehensibility. That is something to which we must all earnestly look forward.
    We have touched on deep issues tonight. It is not out of place to examine the basis of entitlement to social benefit. Does a man have a claim against the community for payments in cash on the ground of need, of citizenship or of his contributions? There is no grudging the payment of supplementary benefit in cases of real need and when it is important to relieve hardship, particularly on families. Therefore, it is not because of the dire needs of people affected indirectly by strikes that we are in dispute in respect of the Clause.
    On the question of entitlement based on citizenship, the obvious entitlements of a man, which continue whether he is affected by a strike or not, are the family allowances; his claim for tax rebates under the negative allowances which are drawn through the tax system, and under the controversial Bill which I hope we shall complete this week a man will be entitled to a housing rebate or allowance, which may be a considerable sum and must not be neglected in this context; or, as we hope we shall soon see under the Green Paper promised by the
    1426
    Government, a man will be entitled to positive tax credit. Therefore, the entitlement to benefits based on citizenship will be fairly substantial in the foreseeable future.
    But what we are discussing specifically in considering this poignant situation is the basis of entitlement arising from contributions. What precisely is the nature of the contract into which a man enters with the community when he agrees to his card being stamped or deductions being made from his earnings in respect of the national insurance contract? The taxpayer make a substantial contribution to national insurance and without it the system would not be viable. In reply to a remark which I made in the previous debate, the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) drew attention to the taxpayer's contribution—the Exchequer contribution, as he called it. Those who put money in are entitled to make a claim in respect of the way in which it is disbursed.
    We must not forget also that the employers are making substantial contributions to national insurance. They, too, may be entitled to a say about the way in which the money is disbursed. Hon. Members opposite may think that this is a very unsatisfactory state of affairs, and I am prepared to agree, but, when recommending that money should go out of the system, we must see whose money it is and the basis of the way in which it was put in.
    One of my favourite remarks—and I shall use it again because it is particularly apposite today—is that there is only one side in industry and that we are all on it. If men withdraw their labour in pursuit of personal advantage, there is a fine calculation to be made, not simply in the short run, but in the long run for the future of their industry and colleagues and the profitability of their industry and its ability to survive.
    I believe in the concept of the new social contract. It is vitally important that people should recognise that when they go to work they are working not only for themselves but for society as a whole. In the taxes they pay and the contributions they make to national insurance they are acknowledging themselves to be lonk to a much larger society than is represented by their union, works or industry. Equally, when they make

    1427
    claims against society, those claims should be based on an absolutely clear understanding of the nature of their entitlement. We must recall—and at this time of industrial unrest it is, I think, more than ever important that we should—that we in this country belong to a club and that the wealth we produce is produced not only for ourselves but on behalf of the community as well. So if people withdraw their labour in pursuit of their own personal advantage they must take account of the consequences.
    It is not reasonable that they should require the community to bear the double burden—first, the negative burden of the loss of production, and secondly, the positive burden of paying earnings related contributions for many times as many people, as it may be in some circumstances, who are affected by their decision. When taking a decision to strike they must take the social consequences into account.
    9.0 p.m.
    Therefore, I think that my right hon. Friend is entitled at this time to resist this interesting new Clause, but I hope that we shall soon see the sweeping away of this whole rotten national insurance system which allows us to have these anxious disputes. I hope that it will be replaced by a new contract which is so comprehensible and so transparently honest and fair that disputes of this kind may never need to arise again.
    Mr. O'Malley: The hon. Gentleman the Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams) made an interesting speech on a matter which he has considered deeply, and the House realises that it was entirely relevant to considerations of this kind. I am with him in one important aspect of what he said, in that I should like to see a much improved and much changed State system of what I would call national insurance. Of course, that was precisely what the previous Labour Government were trying to do when people like the hon. Gentleman the Member for Kensington, South did their best to prevent us from bringing in that eminently fair and logical and much more just kind of system. However, I should be out of order if I were to carry on along those lines.
    The Secretary of State did not give us a coherent reply to the propositions which
    1428
    are inherent in this new Clause. He gave a passable imitation of a man who comes into the Chamber and begins to think about the Clause only a few moments before speaking to it. The Under-Secretary of State is expressing his dismay at my saying that, but he was not here. The best reply to the debate is to point out what the right hon. Gentleman said, to postulate briefly the propositions which he put forward, and to treat those propositions on their merits and fairly, as I always treat propositions put by the Government.
    First of all, the right hon. Gentleman pointed out that there were complicated considerations to be taken into account in considering this Clause. He need not have told us that. That was why the subject was put to Donovan. Although the Donovan Committee wondered at first whether it was strictly within that Committes' remit, at the request of Miss Herbison, it considered these detailed and complicated considerations and so the work was done for us. That is precisely why this subject was put to Donovan—because the considerations were complicated. Presumably, it is for that reason that the right hon. Gentleman really did not attempt to answer the Donovan case.
    To recall briefly what he said, he said, "I made a commitment, albeit a limited commitment, 12 months ago, and I have kept my promise. About six months ago I consulted the Secretary of State for Employment and we came to the conclusion at that time that to accept and to introduce the Donovan recommendations was not timely". But that was six months ago. The right hon. Gentleman must begin to realise what is happening on the shop floor and in industrial relations as a result of the Government's policy.
    The right hon. Gentleman said that there had been no discussions within the Government on the Clause, and that it had not been raised specifically on this occasion with the Secretary of State for Employment but had merely had departmental consideration. He said that the Government thought about it six months ago, turned it down and have not been prepared to look at it again. He also said that there were social security implications. Of course there are, and there is one of which the hon. Gentleman took no account. For month after month the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of

    1429
    State have been replying to Questions put down by hon. Members on the Government benches complaining about the cost of strike benefit. One way to reduce that cost would be to adopt the course which Donovan recommended, to remove the necessity for applying for supplementary benefit and give entitlement to unemployment benefit of which those people are being unfairly deprived.
    The right hon. Gentleman referred to social security reasons, for not being able to accept the proposals. He said that they might cause marginally more strikes. The Government's judgment of what causes strikes is hardly a matter which should influence the decision of the House. My impression is that their judgment was that the Industrial Relations Act would deal with strikes. Instead that Act has produced chaos throughout the country. The right hon. Gentleman said nothing about financing. He made no attempt to deal with the arguments put forward by Donovan, but merely said that the Department of Health and Social Security under the Labour Government has put forward views on the grade or class provision which the Donovan Commission did not accept. It is interesting to see what the Donovan Commission had to say about the views of the DHHS, in paragraph 975 on page 251:
    "In our view the reason thus said to underlie the grade or class provision is fallacious."
    So the experts on the Donovan Commission turned it down completely. The right hon. Gentleman says that this is not the time, but when major injustices occur week in week out on the evidence of a Royal Commission, is not this the time to remove those injustices?
    The right hon. Gentleman said that there could be collusion and misuse of the National Insurance Fund if he accepted the Clause. Why did he then say that he was prepared to consider it at a different time? Presumably he meant when there are not so many strikes.
    If there are academic and rational arguments to refute the recommendations of the Donovan Commission, the right hon. Gentleman did not use them. In their place he used a ragbag of observations improperly put together which in no way answered the contributions from the Opposition and made no attempt to deal with the considered views of the Donovan Commission. The workers are right to continue to believe that the Government are deeply and permanently hostile to the trade union movement.
    For that reason I recommend my hon. Friends to divide on the Clause.
    Question put, That the Clause be read a Second time: —
    The House divided: Ayes 145, Noes 168.

    Division No. 312.]

    AYES

    [9.10 p.m.

    Albu, Austen

    Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)

    Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

    Dalyell, Tam

    Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

    Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

    Davies, Ifor (Gower)

    Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)

    Armstrong, Ernest

    Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

    Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

    Ashton, Joe

    Deakins, Eric

    Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

    Atkinson, Norman

    Dempsey, James

    Jones, Dan (Burnley)

    Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

    Doig, Peter

    Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

    Baxter, William

    Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

    Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)

    Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

    Driberg, Tom

    Judd, Frank

    Bidwell, Sydney

    Eadie, Alex

    Kaufman, Gerald

    Bishop, E. S.

    Edelman, Maurice

    Latham, Arthur

    Blenkinsop, Arthur

    Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

    Lawson, George

    Booth, Albert

    Evans, Fred

    Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick

    Broughton, Sir Alfred

    Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

    Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

    Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

    Foot, Michael

    Lomas, Kenneth

    Buchan, Norman

    Ford, Ben

    Loughlin, Charles

    Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)

    Galpern, Sir Myer

    Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

    Buchanan-Smith, Alick(Angus,N&M)

    Gilbert, Dr. John

    McCartney, Hugh

    Carmichael, Neil

    Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury)

    McElhone, Frank

    Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)

    Golding, John

    Maclennan, Robert

    Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

    Grant, George (Morpeth)

    McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

    Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

    Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)

    McNamara, J. Kevin

    Clark, David (Colne Valley)

    Hamling, William

    Marks, Kenneth

    Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

    Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)

    Marsden, F.

    Coleman, Donald

    Hardy, Peter

    Marshall, Dr. Edmund

    Concannon, J. D.

    Harper, Joseph

    Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

    Conlan, Bernard

    Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

    Meacher, Michael

    Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)

    Hooson, Emlyn

    Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

    Crawshaw, Richard

    Horam, John

    Mikardo, Ian

    Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)

    Hughes, Mark (Durham)

    Millan, Bruce

    Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy

    Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

    Probert, Arthur

    Tinn, James

    Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)

    Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

    Torney, Tom

    Moyle, Roland

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Urwin, T. W.

    Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

    Roper, John

    Wainwright, Edwin

    Ogden, Eric

    Rose, Paul B.

    Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

    O'Halloran, Michael

    Short,Rt.Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)

    Wallace, George

    O'Malley, Brian

    Sillars, James

    Watkins, David

    Orme, Stanley

    Silverman, Julius

    Weitzman, David

    Oswald, Thomas

    Skinner, Dennis

    Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

    Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

    Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)

    Whitehead, Phillip

    Pardoe, John

    Spearing, Nigel

    Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

    Parker, John (Dagenham)

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

    Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

    Stallard, A. W.

    Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

    Pavitt, Laurie

    Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

    Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

    Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

    Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)

    Woof, Robert

    Pendry, Tom

    Strang, Gavin

    Pentland, Norman

    Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Perry, Ernest G

    Taverne, Dick

    Mr. James Hamilton and

    Prescott, John

    Thomas,Rt.Hn.George (Cardiff,W.)

    Mr. James A. Dunn

    NOES

    Astor, John

    Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

    Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)

    Atkins, Humphrey

    Haselhurst, Alan

    Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)

    Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

    Havers, Michael

    Page, John (Harrow, W.)

    Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

    Hayhoe, Barney

    Parkinson, Cecil

    Benyon, W.

    Heseltine, Michael

    Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

    Blaker, Peter

    Hiley, Joseph

    Price, David (Eastleigh)

    Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

    Hill, James (Southampton, Test)

    Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.

    Body, Richard

    Holt, Miss Mary

    Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

    Boscawen, Robert

    Hornsby-Smith,Rt.Hn.Dame Patricia

    Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

    Bossom, Sir Clive

    Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

    Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

    Bowden, Andrew

    Hutchison, Michael Clark

    Redmond, Robert

    Braine, Sir Bernard

    Iremonger, T. L.

    Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

    Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

    James, David

    Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

    Bullus, Sir Eric

    Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

    Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)

    Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

    Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

    Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

    Campbell, Rt.Hn.G.(Moray & Nairn)

    Jessel, Toby

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Carlisle, Mark

    Jopling, Michael

    Sharples, Sir Richard

    Chapman, Sydney

    Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

    Shelton, William (Clapham)

    Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

    Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine

    Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)

    Churchill, W. S.

    Kershaw, Anthony

    Speed, Keith

    Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

    Kilfedder, James

    Spence, John

    Clegg, Walter

    King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

    Sproat, Iain

    Cockeram, Eric

    King, Tom (Bridgwater)

    Stainton, Keith

    Cooke, Robert

    Kinsey, J. R.

    Stanbrook, Ivor

    Cordle, John

    Kitson, Timothy

    Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

    Cormack, Patrick

    Knight, Mrs. Jill

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

    Costain, A. P.

    Knox, David

    Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

    Crouch, David

    Lamont, Norman

    Sutcliffe, John

    Crowder, F. P.

    Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

    Taylor,Edward M.(G'gow,Cathcart)

    Dean, Paul

    Le Marchant, Spencer

    Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

    Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F

    Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

    Tebbit, Norman

    Digby, Simon Wingfield

    Loveridge, John

    Temple, John M.

    Dixon, Piers

    Luce, R. N.

    Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret

    Drayson, G. B.

    MacArthur, Ian

    Thomas, John Stradling (Mon mouth)

    Dykes, Hugh

    McCrindle, R. A.

    Trew, Peter

    Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

    McLaren, Martin

    Tugendhat, Christopher

    Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)

    Madel, David

    Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir John

    Emery, Peter

    Maginnis, John E.

    Vickers, Dame Joan

    Eyre, Reginald

    Marten, Neil

    Waddington, David

    Farr, John

    Mather, Carol

    Walder, David (Clitheroe)

    Fell, Anthony

    Mawby, Ray

    Wall, Patrick

    Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

    Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

    Ward, Dame Irene

    Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

    Meyer, Sir Anthony

    Warren, Kenneth

    Fortescue, Tim

    Mills, Peter (Torrington)

    Wells, John (Maidstone)

    Fowler, Norman

    Mitchell, Lt.-Col. C.(Aberdeenshire,W)

    White, Roger (Gravesend)

    Fox, Marcus

    Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

    Wiggin, Jerry

    Fry, Peter

    Moate, Roger

    Wilkinson, John

    Gardner, Edward

    Money, Ernle

    Winterton, Nicholas

    Gibson-Watt, David

    Monks, Mrs. Connie

    Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

    Goodhart, Philip

    Montgomery, Fergus

    Woodnutt, Mark

    Gower, Raymond

    More, Jasper

    Worsley, Marcus

    Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

    Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

    Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

    Gray, Hamish

    Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

    Younger, Hn. George

    Green, Alan

    Mudd, David

    Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

    Murton, Oscar

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.

    Neave, Airey

    Mr. Bernard Weatherill and

    Gurden, Harold

    Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

    Mr. Victor Goodhew

    Hall-Davis, A. G F.

    Question accordingly negatived.

    New Clause 4
    FINDING OF FACT TO BE CONCLUSIVE
    "The provisions contained in section 75(1) of the National Insurance Act 1965, and the corresponding provision in section 50(1) of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1965, that the decision of a claim or question as there mentioned is to be final shall make any finding of fact or other determination embodied in or necessary to a decision, or on which it is based, conclusive for the purpose of any further decision".—[Mrs, Castle.]
    Brought up, and read the First time.
    Mrs. Castle: I beg to move, That that Clause be read a Second time.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu): With the new Clause I think it will be convenient to take the following: new Clause 5, "Decision on origin of injury or disability".
    Government Amendment No. 2, in page 7, line 36, at end insert:
    "(2A) Notwithstanding anything in subsection (1) or (2) above (but subject to the provisions of Part III of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1965 as to appeal and review), where for purposes of disablement benefit in respect of an accident it has been found by a medical board or medical appeal tribunal, on the determination or last determination of the disablement questions, that an injury resulted in whole or in part from the accident, then for purposes of death benefit in respect of that accident (including benefit on a death occurring before the passing of this Act) the finding shall be conclusive that the injury did so result.
    The reference in this subsection to a medical board includes a medical practitioner determining disablement questions on a reference under section 41 of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1965".
    Opposition sub-Amendment (a) thereto, leave out "purposes of death benefit in respect" and insert:
    "any further claim or assessment arising out".
    Government Amendment No. 3.
    Mrs. Castle: I understand that we are to have a general debate now, but I wish to make it clear that we shall wish to vote separately on new Clauses 4 and 5 and sub-Amendment (a) to Government Amendment No. 2.
    We had a long debate in Committee on this important matter in the course of which the Under-Secretary of State, who was clearly impressed by the weight of our arguments, promised to consider carefully all our points. Amendment No.
    1434
    2 meets one of the points we raised with the hon. Gentleman, but only a relatively minor point. I hope that as a result of this debate we shall persuade him to meet all our points. The issue is whether we should clarify the law on industrial injury to the benefit or to the detriment of thousands of workers.
    In the debate on new Clause 3 the Secretary of State said that the time was not right to introduce that new Clause. The right hon. Gentleman had no other argument against it whatsoever. When he said the time was not right, he was presumably referring to the industrial relations situation. I suggest to the Undersecretary, as his right hon. Friend is not here, that one way to make the time right would be to withdraw Clause 5, to which new Clauses 4 and 5 are a positive alternative. Or are the Government to go on endlessly compounding their calculated provocativeness to ordinary men and women and their trade unions?
    Clause 5 is an alien intruder into what should be a normal social security uprating Bill. It represents the furtive theft of the rights of thousands of injured working men and women. Not surprisingly Clause 5 slipped through the House with barely a mention on Second Reading, because the Secretary of State's references to it at that stage were obscure and complicated and no right hon. or hon. Member understood its implications.
    It is essential to make it clear that Clause 5 in this uprating Bill has only one purpose: to reverse two recent decisions of the House of Lords in the cases of a Mr. Dowling and Messrs. Jones and Hodson which went in favour of the workmen and their unions. If those House of Lords decisions stand, the interpretations put by their Lordships on the meaning of the Industrial Injuries Act will be quoted in favour of future claimants by their unions. In order to reverse those favourable decisions the Government have to alter the law. I repeat, that is the sole purpose of Clause 5.
    These are complex, legal issues and I will try to simplify them, as indeed a number of their Lordships who considered the two cases to which I have referred managed to do, while others of them, I must say, managed to obscure them wonderfully.

    1435
    Under the industrial injuries legislation introduced by the Labour Government in 1945, a worker in insurable employment who suffers personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment is entitled to three forms of provision from the State. First, a short-term industrial injury benefit payable while he is incapable of work as a result of the accident. Secondly, a long-term disablement benefit if he is suffering a continuing loss of faculty as a result of the injury. Thirdly, death benefit for his widow if he dies as a result, directly or indirectly, of his injury.
    Up to now hon. Members on both sides of the House have made the common sense assumption that none of those benefits would be payable unless a personal injury by accident had occurred, and that fact had to be established at the first stage of the whole process by the insurance officer with a right of appeal, if necessary, to an appeal tribunal or commissioner. Those three provisions form what we call the statutory authorities.
    We also made the common sense assumption—because it is spelled out in the Act—that once the existence of a personal injury arising from the accident had been established the decision on that fact was final. The disablement question—that is the assessment of the degree of the loss of faculty which the worker continued to endure—was the only one to be referred to the medical authorities, to the medical board or the medical appeal tribunal.
    As Lord Reid put it in the House of Lords discussion in the case of Jones and Hodson:
    "So (subject to appeal) it is for an insurance officer to decide (inter alia) whether there has been 'personal injury caused by accident'…But before anyone can get any benefit an insurance officer (or on appeal a tribunal or the commissioner) must decide that there has been personal injury caused by accident. Under the scheme of the Act a medical board is not charged to reach a decision as to that matter…Subject to appeal or as provided by the Act, 'any decision of a claim or question' is final."
    That has been the assumption on which we have all proceeded since the Labour Government introduced the original Industrial Injuries Act in 1945. Indeed, if one reads the Explanatory Memorandum
    1436
    which was issued with that Act one sees running through it the refrain that the decision shall be final. Apparently, we have all been labouring under a misapprehension. Apparently, unbeknown to the House, injured workmen and their unions have been forced to fight lengthy legal battles, first with the Ministry and then with the Department of Health and Social Security, to establish the basic points which we all thought were self-evident.
    In 1966 an injured workman and his union won a notable victory in the Dowling case, and it is to reverse that victory that the Government have introduced Clause 5. I want to quote one reference from many which I could quote from what the union's solicitors said about the effect of passing Clause 5. It said:
    "If Clause 5 is passed such decisions will not be binding and injured persons may be compelled to fight the same battle time and time again before one tribunal after another, year after year, until the Department of Health and Social Security can find a tribunal to give them the decision which they"—
    that is the Department—
    "require."
    Let me turn to the Dowling case which precipitated the insertion of Clause 5 into the Bill. Mr. Dowling was a workman in insurable employment who lifted a heavy flagstone in the course of his employment and while he was doing so he felt a pain in his chest which later became acute. The diagnosis revealed that he had a hiatus hernia so he applied for industrial injury benefit. He did so on the obvious assumption that the pain he felt in the chest and the lifting of the flagstone had some connection.
    He was refused industrial injury benefit by the insurance officer, so the union took the case up and fought it through the appeal tribunal up to the Commissioner. The Commissioner heard extensive medical evidence for and against the claimant. I ask the Under-Secretary to take particular note of that fact, because no doubt he will repeat all the arguments we heard from him in Standing Committee, that industrial injury cases are always dealt with perfunctorily. In this case I have the Commissioner's statement if the Minister wishes to see it.
    9.30 p.m.
    After hearing the medical evidence he found in the claimant's favour in a finding

    1437
    which Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest described in the House of Lords as
    "a careful review of the case."
    So much for the argument about perfunctoriness. The Commissioner therefore awarded Mr. Dowling industrial injury benefit and he gave him an accident declaration to which he was entitled under Section 48 of the National Insurance Industrial Injuries Act, 1965. The 1965 Act is merely a consolidated form of the original Labour Government Act and subsequent minor amendments to it. The reason for Section 48 was the importance of the declaration that an industrial accident had occurred for the subsequent claims that a workman or his defendants might have to make. The Section says:
    "any person suffering a personal injury by accident shall be entitled, if he claims the accident was an industrial accident, to have that question determined, and a declaration made and recorded accordingly".
    Later it says:
    "any declaration under this section that an accident was or was not an industrial accident shall be conclusive for the purposes of any claim for benefit in respect of that accident".
    I should have thought the intentions of Parliament as to the need to secure finality of decisions was there evident because the alternative is so frightening for the workman, particularly if he is alone and does not have a powerful union to fight his case. Therefore the Commissioner's granting of an accident declaration to Mr. Dowling would seem to any ordinary person to have settled the matter, particularly as Section 50 of the 1965 Act expressly provides that decisions shall be final in order, presumably, to protect workmen from the endless litigation which people like Mr. Dowling have had to face. I should have thought that if there had been discussion of the 1965 Act, which there was not, the whole House would have assumed that that was the intention of the Act, and that Mr. Dowling had therefore established that he had suffered personal injury by accident. Otherwise, what does the declaration mean? Why the award of industrial injury benefit? But not a bit of it, according to the Department of Health and Social Security, because when Mr. Dowling applied for disablement benefit he was turned down by the medical board and the medical appeal tribunal on the grounds that the hernia was due to
    1438
    natural causes and that there had never been an accident.
    The union took the case up. Thank heavens the man had a union, or he would not now be drawing disablement benefit and special hardship allowance. Imagine the condition he would be in now. His union took it to the House of Lords on the explicit ground, the point of law, that the medical appeal tribunal had exceeded its jurisdiction in rejecting the Commissioner's finding that there had been an accident, and the union won. As we shall no doubt hear some very irrelevant and distracting arguments by the Under-secretary, let me read the reasons given by two of their Lordships in that case. Lord Morris said:
    "Mr. Dowling claimed disablement benefit in respect of the period after that, for which he was held entitled to injury benefit. Reverting to s. 7(1) of the Act,"—
    the 1946 Act—
    "it is seen that (subject to the provisions of the Act) where an insured person suffers personal injury caused by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment (being insurable employment) then disablement benefit is payable to him if (after the injury benefit period) he suffers, as the result of the injury, from loss of physical or mental faculty. It would seem natural to suppose that, having obtained a decision that he had suffered personal injury caused by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, the only further matters that would arise in relation to a claim for disablement benefit would be whether the accident had resulted in a loss of faculty and as to the degree of disablement and for what period it should be assessed. These were 'disablement questions'. They were to be determined by a medical board or medical appeal tribunal. Accordingly, Mr. Dowling's claim for disablement benefit was considered by a medical board. They presented a report which was dated Apr. 29, 1963, in which they decided that the accident had not resulted in a loss of physical or mental faculty. Their reasons for that finding were…as follows:
    'The commissioner's decision is noted. The board have studied the reports from Mr. d'Abreu and Dr. Capper.' "
    —The two medical authorities—
    " 'They find Dr. Capper's report and reasoning unconvincing and accept that from Mr. d'Abreu which they consider is more in keeping with informed surgical opinion at the present time'.
    That meant that they refused to accept the commissioner's decision. It meant that they were saying that Mr. Dowling had not suffered personal injury by accident, although the commissioner had decided that Mr. Dowling had suffered personal injury by accident. It involved that Mr. Dowling ought not to have had any injury benefit.…If Mr. Dowling's

    1439
    hernia was not the result of lifting the flagstone, then it followed that there was no injury by accident; in other words, that there was nothing which within the scheme of the Act could be regarded as an accident.…Any decision of the commissioner whether there ever was an accident will, in my view, be final. So also, in my view, any decision of his whether personal injury was caused by any such accident."
    That was the sort of common sense reasoning which the House would have applied. However, it is that simple interpretation of the present law, as we on this side have always understood it, which the Government seek to reverse in Clause 5.
    The Government seek to maintain that the medical authorities, whose job it is to assess the extent of the loss of faculty, can re-open the question whether there has ever been a personal injury accident, even where an accident declaration has been obtained. They argue that an accident declaration does not mean that there has been an accident, merely—I apologise to the House for this gibberish but it is not mine; it is the Government's—that if there had been an accident it would have been an industrial accident. Lord Hodson, in the same House of Lords finding, made short shrift of that line of argument. He said:
    "Much discussion has ranged round the language of Section 49 of the Act."
    That was the accident declaration Section in the original Act.
    "This section is concerned with declarations that an accident is an industrial accident. The section and, indeed, the Act itself, always deals with real accidents and not with hypothetical accidents, and I cannot accept the contention of the Minister that this declaration to which the claimant is entitled, is only a declaration that, if there were an accident, it would be an industrial one. Such a declaration would be of scant value to a claimant who, while having had his declaration recorded, would be put in the position at a much later date, when his evidence might no longer be available and records destroyed, of trying to establish the necessary fact to support his claim."
    Of course, Lord Hodson was right because this situation has arisen in a number of cases when the accident declaration has proved valueless because it has been contested by certain of the authorities, including the Department. It arose in a second hernia case which I quoted in Committee, which is set out in Decision R.111(61) where an injured workman
    1440
    was awarded 100 per cent. disablement benefit by a medical board, yet when he died, as a result of an operation for the hernia, the Commissioner, a statutory authority, not a medical authority, refused his wife industrial death benefit on the grounds that the accident did not cause or aggravate the hernia.
    That makes a nonsense of the Government's claim, of which we heard so much in the Secretary of State's speech in Second Reading and endlessly in Committee, that medical authorities are so all-knowing and reliable that they should not have their freedom of decision restricted in any way by a previous finding of a non-medical authority. Here, of course, that does not hold good because it was a medical appeal tribunal which awarded the disablement benefit and a commissioner, a statutory authority, who refused the industrial death benefit. Lord Hodson dismissed that argument as having no kind of validity.
    Lord Reid, taking up this point in the case of Jones and Hudson, dismissed that line of argument put forward by the Ministry even more vigorously. He said:
    "It was strenuously argued in Dowling's case that the scheme and policy of this legislation is that medical questions should be decided by medical tribunals. That is no longer maintained by the respondent"
    —the respondent was the Department—
    "because it is clear that in dealing with injury and death benefit, the statutory lay tribunals have to consider and determine just as difficult medical questions as those which the respondent maintains are reserved for medical tribunals in disablement cases. They do it as courts, of law do it: they receive medical evidence or reports and adjudicate on them. No one suggests that they are not adequately equipped to do that. It appears to me that the main purpose of bringing medical boards and tribunals in to deal with disablement cases is to deal expeditiously with the highly technical matter of assessing percentage of disability."
    9.45 p.m.
    He goes on to point out the serious dangers to an injured workman if he has to reargue the whole case whether he ever had an industrial accident before a medical tribunal because, he says,
    "They"
    —the tribunal—
    "are not equipped to deal with more general questions involving matters not purely medical although sometimes they may have to. Before the medical board the claimant is not represented, he is only medically examined. Before the medical appeal tribunals there could be

    1441
    argument but it appears that there seldom is. These cases and a number of other reported decisions to which reference was made in argument illustrate the difficulty. It has happened in several cases that a man with no previous record of heart trouble has suddenly become ill under strain at work and quite soon afterwards myo-cardial infarction or some similar condition has been diagnosed."
    This, of course, was the case in Jones and Hudson. Lord Reid went on:
    "Of course it could be a mere coincidence that a man suffers strain at work and that soon after he has heart trouble for the first time in his life although the two are unconnected. But the odds against that must be very high. And if you get a series of coincidences the odds become astronomical if the two are never connected. But there is no means of submitting this powerful argument to medical boards or tribunals and no indication that it has ever been considered by them. I am very far from being convinced that it can have been the intention of Parliament or it would be to the advantage of the claimant to give to these medical authorities the power to over-rule considered decisions of the statutory authorities."
    That is Lord Reid, one of those who gave a favourable judgment in the Jones and Hudson case. I suggest that it totally disposes of the Government's argument.
    We heard in Standing Committee from the Under-Secretary of State that Clause 5 is intended to be in the claimant's interests. His argument was that industrial injury benefit cases must be dealt with expeditiously in the interest of the workman and that by new Clause 4 and new Clause 5, seeking to assert that the decisions of these industrial injury tribunals cases shall be binding as questions of fact arising from the cause and nature of the accident, we should disadvantage the workman because we should hold up the examination of his industrial injury benefit claim because very much more rigorous standards would have to be applied. The implication of that is that there is a far more thorough examination by the medical appeal tribunals before they give disablement benefit.
    I ask any hon. Member who has had disablement benefit cases in his constituency to say whether he has ever had a constituent telling him that the medical appeal tribunal has examined his case thoroughly. I am sure that the experience of other hon. Members has been the same as mine—that a man who has appealed in a disablement case comes back and says, "I was in and out in three minutes". That has been established in case after case.
    Mr. J. T. Price: My right hon. Friend is putting a powerful case which I am following closely because I have more than a passing interest in this matter. She has asked a rhetorical question about constituency cases. I have had long personal experience of this branch of administration, and I can only say that where an injured workman goes to a tribunal unrepresented, the general result may be as she says—in and out very quickly—but that if he is represented properly by a professional advocate, either from his union or elsewhere, then the case is quite the opposite in that he gets a proper hearing. It is only if the workman is represented and does not go there as an amateur playing a team of professionals that he stands a real chance.
    Mrs. Castle: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that if a man is sensible enough to be in a trade union and his union is taking up the case, the union will never let go, even to the point of taking it to the House of Lords, as in some instances.
    But there is massive evidence that the tribunals act perfunctorily, and I will give some examples. There is the case of Mr. Dowling. As Lord Morris said, the commissioner in the Dowling case made a careful review of the medical evidence, having heard high medical authorities from both sides—I have the finding. That was on an industrial injury benefit claim which Mr. Dowling won. But when Mr. Dowling applied for disablement benefit and was turned down by the board, he went to the medical appeal tribunal and no careful review was made. The tribunal said:
    "On the balance of probabilities we are not satisfied that the hiatus hernia was either caused or aggravated by the relevant accident. We therefore confirm the decision of the medical board".
    If Mr. Dowling had not had a union to take it to the House of Lords on a point of law, he would not have won. I hope that the Minister will not tell me that that is the sort of lengthy examination that we cannot afford to have in an industrial injuries case.
    I have other instances. One is of a myocardial infarction where the commissioner, the statutory authority, considering the claim for industrial injury benefit, considered reports of two eminent

    1443
    cardiologists. Nobody will tell me that that is a perfuntory finding, yet according to the Government it should be possible for the finding of the commissioner in that case on the decision of fact to be overthrown endlessly by successive medical authorities, endlessly placing the man at risk.
    The commissioner who adjudicated on an industrial injury benefit claim in another case, that of Mr. Powell, Mr. Commissioner Lazarus, said:
    "In my judgment the only possible criticism of the proceedings is that they were conducted too speedily".
    This was a medical appeal tribunal case. There had been an appeal to the tribunal on a question of law. He went on:
    "However, if I were to hold that their brevity constituted a failure of natural justice I would in effect be holding that most hearings of medical appeal tribunals fail in that respect. The brevity of the proceedings is a commonplace in this jurisdiction. I understand that normally a medical appeal tribunal undertakes a session lasting three hours and in that period they may deal with up to 12 cases. (At the session at which the claimant's case was dealt with, there were 8 cases). Thus the average time taken over each case is probably less than 20 minutes. This is certainly very brief, but appears to be inherent in the system of adjudication by medical authorities established by Parliament."
    It is that system of adjudication that the Government want to be given pre-eminence over hours of consideration by a statutory authority, the commissioner. That is what Clause 5 would do and it is what our new Clauses 4 and 5 seek to prevent.
    It was said earlier that some of their Lordships in the two hearings in the House of Lords said that the position should be clarified by Parliament. So it should. We accept that. That is why we have put down new Clauses 4 and 5—to prevent this endless and expensive litigation. It should be clarified—but in what way? Should it be clarified in the common sense way advocated by Lord Morris, Lord Reid and Lord Hodson, or in the Ministry's way, which Lord Diplock supported? It was only Lord Diplock that the Minister quoted as an authority. Naturally the Department's whole attitude is that those who agree with it must be superior and must be right. In any case this evening this House has to decide how it wants to clarify it.
    1444
    The Minister says that he is merely restoring the position to what it was originally believed to be. As I asked in Committee upstairs, "Believed by whom?" By the Labour Government when they introduced the 1945 Industrial Injuries Bill? Does anybody think that we really believed that it was worth while putting a Section into the 1946 Act to give a man an accident declaration in order—in the words of Lord Hodson—that the accident declaration should be valueless? The Labour Government of 1945 was manned—and womanned—by people who really understood about industrial injuries—who understand about industrial appeals, and what takes place on the shop floor. They were not going to fall for the legal complexities and hairsplitting of Lord Diplock. The language of Lord Morris and Lord Reid is far nearer the sort of thinking of that Labour Government.
    If the Minister really believes that it was originally intended by the authors of the 1946 Industrial Injuries Act that there should not be finality of decision—that it should be open to a medical authority at every subsequent stage to challenge whether a man originally had an industrial accident—why is the hon. Member introducing Amendment No. 2, dealing with industrial death benefit? Of course we welcome that Amendment. We pressed for it. It was our exposure of the way in which the law works at present that compelled the Minister to put down that Amendment.
    We welcome the fact that the Government now admit that where disablement benefit has been paid to an injured man and he dies, directly or indirectly as a cause of his injury, his wife should not have to face the reopening of the issue whether an accident took place at all. That fact should be considered established for the purposes of death benefit.
    But what happens to the hon. Member's argument that lack of finality was always the original intention of Parliament? Does not he realise that he has given away his whole case? What about those other cases that were quoted upstairs—the case of Mr. G. T. Jones of Maesteg and of Mrs. Kingsnorth—where, disablement benefit having been awarded to those two claimants or beneficiaries by one medical appeal tribunal, their

    1445
    cases having gone to another medical tribunal on the ground that their disability had been aggravated they found the second medical tribunal reopening the whole issue whether they had ever had an accident at all.
    If it is right to have finality of decision when the medical tribunal has established the case for disablement benefit and for the award of death benefit, why cannot there be finality of decisions at the very least for the subsequent consideration of aggravation claims? That is what our very important sub-Amendment (a) asks.
    We want the total repudiation of the Department's approach. What we seek to do in new Clauses 4 and 5 is to clarify the law positively on the lines of the favourable verdict of the House of Lords in the cases of Dowling, and Jones and Hudson. At the very least we say to the hon. Gentleman that he cannot in logic reject our sub-Amendment (a) because I do not know what possible argument he could find for doing so. We say, let us clarify the law by all means, but let us do it in a humane and sensible way.
    It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
    Ordered,
    That the National Insurance Bill be proceeded with at this day's Sitting, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Goodhew.]
    Question again proposed, That the Clause be read a Second time.
    Mrs. Castle: Let us clarify the law by all means, but let us do it in the humane and sensible way intended by the Labour Government. If we do not do so we shall still further deepen trade union suspicion of this Government and intensify industrial bitterness. How can we call on trade unionistts to obey the law when the Government, faced with an interpretation of the law which they do not want, do not accept that interpretation bu seek to overthrow and reverse it as they do in Clause 5? I beg the House to support all of our propositions.
    Mr. Boscawen: The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) made a powerful and clear case for the principle of finality which we discussed at length in Committee. She rather undermined it by giving no credit at all to my right hon. Friend for opening the door slightly with regard to the findings after the death
    1446
    of an individual who has been in receipt of disability benefit whereby the statutory authority has to accept for the purpose of the death benefit the condition for which he was receiving the industrial benefit. That was a change in what was thought to be the law and the right hon. Lady rather brushed that aside and said that she had forced it on my right hon. Friend. He has given that concession and has also undertaken to look at the whole question, including the Diplock case very carefully. I have sympathy with the right hon. Lady on the finality point but she would have made a better case had she given credit to my right hon. Friend.
    Mr. Lewis Carter-Jones: I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for writing to me about one of my cases. Having given me the reply he took me back 45 years to when my uncle died of silicosis. He coughed his lungs up but it was not accepted as an industrial disease. Everyone in Gilfach Goch knew that he had it.
    Now I have the continuing story of one of my constituents. I was brought up in a South Wales mining village and I now live in a North Wales mining area, with a constituency at Swinton. The Under-Secretary and I have battled about this case for some time. It concerns a Mr. Barnes and his widow. Mr. Barnes felt convinced that he had pneumoconiosis. So did his family. So did his doctor. He went before the panel. It said, "No Mr. Barnes you have not got pneumoconiosis." Mr. Barnes appealed and before the appeal took place Mr. Barnes died. The family said, "Let us have an autopsy". The medical expert had said that he did not have pneumoconiosis, but the autopsy revealed that he had. The pneumoconiosis panel said that it would give a 20 per cent. disability benefit—10 per cent. for pneumoconiosis and 10 per cent. for emphysema and chronic bronchitis.
    That is not the end of the sordid story. Mrs. Barnes has been given the arrears amounting to £92—and God bless the panel for that. But she made an appeal for death benefit, and the insurance officer, in all his wisdom as a layman, said that the disease was not the cause of death; it did not contribute in any way to it. So Mrs. Barnes went before the local tribunal which allowed her

    1447
    appeal. It said that it was a contributory factor. Now the lay insurance officer wants to query that decision as well. How mean can one get?
    Why cannot the Ministry give people the benefit of the doubt in all these cases? It is clear in my mind and in the minds of people living in mining valleys that men are suffering from pneumoconiosis, emphysema and bronchitis as a result of working in the pits and associated industries. Why cannot the worker have the benefit of the doubt for a change? Why are the authorities always on the side of saving money?
    This is a continuing problem which will get worse. In Committee, the Under-secretary of State promised to look at five other questions. While he is looking at those five questions, why not have a moratorium in all cases and come down on the side of the injured or disabled person until the diseases are clearly classified?
    The Under-Secretary of State will be presented with future problems. Under the heading
    "What is wrong with the system?"
    the Robens Report entitled "Safety and Health at Work", published last week, states in paragraph 456 on page 151:
    "The toll of death, injury, suffering and economic waste from accidents at work and occupational diseases remains unacceptably high".
    I have been hearing that since I was a boy, and my grandfather used to hear it. It is about time that we made a positive decision in this connection. The Government should accept the new Clause and give the benefit of the doubt to people who are suffering from these diseases.
    In the same paragraph, the Robens Report goes on to say:
    "New hazards and problems are emerging."
    Therefore, even if the five matters which the Under-Secretary of State is to consider
    1448
    are resolved, fresh ones will emerge which are not being properly monitored. My hon. Friend the Member for Consett (Mr. David Watkins) and I have raised this matter in the House time and again. We are always waiting for somebody—as in the theatre, "Waiting for Godot". Now we shall be waiting for action on the Robens Report.
    The same paragraph of the Robens Report states:
    "Apathy is the greatest single obstacle to progressive improvement."
    Let me say, without being hurtful or insulting, that civil servants do not have many industrial injuries. They may die from inhaling ink but they do not die from emphysema or pneumoconiosis or silicosis or other of these diseases. Perhaps there would be a greater sense of urgency if they had more risk.
    Robens also said that apathy
    "can only be countered by an accumulation of deliberate pressures to stimulate more sustained attention to safety and health at work."
    One final word. A large number of people have been knocking the accident book. Before I came to this House I spent a large amount of my time training shop stewards, and one of the things we stressed to them was that, since it seemed that authority always came down against the worker, if there should be an accident they should make sure that the accident book was completed, make quite sure that details were recorded, make quite sure that the names of witnesses were recorded. My union has a boast that it wins more cases and by way of industrial injury benefit get back more money for its members than is spent in contributions. However, all this is blood money. Prevention is important.
    For where we cannot have prevention, for where the unavoidable happens and there are industrial diseases, please accept new Clauses 4 and 5.
    Mr. J. T. Price: I feel constrained to offer on this subject of industrial injuries a few observations o the House even at the present hour. I do so not from any theoretical point of view but as a result of more or less a lifetime's practical experience of these problems, at trade union level and in many individual cases.
    My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) made a very powerful case for this new Clause, and I would reinforce it. The Under-Secretary of State knows my views on these matters. I would acquit him of any malice or bad intention in these matters, but I will repeat to him and to the House what I have said on many occasions, that I have never had any abiding faith in departmental justice.
    Under the old workmen's compensation legislation which stood on the Statute Book for years, from the last century, and from the Act of 1925 onwards, until we had the new National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1948, the only thing I ever found to complain about was the scandalously low benefit available under the legislation. Long before the whole of this business was translated into some quasi-judicial procedures under the present Act, by and large every county court judge, almost without exception, would lean over backwards to give the benefit of the doubt to the workman in the way my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) referred to. There were exceptions in the mining industry, I know, but it was my experience that, by and large, all the enlightened county court judges, who had the handling of thousands of these cases—if they were contested—leaned over backwards to give the benefit of the doubt to the injured worker.
    Once we broke with that system—and I have maintained this in many debates in this House and elsewhere—and erected this tremendous edifice of highly complex administration of justice in all kinds of tribunals, then, if the workmen were no trepresented, he might as well have been playing for the Sunday school XI against the County XI for all the chance he had of succeeding, if the case were in any way debatable or controvertible.
    10.15 p.m.
    I remind the hon. Gentleman of a case that came to my attention some years ago. A lady constituent of mine, a Mrs. Dickinson, of Horwich in Lancashire, wrote a pathetic letter to me. She had severely injured her back while engaged in domestic service. She was not a trade unionist and she had no one to assist her. The injury was accepted as an industrial injury by the insurance officer, and she was granted industrial injury benefit of 100 per cent. After enjoying this benefit for some months she had to go to the medical board to be re-examined. Quoting from memory, after six months her benefit was reduced from 100 per cent. to 80 per cent. That payment continued for eight years, during which she was required at intervals to appear for medical examination. During that time she had several serious operations in the Manor House Hospital in London.
    At the end of eight years she was still receiving benefit of 60 per cent. The amount had been varied from time to time without any challenge being made on the central question of liability for the injury which had been determined by the insurance officer. At this time the local medical board recommended that Mrs. Dickinson should be given a final award of 80 per cent. for life, which meant that her case could not again be reviewed. The Ministry of National Insurance, as it was then, appealed on the quantum of benefit to the medical appeal tribunal on the ground that 80 per cent. for life was too high.
    Mrs. Dickinson, having just come out of hospital after a serious operation resulting from the injury, was taken in an ambulance from Horwich to the medical appeal tribunal in Manchester, 25 miles away, accompanied only by her husband. She had no one to represent her before the tribunal, which decided not reduce the 80 per cent., but to give her no benefit at all. The tribunal was not satisfied that the lady's present condition was due to the accident.
    I was so annoyed that Mrs. Dickinson had no one to represent her that I decided on my own responsibility and at my own expense to appeal to the commissioner on a point of law. It was a denial of

    1451
    natural justice, and I sat in the commissioner's office and argued the case with him for about three hours. He agreed with most of what I said, but in a reserved judgment delivered some time afterwards he said that he had no authority to interfere with the decision of the medical appeal tribunal, although this related to a question of fact in regard to eligibility for entitlement to benefit.
    However, we did not let the case stay there. I began the case de novo by making a new claim which went to the medical tribunal, who refused it, and then to the medical appeal tribunal. Eventually the chairman of the London medical tribunal not only had the woman fully examined, but reversed all the previous decisions. The woman was awarded 80 per cent. for life and in addition was given back pay for the two previous years, which amounted to several hundred pounds.
    I tell this story because it relates very much to the provisions of the new Clause. I acquit the Ministry and its officials of having any bad intentions or of being malicious or malevolent. Unfortunately, the edifice has become so complex that I believe that it would be far more just to scrap the whole system. I would rather see cases going before the courts than that they should be dealt with in the way I have outlined. In the old days, when I dealt with them in a previous incarnation in relation to the workmen's compensation law, these matters were capable of adjustment by commonsense negotiation without recourse to litigation. Only about 1 per cent. of cases ever went through the sausage machine of the county court or High Court.
    I hope that the hon. Gentleman will pay serious attention to what has been said because this is by no means a trivial matter. Many people are being juggled about with and are suffering humiliation and anxiety. These bodies are not judicial but only quasi-judicial and I should like to see them abolished; though that is perhaps too large a step for this House to bring about tonight.
    Mr. Edwin Wainwright: I intervene because I have tremendous experience as a National Union of Mineworkers' branch official of many cases that have failed to succeed.
    1452
    I do not know how much weight the Government want to make certain that one or two people do not slip through the net and get benefits to which they are not entitled. It appears that the amount of weight that they want is so great that many innocent people will be deprived of payment.
    In Committee on 11th July, 1972,the Minister said:
    "The Government maintain that this Clause restores the position to what it was originally believed to be…".—[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 11th July, 1972; c. 412.]
    Did the Minister mean before the Act which came into operation on 5th July, 1948? Are we talking about the old system of workmen's compensation? Do we want to go back to those days when, as those of us connected with the mining industry know too well, it was extremely easy to make it impossible for a person to claim benefit? About what stage is the Minister talking? It is very important to know.
    It is very easy for an applicant to lose his claim to benefit. The weight is so heavily in favour of the Government. I take an example of the first stage when a man makes a report about an accident that he has sustained. When the Act came into operation on 5th July, 1948, I remember how we recommended every workman in the mines to record every accident that he had. We were cluttered up with claims in no time. They came in from men who had never claimed before but who began to record accidents because of their fears about the future. We all know that it is not at alluncommon for a man working in heavy industry to have a slip or some other slight injury. Some report their accidents. Others do not. However, when men began to see how badly cluttered up the records were, they gradually did not bother to report accidents.
    The result was that we had a number of delayed claims to take to the National Insurance officer. Many of them were lost because of the lack of evidence. However some went through. In others the national insurance officer opposed the claims and they had to go to the local appeals tribunal. That, too, is heavily weighted. As a rule the chairman is a member of the legal profession and he sits with a representative of the employers and a workers' representative. However,

    1453
    the chairman is the dominating factor. I have been before appeals tribunals many times, and I know what happens.
    I remember a case that I had of a man with a slipped disc making a delayed claim. I accompanied him to the local appeals tribunal to ask for a deferment because I wanted a consultant's opinion. I was successful, and I took the man to a consultant. His report was not in the man's favour. At the next sitting of the local appeals tribunal I asked for another deferment since I had not had the time to get another consultant's opinion. My application was unsuccessful, so the man lost on that day. Between the two hearings I had discovered that the consultant concerned also advised the National Insurance Department on cases of this kind. As a result I sought another opinion and found a consultant who was in my member's favour. I then sent it to the commissioner whose criticism was: "Why was not this consultant's report placed before the local appeals tribunal?".
    I am pointing out that even consultants vary in their opinions and views, but the insurance officer does not pay their fees. They come from the National Insurance Fund as the cost of the consultant's opinion on behalf of the National Insurance. However, the consultant's fees for the applicant come either out of his own pocket or from his trade union—and some trade unions cannot afford them. Therefore, they find it impossible to compete with the National Insurance office and its determination to make sure that not one shall slip through the net.
    What happens to the poor individual on his own? I wonder how many cases have been lost because people have not had the money to fight the State. That is what it means. If Mr. Dowling had not had a union behind him, he could not have gone as far as he went. However, there is no limit to what the State can afford.
    Do the Government want us to go back to the unfairness and injustice which took place years ago? Are they afraid that one or two might get through the net and do they feel that that is unfair because they cost the nation a few pounds? If so, it means that many thousands of people will receive no payment because of the power of the State.
    1454
    This is what we are fighting. We are not fighting the insurance officer or even the local appeals tribunal in that sense. We are fighting the State, because at the end the Minister can say that this or that case goes right to the top regardless of whether the man concerned can afford it.
    Time and again on behalf of applicants I have placed consultants' reports before medical appeals tribunals. The members of medical appeal tribunals are not consultants, but doctors, usually with a member of the legal profession as chairman. Matters reached a stage at which time and again they ignored a consultant's report.
    I do not know how much weight the Government want against an applicant. I always thought a man was held to be innocent until the charge against him had been proved. In this instance a man is condemned not to succeed until he can prove that he has a good claim. However, in trying to prove that he has a good claim he does not have the legal advice which is available in our courts. Often he does not have the advice of people who are competent to help him to win his case. One of my hon. Friends mentioned the civil servants who advise the Minister.
    Men working in heavy industry sometimes sustain accidents which it is difficult to define until days or often weeks later. I refer to delayed hernias and slipped discs. Has any comparison been made between those who suffer slipped discs or delayed hernias working in heavy industry and those who do not work in heavy industry? I wonder whether I may have the Minister's attention. It seems that the hon. Gentleman intends to ignore what I am saying. This is insulting. I never thought that a Minister would be so disgusting as not to listen to the debate on a serious issue. If the Government carry Clause 5 through, it will mean that they intend to take advantage of their strength, with the result that many people who ought to qualify for benefit will not do so. It is disgusting that the Government should be allowed to gain a few pounds in this way.
    Mr. Kevin McNamara: I think that when my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) produced her barrage in

    1455
    making her case she was a little charitable to the Minister, because she could have quoted what the hon. Gentleman said in Committee:
    "The object of the Clause is to enable justice to be done and to ensure that cases are dealt with on their merits. I hope to show that the position restored by the Clause is in the interests of claimants generally and the speedy settlement of claims."—[Official Report, Standing Committee D; 6th July, 1972, c. 387.]
    The wealth of experience of my right hon. and hon. Friends who have been actively engaged in many of these cases enables them to show that there have not been speedy decisions in the interests of claimants and that very often justice has not been done, and has been seen not to be done.
    My right hon. Friend referred to the cases of Dowling, Jones and Hudson, and my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) referred to one case which proved two things—first, the value of belonging to a trade union which is capable of fighting and taking cases to the top courts in the land. That is one of the peripheral benefits of belonging to a trade union. The second is the difficulties facing a person who is unorganised, who is weak, who does not have any particular friends and who has to wait for a sympathetic bystander like my hon. Friend or a constituency Member who is prepared to take up his case. If it is possible to cite a large number of instances in which people have won their cases only after taking them to the top, one is entitled to ask how many cases have failed because of the whim of an insurance officer?
    My hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) referred to the narrowness of the definition in pneumoconiosis cases. My trade union has started taking into membership a number of former miners, and the legal department of the union is having to cope with miners who have developed bronchitis and emphysema, on the basis of what is laid down for pneumoconiosis. The legal department is finding that the narrowness of definition adopted by the Government Department, as exemplified by the examples given by my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles, is causing considerable difficulty. And what is true of pneumoconiosis is true of asbestosis,
    1456
    a disease about which our legal department has a particularly sad expertise.
    Industrial deafness has developed to a considerable extent among workers in car and engineering factories. This is an industrial disease, but we have not tried to define it or to examine its cost in terms of human suffering and unhappiness. Industrial deafness is an increasing problem and one from which the Department seems to be shying away. Many of the frustrations from which the legal officers of trade unions suffer arise from the fact that everything seems to depend upon the whim of a particular official in the Department or a particular insurance officer.
    The Under-Secretary must explain to us precisely the procedures which are followed when an insurance officer or someone else in the Ministry decides to contest a case. What is the status of the medical officers in the Department who decide to contest a consultant's opinion which comes down in favour of the claimant? What is the status of the insurance officer? What instructions are given to him? There is a great deal of suspicion among trade union officials that the decision to contest is often one which is taken purely and simply on the whim of a particular individual. They feel that where a union has recourse to the law and is successful, if the Ministry does not like the decision it changes the law and creates injustice and detriment for ordinary trade union members.
    Mr. Wainwright: Shout up. The Minister is not listening.
    Mr. McNamara: Where the case goes in its favour, the Ministry is only too keen to cry wolf and to talk about trade unionists breaking the law. There cannot be a double standard in these matters. It seems that the Clause has been slipped in to meet a particular decision of the House of Lords, a decision which the Government did not welcome. They felt that their prestige had been damaged and that they had been offended. It is a nasty piece of legislation.
    Mr. David Watkins: Almost every hon. Member with trade union experience or who represents an industrial constituency can tell of cases of people who have been to all intents and purposes

    1457
    "pursued" while seeking to make a justifiable claim in respect of industrial injury. My hon. Friends the Members for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones), Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) and Dearne Valley (Mr. Edwin Wainwright) have all told of their experiences. But because of the late hour I will not describe any individual cases. Suffice it to say that every hon. Member with industrial experience knows of cases where the law has been loaded against the claimant. Some of my hon. Friends have had harsh words to say about the Under-Secretary. I shall not echo those comments. I can speak only as I find and in my experience of bringing cases forward the Under-Secretary has always shown a humane personal interest in them.
    Mr. Wainwright: Not tonight.
    Mr. Watkins: I can quote a particular case not concerned with industrial injury but with a claim for a constant attendance allowance where I would say that the Under-Secretary has followed the case through "beyond the call of duty".
    I was not a member of the Standing Committee but I have read the Official Report in considerable detail. In defending Clause 5 the Under-Secretary seems to have been a victim of departmental gobbledy-gook. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) quoted at considerable length from the Dowling case. That was a case of departmental gobbledy-gook being used to say that if someone had had an accident which he did not have, it would have been an industrial accident. To all intents and purposes that is what was said. It was a case where an individual suffered an industrial injury and was pursued for no less than 11 years. That was under successive Governments. The Department even ultimately took the case to the House of Lords, to appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeal. Their Lordships rightly dismissed the appeal.
    10.45 p.m.
    The importance of the Dowling case was that it established a precedent which has affected a number of cases since. That is why there was in Committee, and again in the House tonight, so much concentration on that case. I speak as the secretary of the parliamentary group and the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers. It was my union's
    1458
    solicitors who pursued that case and who drew it to the attention of the parliamentary group. Not only the union but its solicitors are gravely concerned about the effects of Clause 5. I have read and listened to the arguments for and against the Clause. I cannot see that it would do other than to enable people to be pursued indefinitely, as Mr. Dowling was, until the Department achieves the result it wants rather than a result in the interests of the claimant. I am not throwing any dirt at the officers of the Department, but I believe that is what Clause 5 would bring about.
    I urge the Under-Secretary to accept our Amendments. As I understand it, his argument has been that Clause 5 clarifies the existing position. I am not disputing that, but it does so not in the interests of the claimant but in the interests of bureaucracy. Where there is any doubt the benefit of that doubt should always be on the side of the claimant not in the interests of bureaucracy. Where there is any doubt the benefit of the doubt should always be on the side of the claimant. I am certain that that has been Parliament's intention throughout the post-war period. I believe that it is still parliament's intention, but that as the Clause stands it will produce precisely the opposite effect.
    Mr. Dean: We have had a long, very helpful and interesting debate on this matter, as we did in Committee.
    Two points have come out during the debate—what the position has been since the 1946 Act and what the position should be in the future. What the position should be in the future is of most practical interest to the House. The Government Amendments are directed to that, as are the proposals of the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle). I want to deal much more with that than with what the position has been since 1946, but as she referred a good deal to the previous position I should perhaps deal with it first.
    Before doing so, may I repeat what I said in Committee and what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said on Second Reading, that the intention of Clause 5 is to restore the position as it was previously thought to be by Governments of both parties. I strongly deny that there is any intention of depriving working men of their rights. Far

    1459
    from that, the intention is to clarify the law and to see that, particularly in industrial injury benefit claims, which are the largest proportion, there is the speedy settlement which takes place now and which is so important to men when they have suffered an injury. It is necessary that payment should be made available to them as fast as possible, and I think the present arrangement helps to achieve that.
    Cases have been quoted during the debate. Of course, in any system, be it industrial injuries, national insurance or anything else, it is always possible to quote hard cases. The case of Dowling has been quoted, but that was in many respects an exceptional case in that there was no separate event apart from the injury, which was a hiatus hernia. The case of Jones was also quoted by the right hon. Lady. That was a case not so much of assessments as of points of law which were properly pursued on behalf of the claimant by his own solicitors.
    The right hon. Lady has also quoted some legal judgments which were adjudicated in the House of Lords or the Court of Appeal. She fairly and understandably quoted their Lordships who suited her case. What she did not do was to quote Lord Diplock, Lord Wilberforce, Lord Simon or Lord Dilhorne, who disagreed with the judgments which the right hon. Lady quoted. I shall quote from one passage which shows that there was a distinct difference of view when these judgments were made as to what the 1946 Act did say and intended to say. Lord Diplock said:
    "…provided that the insurance officer is satisfied that the incident occurred and that it resulted in the incapacity for work, there is no need for him to be satisfied as to the precise medical nature of the personal injury which constitutes the intermediate link in the chain of causation. Parliament must have contemplated that the insurance officer would normally accept as sufficient without further inquiry, whatever description of the incapacitating injury appeared upon the medical certificate signed by the claimant's own doctor, however detailed or summary as a diagnosis that description might be. But Parliament can hardly have contemplated that the acceptance of that diagnosis as justification for payment of injury benefit, it may be only for a single day, should affect conclusively the claimant's future rights to a different kind of benefit, disablement benefit, which might endure for the remainder of his life and which had not yet been the subject of any claim."
    1460
    Another point which has been made in some of the fairly hard things which have been said about the Department is that the Department is constantly trying to get at claimants to try to see that they do not get their due rights under the Act. I assure the House that that is not so. It is true that there are occasions when the Department refers cases to the independent adjudicating authorities. It has as much right to refer cases as has any individual. When the Department does refer cases, it is usually to try to ensure consistency of decisions. The reference may well result because the Department feels that the assessment is too low rather than too high.
    Some of the arguments which have been used tonight either have not been borne out by the facts of the case or the position is not as has been painted by some hon. Members. The fact is that if the Act had been administered over the years in the harsh, unfeeling way which some hon. Members have suggested, surely there would have been proposals for amendments. The Act was passed in 1946 and it has been in operation a long time. But there has been no concerted movement of any kind on either side of the House for it to be amended. If it were working as badly as some of the speeches have suggested, surely there would have been pressure for amendment which would have been reflected in the House.
    Equally, one must consider the number of appeals made, and here again the position does not suggest that it is as bad as has been painted. For example, the figures for 1971—the latest available—show that there were 135,000 disablement benefit claims, with appeals in 9 per cent. of the cases. There were 1,900 death benefit cases, with appeals in only 3 per cent. I suggest that if there were the unrest that has been suggested, the number of appeals would have been substantially greater.
    The new Clauses would bind the medical authorities to accept as due to the accident whatever condition or conditions the insurance officer or other statutory authority considered resulted from it. As worded, they could have wider repercussions than those which appear to be intended. They could be taken as meaning that any injury or disability from which the claimant was suffering would have had to be taken

    1461
    into account for disablement benefit by the medical board as having resulted from the accident, regardless of its real origin—in other words, including any pre-existing constitutional conditions.
    Prior to the Lords' decision in the Dowling case, the fact that a decision of the social security determining authorities on a claim or question was final was not regarded by those authorities as making a finding of fact or other determination, embodied in or necessary to such a decision, or on which a decision was based conclusively as a matter of law for the purpose of any further decision. The effect of the Dowling decision, explained in the Jones and Hudson decision, is that a finding of the statutory authorities on a claim for injury benefit binds medical authorities when determining a claim for disablement benefit.
    The procedure for determining injury benefit claims is based on the need to pay benefit quickly, and accordingly the inquiries are kept to an essential minimum. The insurance officer usually accepts as sufficient without further inquiries whatever description of injury appears on the medical certificate signed by the claimant's own doctor. If acceptance of that notice had to be regarded as accepting conclusively the claimant's future right to a different kind of benefit—namely, disablement benefit which might endure for the rest of his life—it would be necessary for the insurance officer not to arrive at his decision until he had gone into the case more fully. This would mean that the speedy process in injury benefit cases, which is one of the attractive features of the scheme, would inevitably be held up because it would be necessary to ensure that the decision made at the early stages was made on very much fuller medical judgment than is the case at present.
    Mrs. Castle: What about the case where there has been an appeal to the commissioner, and the commissioner has had detailed medical evidence, some of it oral as well as written, has examined it and has made a finding of fact in the claimant's favour? Is the hon. Gentleman justifying that being challenged later along the line when disablement benefit is claimed?
    Mr. Dean: If there is new medical evidence, clearly it is appropriate that it should be taken into account. One of the difficulties in pushing finality to the conclusion to which the Opposition appear to want to push it is that new medical evidence coming along later, which can often work to the advantage of a claimant, would be excluded from consideration. That would be one of the big disadvantages of doing what the Opposition propose.
    11.0 p.m.
    Mrs. Castle: The hon. Member cannot leave that mis-statement on the record unchallenged. He knows—as we made clear in Committee—that our new Clauses would not in any way affect the review Clause. That stands. Where there is fresh evidence, and new facts not previously taken into account, a review should and could take place, as in the case of Dowling. We are not talking about fresh evidence. We are talking about the initial evidence put to the tribunal where there had been personal injury because of an accident and there were two reports in front of the Commissioner, exhaustively examined—one orally—and the Commissioner found in favour of the claimant. Yet the Minister now says that is legitimate—and it will be possible, under Clause 5—for that careful finding and weighing of the medical evidence to be challenged eternally to the end of time, every time a man makes a claim for disablement benefit or a new assessment of disablement benefit.
    Mr. Dean: Certainly not. It will not be challenged eternally as the right hon. Lady knows. Dowling was an exceptional case. It is always possible to quote exceptional cases in support of an argument of that kind.
    What matters is not only what I have said about the effect of the new Clause but also the pledge which I gave in Committee and which is embodied in the Amendments in my name on behalf of the Government. It might be convenient—as we are discussing this batch of Amendments together—if I briefly explained what the effect of Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 are. These Amendments fulfil a commitment that I gave in Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Boscawen) was good enough to refer to the fact that the effect

    1463
    of the Amendments is to bind the lay statutory authorities to accept for the purposes of death benefit a condition for which the deceased is entitled to a disablement pension at the time of his death or, where there is no current title to disablement pension—for example, because a disablement gratuity was paid—a condition which was accepted as resulting from the relevant accident on the last occasion when the medical authorities determined the disablement benefit question.
    Similarly, a decision by the medical authorities that the deceased was suffering from a prescribed disease will be binding for death benefit purposes. That will be achieved by an amendment to the Prescribed Diseases Regulations.
    There is power to review a decision on death benefit made before the date the provision comes into operation—which is intended to be the date of Royal Assent—to give effect to it, and on a successful review benefit will become payable from a current date.
    The Amendment does not affect the fundamental requirement for industrial death benefit that death must have been the result of the accident or prescribed disease. Thus, although the lay statutory authorities considering a claim for death benefit will be bound to accept as relevant conditions which the medical authorities considering a claim for death benefit will be found to accept as relevant conditions which the medical authorities have accepted for a claim for disablement benefit, the death benefit claim will still fail if it is decided that death resulted from other conditions which were unconnected with the accident or disease.
    The Amendment, though it will cover only the rare case, is entirely beneficial. It does not operate in reverse; the fact that the medical authorities for the purpose of disablement benefit have decided that a certain condition did not arise from the accident will not prevent the lay statutory authorities from regarding it as relevant when they come to decide the death benefit claim. I hope that the House will think that this is a major advance from the position which has existed with regard to the death benefit since the 1946 Act. It will deal with only a small number of cases, but it is a valuable step forward.
    Mr. Charles Loughlin: I am extremely interested in the effect of the Amendment. I accept that it will apply to only a minority of cases, but would the hon. Gentleman give examples?
    Mr. Dean: It will apply in every case where there is disablement benefit and the person concerned then dies as a result of the condition for which he has been receiving disablement benefit. Death benefit will follow automatically in those cases irrespective of what the disease is. The Amendment will cover all the prescribed diseases and any condition, disease, or injury, for which a disablement benefit is in payment, provided that the person concerned died as a result of that condition or disease.
    In addition to this step forward, which resulted partly from our useful debates in Committee, I gave a firm commitment, which I now repeat, to continue to examine the matter to see whether there were any other situations, apart from that covered by the industrial death benefit concession, where a greater degree of finality would be justified, particularly changes in disablement benefit awards that could occur when one medical adjudicating authority took a view of the relevance of a condition different from that taken by a previous board or tribunal. This sort of situation has caused more concern than anything else, particularly to hon. Members with great knowledge and experience such as the hon. Member for Westhoughton.
    I committed the Government to examining this matter to see whether further steps are possible. These are complex issues and it has not been possible to complete the examination in the short time since our debates in Committee. However, I repeat that commitment about that examination.
    The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) asked about prescribed diseases and mentioned asbestosis and industrial deafness. We are firmly committed to pushing forward the frontiers in respect of prescribed diseases, too. Many would probably feel that this is as important a feature as anything else.
    As the House knows, brucellosis was recently prescribed and that prescription

    1465
    comes into operation at the end of the month. Certain aspects are being considered in five other instances—pneumoconiosis, the vibration syndrome, occupational deafness, lung cancer for workers engaged in the production of chromates, and certain types of poisoning. This shows that there is examination all the time in the light of new hazards which come along as a result of new processes, and we are anxious to push these frontiers forward.
    Mr. Albert Roberts: Is the hon. Member satisfied that there is sufficient research into industrial diseases?
    Mr. Dean: A great deal of research is going on, but if the hon. Member has in mind any question arising from his experience and thinks that it should be examined, I hope that he will let me have the necessary information so that I may have it looked into.
    I hope, therefore, that the House will accept that in this Clause we are restoring the position to what it was believed to be as a result of the 1946 Act and that in the Government Amendment concerning industrial death benefit we are making an advance on the position which existed then. In addition, I have given the commitments on the points made here and in Committee. They will be fully examined by the Government to see whether further progress is possible.
    Mrs. Castle: I must tell the Under-secretary that his reply on Clauses 4 and 5 is totally unsatisfactory. We do not accept that it is restoring the position to what it was believed to be and we do not accept that it is to the benefit of the claimant. The hon. Gentleman has not given us a single argument why he is not accepting our sub-Amendment (a).
    All his arguments are in favour of his doing so. Even the quotation from Lord Diplock is a quotation which has no relevance to his Amendment because we are not talking about industrial injuries benefit. We are saying that where a disablement benefit has been awarded the fact that a personal injury, by accident, took place should be accepted as final for the purpose of future assessments of the disablement benefit. The Minister's Amendment will not cover the case so eloquently put by my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price). Our sub-Amendment would.
    There was the case of a woman who got disablement benefit but when she went for re-assessment the panel tried to knock it off altogether and to open the original findings of fact. The House was shocked by that case but there are many hundreds of such cases. If our sub-Amendment were accepted such cases would be covered. Will the hon. Gentleman at least get up and say that he will accept that? That will keep us going until we have a Labour Government when we can reform the whole procedure. Will he not accept sub-Amendment (a) on the basis of his own argument?
    Mr. Dean: By leave of the House. I gave a commitment that this is one of the aspects at which we will look particularly. This is a complex matter and there has not been sufficient time to give the matter the consideration it requires.
    Mrs. Castle: Will the hon. Gentleman at least consider introducing sub-Amendment (a) in another place?
    Question put, That the Clause be read a Second Time: —
    The House divided: Ayes 126, Noes 151.

    Division No. 313.]

    AYES

    [11.15 p.m.

    Albu, Austen

    Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)

    Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

    Carmichael, Neil

    Deakins, Eric

    Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

    Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

    Dempsey, James

    Armstrong, Ernest

    Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

    Doig, Peter

    Ashton, Joe

    Clark, David (Colne Valley)

    Dormand, J. D.

    Atkinson, Norman

    Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

    Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

    Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

    Concannon, J. D.

    Driberg, Tom

    Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

    Conlan, Bernard

    Dunn, James A.

    Bidwell, Sydney

    Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)

    Eadie, Alex

    Bishop, E. S.

    Crawshaw, Richard

    Edelman, Maurice

    Blenkinsop, Arthur

    Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)

    Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

    Booth, Albert

    Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)

    Evans, Fred

    Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

    Dalyell, Tam

    Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

    Buchan, Norman

    Davies, Ifor (Gower)

    Foot, Michael

    Ford, Ben

    McNamara, J. Kevin

    Skinner, Dennis

    Gilbert, Dr. John

    Marks, Kenneth

    Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)

    Grant, George (Morpeth)

    Marsden, F.

    Spearing, Nigel

    Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)

    Marshall, Dr. Edmund

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Hamling, William

    Meacher, Michael

    Stallard, A. W.

    Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)

    Mellish Rt. Hn. Robert

    Steel, David

    Hardy, Peter

    Mikardo, Ian

    Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

    Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

    Millan, Bruce

    Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)

    Hattersley, Roy

    Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

    Strang, Gavin

    Hooson, Emlyn

    Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

    Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

    Horam, John

    Moyle, Roland

    Taverne, Dick

    Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

    Ogden, Eric

    Thomas, Rt.Hn.George (Cardiff,W.)

    Hughes, Mark (Durham)

    O'Halloran, Michael

    Tinn, James

    Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

    O'Malley, Brian

    Torney, Tom

    Janner, Greville

    Orme, Stanley

    Urwin, T. W.

    Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)

    Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

    Wainwright, Edwin

    Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

    Pavitt, Laurie

    Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

    Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

    Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

    Wallace, George

    Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)

    Pendry, Tom

    Watkins, David

    Judd, Frank

    Pentland, Norman

    Weitzman, David

    Kaufman, Gerald

    Perry, Ernest G.

    Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

    Lawson, George

    Prescott, John

    Whitehead, Phillip

    Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

    Lomas, Kenneth

    Reed, D. (Sedgfield)

    Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

    Loughlin, Charles

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Woof, Robert

    Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

    Roper, John

    McCartney, Hugh

    Rose, Paul B.

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES

    McElhone, Frank

    Sillars, James

    Mr. John Golding and.

    Maclennan, Robert

    Silverman, Julius

    Mr. Joseph Harper

    McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

    NOES

    Astor, John

    Gurden, Harold

    Parkinson, Cecil

    Atkins, Humphrey

    Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

    Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

    Benyon, W.

    Haselhurst, Alan

    Price, David (Eastleigh)

    Biggs-Davison, John

    Hayhoe, Barney

    Prior, Rt Hn. J. M. L.

    Blaker, Peter

    Heseltine, Michael

    Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

    Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

    Hiley, Joseph

    Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

    Boscawen, Robert

    Hill, James (Southampton, Test)

    Redmond, Robert

    Bossom, Sir Clive

    Holt, Miss Mary

    Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

    Bowden, Andrew

    Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia

    Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

    Braine, Bernard

    Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

    Roberts. Michael (Cardiff, N.)

    Bray, Ronald

    Iremonger, T. L.

    Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

    Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

    James, David

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

    Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

    Sharples, Richard

    Campbell, Rt. Hn. G.(Moray & Nairn)

    Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

    Shelton, William (Clapham)

    Carlisle, Mark

    Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

    Speed, Keith

    Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

    Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine

    Spence, John

    Churchill, W. S.

    Kilfedder, James

    Sproat, Iain

    Clegg, Walter

    King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

    Stainton, Keith

    Cockeram, Eric

    King, Tom (Bridgwater)

    Stanbrook, Ivor

    Cooke, Robert

    Kinsey, J. R.

    Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

    Cordie, John

    Kitson, Timothy

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

    Cormack, Patrick

    Knight, Mrs. Jill

    Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

    Costain, A. P.

    Knox, David

    Sutcliffe, John

    Crouch, David

    Lamont, Norman

    Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow, Cathcart)

    Crowder, F. P.

    Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

    Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

    Dean, Paul

    Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

    Tebbit, Norman

    Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

    Longden, Gilbert

    Temple, John M.

    Digby, Simon Wingfield

    Loveridge, John

    Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)

    Dixon, Piers

    Luce, R. N.

    Trew, Peter

    Drayson, G. B.

    MacArthur, Ian

    Tugendhat, Christopher

    Dykes, Hugh

    McCrindle, R. A

    Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin

    Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

    McLaren, Martin

    Vickers, Dame Joan

    Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)

    Madel, David

    Waddington, David

    Emery, Peter

    Mather, Carol

    Walder, David (Clitheroe)

    Eyre, Reginald

    Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

    Wall, Patrick

    Fell, Anthony

    Meyer, Sir Anthony

    Ward, Dame Irene

    Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

    Mills, Peter (Torrington)

    Warren, Kenneth

    Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

    Mitchell,Lt.-Col.C.(Aberdeenshire,W)

    Weatherill, Bernard

    Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

    Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

    Wells, John (Maidstone)

    Fortescue, Tim

    Moate, Roger

    White, Roger (Gravesend)

    Fowler, Norman

    Money, Ernle

    Wiggin, Jerry

    Fox, Marcus

    Monks, Mrs. Connie

    Wilkinson, John

    Fry, Peter

    More, Jasper

    Winterton, Nicholas

    Goodhart, Philip

    Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

    Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

    Goodhew, Victor

    Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

    Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

    Gower, Raymond

    Mudd, David

    Woodnutt, Mark

    Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

    Murton, Oscar

    Worsley, Marcus

    Gray, Hamish

    Neave, Airey

    Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

    Green, Alan

    Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

    Younger, Hn. George

    Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

    Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)

    Gummer, Selwyn

    Page, Graham (Crosby)

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES

    Mr. Kenneth Clarke and

    Mr. Micheal Jopling

    Question accordingly negatived.

    New Clause 5
    DECISION ON ORIGIN OF INJURY OR DISABILITY
    A decision (given under section 48(2) of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1965 or otherwise) that an accident was an
    industrial accident is to be taken as determining the origin of any injury or disability suffered by the claimant.—[Mr. O'Malley.]
    Brought up, and read the First time.
    Question put, That the Clause be read a Second time: —
    The House divided: Ayes 124, Noes 149.

    Division No. 314.]

    AYES

    [11.22 p.m.

    Albu, Austen

    Gilbert, Dr. John

    Orme, Stanley

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

    Grant, George (Morpeth)

    Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

    Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

    Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)

    Pavitt, Laurie

    Armstrong, Ernest

    Hamling, William

    Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

    Ashton, Joe

    Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)

    Pendry, Tom

    Atkinson, Norman

    Hardy, Peter

    Pentland, Norman

    Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

    Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

    Perry, Ernest G.

    Benn, Rt. Hn.Anthony Wedgwood

    Hattersley, Roy

    Prescott, John

    Bidwell, Sydney

    Hooson, Emlyn

    Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

    Bishop, E. S.

    Horam, John

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Blenkinsop, Arthur

    Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

    Roper, John

    Booth, Albert

    Hughes, Mark (Durham)

    Rose, Paul B.

    Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

    Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

    Sillars, James

    Buchan, Norman

    Janner, Greville

    Silverman, Julius

    Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)

    Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)

    Skinner, Dennis

    Carmichael, Neil

    Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

    Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)

    Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

    Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

    Spearing, Nigel

    Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

    Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Clark, David (Colne Valley)

    Judd, Frank

    Stallard, A. W.

    Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

    Kaufman, Gerald

    Steel, David

    Concannon, J. D.

    Lawson, George

    Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)

    Conlan, Bernard

    Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

    Strang, Gavin

    Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)

    Lomas, Kenneth

    Summerskill, Hn, Dr. Shirley

    Crawshaw, Richard

    Loughlin, Charles

    Taverne, Dick

    Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)

    Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

    Thomas,Rt.Hn.George (Cardiff,W.)

    Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)

    McCartney, Hugh

    Tinn, James

    Dalyell, Tam

    MeElhone, Frank

    Torney, Tom

    Davies, Ifor (Gower)

    Maclennan, Robert

    Urwin, T. W.

    Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

    McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

    Wainwright, Edwin

    Deakins, Eric

    McNamara, J. Kevin

    Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

    Dempsey, James

    Marks, Kenneth

    Wallace, George

    Doig, Peter

    Marsden, F.

    Watkins, David

    Dormand, J. D.

    Marshall, Dr. Edmund

    Weitzman, David

    Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

    Meacher, Michael

    Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

    Driberg, Tom

    Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

    Whitehead, Phillip

    Dunn, James A.

    Mikardo, Ian

    Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

    Eadie, Alex

    Millan, Bruce

    Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

    Edelman, Maurice

    Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

    Woof, Robert

    Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

    Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

    Evans, Fred

    Moyle, Roland

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES

    Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

    Ogden, Eric

    Mr. John Golding and

    Foot, Michael

    O'Halloran, Michael

    Mr. Joseph Harper

    Ford, Ben

    O'Malley, Brian

    NOES

    Astor, John

    Cormack, Patrick

    Goodhart, Philip

    Atkins, Humphrey

    Costain, A. P.

    Goodhew, Victor

    Benyon, W.

    Crouch, David

    Gower, Raymond

    Biggs-Davison, John

    Crowder, F. P.

    Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

    Blaker, Peter

    Dean, Paul

    Gray, Hamish

    Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

    Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

    Green, Alan

    Boscawen, Robert

    Digby, Simon Wingfield

    Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

    Bossom, Sir Clive

    Dixon, Piers

    Gummer, Selwyn

    Bowden, Andrew

    Drayson, G. B.

    Gurden, Harold

    Braine, Sir Bernard

    Dykes, Hugh

    Hall-Davis, A. G. F

    Bray, Ronald

    Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

    Haselhurst, Alan

    Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

    Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne,N.)

    Hayhoe, Barney

    Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

    Emery, Peter

    Heseltine, Michael

    Campbell, Rt.Hn.G.(Moray&Nairn)

    Eyre, Reginald

    Hiley, Joseph

    Carlisle, Mark

    Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

    Hill, James (Southampton, Test)

    Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

    Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

    Holt, Miss Mary

    Churchill, W. S.

    Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

    Hornsby-Smith,Rt.Hn.Dame Patricia

    Clegg, Walter

    Fortescue, Tim

    Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

    Cockeram, Eric

    Fowler, Norman

    Iremonger, T. L.

    Cooke, Robert

    Fox, Marcus

    James, David

    Cordle, John

    Fry, Peter

    Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

    Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

    Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

    Taylor,Edward M.(G'gow,Cathcart)

    Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

    Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

    Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

    Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine

    Murton, Oscar

    Tebbit, Norman

    Kilfedder, James

    Neave, Airey

    Temple, John M.

    King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

    Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

    Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)

    King, Tom (Bridgwater)

    Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)

    Trew, Peter

    Kinsey, J. R.

    Page, Graham (Crosby)

    Tugendhat, Christopher

    Kitson, Timothy

    Parkinson, Cecil

    Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin

    Knight, Mrs. Jill

    Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

    Vickers, Dame Joan

    Knox, David

    Price, David (Eastleigh)

    Waddington, David

    Lamont, Norman

    Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.

    Walder, David (Clitheroe)

    Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

    Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

    Wall, Patrick

    Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

    Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

    Ward, Dame Irene

    Longden, Sir Gilbert

    Redmond, Robert

    Warren, Kenneth

    Loveridge, John

    Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

    Weatherill, Bernard

    Luce, R. N.

    Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

    Wells, John (Maidstone)

    MacArthur, Ian

    Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)

    White, Roger (Gravesend)

    McCrindle, R. A.

    Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

    Wiggin, Jerry

    McLaren, Martin

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Wilkinson, John

    Madel, David

    Sharples, Sir Richard

    Winterton, Nicholas

    Mather, Carol

    Shelton, William (Clapham)

    Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

    Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

    Speed, Keith

    Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

    Meyer, Sir Anthony

    Spence, John

    Woodnutt, Mark

    Mills, Peter (Torrington)

    Sproat, Iain

    Worsley, Marcus

    Mitchell,Lt.-Col.C.(Aberdeenshire,W)

    Stainton, Keith

    Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

    Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

    Stanbrook, Ivor

    Younger, Hn. George

    Moate, Roger

    Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

    Money, Ernle

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Monks, Mrs. Connie

    Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

    Mr. Kenneth Clarke and

    More. Jasper

    Sutcliffe, John

    Mr. Michael Jopling

    Question accordingly negatived.

    New Clause 7
    RIGHTS OF PERSON PROVIDING CONSTANT ATTENDANCE FOR RELATIVE
    (1) A person who has given up employment to provide constant attendance for a relative at home shall, for the purposes of the National Insurance Acts, retain employed status while so doing, and shall be entitled to receive unemployment benefit upon ceasing to provide such attendance and upon registering as available for full-time employment.—[Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler.]
    Brought up, and read the First time.
    11.30 p.m.
    Mr. Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
    The purpose of this new Clause is to debate the special situation of those who nurse elderly people at home. The Government, by introducing constant attendance allowance, have shown their recognition of and concern for sickness at home, and I am sure that in due course, as the administrative staff becomes available, it will be possible for the Government to liberalise the application of that provision, but even this is not enough to protect many people from genuine hardship.
    I quote from a letter from a constituent about whom I have been in
    1472
    correspondence with my hon. Friend. She writes:
    "Three years ago last October I had to give up my position as shop assistant to look after my aged father of 82 after a fall. He lived until 10th February, 1971, which meant I was off work for two years and five months, during which time the social security paid me an allowance for looking after him, which continued until last October, when I was able to return to my previous employment for three months, but as the vacancy was only temporary I had to leave on 15th January. I could not claim unemployment pay as I had been getting a non-employed stamp while I was at home. As my father's money, consisting of £1,535, was made over to me during my employment, my social security was cut from £5·80 to £2·85 per week. Although £1,050 of this money is invested until January, 1975 I only have the interest from this loan twice a year. As you will realise, the money I am receiving is not sufficient to cover my weekly expenses, so I am having to draw on my savings, and as I am only just 50 years old this means that for 10 years I shall have to continue drawing on my savings, as it seems impossible to get employment in my particular job at my age. I have written for several jobs and have not even had a reply. I am wondering if there is ever an exception to the rule that non-employed stamps cannot count towards unemployment benefit, as I was forced to give up my job to look after my father, thus saving the country the cost of two and a half years in hospital, as he could not be left alone."
    This, clearly, is a case of a responsible person who has been self-supporting and who voluntarily gave up her employment for perfectly understandable family reasons to be at home to look after an elderly relative. That kind of action is surely not only in the interests of the

    1473
    family but in the interests of the nation as a whole. The sadness is that people like that are severely disadvantaged by taking this voluntary action.
    My purpose in moving this Clause is to give hon. Members on both sides an opportunity to debate this very important human problem, and I am sorry to see only the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) on the benches opposite. It may be that my proposals are technically unworkable. That is because my knowledge of these matters is limited. However, a large number of people currently are suffering. They suffer from the effects of interrupted careers, the loss of employed status and the right to unemployment benefit, the inability very often to pay their insurance contributions, and the consequential loss of their pensions.
    They may also lose modest inheritances before qualifying for assistance in the form of social security benefits. Not only is the State actually benefiting from their service to the nation. It goes further and says, "Because you have some money, you must wait until you have spent it all before we can give you any assistance."
    I contend that this attitude on the part of successive Governments is not justifiable. We are considering the possibility of paying between £2,000 and £4,000 to people who terminate their employment in the docks. If the dockers are a special case for the purpose of Exchequer aid, surely the people of whom I am speaking are also special cases.
    These are people who remain silently at home, without a strong union to back them, serving their families and the nation. They are devoted public servants, and they deserve the recognition of this House and of this Government in helping them to cope. Is not it time society recognised the contribution that they make to reducing the burden on hospitals and on the tax payer? If my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State hopes to encourage families to look after the elderly and infirm at home in order to release geriatric beds in our hospitals, he will have to make more adequate financial provision for them.
    What studies have been made of the cost-effectiveness of encouraging the accommodation of geriatrics at home? What would be the additional annual
    1474
    cost to the State if all existing patients at home were to demand accommodation in hospital beds, as they are entitled? Is not this a factor to be taken into account in considering what assistance could be given to the people to whom I refer?
    The Government must act quickly to lessen the hardship suffered by the many people like my constituent who are only doing their duty. Even if my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary is not able to accept the technical provisions of my Clause, I hope that he will recognise the problem for what it is and tell us that the Government understand the situation in which many quiet and simple people who get on with their jobs without the support of a trade union may be given assistance at home.
    Mr. O'Malley: Before the hon. Gentleman sits down, perhaps he will deal with this point. I listened to his proposition with a great deal of sympathy. But may I point out to him that his speech revealed an anti-trade union attitude? It may be that he did not mean it. But a simple person meeting this kind of problem is just as likely to be a member of a trade union as not. There is no reason why the hon. Gentleman, especially in today's climate, should gratuitously make that kind of remark when from this side of the House we are listening to him with a great deal of sympathy.
    Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler: I am grateful for that intervention not only to point out, with some sadness, that the hon. Member for Rotherham is the only hon. Member representing the Opposition on a matter of grave national importance, but to say that the country is getting sick and tired of the fact that those who are the best organised and strongest and shout the loudest often are more successful in obtaining Government support than the quiet sort of person to whom I am referring—indeed, some of them may be trade unionists; I make no complaint of that—who, nevertheless, by their demeanour and sense of responsibility towards society, deserve greater recognition. I apologise to no one for having drawn the comparison today between those in full-time, relatively well-paid employment who seek to qualify for terminal payments of substantial proportions and those who quietly remain at home looking after

    1475
    the sick, the infirm, and the elderly without hope of reward at all.
    Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: I rise to support strongly the case so eloquently put by my hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler). Like him, I am saddened that there is only one hon. Member on the Opposition benches who has the interest to remain and to support the cause of those who take the trouble to keep their elderly relatives at home.
    In recent months I have had the honour of chairing a sub-committee of the National Council for the Single Woman and her Dependants. I have heard well-documented case after case of woman after woman with a good job and promising career before her who has thrown it all up to work at home and look after either elderly parents or relatives. Often, as my hon. Friend said, she has used her savings in trying to make her parents' or relatives' last months more comfortable, and when they have died she has been left with not only no job but sometimes no home and, as my hon. Friend also said, a reduced pension.
    We cannot, within the scope of the new Clause, hope to bring the relief to these women to which I have always believed they are entitled by their service and sacrifice, but I very much hope the Minister will give us a positive assurance that justice will be done to these women at the earliest possible legislative moment.
    Dr. Stuttaford: It gives me enormous pleasure to speak tonight in support of another East Anglian radical. I feel that my hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler) has raised a very important point. As another East Anglian has told us, my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman), who comes from East Anglia—
    Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: I do not. I am a Lancastrian born and bred.
    Dr. Stuttaford: My hon. Friend, who lives in East Anglia, has said it is a question of the single woman and her dependants. This forgotten army of women have given up everything to go back to their homes to look after some member of their families who can no longer lock
    1476
    after themselves. It is done as a social service not only to the family but to the community. Were it not for these women—regrettably, it is nearly always single women—who are prepared to stay at home and do the menial chores which the aged and the sick need carrying out for them, the State would have to pay hospital, doctors' and district nursing fees.
    The least we can do for these people is to see that in future they do not suffer financially as they do today. They suffer because they give up jobs to come back to their homes and then find it very difficult a year or so later to get back in the groove into which they previously fitted. Often they cannot get back to the type of employment they enjoyed previously. It is unreasonable to expect them to go straight back. We should do our best to see that the financial hardships they undergo, because they have returned home to look after aged relatives, are recognised and recompensed.
    11.45 p.m.
    Mr. McCrindle: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler) on having focused attention on one of those forgotten social problems which we discuss far too seldom in this House.
    I should like to focus my contribution on a rather wider base than the single woman looking after her relative. I confess that she is the person about whom we should be thinking most this evening, but I want the House to turn its attention for a moment to the man whose wife may become a terminal patient and who, with complete disregard for his own future in business or in terms of promotion in his job, decides that he will spend as much of the last few months as possible with his wife and so he gives up his job to look after her. If he does that, no consideration is given to him. Not only does he lose his place in the employment race, but he receives no benefit in terms of social service.
    My hon. Friend's new Clause would look after the man after he had returned to work, or was ready to return to work, but it would not pay him social benefit during the period that he nursed his wife, and I believe that that is something to which we should also be paying attention this evening.

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    I urge the Minister to bear in mind this terminal patient type of situation as well as the rather more widespread case of the woman looking after the elderly relative.
    Mr. Dean: I am sure that the House is grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler) for raising this very important subject for those people—usually women, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. McGrindle) said, not always women—who give devoted care and attention to elderly relatives at home, very often at considerable personal sacrifice.
    May I remind the House of what the Government are doing now and what they hope to do in the future to assist this group of people in the splendid work which they do for their families. I propose to deal first with the disabled. In introducing the new Clause my hon. Friend mentioned the attendance allowance. About half of the 80,000 allowances now in payment are paid to people over 60, and they often go to households where a younger woman is looking after her elderly parents. Equally, with the extension of the allowance which is provided for in the Bill, which will be available to those who need attention by day or by night, there will be another large group of elderly people who will benefit.
    My hon. Friend's remarks were addressed very largely to the caring relatives themselves and the cash position in which they often find themselves, and perhaps I may briefly remind the House of the position. First, supplementary benefit is available, without the usual requirement of registration for work, for those daughters who stay at home to provide care and attention for their parents, provided it is medically confirmed that the parents need this care. And where supplementary benefit is awarded to a daughter who has given up work in these circumstances, consideration is given to the cost of the non-employed contribution, and in assessing the elderly parents' ability on their resources to provide for the daughter a margin of £2 above the normal supplementary benefit level is allowed as well as any standing commitments, such as mortgage and insurance payments, before it is considered that the elderly parents
    1478
    can provide for the daughter, even it partly by free board or lodging.
    My hon. Friend asked what information we had, and I can tell him that the latest figures, those relating to November, 1971, are that about 14,200 women recipients of supplementary benefit are in the category of being responsible for caring for elderly dependent relatives at home. The majority of them are single women, although there are some divorced and separated women amongst them.
    Hitherto successive Governments have felt it right to look on the matter on the supplementary benefit basis rather than in the context of the National Insurance scheme. It has been felt that the National Insurance scheme is designed to provide some protection against the main events which cause loss or cessation of earnings in circumstances which affect the claimant personally and over which he or she has no control, such as sickness, unemployment and retirement on grounds of age.
    Nevertheless, there is, perhaps, wider cover than my hon. Friend may have realised within the National Insurance scheme itself and for unemployment benefit. It could be made available in a number of circumstances. There are the main qualifying conditions, namely, 26 Class 1 contributions must have been actually paid and50 Class 1 contributions must have been paid or credited in the relevant contribution year. Reduced benefits are payable if at least 26 Class 1 contributions have been paid or credited in the relevant year. This means that if a woman gives up her employment for a period of three months or less her entitlement to unemployment benefit will not be affected if she pays the non-employed contributions. If she gives up employment for six months or less she will still be entitled to unemployment benefit, although it will be at a reduced rate. At the time she wishes to claim unemployment benefit she can still be covered for full benefit through the contributions she paid before giving up work.
    For example, a woman whose card runs from March to March who gave up work in March, 1972, would continue to have full cover for benefit until August, 1973. The period after which all rights to benefit end varies between 11 and 23

    1479
    months depending upon the date unemployment ceases in relation to the date the contribution year ends. There are special rules which help people who lose their title to benefit to requalify for full benefit quickly. I mention those points to show that there is some cover now within the National Insurance scheme for the sort of woman my hon. Friend is understandably concerned to help.
    In addition, the Government are anxious to stimulate the development of a whole range of services for the disabled which could be of particular help for elderly people. It is hoped that in time it will be possible for them to be provided with tailor-made services to suit the individual needs of themselves and of relatives who may be caring for them. This is a long-term development to which the social service departments of the local authorities are lending themselves with considerable enthusiasm. When these services are developed we hope that it will be possible to give more support for those families who now bear the burden of caring for dependent relatives with little or no outside practical help.
    The increasing use of places in residential homes to provide short periods of care to give a family a well-earned break is another important aspect of the matter; the spread of special holiday schemes and day care facilities; and the steady improvement in home help and meals on wheels services. All these can play an important part in helping hard-pressed relations without necessarily requiring them to lose their independence or their financial basis of independence which an outside job brings.
    Not only local authorities are doing a useful job in developing these services. Voluntary organisations are responding to the growing needs in these spheres. I assure my hon. Friend that this is not a forgotten army, nor is it a forgotten social problem. It is one in which we are anxious to develop further the selective policies which we have already begun. But we freely recognise that much more needs to be done. We intend to go on making progress.
    We need to know more about the extent of the problem and the type of help which would be most appropriate. I was asked what studies we were doing. We
    1480
    are carrying out a study now. An analysis is being made from the results of the 1971 Census to establish the extent to which matters in this field may have changed in recent years, and to show in greater detail than is known now the occupations, economic activity and hours of work of single women living in households with one or both parents. It will necessarily be some time before the results of this work are available. These will be of great value to us in defining more clearly the problems of the households concerned.
    I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn, having introduced this valuable subject, in which I know he takes a keen interest, and having had the assurance that we have taken steps in the matter, and that we firmly intend to take further steps, will feel that a valuable purpose has been served by drawing attention to this important human problem, and seek to withdraw the Clause.
    Mr. O'Malley: The House will be grateful to the hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler) for bringing this important subject before it. Everyone listened to him with great sympathy when he quoted the example of the woman moving towards middle age who gave up her job to look after an elderly father in his eighties. The Under-secretary tried to deal with the Amendment sympathetically, but this is a problem which remains basically unsolved in 1972.
    I wish that the last part of the speech of the hon. Member for King's Lynn had not been permeated by what I think was clearly an unconscious reaction, a feeling of dislike, towards members of the trade unions. [Hon. Members: "No."] Conservative Members may sound horrified, but that shone through the speech. Plenty of trade unionists are quiet, sensible people, but they tend to become not so quiet and to become angry if they are driven to it by the policies of a Government that look no further forward than the end of their noses.
    By moving the new Clause the hon. Gentleman has done the House and the single people in question, often single women, a service. The hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. McCrindle) raised another very important aspect of the subject, with

    1481
    which the whole House should have a great deal of sympathy. New Clause 8, which was not selected, attempted to deal in another way with the problem of the terminal patient. I should have thought that was the type of problem case which could be more easily helped than the general case of the single woman, for example, looking after her elderly father. Perhaps the Government could deal with that in another place. Will they consider that before the Bill receives the Royal Assent?
    12 midnight.
    The Under-Secretary of State tried to answer sympathetically, but there are a number of other matters which could be helpful. First, the hon. Gentleman mentioned the importance of local authority social services. I have heard of a number of cases in the last two or three years where people of the kind mentioned by the hon. Member for King's Lynn have needed a holiday, a week or a fortnight away. In my area we have one of the best local authority social services departments in the country and often it is able to deal with such requests. However, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will go back to his Department, fully recognising the problems which arise because of the shortage of geriatric beds, and will examine the possibility of a regional hospital board national policy to provide a small number of geriatric beds, particularly throughout the holiday season but also throughout the year, so that these people could be given some assistance. There is no reason why hon. Members should have to be approached on this kind of case as often as they are. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman's Department could help.
    The Under-Secretary of State pointed out that some payments were made to the disabled and that the Supplementary Benefits Commission could and did make some provision. The hon Gentleman said that there were more than 14,000 women who were helped in looking after elderly relatives. He also pointed out that some provision exists within the national insurance system for people who are involved in relatively short-term care of people, involving taking time off work and perhaps giving up their jobs. But, as all hon. Members realise, that is no solution. We are faced with the perennial
    1482
    problem of how far to stretch the contributory principle. It can be pushed to the point where the whole thing becomes absurd.
    There are two ways in which the problem could be resolved: first, through the national insurance system, although there are problems about the nature of the contributory system; secondly, through other changes in the overall tax benefit structure, which could result in benefits of a kind which the Chancellor of the Exchequer envisaged during his Budget speech. We look forward to a further examination at a later stage by a Select Committee of the House and then in a debate of the whole House.
    However the problem is to be solved, whether through the national insurance system being stretched even further or through a new look at the tax benefit structure, solved it must be. I hope, with the hon. Member for King's Lynn, that we shall shortly find a solution. It must be remembered that these women—more women than men are involved—are saving a great deal of public money by keeping people out of hospital beds, and they deserve well of the community. The system which we have inherited does not cope with their needs, and we must do something soon to solve the problem once and for all. We are grateful to the hon. Member for King's Lynn for moving the Clause.
    Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler: I am grateful to everyone who has spoken, particularly those who have illustrated other aspects of the problem that I was not able to cover. I am grateful also to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for answering my question and saying that we have 14,200 people in this category, most of whom will be suffering difficulties of one kind or the other as a result of the service they give voluntarily in the home.
    I have noted with interest the increasing range of facilities available to them to assist them in their task. Notwithstanding that, I think it important that the House should note that the most priceless thing they lose is their independence and their status. These are not people to whom the nation should be satisfied to dole out little handouts to keep them out of trouble. These are people who make in their own right a contribution

    1483
    to the livelihood of the nation, a contribution which my hon. Friend has recognised in speech after speech in noting the importance of having the sick accommodated at home in order to release hospital beds for other, perhaps even more deserving people.
    Perhaps in the review and in the creative thinking which is taking place in the Department, my right hon Friend would consider the possibility of giving an auxiliary status to these people and employing them even on a salary basis within the National Health Service so that they can, in one way or another, retain their employed status so that when their task—sadly often because of the death of the patient—is finished they can go out into the labour market owing no one anything and being independent people in the world.
    What these people need and what they deserve, and what I hope the House will strive to see that they gain, is their dignity. They deserve it and I think that successive Governments have perhaps not paid enough attention to the problem. Nevertheless, armed with the reassurance of my hon. Friend that the Department is actively looking at the various alternative ways of solving this very important human problem, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
    Motion and Clause, by leave withdrawn.

    Clause 5
    FINALITY OF DECISIONS
    Amendment proposed: No. 2, in page 7, line 36, at end insert:
    "(2A) Notwithstanding anything in subsection (1) or (2) above (but subject to the provisions of Part III of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1965 as to appeal and review), where for purposes of disablement benefit in respect of an accident it has been found by a medical board or medical appeal tribunal, on the determination or last determination of the disablement questions, that an injury resulted in whole or in part from the accident, then for purposes of death benefit in respect of that accident (including benefit on a death occurring before the passing of this Act) the finding shall be conclusive that the injury did so result.
    The reference in this subsection to a medical board includes a medical practitioner determining disablement questions on a reference
    1484
    under section 41 of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1965".—[Mr. Dean.]
    Amendment proposed to the proposed Amendment, to leave out "purposes of death benefit in respect" and insert:
    "any further claim or assessment arising out"—[Mr. O'Malley]
    Question, That the Amendment be made to the proposed Amendment, put and negatived.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Amendment made: No. 3, in page 8, line 5, after "accordingly", insert:

    "(a) any decision given before the passing of this Act that a claimant was not entitled to industrial death benefit may be reviewed in accordance with Part IV of the National Insurance Act 1965 to give effect to subsection (2A) above; and

    (b)"—[Mr. Dear.]

    Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading), and agreed to.
    Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

SUPPLEMENTARY BENEFIT REGULATIONS
12.10 a.m.
The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Paul Dean): I beg to move,
That the Supplementary Benefit (Determination of Requirements) Regulations 1972, a draft of which was laid before this House on 4th July, be approved.
These regulations seek to implement the changes in supplementary benefit that were briefly outlined in my right hon. Friend's statement of 22nd March and described in the White Paper published on 3rd May.
The changes include both a general increase in supplementary benefit rates and further selective improvements in the provision made for long-term beneficiaries and young non-householder claimants aged 16 to 20. They also provide for a new rate of attendance requirements where a claimant becomes entitled to the lower rate of attendance allowance, proposed in the National Insurance Bill, for the very severely disabled who need considerable care or supervision either by day or by night.
Regulation 2 deals with the main supplementary benefit increases. Under

1485
regulation 2(2), the proposed increase for a single householder is 75p taking the rate up to £6·55 a week. The married couple rate is to go up by £1·20 to £10·65 a week. These figures represent proportionate increases of 12·9 per cent. There are also proportionate increases in the rates for other adults who are not householders, young people and children. A beneficiary who is not a householder receives a standard addition for rent in recognition of his housing costs. This is being increased by regulation 2(4) from 65p to 70p a week. These increases will take effect from 2nd October. As with last year's general increase they will not only compensate for the rise in prices since the previous increase but should also provide some additional margin for the future.
These increases match the increases in national insurance benefits proposed in the National Insurance Bill. Taken together with the Government's decision to move to annual reviews of national insurance and related benefits, thereby bringing the arrangements for reviewing those benefits into line with the arrangements for reviewing supplementary benefits, the regulations will bring an end to the difficulty that used to occur at the biennial upratings of national insurance benefits when those receiving supplementary benefit got a smaller increase because they had already received part of the total increase in the previous year. As hon. Members know from personal experience, this has caused considerable and distressing misunderstanding among many of those who rely on supplementary benefit, and I am sure the whole House will welcome the end of that problem as a result of the change.
I turn to the main selective improvements. The first is an increase, under regulation 3, of l0p in the long-term addition, which is paid to all supplementary pensioners and to those under pension age—except the unemployed—who have received supplementary benefit for two years or more. The standard rate of the long-term addition is 50p and this will go up to 60p;but, as hon. Members will recall, last year we increased the amount of the addition by 25p to 75p where the claimant or his wife is aged 80 or over. This higher rate of long-term addition will also go up by l0p, from 75p to 85p a week. It is intended
1486
that this increase should not be offset against any further additions a person may need to cover special expenses. This means that although the long-term addition is being increased to 60p and 85p for those aged 80 or over, the amount taken into account in determining whether a person can be paid special additions remains unchanged at 50p and 75p respectively.
As I mentioned, where the beneficiaries have special expenses which exceed the amount of the long-term addition, these can be met by weekly special additions to their benefit under the Commission's discretionary powers. The Commission has decided to increase the amounts given for extra heating, where there is poor health and/or bad accommodation, and also for special diets where these are medically prescribed.
Mr. Robert Cooke: Much is made of this extra help for extra heating, often of very badly organised premises. Can the Commission help seal up some of the draughts which have to be heated at the national expense—which would probably be very much to the benefit of both sides?
Mr. Dean: I take my hon. Friend's point. It is not much good providing additional money if that additional money is to go to heat the street rather than the old person and the house. I assure my hon. Friend that that is one of the aspects of the heating problems of the elderly to which we are giving attention.
At present the additions for heating are 25p, 50p, and 75p, depending on the severity of the case, and these will be increased by 20 per cent. to 30p, 60p and 90p respectively. The standard additions for special diets are 35p and 77p and these will be increased by approximately 15 per cent. to 40p and 92p. These increases reflect the movement in fuel and food prices since the amounts were last fixed. They are not dealt with in the regulations because they are made under the Commission's discretionary powers. They, too, will operate from 2nd October. Pensioners who receive such special additions will receive the increases in them on top of both the l0p increase in the long-term addition and the increases in the main rates—which, of course, provide for normal heating and food requirements.

1487
I turn to the improvements for the non-household claimants aged 16 to 20. These are in Regulations 2(2) and 2(4). The other two selective improvements will benefit young people—claimants aged 16 to 20 who are non-householders, that is, those who are not directly responsible for rent and household necessities, usually because they are living in their parents' or other relatives' homes. First, non-householder claimants aged 18 to 20 who previously qualified for a lower scale rate will now receive the adult non-householder rate of £5·20 a week-hitherto given to those aged 21 or over.
This change recognises the fact that whatever may have been the case in the past there are now no good grounds for setting the needs of a non-householder aged 18 at a lower level than those of one aged 21. Their essential needs—for example, for food and clothing—and their styles of life and consequent patterns of expenditure are likely to be very similar, and the House will appreciate that this argument has particular force now that the age of majority has been lowered to 18.
Secondly, we propose that 16- and 17-year-old non-householder claimants should be eligible for the standard rent addition paid to non-householders which, as I have said, is being increased to 70p a week. This change reflects the fact that a 16- or 17-year-old who is in full-time work nowadays earns enough to make it reasonable to expect him to make some contribution to the rent if he lives in the household of a supplementary benefit claimant—and it is an obvious corollary of this that when he is out of work and receiving supplementary benefit himself he should be enabled to make a contribution to the rent likht any other claimant. I am sure hon. Members will welcome these improvements for young non-householder claimants, which will in particular help the youn unmarried mother living at home.
The other selective increase I want to mention is the new rate of attendance requirements to be found in Regulation 2(3).
Last year we provided for the new attendance allowance of £4·80 a week, paid to the very severely disabled, to be fully reflected in the Supplementary Benefits Scheme by an appropriate addi-
1488
tion to the supplementary benefit requirements where a person is entitled to the attendance allowance. We now propose to increase the amount specified for attendance requirements from £4·80 to £5·40, to match the increase proposed in the rate of attendance allowance in the National Insurance Bill. The rate of attendance allowance provides for a new lower rate of attendance requirements, of £3·60 a week, to match the new rate of attendance allowance proposed in the National Insurance Bill for severely disabled people who need a great deal of care or supervision by day or by night. The new lower rate of attendance requirements will apply to persons awarded the new rate of attendance allowance as this is introduced in phases over the period from June, 1973 to December, 1974.
I turn finally to the cost of the proposals—
Mr. Ernle Money: Will my hon. Friend deal with one specific matter? The increases he has announced represent a major breakthrough in the social services. They will allay the fears of a great many constituents, but only if the maximum publicity is given to them. Will he see that his Department gives as much publicity as possible now so that those most concerned realise what is to come in October?
Mr. Dean: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention because I can say that those who are receiving benefit at present will automatically have their benefits uprated. They will not have to take any action. But there may well be others to whom some or all of these benefits could be available were they to apply for them. We shall certainly continue our publicity campaign to see that people who are eligible for the benefits in fact receive them.
The estimated cost of the proposed increases, if they were taken on their own, would be about £156·5 million in a full year. This includes £73 million for the increase in the scale rate for the single householder and £42·7 million for the increase in the married couple scale rate. The selective improvements will cost altogether £15·9 million, of which £12 million is accounted for by the increase in the long-term addition, £2·3 million by the increases in the special additions for heating and diet and £1·6 million in the

1489
improvements for young non-householders. However it is estimated that about an extra £104·9 million in national insurance benefits will be paid in a full year to supplementary benefit claimants, with the result that the net increase in expenditure on supplementary benefits is estimated at £51·6 million in a full year.
The purpose of these Regulations is to protect the standard of living of all those who rely on supplementary benefit and to give some additional help where it is most needed. We have decided this year to concentrate on selective improvements which will benefit long-term beneficiaries, those with special needs and young claimants, rather than on improvements—such as raising the disregards in the supplementary benefits scheme—which would benefit people who already have a standard of living above the basic supplementary benefit level. The increases will help nearly 3 million people and their dependants including, nearly 2 million pensioner claimants, many thousands of the sick and disabled, widows, the unemployed, fatherless families and others who are unable to support themselves.
I commend the Regulations to the House.
12.24 p.m.
Mr. Brian O'Malley: The Under-Secretary has moved these regulations as though they were to be implemented in a vacuum, with no price increases and no problem of roaring inflation, which is affecting everyone from the wealthiest to the poorest. The fact that the Government are increasing the supplementary benefit scale rates, as they are, over the rates of both September, 1971 and November, 1970 is clear evidence of the utter failure of the central part of their policies, designed to curb the spectre of inflation and soaring prices. Although there is the increase of 12·7 per cent.—not 12·9 per cent. as the hon. Gentleman suggested, although maybe I have my mathematics wrong—from £9·45 to £10·65 for a husband and wife, there is the prospect that by the autumn of 1973 the supplementary benefit recipient will be worse off, not only in comparison with the working population but absolutely worse off compared with three years previously.
For example, last year—and the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Money) should
1490
examine the situation before he expresses surprise—during the debate on similar regulations which brought in the increase in September, 1971, I said, as reported at column 840 of Hansard for 17th June, that over the period from November, 1970, to October, 1972, which is when the new rates come into operation, there could be an increase in food prices of 16 per cent. or more, and I invited the Minister to comment, just as the Under-Secretary invited David Ennals to comment when he was in the hon. Gentleman's position. Not only did the hon. Gentleman not comment, but he implied that it was unlikely to happen because the Government were getting a grip of the situation.
The movement in food prices over that period has been not 16 per cent., but on my calculation rather over 16 per cent. These increases in the general scale rates of supplementary benefit are being made against a background of soaring food prices and a soaring increase in the general price index.
Mr. Money: Does not the hon. Gentleman think it a little grotty to make this kind of political speech when the Labour Government did nothing for people over 80 and did not introduce the annual pensions review?
Mr. O'Malley: The hon. Gentleman is entering into debates of this type too late. We have just had a full debate on the National Insurance Bill. Is not the hon. Gentleman sorry that in opposition his party took the attitude which it did towards the National Superannuation Bill, which reorganised and brought up to dale the superannuation structure?
Mr. Patrick Cormack: Oh!
Mr. O'Malley: It is no good the hon. Gentleman making noises. I will take such noises from the Under-Secretary of State because he understood the scheme, but when other occupants of the Government Front Bench, who are alleged to know something about these matters, say that they did not understand it, I find it hard to believe that the hon. Member for Cannock (Mr. Cormack), who was not even a Member then, is competent to pass a judgment on the scheme.
Mr. Money: Does not the right hon. Gentleman believe that it is a major

1491
breakthrough for the Government to have achieved an annual review of pensions for the old-age pensioners and introduced pensions for people over 80 years of age?
Mr. O'Malley: The hon. Gentleman should realise that the breakthrough has been against the Government. His was the party which, when in office, refused, not once, but three times, to accept an annual review, and it was forced into introducing one only when inflation became so rampant as a result of its policies that it had no choice. I made absolutely clear the position of the Labour Party on the question of people over 80 years of age during our debates in 1970, and I recommend the hon. Gentleman to look at what I said then.
It is not only a case of soaring food prices and enormous increases in the price indexes, and not only have we had, taking the period 1970–72, a degree of inflation unprecedented almost in the twentieth century, but the increase in average earnings between September, 1971, and April, 1972, has been over 1 per cent. a month—about 1·03 or 1·04 per cent. Unless the man on average earnings feels that he will receive elementary justice on rents, housing, price levels, this kind of situation and pressures are bound to continue. Everybody, except a few speculators, suffers in an inflationary position, but in a situation of rampant inflation it is the poorest in the community who suffer most—and the poorest are those who depend on supplementary benefit.
What is sad about the situation is that as the hon. Gentleman announces these increases, which are being swallowed up day by day and week by week by price increases, they are matched by increases in the number of people who are on these basic minimum standards. There are now nearly 2,500,000 retirement pensioners, and we shall face a problem in this respect until we get a better scheme into the 1980s. Not only is there an increase in the total number of supplementary pensions for retirement pensioners, but the number of people receiving supplementary allowances has gone up by nearly 150,000. Indeed, nearly a million people receive supplementary allowances, and the number is growing year by year.
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I turn to a number of specific points which have been dealt with by the hon. Gentleman. The Opposition are grateful that the Government have consolidated the rates payable to persons of 18 years of age and over. I raised this subject in the debate last year and this step will be welcomed.
Similarly, I raised from these benches last year the question of the long-term addition, and we note with approval that the sum has been increased from 50p to 60p, and from 75p to 85p for men and women over 80. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would say whether that l0p covers the general movement of price levels and the value of money since the last time the disregard was increased.
Mr. Dean: The short answer is yes.
Mr. O'Malley: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman.
The hon. Gentleman was right to say that one very useful feature of an annual review rather than a biennial review is that it removes the permanent grievance felt by retirement pensioners that their entitlement to supplementary benefit has been stolen from them because of the way in which the system has worked in the past under biennial rating. It has always been difficult to explain the situation to pensioners and it is therefore right that the situation has been changed.
The hon. Gentleman said that in assessing entitlement for heating allowance the Supplementary Benefits Commission would take into account only the old long-term additions of 50p and 75p rather than the 60p and 85p. I welcome anything that will help elderly people, but it becomes too complicated for a pensioner to understand if he is told that he will get 60p but will be treated as though he is getting only 50p. Each complication means that fewer people understand what they are getting and increases the administrative costs.
After the strong representations made from both sides of the House in the debate just before Christmas last year about the level of heating allowances, I am disappointed that the Government have been able to do so little. A far better and more appropriate solution would have been for heating allowances

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to be given automatically to elderly supplementary benefit recipients without taking into account the long-term addition. Large numbers of pensioners are able to afford only inadequate heating during the winter, as a result of which some die from hypothermia. While I welcome anything that helps the recipients of supplementary benefit, I feel that the Government have not done enough here and that there is a case for an automatic heating allowance, particularly for pensioners.
12.38 p.m.
Mr. Ernle Money: It is a pity, in view of the enforced absence of the national Press tomorrow, that the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) has had to waste his party points on the barrenness of the empty benches behind him. I echo him in congratulating my hon. Friend on producing a feeling among pensioners that the measure will bring them something effective rather than something which will be eaten up by possible price increases.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Supplementary Benefit (Determination of Requirements) Regulations 1972, a draft of which was laid before this House on 4th July, be approved.
ADJOURNMENT
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Jopling.]

WHITEHALL AND PARLIAMENT SQUARE
12.39 a.m.
Mr. Robert Cooke: One does not have to be a member of the institute for psychic research to come to the conclusion that we are not going to hear very much, if anything, from the Government tonight. However, that will be nothing new, because my hon. Friend's predecessor at the Dispatch Box was not able to say very much in a similar debate months ago.
I was amazed to find that the rules of order allow one to raise on the Adjournment the same subject virtually any number of times in any Session pro-
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vided one can win the Ballot. So—who knows?—perhaps in the end we shall be lucky and get some answers, but I think that we need not be too depressed even if we are not able to get anything by way of answer tonight because that will be a good sign that nothing rash will be done. It was Lord Melbourne, I think, who said that when everybody was saying something must be done one could be sure that in those circumstances someone was going to do something silly. No one can accuse this Government of doing anything silly in respect of Parliament Square and Whitehall.
It would also be true to say that they have not done precisely nothing, because they have done a marvellous job in cleaning up a good many buildings under sentence of death or subject to ministerial pronouncements not long ago. That is the first question to be answered tonight: how much has been spent on cleaning and, to use the fashionable Americanism, the refurbishment of all those buildings?
Mr. Ernle Money Mr. Ernle Money (Ipswich) rose—
Mr. Cooke: I will give way to my hon. Friend once, so let him please say all in one go.
Mr. Money: I was wondering whether my hon. Friend would agree with one other saying of that noble Lord who was a former Prime Minister, when he said, "Heaven help the Government who meddle with art".
Mr. Cooke: I am delighted to have support from the Arnolfini from Ipswich, and I hope that with that he will rest content.
I am very pleased to see here my hon. Friends the Members for Ludlow (Mr. More), Cannock (Mr. Cormack), Maidstone (Mr. John Wells) and Hertfordshire, South-West (Sir Gilbert Longden) because I know that they will likely want to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and if the Minister has not go very much to say perhaps they may all have a chance—and also, perhaps, my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling), who is pretty active on the Treasury Bench.
To get back to this vital matter—and it is vital—of the Willis inquiry, it has been a very long time since the inquiry took place and a lot of people would like

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to know what the Government's conclusions are on this. We are not going to be told tonight. However, I have a Question down to the Secretary of State on Wednesday of this week, and I give notice that this Wednesday and every Wednesday till further notice I shall have the same Question to put till he feels like answering it.
I know his difficulties because the Prime Minister the other day told us that a great study was going on about dispersal of the Civil Service, and it will not now be laid, as we had thought, by the summer holidays, perhaps not even by the Christmas holidays.
But this is really what it is all about: one has to know how many bodies one has to accommodate before making a decision on how many important buildings are under sentence of death or worse.
I would put it to the Government that there could be a better way of going about things, and to go the other way and decide which buildings we will keep and then decide how many bodies one can agreeably accommodate in them, because the laws which Professor Parkinson and others have described in some detail suggest that the more buildings there are the more people there will be in them, and the more people there are the more buildings will be needed. I would suggest that it would be better to decide how and which buildings we should keep and then see how many people we can say must fit into those buildings.
There has been the suggestion that the Foreign Office, the Home Office, and the whole of the Treasury building would have to go—
Mr. Money: Shame. Scandalous.
Mr. Cooke: My hon. Friend who is vociferous on this merely echoes the sentiments of millions of British subjects and millions of visitors from abroad. Richmond Terrace and New Scotland Yard are also threatened. Of course, it was Sir Leslie Martin who designed that dramatic ant heap of bureaucrats which covered the whole of the end of Whitehall, and much else besides.
We are not going to hear anything on that this evening, but I hope that my hon. Friend will give us some more information when he tells us how much it cost
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to clean all these buildings, and the Government might at least show that they are prepared to reconsider the matter. I hope they can go as far as that tonight.
Some people would say that Parliament really is going beyond its proper function in interesting itself in its surroundings at all, and that that is a matter for city planners and the rest, but I think we have reason enough to take an interest in our immediate surroundings when we look across the river and see the travesty of architecture which will be St. Thomas's Hospital. Anyone who has been in this House a year of two will remember the great number of schemes for St. Thomas's Hospital which have been shown to us at various times. Not one of those is now taking shape. That building looking like a pile of concrete dinner plates which the GLC is building between St. Thomas's and County Hall is, to say the least, a controversial one. There is one hope, in that if we got the European Parliament here we could pull down the whole lot and put a European Parliament building over there. One of our national leaders said to me if that happened we could move into the new building and the European Parliament could have this one. For anyone who is as great a European as this leading statesman to have made that remark shows a surprising lack of Europeanism, for no European Parliament could survive long in this building. But a European Parliament building on the other side of the river would clean up the landscape considerably.
To come back to this building and to Parliament Square, I have talked about dispersal, and here the nigger in the woodpile—if one may use the phrase without offending the Race Relations Board—is the Home Office. It is the odds and ends or general assistance Department. It will go on growing so long as someone fails to set a limit to it. What we must do is decide what is essential for the Home Office to have close to Downing Street in Whitehall, and send the rest of it to Stevenage, Stonehenge, or elsewhere. The one Department of State which must be close to Downing Street is the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. That is the one significant Department of State that we have left if we are to mean anything in Europe and the world in general. But to a large degree the Home Office can be dispersed.

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There is a controversial building which might help in all this, if it were not so unpopular. That is the Queen Anne's Mansions proposal. In its present form that building is a great, glowering mass. However, Sir Basil Spence is a great enough architect to take note of the equally looming public criticism of the building, and I feel sure that he could be persuaded to redesign the top of it so that it was made less offensive. I say that much in support of having an office building there. If we do not have one, we shall not be able to save some of the older buildings which we should all like to see survive.
I make one plea for demolition. It is that the Government make no further move to build a conference centre on the Broad Sanctuary site. That should be left open. The Government should commit themselves to not allowing any further development or rebuilding of any of those institutions beginning with the Chartered Surveyors' along George Street opposite the Treasury. They are a collection of architectural junk, and the landscape would be improved greatly if they were swept away altogether. One could have a greater and finer Parliament Square prospect if the whole of it were cleared so that it was possible to see the whole of Bryden's Treasury from the centre of the square, leaving Middlesex Guildhall, which is a notable and interesting building, on an island site.
However, it would not be a traffic island if I had my way. I feel that it ought to be possible to clear the whole square of traffic in due course. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will be able to say what the Government have been able to do recently in their discussions with various interested bodies to get a step further towards clearing Parliament Square of heavy through traffic and eventually of traffic altogether. If my hon. Friend has not much to report in that direction, perhaps he will agree that the Department of the Environment, the GLC and the Westminster City Council should meet before the House reassembles in the autumn to see what further can be done, and report to us in the House if we give him an opportunity to do so.
There are other buildings surrounding the square that I might mention. Surely it is time that we got rid of the corrugated iron roof on Westminster Abbey.
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We know the difficulties. But there is hope here since we were told the other night that Historic Buildings Council money is to be increased greatly and that the Church of England and the other churches are not averse to accepting some for those buildings which are national monuments. Certainly the Abbey is one of them, and it is largely given over to tourism. It is not a place of worship for much of its time. Surely we should see to it that at least that part of the Abbey which is on view to the public in the square is cleaned up. St. Margaret's, Westminster, which achitecturally is most undistinguished outside, could do with a great deal of work on it. Now that the trees have been cut down, it does not show up in a very good light. I hope my hon. Friend will give some thought to that.
Abbey House, which is not a very beautiful building, is to be rebuilt, fortunately not by a nationally known achitect. Therefore, perhaps we may get some quiet, unobtrusive redevelopment at this end of Victoria Street.
I hope we shall see Central Hall cleaned up, and Middlesex Guildhall could do with cleaning as well as the Abbey.
The people who own these buildings have their difficulties. Perhaps there should be a penalty for the rich to make them clean their buildings and for the poor they should be helped with a certain amount of public money.
I believe the Church Commissioners fine building was threatened by the Martin scheme. I hope there are no plans to demolish it, because it encloses the view on that side.
I mentioned traffic. I hope it will not be forgotten that the House of Commons is making its contribution. The underground car park which is being excavated in New Palace Yard could be linked with many other underground car parks and roads to get rid of a lot of the service as opposed to the heavy through traffic.
I must break off for a moment to mention the proposed new parliamentary building. There will no doubt be a debate in the House, but I do not envisage it taking place before November. Certainly there will not be time before we go away for a brief Summer Recess.

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There will be work to do when we come back and pressing matters to attend to. Therefore, I cannot see this domestic matter—that is the way the House looks at it—being dealt with in debate much before November.
In view of the reception which the winning design has received and the much qualified approval which the Select Committee gave to it—I am a member of that Committee so I followed it with great interest—will my hon. Friend ask his right hon. Friend—I am sure there is no technical difficulty—to commission a number of other sketch designs which might occupy that important site? It would not delay matters one bit if the House was given a number of other designs to look at alongside the winning design from the architectural competition. If the House decided to proceed with the winning design it would create no delay at all. If the House decided that one of the other sketch designs was worth exploring further, it would delay matters; but, looking at it as a percentage of the time necessary to clear the site and get it built and occupied, it would not be very long.
I do not want to go into the details of the Select Committee's Report, but I hope the House will pay attention to the Amendment, supported by five members of the Committee, which appears on page IX, which sets out in detail the reservations which the Royal Fine Art Commission, the GLC, the Westminster City Council and the Minister for Housing and Construction had about the appearance of the building. I believe the appearance of this new parliamentary building is of paramount importance. It is far more important than whether it is domestically convenient for those who are to use it. Any building when finished, if it takes 10 years to build, will be out of date on the inside. However, the outside appearance, which may be there for a century, will be seen by millions. The Committee, on the whole, was not so happy with the exterior appearance of the building. I believe much could be done to improve the winning design, and we should also have alternatives to look at.
My hon. Friend will probably recall that one of the great things about the Duke of Wellington was that he understood the technique of the use of the
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reverse slope: that one had one's forces concealed behind the crest of the hill and they were ready if needed. Hon. Members who are here now may be regarded as personifying the Duke of Wellington, but there are plenty of forces on the other side of the hill who can be marched into battle as soon as may be. Whitehall is the most historic street in London, Parliament Square is the heart of the Commonwealth, and both could be enhanced by some courageous decisions taken after the careful thought which must now be taking place in Government circles. We can contain our impatience a little longer if the final result is worthy of this immensely important site and if the final result is worthy of this immensely civilised Government.
I imagine that my right hon. Friend is not here tonight because he has still not achieved agreement with his many right hon. Friends whose Departments are concerned and interested, but I hope that it will not be long before he can stand at the Dispatch Box and unfold his grand design for Parliament Square and Whitehall.
12.56 p.m.
The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Reginald Eyre): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke) for his informed and learned speech on this subject. I hope that he will forgive me for having risen to reply now, but the length of his speech requires me to give certain answers and I require time for that.
My hon. Friend's concern and knowledge about the enhancing of the Whitehall area has won wide respect. I was grateful to him for the complimentary reference which he made to the stone cleaning work which is being carried out. This work will do more to transform Whitehall than anything done in the last 50 years. Work has now been completed on the Old Public Offices, Horse Guards and the Old Admiralty Building. A good start has been made on Bryden's Government offices, and I should like to tell my hon. Friend that the total cost of the present programme of stone cleaning in Whitehall and central London is £500,000.
I cannot answer all my hon. Friend's questions, but he raised the matter of

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Queen Anne's Mansions. My colleagues and I are considering the criticisms that have been made of the design and bulk of the proposed new Queen Anne's Mansions building in the light of the fact that planning permission was given for it in April, 1969, after the previous Administration had decided not to intervene.
My hon. Friend raised the matter of traffic in Parliament Square. The House will recall that the original concept of the Martin-Buchanan plan was a traffic-free precinct around Parliament Square. This was to be achieved by a north-south tunnel taking embankment traffic along the river fronting the Palace of Westminster, and by an east-west route based on a widening and straightening of Horse-ferry Road. This latter proposal was rejected after careful consideration because the cost and the amount of property demolition required would be prohibitive.
I know that the House attaches importance to a satisfactory solution of the traffic problem, particularly in Bridge Street, and my right hon. Friend hopes shortly to submit to the Services Committee a further report by a working party composed of experts from the local authorities and his own Department on the road problem. I should not, however, like to encourage any hopes of a quick or easy solution.
Mr. Robert Cooke: I hope that the intention is not merely to widen Bridge Street to let more traffic through.
Mr. Eyre: I cannot add to what I have said, but my hon. Friend will be glad to know that this study is proceeding and the proposals will shortly be submitted to the Services Committee.
I know that my hon. Friend is familiar with some of the more recent background to this subject which stems largely from the acceptance in 1965 by the previous Administration of the Martin-Buchanan Report on the future of Whitehall. Sir Leslie Martin made his report on the assumption that the whole of Whitehall south of Downing Street and Richmond Terrace would be cleared, and that he would also be allowed a fairly free hand in the Parliament Square and Millbank areas. It was apparent that Sir Leslie's scheme would take many years to implement, and initially work was set in hand for only three of the stages which he suggested might be adopted—the new
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parliamentary building on the Bridge Street site, the new Government offices on the Richmond Terrace-New Scotland Yard site and the redevelopment of Broad Sanctuary.
Following the Martin report it was announced that a Commonwealth architectural competition would be held for the design of the parliamentary extension. My right hon. Friend announced on 10th December that the winning design had been selected by the distinguished panel of assessors but that he was postponing, on their advice, making an announcement and publishing their report until the seven final stage designs with appropriate models could be exhibited in a way which enabled the layman to appreciate the competing designs. As is known, this exhibition was held in Westminster Hall in March and was visited by 14,000 people.
The Services Committee have now made their report on the winning design and the next step will be for the House to consider the report. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State fully appreciates the importance of harmonising any redevelopment of the neighbouring sites with the design that the House selects for the parliamentatry extension. I shall certainly ask my right hon. Friend to consider the suggestion by my hon. Friend tonight.
The plans of the former Ministry of Public Building and Works to clear the Richmond Terrace-New Scotland Yard site completely and erect an office building to house 4,000 staff were already well advanced when public opposition to the demolition of historic buildings led the previous Administration to hold a public inquiry into the proposals. The inspector, Mr. Harold Willis, QC, reported his findings on 30th November, 1970, and I recognise that we have not been quick in reaching a decision—rightly so, in my opinion, for whatever we do here will affect this key area of London for at least a century.
At the inquiry emphasis was laid on the need to preserve the historic buildings on the site. Arguments of this kind are never easy to resolve, and in this case the implications on the machinery of government and my right hon. Friend's responsibilities for housing civil servants essentially required to serve in Whitehall add to the complexities. Due attention must

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also be given to the amenities and facilities to be provided for tourists. In short, Mr. Willis' report raises many aspects which have implications beyond the immediate treatment of the site itself.
When Sir Leslie Martin made his report his recommendations called into question the proposed treatment of the Government's vacant Broad Sanctuary site. The intention had been to erect offices and a small conference centre on the site. Sir Leslie, however, considered that the area should be redeveloped comprehensively and that an appropriate use for the site would be one major building of international significance. As a result a public inquiry was held by Sir Robert Matthew in 1966. In accepting his main recommendations in 1967 the Government announced that the area would be re-planned comprehensively in consultation with the local authorities and with the institutions which already occupy part of the site to provide a government conference centre and new headquarters for the institutions.
Broad Sanctuary, however, is closely related to the southern end of Whitehall and the Government consider it essential that they should look comprehensively at the whole area. My right hon. Friend therefore decided that planning in consultation with the institutions should be suspended pending the outcome of the decisions on the southern end of Whitehall. But, whatever plan is adopted for the redevelopment of this area, there is no reason why the Middlesex Guildhall should be demolished since the building is worthy of preservation. Hon. Members have made very clear their views on that.
Public opinion may well have superseded the recommendations of earlier reports. It is possible, for instance, that the principle of cleared sites on which Sir Leslie Martin worked would no longer be generally acceptable. Sir Robert Matthew's recommendation that there should be a comprehensive development in Broad Sanctuary, although this would front closely on to the Abbey and Bryden's new Government offices, may not find favour nowadays. The Government accept that the development of these areas is interrelated and we are looking at the problems together. There would be no guarantee, however, that a fresh study on the lines of Martin's would not
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also fall victim to changing public tastes, and therefore the delay which a further study would cause would not be justified.
I am afraid that I cannot give the House more definite information about the future of Whitehall at this time. I am sure that the debate has advanced our thinking on Whitehall, and my right hon. Friend will take note of points which my hon. Friend has raised. I am sure hon. Members will agree that it is better to take time to reach the right decision rather than make the wrong decision in haste.
1.4 a.m.
Mr. John Wells: I should like to put four points very quickly to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State.
First, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke) was absolutely right when he castigated the pile of plates being put up by the GLC on the roundabout near that charming public house called "The Pill Box". Until this horrible thing went up, every visitor approaching London from Kent up the Old Kent Road had a superb view of Big Ben, and if I was late at least I knew the time. Now it is impossible due to that nauseating pile of plates.
Secondly, one of my hon. Friends who is a junior Minister in another Department gave me a most unsatisfactory and untruthful answer when I asked him in a Written Question whether he would take steps to stop the traffic turning into the Government offices from Great George Street because it adds to the traffic congestion. I apologise for having forgotten which of my hon. Friends it was. He said that in his view it did not add to the congestion. The chap can never have been in Great George Street in his life.
Thirdly, some years ago one of my hon. Friend's predecessors promised faithfully that those nauseating, bossy little notices spattered about the area saying "Keep off the grass" would be removed. Their only useful purposes are for dogs to lift their legs against and lazy gardeners to cut badly around, leaving a nasty little tuft of grass which the dogs make worse. I hope that my hon. Friend will take steps to honour his predecessor's pledge.
Fourthly, in the far distant past this honourable House met up and down the land, at Gloucester, Oxford, York—all over the place.
Mr. Jasper More: And Acton Burnell.
Mr. Wells: Maybe. Anyway, this honourable House met up and down the land and conducted its business in those days with honour, dignity and efficiency. Today we proliferate. We get more wages, more secretaries and more free travel, yet we are no more use to the nation, the Commonwealth or the world than our worthy predecessors were. The sooner the new building is quashed, the better.
1.6 a.m.
Mr. Patrick Cormack: It is about time we had a proper answer on Richmond Terrace and New Scotland Yard. It would be an act of monumental folly to destroy those wonderful buildings. It would also be an act of monumental folly to allow the terrible piece of ugliness proposed to go across the road from
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this House. It is not necessary. If the policy of dispersal referred to by my hon. Friend is put into practice, we might put a few Members into the Treasury and sent the Treasury to Milton Keynes. That would serve a more useful purpose. I urge that something shall be done to prevent that grotesque monstrosity going up. I once quoted to my hon. Friend something said by Lord Clark, that one judges the spirit of an age not by the speeches of the Minister of Housing but by the buildings that go up in his time. We could have a marvellous exception to prove the rule if my right hon. Friend could say once and for all. "That thing shall not pass".
Mr. Money: And no more Marsham Streets.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at seven minutes past One o'clock.