Clause 10

HC Deb 15 June 1972 vol 838 cc1939-56

ABOLITION OF OBLIGATION TO SUSPEND CERTAIN SENTENCES AND REDUCTION IN MAXIMUM PERIOD OF SUSPENSION

Mr. Dell

I beg to move Amendment No. 17, in page 8, line 15, leave out 'cease to have effect' and insert: 'have effect subject to the following proviso: That the Court need not make an order under section 39(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1967 where the offender has at any time before the commission of the offence been sentenced to any custodial sentence or has three or more previous convictions for an indictable offence'. I should have preferred to speak to Amendment No. 16. However, I suspected that it would not be selected, because it is identical with an Amendment that I moved in Committee. For that reason, I sought to table an Amendment which achieved at any rate something of the same effect. In fact, this Amendment represents a compromise between the position that I took up in Committee and that of the Minister of State.

In Committee, I discussed this matter at some length, and I attempted to make two points. The first was that the mandatory provision of Section 39(3) of the Criminal Justice Act, 1967, should be retained and not repealed as it is by Clause 10(1). I also made the point that the O'Keefe decision should be enacted. That second point received support from both sides of the Committee, and that is achieved by Amendment No. 18, which we shall be discussing shortly. The first of my points has not been accepted.

In Committee, I argued on the basis of the facts known at the time and on the basis of the arguments which had been put forward by the Secretary of State and the Minister of State in favour of abolishing the mandatory provision. I also argued what might be described as a point of philosophy, namely, that it is not wrong that the discretion of the court should be restricted if a clearly valuable objective is being achieved by so doing.

Since the debates in Committee additional information has become available. It was admitted at the time of those debates that the probable immediate consequence of the Government's decision would bean increase in prison receptions and consequently in the prison population, but since then certain new facts have become available.

One such fact to which I should refer is that the Howard League, having considered the matter, has come to the conclusion that the mandatory provision should not be abolished. But in addition we have a further memorandum from the Home Office on this question—a memorandum issued last month—for which I am grateful. It is a valuable contribution to the discussion of this subject, and I hope that the Home Office will find some way of publishing it shortly in accessible form.

The essential and most valuable point in the second memorandum is a study of a sample of 1,000 persons given suspended sentences in the first quarter of 1968—a study of their past and of their future—and it is largely as a consequence of that memorandum that I have moved the Amendment in this form.

The memorandum shows, first, that offenders falling within the mandatory categories have a relatively low rate of breach. It shows, secondly, that first offenders given suspended sentences have a very low rate of breach, as one would expect—11 per cent.—and one may wonder what the Government think they are doing by increasing the opportunity of the courts to send such first offenders, with such a low rate of breach, to prison, bearing in mind not just the undesirability of so doing, but the present condition of our prisons.

Thirdly—and this leads to the form of the Amendment—the study showed that there were two groups within the mandatory categories in respect of which the rate of breach was high, and what I am doing in the Amendment is saying, "Let us keep the mandatory category where it has clearly achieved the objects for which it was constituted, but cut out of it those two specific groups specified in the Amendment where the rate of breach is high. I put that to the Government as a compromise between the position which they take up and the position which I take up. After all, this information is the result of Home Office research. What is the point of Home Office research unless one learns from it and takes action in accordance with what it shows?

That is the reason why my Amendment is in this form but I say again, as is so often said by backbenchers when they move Amendments, that if the Government have some other or better way of achieving the main object of retaining the mandatory principle I should be delighted to accept their proposal.

Ever since the first memorandum it has been clear—or at any rate clear enough for even the Home Office to accept it—that the result of repeal would be an immediate increase in imprisonment and that the future could not be forecast. In Committee I asked what conceivable justification there could be for taking such a course deliberately and knowingly when there was no evidence at all—and the Minister presented no evidence to the Committee—that any substantial harm had been done by the mandatory provision.

But perhaps I am being unfair to some extent in saying that the Minister decided on this course deliberately and knowingly, because what I observe is that at the time the Bill was introduced, at the time when it received its Second Reading, and even at the time when we were debating it in Committee, the information contained in the sample of 1,000 offenders given suspended sentences was not available to Ministers. They did not know what that information was and they could not learn from it. Perhaps they now have it available and will learn from it, and will draw back from a course which can have monstrous consequences.

The Home Office must have some idea what increase in imprisonment will follow from the repeal of the mandatory provisions. It must have that idea if only for administrative reasons. It must have attempted to estimate what increase in receptions our overcrowded prisons will have to cope with. It must have some idea about that, just as I believe it must have some estimate of the extent to which the prison population is less at present than it would have been if the mandatory category had not existed. I believe that the extent to which the prison population is less at present may be a figure approaching 1,000.

My main question is, what does the Home Office estimate that the increase in prison receptions will be as a result of the abolition of the mandatory categories? I asked that question of the hon. and learned Gentleman yesterday, giving him a final chance to say what he could on this subject. The memorandum says that it would be hard to make an estimate. The hon. and learned Gentleman's answer yesterday was that no such estimate could usefully be made.

I believe that an estimate can be made and that a figure of 2,000 for the increase in prison receptions is credible. I have asked the Howard League for its view of this figure as a possible increase in prison receptions resulting from the abolition of the mandatory categories, and it permits me to say that it finds that figure entirely credible.

I want to explain to the hon. and learned Gentleman why I find that figure credible. If he sees any fault in my reasoning, perhaps he will interrupt me and point it out. We know that in 1970 about 34,000 persons were given suspended sentences. From the sample of 1,000 persons given suspended sentences in the first quarter of 1968, which is described in the memorandum as being reasonably representative of men given suspended sentences, we know that 42.5 per cent. of those persons fell within the mandatory categories. That would suggest that of the 34,000 given a suspended sentence in 1970, about 14,000 would have been within the mandatory categories.

One has some check on this figure in addition to what the memorandum provides us with. Mr. Richard Sparks, in an article published in the "Criminal Law Review" last year, made an estimate, with rather less information than is now available, that probably the majority of suspended sentences passed in magistrates courts would be within the mandatory categories. That would put a slightly larger figure than 14,000 on it. But 14,000 is enough for my purpose. I say that, on the basis of the memorandum, which is described as reasonably representative, it is probable that 14,000 fell within the mandatory categories.

2.0 a.m.

The question is: would these 14,000 who in 1970 were within the mandatory categories now be given a suspended sentence on a discretionary basis or would any of them be sent to immedate imprisonment and, if so, how many?

One comfort that we cannot take is that as a result of the abolition of the mandatory provision any of these 14,000 would have been given probation, as they might have been before the suspended sentence system was introduced. The Secretary of State tried to argue on Second Reading that this might be the consequence of the abolition of the mandatory provision. The first memorandum on this subject issued by the Home Office completely rejected that argument as being not worthy of serious consideration.

How many of these 14,000 would have been given discretionary sentences, and how many immediate imprisonment if the law had been as the Government now propose to make it? There are many difficult considerations involved in trying to make an assessment of that position. The Bill makes certain minor improvements. Clause 13 is a general discouragement to the use of imprisonment. There is the intention to enact O'Keefe, which may have a small beneficial effect. There is the inclination of the courts not to imprison where they think it possible not to do so. There is also the fact that the Magistrates' Association has been pressing very hard for the repeal of the mandatory provision. Therefore, presumably magistrates will use their additional discretion when they get it.

Against that background, it would be reasonable to believe that 85 per cent. of these 14,000 would have been given a discretionary suspended sentence and only 15 per cent. to immediate imprisonment. That 15 per cent. produces an increase of 2,000 prison receptions in one year. That makes the figure of 2,000 entirely crediible. Fifteen per cent. is a figure. We might choose another figure. It might be less or more. I do not know what figure the Home Office has chosen, but clearly if it were a higher percentage the figure would be higher.

One can make various checks on the credibility of a figure of that order. One can compare it with the fall between 1967 and 1968 in the numbers of prisoners received into prison under sentence without the option of a fine, which might give some guide as to the effect of the introduction of the suspended prison sentence. That was a figure of 8,000. In addition to the 8,000, there would have been some who, though given suspended sentence at the beginning of 1968, had already breached by the end of it. Therefore, I conclude that 2,000 is reasonable against that check.

Another check which can be made is the fall in the population of open prisons between 1967 and 1968. I make that check because Mr. Richard Sparks suggests that one of the consequences of the introduction of the mandatory provision was a marked fall in the population of open prisons. Putting it against that fall, the figure of 2,000 seems credible.

A further stage in the argument is that offenders within the mandatory category also have a breach rate, and a set-off would have to be made against that. The breach rate is about 33⅓ per cent. If the Government imagine that magistrates have a peculiar capacity to identify offenders coming before them who are likely to have a high breach rate, the Government are imagining more than the evidence provides. Even if we allow for that and say that the magistrates are particularly wise in that respect, the Minister of State will find that it does not make all that difference.

Suppose that the rate were 50 per cent. We know that there is an 80 per cent, implementation rate. If there were 2,000 additional receptions, in the short run there would be a permanent running figure of about 1,200 additional receptions. If we pushed up the figure from 15 per cent. to 20 per cent., we might say that if there were 3,000 initially, there would be a running additional figure of 1,800. It does not make all that difference. It is a substantial increase in the prison receptions following from the abolition of the mandatory categories.

I am against the abolition of the mandatory categories, quite independently of these figures. I was arguing against the abolition of the mandatory provision even when I was not aware of these figure, because I saw that it would increase the prison receptions, and might increase them substantially as I suggested in my Second Reading speech.

Having seen these figures, I am even more alarmed than I was on Second Reading. If figures of this order are right, or if anything like them is right, or if half of them is right, there is nothing else in the Bill that could possibly compensate for a decision of this sort by the House to increase the prison population.

The Government should draw back from this decision. They should decide that the mandatory categories should be retained. They have fulfilled a useful purpose in keeping people out of prison when there was no public benefit in their going into prison. There is no justification for adding this new group of prisoners to our overcrowded prisons. I hope that the Government will think again.

Mr. Grieve

I hope that the House will forgive me if even at this late hour I rise to express as shortly and succinctly as I can my entire dissent both from the proposed Amendment and the arguments with which the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) supported the proposed Amendment. I say that in the fullest possible recognition of the obvious sincerity of the right hon. Member in adducing his arguments.

I go back to the Act of 1967. I recollect serving on the Committee at that time and foreseeing the harm which I believed would result, which I am now convinced has resulted, from this fetter upon the discretion of the courts.

Fetters of this kind upon the discretion of the courts usually result in putting the courts in the position of not being able to do justice in cases in the public interest when they should be able to do so. I appreciate that at the time—this is really the gravamen of the right hon. Gentleman's argument—it was thought that this was a way of dealing with overcrowding in prisons. Of course, we must face the fact that overcrowding in prisons is a grave social evil. However, the way to tackle that overcrowding is not to refrain from sending people to prison if their cases merit that they should be sent to prison and the public interest demands that they should be sent to prison, but to provide more up-to-date prisons and more prison accommodation.

As a result of the mandatory suspended sentence provided for in the 1967 Act the courts found themselves faced again and again with the position—I speak with experience, having sat as a recorder and deputy chairman of quarter sessions throughout this period—that they were unable to send to prison persons who had committed offences for which, in the public interest, they thought imprisonment was the appropriate punishment. This was particularly so in cases not of theft or dishonesty, but of vandalism.

The House will recall that not so long ago there was a grave outbreak of damage to telephones throughout the country which not only resulted in inconvenience to the public, but, in many cases, in actual danger to the public when the telephones could not be used. The courts found themselves inhibited from sending to short sentences of imprisonment persons who had committed that kind of vandalism.

I have no hesitation in suggesting that the best way of achieving justice in our courts is to leave to them the most complete discretion, subject to the normal maxima.

If it be objected that there should be some check in the magistrates' courts, I suggest that check lies by way of appeal. Anyone sentenced in a magistrates' court can appeal against his sentence to quarter sessions, or now to the Crown Court, so such sentences are subject to review.

I listened with interest to the figures which the right hon. Member for Birkenhead, as it were, conjured up—I do not use that expression in a derogatory sense—to show to what extent more people might be sent to prison as a result of the removal of the mandatory suspended sentence. I thought there was an element of speculation in those figures which entirely vitiated any reliance which could possibly be put upon them. The argument adduced was not unlike that of the medieval schoolmen who devoted long hours to deciding how many angels could stand upon the head of a pin.

I submit that the House is not assisted—

Mr. Dell

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Mr. Grieve

In a few moments, certainly. I submit that the House is not assisted by speculation of that kind.

I go back to the point I made initially. Even if the removal of the mandatory suspended sentence results in some increase in the prison population, if that increase is in the public interest in that the imposition of short prison sentences in certain circumstances may be right, then the increase must be provided for by building more prison accommodation.

I willingly give way to the right hon. Gentleman now.

Mr. Dell

I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman. Is he aware that two memoranda produced by the Home Office have stated that there will be some immediate increase in prison receptions, and hence in prison population, as a result of this decision? I should be delighted if the Home Office said that its estimate—I am sure it has made an estimate—is so different from mine as to leave me with a great deal less anxiety about the practical consequences of this decision. I am sure the Home Office has made an estimate, and we should be told what it is.

Mr. Grieve

I cannot answer for the Home Office. I have no doubt my hon. and learned Friend will do so very shortly. It seems to me—the argument does not improve by being repeated; certainly not at quarter past two in the morning—that any estimate of this kind must, to a large extent, be speculative. I submit that such estimates must be considered against the whole tenor of the times, which is against sending people to prison unnecessarily.

I do not believe that the discretion which is being restored to the courts will be abused. The contrary will be the case, because, in my experience, it is the policy and the atmosphere of the courts to strive to the utmost to refrain from sending offenders to prison unnecessarily. But there may well be times when there is a wave of a particular type of crime sweeping the country when short prison sentences provide a sanction and deterrent which the country, in today's circumstances of crime, cannot afford to be without.

I opposed the introduction of the mandatory prison sentence in the 1967 Act. I am happy to see discretion restored to the courts by this Bill, and I hope that the House will reject the Amendment.

2.15 a.m.

Mr. Bruce Douglas-Mann (Kensington, North)

I cannot share the enthusiasm of the hon. and learned Member for Solihull (Mr Grieve) for the expansion of the prison population which is envisaged in what he is advocating. Even the most enthusiastic advocates of growth do not want to see growth in the prison population.

I entirely agree with the view expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) and I strongly support his Amendment. Unless we have a mandatory requirement for the suspension of sentences, we should abolish the suspended sentence altogether. The suspended sentence provides an opportunity for too many courts to seem to be tough and harsh while intending to be fairly lenient. The experience of almost everybody who practises in the courts is that many suspended sentences are imposed whereas a few years ago a fine or sentence of probation would have been imposed. A great many suspended sentences are imposed which would not have been imposed before 1968.

That is my subjective impression. Pages xl and xli of the Criminal Statistics for 1970 show that there was an immense increase in the number of people serving sentences of imprisonment from about 29,700 to 37,000 in two years—when previously there had been an increase of only 4,000—

Mr. Grieve

Does the hon. Member agree that that reflects, not an increasing use of the prison sentence proportionately, but the fact that there are vastly increased numbers of offenders?

Mr. Douglas-Mann

I cannot accept that. There has been an increase in the number of offenders, but there was a greater increase in the number of offenders between 1950 and 1968 than there was between 1968 and 1970 when the number of prison sentences rose much more proportionately.

As a consequence of the existence of the suspended sentence and the tendency to activate the suspended sentence on a further conviction, we are getting an increase in the prison population. This is common ground, and the hon. and learned Member agrees with me.

Mr. Grieve

Yes, I do.

Mr. Douglas-Mann

That the system of the suspended sentence is not working well is accepted by everybody concerned with the problem. But what is being proposed by the Government is the abolition of the highly desirable feature that the sentence must be suspended except in certain circumstances. In many cases it is open to the court to impose a longer sentence than six months and therefore to avoid the suspension if the court felt it was necessary.

The Government are dealing with the wrong aspect of the problem. I urge them to accept the Amendment and to review the way in which the suspended sentence should be put into effect. The imposition of the suspended sentence in cases where the court would not have imposed it previously, and its automatic implementation on subsequent conviction, is leading to the expansion of the prison population in ways in which the courts, if they had been assessing the matter objectively, would not have wished.

Mr. Carlisle

I do not want to go over again all the ground we have covered in the past. What I want to say has been said far more eloquently and, in the context of the Bill, with a new voice tonight by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Grieve).

I do not accept the arguments put forward by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell), nor do I accept his criticism both during the Committee stage and tonight against the repeal of the mandatory provisions for suspended sentences. Like my hon. and learned Friend I too was present during the proceedings on the Criminal Justice Act, 1967, and like him I said at the time that while I was in favour of the principle of suspended sentences, I believed that the Government were completely wrong to include the mandatory provisions. I believed it then, and everything that has happened since has confirmed my view.

I accept entirely what my hon. and learned Friend said on the basic principle that the courts should be free to impose the sentences they believe to be right in all circumstances. Nothing is ever gained by fettering their discretion so that even in those cases where they think it appropriate, right and necessary, however regrettable, to impose a short sentence of imprisonment, they are nevertheless prevented from so doing. I say to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead that while all of us welcome the view that people should where possible be dealt with in ways other than by imprisonment, I cannot agree, as I said in Standing Committee, with what seems to be his argument that the only purpose of sentencing is to keep people away from prison.

The purposes of sentencing are to prevent an offender committing another offence, to express the abhorrence of society in a civilised manner at what has been done, and to obtain the reformation of the individual. These three aims might well require courts at times to impose a sentence of imprisonment but the mandatory provisions would render them unable to do so.

Mr. Dell

I take it that the Minister of State has read the publication by the Home Office, "The Sentence of the Court", on how effective the sentence of imprisonment is in achieving those objectives he has just outlined, particularly short sentences of imprisonment?

Mr. Carlisle

Of course I have read it, and I repeat again that there are always likely to be cases where a court believes it to be its duty to impose an immediate sentence of imprisonment. It is unwise for us to fetter the discretion of the court to do so.

Therefore, I believe, as I have always believed, that the mandatory provisions are wrong and I am convinced that the Government are right to remove them. Other than the right hon. Member for Birkenhead and the converts he managed to achieve by his eloquence in the Standing Committee, I have heard hardly a single voice raised in defence of those provisions.

I do not accept the right hon. Gentleman's figures. Like my hon. and learned Friend I feel that he has just clutched them out of the air. The right hon. Gentleman defeats his own argument when he says, "Let's say it was 15 per cent., and if it was 15 per cent. the figure comes to 2,000", because he then says, "Of course, I know that the same basis on which I have argued all the rest of my figures shows that the breach rate for those given suspended sentences is 40 per cent., but we shall not bother about them in this case", or "If it's 40 per cent. that only knocks it down from 2,000 to 1,200." That is substantially different to what he said in The Times, where he said it was estimated that 2,000 more people would enter prison as a result of the repeal of the mandatory provisions.

I have said all along that it is impossible to estimate what the effect will be. Clearly, it would be wrong for me not to concede, as I have always conceded, that if there are cases where the court thinks it appropriate to impose a sentence of imprisonment, which at present the courts are being prevented from doing as a result of the mandatory provisions, there must initially be some increase in the number of those sentenced to imprisonment. But we cannot tell what the size of that increase will be, as we cannot say in how many of the cases now being suspended because of the mandatory provisions magistrates will continue to suspend because of the discretion they will have to do so.

The right hon. Gentleman wholly overlooks the effect of Clause 13, of implementing the O'Keefe provisions. If it be right, as all the figures show, that the number of people being sentenced to imprisonment—I use the term generally to mean both suspended and immediate—has substantially increased as a result of the passing of the 1967 Act, presumably the right hon. Gentleman will agree that if, as a result of the next Amendment which I shall move, the courts use the proper criteria when deciding whether to impose a sentence of imprisonment, the overall number being sentenced to imprisonment is likely to be reduced.

The right hon. Gentleman also overlooks the fact that he takes no consideration that there are people being sentenced to imprisonment today for more than six months merely because the mandatory provisions fail to allow the courts to give sentences of less than six months when they think they are appropriate. Yet the right hon. Gentleman knows that the magistrates, as they have said, have no doubt that there are cases where courts are committing to a higher court for sentence because they cannot give what they believe is the necessary and right sentence. Therefore, I do not accept the basis of the right hon. Gentleman's figures, though I accept that there will be some slight increase.

The right hon. Gentleman then fell into the complete fallacy of muddling up prison receptions, with prison population, and saying that increased prison receptions will increase the prison population. As he knows, it is estimated that, although the number of receptions may have gone down with suspended sentences, the population has not, because the sentences people are serving are longer.

Mr. Dell

I regret to have to say this to the hon. and learned Gentleman. He has not read his own memorandum. When I was connecting prison receptions and population I was quoting—I admit from memory, but I think verbatim—the words of his own memorandum, that there would be an increase in prison receptions and hence in prison population. If he has not studied this subject well enough to have read his own memorandum after the debates we have had, I must say I am surprised. I did not ignore the effect of Clause 13. If the hon. and learned Gentleman now tells the House that the enactment of O'Keefe, advocated from our side of the Committee, will have so valuable an effect on the prison population, why did he fight so vigorously in Committee against enacting O'Keefe?

2.30 a.m.

Mr. Carlisle

The right hon. Gentleman does me less than credit, because I have looked at the memorandum and he has left out the vital word "immediate". It says: The probable consequence of repeal of the mandatory provision will be some immediate increase in prison receptions, and, therefore, in prison population. Of course, it is inevitable in the immediate term that there will be an increase in the prison population if we are right, but if he looks at the earlier part of the memorandum, he will see that when we talked about a saving, it was in reference to the prison population. Of course, there will be an increase in receptions in the immediate term, but—and I quote— The size of the increase is hard to estimate because it is impossible to predict in how many cases, now caught by the mandatory provision, the courts will continue to suspend the sentence under their discretionary power. We will not gain anything by arguing on the figures, because there is a principle here. The right hon. Gentleman believes in fettering the discretion of the court to pass what they consider the necessary sentence irrespective of previous convictions. I and the Government do not. Time after time I have said that we do not believe the courts should have to send to prison those they believe can be dealt with in a number of other ways, but the courts must have freedom to impose a sentence of imprisonment if they believe it necessary, looking at their task as a whole.

Sir Eiwyn Jones

I hope that the House will not think that my right hon. Friend is the only one on this side who supports his point of view. That would be wrong.

We had the most invigorating debates on this in Committee, and it was the information and arguments of my right hon. Friend and the material provided for us in the memoranda from the Home Office which persuaded us that the step now proposed would be a backward step. It surprised me that the Minister of State speaks of the undesirability of fettering the discretion of courts. There are several examples of the Home Office introducing such fetters into the Bill. There is Clause 13—controls on imprisonment of fine defaulters; and on the length of sentence.

All these are measures reducing the discretion of courts. It is right that Parliament should impose such restrictions.

It may well be that if the precise amount of the increase in the prison population which is to result from what he proposes may not be capable of proof, one might have expected the Minister of State to give us at least some indication of what he estimates its size will be. That we should, at this stage, where the most critical element in the whole problem of the penal system is the inflation in the size of the prison population, be legislating to increase it, is intolerable, so it is astonishing that the Minister should so calmly be referring to an increase which might well amount to 2,000, as suggested by my right hon. Friend.

It may well be that suspended sentences have been used wrongly and contrary to the intention of Parliament by the court. But the effect of what the Government are doing is to increase the powers of the court to misuse the suspended sentences by taking away the limitations that the present law imposes. Let the House not forget that of course this restriction on magisterial power does not apply to the more serious offences—crimes of violence and so on are excluded. In the face of the evidence available to us that, for example, recidivism among offenders given mandatory suspended sentences is relatively low, and since, on the whole, the evidence is that, without harmful results to the community, the mandatory provision has kept out of prison many who would other- wise have gone to prison, in our view this is a retrograde measure which we regret the Home Office is giving countenance to.

Question accordingly negatived.

2.45 a.m.

Mr. Carlisle

I beg to move Amendment No. 18, in page 8, line 27, at end insert: (3) An offender shall not be dealt with by means of a sentence of imprisonment suspended under section 39 of the said Act of 1967 unless the case appears to the court to be one in which a sentence of imprisonment would have been appropriate in the absence of any power to suspend such a sentence. After that resounding victory, I hope that I may be allowed this amendment without further division.

The Amendment would put into legislative form the ruling in the case of O'Keefe, by providing that a court shall not pass a suspended sentence on an offender except where, but for the power to suspend, a sentence of immediate imprisonment would be appropriate.

Question put, That the Amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 10, Noes 79.

Division No. 222.]	AYES	[2.40 a.m.
Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)	Kinnock, Neil
Concannon, J. D.	McNamara, J. Kevin	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)	Mitchell, R. c. (S'hampton, Itchen)	Mr. Edmund Dell and
Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)	Roper, John	Mr. Bruce Douglas-Mann.
Gilbert, Dr. John	Whitehead, Phillip
NOES
Atkins, Humphrey	Hawkins, Paul	Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)
Benyon, W.	Holt, Miss Mary	Sharples, Richard
Biggs-Davison, John	Hornby, Richard	Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)
Boscawen, Hn. Robert	Hunt, John	Shelton, William (Clapham)
Bray, Ronald	Kershaw, Anthony	Soref, Harold
Buck, Antony	Kinsey, J. R.	Stainton, Keith
Carlisle, Mark	Knox, David	Stanbrook, Ivor
Chapman, Sydney	Lane, David	Stuttaford, Dr. Tom
Chichester-Clark, R.	Le Marchant, Spencer	Sutcliffe, John
Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)	Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)	Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)
Clegg, Walter	Longden, Sir Gilbert	Tebbit, Norman
Cooke, Robert	McNair-Wilson, Michael	Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)
Crouch, David	Mather, Carol	Trew, Peter
Crowder, F. P.	Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.	Tugendhat, Christopher
Drayson, G. B.	Moate, Roger	van Straubenzee, W. R.
Eden, Sir John	Money, Ernie	Vaughan, Dr. Gerard
Eyre, Reginald	Monks, Mrs. Connie	Vickers, Dame Joan
Fenner, Mrs. Peggy	Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.	Walder, David (Clitheroe)
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles	Murton, Oscar	Ward, Dame Irene
Fortescue, Tim	Neave, Airey	Weatherill, Bernard
Fowler, Norman	Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael	White, Roger (Gravesend)
Fox, Marcus	Normanton, Tom	Winterton, Nicholas
Gardner, Edward	Percival, Ian	Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick
Goodhew, Victor	Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis
Grieve, Percy	Redmond, Robert	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Gummer. J. Selwyn	Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)	Mr. Michael Jopling and
Gurden, Harold	Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David	Mr. Hamish Grey.
Haselhurst, Alan
Havers, Michael

Mr. S. C. Silkin

We are glad that, even at this hour, the Government have seen the light.

Amendment agreed to.