Commons Sitting of 1 February 1973

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  HOME DEPARTMENT

    Dangerous Toys
    Mrs. Joyce Butlerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will institute an inquiry into toy safety, with a view to ascertaining what changes in the law are necessary to cover all the hazards to children from dangerous toys.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Lane): I am not convinced that such an inquiry is needed. The Toys (Safety) Regulations 1967 are kept under review in periodic discussions between the local authority associations and the Home Office, and further regulations are being prepared.
    Mrs. Butler: Is the Minister aware of the widespread concern about the number of dangerous toys which are sold in spite of the regulations? Does he recall the glass drinking bird which exploded in a child's face at Christmas, although it had been condemned as highly dangerous several years ago? Will the investigations include an examination of the loopholes by which this sort of thing can happen, and the making of regulations?
    Mr. Lane: We shall look further into the point raised by the hon. Member. I am aware of concern felt over this matter. That is why we are proposing to extend the regulations into matters such as the safety of electrical toys, flammability of pile fabrics, from which some toys are made, and the elimination of sharp points and edges.

    Animals (Experiments)
    Miss Fookesasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proportion of the 4,849,119 experiments on animals performed without the use of anaesthetics in 1971 were painless.
    Mr. Lane: I regret that this information is not available; but authority to dispense with anaesthesia is never granted where an operation more severe than simple inoculation or the taking of a blood sample is proposed.
    Miss Fookes: Will my hon. Friend take steps to see that the information is forthcoming in some form? This is a matter of the greatest concern to a large number of people, and the hon. Member's answer is not good enough.
    Mr. Lane: With respect, it is not easy to get precisely the information required but I acknowledge that there is a great deal of concern. I consider that the safeguards in the Act are adequate. We are always looking for ways to improve them, but we must remember the definite benefits which result from what I prefer to call tests rather than experiments. If my hon. Friend and others would like to discuss the position with us, my noble Friend the Minister of State and I would be very happy to meet them.
    Mr. R. C. Mitchell: How on earth can the Minister or the hon. Member for Merton and Mordern (Miss Fookes) know whether the experiments performed are painless? Surely only the animals can know that, and they are dumb.
    Dr. Stuttaford: Would my hon. Friend not agree that there is an element of hypocrisy here, in that we express Concern about the children who suffer from the effects of thalidomide but now we are complaining of too many tests being carried out on animals?
    Mr. Lane: I am glad that my hon. Friend has made that point. We must keep a sense of proportion in this matter and be just as concerned, if not more concerned, for humans as for animals.
    Mr. Elystan Morgan: In the opinion of many distinguished medical experts a high percentage of tests now carried out by vivisection could be carried out on

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    cultured tissues. It is accepted that there is a residuum which can be carried out only by vivisection. Does the Home Office know—and if it does not know, will it carry out a survey to discover—what percentage is representative in each case?
    Mr. Lane: The possibilities of getting the sort of information now obtained through tests on animals by other means—that is, through other forms of research—is a matter for the Secretary of State for Education and Science, with whom we keep in close touch.

    Ugandan Immigrants
    Mr. Wingfield Digbyasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much money was spent in renovating Piddlehinton Camp so as to make it habitable for the Ugandan Asians; how long they were there; and to what future use this camp is to be put.
    The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Robert Carr): The preliminary estimate of the cost of preparing this camp for use by the Uganda Resettlement Board is somewhat less than £50.000. The camp was used as a resettlement centre from 19th October to 17th November. The camp is, I understand, surplus to the requirements of the Ministry of Defence, which will be disposing of it under the normal procedures.
    Mr. Wingfield Digby: Is not £50,000 a lot of money, even in the circumstances, for a camp which had not been occupied for seven years, which was totally unsuited to people coming from a tropical country, and which is about to be demolished at any time?
    Mr. Carr: Yes, I am afraid it is a lot of money. Of course, it was not easy to provide for the needs of a large but unknown number of refugees, as we had to last summer. We had to search out all the possible camps of this kind which could be used. In the event the camp was needed for only a short time, and with the wisdom of hindsight we might even argue that we could have done without it. But it was almost impossible to foresee that at the time the decision to prepare it was taken.
    Mr. Evelyn Kingasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what
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    was the cost attributable to the use by Ugandan Asians of Hobbs Barracks, Lingfield; how many were housed; on what days it opened and closed; and what was the average cost per head.
    Mr. R. Carr: Hobbs Barracks was used by the Uganda Resettlement Board as a resettlement centre from 13th October 1972 to 12th January this year. During that time 1,652 refugees passed through the centre. Final figures for the cost of using the camp as a resettlement centre are not yet available, but the average cost per refugee is estimated to be about £100.
    Mr. King: In the light of these costs and other likely costs to follow, will the Home Secretary accept that most of the Ugandan Asians will in the end, quite naturally, join Asian communities in the big cities, and that attempts to scatter them around the countryside in groups of one or two houses, whether or not they are humane, are likely to be fruitless?
    Mr. Carr: I agree with my hon. Friend that it will not be easy to get the sort of dispersal he is talking about, but it has from the beginning been the Government's policy—rightly so—to do their best to achieve that. We owe it to those areas of the country where there are problems of over-concentration and overcrowding. However difficult, we should seek to do this in the interests of those areas and of the refugees.
    Mrs. Shirley Williams: The Opposition are impressed by the economy shown by the Uganda Resettlement Board, rather than the contrary. Will the Home Secretary say how many refugees are still in the camps, and will he convey to the Uganda Resettlement Board the considerable admiration that many of us have for the work it has done?
    Mr. Carr: Yes. I have previously paid tribute to the work of the Uganda Resettlement Board and to the many thousands of people and voluntary associations who are helping it, and I certainly pay tribute again. I agree that, on the whole, this has been an economical operation. Hon. Members who are worried about this should realise that in terms of total public expenditure there is a substantial reduction in terms of the aid expenditure that would otherwise have

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    been spent in Uganda. We would rather it were spent in Uganda, but I have made clear from the beginning that we could not spend it in both places. The number in the camps is now 6,000, or slightly less.
    Mr. Douglas-Mannasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will take steps to admit the husbands of holders of British passports who have been expelled from Uganda in order to alleviate the hardship to the families concerned, to ease the burden on public funds of supporting these families, and to end the sexual discrimination involved in the present practice.
    Mr. R. Carr: Earlier this week I met the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who has responsibility for Ugandan refugees in camps abroad, including the husbands to whom the hon. Gentleman refers. I discussed with him what could be done to speed up the reuniting of families. He is now consulting with other Governments and he will be in touch with me again in the near future.
    Mr. Douglas-Mann: I suppose I must be grateful for that somewhat uninformative reply. Does the Home Secretary agree that in the light of his disgraceful statement last week, when he spoke of accepting our responsibility for United Kingdom passport holders by admitting them through the special vouchers scheme, there is no longer any danger of a precedent being set which would affect people expelled from other countries, and therefore no longer the slightest justification for imposing hardships and sexual discrimination in immigration matters by separating families.
    Mr. Carr: The hon. Gentleman is not putting a very integrated picture of the situation. We must remember that these families were separated in the first place only because of our speedy action in having been willing to remove wives and children to safety, but it was made clear to both husbands and wives that this would mean a period of separation. I assure the House that we wish to see them re-united as quickly as possible. There has been a United Nations response, those who are concerned accept this situation, and we are anxious to help them to deal with that responsibility as best we can.
    Mr. Nigel Fisher: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that there are not only compassionate grounds for re-uniting these families but also material ones, in that these are breadwinners who could support their families if they were allowed to come here, rather than that their families should be supported at the taxpayers' expense?
    Mr. Carr: Yes, it is urgent for economic as well as for other reasons. I repeat that I have had a most useful discussion with the High Commissioner. He has been in touch with one or two other Governments, and will be in touch with me again in the near future.
    Mr. Douglas: Does the Home Secretary appreciate that if the United Nations chooses to remove these non-British passport holders from the United Kingdom their families will have to join those passport holders somewhere else? Does he realise the upheaval which this will cause to the heads of these families?
    Mr. Carr: We made clear to the families before they left Uganda, and before separation, that they might have to be re-united in a country other than this. We shall help them to be re-united elsewhere.
    Mr. John Fraser: Since the right hon. Gentleman has discretion to admit these United Kingdom passport holders if he cares to do so, why should they be treated less fairly than fiancées who are able to come to this country and remain here after marriage if separation may cause unreasonable hardship to wives?
    Mr. Carr: The hon. Gentleman should realise that this is a special refugee situation of great tragedy for those who are affected. We wish to re-unite them as soon as we can. The United Nations is accepting responsibility, and I am working in close co-operation with it. Britain has taken full responsibility for a very large number of people.

    Law of Citizenship
    Mr. John Fraserasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress he has made on his review of the law of citizenship.
    Mr. Fowlerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is now in a position to announce a

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    decision on his review of the law of citizenship.
    Mr. R. Carr: We are proceeding with the necessary technical studies; but, as I indicated in my reply to Questions on 7th December, the subject is a complicated one.
    Mr. Fraser: Will the Home Secretary confirm that eventually, when his technical studies are complete, there will be a formally-constituted committee of inquiry into the law of citizenship, that all groups affected will be represented and that the committee will work closely with the Commonwealth Secretariat? Will the Home Secretary, as a matter of citizenship, urgently look at the plight of United Kingdom citizens who are imprisoned in other countries because their leave to remain there has expired and who carry British passports which have the unique distinction of debarring them from entering the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Carr: I should like to look into the second part of the question and communicate with the hon. Gentleman. On the first part, I should not like to commit myself at this stage to a formally-constituted committee of inquiry, but there will have to be widespread consultations outside the country as well as inside it. I will keep the House informed as to how we proceed. We want to proceed quickly and we have to proceed thoroughly, and, I accept, not in isolation.
    Dr. Glyn: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is deep concern in the country on this question? We are undoubtedly faced with the possibility of large-scale immigration, and the country wants the Government to get on with the studies. I am grateful for what my right hon. Friend has said, but will he get on with this as quickly as possible, in consultation with our Commonwealth partners and European friends?
    Mr. Carr: I assure my hon. Friend that we are getting on with it as quickly as possible. It is urgent, but it is also very complicated, and there will have to be widespread consultation inside and outside the country.

    Maintenance Orders
    Mr. Dalyellasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how
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    many letters he received in January 1973 from women awarded alimony by court order who had not received it.
    The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Carlisle): Seven letters were received in January 1973 from women complaining about the enforcement of maintenance orders in magistrates' courts in England and Wales.
    Mr. Dalyell: The Minister may have had seven, but I have had 83 since the Mechanics of Payment of Aliment Bill. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman realise that there are a great many women—perhaps I have been partly responsible for this—[Laughter.]—whose hope have been built up. As the report of the Finer Committee is disappearing into the distant future, could this question be hived off from the main part of the committee's deliberations, and something done about it?
    Mr. Carlisle: I do not know about the hon. Gentleman's hopes, but he obviously gets rather more letters from women on this subject than does the Home Office. He has had 83 in one month, whereas the Home Office received 67 in the whole of 1971 and 59 in the whole of 1972. I am not sure on what evidence the hon. Gentleman says that the Finer Committee report is disappearing further into the future. As far as I know, the Finer Committee is shortly to report.
    Mrs. Shirley Williams: My respect for the capacities of my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) is boundless, but I do not hold him responsible for this problem. May I ask the Minister of State to look at this again? Most people in this position write to their Member of Parliament rather than to the Home Office, and I should be surprised if most hon. Members on both sides of the House have not encountered this problem as one of the most substantial they come across. There is no doubt but that women who are just above the supplementary benefits level, and therefore cannot gain from the mechanics now adopted by the Supplementary Benefits Commission, are often in a desperate plight, especially those who have young children when the courts' decisions are not carried out.
    Mr. Carlisle: I assure the hon. Lady that I am fully aware of the seriousness

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    of this problem, as I think I have said every month to the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell)when he has tabled Questions about the number of letters received. Within the lest two years we have brought in the Attachment of Earnings Act 1971, and we are still awaiting the report of the Finer Committee, which was set up by the Labour party, on the whole problem of one-parent families. We shall certainly look with interest at that report when we receive it.
    Mr. David Jamesasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will introduce legislation to change the law whereby persons unable to work and in receipt of sickness benefit can be consigned to prison for arrears on a court maintenance order.
    Mr. Carlisle: A magistrates' court may commit a maintenance defaulter to prison only if it considers after inquiry in the defendant's presence that the default is due to wilful refusal or culpable neglect to pay. My right hon. Friend sees no need, therefore, for legislation on the lines proposed.
    Mr. James: My hon. and learned Friend will know of the two cases I have in mind. Can he tell me what public advantage there can be in sending a man who has one collapsed lung and emphysema in the other lung, in receipt of £11·51 supplementary benefit, from his own bed to a prison hopsital bed for six weeks for £60 arrears of maintenance? Will my hon. and learned Friend recognise the fact that I have another constituent who has a suspended prison sentence hanging over his head for the same offence—if we can call it an offence—whose recovery from multiple injuries sustained in a road accident is being materially retarded by frequent appearances in court?
    Mr. Carlisle: First, it is not an offence. I shall willingly look at the cases to which my hon. Friend refers. However, he would not expect me to comment on individual cases. Magistrates' courts have the power to impose imprisonment, but only if they are satisfied that the failure to pay is due to wilful refusal or culpable neglect.

    Jurors
    Mr. Stokesasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will introduce legislation to ensure that jurors are chosen by the court without any interrogation as to their personal views on public and political matters.
    Mr. Carlisle: A practice direction on this matter was given by the Lord Chief Justice on 12th January. My right hon. Friend does not think that further action is called for.
    Mr. Stokes: I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for that reply, but does he think that it goes far enough? Is there not still a risk of a repetition of what happened during the Angry Brigade trial when the jurors were questioned? When the safety of the State is under discussion, is it not vital for jurors to be without any political taint?
    Mr. Carlisle: The decision on any question and on what questions to ask in any particular case must of course be a matter for the judge who is trying the case. On 12th January this year the Lord Chief Justice issued a practice direction to all courts and all judges, as follows:
    "It is contrary to established practice for jurors to be excused on more general grounds such as race, religion, or political beliefs or occupation."
    I have no reason to believe that there is any need for further action to be taken.

    Fireworks (Accidents)
    Mr. Peter Archerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many accidents from fireworks requiring hospital treatment occurred during the month of November 1972, and how many of the victims were children.
    Mr. James Johnsonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give the total casualty figures of firework accidents occurring on 5th November 1972; how many of these necessitated an overnight stay in hospital; and how these figures compare with those for 1971.
    Mr. Lane: The hospital returns are now being analysed, and I hope it will be possible to give the full figures later this month.
    Mr. Archer: Is it not clear that publicity campaigns alone are not stopping these tragedies? Will the Minister consider legislation restricting the sale of fireworks to representatives of groups and organisations presenting properly controlled displays?
    Mr. Lane: I am not convinced at present that this is necessary. If the final statistics for 1972 show serious cause for concern that our measures are not being effective, we will consider whether there are any further steps we can usefully take for the future.
    Mr. James Johnson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the deep concern that is felt by our women constituents? Last November in my constituency a petition was signed containing thousands of signatures. Is the hon. Gentleman further aware that I have taken deputations to his Department during the time of his predecessor, and that it was agreed that the Home Department should attempt to get in touch with the local authorities about this matter and that we should have public displays in parks and elsewhere with the aid of the police? Has that been followed up?
    Mr. Lane: I am, of course, aware of this matter in my constituency as well. There is a trend towards the holding of larger public displays with this in view. I remind the House that in 1970 and 1971 the number of injuries in England and Wales as a result of firework accidents was much less than half the figure of 10 years before. We want to maintain that progress.

    Juvenile Offenders (Accommodation)
    Mr. Goodhartasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to increase the number of places available in remand homes, detention centres and residential schools for juvenile offenders in South London.
    Mr. Carlisle: My right hon. Friend has recently made available to courts in England and Wales an additional 108 places in junior detention centres. The provision by local authorities of accommodation for offenders committed to their care is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services.
    Mr. Goodhart: Will my hon. and learned Friend bear in mind that there is a particular shortage of secure accommodation for disturbed adolescents in the South London area? Will he bear in mind that magistrates at juvenile courts are too often faced with the stark alternative of sending unruly boys to the Ashford Remand Centre and unruly girls to Holloway, or letting them run wild?
    Mr. Carlisle: I am aware that there is a shortage of secure accommodation for those to whom my hon. Friend has referred. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services dealt with this matter at a recent meeting with the Magistrates Association on the Children and Young Persons Act. I think that all I can do is to refer my hon. Friend to what was said on that occasion.
    Mrs. Renée Short: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that there is concern not only in South London but in the country generally? Can he give an undertaking to the House that never again will a juvenile be sent to Holloway Prison or a men's prison'? It is that matter which is so disturbing.
    Mr. Carlisle: Of course, I cannot give that undertaking.
    Mrs. Short: Why not?
    Mr. Carlisle: Perhaps the hon. Lady will allow me to explain. The law provides that over the age of 14 a person can, if the magistrates certify, be sent on remand to a prison. That provision still applies. It is bound to continue to apply until we have adequate alternative and secure accommodation. We want to provide—and at the moment it does not adequately exist—alternative and secure accommodation. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services is attempting to achieve that.
    Mr. John Fraser: As the reconviction rate following attendance at junior detention centres is now almost 85 per cent., making them universities of crime with a very high pass rate, will the hon. and learned Gentleman ensure that resources are diverted to more successful forms of treatment? In particular, will he ensure that the Area Planning Committee for London, which is supposed to report on

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    schemes for the treatment of young offenders by the end of 1972, will report fairly rapidly?
    Mr. Carlisle: The hon. Gentleman's final question is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, to whom reports are sent.
    I was not aware that the Inner London report had not been presented. It is within my knowledge that my right hon. Friend has received reports from most of the areas.
    I am quite satisfied that the power to send a person to a junior detention centre by the courts should be retained until we are absolutely satisfied that there are adequate alternatives, and at this moment there is none.
    Mr. Hiley: Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the courts are deprived of a useful form of punishment today, compared with some years ago, when a little corporal punishment would have solved the problem and would have avoided people having to go into institutions?
    Mr. Carlisle: I think that my hon. Friend will agree that that is a wholly different matter, upon which the views of the Government are known.

    Children of God Movement
    Mr. Huntasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many aliens have been permitted to enter Great Britain in connection with the Children of God movement.
    Mr. Lane: Accurate figures are not available but the number is believed to have been something over 150 in 1972. Many have since left.
    Mr. Hunt: Is my hon. Friend aware that among those leaders who are left are many who are peddling a dubious brand of Christianity to impressionable and often unstable young people, and, in the process, turning them against their parents and society? Unless it can be shown that these Americans are engaged in gainful employment, is not there a strong case for seeing that they are united with their mysterious leader, Moses, back in the United States?
    Mr. Lane: I know of this anxiety, and my right hon. Friend is keeping a close
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    eye on the adherents of this movement. So far we have no evidence of criminal offences. I can assure my hon. Friend that we will use our powers to get rid of any who prove undesirable.

    Immigrants (Repatriation)
    Mr. Biggs-Davisonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what stage has now been reached in the review of voluntary repatriation of immigrants.
    Mr. R. Carr: I hope to announce my conclusions shortly.
    Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I am glad that that will be so? A little urgency might strengthen public confidence in the Government immigration policy.
    Mr. Carr: I can assure my hon. Friend that when I say "shortly" I hope that I shall he proved right, and that I mean "shortly".

    Illegal Immigrants
    Mr. Robert Cookeasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make a statement following the entry of a number of illegal immigrants via the ship "Marika", recently arrested in Bristol docks.
    Mr. Lane: On 22nd December on the M1 the police stopped a car which contained six men who were believed to be illegal immigrants. The men were apparently from a party of 36 who left the Continent on 17th December in the motor launch "Marika" and arrived at Bristol docks on 21st December. Five of them have been returned to India and the sixth has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment and recommended for deportation. The police are seeking the remainder of the party and the organisers of the expedition.
    Mr. Grieve: Does not my hon. Friend agree that there is a widespread impression among those who have experience of the problem of illegal immigration that the number of cases which come to the notice of the police and finally into the courts represents the tip of an iceberg? Will he assure the House that he will do all that he and his Department can do within their power to deal with

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    what is a very grave problem in society today?
    Mr. Lane: I give that absolute assurance. I know that there is anxiety about this matter. We are regularly reviewing the arrangements and the defences against illegal immigration. I remind my hon. and learned Friend that we are now setting up an intelligence unit at New Scotland Yard to collate and disseminate information about people engaged in this deplorable practice. We will not hesitate to strengthen these measures if necessary.

    Gatwick Airport (Mr. Howard Hughes)
    Mr. John Grantasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will inquire into the circumstances in which special arrangements were made by the immigration authorities at Gatwick Airport on 27th December 1972 to facilitate the entry of Mr. Howard Hughes and his entourage; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Lane: When Mr. Hughes and his party arrived at Gatwick they were afforded the facilities normally available to passengers in private aircraft arriving during the night at that airport.
    Mr. Grant: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that hon. Members and, I am sure, the general public will be grateful to know that they are entitled to this smooth and streamlined treatment? However, does he expect us to believe that there was no preferential treatment, and that no strings were pulled? It is a bit rich.
    Mr. Lane: There was no preferential treatment whatsoever.
    Mr. Lipton: Do the immigration authorities still have the right to insist upon a medical examination when they have reason to believe that an alien immigrant may be mentally abnormal?
    Mr. Lane: We have very good powers which enable us in certain circumstances to insist on a medical examination, particularly of those who intend to stay more than six months. Mr. Hughes established his identity, his nationality and
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    his financial means, and he was admitted for only three months.
    Mr. Redmond: Does my hon. Friend accept that in the country as a whole the movements of Mr. Hughes are just about as big a bore as those of George Best?
    Mr. Lane: As that question comes from my hon. Friend, who represents a Lancashire constituency, I will not argue with him.

    Casseroles (Lead and Cadmium Content)
    Mrs. Sally Oppenheimasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will take steps to prevent the sale of imported casseroles which contain more than safe limits of lead and cadmium.
    Mr. Lane: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave on 22nd January to a similar Question by the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell).—[Vol. 849, c. 25–26.]
    Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the House welcomes the fact that cooking utensils safety regulations are to be introduced on 1st April and that others will follow later with regard to the cadmium and lead content of ceramic glazing? In view of the clear statement made by his right hon. Friend, in answer to a Written Question which I tabled on 9th August last, that he intended to make these regulations, can he explain why the Observer on 31st January carried a story to the effect that the Government had no intention of making these regulations, and why information in regard to his statement was not available?
    Mr. Lane: The information in the Observer was incorrect. We intend to introduce these regulations covering not only ceramic ware but metal ware. We shall take account of the possible risks which have now come to light in the sort of ware about which my hon. Friend knows so much.
    Mr. Dalyell: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that there is no evidence against the British casserole-producing industry?
    Mr. Lane: That is my understanding.

    Probation Officers (Pay)
    Mr. Spearingasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received concerning anomalies in the pay scales of probation officers in the Greater London area; and what action he proposes to take.
    Mr. R. Carr: I have received representations against statutory rules made in November last, which treat members of the four probation services in outer London less favourably in the matter of excess rate payments than those in inner London. Any question of altering these arrangements would have to be considered by the Joint Negotiating Committee and in the context of the Government's counter-inflation policy.
    Mr. Spearing: Does the Home Secretary agree that these anomalies do not exist in the closely associated professions in the social services, particularly after the recommendations in the Seebohm Report? Does he not feel that the regulations are unfair, and will he review them when an opportunity arises?
    Mr. Carr: Yes, I shall be prepared to review them through the proper machinery, with the kind of proviso that I have made. The Butterworth Inquiry was a big forward step in trying to assess the true worth of the probation service, and brought about a large measure of fairness between the probation officers and social service workers.
    Mr. Spearing: No.
    Mr. Carr: I think the probation officers would accept that. It has equally proved to be the case that there are still some unfortunate rough edges, which are now causing trouble.
    Mrs. Shirley Williams: Does the Home Secretary recognise that there is great concern in the probation service, first about the fact that many social service workers are being appointed above the basic grade, whereas most probation officers are being appointed on it, and that in this respect the Butterworth recommendation has not been implemented by local authorities; and, secondly, that there is a great deal of feeling over the A and B grades in a situation in which, in London, 80 per cent. of probation
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    officers have qualified for B status and are conscious of the small rump of their fellows who are being treated as second-class probation officers?
    Mr. Carr: I am aware of the divisiveness of the A and B grading system. This recommendation—whether it was wise is another matter—was one of the Butterworth recommendations which was implemented, but it is clear that it is a new development which we shall have to review before long.

    Water Safety
    Mr. Cordleasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will set up an independent commission on water safety in view of the number of drowning accidents in the United Kingdom each year; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Lane: I cannot yet add to the reply which I gave to a similar Question by my hon. Friend on 6th December.—[Vol. 847, c. 440.]
    Mr. Cordle: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that all those who are concerned about the human tragedy of drowning will be disappointed with the reply? Is he further aware that between 600 and 700 people in England and Wales annually die by drowning, that 150 of those are between the ages of 4 and 15, and that 110 drowning accidents occur to children between the ages of 1 and 4? Will he look at this matter again?
    Mr. Lane: We are actively considering this matter at the moment. My right hon. Friend will shortly receive a deputation from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents to discuss the proposal for a commission. In the meantime there is a great deal more that local authorities can do. Quite apart from any question of a commission, there are problems which require urgent attention—for example, the control of speedboats, which is a matter which we are now discussing with local authorities. Therefore, we are trying to make quick progress.
    Sir R. Thompson: Do we need another independent commission to advise us—a commission whose findings no Government will implement? Would it not be wiser to encourage schools to teach

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    children to swim and to provide facilities for them to do so?
    Mr. Lane: There is a great deal in what my hon. Friend says.
    Mr. John Wells: Is my hon. Friend aware that the great bulk of the under-fives shown in the statistics drown in water butts and similar things, that that figure has nothing to do with the main problem, and that, unless we are careful, a great deal of false sentiment can be generated?
    Mr. Lane: My hon. Friend is correct. A considerable number of cases of drowning take place in inland waters.

    Cinemas and Bookshops (Offensive Displays)
    Mr. Michael McNair-Wilsonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he has now decided to take to control publicly offensive displays relating to film shows and bookshops.
    Mr. R. Carr: I am considering proposals for amending the Cinematograph Acts; so as to provide wider powers to deal with public advertising by cinema clubs, and for modernising the present laws relating to indecent public advertisements and displays; but I am not yet ready to announce my detailed intentions.
    Mr. McNair-Wilson: May I say to my right hon. Friend how much I applaud what he has just said? When I say that after 2½ years perhaps one feels that it is time something like this was done, I hope that he will take my remarks in the spirit in which they are made. May I assure him that these displays give a great deal of offence to a lot of decent-minded people?
    Mr. Carr: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I regard the present manner and scale of display as a commercial assault on freedom and not an expression of freedom.
    Mr. David Steel: In his considerations, will the Home Secretary look at the recent legislation in Sweden, where I understand they have been quite successful in banning this sort of public display while at the same time being more liberal than we are over what may be published?
    Mr. Carr: I shall certainly look at what they are doing in Sweden.
    Mr. Rees-Davies: Am I right in drawing the conclusion from what my right hon. Friend says that he is also truly sympathetic to the Bill which my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Sir Gilbert Longden) and I have now in draft and will be publishing in a day or two, to control public display in bookshops, and that that comes under the umbrella of his observations?
    Mr. Carr: I shall look with sympathetic interest at the Bill when it is drafted.
    Mr. Heffer: Can the right hon. Gentleman speed this up, because many of us in the House who have very progressive ideas on a number of things—[Laughter.] I hope that hon. Members will listen for a moment. We find displays of this kind extremely offensive. As we have had them for far too long in this country, it is really time that they were removed, as they are offensive to ordinary decent working people.
    Mr. Carr: Perhaps this is a subject on which I can look for support from both reactionary and progressive hon. Members alike.

    Students (Postal Votes)
    Mr. Mark Hughesasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will advise returning officers for the impending county council elections on the eligibility of students for postal votes during university and college vacations.
    Mr. Carlisle: No, Sir. The grounds on which persons may be entitled to be treated as absent voters are laid down in the Representation of the People Act 1949. My right hon. Friend considers that it is not necessary, nor would it be proper, for him to seek to advise electoral registration officers on the interpretation of these provisions.
    Mr. Hughes: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman accept that the definition of the question whether a vacation is a holiday and, therefore, whether students are absent of their own volition determines whether 200,000 people will be able to vote in particular areas in the elections on 12th, 13th and 14th April?
    Mr. Carlisle: What is quite clear is that for those who are absent on holiday it is not a ground for obtaining a postal vote.

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    I must stand by what I have said—that the interpretation of the question whether or not a person is on holiday must be a matter for the electoral registration officer and not for the Home Office.

    Civil Defence
    Sir D. Rentonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether it is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to make preparations for protecting the population from the effects of hostile air attacks, conventional or nuclear; what is the nature of those preparations; how much will have been spent on them by the Government Departments and local authorities, respectively, in the current financial year; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. R. Carr: The answer to the first part of the Question is "Yes". The preparations made form an integral part of the arrangements for the defence of the United Kingdom and it would not be in the national interest to go into detail about them. In 1972–73 the gross amount to be spent on civil defence is estimated at £10·7 million, of which £2·3 million will be spent by local authorities.
    Sir D. Renton: I appreciate what my right hon. Friend has said about nondisclosure in the national interest. However, will he say what he is doing to ensure that local government reorganisation causes minimum delay in improving the arrangements which we have—such as they are—for dealing with war-time emergencies, parts of which have been announced by his predecessor?
    Mr. Carr: I believe that the new local government system, when it is established, should help. I cannot tell my right hon. and learned Friend what I am doing at present, because it is rather too early. But I will give close attention to this matter as the new authorities come into being and, indeed, in preparation for their coming into being. I promise my right hon. and learned Friend that I shall do what I can.

  COUNTER-INFLATION POLICY
  Mr. Meacherasked the Prime Minister what official meetings he had with the TUC and CBI during the Christmas Recess.
  Mr. Spearingasked the Prime Minister if he can now announce the date when he expects to meet together representatives of both the TUC and the CBI.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Anthony Barber): As my right hon. Friend is in the United States, I have been asked to reply.
  My right hon. Friend had four such meetings, two with representatives of the TUC and two with representatives of the CBI. My right hon. Friend has made clear that we are ready at any time to have further discussions either bilaterally or on a tripartite basis.
  Mr. Meacher: When the Prime Minister discussed fairness at these meetings, did he explain to the TUC that under the present Government, according to the Treasury's estimates published in HANSARD, the average wage-earner has gained an extra £250 net while the average executive has gained about £1,250 net—five times as much—and if shareholding gains and housing capital gains are included, an extra £30,000, or 120 times that much? Is not the right hon. Gentleman the biggest barrier to fairness that this country has to get rid of?
  Mr. Barber: I must say, first, that I agree with Professor Alan Day, who said that some of the hon. Gentleman's figures are grossly misleading—
  Mr. Meacher: And your figures.
  Mr. Barber: —and his conclusions practically meaningless. In fact, the present Government have done far more than the previous Government for the relief of poverty.
  Mr. Spearing: Is the Chancellor aware that the hospital ancillary workers who are represented on the TUC were last Friday offered a wage increase of £1·86 under the £1-plus-4 per cent. formula? Can the Chancellor say why he thinks it fair that under phase 1 they would have been eligible to receive £2 a week whereas under phase 2 they are apparently to receive less?
  Mr. Skinner: Phase 3 will be worse.
  Mr. Barber: We have set out our policy quite clearly in the White Paper and the objective, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is to control the rate of inflation,

  1605
  and this we are succeeding in doing. I have no doubt that, by and large, we shall receive the support of those who put their country first.
  Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid: Will my right hon. Friend make clear that whatever arrangements are made for the control of profits there will be scope for companies to maintain and to increase their own investment?
  Mr. Barber: We shall make quite certain that the limitation on profits, as we have expressed it in the White Paper, will leave an adequate margin for investment. In deciding upon the formula which is set out in the White Paper, one of the factors uppermost in our minds was the absolute necessity of not taking any action which would prejudice capital investment. This is why the limitation on prices is related to costs and to net profit margins over the last five years as a percentage of sales rather than to a set norm. This will enable real profits, like real wages, to continue to grow with the expansion of the economy, and this will make possible the increase in capital investment.
  Mr. Edward Short: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we on this side of the House are just as concerned as he is about the wellbeing of this country and curing inflation? Indeed, judging from some of the things that he has done we are a good deal more concerned. Does he really believe that any prices and incomes policy can be fair and generally accepted if it does not deal with capital gains, especially on land and houses?
  Mr. Barber: I accept that the right hon. Gentleman wishes to act in the national interest. I express the hope that he and some of his hon. Friends will support trade union leaders like Mr. Anderson of NALGO, Mr. Chapple of the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunication Union and Plumbing Trades Union, and Mr. Jackson of the Union of Post Office Workers, who have urged that consultation with the Government on the policy should continue. Land, to which he referred, is dealt with in the White Paper.
  Mr. Tom King: Does my right hon. Friend recognise that the confusion and concern mentioned in The Times today about the treatment of profits underlines again the urgent need for the earliest pos-
  1606
  sible publication of the codes on pay and prices? May I urge that these codes be published at the earliest possible moment?
  Mr. Barber: The time which will be taken between now and publication depends largely on the consultation that we have always said was desirable and, indeed, necessary, before we settle the details of the codes.
  I think that I dealt with the first point raised by my hon. Friend. When answering Questions on Tuesday my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, to whom reference was made in that report in The Times this morning, referred to excessive profitability, not to increased profitability.
  Mr. Bruce-Gardyneasked the Prime Minister if he will invite the heads of the nationalised industries to join his discussions with the CBI and the TUC about counter-inflation policy.
  Mr. Barber: I have been asked to reply.
  A representative of the nationalised industries took part in the talks leading up to the decisions on the second stage of the programme for controlling inflation set out in the recent White Paper, and we will obviously want to discuss the implementation of the policies with the nationalised industries.
  Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. No doubt he read the profoundly worrying remarks by the Chairman of the Electricity Council on Tuesday. As the finances and boardroom morale of the nationalised industries are in a somewhat parlous state, may I ask why it was decided that the pricing restraint imposed on the nationalised industries under phase 2 should be more severe and restrictive than that imposed on other loss-making concerns?
  Mr. Barber: That was obviously one of the factors to which we gave the most serious attention. As my hon. Friend knows—because we have discussed the matter on a number of occasions—I have never sought to deny the disadvantages of holding down prices in nationalised industries which are in deficit. But, bearing in mind the overriding importance of controlling inflation, we came to the conclusion that in present circumstances this

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  was the right policy, and I have no doubt that it is.
  Mr. Palmer: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the Government have treated the nationalised industries very badly in this respect?
  Mr. Barber: No, Sir.
  Dame Irene Ward: When my right hon. Friend is considering all the very difficult matters concerning the nationalised industries, will he remember that retirement pensioners and those living on small fixed incomes want help with heating allowances? As he has so rightly and generously said that the question of old-age pensioners will enter into the Counter-Inflation Bill, will he remember to do something so that they have adequate heating, which I do not think they have now?
  Mr. Barber: We have already increased the real value of the national insurance benefits by about 7 per cent., allowing for the increase of prices, and that excludes the £10 lump sum provided at Christmas. We have also undertaken to have annual reviews. Therefore, I think we have acted reasonably in regard to retirement pensioners, and this is an earnest of our will to look after them.
  Mr. Atkinson: Is it the Government's view that any future tripartite talks should be in the form of representations from the parties taking part, or that they should be in the form of negotiation about policy matters?
  Mr. Barber: We shall be very happy to carry on conversations with any of the parties concerned, bilaterally or in tripartite talks, formally or informally—in whichever way is considered best. I say that because I know from the published statements of a number of trade union leaders, to some of which I have referred, that there are those in the TUC who would like to continue discussions with us, and those who have said publicly that they also believe that the TUC should be represented on the pay and prices boards. It would be a great help if those Labour Members who have considerable influence on the trade union movement would, in the national interest, support those trade union leaders who take that responsible view.

  SOLOMON ISLANDS
  Mr. Dalyellasked the Prime Minister if he will pay an official visit to the Solomon Islands.
  Mr. Barber: I have been asked to reply.
  My right Hon. Friend has at present no plans to do so, Sir.
  Mr. Dalyell: Will the Chancellor confirm that the Prime Minister has mentioned to President Pompidou the legitimate fears of Solomon Islanders, Australians and New Zealanders about the French nuclear tests? Has the Prime Minister actually talked to President Pompidou about these fears?
  Mr. Barber: The French Government are aware of our concern in the event of any resumption of tests, in view of our responsibilities in the Pacific. I am confident that if the French decide to resume tests they will, as on previous occasions, give us adequate warning, so that we can make appropriate arrangements for radiological health surveys.
  Mr. Shore: The right hon. Gentleman must realise that that is a most unsatisfactory answer. As there is, and has been for the past year, formal consultative machinery for the Foreign Ministers of the Six—as they then were—and applicant countries to consult together on foreign policy matters, why has not the Foreign Secretary raised this matter in that forum? If he has not already done so, will the Chancellor consult his right hon. Friend to make sure that he does so at the next meeting?
  Mr. Barber: The right hon. Gentleman will have seen recent reports in the Press to the effect that the French Government are proposing to explode a nuclear device in the Pacific Ocean this year. Obviously we are also aware of the reports, but there has been no official confirmation of their accuracy. If there had been private communications, with the French Government, then both the fact of those communications and their content remain private.

  MAPLIN
  Mr. Adleyasked the Prime Minister if he is satisfied with the coordination between the Department of the

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  Environment and the Department of Trade and Industry regarding the development of Foulness Airport.
  Mr. Barber: I have been asked to reply.
  Yes, Sir. The two Departments work closely together at both ministerial and official level on all matters connected with the airport.
  Mr. Adley: In view of the substantial changes that have taken place since the Roskill Commission was set up, particularly regarding the efficiency of the advanced passenger train and the European Economic Community's commitment to regional policy, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he feels totally confident that in present circumstances this matter should proceed without further review?
  Mr. Barber: On the question whether there is a need for another airport, the Roskill Commission unanimously recommended that a third airport was needed, with the first runway operational by 1980. The latest traffic forecasts and the urgent need to reduce the noise problem at existing airports support that concluson.
  On regional policy, the development of Maplin is fully consistent with the Government's strategic plan for the South-East.
  Mr. Stonehouse: If this country is to maintain its share of inter-continental air traffic is it not vitally necessary that the plans for the development of Foulness should go ahead? Is it not also important that communications between the metropolis and Foulness should have top priority? What is being done about that?
  Mr. Barber: I understand that the Department of the Environment takes account of all the environmental and transport aspects—including housing and other services—which are required for the development. The Department is working closely with the Department of Trade and Industry and, indeed, with the other agencies concerned. However, I agree that transport to the airport is a matter of the utmost importance.
  Mr. Crouch: May I draw to my right hon. Friend's attention the fact that what concerns us about the development of Malin Sands is the development not only of an airport but of a seaport, and possibly an industrial complex as well?
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  Will he assure us that in the matter of co-ordination between Departments the Department of the Environment will have the last word?
  Mr. Barber: I will draw the attention of both my right hon. Friends to what my hon. Friend has said.

  THALIDOMIDE CHILDREN
  Mr. Ashleyasked the Prime Minister what recent representations he has received from Distillers Company about compensation for thalidomide children; and what replies he has sent.
  Mr. Barber: I have been asked to reply.
  None, Sir.
  Mr. Ashley: Perhaps they were stunned by the Chancellor's letter.
  Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one of the major consequences of the thalidomide campaign has been the focusing of public attention on the financial plight of all severely disabled children? Does he admit that the Government's offer of £3 million is grossly inadequate and is really playing with peanuts in view of the needs of these children? Will the Government make adequate provision for all disabled children and ensure that their income, as well as the income for thalidomide children, is guaranteed against inflation?
  Mr. Barber: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to make it clear that we should direct our attention to all disabled children, and the Government have shown that they are very much concerned. We introduced the attendance allowance, which already benefits about 20,000 severely disabled children and their families and is likely to benefit three times that number in two years. We are making available £3 million immediately to complement the help which is already provided for congenitally disabled children through the National Health, housing, education and personal social services. We have undertaken, when a settlement is reached, to consider providing a further similar sum for those children.
  Mr. Pavitt: Does the Chancellor recognise that, although we applaud the overall approach that is being made by the Government to the whole problem of

  1611
  congenitally deformed children, the nation owes a special debt to the thalidomide children because, without that case, the whole of the legislation of the Committee on the Safety of Drugs and the Medicines Act 1968 probably would not have the teeth that it has? Therefore, we owe a debt to them for focusing attention on drug safety.
  Mr. Barber: I will ask my right hon. Friend who is primarily responsible for matters relating to drug safety to take account of what the hon. Gentleman has said. I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) say that attention is being focused on disabled children generally. I think that is the right approach.

CONCORDE
Mr. Benn(by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the cancellation of the options on Concorde by Pan Am and TWA.
The Minister for Aerospace and Shipping (Mr. Michael Heseltine): I very much regret that Pan American and TWA have felt unable to purchase Concorde at present. Both have, however, indicated that they will maintain an interest in the future of the programme and be open to further discussions with the manufacturers. I very much hope that both airlines will decide at a later date to order Concorde.
The manufacturers are now engaged in an active sales campaign and are in detailed negotiations with a number of other airlines. The British and French Governments will continue to give the manufacturers every support in these negotiations.
Mr. Benn: I am grateful to the Minister for answering my question and for the active support given by the Government to the sales campaign up till now.
While I share the hon. Gentleman's disappointment at the failure of Sir George Edward's mission, we understand that this must be taken in perspective in view of Pan Am's financial difficulties and so on. But it is a serious setback, and must be seen as such.
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Is the Prime Minister raising with the President in Washington the much more important question of the landing rights for Concorde flying under BOAC and Air France colours into the United States, which is an essential interest for this country, to see that this matter is not set back by environmental pressures wrongly directed in America by the pressure of the American aircraft industry, itself motivated by the loss of its Boeing, or as a by-product of the campaign against the restoration of the Boeing in the United States?
I ask the hon. Gentleman to recognise and to make clear what is, I think, not as fully understood as it might be, that if by any chance the Concorde project were to fail it would de-gut the British aircraft industry. It would certainly stunt the growth of the city of which I share representation in the House. It would have a much greater significance for the British economy and reputation than is perhaps understood by those who are critics of the aircraft.
As the Government, with the French Government and the industry, are to look again at the sales strategy, may I ask the Minister to discuss with his colleagues whether the time has come for more information to be made available to the public about the Concorde project? That point was put by the Opposition in the debate before Christmas. Will the hon. Gentleman accept from us that the secrecy surrounding the Concorde project, far from helping, is actually damaging its prospects? In the United States and France there is a far wider public discussion about these issues than has ever been allowed in this country.
Mr. Heseltine: The House will be aware that the question of landing rights was discussed first by myself and then by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry with officials of the American administration over the past fortnight. It is our view that the American administration wish to see that Concorde is able to land at American airports, and that there are no regulations which would prevent it from so doing.
The right hon. Gentleman's second question, the general concern that he rightly has as a constituency Member for employment in the Bristol area, is very well known to the present Government, as it was to the previous Government.

1613
But the preoccupation of all of us associated with the Concorde is to concern ourselves with the sales programme and not to deal with the rather more gloomy circumstances which at present are not relevant to our considerations.
Thirdly, the right hon. Gentleman asked whether there should be more publicity, whether more facts and figures should be made available. I remind the House that for 11, hours last week I provided a great range of information to the Standing Committee examining the Concorde Aircraft Bill. If hon. Members read the OFFICIAL REPORT of that debate, they will realise that a vast amount of information is available and that we had a detailed opportunity there to consider the Concorde programme. The House will have a similar opportunity when the Bill comes back on Report.
Sir F. Corfield: At this juncture, perhaps above all others, it is essential that my hon. Friend should be free to carry on the further negotiations without being pressed to disclose his hand to Parliament and thence to the public. In view of the clear interest of American carriers to postpone supersonic transport for as long as they can, does my hon. Friend agree that it would be very unwise to interpret what has happened as something more than a move in very tough negotiations which require determination?
Mr. Heseltine: My right hon. and learned Friend's intervention is particularly helpful, because no man knows more than he of the difficulties of combining the job of Minister responsible to the House with that of sponsorship of a commercial project of the kind we are discussing. I totally agree with the points he put to me. Obviously I have real responsibilities to the House, but so I have to the taxpayers, who have invested large sums of money, and to the tens of thousands of people employed on the project. In those circumstances, I believe it is right that I should concentrate on the top priority, which is to ensure that I give every support possible to those who have to conduct the commercial negotiations for the Concorde programme.
Mr. Palmer: What the Minister has just said is rather worrying. Will he reassure those thousands of workers in Bristol who are dependent on the project
1614
for their livelihood that the Government's support for Concorde remains undiminished?
Mr. Heseltine: Let me remind the hon. Gentleman of the closing sentence of my initial answer. I said:
"The British and French Governments will continue to give the manufacturers every support in these negotiations."
Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Does my hon. Friend agree, nevertheless, that the withdrawal of two major potential customers creates a rather new situation? Is there not a case for setting up a Select Committee of this House to obtain information from all concerned and from all sides so that we know whether the Government are right to pursue this programme in the new circumstances?
Mr. Heseltine: I fully understand the general argument about the need for parliamentary inquiry and the use of a Select Committee for the purposes. But in view of the stage which the sales campaign has reached the appointment of a Select Committee could not be considered helpful to the salesmen who have the job of negotiating whatever decisions have to be made.
Mr. Stonehouse: Having got to this stage, does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would be rash and foolish to give any hint about cancellation? Will the hon. Gentleman keep in mind the importance of this project not only to Bristol but also to the thousands of subcontractors up and down the country? On the hon. Gentleman's point about protecting the taxpayers' money, will he be in a position soon to tell us about the new pricing arrangements, with BAC especially, to avoid the cost-plus situation which seems to be a technique of guaranteeing a return to the company concerned rather than of ensuring top efficiency?
Mr. Heseltine: I accept the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion that there should be no hint of weakness, vacillation or doubt in the Government's mind. Nothing that I have said could give rise to any such suggestions.
The right hon. Gentleman's second point was about the cost-plus situation, which was referred to recently in the national Press. As the programme has

1615
developed it has become increasingly possible to fix the design of an increasingly large part of the programme. We have been in discussion with the engine and airframe manufacturers with a view to moving to a fixed-price element in the programme. The discussions have been going on for some months and the House will appreciate that it is a necessary step to take to try to get the maximum possible control on the cost situation in a high technology exploratory situation.
I understand the right hon. Gentleman's third point that not only in Bristol but throughout the United Kingdom the Concorde programme is of immense importance. I have myself pointed out to the House that one hon. Member in four has people in his constituency working on the programme. What is more, it is equally important to the employment situation in France.
Mr. Biffen: Is my hon. Friend aware that in all quarters of the House there will be approbation for the full-hearted way in which he has sought to promote the sales of Concorde? Nevertheless, is my hon. Friend aware that only those bemused by the superstitions of high technology will assume that we can continue as though it were business as usual? Is my hon. Friend aware, further, that there are some hon. Members who are not so naive as to suppose that they can talk about the undesirable aggregate levels of public expenditure without drawing attention to certain components of public expenditure which have highly questionable economic and social implications?
Mr. Heseltine: I do not think that my hon. Friend will dissent from the view that the responsibilities that I have are those for giving every support possible to the Concorde programme. Obviously in any dialogue about public expenditure it is a matter for hon. Members to raise such matters as they wish.
Mr. Elystan Morgan: Will the Minister consult his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General with a view to publishing a White Paper setting out in detail the circumstances, if any, in which we should be able to withdraw from or to renegotiate this project if we wanted to? In such a White Paper will the hon. Gentleman set out a quantification of the damages which the Government will have to pay?
Mr. Heseltine: No, Sir.
Mr. McLaren: Is my hon. Friend aware that we realise that no one has worked harder than he has to secure the American contracts and that he has the support of nearly the whole House and the country behind him in his efforts to ensure the continuing success of the project? Cannot we be sure that in the long run supersonic transport is bound to come?
Mr. Heseltine: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. The advent of supersonic transport is not entirely within the control of the British and French partners. The Soviet Union has a supersonic transport which it intends to introduce into service at about the same time as our national flag carriers.
Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that those who said that the American airlines would not purchase Concorde derive no satisfaction from having been proved right? Is he aware, further, that the commercial considerations which motivated the American airlines are likely to motivate anyone else who examines the project? In the circumstances, surely the hon. Gentleman should not exclude from consideration the possibility that a grave error has been made and that in the interests of all concerned it would be better if we guided the efforts of the British aircraft industry in another direction?
Mr. Heseltine: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is as aware as I am that the decision of Iran Air and of China to purchase Concorde flies in the face of his suggestion that following the decision of one or two American carriers everyone has to reach the same conclusion. There are few hon. Members who would argue that because the Americans make one decision we should all make the same decision.
Mr. Hastings: Is not it probable that this decision reflects the economic performance and position of Pan American rather more accurately than that of Concorde? Secondly, is not it possible that we have exaggerated the importance of the transatlantic route in any event and that the greatest advantage lies in the Far Eastern routes? Ought not the manufacturers and the Government to

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concentrate in this direction? Thirdly, is not it fair to say that nothing now can stop supersonic flight and that if the Americans by the end of the 1970s opt out and leave the field to Europe and to Russia they will place themselves in a very dangerous position?
Mr. Heseltine: The House will understand that it will not help if I make comments about Pan American's financial position. As for the importance of the transatlantic route, I draw attention to this morning's statement by BOAC, which obviously attaches great importance to it. The fact that BOAC and Air France will introduce Concorde on to that service in 1975 must be a tribute to their judgment that it is an important route. It carries the highest proportion of first-class passengers of any major route.
The possibility of supersonic transportation being extended by the introduction of an American SST is for all hon. Members to reach a conclusion upon themselves. But expenditure on supersonic transportation is continuing in the United States. At no time in history when human beings have been given the choice to go faster have they ever failed to take that choice.
Mr. Benn: Without prejudice to the argument about whether more information should be made available on Concorde's performance and so on, will the hon. Gentleman consider making available in either a Written Answer or a full Press statement the degree of commitment in the project that there is in this country in terms of investment and employment throughout the country, so that those who are still pursuing the theoretical but now historical argument about 1962 can realise the extent to which we are involved in building the aircraft and therefore can measure their comments about it against the background of our real interests instead of pursuing the matter in rather different terms?
Mr. Heseltine: The right hon. Gentleman frequently made this information available when he was responsible. Like my predecessors in this Government, I have continued to do so. I shall see to it that the information is republished, although it is already available for hon. Members to seek.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Edward Short: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the business for next week?
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. James Prior): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 5TH FEBRUARY—Second Reading of the Water Bill.
Motions on the Northern Ireland Fire Services Order and on the Family Income Supplements (Computation) Regulations.
TUESDAY, 6TH FEBRUARY—Supply (7th allotted day). There will be a debate on Housing in the United Kingdom, which will arise on an Opposition Motion.
Motions on the Northern Ireland Orders relating to Museums, Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration, and Financial Provisions.
WEDNESDAY, 7TH FEBRUARY—Debate on a motion to take note of the White Paper on Public Expenditure to 1976–77 (Command No. 5178).
Motions on the Salmon and Migratory Trout Orders.
THURSDAY, 8TH FEBRUARY—Second Reading of the Maplin Development Bill.
Motions on the Representation of the People Orders.
FRIDAY, 9TH FEBRUARY—Private Members' Bills.
MONDAY, 12TH FEBRUARY—Consideration of Private Members' motions until seven o'clock.
Afterwards, Second Reading of the Education Bill (Lords).
Mr. Short: May I ask the Leader of the House two questions? First, will he give the House an assurance that the steel White Paper will be published next week and that we shall have an opportunity to debate it shortly afterwards? Secondly, will he give us an opportunity in the very near future to debate the Government's White Paper on education? This was published without any statement from the right hon. Lady and we must have an

1619
opportunity in Government time to question some of its very doubtful assumptions and even more doubtful conclusions.
Mr. Prior: I am not certain that the White Paper will be available next week. At the moment the timetable is within about the next ten days. Of course I accept that the House will wish to debate the White Paper, certainly before we get engaged in the usual spring debates on defence, the Budget, and so on, and I give that undertaking to the House.
On the question of education, at the time of publication of the White Paper I made it clear that I would provide time for the House to debate it. The point I am thinking about at the moment is that we have a debate on education today. Whether we want to have another debate on education so quickly is a matter for the House to decide, but of course I am perfectly prepared to repeat my undertaking that we shall have a debate on the White Paper.
Captain Orr: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is urgent need for debate on Northern Ireland agriculture, particularly in relation to the EEC and the problems it has created? Would he consider the possibility of permitting some of the time, say one and a half hours, to be used to discuss agriculture, by taking one of the other Orders in Council formally?
Mr. Prior: I recognise that there is great interest in Northern Ireland in the agricultural part of the EEC regulations, and I noted what my hon. and gallant Friend said. I am not certain whether it would be in order to do as he suggests, but I will of course look at it. He asked about Northern Ireland business generally. As my hon. and gallant Friend knows only too well, there will be plenty of Northern Irish business in the next few months.
Mr. English: I have received a very nice letter from the right hon. Gentleman, but is he aware that I still have not received any copies of the record of what happened in Strasbourg? While he is thinking of things that have not happened yet and are his responsibility, will he tell the House why, for far longer than he has been in office, the Leader of the House has not brought in any proposal resulting from the Joint Committee on Defama-
1620
tion and Privilege in relation to this House?
Mr. Prior: The multi-lingual version of the European Parliament proceedings is available in the Library and can be ordered through the Vote Office. I recognise that there is a delay in translation of the full proceedings, and we are looking at this to see how we can speed it up. I will do my best to see that the House has the full proceedings as quickly as we can get them, but the House can at the moment get the multilingual version.
I should like to consider the other point made by the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Powell: What provision does my right hon. Friend propose to make in advance of the report of the ad hoc Committee for the House to consider draft proposals for Community legislation so that the House can express its opinions to Ministers, as we have repeatedly been promised, before decisions are reached?
Mr. Prior: I am hoping that the ad hoc Committee will report quickly on these problems, but until it reports, if the House will discuss through the usual channels or directly with me what particular draft regulations it would wish to debate, I will see whether time can be found.
Mr. Faulds: Would the right hon. Gentleman make arrangements to have all the recording equipment in the Committee Rooms scrapped? Is he aware that on two recent occasions when I was in Committee with other Members of the House the damned stuff broke down, and that on one occasion I had the daunting task of trying to recreate the rich, tumbling flow of my contribution? Will he make arrangements promptly to hire a sufficient number of old-fashioned but competent manual transcribers?
Mr. Prior: Knowing the quality of the hon. Gentleman's ability to recreate the tumbling flow of his speaking, I cannot think that he had any trouble in doing that. But I will see what has gone wrong with the recording equipment. One of the problems we have is in finding sufficient people of the old-fashioned variety, as he has asked me to do, who can carry out these duties.
Mr. Kimball: Would my right hon. Friend say whether the tumbling flow of full democracy will be restored to Lincoln during the course of next week, and has he any indication whether business will be interrupted for the moving of the writ for the Lincoln by-election?
Mr. Prior: I must tell my hon. Friend that that is not a matter for me, nor have I any information about it.
Mr. David Steel: Can the Leader of the House say when he will tell the House of his reaction to the very many proposals made this week concerning talks through the usual channels about the method of selecting Standing Committees?
Mr. Prior: I had quite a lot to say on that last week and I am not in a position to say anything further at the moment, but some of the problems which the hon. Gentleman mentioned are, of course, still being discussed and could arise again.
Dame Irene Ward: My right hon. Friend will remember that last week he very kindly told me that he was going to find out about the Booz Allen Report and would write to me. Would he bear in mind that I really do enjoy having letters from him and that I have not had any? As he has not let me have an answer up to the moment, would he please add some information as to what the Government are doing about making selective proposals to shipowners in regard to what they are going to do to help them in connection with the building of ships? I am longing and longing to get a letter from him.
Mr. Prior: My hon. Friend received the report only this morning and he will be considering whether a version excluding commercially confidential information can be published. I think it would be best to await his decision before considering the possibility of having time for a debate, but if I have any other information I will certainly write to my hon. Friend.
Mr. Strauss: In view of the apparently well-informed articles that have appeared in many papers during the past few days saying the Ministers are considering the problem of the declaration of hon. Members' interests, can the right hon. Gentleman say when we are likely to get an official statement on the matter and, in particular, whether the Government are
1622
now considering implementing some or all of the recommendations of the Select Committee that went into this matter in 1969?
Mr. Prior: I think the right hon. Gentleman's experience of that Committee will have told him that this is not at all an easy problem. It is very much a matter for the House as a whole and for hon. Members in all parts of the House to consider what further action, if any, we can take that will help. I would suggest that it would be of advantage to the House as a whole if we could have consultations, and I am prepared to hold consultations through the usual channels and in all parts of the House to see how best we can deal with a very difficult and complicated problem.
Mr. Marten: Reverting to the point about the EEC raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he is aware that since 1st January there have been 66 draft regulations, directives and orders? Is he further aware that I have looked through a number of them and find that at least 20 of them are important and should be debated quickly? If he is aware of this, may we have time next week or the week after, specifically a day, to go through at least some of them?
Mr. Prior: I cannot promise any time next week and I could not promise a day in the week after that. If we are not to get the preliminary findings of the ad hoc Committee quickly we shall have to make some arrangements to discuss these draft regulations. I would like to consult with the House about how best to do this.
Mr. Wallace: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it looks very much as if the National Health Service will be reorganised before the legislation is discussed by this House? Is he further aware that considerable detail has already been fixed and organised before we have seen this legislation? When is the legislation likely to be discussed here? Before everything is arranged, I trust.
Mr. Prior: I am sure that it is the desire of my right hon. Friend that the Bill, which is now in another place, should reach this House as soon as pos-

1623
sible. I hope that it will not be long delayed in getting here.
Rev. Ian Paisley: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his predecessor made a promise that there would be consultation with Members representing Northern Ireland about the Northern Ireland business which came before the House? Does he intend to carry on in the way of his predecessor or is he not ready to consult Northern Ireland Members? Is he aware that they have not been consulted, with the exception of the leader of the Unionist Party in this House and probably the Opposition spokesman? Can he tell us when we are to have the opportunity to debate the important proposals of the Diplock Commission in view of the escalation of violence in Northern Ireland? Surely this House should have an opportunity to discuss such matters?
Mr. Prior: I am certainly prepared to consult hon. Members from Northern Ireland about the conduct of Northern Ireland business. I thought that I had met the wishes of the House in dealing with such business, but I will bear in mind what the hon. Gentleman said. I hope to be able to say something more about the Diplock Commission in the very near future.
Mr. William Hamilton: In the light of what the Prime Minister said last week about the Franks Report, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to give an assurance that the House will debate this report before the Easter Recess? Turning to the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss), may I ask whether it is not imperative, in the light of recent events, that we should have a debate on the report of the Committee dealing with the outside financial interests of Members? Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that this report, published in December 1969, has never been before the House?
Mr. Prior: The subject of the outside financial interests of Members raises difficult questions for the House as a whole. I am willing to consult to see how best we can deal with it. My right hon. Friend said that the Government have not yet completed their examination of the important recommendations in the
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Franks Committee. We shall announce our decision as soon as possible, but I certainly could not promise a debate in the near future. It must depend on when the Government make their statement.
Mr. Biggs-Davison: In view of the spate of vile murders and counter-murders in Northern Ireland, may I invite the attention of my right hon. Friend, as I did last week, to Motion No. 134? [That this House deplores the failure of the independent broadcasting authority to discharge its duty under section 3 of the Television Act 1964 in that it allowed Mr. David O'Connell, a leader of the Provisional Wing of the IRA, to appear on London Weekend Television and to incite murder and violence against Her Majesty's Forces and loyal subjects in the United Kingdom; further regrets the affront to the Government of the Irish Republic, co-operation with which is essential to the defeat of terrorism, implicit in the holding of the interview in Eireann territory where this organisation is illegal and Mr. O'Connell is sought by the forces of law and order; and calls on Her Majesty's Government to take appropriate action forthwith.]
Does he not think that the House should have some sort of explanation of the conduct of the Independent Broadcasting Authority which seems to many of us to be not only anti-British but illegal in respect of the television interview of Mr. O'Connell?
Mr. Prior: Programme content is a matter for the broadcasting authorities, not this House. As I told my hon. Friend last week, I believe the whole House deplores this programme. I am certain that the Authority is well aware of the feelings on this subject.
Mr. Harold Walker: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a growing assumption outside this House that Parliament is apathetic and indifferent to industrial health and safety? Will he dispel this by recognising the importance of the Robens Report, published over six months ago, which we have not yet debated? Will he make arrangements for us to do so?
Mr. Prior: The Government hope to announce their broad intentions on the Robens Report shortly. It will be best

1625
to await this before considering the question of a debate.
Mr. Lawson: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider what facilities he can make available to the House to discuss the Government's plans for the future of the Nature Conservancy? Does he recognise that many hon Members on both sides will take it badly if the Conservancy is carved up and we are presented with a Bill carrying out a fait accompli?
Mr. Prior: The hon. Member, and other hon Members, took the opportunity to discuss this subject last Monday week during the debate on the report of the Science and Technology Committee. I think I am right in saying that the Government are considering the introduction of legislation about this. I will get in touch with the hon. Member and let him know.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry but we have an important statement followed by a debate for which I have a long list of speakers from both sides of the House.

NORTHERN IRELAND
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. William Whitelaw): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement.
Following the spate of sectarian killings towards the end of last year, the joint Task Force of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Royal Military Police was set up in December to investigate and prevent sectarian murders. In the first three weeks of January there was a marked decline in the number of murders and of murder attempts. Two people were murdered in this period, one Catholic and one Protestant. Bad as this was, it was a marked improvement, and much of the credit should be given to the Task Force, which was responsible for the arrest of three men who have been charged with three murders committed last year.
However, there has now been a fresh and appalling wave of murders. During the last four days five people have been murdered, one of them a mere boy, and there have also been cases of attempted
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murder; and now this morning at about eight o'clock a grenade was thrown in Kingsway Park on the east side of Belfast at a bus which was carrying men to their work in Dundonald. One man was killed and nine others injured, of whom three a still in hospital.
On behalf of Her Majesty's Government I would like to express deep regret and extend our sympathy to the families of those killed and injured in these recent bestial incidents.
Every effort is being made by the security forces to apprehend those responsible for these crimes. Since 1st January 16 people have been charged with 10 murders. A massive security operation has been carried out today by the security forces in the area in which the bus was attacked, and is still going on.
Mr. Merlyn Rees: Is the Secretary of State aware that we on this side of the House have firmly supported the security forces in their fight against the IRA bombings and murders, but that equally we want to see action taken against all other forces who use the bomb and the bullet? What sort of people are these who kill young people and throw grenades at men on their way to work? Our concern, like that of the right hon. Gentleman, is for Protestants and Catholics whose families have been murdered.
On the wider aspect, is the Secretary of State aware that we all note that sectarian murders have increased since an officer of the UDA announced that it could not longer hold back a fierce Protestant reaction? Is no action to be taken against an organisation which breaks the Northern Ireland Public Order Act, some of whose leaders have publicly admitted responsibility for bombings? Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the UVF has admitted responsibility for today's killings at eight o'clock this morning?
I return to the point about weapons made by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition for nearly two years now. Has the right hon. Gentleman noted that a UDA leader wrote in the Sunday Times last weekend that his organisation always relies on legally held weapons in its operations? Will he now call in all weapons and re-issue a new type of licence to those who genuinely

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need protection? We fully appreciate that there are people in the rural areas who need for themselves at night the protection that the security forces cannot give them, but will he please now take action on this in view of the revelations made in the article to which I have referred?
Finally, is not uncertainty a contributory factor, though no more than that, I accept, to violence, and for this reason alone will the right hon Gentleman announce very shortly to the world via the White Paper his conclusions about the future government of Northern Ireland?
Mr. Whitelaw: The hon. Gentleman has made a number of points very fairly, as he always does. First, as far as the work of the security forces is concerned I would like to make it abundantly clear that the security forces will act, have always acted, as I have claimed, and will continue to act completely impartially against people who commit crimes from whatever part of the community they may come. That will certainly go on.
As far as sectarian murders are concerned, it is very important to me, as I think the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, never to fall into the legal trap of saying what are my views about particular actions before these have been fully investigated by the police. Some people have fallen into this trap before, and I must be careful not to do so myself. But I recognise, of course, that some of these murders are sectarian in character, though some may well not be. But I fully appreciate that certainly some of them are.
With regard to wild talk from one quarter or another, no one who has done my job for nine months could deplore that more than I do. I find myself living in a position where wild talk from all quarters and all directions all the time seems to be the habit of the day, and the only person who is not entitled in any way at any time to indulge in any wild talk is myself. Though everybody else does, I do not. That is the situation one has to face.
The trouble is that I have to take very carefully into consideration all these actions and all these words of various people. I will consider most carefully what people say, but they should all
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know how important their words are, from whatever part of the community they come, and consider what influence their words may have not on people who are used to political talk but on many people who are not and who act in very different ways. I want to say this afternoon to all sides of the community in Northern Ireland: is it not posible to have less wild talk of all kinds which incites people and which is very dangerous? I will certainly look very carefully at the words that are used.
Coming next to the question of weapons, I recognise that this is something which is very difficult for people outside Northern Ireland fully to appreciate. I have studied this matter most carefully, and I believe I can say, totally impartially. First of all, I would like to take the position of shotguns. Of 105,000 or thereabouts legally held weapons, over 70,000 are shotguns. I do not think this is an unreasonable number of shotguns in an agricultural community, as no one on either side has suggested that shotguns as such are responsible for these crimes or that they should be recalled.
As to other weapons, there are those in all sections of the community—and I emphasise all sections—who are provided with weapons for their personal protection. I would like to say to every hon. Member in this House that for my part I would not like to be in the position of some of these people if, in fact, weapons for their personal protection were withdrawn from them. This is something the House should understand. It is easy for me, of all people, to say so in all the circumstances in which I am placed, as the House will understand. Nevertheless, having said that, I will accept the hon. Gentleman's view and will look at this, provided it is accepted that shotguns in an agricultural community and in all the circumstances are not the problem. I will certainly consider very carefully what has been said on other legally held weapons.
As to uncertainty and the White Paper, I have consistently said that I do not know, and cannot know, the date when this will be published. I recognise that uncertainty has a part to play, but I would not accept that it is a major part. I would say to the House—and I believe hon. Members will agree—that on the

1629
question of deciding for the future, the question of the White Paper, something which is to affect Northern Ireland and its people very deeply, it is very much more important to be right than to be rushed.
Captain Orr: Is my right hon. Friend aware that we join with him and the hon. Gentleman opposite in expressing our deepest sympathy to the relatives of all who have lost their lives as a result of these ghastly murders? There are probably no words in the English language strong enough to condemn the kind of incidents that have just occurred, from whatever source they may have come. Probably the worst thing in the situation at the present moment is the degree of speculation and the rumour that is rife about the origins, causes or motives of these events. While one appreciates the legal trap which my right hon. Friend rightly envisages, it is still very important to give the public as soon as it reasonably possible the fullest possible information whenever that is available.
With regard to the actual endeavours to find the criminals, from wherever they come, and bring them to justice, would my right hon. Friend say whether he is still satisfied with the degree of co-operation between the Army, the Task Force and the Royal Ulster Constabulary and whether there might not be a rôle in intelligence work to be played by the RUC Reserve? Finally, on the question of arms, has he any evidence that any legally held arms have ever been involved in any of these incidents?
Mr. Whitelaw: My hon. Friend has raised various points. First, on the question of speculation and rumour about the various murders, of course, as I said before, everyone is entitled to speculate and indulge in rumour; the only person who is not is me. That is perfectly fair and proper. However, I wish people would not speculate but would give the security forces and the police an opportunity to try to establish the real facts, which is what one wants to know. Perhaps that is really asking too much.
On the question of bringing these people to justice, apart from the figures I have given of those who have been charged, it is important to know the facts, because there is a feeling that the
1630
forces of law and order are not reacting as strongly as they should do; so it is important to know what has actually happened. Since 1st January, in cases involving the more serious terrorist offences, 60 persons have been sentenced to a total of 292 years' imprisonment plus one life sentence. Let no one say that those are not severe deterrents for those who have been guilty of various crimes and found guilty of them in the courts. Lest anyone has any doubts, let those serving those sentences have no doubt that as far as I am concerned in the circumstances in which I am placed, if they are found guilty and given those sentences that is the right place for them to be for that period of time. It is very important for everyone to realise that.
My hon. and gallant Friend mentioned the work of detection by the Task Force. I went out with the Task Force the other night. I do not pretend that I played an important part in the rôle of detection—that would not be likely. But I saw its work and I greatly admired it. It is very important that in this police operation the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Royal Military Police should co-operate together, and I believe that such co-operation has had and will have substantial success, particularly as a deterrent, which again in itself is very important. I am prepared to consider anything which would improve intelligence work. Obviously, I have a particular responsibility for intelligence and I must simply note what my hon. and gallant Friend said.
Mr. Peter Archer: Will the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is impossible any longer to justify confining the application of the Detention of Terrorists Order to only one side? Will he ensure that so long as it continues in use it will be applied impartially?
Mr. Whitelaw: I will certainly do that. I have always said that it would be applied impartially. The signing of interim custody orders put before the Commissioners is done on the judgment of Ministers. We do it ourselves. No one else takes the decisions. We take all such decisions totally impartially. We make what we believe is the right judgment in the circumstances. We shall continue to do so. What the Commissioners

1631
decide is, under the Detention of Terrorists Order, their decision, and I believe that it is right that that process should continue.
I was asked by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South about evidence that legally held weapons had been responsible for any of the crimes committed. I have no such evidence.
Mr. Hugh Fraser: I am sure that the whole House retains full confidence in my right hon. Friend in his difficult task. I am glad that he is to look again at the question of weapons. It is vitally important, as we move towards what may well be a climacteric in the Northern Ireland situation, that the Government make it clear—particularly in relation to Section 7 of the Public Order Acts, dealing with the prohibition of quasi-military organisations—that they are carrying out the law and that law and order, having been taken over by this House, will be fully maintained in Northern Ireland. I think that if there is any sign of weakness while we move into a very dangerous situation, it will be disastrous. I hope, therefore, that my right hon. Friend will look at these points very seriously. The law must apply equally to both communities.
Mr. Whitelaw: I accept the importance of applying the law equally to both communities. But I think one must simply say, in looking at this matter, that while all sorts of crimes may be committed by one lot of people or another, no one should have any doubt as to what has been going on over the last four years. One has to look at the situation in that context.
My right hon. Friend returned to the subject of legally held weapons. I think that it is important for the House to keep this in proper perspective. While I will certainly look at the margin between the number of shotguns and the total number of weapons held—over 100,000, including over 70,000 shotguns, and including guns for personal protection—let no one have any doubt that the real trouble in Northern Ireland is the illegally held weapons which are coming in.
In the Sunday Times article to which the hon. Member for Leeds, South referred, one person said he relied on legally held weapons while another
1632
boasted of how many illegal weapons were being brought in. That was in one and the same article. It is extremely difficult to know what on earth is going on in such circumstances. I will look again at the question of legally held weapons, but even when I have done so the problem still remains of illegally held weapons, which make up far the greater proportion of weapons.
Mr. Speaker: May we revert to question and answer, please?
Mr. Fitt: Would the right hon. Gentleman agree that the circumstances in which the latest increase of sectarian murders has taken place seems to indicate that a calculated campaign is being waged with the intention of intimidating and terrorising the Catholic minority in Belfast particularly, with the added intention of trying to influence the Government in relation to the decisions they may take in the White Paper? Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to disregard the disclosures and revelations made by a person who has defected from the UDA? Does not the right hon. Gentleman accept it as a fact that the UDA has been importing arms, has blown up a public house in Belfast and has also been using legally held weapons? Has he given instructions for these people to be questioned about the serious charges? Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to keep telling the House that legally held weapons are of no moment in this matter when there is no way of finding out whether a legal weapon has been used in an assassination attempt or murder in Northern Ireland? There is no way of proving it. Does he agree that right-thinking people in both the majority and the minority would not be averse to having all legally held weapons called in forthwith?
Mr. Whitelaw: The hon. Gentleman is inviting me to follow him in speculation about the motives for various murders. He will appreciate how wrong it could be for me to comment one way or another. He is entitled to his view but it would be wrong for me to comment.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the disclosures about the UDA by one person. In a short period in Northern Ireland, I have found it most fascinating to read disclosures, particularly where they affect me personally, of what various

1633
people are said to have done or of what has been said to me personally. Frequently these reports contain considerable inaccuracies. But I have the benefit, which perhaps these other persons have not had, of having a record taken of what happens at these meetings. As I say, frequently the disclosures are inaccurate. If they are inaccurate on that scale, they may be inaccurate in many other respects—and frequently are. They also frequently conflict.
But having said that, I would add that of course what is said is most carefully gone into. What was said in that article is being gone into now. I confirm that police inquiries are going on into various statements which have been made. This is a matter for the police and not for me, but I am entitled to tell the House of the inquiries.
The hon. Gentleman returned to the subject of legally held weapons. I have never said that this is the worst part of the problem. What I have said is that shotguns are widely accepted and that there are also weapons, far fewer in number, for personal protection which are equally widely accepted. I have said that there is only a small problem there compared with the enormous problem of illegally held weapons, and I am glad to say that the security forces have been successful in capturing many of these weapons. Nevertheless, there are still a great many left.
Mr. Kilfedder: Does my right hon. Friend know that as recently as a debate last night I utterly condemned those guilty of murder, whether they be Protestant or Catholic or ordinary criminals?
Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is the widest belief throughout Northern Ireland that prisoners found guilty of atrocities will be released in a general amnesty as part of or shortly after a political settlement? I therefore welcome his statement that these thugs will serve every day of their sentences and I trust that this will act as a deterrent. Will he intensify the search for those responsible for these fiendish and atrocious crimes?
Mr. Whitelaw: I accept what my hon. Friend has said in condemning violence and I am grateful to him. I am grateful to all those on both sides of the House who have consistently condemned violence
1634
from whichever quarter it has come. It is important that there should be such condemnation.
There are those who say that we must have more protection against these thugs. Very well. The security forces will do all they can, as always, and I am prepared to consider any further measures of protection which are put to me constructively. But when people say in general terms that they want more protection, I must ask them to state exactly what are the measures they wish to see.
My hon. Friend referred to some people believing that sentences will not be served. I have made abundantly clear my view and that of the Government and I hope that it will be properly noted, because these rumours go around. This rumour is not true. It has no substance whatever.
Mr. McNamara: The right hon. Gentleman said that he wants to know some of the methods which people concerned in Northern Ireland wish to see adopted. One of the methods which they wish to see adopted is the taking in of all legally held arms. Surely the right hon. Gentleman realises that in the Northern Ireland situation with its rumour, with its myth, with its fears, a demonstration by the right hon. Gentleman that he understood the fears of ordinary people and was prepared to order all legally held arms to be brought in, be they shotguns—and Belfast is not an agricultural community—or any other arms, and then issue some sort of licensing for arms held for personal protection, or for shooting foxes—although he probably does not like that—and in other circumstances when they are necessary, could be understood and appreciated as a gesture which could build up confidence. The pulling in of legally held arms would be a tremendous boost for many people.
Mr. Whitelaw: Perhaps on a lighter note—in serious affairs it is sometimes as well to have a lighter note—I do not know why the hon. Gentleman should think that I mind the shooting of foxes. That is by the way. As I said to the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees), I shall of course consider the question of legally held arms, bearing in mind, first, that I believe that the situation about shotguns is reasonable. I shall consider all these proposals. I am very ready to do that. But I beg the hon. Member for

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Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara), when he speaks about people's fears in these circumstances, to put himself in the position of some in all parts of the community who have weapons for their personal protection and to ask himself whether, if he were living in that community, he would be happy to see these arms taken away.
Mr. McNamara: I said so.
Mr. Whitelaw: I think the hon. Member accepts that, but I must say this: it is a very important factor for me to take into account. In anything I do I have to take into account, first, shotguns—I do not believe it would be reasonable to disturb the position over shotguns—and also the very proper fears and anxiety of people who have weapons, justifiably in my opinion.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. I must protect the business of the House. I will allow two more questions on this subject.
Rev. Ian Paisley: With reference to the Task Force, can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House what co-operation he is having with it in Protestant areas and what co-operation there is with it in Roman Catholic areas? I live in East Belfast, as he knows. The Task Force has been very effective there and arrests have been made. Could he tell the House whether this force is having co-operation in districts where there have been murders and a hue and cry to find the murderers? It is hardly fair, in my opinion, that the security forces should be condemned if they do not have the fullest possible co-operation from the people in the localities where these dastardly crimes are committed.
Will the right hon. Gentleman agree that if he outlawed all weapons, only the outlaws would have weapons? If he announced the calling in of all licensed weapons there would be a frightening situation. Is he aware that there are people in lonely parts of the country who never see a member of the British Army, or a policeman, or a reserve policeman, or a UDR man, and that their only protection is the weapons which they legally hold? Will he also tell the House that he can ascertain whether a crime has been committed with a legally held weapon or
1636
an illegally held weapon when the murderer is apprehended—for then it can be found whether the weapon was licensed?
Mr. Whitelaw: The hon. Member has made three points. On the first, I am grateful for his tribute to what the Task Force has done in East Belfast. I am grateful to him and others for their co-operation in the work that the force is doing. I wish there were the same co-operation throughout the city of Belfast, in all areas, with the work of the force, but I regret to say that that is not the case. Those who want to see these troubles and murders ended have one course open to them which I hope will be considered very carefully: the more effectively they co-operate with the Task Force in giving information, the more likely it is to be successful in bringing these crimes to an end.
Secondly, just because I understand very well the anxieties put forward by the hon. Member about people who hold arms legally, I have systematically, firmly and determinedly adopted the attitude I have explained. I remain quite ready to consider matters at the margin of this problem, but I am absolutely adamant in saying that I am not going to create fear and distress among a lot of isolated people. That I shall not do. The House will realise that it would be very wrong if I did so.
On the third point, once one has been able to establish which weapon was used in a murder, or one has been able through forensic means to bring someone to court on a charge, it is possible to ascertain whether a murder was committed by a legal or an illegal weapon. When I gave the answer to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) that there was no evidence as yet that a legally held arm had been used for a murder, that answer was based on such information.
Mr. Douglas: Would the Secretary of State concede that one of the most astounding aspects of sectarian killings is the age of those alleged to be perpetrating killings and the age of those who are killed? Will he have discussions with the education authorities and those in the schools to obtain the co-operation of those authorities to inculcate, if possible, in the young the idea that by acting in

1637
this way they are only laying up future trouble for themselves and for those who lend assistance to those perpetrating killing? Secondly, will he consult the Press in Northern Ireland and emphasise the feeling in all parts of the House that we are concerned here not with the religion of those who are killed but with the fact that they are citizens of the United Kingdom and that the reporting of the religion of a victim should be very much a secondary aspect?
Mr. Whitelaw: I am very grateful to the hon. Member for both points he has made. On the first point about the youth of those engaged, not only in some of the killings but recently, as he will also have noticed, in some of the bomb incidents and many other activities, it is a very serious matter that the young are certainly being used for these purposes. What perhaps the House does not realise and what perhaps the world does not realise—and so few people co-operate in this—are the tremendous efforts which are being made in the schools by teachers in all parts of the community to bring young people together, to promote games and recreation. A great deal of work is being done in that way. I pay tribute to those people. It is very unfair that because violence inevitably is news the
1638
efforts of those people do not gain the prominence which they should gain in Press reports. A great deal of this work is going on and everything which we in the Northern Ireland Office can do to promote it will be done. It is very important.
As to the question of the religion held by people who suffer, the House would be absolutely right in accepting what the hon. Member says. What matters in the end is that United Kingdom citizens are being killed in this way. Our job in this House, and the job of everyone, is to prevent that from whatever part of the community those people come.
Mr. McMaster: On a point or order, Mr. Speaker. I seek your guidance. As you are aware, the incident on which this matter was raised was that of a bomb placed at the door of a bus in my constituency, which caused death and injury to many of my constituents. I wonder whether, when an incident such as this arises, the hon. Member concerned——
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member should make a communication on a matter of this kind privately. I did receive information from another hon. Member that the incident was in his constituency, but these matters should be discussed privately.

ORDERS OF THE DAY
  SUPPLY
  [6TH ALLOTTED DAY],—considered

  SECONDARY EDUCATION
  Mr. Speaker: I apologise for the delay in reaching the debate, but the remedy is in the hands of those who catch my eye, for if they shorten their speeches by just two or three minutes each they will make up the lost time.
  Before I call on the hon. Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) to move the motion, I should inform hon. Members that I have selected the amendment standing in the name of the Prime Minister and other right hon. and hon. Members. That is, in line 1, leave out from 'House' to end and add:
  welcomes the Government's policies for Secondary Education, the importance attached by the Secretary of State to educational considerations, local needs and wishes, and the wise use of resources, in the exercise of her powers to decide individual proposals under section 13 of the Education Act 1944 (as amended), and the Government's determination to have regard to the wishes of parents about the education of their children.
  4.40 p.m.
  Mr. Roy Hattersley: I beg to move,
  That this House regrets that the Secretary of State for Education and Science has, by the arbitrary and capricious use of her powers under sections 13 and 68 of the Education Act 1944, postponed and prevented the implementation of plans for the comprehensive reorganisation of secondary education and has, by the practice of rejecting parts of schemes submitted to her, jeopardised plans prepared by local education authorities to provide for the needs of all the children within their responsibility.
  A debate about comprehensive education needs to begin with a definition. Calling a school comprehensive does not make it so. The concept of comprehensive education has a precise meaning. It must involve children of all levels of intellectual attainment and ability from a variety of backgrounds coming together within a single educational community. A true comprehensive system and the complete abolition of selection are indivisible. For a Government to approve plans for new comprehensive schools but
  1640
  at the same time to refuse permission for the amalgamation of grammar schools with them is simply to ensure that the old divisions at 11-plus are perpetuated and that the increasingly accepted advantages of true comprehensive schools are denied.
  That is not simply my view. The second Black Paper which represents, in general, educational views which are anathema to me of course overstates the case, but in its typically crude way it is basically right. It says:
  "A balanced intake is essential. Each local authority has the choice of a bipartite system of grammar and secondary modern schools or of full comprehensive schools in its area. One cannot have grammar schools alongside comprehensive schools."
  I agree with almost all of that, although the passage about local authority choice is obviously wrong. Our charge today is that in spite of the promise of circular 10/70 that
  "authorities will now be freer to determine the shape of secondary provision in their area"
  their choice is often limited in a way which is palpably neither reasonable nor consistent. That is our charge. But let me save the House subsequent time by making very clear what our charge is not. We do not accuse the Secretary of State of acting outside her legal powers. With one or two possible exceptions—one of which I will deal with in a moment—she has remained rigidly within the law, but that is hardly surprising. Sections 13 of the 1944 Act allows the Secretary of State sole judgment over any reorganisation proposal. Her judgment is made by comparing new schemes with criteria which are largely of her own construction. She is in the fortunate position of a referee who is able to make up three-quarters of the rules as the game goes on, and frankly there is no wonder that she is able to secure victory for the side of her choice without actually infringing the few rules which are determined before the game begins.
  And let me make two other points equally clear. We do not believe that any Secretary of State has the automatic duty to approve every scheme submitted to her Department. To complain that Section 13 has ever been used would be obviously unreasonable. No doubt some of her refusals were justified, but that is not the point. Nor is it relevant to argue,

  1641
  as I am sure we shall hear today, that a large number of reorganisation proposals have been approved. We do not accuse the Secretary of State of rejecting every submission. We know that reorganisation plans for many schools have been accepted. About that we are neither surprised nor grateful, particularly when we remember that many of the approvals are for schools within schemes that have been changed out of local authority recognition by the insistence that grammar schools should be excluded. The Government have two distinct personas with regard to the discussion of secondary education reorganisation. At education gatherings the emphasis is on the number of schools reorganised. At party conferences the argument switches to the type of schools which have been preserved. The Secretary of State said at Blackpool last year, I think with some pride:
  "I have upheld 92 objections, mostly in favour of famous or well known grammar schools."
  She said—[Interruption.] What a pity the hon. Members below the gangway who are cheering now were not cheering at the Manchester education conference when Government policy was advanced in quite different terms.
  Of course, many complete schemes have been approved but the approval of some is no excuse for the rejection of others which are equally good. I go on to give one example of the sort of conduct about which I complain. It is not the most extreme example I could find. The sorry story begins with the Secretary of State's approval for the closing of a grammar school—although the Secretary of State made sure it did not end that way. It demonstrates the impossibility of sensible planning under the shadow of arbitrary and capricious use of Section 13. The example concerns three London schools.
  Strand is a small maintained boys' grammar school in an elderly building. Tulse Hill is a boys' comprehensive school, purpose-built during the 1950s actually in the Strand grounds. Dick Shepherd is a girls' comprehensive school in the same area. The Inner London Education Authority made proposals for the three schools, proposals which many
  1642
  hon. Members will regard as reasonable to the point of being obvious. The Strand and Tulse Hill buildings, standing side by side, were to be used to form a single new comprehensive school. Pupils from Strand were to be transfererd to the nearby Dick Shepherd school where building extensions, a legacy of earlier and happier days, were planned and approved. No reasonable person could regard those proposals as anything other than a carefully conceived, closely integrated plan which stood or fell by its overall merits. But that was not the view taken by the Secretary of State.
  The closure of Strand was approved. The alteration of Tulse Hill, the school which was to use the newly-closed Strand buildings, was forbidden. So was the alteration to Dick Shepherd, the school into which the pupils from the closed Strand school were to have gone. All that nonsense was justified by reliance on the letter of the law, on the Secretary of State's undoubted right to consider proposals school by school, even when it was probably nonsense so to do. That of course presented the ILEA with a substantial dilemma and after a degree of anxiety the authority decided to proceed according to the Secretary of State's formula. But before that was done the parents of pupils at Strand chose to contest the closure in the courts. As a result of that an injunction forbidding the closure was made in May 1972 and the education officer of the ILEA reported the judgment in the case to the Authority in these terms:
  "The proposals made by the Authority were a package deal—an inter-related scheme affecting all three schools. The Secretary of State had approved a proposal that was not submitted and what she did was not within the power which she had under the Act to modify proposals submitted to her"
  That was the judgment on her conduct.
  The ILEA was therefore faced with a second dilemma. It resolved it by abandoning the immediate closure of Strand and making a second application to the Minister which it believed to be simplicity itself because it was legal in that it was a proposal for one school complete unto itself, simplicity itself because the Minister had already approved the principle of closing the Strand school. Therefore, to give legal force to her wishes, though

  1643
  not to the legal way in which they had been imposed upon the ILEA, a second application was made in July 1972. Six months later, on 5th January this year. the Secretary of State replied.
  The proposal was approved in the summer of 1972 and was turned down in January 1973 in a letter which explained that the change of heart had come about because
  "the volume and strength of local feeling in favour of retention had considerably increased".
  HON. MEMBERS: "Hear hear."
  Mr. Hattersley: Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen cheer, but I will tell them what was wrong with that.
  A number of questions immediately arise. The first concerns good local authority planning. There had been weeks of consultation with teachers and governors, and months of consultation with parents. At the end of it all, after two years in which the Department of Education and Science had steadfastly refused to give any advice to officers of the authority about the sort of scheme they might approve and the sort of scheme they might not approve, the scheme was subject to a ministerial roulette. On one day it was right to close Strand, on another day it was right to keep Strand open.
  Any hon. Member with experience of local authority planning will know what capricious behaviour of that sort does to local authority morale. Having served for 10 years on a local council, I can think of no greater deterrent to careful, conscientious local authority planning.
  Mr. Patrick Cormack: Does the hon. Gentleman think that local authority morale is more important than local feeling?
  Mr. Hattersley: I am coming to that point, in the hope that there is one hon. Member who actually believes that majority local opinion matters to the right hon. Lady. I will deal with that question at once.
  The second question involved in the Strand issue concerns the reason for the refusal—the volume and strength of local feeling, something that has been wheeled out as justification in the amendment that we are later to debate. That has become the most common reason for the rejection
  1644
  of comprehensive proposals. To employ a second footballing metaphor, it has become the "sweeper-up", the tactic that is used when other more sophisticated forms of defence have allowed the opposition to take over the field.
  We know that the Act requires the Secretary of State to take account of objections by
  "any 10 or more local government electors".
  That is an absurdly low minimum figure. Its interpretation is a matter for the Minister, and we need to know, and I intend to pursue, how her discretion in this area is used.
  I am sure that it is accepted on both sides of the House that a substantial body of opinion can be whipped up in support of virtually any existing school. We need to know how the significance of that support is measured. Already we know something about the right hon. Lady's criteria. We know that the objectors need not be connected with the school or have any particular experience of education. We know, for instance, that the educational objectors in my town of Birmingham who claimed that they had sent several tens of thousands of objections to the Minister began their appeal for objections on the high note of academic excellence of a letter which began:
  "Try writing your name and address more than 90 times—yes, 90 times—then go back and add your signature and you will have sent 90 objections to the Minister."
  We should know how seriously and how significantly the Secretary of State judges opposition of that sort.
  We also know that there is no question of measuring support for ending selective secondary education against the support for continuing it. I will give an example. In Kidderminster, where the Secretary of State had, as she said in a letter,
  "… regard to the views expressed by local government electors"
  in perpetuating a number of grammar schools, the petition against comprehensive reorganisation was signed by 4,500 people—about 7 per cent. of the total electorate of 70,000.
  In her own constituency of Barnet, where the right hon. Lady saw fit to retain certain grammar schools, the poll on reorganisation produced 24,000 people in favour of reorganisation and 4,000

  1645
  against. I hope that when hon. Gentlemen opposite scream their support for the participation of parents and local government objectors in the area they will explain why some objections are more important than some support.
  Indeed, by the operation of Section 13 the reorganisation of secondary education is almost the only element of Government policy that is determined by referendum. The distinction and novelty of this referendum is that victory goes not to the side with the biggest vote but to whatever group can be cobbled together to represent the prejudices of the Secretary of State. The only conclusion we can draw—[Interruption.]—Does the hon. Gentleman wish to intervene? He seems to be saying something.
  Mr. Michael Fidler: I was only commenting that the remark seemed unworthy, bearing in mind what the Secretary of State has done.
  Mr. Hattersley: If it is unworthy, bearing in mind what the Secretary of State has done, will the hon. Gentleman tell me whether it is arithmetically inaccurate, considering the figures I have quoted? That is the important point.
  The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): The two figures quoted by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) are not comparable. One has to do with the specific Section 13 notice and the other has nothing to do with that.
  Mr. Hattersley: The right hon. Lady is demonstrating the rigid legalism about which we complain. She is doing all these things to which the motion calls attention. She is certainly not taking account of the wishes of the electorate in the borough which is under discussion.
  The only conclusion we can draw is that the Government do not even consider the wishes or the needs of the electors as a whole. If a substantial vested interest wants to preserve the local grammar school then, again working by the letter of the Act—and I do not deny that the right hon. Lady does that—that vested interest will be allowed to do so. The judgment of the local education authority made on behalf of all the children within its responsibility is arbitrarily overriden
  1646
  because it is that particular minority that matters.
  Mr. Fidler: The hon. Gentleman is pleading a cause on the basis of 10 years' local government experience. I speak with 21 years' local government experience. Does he think that it is advisable for local authorities to submit plans now, when they will be going out of existence in a few months' time, and for plans to be considered not for the new districts but for the old districts which soon will no longer exist?
  Mr. Hattersley: That is a totally new point which is an abuse of interjection. I will deal with it with pleasure and my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor) in winding up the debate will deal exactly with this problem, the problem of Worcester for which, with the creation of new authorities, the right hon. Lady has made life virtually impossible in 1975 by approving in two areas schemes in direct conflict with what would have happened in those areas had she refused permission. The argument is on my side.
  I will return to the stream of thought which the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. Fidler) tried, unsuccessfully, to interrupt.
  Mr. Timothy Raison: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to intervene?
  Mr. Hattersley: If the hon. Gentleman's intervention is like the previous one, with pleasure.
  Mr. Raison: I am anxious to disturb the hon. Gentleman's stream of thought because I regard it as a rather mouldy stream. Will he comment on one other example which appears to put the lie to his argument, the example of Richmond on Thames, where the Secretary of State approved a comprehensive reorganisation scheme in spite of there being strong defenders of the retention of the existing grammar school? That seems to make the point very clearly.
  Mr. Hattersley: I have three points to make about Richmond. Richmond had to wait until the spring to be told by the right hon. Lady what would happen to the Richmond children in the autumn. That is not good departmental behaviour.

  1647
  Secondly, to excuse the right hon. Lady from doing anything wrong because she has done something right is not pure logic. Thirdly, the hon. Gentleman asks how we can object to the right hon. Lady's behaviour when she has disapproved of comprehensive schools in some areas but has agreed to a comprehensive school in Richmond. That is behaviour which I would describe as capricious, and that is what the motion is about.
  I now return to the speech which I was going to make before that welter of interruptions. I wanted to offer to the House further evidence of which parents matter to the Government. Further evidence can be gleaned from an examination of the Kidderminster case where three grammar schools were preserved despite the comprehensive scheme. They were preserved for the enthusiasts of grammar schools, including a one-stream entry grammar school about which some grammar school authorities will want to make their own judgment.
  The Secretary of State said in her letter to the local authority that she wanted to preserve the opportunity for parents to send their children to selective schools and to a single-sex school. Of course, a grammar school place was available to only one Kidderminster parent in seven. For the rest there was no choice. Equally, the prospect of single-sex education remains only to those in Kidderminster who had passed what is described there as "the 11-plus". In fact, the vocal protests of a minority were allowed to preserve the choice for the minority. The system adjudged best for the community was, therefore, arbitrarily rejected.
  I hope that as the debate continues we shall not hear very much nonsense about the existence of parental choice, desirable as that may be in itself. I know perfectly well what Section 76 says. I also know that the judgment in the Watts v. Kesteven case virtually qualified Section 76 out of existence. More important, I know that "choice" is a privilege which only very few people enjoy. In the selective system, a majority of the children have been and always will be directed to the nearest secondary modern school. I hope that we shall have no nonsense that might suggest that the parents in most depressed parts of
  1648
  my constituency, for instance, have any educational choice which is meaningful to them.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that because choice is limited, which it is, it should therefore be extinguished altogether?
  Mr. Hattersley: I am suggesting that choice under a selective scheme is deeply limited. I am suggesting that choice under a pure comprehensive scheme is a great deal more to be preferred.
  I must ask the right hon. Lady another important question. According to the law she sits in judgment on reorganisation schemes. According to her own criteria, local opposition to change is an adequate reason for retaining selection. In the light of that, does she regard it as right to use her influence and authority to stimulate the petitions, the round-robins and save-our-schools campaigns?
  The right hon. Lady has never been anything but frank about her rôle. If I might say so, without offence, it has been one of the more attractive aspects of her participation in this business. At her party conference last year, according to The Times Educational Supplement, she pleaded for those who believed intensely in the future of grammar schools to be vocal in their interests. [Interruption.] Hon. Members are right to cheer, for their right hon. Friend has practised what she has preached.
  For example, a meeting recently took place between the right hon. Lady and a group of dissident Surrey Conservatives who wanted to oppose their party's plans for secondary education in the county. The Conservative chairman of the county's education committee has not disguised his feeling about the meeting. I shall give the right hon. Lady all the details and all the correspondence if she likes. He said at the last council meeting,
  "I regret I have no first-hand information on the matter. But I may say that I was rather surprised to learn in a roundabout way that the meeting was going to take place."
  I dare say that as the day wears on and information is obtained we shall be told that the meeting between the right hon. Lady and various members of the Working Council was official and legal. Let me tell the right hon. Lady and the

  1649
  House that it became official only because it was legalised with embarrassing haste.
  In mid-December rumours appeared in local newspapers in Woking that a number of dissident Conservatives, who were disenchanted with the Conservative education plans for Surrey, would meet the right hon. Lady to make sure that they could vocalise opposition to the plans. The Woking Town Clerk wrote to the council, as a result of these reports, to the effect that by the time the council agenda had been prepared—that was 15th December—the Woking Council had heard nothing about the proposed meeting between a few of its members and the right hon. Lady.
  On 18th December the Woking Council received what I can only describe as a cryptic letter from the Department of Education and Science. It said,
  "Mrs. Thatcher has at the request of Mr. Cranley Onslow, MP agreed to receive a deputation of councillors."
  That letter, which reached the council on 18th December, invited the council to meet the Secretary of State two days later. I do not know how often the right hon. Lady invites councillors to go to see her within 48 hours, but on that occasion she did. If hon. Gentlemen are amazed by the speed of the Department of Education and Science, they will be more amazed by the speedy response of the council. The invitation arrived on the 18th December for a meeting on the 20th. On the 19th the Woking Council met and overnight a group of Woking dissidents were transformed into an official deputation from the Woking County Council.
  Mrs. Thatcher: May I clear up this matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) asked me to receive a deputation. Naturally I try to accede to all hon. Members' requests. I received a deputation in the same way as I received the hon. Gentleman's deputation, in his capacity as an hon. Member from Birmingham.
  Mr. Hattersley: I was grateful for that, although I had to wait six weeks for a date. The House will draw its own conclusions from the 48 hours which elapsed in the Woking case.
  I shall give another example which took place at Grantham where the autho-
  1650
  rity of the Secretary of State has been employed with even less restraint. A programmar school lobby from Grantham wrote to the right hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber), who naturally passed on his letter to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. Her reply to the right hon. Gentleman was passed back to the grammar school lobby who saw fit to publish it. The letter included two perfectly legal but remarkably disingenuous sentences. It said:
  "My decision whether or not to oppose such proposals is taken in the light of any objection which may be received … I note that some parents are already preparing a petition on the matter to me."
  As a nod is not quite as good as a wink to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the right hon. Gentleman thought it right to add his comment which was published in the Grantham Journal on the same day. It urged those who had objections to make their views known before the Secretary of State came to a decision—[HON. MEMBERS: "What is wrong with that?"] I will explain by asking the right hon. Lady a question. Having played a public part in the promotion of objectives, does she agree that it would be intolerable for her to use the objectives as a reason for turning down local reorganisation schemes?
  Mr. Cormack: A third-rate debating point.
  Mr. Hattersley: The hon. Gentleman says that that is a third-rate debating point. Let me give him another one which comes not from me but from the right hon. Lady's predecessor. The right hon. Lady will be aware of Lord Boyle's reproof to her, which was published in the Journal of Educational Administration in June of last year, which reminded her that she has a judicial as well as a political function. She will also be aware that her predecessor, the present Lord Chancellor, talked about the use of powers under the Act and said that he did not regard it as appropriate—he was speaking about an Aylesbury grammar school in 1957—to override a local education authority unless he was convinced that it had not merely been wrong but prejudiced. I throw in these two cheap debating points alongside mine.
  Another argument that the right hon. Lady has employed in the past to justify

  1651
  the rejection of reorganisation proposals is the necessity to avoid split sites. Let me give another example relating to one reason advanced for the refusal to sanction the amalgamation of two schools for London, namely Rutherford and St. Marylebone Schools.
  One block of St. Marylebone Grammar School is nearer to Rutherford than it is to St. Marylebone and is divided from its parent school by a main road. Plans were going ahead to buy the intervening land and to reorganise the way the school was to be divided in such a way that the new scheme would probably have minimised the amount of travelling.
  I offer this as an occasion when the Secretary of State has turned down the scheme on grounds which, irrespective of doctrine, are inadequate. I admit that there are times when split sites are disadvantageous. I do not refer to the case at Barnet where a split site was to be divided into junior and senior high schools, with a clean break at 14. That was clearly strategy to avoid the siting of a grammar school. We are referring to cases where split sites divide schools which means that hundreds of children have to move from one area to another.
  During the last two years there have been a number of occasions when reorganisation proposals have been turned down because split sites have been thought to be a bad thing. Equally, during last year there were a number of occasions when local authorities have wanted to end the problem caused by split sites. This happened in Sheffield, West Bromwich and Scunthorpe where education committees sought permission to provide new secondary buildings which would concentrate comprehensive schools on a single site. On each occasion permission for the new building has been refused.
  We are therefore left with an intolerable pincer movement. The creation of a split site school is judged to be undesirable and will almost invariably be opposed. The abolition of the split site is expensive and will certainly be forbidden.
  Much of the work which would have been carried out under Sections 13 and 68 of the Act has been rendered unnecessary by the Government's constant refusal
  1652
  to approve new secondary buildings for reorganisation and many other things. There was the case in York where building plans for the city's upper school were rejected. This was also the case in Sunderland where expenditure of £1½ million for Farringdon, Broadway and Corby Hill Schools was refused. The relationship between the building programmes and reorganisation plans raises most important issues of principle.
  The White Paper on Public Expenditure forecast the most extraordinary reduction in expenditure on school buildings—not failure to expand but literal reduction. In the financial year that is about to begin, capital expenditure on schools will amount to £375 million. In 1976–77 it will have fallen to £281 million—a cut in the school building programme of 30 per cent. Nobody can doubt the need for new school building. Most county boroughs could swallow up the £10 million proposed in the White Paper and still barely meet their own needs. Why is the right hon. Lady so savagely cutting the capital budget? Is it simply Treasury stringency, is it because the Government remain unsure of the sort of secondary schools they want to build, or is it simply another way of preventing the absolute end of selection?
  When the Secretary of State answers that question, I hope that she will turn her mind to another. It concerns the time taken for her Department to pass judgment on reorganisation proposals. The St. Marylebone—Rutherford proposals took 16 months for a proposal affecting two schools. In a number of other cases, notably Richmond and Farnham, local education authorities had to wait until a few weeks before the end of the summer term to learn the fate of their children in the autumn. In Birmingham the Secretary of State has even refused to disclose the date on which she will give advice on the merits of the programme.
  By taking this attitude the right hon. Lady is not simply inconveniencing local authorities but is leaving thousands of parents and children in a state of uncertainty about what will happen to them in September. For her to tell education committees, as I have heard her do, that when in doubt they must read the Act and apply the law, is to substitute rigid legalism for compassion and common sense.

  1653
  Every local education authority to which I have spoken on this topic—both officials and elected members—has given the same explanation for this procrastination. They say that the Secretary of State decides virtually every case personally. There are no rules, no guiding principles; each judgment is ad hoc. A few minor schemes go to the noble Lord who is a junior Minister in the right hon. Lady's Department.
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: There is nothing wrong with being a junior Minister.
  Mr. Hattersley: Some Ministers are more junior than others. The other junior Minister in the right hon. Lady's Department makes the occasional decision. He was sent off to Sheffield to make them an offer—not an offer they could not refuse, but an offer which it was known they would not accept. But all the rest of the important decisions had had to await the Secretary of State's personal pleasure. If I am wrong, I am sure the right hon. Lady will tell me. This is why there is so much ministerial roulette, so much planning in the dark. What is needed, and what the next Labour Government will provide, is a clear statement of secondary school policy and a new education Act to enable it to be put into practice.
  The 1944 Act, with all its epoch-making virtues, was meant as the instrument of a single revolution. The change it made possible was so great that its authors did not provide the machinery for further change. Section 13, debated largely in reference to the rights of denominational schools, is intended to inhibit alteration. It was designed as an obstacle to local authorities changing the character of their schools, and it is an obstacle which in some way must be removed.
  A quarter of a century beyond that Act, we now see education in different terms. In his note on the 1870 Act to Mr. Gladstone, John Morley wrote
  "At bottom, the battle of the schools was not educational; it was social."
  I believe it always is, and I believe that is as true today as it was in 1870.
  Our view and the Government's view of society differ. We do not believe that competition is the only, or even the best, educational stimulus. We believe that such a theory is neither socially nor
  1654
  scientifically justified. We believe that the best interests of all people in the country are served, not by the unremitting use of whatever advice is at hand to preserve selective secondary education but by the open adoption of a truly comprehensive system. Such a policy will improve education without regard to outdated ideas of class and standing in society.
  5.19 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  welcomes the Government's policies for secondary education, the importance attached by the Secretary of State to educational considerations, local needs and wishes, and the wise use of resources, in the exercise of her powers to decide individual proposals under section 13 of the Education Act 1944 (as amended), and the Government's determination to have regard to the wishes of parents about the education of their children.
  I wondered what kind of speech the hon. Member for Birmingham, Spark-brook (Mr. Roy Hattersley) would make in support of the Opposition's narrow motion. It boils down to three things. The first is that precision is capricious. The second is that if one has strong views one should not make them known, particularly on grammar schools. The third is that in future it would be better if I did not accede to requests from hon. Members to bring their constituents to see me. That is about all his speech amounted to.
  He wanted to have the argument all ways. He said that I was wrong to approach the matter legally, yet when I dealt with the matter of human feelings, as happened over the Strand Grammar School, the Dick Shepherd School and the size of the Tulse Hill School, he dismissed those matters completely.
  May I first deal with the nature of the powers under Section 13. I note that the hon. Member says that he will do away with that section if ever his party returns to power. In that case, he would be doing away with all rights of local electors or those affected by the proposals to make their feelings known directly to the Secretary of State who would then be acting on any proposal as an automatic rubber stamp. The Section 13 procedure which I have to operate and which his predecessor kept in existence and did not

  1655
  propose to abolish, even towards the end of his Government, requires that formal proposals be submitted to me in each case in which it is intended either to establish a new school or to close, enlarge or significantly change the character of an existing, school. At the same time, public notice must be given of the proposal and a period of two months is prescribed during which local government electors may submit objections to me.
  The very procedure, therefore, which the hon. Gentleman would abolish, includes means whereby local views on proposals for individual schools may be fully taken into account before final decisions are made. And it is that to which the hon. Gentleman objects. Just as I have a duty to examine and to assess carefully a proposal in all its details, so I have a duty to exercise the same care in consideration of all the objections which are made to the proposal. Clearly, where the volume of objection is large and the substance well reasoned a full examination of the material will have considerable relevance to a proper assessment of what local needs and wishes really are.
  For the convenience of authorities, Circular 10/70 summarised the main criteria—they are in the amendment—for formulating and judging the proposals. These are educational considerations in general—I often think that the Opposition do not look at these schemes on educational considerations at all—local needs and wishes in particular, and the wise use of resources. Educational considerations in general clearly include not only questions of pattern of provision, to which the hon. Gentleman partly referred—two-tier schools, all-through schools, sixth form colleges, age of transfer, and so on—but they also include reasonable choice of school. When the examination of proposals and the objections made to them reveal a strong conflict of view in the particular circumstances, this, too, requires full and patient consideration.
  No proposal has ever been held up by me. Since I came to office I have approved about 2,650 statutory proposals relating to secondary schools and rejected 115, roughly 4 per cent. These figures reduce to proper proportions the very limited scale of those contentious cases which receive a great deal of publicity. Some of the criticism of the decisions
  1656
  taken in this minority of cases has been directed to the fact that I have actually used my powers for the purpose for which they were intended; that I have actually listened to objectors and have rejected some proposals under Section 13, as, if it were a reversal of the laws of nature that any proposal under Section 13 should fail to receive approval.
  This seems wholly to misconceive the nature of the jurisdiction which it is the duty of any Secretary of State to exercise. A proposal is not a decision, and the precise machinery for objection is not mere decoration, although the hon. Member would have it that way. The duty is to make decisions on proposals on their merits and in the light of any objections which may be made. If the Secretary of State, in the exercise of this discretionary jurisdiction, concludes that a proposal is not well-founded, would not be in the best interests of the children concerned or does not accord with local wishes, it is his clear duty to reject it.
  Mr. Nigel Spearing: On the matter of procedure, the right hon. Lady has said that she places very great stress upon local and parental wishes. Where objections to any scheme for one school are overridden, will she say whether it is her practice to reply in detail to the objections she has received?
  Mrs. Thatcher: Very rarely do we reply directly to the objectors in detail. The objections are analysed at the end of the period, and sent to the local authorities for their comments, together with requests for full details of the re-organisation scheme. The details required are very extensive. We evaluate the local education authority's reply to the objections. I have had requests from those who have made objections to see whether they could have the comments from the local education authority further to rebut the arguments. But there must be an end to this process, and so far we have never let the comments on the objections go to the objectors. That is the procedure which we operate.
  If rejections were happening to every other proposal which was submitted or even to a substantial proportion of all proposals, one might well conclude that things were not as they should be—that authorities were failing to put forward sound proposals or that a Secretary of

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  State was basically hostile to a wide range of types of proposal. But, granted that authorities have to submit proposals for any significant change of schools, a rate of rejection of the small size indicated is not in itself either surprising or disturbing. A vast majority of proposals I get are well thought out. They are the subject of wide consultation and cooperation between local authorities, teachers and parents. We do not receive large volumes of objections to each and every proposal. We receive them only where there is a genuine conflict of view. Contrary to what the hon. Gentleman said, it would not, therefore, seem easy to whip up support just because a few people wish to preserve a particular school.
  Mr. R. C. Mitchell: When the right hon. Lady is considering whether a particular school shall be changed in character, for example, from a grammar school to a comprehensive school, does she consider under the Act the effect it has on children in other schools adjacent to the particular school before she reaches a decision? If so, I suspect that her figure of 4 per cent. is fictitious because she will know that if she retains a grammar school in a particular area it has a very adverse effect on other schools which surround it.
  Mrs. Thatcher: Yes, we consider that. I shall deal with that specific point shortly.
  Anyone who believes that a proposal submitted under Section 13 can ever be regarded as "open and shut" is simply failing to recognise the nature of the law and the duty it imposes upon the Secretary of State.
  I come now to the hon. Gentleman's point about the practice of rejecting parts of schemes. The motion speaks of it, too. This is no doubt a reference to the fact that an authority sometimes submits a large number of individual proposals which together are intended to achieve the reorganisation of a particular area. We managed to do Twickenham first, and then there were tricky parts about Richmond. The local educational authority could not have been more co-operative in the way in which it dealt with objections and met the points. In the Richmond case there were only about 600
  1658
  objections—I am speaking from memory—which were very small in number; most of them were met by the authority and the scheme went through.
  It is perfectly true that when proposals come in in groups, the rejection of one or two proposals may have implications for the implementation of the remainder of the proposals which have been approved. But in educational terms, in terms of resources and of contentiousness, not all proposals are equally well founded. Great care is taken to work out the relationship between individual proposals and to recognise the authority's broad intentions and strategy. But even then, it remains necessary to examine each separate proposal individually, and on its merits. In doing that, I should be failing in my duty if, having concluded that a particular proposal was not well founded, I nevertheless approved it because not to do so would have reprecussions elsewhere. Where, on merit, such decisions have been necessary I am always ready to consider, as a matter of urgency, any revised proposals which the authority may wish to formulate as a result of reviewing the situation.
  A number of the 115 proposals which have not been granted have been the subject of revised proposals, some of which have been granted. So the 115 are not all cases of final rejection. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook referred to the 4 per cent. I think that 4 per cent. is slightly on the high side, because not all the 115 proposals have been to comprehensive schemes. They are figures for secondary schools as a whole.
  Mr. Kenneth Marks: What part does the right hon. Lady's Department play in any discussions before local authority proposals come forward? Are there no discussions before these schemes actually come to her in the form of proposals?
  Mrs. Thatcher: We have given up the practice of approving plans for a whole area because it caused confusion. There have been one or two cases where we approved and took note of plans, but we do not now have preliminary considerations about plans for a whole area.
  Mr. Hattersley: Since I asked the right hon. Lady almost the same question as that put to her by my hon. Friend the

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  Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks), may I clarify what I think he means? My hon. Friend's question was clear to me but not apparently to the right hon. Lady, according to her answer. Assuming he were the chief education officer for a borough in contact with the Department and the borough decided that it wanted a complete comprehensive scheme, would the chief education officer be able to talk to civil servants in the DES and be guided about the kind of scheme that the Minister would be likely to accept?
  Mrs. Thatcher: The hon. Gentleman will find there are certain matters on record as guidelines that we do not like. I made a long speech to the NUT at its last conference pointing out some of the drawbacks of large schools, split sites, two-tier schemes and 14 as the age of transfer. These matters are on record and are available for anyone to see. We are very careful indeed not to give any decision or guarantee on any preliminary inquiries which come to us because that of itself would prejudice the final decision.
  The motion speaks of our postponing and preventing schemes. Far from postponing and preventing plans for comprehensive development, the vast number of approvals in the last two and a half years is leading to major development of a wide range of patterns of reorganisation. Since April 1971 the establishment of all-through comprehensive schools has been approved in the areas of almost 60 authorities; middle-school proposals have been approved for more than 30 authorities and sixth form college proposals for a further 12 areas. Against this background, concentration upon the small minority of rejected proposals, which I believe I have been justified in upholding, shows a lack of understanding of the broad situation.
  I have identified and spoken publicly of a number of general issues and problems in secondary reorganisation. I have drawn attention to the organisational problems of very large schools and the advantages of smaller comprehensive schools. I understand, from the reception of that speech, that it found many echoes in the minds of listeners to it.
  Some children develop and prosper better within the atmosphere of a smaller community. One reason why I turned
  1660
  down the Tulse Hill proposal, to which the hon. Member for Sparkbrook referred, was that it was for enlargement of an 11-form entry comprehensive to a 13-form entry comprehensive. I thought that was already large enough without going much larger.
  Another proposal that I rejected on the ground of size related to the Trowbridge, Wiltshire, scheme. The local education authority wanted to put four schools together and call them one comprehensive school consisting of 2,700 pupils. That scheme was turned down because it was much too big. The local education authority resubmitted proposals for two smaller comprehensive schools, each composed of two schools, and they were approved. So local education authorities are used to looking at the guidelines and making their submissions regarding comprehensive schemes in the light of them.
  Again, proposals for two-tier arrangements require close scrutiny. I should like to quote from the Assistant Masters' Association which has great experience of these matters. [Interruption.] Of course, hon. Gentlemen on the Opposite side are prepared to listen only to some teachers and not to others. This was about a scheme in Bexley. The Assistant Masters' Association said:
  "Transfer of pupils to another school at the age of 14 makes for considerable difficulty in guiding them into correct choices of GCE and CSE subjects, and makes other curriculum decisions much harder. We are sceptical about whether the necessary degree of syllabus cooperation between the schools involved would ever be achieved in practice."
  These were practising teachers making submissions under the procedure for objections about a scheme which would affect them. I can understand that hon. Gentlemen opposite wish to get of Section 13. They are prepared to listen only to a limited number of people—not to those who are affected by the arrangements.
  Very careful attention is also given to any proposal for a school to be established on two or more sets of premises.
  Mr. Cyril Smith: Referring to the point that the right hon. Lady was making about the age of 14-plus for transfer, may I ask whether she is aware that many other teacher trade unions, in addition to the Joint Four and the Assistant Masters' Association, are of the opinion

  1661
  that 14-plus is a bad age at which to transfer children?
  Mrs. Thatcher: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I have always thought that the arguments against it spoke for themselves, but from time to time it is necessary to make it clear. We are still getting schemes for two-tier arrangements for transfer at 11 to 14 and 14 to 18. A number of authorities which started on that kind of two-tier arrangement are now moving away from it because of the inherent difficulties that it causes. It is probably better that we should make our views clear on that matter so that such schemes are not submitted. One of the worst features from the teachers' point of view is to go through one lot of changes and a few years later to go through another lot. They hate it. It is bad for them and for their pupils.
  I turn from Section 13 to the question of parental choice. I know that hon. Gentlemen opposite will not like that because the terms of their motion suggest that I have used my powers under Section 68 of the Education Act to impede or delay schemes of reorganisation on comprehensive lines.
  I have not used my powers under Section 68 to this end. Like all Ministers of Education before me, including my noble Friend Lord Boyle, I regard the use of the power of direction under Section 68, which Parliament gave, as a weapon of last resort. I have used it in only eight cases where I have concluded that authorities were acting unreasonably. All these cases concerned the admission of pupils to schools—either a small number or a large group. These decisions have all been on the side of the parents, and I am not ashamed of that.
  In only one case was my direction closely related to the establishment by an authority of a comprehensive school. I approved a proposal by Surrey to establish a comprehensive school at Rydens for pupils of 13 to 18. However, at the same time I directed the authority not to deprive parents in the catchment area which had been drawn for the 13-to-18 school of the right to let their children try for places at grammar schools at the age of 11 if they wished. That authority, although there are many
  1662
  other schools in the area, sought to put a rigid ring fence round one school which would have meant that people in that area who had children of high academic ability were robbed of all chance of going elsewhere. It seemed totally unreasonable and I directed the authority to act as I have indicated.
  There are many parts of the country where geography or other factors lead to parents having little, if any, choice of schools. Where there can be a choice—this was so in the case I have just mentioned—because schools in sufficient number and variety are available, I am determined to do what I properly can to ensure that parents' right of choice is not eroded and is, wherever possible, extended.
  Mr. J. D. Dormand: I am genuinely seeking information on the use of Section 68. The right hon. Lady properly said that it is used as a last resort. She then stated that she has used it eight times since she came into office. Does she not agree that that is a much greater use of Section 68 than there has been in the period, say, since the war?
  Mrs. Thatcher: Not as far as I am aware. It may be used to secure the admission of pupils to a particular school, sometimes against the authority's wishes. I have refused to use it on a number of occasions. In some of them admissions policy has been involved and in some there have been other factors. I do not think it is a large or frequent use of Section 68. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will bear in mind that I have been in my job for two and a half years. On the whole, Labour Secretaries of State for Education and Science have had a shorter period in office.
  The overwhelming majority of parents send their children to schools maintained by local education authorities. Many parents want to have a real say in what school their child should go to. I should like to see many more taking what is, after all, a natural and basic interest in the choice of school.
  I am the first to recognise that it would be idle to suggest that within a publicly provided and maintained service every parent can have an unfettered choice of school. There are limits imposed by cost, organisation and geography, but my

  1663
  aim is to see that choice is extended and not reduced wherever possible.
  Mr. Ernest Armstrong: When the right hon. Lady gives choice to a limited number of parents to choose a grammar school by retaining a grammar school, she compels 75 per cent. of the children to go to a school that nobody chooses.
  Mrs. Thatcher: It depends how many children one considers have a greater ability than we are now managing to bring out in the schools. I know the hon. Gentleman's creaming-off argument, but what he objects to is where in certain areas, I have retained one or two grammar schools, mainly in areas in which I have given decisions for a wider choice of schools.
  I absolutely agree with my noble Friend Lord Boyle, who has said:
  "There are some other local authorities which have reorganisation plans that make educational sense either for the whole or a part of their area. But we do not believe that the time has come for the rapid and universal imposition of the comprehensive principle. This applies especially to our big cities, for several reasons. First, our big cities contain a particularly large number of established grammar schools of real excellence and, secondly, Socialist plans for the big cities so often involve botched-up schemes—taking a group of existing schools, often separated by wide distances, and giving them one head, which is absolutely no good at all."
  Hon. Members: What is the date of that speech?
  Mrs. Thatcher: It was after circular 10/65 of the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland). My noble Friend went on to say:
  "There is one other point about big cities. I agree with those who say that the imposition of nothing but comprehensive schools in big cities is bound to handicap the able child from a poor area."
  The hon. Member for Sparkbrook quoted one of my speeches to the Conservative Party conference. That was a speech of my noble friend when he was Shadow Secretary of State.
  The hon. Gentleman says that he knows all about Sections 76 and 37. But the interesting point to me is that his actions are against parental choice. He is trying to restrict it, at the very moment when his leader is making speeches saying that the Labour Party stands for increasing
  1664
  individual choice. On 20th January the Leader of the Opposition said:
  "Labour's task in identifying the road to democratic choice is directed … to showing how we can give the lead to the nations in exalting the role of the individual in society, making clear to him or her the choice which lies open and encouraging the deliberate use of that choice.… A people drilled, dragooned and distracted into believing that there is no choice, that they are denied any real power to choose, can find themselves drifting into a target for extremists."
  This is the moment when the hon. Gentleman announces that he will abolish the rights of objectors by abolishing Section 13.
  Mrs. Jill Knight: Does my right hon. Friend agree that on present form the Leader of the Opposition does not hold any view for very long, and that it may be for only a very short time that we have the benefit of his holding views such as those he recently expressed?
  Mrs. Thatcher: It looks as though his views do not extend to education.
  The hon. Gentleman made great reference to Strand School. I was not quite sure what he was accusing me of. I seem to be accused of being too legalistic, of actually using my powers, of not listening to human voices or of not listening to the local education authorities. I listened to the parents, I listened to some of the objectors and I watched the fight which the parents had. They had it for one reason: that they believed in Strand School as it was. It happened to be a grammar school, but one of the reasons why they fought so hard was that it was a small school.
  The case for the school was perhaps best put by a former pupil in a letter he wrote to the ILEA magazine Contact shortly before the decision:
  "So the battle for Strand School is reaching its final sordid stages. Another living institution will die the death, in pursuance of policies laid down by a party which proclaims that people matter more than plans. Not, apparently, if those people attend a grammar school.
  I write as a former pupil of the school, one who came from a 'culturally impoverished' background, from a Brixton home in which books were not to be found, the child of parents of little education and no notion of intellect. Strand, then as now, was not the best of London grammar schools: its most illustrious alumnus seems to be David Jacobs.

  1665
  But it opened up for me, an uncouth 11-year-old, a totally unexplored, unknown world. I tasted the fruits of hard work and application in a sternly but humanely disciplined community a small community where one knew was known by, the headmaster. I learnt the delights of intellectual study; and after eight years I left for university having passed four A-levels and narrowly failed a fifth, and those in subjects reputedly difficult for children of a poor cultural background—English, French, Latin, German, History…
  A small community, with a narrowly defined purpose, played its part in shielding me from the many pressures on a working class boy to be an early leaver Thank God, I say, for that bastion of elitism and privilege.
  And, finally, let the ILEA not delude itself. Selection will not end. Selection by ability will go. But my child can still be 'selected'. If he has an IQ of 30. If he can dance. If I, his father, have money and can send him to an independent school, or move to a 'good' area. If we prefer selection on these terms, so be it. But I did not have an IQ of 30; I could not dance, and my father had no money. Thank God there was Strand School."
  That letter, not in legalistic language, was based on experience. It was written by a former pupil who wished that opportunity to continue, who wished that small school to continue, and wished it for anyone who got there on a basis of merit whatever his background.
  The parents fought. They took the case to court, where they were upheld. Then they fought again in increasing numbers. The hon. Gentleman accuses me of having listened to them. I am glad that I listened to them and upheld their objection.
  There is one more point connected with the scheme about the Dick Sheppard School. The hon. Gentleman said that I turned it down on a technicality. There were enormous numbers of objections to the scheme, but the main ground for objection—not only the weight of objection—came from those who particularly wanted to retain a girls' comprehensive school. To change it from a girls' comprehensive to a co-educational school, to give in to the request to change the size, would have been to go against the wishes of many parents of children at the school. There is quite a number of immigrant Indian parents in the area who like their daughters to go to girls' schools. That was not a technicality. It was not legalistic. It was listening to the real human objections and feelings of the persons concerned.
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  I do not believe that the hon. Member for Sparkbrook has ever really faced up to the problem of the neighbourhood school which is in a less than good neighbourhood. What happens in those circumstances is that one gets a school which is comprehensive by name in a bad neighbourhood. The school reflects the character of the neighbourhood. In order to try to overcome this, local authorities draw artificial boundaries to get what they call a good social mix. The parents object. The Secretary of State then has to make one of two choices—either to uphold their objections or to direct them. The policies of the hon. Member for Sparkbrook would lead to ignoring the parents' objections and wishes and to the direction of children to schools. It would lead to the end of the parents' real interest in going round schools, trying to choose schools for their children which they think suitable—and they are just as interested in choosing between comprehensive schools as between schools of a different kind.
  Mr. Marks: Did not the right hon. Lady, Lord Boyle and the remainder of Conservative hon. Members on the Committee at the time vote for exactly that idea when we discussed the 1970 Education Bill?
  Mrs. Thatcher: No. We pointed out steadily and consistently that if every school was comprehensive and the Government insisted on getting a full ability range, what would happen was exactly what is happening in the ILEA. Children are divided into above average ability, average ability and, at the bottom, below average ability. We stood out against that concept. It has caused great trouble in the ILEA. In the end it means the direction of children to schools.
  The hon. Member for Sparkbrook also referred to the capital provision that we have made for secondary schools. I turn now to the terms of the amendment and refer to the capital provision. When the Government took office, their immediate task in secondary education was to provide resources for raising the school leaving age. We provided capital resources on a generous scale which had been dictated by what the hon. Gentleman's predecessor said was necessary. However, the Labour Government postponed their promises. We were left to carry them out.

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  The capital was forthcoming. The ROSLA programme was for three years and provided £36 million in 1970–71, £50 million in 1971–72 and £61 million in 1972–73. But that is by no means all that we did for the secondary building programme. Over the five years 1970–71 to 1974–75, in addition to those amounts, we have authorised secondary building projects for basic needs of no less than £386 million at 1972 prices. It is a very substantial secondary school building programme. The basic needs and the ROSLA programme taken together enable local authorities to draw up plans in their areas for reorganisation schemes. In the new White Paper we are now providing £10 million each in 1975–76 for secondary school improvements in addition to the money that we are providing for primary school improvements.
  There is one factor which I might mention. It is a small one but it provides a degree of freelom which was not open to local education authorities when the Labour Party was in power. Since 1970 I have approved some 50 proposals for off-programme building worth £3 million. These include about a dozen cases in which, under the new arrangements that we announced after the last election, local education authorities are selling surplus land for housing purposes and using the proceeds to undertake additional school building. Only this week I have approved appropriations of some 15 acres of land in Birmingham from the education committee to the housing committee, and the proceeds of more than £500,000 will be used for improvements and extensions to primary and secondary schools and for the provision of some nursery classes. That is another point of freedom which was not allowed to local education authorities under the rigid financial controls operated by the Labour Government.
  The sense of the motion and the implications of the speech of the hon. Member for Sparkbrook are threefold. He says that I have misused my powers, that I have done so on a serious scale and that the result has been to impede or frustrate the development of secondary reorganisation. But the curious way in which his arguments were advanced demonstrates something quite different. First, the hon. Gentleman is the victim of a threefold delusion. I should have misused my powers if I had made the uncritical affir-
  1668
  mative judgment of every proposal which the Opposition clearly would not do. This I have not done and I shall never do. As it is, I have exercised my discretionary powers as the law provides. Secondly, the small percentage of rejected proposals has assumed obsessive proportions in the mind of the hon. Gentleman. Thirdly, the effect of my decisions under Section 13 has been positive and constructive.
  Where I have approved proposals, reorganisation in many forms has proceeded on sound lines. Where I have rejected proposals a far more liberal choice for parents than would otherwise have been possible has been preserved. Any Secretary of State concerned solely with patterns of organisation and not at all with specific choice in specific places would be betraying his office.
  I welcome this opportunity to affirm that the Government's policy rejects any such crabbed and mechanical approach. I ask the House to support the amendment.
  5.57 p.m.
  Mr. Frederick Wiley: As it is already nearly six o'clock, I shall try to help by being brief, and I shall confine my remarks to my constituency. I want to help the Secretary of State. She is extremely unpopular. Indeed, she is probably more unpopular than anyone else in my constituency—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I shall explain why in a moment. I hope to give her an opportunity to redeem her reputation.
  From every quarter in Sunderland there is an insistent and articulate demand for comprehensive secondary education. All Catholic children have and take the opportunity of comprehensive secondary education. This year, of the other children, eight out of 10 go directly into comprehensive schools. Until we finish the job—which in my constituency means the building of the Carley Hill School—naturally enough there is intense disappointment and a feeling of real deprivation about the minority who do not attend comprehensive schools.
  We met Lord Belstead. He was very sympathetic. He was patient. I would concede that the noble Lord was charming. But a few weeks after we had met him we were told that we could not have approval for the Carley Hill school.

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  The right hon. Lady is obviously misinformed, judging by her reaction to what I said when I begun. The right hon. Lady has spoken about parents' choice and local wishes. The Sunderland Council of Churches has written to her and told her that we had a census in Sunderland and this revealed an overwhelming demand for comprehensive secondary education. We have repeatedly had parents' meetings—I have been to some—at which there is an articulate demand for comprehensive secondary education. All the teachers' unions are emphatic in support, and so is the Head Teachers Association.
  It was because of this continuing pressure, as the right hon. Lady knows, that the local education authority felt itself driven to put forward proposals for a 12-plus non-selective system of secondary education. They know well enough that this is very much second best and they were shocked—and I assure the right hon. Lady of this—when they heard of her refusal to meet us and consider again the question of the Carley Hill school. I assure her that this is not political. She surely knows that the leader of the Conservative group has now written to her and said that the Conservatives share the concern of the parents and urge her to approve the building of the Carley Hill school.
  I just want to make two points very briefly, and the first is this. Lord Belstead, of course, based his refusal on basic needs, but the Carley Hill school will replace four schools: one of them is 100 years old—obviously this has got to go; two are between 60 and 70 years old—surely near enough to the Department's criterion; and the fourth is scheduled for use as a primary school. I do not quarrel with the right hon. Lady about her priority for primary school building, but even if we look at this without emphasising that if we concentrate on primary school building we still have to provide for cases such as this in Sunderland in the secondary school building field, even if we look only at the primary school building, what do we find? One of the schools to be replaced will in fact be used as a primary school. In the case of the other three, we desperately need the sites; these will be sites for new primary schools, and in a constituency such as
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  mine—tight, compact and densely built—there are no alternative sites.
  The second point is one I have made repeatedly in the House. I acknowledge—and with about the worst record of unemployment of any town in the country it is not surprising—what has been done and what the Government are doing to aid and support us in Sunderland. I realise that the Government are aware that we have an exceptionally large number of construction workers unemployed in Sunderland. What I beg the right hon. Lady to do is make her voice heard, see that her influence is felt, because when we consider Government aid and support we also have to consider the priorities, and I assure her that as far as the people of Sunderland are concerned the top priority is the building of the Carley Hill school.
  6.5 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Shersby: I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for this opportunity to address the House for the first time. I listened with interest to the remarks of the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey). However, I hope he will forgive me if on this occasion I do not comment on his speech, and I ask for the customary indulgence of the House for a maiden speaker.
  I am very glad that the first opportunity I have of speaking in this House is on the subject of secondary education. It is a subject which is of great interest to me and to many thousands of my constituents. First, however, I want to pay a tribute to my predecessor, the late Charles Curran, who I know was a Member of this House much respected for his independent and forthright views. He was also greatly loved and respected by his constituents, irrespective of their political views, and was generally reckoned to be a first-class constituency Member. He left behind him a legacy of good will which it has been my good fortune to inherit, and I know I have to set a high standard to be considered a worthy successor.
  I want now to tell the House a little about Uxbridge, which is situated on the western edge of greater London. It is a long, thin constituency, 10 miles long and three miles wide, stretching from Hare-field in the north to London Airport in the south. It can be said to contain a very

  1671
  important and representative cross-section of the community. There is, for example, a good deal of light industry, there is agriculture, there is the important commercial centre of Uxbridge itself and there is the large sector of the residential population which earns its living in central London and commutes there and back daily. There is then London Airport itself, the very hub of international communications, which is also one of the largest employers in the area. Above all, there are many fine schools with a tradition of excellence in education of which my constituents are justly proud.
  Uxbridge is and has been for many years a politically marginal constituency. Consequently the electors take particular care how they cast their votes, because they know that each and every one counts in determining the result of a parliamentary election. In the recent by-election the future of secondary education in my constituency was one of the important issues, and it is for that reason that I have chosen it as the subject for my maiden speech. Having been elected from among no fewer than seven candidates, I believe that I can properly represent the views of a majority of my constituents on this subject. I also speak as the governor of a grammar school, a comprehensive school and an independent school, and—perhaps even more important—as the father of two children.
  In considering the terms of the motion which is before the House this afternoon, I can think of no better place to start than Section 1 of the Education Act 1944. Section 1(1) of the Act lays upon the Secretary of State for Education and Science the duty to provide a varied and comprehensive educational service in every area. Moreover, it lays upon the Secretary of State the duty to secure effective execution by local authorities under her control in providing this varied educational service. This, then, is the foundation of the Secretary of State's powers conferred by the 1944 Act.
  It is, however, Section 13 of the Act which provides that where local education authorities wish to make any significant change in the character of a school they shall submit such proposals to the Secretary of State. Such changes are known in modern parlance as reorganisation. It is for carrying out her duties under this section of the Act that my right
  1672
  hon. Friend is being criticised this afternoon.
  My own view of the provisions of Section 13 is that they very wisely give to all those likely to be affected by reorganisation an understanding of what is afoot and a chance to object. These are not my words; they come from administrative circular 6 of 1970, issued under the authority of the right hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short) when he was Secretary of State for Education and Science in the previous administration. I have no doubt that at that time he thought it was a good idea for parents and electors to have an opportunity to object to the proposals for reorganisation. Indeed at that time he must have thought it fitting that parents and electors should be reminded that they were given this right in the 1944 Act—the right to carry their objections to the Secretary of State so that he could make a final decision.
  There is no doubt about the great intensity of feeling among many parents about the fate of certain schools which have given outstanding service to the community. This intensity of feeling is shown by the number of signatures of objection which have increased fivefold during the past year. In other words, the public welcome the opportunities to object which Section 13 provides. I feel certain that as time goes by the actual number of parents and electors exercising their rights is increasing and will increase further.
  What we are beginning to see is a realisation on the part of parents that good schools, whether they be modern bilateral, comprehensive or grammar, must be defended at all costs against the arbitrary local power exercised by local education authorities. The arbitrary nature of this power is amply demonstrated where the local education authority attempts to rush through ill-conceived reorganisation proposals, in the hope that it can change the character of the local schools before the next election.
  Parent power is now beginning to be felt. A good example of this is the concern felt by a number of parents in my constituency about the fate of Isleworth Grammar School for Boys, situated in the neighbouring constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Heston and Isle-worth (Mr. Hayhoe). In this case no fewer

  1673
  than 17,659 signatures of objections to the Section 13 notice were collected. The parents of children in that school number no more than 1,000. The House will realise that there was massive support for this school from other electors.
  If such a volume of opposition is to be disregarded, this is surely a prime example of the arbitrary exercise of power by a local education authority. A great deal of public concern was expressed at my by-election about the proposals of the local education authority, Hillingdon, to introduce a comprehensive system of education for its schools. Those proposals, had they been accepted in their entirety, would have meant that two famous grammar schools, Bishopshalt and Vyners, would have changed completely in character and my constituents would have lost the varied educational service they have enjoyed ever since the passing of the 1944 Act, to which I believe they are still entitled.
  This is particularly important because the local education authority has also ceased to take up places at direct grant schools as from next September. This will result in a further reduction in parental choice. Happily, however, I can tell the House that my right hon. Friend has recently decided not to approve that part of the local education authority's proposals which would have resulted in the loss of those two fine schools. In making that decision my right hon. Friend has clearly given careful consideration to the views expressed by local government electors and to the local education authority. She has paid attention to the breadth of educational opportunity offered by these two well-known schools.
  This is what I mean when I talk about the importance of local opinion, local needs and wishes being understood by the Secretary of State. My right hon. Friend is not using her powers in an arbitrary or capricious manner. On the contrary she is doing what the local education authority should have done. She is taking account of local needs and wishes, the views of parents and electors. In so doing she is carrying out the duties laid on her by Section 1 of the 1944 Act. In other words, she is ensuring that the local education authority provides a varied and comprehensive education service. I assure the House that to many of my
  1674
  constituents in Uxbridge she is regarded as the champion of parents.
  6.15 p.m.
  Mr. J. D. Dormand: This is the first occasion on which I have followed a maiden speaker and it gives me genuine pleasure to say that the House has listened to a model maiden speech. The hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) is obviously extremely knowledgeable about this topic. He has delivered his speech with great clarity, so much so that one might imagine he had been a Member of this House for some years. I am sure that I reflect the views of the whole House when I say that we look forward to his further contributions with great interest.
  I will obey your injunction, Mr. Speaker, and be brief. I should like to take up briefly a point raised with the Secretary of State by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks). It is an important point; the Secretary of State realised this at the time and I do not think she attempted to mislead the House. I refer to the query about pre-submission of plans. It is a well-known fact that officers, and often chairmen of education committees, meet officers of the Department and that there is a valuable link between the Department and the local education authorities. My hon. Friend pointed out that the plans are, if not finally decided, decided to a large extent before the submission is made.
  Mrs. Thatcher: May I make one thing clear? The plans come in. The procedure is to take note of them. Even when the procedure was to approve or disapprove them, if approval was given there was always a sentence at the bottom saying "This is without prejudice to the rights under Section 13." There is no difference about this.
  Mr. Dormand: I do not wish to labour the point. It seems that this is a very good thing, particularly as it concerns secondary education reorganisation.
  This debate is concerned with the principle of comprehensive education at the secondary stage. I find it extremely difficult—a continuing source of amazement—to realise that in this year of grace 1973 the Secretary of State and apparently the Government—and, judging

  1675
  from some of the comments today, many hon. Members on the Government side—are still unable to accept this principle. Hon. Members of all parties have said frequently that there is nothing magical about the age of 11. Yet in our primary schools there is no segregation. We have fully comprehensive education up to the age of 11.
  If the Plowden Report is to be believed, and most people accept it, we have some of the best junior comprehensive schools in the world. I challenge the right hon. Lady to produce any serious and reputable educational research advocating segregation at 11-plus. One is inevitably drawn to the conclusion that the views of the Government on this are doctrinaire and not based on any educational considerations.
  Circular 10/70 relating to this matter was issued in the autumn of 1970. It was supposed to be a green light to Tory authorities to reverse their plans. In fact, it had no such effect. I believe that the Secretary of State totally misjudged the feeling of education committees, education offices and parents in thinking that the tide of comprehensive feeling was to be reversed at that stage. The Government ought therefore to be encouraging this great movement and not, as they are doing, inhibiting it. In my view they ought above all to be encouraging in every possible way the building of purpose-built comprehensive schools.
  I recognise the practical day-to-day difficulties with which the Secretary of State has to deal. I refer to the overriding need to build purpose-built comprehensive schools. In January 1972, the latest date for which the Minister was able to give me information on this matter, of 1,591 schools recognised as designated comprehensive schools only 287 were purpose-built. Even allowing for all the practical difficulties which any Department has to face, that shows a lack of determination to provide for comprehensive education. Many hon. Members on this side believe that this is absolutely fundamental to this form of education. In 1961 there were 81 comprehensive purpose-built schools. Ten years later we can only say there are 287. That seems tome to show a complete lack of determination to provide this fundamental part of secondary education.
  1676
  The Secretary of State referred to financial provision. I believe that the lack of financial provision for secondary school buildings in the last year has exacerbated this very serious position out of all proportion. As has been said many times, we on this side are very suspicious about the financial arrangements concerning secondary education. We regard it as yet another factor inhibiting comprehensive education. But there is another aspect of the money situation—and this is my real purpose in intervening in the debate—which is not only causing a great deal of concern to my own local education authority but is also a general problem. I refer to the impossibility of local education authorities to meet the cost limits imposed by the Department's regulations. I am aware that this affects all school building but this debate is related to secondary schools and therefore it is legitimate to consider it in this context.
  My own local education authority, which has written to me about this matter, finds it impossible to meet those cost limits. It is asked, as are other local education authorities, to make savings on various aspects of plans produced by the architects. But my authority—and I fully support it—takes the view that such savings would cause a lowering of standards. I relate this to my previous remarks about the need for purpose-built comprehensive schools. I am sure that anybody who has studied the history of education, even over the last 30 or 40 years, could very easily point to examples—I regret to say from both Governments—where a reduction of standards has caused difficulties with which in many areas we have not yet caught up. That is what the Government are compelling local education authorities to do. Is that what the Government want? Is this yet another aspect of inhibitions placed on the reorganisation of secondary education?
  I ask the Secretary of State to give further consideration to three things: first, to increasing the cost limits; secondly, to consider implementing a regional cost limit—and I can speak with feeling on this because of the sky-high costs which at present operate in the North-East at the moment; and thirdly, to abandon the present policy of insisting on fixed-price tenders where the project

  1677
  which is submitted takes at least two years to complete. Embodied in these three suggestions are the kind of things which are placing secondary education reorganisation in a straitjacket from which local authorities are finding difficulty in extricating themselves. It is a nationwide problem.
  The County Architects' Society, described by the industrial reporter of The Times as
  "normally a quiet, non-militant group",
  was reported in that newspaper on 3rd January as expressing:
  "its great concern at the continued inability of Government Departments to make adjustments to the present cost limits".
  The report went on to say:
  "There is a real danger that many new schools … programmed to start before the end of the present financial year in March, 1973, will not get off the ground."
  That will affect secondary education reorganisation probably more than any other factor at the present time. When we add that problem to all the other problems being placed before comprehensive education at this time, one can only think there is a bleak future for it.
  The financial restrictions to which I have referred which are being imposed on local education authorities by the Government were the main reason which led me to take part in this debate. But I would like to speak on a matter on which I was glad the Secretary of State spent some time in her speech, the question of parental choice. Much nonsense is talked about parental choice. Indeed, I go further. There is no such thing in education as complete freedom of parental choice. One of the best publications which the Department of Education and Science has produced—I am not sure in which year—is the manual of guidance to local education authorities on this question. It is a realistic and sensible document but it is largely based on the fact that a local education authority cannot at any time provide all the facilities that parents would like. In other words, it could not meet the wishes of all parents at all times in dealing with staff, accommodation, single-sex schools, which were dealt with by the Secretary of State, and so on.
  It may be of some interest that for the sake of accuracy I telephoned the Depart-
  1678
  ment this morning to get the number and name of that circular. The Department, which I telephone frequently, cannot be more helpful on anything I ask. I was interested, and now I am curious in view of the Secretary of State's remarks today, to learn that the circular has been or is being withdrawn. I can see a puzzled look on the Secretary of State's face. Perhaps therefore, when the Under-Secretary of State replies, he will have some information for me. I was curious before I telephoned. The point of my curiosity, now underlined, which I put to the Secretary of State is whether that circular is to be revised in the light of comprehensive education. In other words, is that manual of guidance intended specifically to refer to a parent's choice either for grammar school education or for comprehensive education as a specific reason? In view particularly of the information that I received accidentally this morning, I believe that the House is entitled to some comment on that. It may be that the Secretary of State is to argue—and there is the usual support for them from the Government side today—that grammar schools ought to be built alongside comprehensives to permit what in fact would be a phoney choice.
  Those are questions on which we should have answers today. Comprehensive education is now in floodtide and is almost universally accepted. It ill behoves the Government to continue their feeble attempts to reverse that tide in the way shown by the speeches we have heard today.
  6.30 p.m.
  Mr. Fergus Montgomery: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) on his maiden speech and I am delighted to be the first hon. Member on this side of the House to be able to do so. My hon. Friend was right to say that we had great respect for his predecessor, the late Charles Curran. Indeed there was enormous respect for him in the House. I am certain that Uxbridge made the right choice of successor to Mr. Curran when they elected my hon. Friend last year in what was a notable victory on his part. Having heard his maiden speech, I think it is obvious why he achieved such an excellent result and I hope that we shall hear him speak about education on many future occasions.

  1679
  I am sorry that I cannot say the same about the speech of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley). I am not particularly interested in defence matters so I never heard him speak in defence debates when he was Opposition spokesman for defence, but I am sure he must have performed much better on defence subjects than on education.
  Far from censuring my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, the Opposition should be congratulating her on the massive expansion in education. Criticism has been made of primary schools getting preference. I cannot see how the Opposition can object to this. For far too long most people who care about education have felt that primary education was the Cinderella of the system, that there were far too many old primary schools and that something had to be done about it. The Conservative Party at the last election pledged that something would be done to improve primary education. But it is unfair to say that secondary education has consequently been neglected. My right hon. Friend gave the figures of the improvements in secondary education.
  In the main, however, the debate centres on what form of secondary education we are to have. The Labour Government wanted to impose a completely comprehensive system, and those of us who were in the last Parliament and served on the Standing Committee considering the Education Bill remember the long battles which went on. However, one day certain hon. Members opposite were absent unpaired and the Government lost Clause 1 of the Bill, which meant that the whole Bill had to be dragged through the whole mess again. Luckily, the General Election intervened and the Bill never came to fruition.
  The hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) tried to say that in the discussions on that Bill we were in favour of certain things. It is completely untrue. We opposed the whole concept. We felt that local education authorities should have the right to decide what was best for their area in consultation with parents and teachers. In any case, as the right hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short) has said, the cost of introducing a totally comprehensive system would be astronomical.
  1680
  Today the Opposition are attacking my right hon. Friend for holding back on comprehensive schemes. She has proved that it is not true. It would be interesting to hear how many examples the Opposition can produce of good educational schemes which she has turned down. I want to quote part of what my right hon. Friend said to the National Union of Teachers' conference in April last year. She said:
  "Where well thought-out proposals for reorganisation have been put forward, and where plans are matched by the ability to implement them in reasonable conditions, they have invariably been considered sympathetically. I have always laid emphasis on the need for close and early consultation with teachers before the formulation of proposals, and I have been strongly impressed by their contributions both in the preparation of schemes and in their implementation."
  That is particularly relevant to what is happening in the county borough of Dudley.
  I am not surprised that the hon. Member for Sparkbrook, when complaining about certain comprehensive schemes being rejected, did not include that scheme in Dudley. In Dudley, the chairman of the education committee is Councillor Wilson, who apparently believes that he is God's gift to education in Dudley. He has put forward a scheme for 16 all-through comprehensive schools. There are grave educational doubts about whether Dudley could maintain 16 viable sixth forms. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State when he replies will give us an idea of the number of children voluntarily staying on at school over the age of 16 in Dudley at the present time.
  If that scheme had been educationally sound I would have given it my unstinted support, but my right hon. Friend has stated that there are certain aspects which she cannot approve and she has asked the local education authority whether it will perhaps look again at these aspects before discussing the rest of the scheme. I see nothing wrong with that.
  We have constant emphasis on consultation but I am afraid that the consultation in Dudley was a mockery. I have talked to many parents who have told me that they were asked to attend a meeting with the chairman of the education committee for consultation and

  1681
  discussion but that all they got was a monologue from the chairman. I am glad that the hon. Member for Dudley (Dr. Gilbert) is present because I have something to say to him later.
  What about the teachers in Dudley? The Dudley Head Teachers Association had a meeting to discuss the future of secondary education in the borough and with only one dissentient came out solidly in favour of a plan for 12-plus to 16-plus middle schools to be followed by sixth-form colleges—a very different plan from the one which Councillor Wilson has submitted to the Secretary of State. At the conclusion of the document which the association sent to every councillor in Dudley, it said:
  "An 11–18 scheme would lead inevitably to the use of many school annexes in central Dudley where many of the schools are small and on restricted sites. It also is difficult to see how substantial building could be avoided in other areas within the County Borough. The prospect at Brierley Hill Grammar School, Dudley Grammar School, and High Arcal Grammar School of having to organise—in one building—a very large sixth form, a diminishing grammar school and an emergent comprehensive school—each with its separate ethos—is a frightening process, Tension would be immense."
  That view was expressed by prominent teachers in the borough and cannot be fobbed off as the view of Tory activists.
  If we are to have nothing but comprehensive schools, perhaps the Opposition can explain how they would decide the intake of the schools. Would they advocate that all children in a given area would go to the same school? Or would they instead go for the new "in" word in the Socialist vocabulary, "The social mix"? That is a stormy issue in Leeds at the moment.
  How does the "social mix" work? There is an example in the Inner London Education Authority where children at primary schools are banded as "A" if they are above average, as "B" if they are average and as "C" if they are below average. While my right hon. Friend was speaking, the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Raphael Tuck) kept repeating like a parrot "Selectivitis, selectivitis, selectivitis". What is banding in the Inner London Education Authority if it is not selectivitis? Each secondary school would then have to take a quota of "A", "B" and "C" children. This
  1682
  would mean that children would be involved in a great deal of travelling, often to schools a long way from home. This, as the hon. Gentleman well knows, has aroused a great deal of ill feeling.
  Unfortunately in London there are certain schools which have been called "sink" schools because conditions are so bad. Many parents were unhappy when they found that their children were allocated to a "sink" school. We remember that not so long ago parents were deliberately keeping their children away from school as a protest against their being sent to schools where the conditions were so deplorable. However, it would seem that in the ILEA there is one rule for one and another rule for another.
  I want to quote from the Daily Mail of 27th September 1972. The report says:
  "A Governor of a London 'sink' school admitted yesterday that she had succeeded in having her own son transferred away from it.
  Last night she was accused of 'fantastic hypocrisy' over her action.
  The 11-year-old boy was originally allocated a place as one of the bright 'guinea pigs' to go to Islington comprehensive school in the hotly contested transfer scheme which is aimed at spreading good and bad pupils evenly through London's schools.
  But now he has been allowed to go to the much better Woodberry Down Comprehensive School in another district.
  His mother is Mrs. Jean Donnison, a Labour Party member and wife of Professor David Donnison, a leading Labour educationist.
  Both are involved in Islington Labour Party and are supporters of the Labour-controlled Inner London Education Authority.
  Angry parents protesting against the transfer scheme accused the Donnison's of having double standards over the education of their son, Harry.
  'This is fantastic hypocrisy', said Mrs. Ruby Clarke, of the Hackney and Islington Action Group. 'To think she is a governor of the school.
  'Of all people you would expect them to support the new scheme, since it is a Labour idea. They expect our kids to go there but it is not good enough for them.'"
  That just about sums up the attitude of the Labour Party. I would have far more confidence in what its Members said if I found more of them practising what they preach. Mrs. Clarke was completely right when she talked about hypocrisy.
  The other way in which a social mix could be achieved would be by redrawing the catchment areas. This is what is

  1683
  causing so much uproar in the city of Leeds today because under this scheme a catchment area would be withdrawn to include children from various social backgrounds. This again would mean the bussing of children. I have tried to ascertain from the chairman of Dudley Education Committee what would be the position in Dudley. I want to know how the intake, if we have a comprehensive system in Dudley, would be organised and whether we would have neighbourhood schools or a social mix which would involve busing. This is of vital interest and concern to many of my constituents, but so far the issue has been dodged.
  The hon. Member for Dudley jumped to the defence and was quoted in the Wolverhampton Express and Star as saying:
  "that there was more likely to be bussing under Mrs. Thatcher's plan because it retained selectivity in some areas of the borough."
  That is a ridiculous argument. I should have thought the hon. Member would be much wiser to shut up than to show his ignorance on this issue because my right hon. Friend has not produced a plan for Dudley. She has asked Dudley to look at certain aspects of the plan which Dudley submitted. There is a great deal of difference between children going by bus to a grammar school which their parents want them to attend and which the children want to attend and in having children sent deliberately to a school which their parents do not want them to attend and which perhaps the children do not want to attend. That is the difference when I argue against a scheme of deliberate busing.
  Dr. John Gilbert: The hon. Member was kind enough to let me know that he would be referring to me, but he did not indicate the language in which he would refer to me or to the chairman of the education committee, who is one of the most loyal and conscientious public servants Dudley has ever had. At the moment the education authority is spending £7,000 a year on busing. The chairman made it clear that under the scheme he proposed he hoped that this expense would be eliminated. It is also perfectly clear that if there are grammar schools in two areas the rest of the district must serve as a catchment area and it is perfectly obvious that there then has to be bussing.
  Mr.
  Montgomery: The hon. Member does not appear to have grasped the situation. The point I was making was that if parents want their children to go to a school and the children want to go there, the bussing is voluntary. There is a difference between going voluntarily and being deliberately bussed to a school to which the parents do not want their children to go and which the children do not wish to attend.
  I remind my right hon. Friend that next year there is to be local government reorganisation and Halesowen and Stour-bridge are to be joined to Dudley. It would be sensible for the three authorities to have talks now and to try to produce a sensible plan for adoption when the new council comes into existence next year.
  I have no hesitation tonight in supporting the amendment moved by my right hon. Friend. I hope that she will continue to approve schemes which are well-thought-out and thoroughly sound, but she also has the responsibility of turning down hotch-potch schemes which are ill-conceived and educationally unsound. Despite what the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) said, I believe that my right hon. Friend has gained the respect of the vast majority of people who care deeply about education. I think she has proved that she has far more concern for good educational schemes than for party dogma, and that is surely a prime requisite of a good Secretary of State for Education.
  6.45 p.m.
  Mr. Raphael Tuck: For some time I have been trying to winkle out of the Secretary of State her reasons for turning down plans for comprehensive schools under Section 13. Tonight she has raised the veil slightly, but in the majority of cases we do not know her reasons. I believe that she has turned down about 70 plans without any reason whatever. Is she afraid of showing prejudice or inconsistency, or both? I do not know.
  I believe, however, that the reason for the right hon. Lady's action and her bias is her emotional commitment to maintaining selection—for whatever reason. Tonight she said, more than twice, that there would be entry "based on merit". Of course she has been quite consistent

  1685
  in this. In the debate on the Address in reply to the Queen's Speech on 8th July 1970 the right hon. Lady said:
  "I believe that there is still a place for certain selective schools of excellence…. I believe that it is wrong to exclude this from our future plans."
  The then Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee), said in the same debate:
  "The fact is that, no matter how the secondary schooling is organised, there will always be a substantial element of selection as such and that such selection is not against the child's interest but is in favour of it."
  I cannot agree with that. He went on:
  "And there is selection in these cases because children differ in mental gifts, in their aptitudes, in their industry and in their ability to concentrate "—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th July 1970; Vol. 803, cc. 685–6, 793.]
  On 11th May last year the Secretary of State admitted in reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short) that from June 1970 to May 1972—the two years since the General Election—she rejected about 30 proposals to convert selective schools into non-selective schools.
  So far as I am aware there is a consensus by most authorities that if one selected the top 20 one would be mistaken in at least five cases at O-level and the equivalent number in secondary modern schools will do better than those five. Therefore I put it to the House that selection is inefficient and is not, as the Under-Secretary said, in favour of the child's interest, but against it.
  I will give the Secretary of State a prime example, a recent one. One of my constituents, Christine King, was branded as a failure at 11 years old. She was not bright enough for a grammar school and could not make the top stream even in a secondary modern school. She went to Victoria Girls' School, Watford, a secondary modern school. Since then—in 1971—it has become an all-ability school. In her first year Christine was not considered good enough even for the top 30, but when the time came for her to take her O-levels she had improved considerably. Then, two years ago, she started doing A-levels and made up her mind to go to university. She was given an unconditional acceptance at Leeds
  1686
  University but the A-level results were so good that she decided to fly even higher. And, where do you think she landed? At none other than the best university in England—Cambridge. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oxford."] I have heard of Oxford. We call it the "other place". She is going to Cambridge.
  The House may be interested to know that 20 girls were called for an interview for six places. Christine had to compete with girls from some of the leading girls' schools in the country. Not only did she get a place at Cambridge, but she got it at the college of her first choice—Newnham College. She is a brilliant example of a late developer. She is the first pupil in the 77 years of Victoria School's history to win a place at Cambridge. Of course, I must pay tribute not only to her for the hard work she did but to the excellent teaching at Victoria Girls' School.
  However, that is just one example of the futility and the injustice of selection. Nevertheless the Secretary of State seems wedded to the idea of selection. Let me tell her, therefore, that the sooner she obtains a divorce—I mean from the idea of selection—the better it will be for all children.
  6.51 p.m.
  Mr. J. Selwyn Gummer: I believe that the whole question of comprehensivisation has been done to death in the discussions that we have had, and therefore I take the point that was made and lay behind the speech of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Spark-brook (Mr. Hattersley) who, I think rightly, put his emphasis upon the nature of the community and the way in which children go to school and there find their education whether we have a system which divides children one from another, and whether we have a choice for some and not for others. It was that part of his speech which I felt was concerned with education. I am sorry that there was not more in his speech concerned with the subject. It is an important point and has to be answered by those who do not believe that the headlong rush into a totally comprehensive system is satisfactory.
  I have been the chairman of the governors of a large comprehensive school in London. I am very much in

  1687
  favour of comprehensive education and, with others, I have fought the arguments that have been used by people who are against comprehensive schools. I want to ask the House whether we should not start much earlier when we consider a matter such as that before us today and ask whether we have not jumped a stage in the argument.
  We have automatically assumed that comprehensive education is necessary because it is the only way to ensure equality of opportunity and to get rid of the divisiveness which has been graphically portrayed by various hon. Members in this and previous debates. I wonder whether it is not true that until we face the educational fact that a child's future is very often determined before the age of eight—if not before that age, then certainly before the age of 11—we shall not get our priorities right.
  I believe that my right hon. Friend deserves commendation on her secondary school provision because of the priorities that she has chosen. She has said that if children come from a deprived home background the first step must be to give them the linguistic help which they need so that they can get equality of opportunity at primary school, and her proposals for nursery schools have been widely welcomed on both sides of the House.
  One cannot talk about secondary education without mentioning that part of education which precedes it. It is essential to put the emphasis on primary schools if we are not to have a situation in which children coming from a socially deprived background go to socially deprived primary schools and therefore what they have lacked in their homes is not made up for during their earlier years. It is now recognised that it is early in a child's life that the disadvantages of an impoverished background intellectually are either got over or fortified for the whole of his educational future.
  When that child comes to the age at which he moves from primary to secondary school one is faced with a genuine difficulity. One cannot make the simplistic comparison that was made by the hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Dormand) between primary schools and comprehensive and secondary schools, because the nature of the primary school is that the
  1688
  small child must be able to get to it from the immediate catchment area. The problem of the comprehensive primary school is precisely the problem of the catchment area. The poor primary schools are precisely those in areas where, because it is a comprehensive school serving all the children of that area, it takes on the quality—and sometimes, unfortunately, the lack of quality—of that area.
  We have done a great deal, and we want to do more to overcome that problem, but do not let us assume that when we get to secondary education we can ignore the difficulties which come from a comprehensive system which is put into a socially divisive system outside. It is my belief that one of the great sadnesses of our society is that over the years we have built socially divided ghettoes in housing. There are many areas which, by their nature, are divided because they are totally built by the local council, or totally built by private development.
  To impose upon a society like that a comprehensive system in the belief that automatically it will provide the kind of social mix which many of us think is necessary is an illusion. Indeed, in some areas we have increased the degree of social divisiveness because of the nature of our comprehensive reorganisation. In Bristol, for example, where many children went from the edge to the centre of the city for secondary education before the new scheme came into operation, there was a great deal more social mixing than there is now when the comprehensive schools serve the areas around them and those areas are divided because of the local authority's housing policy.
  Mr. Dormand: The hon. Gentleman has made an interesting point about primary education but, following what he said, would he not agree that the Conservative philosophy ought to be applied even earlier and that there ought to be selection at the age of eight? That would be utter nonsense.
  Mr. Gummer: The hon. Gentleman has missed the point entirely but I shall not go back over it because many of us have seen the difference between a comprehensive system which is forced upon a school with the result that some children have to walk some distance to the school and going to schools of their parents' choice.

  1689
  We are talking about secondary education, and it must be true that the general pattern of education today is a comprehensive one. I support, and have supported, that very proposition in difficult circumstances in my constituency. The House should not arrogate to itself, nor should the Labour Party arrogate to itself, the belief that the present view on education was held 30 years ago. To use almost the words of the hon. Member for Sparkbrook, the view then was, "Everybody knows that division at 11 is the sensible way to organise secondary education. Everybody accepts that it is best to provide decent grammar schools in every area for every part of the country, and it is outrageous that some reactionary should hold out for some alternative system".
  The reply to that is that at no time in educational history have educationalists always been completely and utterly right. Therefore, I do not accept that we cannot argue for this proposition merely because many people support it. It seems reasonable to believe that the comprehensive system, despite its many advantages, might not always be right for every area and for every child.
  When the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Raphael Tuck) raised the question of his constituent going to Cambridge from a school which was not as academic as many other schools to which he might have gone, I was interested to hear him conclude that she was a prime example of a late developer. I believe that to have been the prime example of selectivity. He said with pride how the girl had been able to go to a particular university better than any other university. I am sad that he said that with pride because the whole of his argument was that selectivity was unacceptable.
  A constituent of mine who has gone to a polytechnic was a comprehensive school drop-out because the comprehensive school in his area did not provide and could not provide the kind of academic teaching necessary for someone of his kind of ability. The whole basis of the comprehensivisation falls down on the mathematics. In London we do not have enough children of what used to be called grammar school stream to provide a grammar school section for
  1690
  all our comprehensive schools. We know that from a figure produced and accepted by both sides of the Inner London Education Authority and relating to several of the divisions of north and east London.
  One of the reasons, therefore, that the Chief Education Officer in London has been quoted as admitting that there were schools in London to which he would not like to send his children was that not all the schools could have a grammar stream, even if we had the most complicated system of bussing and even if there were no grammar schools in London. Even if there were a totally comprehensive system throughout all our cities there would be comprehensive schools with academic reputations and others without, and therefore there will be an element of choice, and that choice is bound to be divisive in some sense unless the comprehensive system is based upon the principle in which the schools merely reflect the area in which they are located, a principle which I hope the Opposition will reject.
  Mr. Harry Lamborn: Will the hon. Member concede that the problem of providing what he described as a grammar school intake in some of our comprehensive schools in the inner London area stems directly from the fact that it is impossible to run a comprehensive system and a grammar school system side by side with the deliberate creaming off of many children, which prevents the comprehensive schools being fully comprehensive?
  Mr. Gummer: I am glad that the hon. Member made that intervention because the two divisions that I purposely chose were the two which are almost completely comprehensivised in the whole of London. That is why it is a particularly serious problem to be faced in parts of east and north London.
  But if it is accepted that there will also be some kind of divisiveness and choice, it is necessary to consider where the parent fits in. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) obviously thought these children were not the parents' children but the children of the divisional officer or possibly even his own. He seemed to think that he had the right to say to all parents that he was correct and that what he said was perfect for their children. He would say how

  1691
  they would fit into the school and how the mix would be proportioned and the children would become as units—and one unit, being above average, would fit into one place and another unit, below average, would fit in somewhere else. In my constituency parents are upset when they find that their child cannot go to the local comprehensive school when a child living further away is able to do so. I have to explain that the other child is in a different band from theirs, but I cannot tell them which band because I do not know. All I can say is that they have been marked down so that their child shall not go to the comprehensive school.
  The Inner London Education Authority has just produced a plan for my constituency concerning the last remaining county grammar school in it, the Brockley County Grammar School. I have examined the scheme carefully because I am concerned about the future of Manwood Secondary School which is in two poor buildings divided by the South Circular Road. I had fought a previous scheme by the ILEA which had overlooked this school. When I discovered that this was to be a comprehensive school on four sites divided by the South Circular, one of the buildings of which had been a primary school restored to that status after the war at a cost of £60,000, and when I discovered that this four-site school was supposed to be a comprehensive school, I began to think that possibly the parents had some right on their side.
  I went to the consultative committee where the parents were to be asked their views. They were told that there was to be no consultation whether their school should be part of the comprehensive system. Nor was there to be any discussion whether they wanted the school to continue as it was. The only consultation was whether the school should be joined with the Manwood School, the nearest building of which was only a mile away, or with another school, the nearest building of which was three miles away.
  I dare say that when that report goes in to the Secretary of State it will state that consultation was conducted on the scheme. However, no spokesman in favour of the scheme could be found from among the 500 people in the hall. Nobody clapped anyone on the platform who sup-
  1692
  ported the scheme. The parents did not seem to matter. I know that is one of the objections to which the Secretary of State has been asked not to listen, but how do we solve the problems in my area of the children who go to school in my area? Surely parents should have some sort of choice. If choice is removed it means that there will be a State system in education under which the State will provide education for all, make it compulsory and refuse parents any right to influence that education.
  That seems to me to cut right across the concept of participation which most of us believe in. I believe that we are back in the rigidly State-controlled Marxist ideology. [Laughter.] The hon. Members who laugh at that are those who are still stuck in the 19th century concept that the State knows best and that the alternative to individuals choosing for themselves is that someone should choose for them. If that is done it means that people cannot make their own choice in important matters for themselves and their children because it is believed someone else knows best.
  I ask the Secretary of State to see that as far as possible the choices which are available are extended to as many people as possible—including the docker in my constituency who has no education but who has two sons at university today because they were given the kind of academic education that a small school can give, whether it is a small comprehensive or a small grammar school. The small school has an important place in our educational system.
  I ask the Secretary of State to be determined to say that the last word on education has not been said in the pages of The Times Educational Supplement over the last few weeks; that educational attitudes and concepts will change and that it is wrong for us to believe that we have an arrogant right to say that now and for all time we know the answers and therefore that the whole system shall be changed irrespective of the buildings, the resources, and the needs and demands of the people locally. If that means that we have a system which does not fit into a neat pattern—whether it is one where a few children go to particular schools because they happen to be academically bright or academically stupid—it means

  1693
  that we are in the tradition of education in this country for 1,300 years, which is a tradition of variety. If the complaint is that people do not have a choice, surely the answer is to spend more money on and devote more resources to nursery schools and primary schools so that when children go to school they are given the necessary help to make up for any poverty of background. In that way every child will have a fair choice. If we wish to achieve that we must stop talking about comprehensivisation and start asking about providing equality of opportunity from the age of three to the age of eight.
  7.10 p.m.
  Mr. Brynmor John: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Easing-ton (Mr. Dormand), prior to the debate I thought that the principle of comprehensive education was now accepted by most people, but it seems that the ancients among the Tory back benchers, have shown that they have not taken on board the research, development and information which has been disseminated about comprehensive education during the last few years.
  It is not good enough to speak, as the hon. Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Montgomery) spoke, with his customary vigour if not relevance, of the hypocrisy of having more confidence if more of our children used the comprehensive system. The Opposition could ripost, equally, that we would have more confidence in hon. Members on the Conservative benches in speaking of the State education system if they or their children had ever used it, much less the grammar school system.
  Then we had the extraordinary tutorial speech of the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Selwyn Gummer), whose lectures are so much more welcome to this House than they are to sixth forms. His mixing with younger people does not seem to have improved him, for a more garbled speech I have rarely heard. He condemned the inequities of our society and went on to say that it was a rigidly Marxist one.
  We do not say that the comprehensive system is an automatic rectifier of the social injustice and social inequities in Britain today. Rectification of those inequities would need not only rectification of the education system but greater
  1694
  financial and social equality. If that is what he is suggesting, I am with him. We should work for social equality and for taxation systems which do not give an advantage to private education as opposed to State education. But the hon. Gentleman's speeches during this Parliament have not suggested that that is what he wants.
  We say that, granted an inequitable society, the comprehensive system is at least one step towards reversing the general trend towards inequality and disadvantage. Let us not be mealymouthed about this. We do not object to educational variety. What we object to is the maintenance of the educational privilege inherent in the grammar school system. The hon. Gentleman said that he agreed that comprehensive education was right, although in the remaining 99 per cent. of his speech he seemed intent on proving it wrong—it is right in principle, but it is not right for all children in all places. What I and my party object to is that the children for whom it is not right always happen to be middle-class children in middle-class areas, not working-class children. It is the perpetuation of privilege to which we object.
  We cannot make exaggerated claims for the comprehensive system. It may not be the ultimate answer, but the argument of the hon. Member for Lewisham, West taken to its logical conclusion is that because the future may produce further refinements we should do nothing.
  When the hon. Gentleman calls the local authorities Marxist, is he referring to Breconshire, Radnorshire, Leicestershire and Anglesey? I doubt whether those counties have erected barricades for weeks. Does he realise that they are the forerunners of comprehensive education? Does he realise the educational results which have been achieved in those counties? It is a farrago of nonsense. The risk run by our sixth formers from the Conservative Party is not because the Conservative Party tries to inculcate into them party propaganda, but because those who address the sixth formers are likely to speak nonsense.
  I want briefly to speak about a campaign currently being run in my constituency against the comprehensive system. It illustrates the danger of the whipping-up of so-called public concern and the

  1695
  effect that this might have on the whole educational scheme for the area. I want to try to correct in advance any mistaken idea which the Secretary of State for Wales may have for dealing with the present proposals. It was proposed that the Vale of Glamorgan should be reorganised on comprehensive lines with one school at Llantwit Major. Parents in Cowbridge were rightly concerned that no provision was made for the retention of a school there and that their children would have to travel to Llantwit Major. After proper consultation the scheme was changed so as to preserve one comprehensive school at Llantwit Major with seventh form entry and one at Cowbridge with seventh form entry. I regard that as proper consultation. This was a legitimate matter for parental concern and the representations were met flexibly.
  That has not satisfied a wealthy and vocal minority of people living within the area, who are trying, by various factions to retain the Cowbridge Boys' Grammar School as a grammar school. They have made lavish use of publicity, which they can well afford, and Press reports. The best comment on the quaintness of their views is that they organised a parade of vintage cars. Vintage cars are about as antiquated as the educational system which these people seek to perpetuate. Because of all these activities many parents have been persuaded to support these factions and their claims, and to support them by distortions of the truth.
  The first thing that they play upon is the undoubted past excellence of the school and the fact that it has existed for many hundreds of years. It is not good enough in education to talk about the past. We are trying to plan for the future of these children, and to concentrate on history is as dangerous in education, as it is in Northern Ireland.
  Secondly, they lay great emphasis on the boarding facility which they say will be removed from the Vale of Glamorgan if Cowbridge Grammar School is removed. They cite particularly the children of RAF personnel at St. Athan, of whom there are only about six at any one time, and in any event the school holds only six. I concede the need in some cases for boarding education but what is symptomatic of the "privilege"
  1696
  approach is that it is assumed that there is a need for boarding accommodation only for children who are at grammar school. Children who are at secondary modern schools can go hang.
  The third point on which they try to mislead the public is the selective use of local authority support, support which has been universally denied to them.
  When the hon. Member for Lewisham, West speaks about the State knowing best, I wonder how much of the educational system he understands. It is the local education committees in the locality which make the selection of the type of system they want.
  Mr. Selwyn Gummer: They are making the distinction between the policy put forward by the Labour Party which is that the Government would dictate from the centre the policies of local authorities—which is the policy of the State knowing best—and the present situation in which policies are put forward by local education authorities.
  Mr. John: I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman should use so feeble an argument. Of course the Government dictate overall policy; they must do so. The hon. Gentleman's Government do that in the same way as any other Government. His Government are the originators of the removal of school milk from the jurisdiction of local authorities. That was within the decision of local authorities until this freedom-loving, choice-loving Government removed it from them.
  Was the hon. Gentleman awake at the time or was he away at a conference? However, I shall return to the point, as the hon. Gentleman seems to have failed to appreciate it entirely, that the campaign for the retention of grammar school education in Cowbridge is being pursued by the affluent for the retention of the privileged within their area. It is repugnant to most parents in that area. What they have done by their opposition is to put in doubt the replacement of five primary schools during 1973–74.
  The right hon. Lady spoke glowingly about the programme of replacing antiquated primary schools. But because of the campaign, and because of the allocation within this financial year of the sum necessary to reorganise all comprehensive education, the replacement of five primary schools will be put in doubt if there is

  1697
  much more delay. The campaigners have ignored the fact that by the retention of the Cowbridge grammar school, at least four out of five children will be denied the benefits of the best system of secondary education that we have yet devised—namely, the comprehensive system.
  The hon. Gentleman made great play about bussing. However, if the campaign for the retention of Cowbridge grammar school is to succeed, four out of five children will be condemned to compulsory bussing to another area. There is no possible argument for the erection of a comprehensive school in Cowbridge side by side with a grammar school.
  Finally—and this is a result which I think will surprise the hon. Gentleman, who thinks that it is only in the retention of grammar schools that parental concern can be aroused—because of the doubt which the education authority has about the continuance of the secondary education system, it has had, as a precaution, to reintroduce certain selection procedures which are necessary under the present system. That has upset the majority of parents who thought that that barbaric nonsense had been dealt a death blow once and for all. The hon. Gentleman also referred to selection by merit. Which of us believes that we can choose merit at the age of 11? That is thoroughly discredited and it does no honour to the right hon. Lady to cling to that outworn approach.
  I hope that the right hon. Lady will not be taken in by the foolish and mischievous campaign which is now being waged by a small section of the inhabitants of the Cowbridge area. Parental choice is a fine phrase, but in practice it means little to most people in the country. I am less concerned with parental choice, although I am a parent who has a child in a comprehensive school, than I am with pupil choice—for example, the choice of the pupil as to the career he should follow, the subjects he should study, and whether he is able to develop his talents to the fullness of his ability. That seems to be the real choice. What is happening today, and what the fine words of the right hon. Lady do not entirely disguise, is that a vocal middle-class minority is applying a tourniquet to the educational health of this country.
  Mr. Michael Roberts: Absolute rubbish.
  Mr. John: I wonder how much the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Michael Roberts) knows about the area of which I am speaking. I doubt if he knows very much. He probably knows as much about it as any other area or any other subject upon which he assays the House. In fact, that is a great condemnation. He has already, by his decision on local government reorganisation in Glamorgan, shown that he is amenable to the decisions dictated by party politics rather than by good sense. However, I do not expect him to jeopardise the educational future of the majority of children in my area, and the educational excellence which could come about, if we plan properly for the future on the lines suggested by the Galmorgan County Council. I hope, if the hon. Gentleman is asked to adjudicate upon the scheme, that he will use his decision rationally in the interests of the pupils and will not subjugate them to the vociferous minority whose only concern is that they perpetuate for their children the privilege that they enjoy.
  7.26 p.m.
  Miss Janet Fookes: The Opposition's motion is very narrow. I suspect that they have found it hard to find fault with Conservative educational policy. They are compelled to look at the comparatively few cases which my right hon. Friend has seen fit, after looking carefully at the proposals, to turn down. We should have a sense of proportion. She has refused only a very small number. One would gain the impression from the Opposition that she turned down the lot. That is not true and is very unfair to her. As I understand it, she has accepted no fewer than 2,600 proposals and has turned down roughly 111.
  I agree with the principle of comprehensive education. I do not propose to give my reasons tonight. The debate should be turning far more than it has on the form that comprehensive education is to take. That would be a far more attractive and fruitful source of debate than the one that we have had or, at any rate, the one that the Opposition have put forward. It will be recalled that the famous—or infamous—Circular 1065

  1699
  listed no fewer than six types of comprehensive organisation. We should be discussing it in the light of experience rather than carping about whether we have it at all.
  I am much concerned by the size of some comprehensive schools. I believe that that apprehension is shared by many of my hon. Friends on the back benches. I know that it is of great concern to my right hon. Friend. I have known the real bewilderment that a child faces when it is moved from a comparatively small school—for example, a primary school—to a very large school at the secondary stage. We are expecting children to make the transition from primary schools to secondary schools which accommodate a thousand or more pupils. Experience does not justify a school of that size and I hope that no more will be brought into existence.
  The head of a comprehensive school, who believes thoroughly in that principle, has told me that he considers that the problems of organisation are beyond the powers of any head to deal with satisfactorily. It is true that in a large school a pupil has an enormous number of subject choices. However, it gets to the point where the choice in itself is bewildering, when the child cannot benefit from the choice and when a smaller range in a smaller and more personal school would serve the purpose just as well. It is rather like the firms which become so large that there are dis-economies of scale instead of the old and traditional economies.
  I deplore for other reasons some aspects of the two-tier system which means that children scarcely get into a school before they are pushed out at the other end, perhaps spending two years at the first stage and then going to another school. I deplore that movement at the critical age of 14 years when children are preparing possibly for examinations. That seems to be an unsatisfactory form of comperhensive education. Far better are the middle schools which do away with the traditional primary and secondary organisation with the break at 11 years, when the children go in at five, go to the next stage at seven or eight and then, at 12 or 13, go to the upper school. The system has all the benefits of a smaller upper school and the process is not broken
  1700
  off at an artificial stage at the age 11. I must declare an interest because the scheme is operating in Merton and Morden. I have had the advantage of seeing it work in practice, and it works very well.
  Mr. R. C. Mitchell: I agree with the hon. Lady, but will she go a step further and recommend the secondary college system, with a break at sixteen after O-levels?
  Miss Fookes: The sixth form college principle is a new concept. The Secretary of State has approved certain proposals to allow sixth form colleges to develop and it is an interesting experiment, but because they are so new I approach the idea with caution. There may be areas to which they would be well suited, but we should watch the situation carefully.
  Sixth form colleges have certain advantages from the children's point of view. Having taught girls, I know that they get tired of the same hackneyed school experience and probably would welcome a break at an age when they feel grown up and adult. A sixth form college presents them with a challenge, and would probably have a different and freer atmosphere, without the necessity for the wearing of school uniforms.
  These colleges may present staffing difficulties because many staff may not wish to remain in a secondary school if they could teach "the cream" in a sixth form college. This is a real problem which must be examined.
  The solution may lie in having greater flexibility in the use of staff. Too often in the past we have thought on the lines that staff belong to one school only, and that is that. In future there may be merit in looking at proposals to allow teachers to work in a secondary school and also undertake some work in a sixth form college. This might be a useful way of overcoming difficulties.
  We also must consider the advantage of having single-sex as against coeducational schools. Many parents are coming to the view that a single sex-school is old-fashioned and would welcome the opportunity for their children to mix. But we must recognise that many parents still prefer single-sex education for their children. The Secretary of State

  1701
  might well look to parental choice in guiding her decisions on this topic or at least might make provision for one or two single-sex schools in an entire scheme.
  The most difficult problem to which nobody has yet found the answer is how to deal with bad schools in bad areas. We have not begun to solve this problem and the various solutions which have been advanced—a social mix, bussing and all the rest—are no real solutions to the problem. This may be a long-term matter which will involve the building of better schools and the provision of better staff to go into what undoubtedly are difficult situations. We shall have to build on those ideas rather than to go in for an artificial mixing.
  I hope that the Secretary of State will continue to look with an eagle eye at the various schemes that come before her, but I welcome the way in which she has passed so many schemes which seem to her to be educationally sound.
  7.38 p.m.
  Mr. R. C. Mitchell: The hon. Member for Merton and Morden (Miss Fookes) made an extremely thoughtful speech, with very much of which I agreed. The Secretary of State made much play of the fact that she has statutory duties to fulfil under Section 13 of the Act. Nobody criticises her on that score, because we appreciate that she has a statutory duty to look at schemes. It must be said that bad schemes have been produced by local authorities under Labour and Conservative Governments. I remember that when I was PPS to my right hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland), who was then Secretary of State for Education, he had occasionally to decide that certain schemes were educationally unsound and needed revision. There is no objection to the Secretary of State's power in that respect, but I am critical about delays under the present regime which occur before a scheme is approved.
  The right hon. Lady unfairly accused my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) of wanting to ignore parents' wishes. The Secretary of State, seems to forget that before a comprehensive scheme ever reaches her there is widespread consul-
  1702
  tation by local authorities with parents, teachers and local residents. It is the right hon. Lady who is being unfair because she must acknowledge the fact that parents are consulted at an early stage on nearly all schemes.
  My main criticism of the right hon. Lady is not that she does not listen to objections, but that she appears to listen to certain objectors rather more closely than she listens to others. She is too susceptible to the highly organised groups which seek to put pressure on her for the
  retention of a particular school. The right hon. Lady, like many of her Conservative colleagues, probably believes that comprehensive schools and grammar schools can co-exist in the same locality without much harm coming to anybody. That attitude is quite wrong. The word "comprehensive" means "all-embracing", and if one section of pupils is being creamed off to a grammar school then the other school can no longer be called comprehensive.
  Many people who have wide experience of education matters believe in comprehensive secondary education. If pupils up to the age of 11 go to primary schools which are comprehensive, why on earth does that process have to stop just because a child is over the age of 11? Furthermore, selective examinations are grossly inaccurate, particularly at the age of 11.
  I taught for 13 years in a secondary modern school. We were getting children through examinations with up to eight or nine 0-levels and they were children who had failed the 11-plus. I believed that we had a duty to give every opportunity to those children—the opportunities which they would have had had they gone to a grammar school.
  Looking back on it, although I am sure that we were right, I think that we did it at the expense of some of the others in that school who were less able. By concentrating, as we had to do, on a number of children who were academically bright and, because of the stupidity of the selective system, had not gone where they should have gone, the rest of the school tended to suffer.
  My argument for comprehensive education has very little to do with class or social mix. I believe that many of the traditional grammar schools had a fairly

  1703
  good social mix, and their pupils came from all classes. My argument for comprehensive education is that we should have, in the same buildings and surroundings, an educational mix, in which people of all abilities are taught on the same site and come together for various things. I am not in favour of a complete abolition of streaming. That does not make sense as yet, but perhaps it would if we got better and better teachers. But at least pupils could all be on the same site.
  I believe that not only can the less able learn from the able, but also that the able can often learn from the less able. I should like to give an example of that. In 1953 I came to a secondary modern school straight from university, as a graduate teacher. I can remember walking into the school and meeting the headmaster, who told me, "I want you to go along to room 4"—I remember it because it was my home for the next two years—"where you will find the class waiting for you". When I saw the class I was horrified, because 25 of the 30 children were gipsies. This was a school in the New Forest which catered for a big gipsy encampment. I wondered how I would cope with them. In talking to these childen I eventually learned an awful lot from them including how to catch trout with an electric battery and two wires. I learned to understand them, and they, I hope, learned something from me.
  I believe that the real argument for comprehensive education is that one should not separate abilities into two or more separate establishments.
  Mr. Peter Fry: Apparently the hon. Member disagrees violently with any form of selection at the age of 11, or 12 or, perhaps, 13, yet he accepts it at the age of 18. At what age is selection acceptable?
  Mr. Mitchell: I do not wish to get diverted on to the subject of higher education at this stage, as there will be another debate later on the White Paper.
  I was educated in a traditional small grammar school and I remember an experience I had when I left school and joined the Army. We had the old two-tier bunks in our barrack room. I was on the top bunk and the chap on the bottom bunk said that he had had a letter from his girl friend. He asked me
  1704
  whether I would read it to him. I was embarrassed. I said, "Why should I read your girl friend's letter?" He was also embarrassed, and said, "I cannot read." That was a very illuminating experience for me. I had mixed throughout my life with people of roughly my own ability and I did not realise that at the age of 18 there were people who could not read or write. I got used to writing his letters for him. It was a great experience, which taught me a lot.
  This is not a class matter; it is an educational matter. The main argument for comprehensive education is to teach all abilities in the same surroundings—because that is what we shall get in society afterwards.
  Mr. Peter Hardy: The "one nation".
  Mr. Mitchell: Indeed. Let me now deal with the parental choice aspect. I believe in the maximum of parental choice. In the area in which I taught before coming to Parliament, about 17 per cent. of children passed the 11-plus and went to grammar school, and 83 per cent. went to a secondary modern school. I taught in a secondary modern school, and not one parent of the 83 per cent. of pupils in that area had any choice as to where their child should receive its schooling. The only people with the choice were the parents of the 17 per cent. who passed the selection examination.
  I have, perhaps, told a lie here, as there was one child who had the choice. He came to me one day from the bottom stream in the school and said, "Please, Sir, I have passed my scholarship". This was right. He had passed an examination to get into the local ESN school, the school for the educationally subnormal. That school would take only children with whom it thought that it could do something and, therefore, the children had to have some form of educational requirement in order to attend. Those classified as ineducable came to us.
  This boy said, "I do not think I shall take up the option, sir. I will stay here because I like it." He was the only child who had any choice as to a school. So parental choice is a matter which is greatly exaggerated.
  In my constituency we were fortunate that secondary reorganisation in Southampton took place in 1966–67. It was

  1705
  interesting that, although the local Conservative Party opposed this bitterly at the time, when the Conservatives took control of the council soon after that, they made virtually no changes.
  It is working well, but there remains in the middle of the scheme one selective grammar school. This school is not fully maintained and, therefore, there is little we can do about that. We had to leave the scheme with that particular school outside. The trouble is that this selective school is creaming off pupils, particularly in the area concerned, and this has a very adverse effect on the children in the comprehensive schools nearby. This can be seen in all sorts of ways.
  One other way in which the Secretary of State—either deliberately or, perhaps, subtly; I do not know—has been trying to delay in certain cases the implementation of comprehensive education is in the control of secondary school building. I do not dispute that the Secretary of State was absolutely correct in putting the emphasis on primary schools. That was right in the context of 1970. But the policy has been put forward and processed too rigidly, and it has been almost impossible for any secondary school to obtain any money to do anything. This has seriously held up reorganisation schemes in many parts of the country.
  In my constituency we have a secondary college, Richard Taunton College, which urgently needs remodelling. It is the college which I happened to attend when I went to grammar school as a boy, and at which the former Mr. Speaker was a teacher. The toilets, the craft room and the art room are just the same as I knew them when I was a pupil there. Although we cannot get any money for it at present, I hope that we shall get some under the new allocation.
  I hope that the next Labour Government will introduce legislation at an early stage to abolish selection altogether. We tried to do that last time by persuasion. We achieved much, but we always knew that there would be that small group of reactionary local authorities, the Bournemouths of this world, which would refuse to have anything to do with comprehensive education. Had we won the last General Election, a Bill
  1706
  would have been on the Statute Book to abolish selection altogether. I hope that the next Labour Government will also scrap entirely the direct grant system, because that system grew up by accident and serves no useful purpose in our society.
  I hope that the next Labour Government will also turn their attention to another section of schools which we call the non-denominational voluntarily-aided schools. Let us hear nothing from the Government benches about restricting the rights of local education authorities—not after the Housing Finance Act. One thing that we have learned from the present Government, of which I hope that the next Labour Government will take note, is how to deal with local authorities which are, perhaps, awkward in some ways.
  Finally, there can still be a great deal of freedom for local authorities to choose, inside a non-selective system, the type of comprehensive system that they want. They can go for the all-through comprehensive, the 11–18 years school. I advocate strongly the secondary college with the middle school. In other words, a first school from five to eight, a middle school from eight to 12, a secondary comprehensive from 12 to 16 and a secondary college from 16-plus. I call it a secondary college rather than a sixth form college because the latter implies that it is a purely academic institution going for only A-level courses. I believe that a secondary college should cater for all who want to stay on post-16 whether they are going for A-level or other courses. An increasing number of youngsters who may not be at the top level academically want to stay on post-16.
  I have been critical of the Secretary of State. I end with a word of praise. I am pleased that the right hon. Lady, despite pressures she may have had at one stage from Tory backbenchers, the Treasury, or elsewhere to delay the raising of the school leaving age to 16, pursued and achieved that policy. I am sure that was right.
  7.52 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Roberts: It is indeed a pleasure to follow a fellow member of the National Union of

  1707
  Teachers, the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. R. C. Mitchell), particularly as he said that he was concerned with educational matters rather than what could be described as matters of class. I went some way with what he said. He then said that when he taught in a secondary modern school he found that teachers had possibly—he was not sure—concentrated on the brighter pupils at the top of the school to the detriment of those further down. He did not say at the bottom or in the middle of the school, but somewhere further down. I am sure that he and his colleagues were too educationally sincere and conscientious to have done that.
  The same risk is involved in a comprehensive school as in a grammar or any other type of school. In a comprehensive school, as the hon. Member knows, people refer to "bands of ability". In many comprehensive schools organised and run by the hon. Gentleman's colleagues there are bands of ability: the first four streams, then the next four, and so on all the way down. It may be that, a comprehensive school having been organised on that basis, one band is neglected. Clearly that is the responsibility of the school concerned. It is one of the risks in any kind of organisation.
  I should have had far more respect for the hon. Gentleman's argument on grounds of education if he had not slung in at some stage the point that he would scrap the direct grant system. Why scrap the direct grant system? Surely, not on educational grounds.
  Mr. R. C. Mitchell: Yes.
  Mr. Roberts: Surely not. It might be argued that in a large city to take the grammar school creaming-off might put the comprehensive schools at a disadvantage.
  Cardiff contributes 12 girls to the Howells direct grant school. Does anyone believe that if each year those 12 did not attend the Howells direct grant school but were distributed two here, three there and none somewhere else, it would make the slightest difference? The significance is "none somewhere else", because this concerns the right social mix about which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Spark-brook (Mr. Hattersley) spoke. I should be grateful if he or anyone else could
  1708
  tell me how we can get the right social mix. Even if I accepted the question and said "Yes, you can bus people all over the city", what does one do? Do the proponents of the accurate mix which is essential for each school—so that each school in a city has the right balance of ability and social background—go to find out the pupils' social backgrounds? Are we to take what is called a series of "good addresses" and say that we will bus some here and bus others there? Anyone considering that argument knows that it is nonsense.
  I am a proponent of the comprehensive system. I left the grammar school system to work in the comprehensive system and did so for six or seven years. The great problem is that some parts of the city of Cardiff have totally different social mixes from other parts. That gives the lie to the argument that the grammar schools engage in creaming-off. Clearly certain places will not be affected in any way where there is one grammar school structure within a great area which is generally served by the comprehensive system.
  I do not think that educationists looking back over the last 10 years will say that the cause of comprehensive education has necessarily been advanced best by the purists and the theorists who talk about the social mix. I am quite certain, however, that they will accord to my right hon. Friend a very important place among those who have looked after the true interests of education and of comprehensive education.
  My right hon. Friend, with great courage and conviction, has said that there is a place for the small school and a place for the small comprehensive school. This is important for several reasons. A headmaster does not know all his pupils even in a small comprehensive school of 1,200. He cannot know them all. What is more, the pupils do not know him. It may be argued that that does not matter very much because he knows somebody who knows the pupils well. Sometimes it is an advantage that the pupils do not know the headmaster but at least know and trust really well somebody to whom they can talk.
  Mr. Peter Hardy: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there are many schools of perhaps 400, 500 or 600 pupils within the selective system where

  1709
  the headmasters do not know all the pupils and yet the schools seem to survive reasonably well?
  Mr. Roberts: The headmaster of a 400-pupil school is as conscientious as the headmaster of a 1,200-pupil school. Headmasters try to get to know their pupils as best they can. The fact is that in a school of 1,200 pupils it is three times more difficult, and there comes a point of escalation at which it is utterly impossible. Even in a comprehensive school which would be described as small it is very difficult for a headmaster to know all the pupils.
  Part of a headmaster's job is to create the administrative machine, and he does it. Therefore, although he does not know all the students, he can appoint a responsible member of the staff to liaise with them. If he wants to know what a student is doing at a particular time or how he is fitting into the school, he can ask the person who is responsible.
  The larger the school, the longer the chain of command. I have taught for many years. I believe that the front line of education is in the classroom, on the playing field, in the laboratory, and in the workshops. The further the chain of command stretches from the front line to the headmaster's study, the less effective is the headmaster, however he wants to work. I have seen how headmasters can be surrounded by their immediate advisers—year teachers, the heads of lower schools, the careers masters—so that the immediate advisers too are not in direct touch with the pupils in the classroom. Therefore, the person who has to make the ultimate decision is unfortunately cocooned, not of his own volition, from the very people doing the major job of education.
  Mr. Spearing: I agree with a great deal of what the hon. Gentleman has said. Does he not agree that the very remoteness of which he talks is also true in the national system of education, where those from the separatist grammar schools, direct grant schools and big public schools, those who are regarded as the experts because they go to the best schools and teach in them, are unaware of the real education needs of most of the nation?
  Mr. Roberts: That is totally irrelevant to my argument. I am talking seriously about the problems of comprehensive schools, not trying to make odd social or party political points.
  Another thing that worries me about the system is that in order to create the machine, the headmaster has to take out of the classroom more and more of the teachers who are best qualified and most experienced to carry out the administrative jobs, merely to combat size.
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has spotted one of the grave weaknesses in the organisation of comprehensive schools. This is not to say anything against the system but points out where comprehensive education in large schools has gone wrong. It is better that we should have and move towards smaller schools.
  Many other hon. Members wish to take part in the debate, so I shall be brief. I recognise, as we all do, the disadvantage of the small school; its sixth form cannot offer as many opportunities as the sixth form in the large school. But I do not think that the right way to arrange the size of the school is to say that the ideal size is that which will throw up the number of pupils who will make a viable sixth form. If that were done in the better residential parts of Cardiff, where the parents are most concerned, there would be a comparatively small school, and perhaps in the area where we want most personal attention there would be a vast school.
  I think that we are on the right lines with smaller schools, but we need much greater co-operation at sixth form level between schools—not a sixth form college. In that way I am certain that comprehensive education, with the guidance of my right hon. Friend will make a great contribution to the country's education service.
  8.3 p.m.
  Dr. John Gilbert: I shall not detain the House for long as I wish to confine myself to a constituency matter with which the Secretary of State is well acquainted.
  I do not propose to rehearse any of the arguments for or against Dudley's plan for secondary comprehensive reorganisation. They are all very familiar to the right hon. Lady and to the parents

  1711
  of Dudley, who are becoming heartily sick of the controversy over their children's future. I am asking tonight for a decision as soon as possible.
  The Secretary of State has rejected certain parts of Dudley's plan. In her rejection she asked Dudley Council whether, in the light of her decision, it wished to start again from the beginning, considering the whole scheme again in the light of the changes she made, or whether it wanted to return to her to ask her to approve the remainder of the plan in the light of the changes she requires.
  The amputation of significant parts of any local authority's scheme will create problems, and that has happened in Dudley. Clearly the relationship of the original scheme to the changes that the Secretary of State requires will cause the local authority to give urgent and penetrating scrutiny to the implications of her decision. That scrutiny has been given. The director of education of Dudley wrote to the Secretary of State on 12th January referring to the letter from the Department of 28th December, in which the authority was informed that the Secretary of State was unable to approve the proposals for five schools in the authority's plan to reorganise secondary education on comprehensive lines.
  The director of education's letter continued:
  "The plan envisaged 16 comprehensive schools to cover the age range 16–18 including sixth form provision in each. The Secretary of State's decision affects two of these schools only, the remaining 14 being situated in Coseley, Sedgley and Brierley Hill and in three areas of Dudley."
  That means the old county borough area of Dudley. The letter went on to say:
  "The Education Committee has now had an opportunity of considering your letter in detail and has decided to urge he Secretary of State to approve the 14 remaining proposals."
  There then followed a list of the schools involved.
  The letter continued:
  "Each of these schools will have its own catchment area and therefore will not be affected by the decision … The committee is also satisfied that by 1978–79 it will be possible to establish sixth form work in comprehensive schools without any deterioration in standards or quality of work and that both facilities and staff will be available at the appropriate time.
  The committee also wishes me to point out that so far as the changes in local government
  1712
  in 1974 are concerned, Halesowen is already reorganised on a 13–18 basis of comprehensive schools, whereas no reorganisation has taken place in Stourbridge."
  If we have to wait until 1974 we are starting all over again with three entirely different types of secondary education. It means that the whole plan will be set back several more years. The education committee in Dudley, for quite understandable reasons, thinks that would be an entirely unsatisfactory state of affairs, and I endorse its arguments on that.
  The Council is emphatic that it wishes the Secretary of State to consent to the rest of its proposals without delay. As a result of the Secretary of State's decision, the merits of which I will not argue tonight, the situation in Dudley grows more critical every day. The director of education was in touch with the Department recently by telephone and I understand that papers have reached the Secretary of State personally. We have no knowledge when a decision can be expected. I am told that serious consequences can follow very shortly as a result of the need to make arrangements for admission to secondary schools in September. The director of education's memorandum stating that says:
  "A 12-plus examination must be held in part of the town area of Dudley. If the rest of the plan is not approved the 12-plus must be spread over the whole County Borough. Schools break up for Easter on Wednesday April 11 and return on May 1. During this current term, tests should have been completed and the papers marked so that orders of marks can be prepared."
  The Secretary of State will be aware of the problems involved but I wish to emphasise them.
  The memorandum continues:
  "The schools will be required to be informed by letter of the selection procedure. This would consist of two tests either a week or fortnight apart. Papers for the tests are available."
  One serious factor concerning the local authority, however, is that
  "In the last two years, border line cases have been interviewed by panels, but this part of the procedure may have to be dispensed with in view of the need for notifying parents as soon as possible, and well before the end of the summer term."
  I hope that in the light of the letter sent to the Department and the extracts I have just read from a memorandum sent by the director of education to the chairman of the education committee,

  1713
  whom I consider to be one of Dudley's most loyal and public servants, the Secretary of State will accept at any rate the need for a decision as quickly as possible.
  In my view the original plan of Dudley Council was probably better than what the Secretary of State is proposing. I do not think that the original plan was a doctrinaire one. I am confident that it would not have resulted in any bussing and that it would have resulted in a satisfactory social mix. A compromise was accepted. Secondary school would start a year later than the Labour group planned originally. But we accepted that.
  Even if Dudley's current plan does not turn out to be the best one, it is not irrevocable. It is possible after a few years' experience for Dudley's proposals to be adjusted, to incorporate the idea of sixth form colleges which is the matter of controversy at the moment in the county borough. These proposals do not close the door and they are not irrevocable in that respect. With the passage of time we shall see who is right.
  What we need now is a decision. We need it badly. There are worried parents all over the county borough who demand it. It is the duty of the Secretary of State to give it. I hope that we shall have it from her without delay.
  8.11 p.m.
  Mr. Ian Lloyd: This education debate happens to be the first in which I have had the privilege to participate. I hope that that will not be interpreted as a sign that I am a late developer, even if I cannot press the analogy to the point that one hon. Member opposite described in giving us the experience of his constituent.
  I begin by drawing the attention of the House to two conversations which I had the privilege of enjoying recently. The first was at the Parliamentary and Scientific Conference at Lausanne where I asked a Fellow of the Royal Society who must be nameless what he thought was probably the most significant factor deciding the relative scientific excellence and achievement of the West versus the Soviet Union. He said that without doubt by far the most important factor was the way in which we developed, aggregated and advanced our highest mathematical
  1714
  ability in the West. I asked how they did it in Russia. His reply was extremely interesting. He said that the Russians creamed the whole of Russian society and they picked out the boys and girls of the highest mathematical ability. They took them to three academies outside Moscow and gave them the very best mathematical education that the Soviet Union knew how to provide. He said that in his view that was probably one of the reasons why the Soviet Union was making conspicuous advances in areas where mathematics was the foundation of this type of success. I shall not forget that conversation.
  The other conversation took place on the far side of the United States. One of the most barbaric habits in the United States is the working breakfast. However, sometimes when one is staying in an hotel in America one meets some very interesting people, and they do not skulk behind The Times but engage one in conversation. I was spoken to by a gentleman who asked me what I was doing there. I told him, and I reciprocated. He told me that he was attending the parent-teacher conference of his children's school. I asked what sort of conference it was. He replied that it was a conference held twice a year attended by a large number of parents and most teachers in the school to discuss the curriculum and how children were progressing. Apparently the conference took two full days and was held in the hotel.
  Then we began talking about education. It was at the time that the comprehensive controversy was just beginning in this country. He said to me "It is extraordinary to us that here we are in the United States trying every conceivable way we know to achieve once again the excellent academic standards which you still seem to have in the United Kingdom and, to our astonishment, there you are in the United Kingdom apparently trying to turn the whole system upside down and do what we did 20 years ago when we had our vast education explosion in the United States and, in a sense, went comprehensive only to find that we suffered severe and serious educational problems."
  Those are two comments on comprehensive education. However, I want to quote two more because it seems to me that they express the essential problem

  1715
  of the controversy between those who favour comprehensive education and those who feel that it is not the perfect solution to our problems. It was first expressed in the Conant Report which President Conant of Harvard produced on "General Education in a Free Society". He said:
  "The purpose of vocational education is, by recognising the influence of circumstances to mitigate it, not to eliminate it. There must be a place for both special and general education for those subjects which divide man from man according to their particular functions and for those which unite man and man in their common humanity and citizenship."
  This has always seemed to me to express the essential fundamental problem of education, that we are on the horns of a dilemma which, until we have reached the millennium with unlimited resources, we shall never eliminate. He concluded:
  "General and special education must not be placed in competition with each other."
  As I see the problems that we are considering, this is what seems to be happening. We are creating situations in which general and special forms of education are placed in competition with each other.
  I shall now be intensely parochial and refer entirely to the local context in which I am considering this problem at the moment. In Havant and Waterloo within my constituency, there is a depressing situation. We have six county secondary moderns, two mixed grammar and two partly selective mixed schools. In addition, I might say, not because they are within the boundaries of my constituency but because many parents send their children to them, we have two other schools, Horndean and Churchers College, Petersfield. Many of my constituents send their children to Peters-field from as far away as Hayling Island because there they receive the quality of education that they require.
  I intend to talk about only three of those schools because they are important and because they illustrate the central core of the debate. Havant grammar school, founded at the beginning of the decade, has 920 pupils and 58 staff. Purbrook grammar school, a much older school founded just before the First World War, has 934 pupils and 54 staff. The third is a very interesting school, Wakeford comprehensive school, which was in the process of establishing its sixth form. The staff had been recruited and the facilities
  1716
  had largely been obtained. All that has not happened is that it has not started sixth form teaching yet.
  Until recently the main scheme for reorganisation involved a reconstruction on an 11-to-18 basis. Wakeford was to become an 11-to-18 comprehensive with a substantial and significant sixth form element. The other schools were to be reorganised on an 1l-to-18 comprehensive basis when the facilities and resources became available for them. For a variety of reasons this was considered not to be possible, essentially on the ground of lack of resources. As a result, a completely new scheme was developed with a different basis altogether.
  What was to happen was that Havant grammar school and Purbrook grammar school, two of the most distinguished schools in the Portsmouth area, were virtually to disappear. Havant was to become a sixth form college drawing from all over the area and Purbrook was to lose its sixth form and become an 11-to-16 comprehensive. None of the original six county secondary moderns was to develop into 11-to-18 schools. They were to remain as 11-to-16s feeding these two schools. In addition, a college of further education was to be established in Havant to assist the process.
  What will happen if this scheme is enforced? As far as Purbrook grammar school is concerned, the pupils in the first to fourth forms already there and having accepted to enter the sixth form will not be able to do so. Many of the staff will leave. They have indicated quite clearly that they dislike the prospect which now faces them and, as it has been put to me—not by the headmaster of the Purbrook grammar school but by another distinguished educationist in the area—"Purbrook grammar school will disintegrate". That was the phrase that was used.
  In the case of Wakeford comprehensive, here again the sixth form preparations and all the expenditure on them will be entirely wasted. Many of the staff already recruited on the basis that they would be in an 11-to-18 comprehensive, ending with sixth form instruction, will be disaffected and inclined to leave. Parents who sent their children to the school on the basis of an 11-to-18 prospect are very disenchanted and feel let

  1717
  down. It is interesting that Wakeford school serves mainly Leigh Park, which is a very difficult and problematical area in my constituency and is known to be one in which there is a considerable amount of emotional, social and educational deprivation for the children concerned. Many children from this area will not make the change to a sixth form college and, as it has been put to me, will be totally lost to the educational process.
  As far as Havant grammar school is concerned, the school tradition will be severely curtailed and, as we all know, the sixth form college is a very different animal.
  What has happened concerning the parents? We have heard a good deal in the House this evening about processes of consultation. Apparently in this area the processes of consultation have been intensive. There have been meetings for the head teachers, meetings for all teachers, meetings for governors and, finally, very well-attended meetings for the parents—by which I mean drawing up to and over 1,000 people. The outcome of this is perfectly clear and, as far as I can judge it, decisive. At the Purbrook grammar school, where 700 parents attended, there was overwhelming disagreement with the proposed scheme. The petition which is to be presented to this House will have over 1,000 signatures. At Wakeford, which is a comprehensive, 72 out of the staff of 76 disagreed with the proposed reorganisation. According to the response to the questionnaire sent to 1,000 parents, 90 per cent. are opposed to the scheme, and 100 per cent. of the fifth form parents are opposed to the scheme. These are not—and this is important—what, to use an unpleasant designation, might be described as middle-class parents fighting for their own special interests, but I think they know where the interests of their children lie.
  It seems to me that the philosophy which has been applied in suggesting and bringing forward this system is the philosophy not of the Green Paper but of the White Paper. The scheme is put forward as a complete, final, organised scheme. The processes of consultation are gone through, and then very little indeed is done about the results of that
  1718
  consultation. I do not regard this as a significant, successful or indeed honest way of consulting public opinion. So if one asks the question of parents and teachers whether they think that proper weight has been given to their views, one gets an almost unanimous "No".
  I would be the first to argue that those who have put forward these schemes have done so with great sincerity and conviction. They have been operating under severe constraints, probably the most important being that of lack of resources. The second most important constraint is probably the pressure, which has been described on both sides of the House this evening, for the abolition of the 11-plus evamination. This has been recognised by those in the education committee and in the authorities—the Hampshire authority, the Havant and Waterloo authority—whose responsibility it is to attempt to meet the demands for an improved educational system. But what I think they have perhaps neglected or paid insufficient attention to is the sheer weight of the upper and nether millstones which are operating in this educational sphere. They are both exceptionally heavy, but the corn being ground is the seed corn of the future. That is why there are such very strong, passionate and convinced reactions from the parents involved.
  It seems to me that what we must do here is quite clear. We must consider how this can be re-done. We must ask those concerned to look at it again. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will look at this again. She has told us that her discretion under Section 13 has been exercised with the greatest care. I would submit that this is an occasion on which that discretion must be exercised. I hope that those who are very much concerned by the scheme which has been put forward, which has caused the greatest concern throughout the district, will realise that everything my right hon. Friend said earlier about the Government wishing to achieve the best possible outcome in all circumstances is absolutely true.
  8.27 p.m.
  Mr. Harry Lamborn: As a member of the Inner London Education Authority for the past 15 years I intend to direct my remarks to the special problems arising for secondary education

  1719
  in the Inner London area. The advance to comprehensive education in London was started in the early years after the war by the former London County Council and considerable progress has been made, but I think we have reached the position in London now where the whole situation is frustrated by the fact that so many of the buildings used by secondary schools in the Inner London area are very aged, many of them having been built by the old School Board for London. We have the position that finance is not available for new buildings and proposals submitted to the Secretary of State are rejected because it is not considered desirable to approve certain comprehensive proposals involving separate buildings. So we go round in a vicious circle.
  One thing which arises from this is that I can think of four or five grammar schools which were part of comprehensive proposals—grammar schools with good traditions to provide the basis for very good comprehensive schools within the Inner London area—but because of the failure to get finance for building in the Inner London area they have transferred outside that area and have become comprehensive schools in the area of other education authorities.
  This has been a loss to London because these grammar schools within a comprehensive system had a contribution to make. As the chairman of a large comprehensive school as well as the governor of a grammar school I believe that a combination of the two is useful. These grammar schools, with their traditions, can play an important part in forming the new comprehensive schools. Because of the failure to provide finance we in London are in difficulties in advancing a fully comprehensive system.
  It may be asked why, having proceeded so far in London, is there a hurry to move towards the comprehensive system? I would like to deal with some of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Brierley Hill, (Mr. Montgomery) who referred to what he called "sink" schools, a disgraceful reference for which the Press has to be thanked. It is a disservice to education to use this description. The hon. Member referred to the "sink" schools and the criteria which the Inner London Education Authority laid down as guidance to headmasters involved in
  1720
  forming a comprehensive school side by side with an existing grammar school, with the "upper crust" being creamed off.
  It is unfortunately true that, unless we make special efforts we shall have creamed grammar schools at one end of the scale and creamed secondary schools at the other. Then under a system of parents' choice some poor little chap will be hawked around to four or five different schools and will end up in a school which is a creamed secondary modern. To obtain a balance the Inner London Education Authority last year issued criteria for dealing with intakes. The first criterion was that an endeavour should be made to provide a balanced intake so that we did not perpetuate a system which has the creamed secondary modern at one end and the creamed grammar school at the other. The second criterion was the location of the school in relation to the home and the third was whether the would-be pupil had a brother or sister at the school.
  The hon. Member for Brierley Hill took exception to these criteria. I would have thought that any educationist would be anxious to prevent a grouping which leads to 90 per cent. of the children in a class being of less than average ability. Proximity to the school is obviously an important factor which a headmaster should consider. The same applies to the point about a brother or sister being at the school.
  There is a crying need in London, and many other older urban areas too, where schools are frequently 100 or more years old, for new school buildings. We cannot continue to say that there will be no money for new schools. We cannot refuse to approve comprehensive proposals on this score. I am not prepared to advocate schools as large as those we had in the early days of moving towards comprehensive education in London. The school of which I am chairman is a coeducational school with 1,700 pupils. I am inclined to think that is too large. Some of the old school buildings are quite unsuitable for any kind of modern education. There is a great need in the older urban areas for new school buildings. If we could get these then we in London could get ahead with the job of making the system fully comprehensive.
  8.34 p.m.
  Mr. Robert Redmond: I hope that the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Lamborn) will forgive me if I do not follow him in what he said. My knowledge of London is limited and mine is really the voice of Lancashire. This debate is most timely because of the developments in Bolton yesterday. It is unfortunate that in tabling this motion the Opposition should have stretched our credulity beyond measure by using the words "arbitrary" and "capricious". After all, the policy of the Labour Government was to say to the local education authority, "You have to go comprehensive or you cannot have a new school"—and nowhere is the result of that policy more evident than in Bolton, where a blunt refusal was given to the building of a new secondary school, and we are suffering from that in a shortage of school places today. Who was arbitrary? The Government amendment put things in proper perspective because it confirms the need to decide individual proposals with regard to the wishes of parents and local needs. I rather wish that the amendment had also added "and the views of teachers".
  I am no great education expert, unlike some of those who have spoken, but I know how parents feel because I am a parent, and I know that all parents worth their salt have a burning desire for the best they can get for their children. Therefore, on that basis, if one were to start from scratch with what industrialists, particularly the British Steel Corporation, like to call a "green field site", it is obvious sense that one would build a comprehensive school. But seldom are we starting from scratch. And because we have some other system than the comprehensive—and there is no need to start worrying about the 11-plus, which can be got rid of anyway—the situation of not starting with a "green field site" is exactly the position we are facing today. In the county borough of Bolton, whose Labour education authority set up a working party about seven months ago, that working party has produced a document for comprehensive education. I do not call it a proposal, for it is a document. It was produced only yesterday. I got it by post this morning.
  1722
  I want to be fair. I have not read it as thoroughly as I might because I have been attending and listening to this debate. The document asks parents to comment, but as far as I can see from a first quick reading it does not give much on which to comment after seven months' work. But not being a dogmatic educationist, Socialist or anything else, I for one want to know what parents and teachers want, because I believe they are going to ask some pertinent questions—questions which all parents, all teachers and all ratepayers should be asking when they see a document like this. They will ask, how are children to be chosen for comprehensive schools or any new type schools? Are they to be drawn out of a hat, or are we to have neighbourhood schools?
  What is to happen to the five direct-grant schools we have in the borough—certainly an almost peculiar situation? What about the church schools, Catholic and Church of England, that we have? The mixture of schools, five direct-grant schools and a large number of church schools, in a town the size of Bolton emphasises the importance of what I am saying and produces an almost unique situation, and it underlines what I have said, that we are never starting from scratch. Whatever we are doing in education we have to build on the foundations that exist. In that sense it is important that Bolton people should realise that we now have a Secretary of State who, in the terms of the amendment, is
  "to have regard to the wishes of parents …"
  I suggest—and I hope my right hon. Friend will agree—that now is the time for parents to start making their views known loud and clear. I am speaking also for my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Reed) when I say that if people in our respective constituencies will start writing letters saying what they think for or against the proposals, either way, we are a channel of communication that is open if they want to use it.
  I want to be fair. At first sight it seemed that the Bolton working party had gone a bit easy on dogma. I was glad to see this, but then I got a copy of last night's' Bolton Evening News and found that the working party had originally put in an opening paragraph to the document which is not there any more. But the

  1723
  paragraph was published in the Bolton Evening News. It said:
  "Bolton has achieved excellent standards in secondary education as witnessed by the high proportion of pupils staying at school beyond the compulsory leaving age and by very good results in external examinations at 16 and 18."
  It is worth pointing out that Bolton had the original concept of comprehensive schools on what were called "bases"—three schools on a base. It was developed over the last 25 years. [Laughter.] The hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) may laugh but the proposal for these base schools said that we would be producing a system of comprehensive education. It was only when "comprehensive" became a party political word that Bolton ceased to have a "comprehensive" education.
  Alderman Mrs. Ryley, who was Chairman of Bolton Education Authority for so long and knows a great deal about education, has commented about the missing paragraph:
  "We must not say how good things are at the moment We must bring in what Transport House says is Labour Party policy. I think it was very mean to take out that paragraph."
  I think she was right. That paragraph praising the quality of Bolton education was taken out because the Labour group simply would not—I will not say "could not"—see that there was quality in the existing system of Bolton education. A party that is so blinded by dogma as to do a thing like that has no right to put down a motion such as the one we are debating.
  Having got across the message that my hon. Friend and I want to hear from the parents, I can say that this is not a matter of party dogma. It is vital that there be no sacrifice of the future of our children on the altar of political dogma, whether it be from the Left or from the Right.
  Mr. Spearing: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman mentioned that he would have a comprehensive school on a green field site. Has it occurred to him that it might be useful if some of the direct-grant schools were to go comprehensive?
  Mr. Redmond: One of the direct-grant schools in Bolton, the Canon Slade Church of England School, has already put out proposals for a comprehensive wing. This shows that there
  1724
  is nothing dogmatic about the system of education in Bolton which was originally called "comprehensive". I am trying not to be dogmatic but what we have to do is to try to devise the correct and best system to suit a particular area. Given a green field site I would build comprehensives, but given five schools doing a good job, and five bases also doing a good job, and the church schools in the area, I believe that we must build on that system.
  I have not said that the system is perfect. I think that it is very good. Nothing is ever perfect. But we should try to build on what is good in order to make it even better. The Labour-controlled education authority has produced this scheme for the County Borough of Bolton which is to disappear. It would be better to say here and now that the scheme which should be put to my right hon. Friend should come from the new metropolitan district council which will cover a larger area, have more schools and will perhaps produce a different set of foundations on which we should be building.
  8.44 p.m.
  Mr. Neville Sandelson: My sole reason for intervening arises out of the speech of the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby). I tried to find him and to warn him that I should be making a brief reference to what he said. Whatever regrets I have about the outcome of his by-election, I have no reservations about joining in the welcome which the House has given to him today and in the congratulations on his maiden speech.
  The hon. Gentleman and I are colleagues in so far as we represent the same London borough, and while it would have been churlish for me to interrupt him today in the course of his speech, I cannot allow his assertions to pass quite unchallenged in regard to the local education position. I must utterly repudiate his suggestion that the Secretary of State's refusal to give Section 13 consents to the applications made by the local education authority in regard to Bishopshalt and Vyners grammar schools has been welcomed by the people of the borough of Hillingdon. In fact I believe the complete opposite to be true.

  1725
  The borough council has established and is now extending an excellent comprehensive school structure. The vast majority of parents and teachers in the area have been clamant in their demands for comprehensive schools. In my experience there is great disappointment among most of these parents when their children are not found places in these comprehensive schools. At the beginning of each school year I receive shoals of irate letters from these parents.
  I recognise that the Minister has given some consents to provide for reorganisation along comprehensive lines in the borough but her refusal in regard to these two schools is disruptive and deliberately undermines the successful operation of comprehensive schools in the same locality. For reasons of time I cannot now develop this theme, but I deplore the doctrinaire attitudes of the right hon. Lady and the Tory Party. The right hon. Lady is pandering to a small number of politically motivated people and by her actions she is threatening the full educational validity and effectiveness of the choice made by the vast majority of parents and teachers in the area. Her action flies in the face of the proposals carefully thought out by the authority and she should be in no doubt of the resentment her decision has caused.
  8.46 p.m.
  Mr. Robert Hicks: I welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate at this particular time. As a person who was employed in the educational service before becoming a Member of this House, I have been somewhat reluctant to take part in a full educational debate for the reason that I formed the impression, rightly or wrongly, that debates of this kind are too often dominated by the professionals and thus objective thoughts tend to take second place to subjective comments. There is, of course, a real need for contributions in depth which professionals can offer, but I feel that in education at present the greatest single requirement is for more objectivity and, if I may say so, less theory and more common sense.
  I shall deal briefly with three specific aspects, but I preface my remarks by saying that I believe the nation is tired of the arguments regarding the battle whether the private sector should be
  1726
  encouraged or abolished just as more and more people are beginning to realise that the debate whether selection should continue in the context of the public sector is becoming equally sterile in the public mind.
  I maintain that politicians are doing a positive disservice to education at present when they deliberately and continually provoke feelings throughout the country whether the comprehensive system should become universal. The Labour Party, I regret, must take a major share of the blame here, but it would be equally wrong for the Conservative Party to allow itself to be pushed into the position of the party that automatically supports the status quo. That in my judgment would be as doctrinaire as the attitude adopted by our political opponents.
  I think we must all recognise that education is essentially an evolutionary process and that if we as a nation are to derive maximum benefit from the resources spent on education, both in the State and in the private sectors, we must have a minimum of dogma and allow common sense and sound judgment to prevail.
  I have stated that in my opinion the public are getting tired of the debate on the type of secondary school organisation which is most desirable. I think that most people have come to the conclusion that variety and flexibility should characterise our schooling system.
  What is more important still—and judging by some of the comments in the debate today the House does not seem to have grasped the fact—is that more and more people are becoming far more concerned about and interested in what goes on within our schools than with how our schools are organised. I fully appreciate the sensitivity surrounding this aspect. Nothing would be worse than continual external interference, but I seriously question whether our existing techniques and attitudes in our secondary schools, especially with respect to the kind of curriculum that is followed, prepare our pupils for the kind of world in which they will live and assist them in making their own contribution in later years to improving the standard and quality of community life as a whole. Linked to that facet is the question of career guidance within our secondary schools. I know that this

  1727
  is a difficult area. Changes have been and are being introduced which I trust, will help our secondary school pupils.
  There is, however, just one specific observation that I wish to make in this context this evening. Whatever the scale and the quality of expertise evolved from outside sources—be it through the good offices of the Department of Employment, the local authority career advisory services, private industry and commerce, or whatever it is—the choice of a career by any pupil will in part reflect the general school environmental influences at work in that educational establishment, and in this context this implies the attitude and outlook of the teaching staff with whom the pupils spend five, six or seven years of their secondary school life.
  My own personal experiences lead me to form the opinion that it would be a mistake if we were to ignore this intangible aspect of the influence and informal guidance of our teachers, and my one major regret is that in all too many of our secondary schools these environmental influences are too restrictive and traditional.
  That leads me to my third and final point. I believe that we have to introduce a more outward-looking dimension into our secondary school system. Far too often schools are not only too insular in their relations with the local community but, unfortunately, they present themselves as separate entities into which the visitor steps almost with fear and trepidation. It is all too often almost as if the teachers are afraid of outside pressures because of some misguided concept of the loss of stature or fear of criticism which parents and other interested outside persons are likely to make. I believe that it is in the interests not only of the education of our children but of society as a whole that there should be a positive movement to break into this restrictive cycle and tear down these barriers, and the new system of teacher training, which will be much more broadly based, may help.
  The secondary school could and should become one of the principal foci of local community life, both in respect of involving parents in the more formal education of their children and in the use of physical facilities which most modern secondary schools have to offer.
  1728
  In conclusion, I ask the House, and in particular my right hon. Friend to put to one side as much as she possibly can the organisational aspects and thus the political considerations of secondary education and concentrate her attention on the kind of activity that goes on within the school. After all, the primary purpose of our educational system is surely the training and preparation of our young persons for later life. I believe that if my right hon. Friend adopts that course the great majority of the parents of this country will support her efforts.
  8.55 p.m.
  Mr. Kenneth Marks: The criticisms made by the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Hicks) of some schools of being isolated from the neighbourhoods of their pupils apply far more to the grammar schools than to the comprehensive schools. I was interested to hear the comment by the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Redmond) who said that if a fresh start were to be made from green fields obviously all schools would be made comprehensive. I do not know to what extent his hon. Friends or the Secretary of State would agree with that. I believe that British education went the wrong way when the tripartite system was introduced and it is now something of a struggle to get out of it.
  A few weeks ago I asked the Secretary of State for her views about 11-plus selection examinations and she said that she had no views. In fairness to her I must say that I believe that she was thinking during that Question Time of her legal position in relation to Birmingham, about which the questions were being asked. I believe, however, that she should have views and she should let the country know what they are. I had hoped that today she would have taken the opportunity in the debate to outline those views. Does she believe in the continuation of the tripartite system or would she go for comprehensive schools now? I have been trying to discover what vintage of Conservative she is and I looked up the 1952 Conservative Party Conference resolution. It says:
  "That this Conference believes in the educational value of separate Grammar, Technical and Modern Secondary Schools and deplores any attempts to replace this tripartite system by Comprehensive Schools."

  1729
  Perhaps that is her vintage. If not, what about this one from 1953:
  "That this Conference welcomes the progress made by the Minister of Education"—
  a Conservative one—
  "in carrying out the reforms of the Butler Act and expresses its conviction that Socialist proposals for destroying the Grammar Schools and undermining the position of the Independent Schools would result in a reduction of educational opportunities for all children."
  Or is she the 1967 vintage:
  "That this Conference condemns the hasty and ill-considered imposition of a compehensive system of education, against the wishes of parents and local authorities, when finance is required urgently for the expansion of teacher supply, the improvement of primary education and the growth of higher education."
  Again, in fairness to the Secretary of State, perhaps the last is nearer to her view than the 1952 resolution. The significant fact is that while the 1952 and 1953 resolutions were carried unanimously—there was one dissentient to the 1952 resolution—it was necessary to have a ballot on the 1967 resolution and it was carried by only a narrow majority. I wonder what side the right hon. Lady was on in 1967 and whether that resolution had anything to do with the replacement of Lord Boyle as chief Conservative spokesman on education.
  The Conservative Party has fought a bitter rearguard action against the introduction of comprehensive education throughout the country. In my city there was bitter opposition to even one comprehensive school even though having one school in a city could not be described as going comprehensive. When the suggestion was made from the Labour side that an area of the city should be used for a pilot scheme the Conservatives refused and suggested instead that one school should be used as an experiment. When the Labour Party suggested the introduction of a full system of comprehensive education the Tories made counter-proposals suggesting pilot schemes. The argument now is about the denominational schools going comprehensive in the city and I suppose that the Conservatives will fight that too.
  One reason for the motion is a suspicion—not confined to the Opposition—of the right hon. Lady's views about education. The White Paper has added to that suspicion. How does the right
  1730
  hon. Lady see secondary education in 1981? There is no word about it in the White Paper. Does she see a gradual elimination of the grammar schools, as the Prime Minister saw before 1970 and as her predecessor saw long before that? We need more information about her views and the Conservative Party's views on the future of secondary education in the next 10 years.
  There is no longer an educational argument about comprehensive schools. That argument is hardly debated now in educational circles. It is accepted that the comprehensive system is the best one. The argument now is whether comprehensive schools are truly comprehensive or whether some have the tripartite system built into them. People who believe in the tripartite system do so only so long as their own children pass the examination to go to a grammar school. In my experience a great many people who believed in the tripartite system contracted out when their children failed to get to a grammar school.
  The hon. Member for Bodmin talked about politics and education, and that is perhaps a topical subject. Politicians have done a great deal for education, and the fact that education is discussed as a political argument is of importance. The great events of education have been the Education Acts from 1870 onwards. They have had a tremendous influence, often for great good, on the education of our children and on further education. As politicians, hon. Members on both sides of the House can be proud that we have provided a great deal of initiative, which has not come from educational circles, in making progress in education. Where does the Conservative Party stand now on comprehensive schools?
  9.2 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Fry: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) for allowing me sufficient time to make a brief contribution to the debate. I shall not follow his argument, except to say that I am surprised that any hon. Gentleman on the Opposition benches should talk about party conference decisions. In view of recent history, hon. Gentlemen opposite should be silent about them.
  The hon. Member for Manchester Gorton asked what kind of education system

  1731
  we saw for 1981. What I do not want is a slavish system of comprehensive schools. I hope that we shall have plenty of good comprehensive schools and that we shall still have an independent sector, and that the direct grant schools and some excellent grammar schools will survive. It would be disastrous if educational theory, as it has in previous years, favours a single system which may be very expensive and out of which it is difficult to contract. The Opposition motion perpetuates the myth that there is only one system of education worth considering—the comprehensive system. This confidence trick that has been perpetrated on the British public will, before long, be pierced.
  In my constituency there is a debate about the future of the secondary schools. Recently, the county council wisely decided to wait until the new authority was elected before making any reforms. The usual campaign has developed on the grounds that the development of the children will be retarded, the parents are up in arms and the teachers' organisations are disgusted that there is to be no change. They are the usual arguments put forward by the Labour Party and those who support it.
  Let us examine what it would mean to the parents in my constituency if the secondary school, which has hardly any O-level courses, were turned into a comprehensive school. What kind of fairness of opportunity is that? A schoolmaster in my home town brought his daughter to me saying, "Can you possibly get my child into another school in the area, because I do not like the standard of the secondary modern school to which she is zoned?" Obviously, I shall not name it. Yet the present system better serves the more able children in that community than the scheme before them. Would hon. Members opposite like their children to go to a school where there are not proper O level courses, let alone A level courses?
  Another school in my constituency, which has recently turned comprehensive, is supposed to offer ideal opportunities. The headmaster admits to me that he cannot provide A-level courses. The children will have to go elsewhere because he has not the staff or the facilities. That is the danger of too rapid a change to a comprehensive system.
  1732
  There has already been an interesting move towards more and more young students leaving school at 16 and going into colleges of further education to take A-level courses. That is a trend which will continue, but it raises a further problem. What about the people who will teach in the comprehensive schools? Shall we get the top quality teachers to go to what will be an 11-to-16 school? Will they not want to go to schools where their abilities are stretched by the brighter pupils? Will these teachers opt out of the school system and teach in further education colleges?
  One question has not been answered by the Opposition. If we adopt a comprehensive system too rapidly, is there not a danger that those who can afford it will go and live within the catchment area of the neighbouring school? Is there not the danger that that school, which has been previously a selective school, will retain its existing staff and will therefore be considered the best school in the area? There is the further danger that the staff will be dissipated and spread thinly throughout the area.
  I also believe that the argument is tending to be sterile and that the motion perpetuates sterile argument. It seems that the Labour Party will continue arguing until it has its own way. That diverts attention from the real needs of education. What we want is a system that will attract and obtain first-rate teachers so that they can teach in decent classrooms with classes of a reasonable size. That situation should exist throughout the country so that we can extend schooling for all our children.
  My right hon. Friend has done more since June 1970 than many Secretaries of State for Education and Science, who could create nothing more than confusion in the years between 1964 and 1970. I shall have the greatest pleasure in supporting the Government Amendment.
  9.8 p.m.
  Mr. Carol Mather: Section 68 has been criticised by hon. Members on the Opposition side and I should like to explain briefly the situation which arose in my constituency when my right hon. Friend made use of the section. I refer to Rydens school, which was a bilateral school and was to become comprehensive.

  1733
  There was no question of stopping the school becoming a comprehensive school. The only thing that was stopped and the only thing that was the subject of disagreement under Section 68 was the fact that a ring fence catchment area with clear demarcation lines was put round the school in an otherwise completely open area where free choice had existed. The school was established in this catchment before the rest of the area became comprehensive. That was the plan of the Surrey County Council. Parents were put in an invidious position. Those who were one side of the boundary had to go to Rydens comprehensive school—they were prevented from having the right of free choice whereas those who were on the other side of the boundary—that could be the other side of the road—had that choice. Many parents objected to this arrangement. I received letters from parents who were most upset about the position in which they had been placed.
  May I give two examples of what happened. One example involved a Roman Catholic who had two children. The brightest of them was not able to seek a place outside the catchment area on the ground of ability, whereas the less able child was able to do so on the ground of attendance at a religious school of denominational choice. The second example involved a family with two girls The abler was not able to seek a place outside the catchment area, but the less able child was able to go to a single sex school outside. Having made these few brief points, I wish to conclude.
  9.10 p.m.
  Miss Joan Lestor: The Secretary of State quoted a speech made by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition a few days ago, a speech with which I entirely agree. Therefore, I feel it only right to quote a speech made by the Prime Minister in June 1967 when addressing the Conservative National Advisory Committee on Education. He said:
  "I want to make it clear that we accept the trend of educational opinion against selection at 11-plus. By 'selection', I mean, the process of classifying children according to their IQ and separating them into different types of schools at too early an age."
  The right hon. Gentleman went on:
  "There has to be selection by grouping or ability at some stage if we are to do justice
  1734
  to children's differing needs and abilities. It has never been a Conservative principle in order to achieve this that children have to be segregated into different institutions."
  The Prime Minister in that speech did not go far enough for me, but I am sure that he went a little too far for the right hon. Lady. I hope that in his reply the Under-Secretary of State will tell the House how he reconciles those words with the policies carried out by the Government on secondary education.
  I congratulate the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) on his maiden speech. Any hon. Member who joins the educational lobby is indeed welcome in this House, and the hon. Gentleman's speech was moderate, clear and brief. I look forward to hearing him again in education debates.
  The right hon. Lady the Secretary of State for Education and Science got a little angry about some of the accusations made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley). I think that she misunderstood some of his comments. Our charge against her is not that she has refused to approve some schemes for schools to go comprehensive, but that her lack of any cohesive policy has frustrated and inhibited a full system of comprehensive education. She appears to have no rules or criteria by which to judge the schemes and no view on 11-plus examinations. At no time in her speech did she defend comprehensive education. I know that she is in favour of some comprehensive schools, but there is a difference between somebody being in favour of certain comprehensive schools and somebody who is dedicated to a system of comprehensive education. One is not the same as the other. I should be very interested to know whether the Under-Secretary will make it perfectly clear whether his party intends to go ahead with the development of comprehensive education in this country, or whether it intends to go ahead with approving some comprehensive schools but not approving some other types of comprehensive education. That is the kernel of the matter.
  As I understand it, at present about 32 per cent. of all maintained secondary schools in this country are designated as comprehensive. Some of these will be comprehensive schools and some will be included in comprehensive systems of

  1735
  education. Those of us who believe in a complete comprehensive system feel that we have a very long way to go before we get there. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) said, the crux of the matter is whether the Government intend to go ahead with the development of a comprehensive system of education.
  This debate, which has been very interesting, is not an esoteric debate about which scheme in comprehensive education is best. To suppose that it is is to miss the main point of the motion. That is why I was sorry that the hon. Member for Merton and Morden (Miss Fookes), with whom I have often agreed on certain aspects of education, did not, in fact, defend the comprehensive principle. She says—and I believe her—that she supports it. Had she done so, she might have educated some of her hon. Friends to a general belief in a comprehensive system.
  The issue has been admirably demonstrated by my hon. Friends when they have given examples of the frustration of the various schemes put up by certain local education authorities. This is quite right. This is a suspicion on the Opposition side of the House. It is more than a suspicion, perhaps.
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: The Opposition are a suspicious lot.
  Miss Lestor: Of course we are a suspicious lot. We have sat here for two and a half years. I am a much more suspicious Member of Parliament than I was before the Conservative Party came to power. Let us have nothing more of that from the Government side of the House.
  The suspicion is that the right hon. Lady and her supporters are not in favour of adequate secondary education for all children in that they want to retain certain of the grammar schools and certain of the direct-grant schools. Once they are retained—I see that hon. Members are nodding—one is not in favour of a fully comprehensive system of education.
  I find it hard to believe that the right hon. Lady does not have strong views on the 11-plus examination. I find it hard to believe, too, some of the things she has said to various audiencies up and down the country.
  1736
  The Government cannot have it all ways. On the one hand, they cannot, through the right hon. Lady and others at party political gatherings, take credit for the preservation of grammar schools and then, when confronted with critical and progressive audiences, switch the emphasis of the argument to show how many comprehensive schools and comprehensive schemes have been approved. The two do not go together. Moreover, the Government cannot exalt local authority autonomy when it happens to coincide with their own views and abandon it for the view that the Minister and others know best when they find that their views—and particularly the views of the right hon. Lady—are not acceptable to people at large.
  Mr. Redmond: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Miss Lestor: The Under-Secretary and I have already knocked off about six minutes of our time in order to allow other hon. Members to speak here. However, I will give way.
  Mr. Redmond: If the hon. Lady says that the present Secretary of State has given no local authority autonomy, how does she explain the fact that Bolton education authority was not allowed even to start a school under the previous Government because it was not comprehensive?
  Miss Lestor: I shall deal with that point. But what I am saying is that the present Government, when it suits them, have argued for local authority autonomy and have exalted that, saying that it is a great thing; but that is until it happens to conflict with a particular view they hold about a particular scheme at a certain time, whether that happens to be the Housing Finance Act or something else. It depends on the issue. That is what I am saying about local authority autonomy. It is the Government who defend it and say that they are in favour of it and use it if and when it happens to support their views.
  I believe that the right hon. Lady and the Government in general recognise that the argument against comprehensive education has been lost. I sometimes wish that in these debates we could stop arguing about comprehensive education

  1737
  as such and the reasons for it and discuss more the content of education and what we want in an education system. However, we are constantly driven back to discussing the principle of comprehensive education, as many hon. Members have done this evening, because they are aware that although the argument may have been lost, there is still a long way to go before the whole principle of comprehensive education reaches fruition and that much can be frustrated on the way.
  I believe that the country and, oddly enough, the Government recognise that the argument about the preservation of privilege and elitism in education has also been lost. [Interruption.] I believe that that argument has been lost. I hope that the noises I hear from the Government benches mean that hon. Members opposite are agreeing with me. Let us hope that the argument about elitism in education has been lost. If hon. Gentlemen agree with that statement, let us examine what they have said and ensure that nothing in our education system enhances elitism in education.
  Unlike the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Selwyn Gummer), who talked about nineteenth century education, I believe that the preservation and the upholding of elitism in education is typical of nineteenth century education. It is part and parcel of it. We must look into this very carefully indeed.
  We on the Opposition side of the House suspect that certain schemes are not approved because they are not good schemes. That is all right. However, we believe that certain schemes are not allowed and that money is withheld for the development of secondary reorganisation and secondary school building to preserve privilege and to frustrate the development of a comprehensive system of education. The right hon. Lady and her supporters know very well that if they gave money for secondary reorganisation or for secondary school building, many staunch supporters of the Conservative Party would want to use that money for the enhancement of comprehensive education.
  The right hon. Lady and many of her hon. Friends, when speaking to critical educationist audiences, boast about the number of comprehensive schools
  1738
  approved and say that only 90 or so grammar schools have been retained.
  Mrs. Thatcher: Less than 90.
  Miss Lestor: I do not mind. Less than 90. This is not comparing like with like. The retention of the grammar school has meant the retention of selection in the areas concerned and the total disruption of local education authority plans for the development of non-selection secondary education. The Government cannot say "We have approved so many hundreds or thousands of comprehensive schools and retained only a certain number of grammar schools", because the retention of the grammar school and the direct grant school is a contradiction of the whole comprehensive principle. It means retaining selection because there may be a grammar school in the area.
  Mr. Laurance Reed Mr. Laurance Reed (Bolton, East) Rose——
  Miss Lestor: I will not give way. I have already been over-generous in allowing hon. Members opposite to have 5¾ minutes of my time. I do not intend to give them any more.
  I believe that this whole process of retaining grammar and direct grant schools is part of the exercise to frustrate the full development of comprehensive education. Several hon. Members on the Government side who have spoken this evening have not denied that. If they want comprehensive schools and grammar schools and direct grant schools as well, they do not want the fully comprehensive system of education which my hon. Friends and I want.
  I come to what was said by the hon. Member for Lewisham, West. I have a great affection for West Lewisham, as I once failed only narrowly to win it from someone who was a Conservative Member for a little while. The hon. Gentleman said that there had been a lack of consultation in Lewisham over the schemes. The Labour Party in Lewisham has always fought its elections on the basis of comprehensive education. Three out of four of the MPs for the area are Labour and support comprehensive education. Even the Conservative Member for the area, the hon. Gentleman, supports comprehensive education. He has said so. All the GLC councillors for

  1739
  Lewisham are Labour, and 56 of the 60 local councillors are Labour. Therefore, the issue on comprehensive education is not whether the area should go comprehensive but what scheme is best. That is exactly what the consultation has been about.
  The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the early years of a child's life have a great influence on what happens to it later in the education system. That is why I have always been such a strong advocate of nursery education, and I am delighted that we are to have a little more of it.
  I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is very important that we should try to iron out inequalities as early as possible. But that does not mean that we enhance a secondary system of education that perpetuates inequalities. The hon. Gentleman's very language frightens me to death. He talks about grammar school types, certain levels of creaming off, intelligence, and not being able to get a certain type of intake into comprehensive schools because a number of children with high IQs have moved out of the area—[Interruption.]—If I have misrepresented the hon. Gentleman, I am happy to give way, but I took down what he said.
  Mr. Selwyn Gummer: I was quoting words used by officers of the Inner London Education Authority, who used the expression, "Those who have been called in the past the grammar school intake." I used the phrase in order not to make any of the mistakes of which the hon. Lady has accused me. I said that the parents of children at the schools concerned are not in favour of the policies of the ILEA, nor are the teachers in most of the schools concerned. In those circumstances, consultation which does not take into account their views is not consultation.
  Miss Lestor: We shall see. I return to what the hon. Gentleman said about a grammar school intake. He has now said that he was quoting the words of an officer, but he was not quoting them with disapproval. We were all under the impression that he agreed with them. Did not he agree? Did not he say that there were not enough to go round?
  The essence of the argument against selection at 11 is that it is not possible
  1740
  to talk about grammar school and secondary modern types, to have a system of measuring intelligence at 11, because the results will not be accurate. That is why we are opposed to measuring IQs and deciding which children are grammar school types and so designating them to a certain type of school.
  That is why when we on this side say that we are suspicious about the future development of comprehensives we listen carefully to what supporters of the Secretary of State say. They say that they want to retain selection and different types of secondary schools. The only way in which to decide which type of secondary school a child goes to is to give it a test or apply an assessment, which in our view bears little relation to what would be the child's performance if it were given a free and open chance in a school not hidebound by rigid ideas.
  We have heard several references to the need for good schools to be preserved. A number of hon. Members opposite have used the phrase from time to time. They say that it is right that good schools should be preserved. Usually they mean grammar schools or direct-grant schools. However, we need a definition of a "good" school. We want to know whether schemes have been approved only when schools are being abolished or amalgamated which are less than good. I very much hope not. But no one has ever defined a "good" school.
  The right hon. Lady says that she has an open mind about 11-plus examinations, that she is in favour of comprehensive schools but that she is not in favour of a complete comprehensive system of education. She asks those who believe in the retention of grammar schools to be vocal in their interests. However she does not ask people who believe in a comprehensive system of education to be equally vocal. If this is a matter which must be left to individuals to decide, why does not the right hon. Lady ask them to be just as vocal?
  It is high time that the Government told us the sort of education system in which they believe so that we know exactly where we are. At present they do not set any educational end goal, and they have no long-term strategy. This attitude cannot be allowed to continue

  1741
  indefinitely because it is unfair to thousands of children. No one can ignore the educational chaos which is resulting from this lack of policy.
  We who oppose selection argue that one of the worst elements of the tripartite system was that grammar school availability differed between 12 per cent. and 45 per cent. throughout the country and that a child's chance of getting to a grammar school and his chance of success was linked to where his parents lived as well as to the middle-class bias in selection. The development of comprehensive education was introduced to end this and other features of the selective system—but not if the Government can help it.
  A child may be part of a good comprehensive scheme with no selection, he may go to a comprehensive in an area with selection, he may go to a secondary modern school with much the same situation as before, or he may go to a grammar school. It will depend on the luck of the education draw, and this is defended on the ground of educational freedom for parents. But that freedom has always been limited to a minority of people. The vast majority of working-class children in an area where there is still selection are discriminated against as a result and thousands lose out in the education draw.
  We recognise the educational waste and lack of opportunity which results from such a policy. We believe in freedom in education. But the freedom in which we believe in relation to choice is delaying having to make decisions about children for as long as possible and not sending them to schools which set out simply to fulfil the prophecies that we have made about them by our biased judgments.
  This debate has demonstrated a number of matters. One is that the country recognises the failure of a system of education which perpetuates selection and yet talks about a comprehensive system. We need to go on to talk about the content and philosophy of education and some of its values.
  The debate has also shown what most educationists of any worth have demonstrated for a long time. It is that the educational tide is moving relentlessly forward in favour of the comprehensive
  1742
  system. The right hon. Lady may see herself as stemming that tide if she can. However she will find that Queen Canute is no more effective than was the male of the species of that name. She persists in saying that she has no strong views on the subject. If she continues to do that she is abdicating her responsibility to thousands of children who deserve a fair chance in education and who have not received it under the old tripartite system of education. Anyone who abdicates responsibility to thousands of children ought to abdicate her office as well.
  9.35 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): My first and most pleasant task this evening is to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) on his most notable and elegant maiden speech. I hope we shall hear very many more speeches on education from him. He has, as he has told us, the qualifications and the expertise which fit him to speak on this subject. He is the governor of a school and he is the father, he has told us, of two children—in other words, he is putting my principles into practice.
  I was also glad that the hon. Member paid a tribute to his predecessor, whose friendship I was privileged to enjoy. I remember that the last melancholy service I performed on his behalf, the day after my appointment to office, was to attend his funeral. None of us will ever forget that craggy face, that entrancing wit and that wonderfully sardonic sense of humour, which was always funny and diverting and never wounding or malicious. He was, in fact, a great House of Commons man. I do not think we can pay any higher tribute than that, and certainly Charles Curran would not have wanted any other.
  Despite the narrowness of the Opposition's motion, which has sought to confine the debate within very narrow limits, we have had a wide-ranging, interesting, informative and valuable debate. I have certainly learned a number of things. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Montgomery), who in a splendid, knockabout speech let us into the secrets of the environs and infighting of Dudley. Certainly I never

  1743
  expected to have that particular knowledge. We also had the hon. Member for Dudley (Dr. Gilbert), who raised the question whether there would be an early decision on the proposals for reorganisaton in Dudley. I can tell him tonight that the Department will press on as rapidly as possible in considering the proposals.
  We are grateful for this debate because it has given my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State the best chance she has had for years to explain her policies on comprehension and to demolish the calumnies and the canards which hon. Members on the Opposition side have tried to direct at her in the past. She has been able to expose how little there is that is constructive in current Opposition thinking on education. The speech which my right hon. Friend made presented in full her policy on comprehension, which is reasonable, pragmatic and based on common sense.
  This is an opportunity which we are grateful to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) for supplying, particularly in Opposition time. We are grateful to him for this ecumenical opening to his period "in office". His speech hardly came up to expectations. So much of it was devoted to attempting to throw missiles and brickbats at my right hon. Friend. Although he scraped the bottom of his barrel he could find no mud to throw. His speech represented a crude effort to drive a wedge between the views of Lord Boyle, the former Minister of Education, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Lord Boyle was a most distinguished Minister of Education—
  Mr. Neil Kinnock: Bring back Boyle.
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: However, even Lord Boyle is not infallible. Who is nowadays? For the purpose of making mischief, and by carefully selected quotations, the hon. Gentleman sought to show that there was a difference of policy between the two. I took the opportunity to read through the last debate when Lord Boyle spoke on comprehension and his policy and basic principles were exactly the same as those enunciated by my right hon. Friend today.
  Mr. Marks: As regards the disagreement between Lord Boyle and the Secretary of State, is the hon. Gentleman aware that Lord Boyle was asked whether he would withdraw circular 10/65 if he came to office and he said "No"? The first thing the Secretary of State did, on 30th June 1970, was to withdraw that circular.
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: I do not wish to enter into an exegesis of that nature. I am referring to the speech which Lord Boyle made from this Dispatch Box which in all basic principles was in accord with that made by my right hon. Friend.
  This debate has centred on the single issue of comprehension. As the Government's amendment makes plain, this is an issue which can be considered only in the light of secondary education as a whole. It is true of education, as of all social policies, that it is a matter of priorities, because despite the vast expenditure on education—we are now spending considerably more on education than on defence—the needs cannot wholly be met. We could spend the entire Budget on education and still not meet those needs. It is a question of priorities. I think it has been the view of the country as a whole that primary schools should come first. Now that we have improved the position in the primary schools we can move to improve the position in the secondary schools.
  Mr. William Hamilton: What a confession the hon. Gentleman will have to make.
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: When we look at the capital investment programme we can see that the comments of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor) were totally misplaced. The substantial progress which has been achieved in secondary school development is due to the rate at which we have been able to make resources available for building. Both parties can take credit for this it is not a partisan point. In the four years from 1966–67 to 1969–70 a total of £293 million was programmed for secondary school building. In the next four years the total resources, including the allocation for the raising of the school leaving age, will amount to £473 million.
  Those programmes have been high because of the continuing and rapid growth

  1745
  in the secondary school population. The population will soon begin to fall sharply, however, and programmes to provide additional secondary school places will not need to be as large. That is the explanation of the falling curve; it is not the sinister plot which the hon. Member for Sparkbrook has adumbrated. We are now able to start a replacement programme of the worst secondary school buildings and the school building programme for 1975–76 and 1976–77 will be increased by £10 million and will form the first stages in a rising and systematic secondary school improvement programme.
  Mrs. Renée Short: Chicken feed.
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: The lion. Lady says "chicken feed". It may be chicken feed, but it is four times as much chicken feed as the Labour Government were proposing to spend in 1970–71.
  I wish to deal with two points that were raised by the hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Dormond). One relates to cost limits. We are faced, as any Department is faced and as local authorities are faced, with the problems arising from inflation of costs. But I can say to the hon. Gentleman that we are prepared to help or try to help an individual local education authority in any special problem it may have.
  If I may conveniently deal at this stage with the other point raised by the hon. Member, he was concerned at the withdrawal of the manual of guidance on choice of schools and asked whether it was still in circulation. In fact, it is not. It was first issued in 1950 and was revised in 1960. It is really an elaborate circular intended to explain the situation to local authorities and it is now more a matter of historical than current interest. If, however, the hon. Gentleman wishes, we can arrange for a copy to be lent to him from the Department's library.
  Mr. Dormand: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman but I already have a copy. He is not dealing with the point I raised; he is avoiding it, perhaps deliberately. The point I raised in connection with the manual of guidance was whether its withdrawal was in any way
  1746
  connected with comprehensive education. The hon. Gentleman has failed to answer that question. Could we have it clearly stated now that that is at least one of the reasons why it was withdrawn?
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: No, it has nothing to do with that at all. It was merely that it had become out of date and after the first revision in 1960 it was not thought worthwhile to go to the expense of revising it again. That was purely an administrative decision and had nothing to do with policy on comprehensive education.
  There are two other factors against the background of which we have to consider in a general context the problem of comprehension. One is the raising of the school leaving age, the achievement of one of the primary aims of the Education Act, 1944 which the party opposite postponed and failed to do when they panicked in 1968 and which it has fallen to the present Government to implement; and secondly the supply of teachers which has so greatly improved. That is the background against which we have to consider comprehension.
  Mr. A. W. Stallard (St. Pancras, North)Mr. A. W. Stallard (St. Pancras, North) rose——
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: What are the issues and the facts on comprehension? The hon. Lady the Member for Eton and Slough challenged me to make known my own views on comprehension and asked me to speak on behalf of my right hon. Friend, my party and the Government and on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. All those things I am pleased to do. Our policy on comprehension is perfectly clear. We accept comprehension. We believe that comprehension will become eventually the dominant part of the secondary system. But what we reject and what we will not have is universal compulsory comprehension imposed without any consideration of the educational needs, local wishes or the wishes of parents. That we absolutely reject.
  Mr. Stallard Mr. Stallard rose——
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: I cannot give way. I am sorry, I have not the time.
  The difference between the parties is between those who make a fetish of comprehension and those who believe that it

  1747
  should be a principal component in a balanced use of resources. Hon. Members on this side of the House are as concerned as hon. Members opposite about waste of talent and the need to avoid that oppressive sense of failure which is so bad for young children. But we believe that there are other means of avoiding that rather than the insensitive and dictatorial imposition of compulsory comprehension.
  Hon. Members opposite claim too much for comprehension. We on this side prefer to look at the facts. There are tremendous problems arising out of the comprehensive system. There is the question of size of school, to which my right. hon. Friend referred. There are the problems of the neighbourhood school, for one can be trapped even more in a poor area in a comprehensive school than in a mixed ability secondary modern or direct grant school.
  One can have just as much a sense of failure if one is caught in the lower stream of a 12-form comprehensive school as if one is in a secondary modern school in a poor area.
  If one looks at the facts of the situation, they are that my right hon. Friend has approved 96 per cent. of the projects which have come up to her for reorganisation, so if there is a case for censuring her it should not come from hon. Members opposite. If anyone is entitled to criticise her it is my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) because she has approved too much comprehension rather than too little.
  My right hon. Friend has been accused of delay. There is no evidence at all of an undue delay in deciding these proposals. Complicated proposals need careful consideration and when they are issues as important as this it would he monstrous to take decisions hastily when what is important is not to get a quick decision but to get the right decision. It is up to local education authorities to provide contingency plans and to put in their proposals in good time, which some local authorities, alas, have failed to do.
  In the curious speech of the hon. Member for Sparkbrook perhaps the most bizarre accusation he made was against my right hon. Friend for not having given a date in relation to the
  1748
  proposals for Birmingham when it was only a fortnight ago—on 14th January—that the closing date was reached for objections to be put in. The proposals concern 92 schools in the city with five sets of notices, and 80,000 local government electors have protested. No proposals have yet come for the Church of England schools and only eight out of the 18 Roman Catholic schools have put in their views. So it is quite right that my right hon. Friend cannot give and should not give a date. What this proves is that in this case, as in all the other cases she has considered, she is giving conscientious and thorough consideration to every fact.
  What, therefore, is there left of the spurious case which the Opposition have put up? The truth came out in the declaration by the hon. Member for Sparkbrook when he said that a Labour Government would abolish the procedures of Section 13 if they ever returned to office. There we see the real intention of the Opposition, because Section 13 was put in as a safeguarding of parental rights. This safeguard has been used in only a minority of cases, it is true but, like every other constitutional protection of rights, one must judge it not by the number of times it is brought into operation but by the existence of that section, so that all the time it is operating in advance to make sure that local authorities respect the rights of minorities, and sometimes even majorities, which are involved.
  As for Section 68, which has been mentioned in this debate by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher (Mr. Mather), in the Rydens School case, where a ghetto was being established which would deny children their rights, my right hon. Friend would have deserved censure if she had not exercised her right to intervene, not because she did intervene. If those rights were swept away the Opposition would be opening the way for a complete educational dictatorship when the checks and balances which preserve the rights of parents would be swept away. My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge, in a felicitous phrase, hailed my right hon. Friend as a champion of parents. The parents of this country are grateful to her because she has defended their rights of choice.
  Summing up this wide-ranging debate, what is it basically about? It is a debate

  1749
  between those who regard education as a means of social engineering, a means of transforming society into an egalitarian model—[Interruption.]—yes, because that is exactly what hon. Members opposite believe in—and those on this side of the House who believe that education should be directed towards individual children to release their talents to do the best for themselves and to respect the rights of parents, who have not divested themselves of their rights but have merely delegated them to teachers to exercise for them. It is between those who want to impose a universal compulsory system of education irrespective of the situation and who make an idol out of comprehension, and those on this side who welcome comprehension certainly, but say that it must be allowed a natural growth, that it must not be forced, that it has to be grafted on to the stem of a living system of education which has been built up over a great many years.
  We on this side of the House will never countenance the destruction of well-established schools which command the esteem and respect of their locality in favour of what Sir Alec Clegg has called—a horrible word for a horrible idea—"agglomeration". What we want is not merely comprehensive schools, but a comprehensive system of education. What it comes down to ultimately is a question of choice and we on this side of the House believe in retaining and creating diversity
  and difference, which is the prerequisite of exercising any choice.
  We are glad that the Leader of the Labour Party has announced his recent conversion to choice but he was carried away by rhetoric, which was perhaps more suitable to the Aims of Industry than to a leader of Socialism in this country, when he talked about our being "drilled, dragooned and distracted". I am the last person to despise a conversion, even if it be on a political deathbed, but one should have some sense of balance and some sense of proportion. If choice is to be the watchword of the Labour Party, why should we not have it in education too?
  If hon. Members opposite say there is not enough choice, that is no reason for extinguishing such choice as there already is. Our educational system is one of our most precious assets. We are at the top of the educational league in Europe and the world. That place will be kept by our White Paper on education, and when this petty motion and its progenitors have long been forgotten that White Paper will have its place in educational history and the name always associated with that White Paper and held in honour will be the name of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
  Question put, That the amendment be made:—
  The House divided: Ayes 289, Noes 263.

  Division No. 46.]

  AYES

  [10.0p.m.

  Adley, Robert

  Brfnton, Sir Tatton

  Crowder, F. P.

  Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

  Bruce-Gardyne, J.

  Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)

  Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  d' Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)

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

  d' Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen. Jack

  Astor, John

  Buck, Antony

  Dean, Paul

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Bullus, Sir Eric

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Awdry, Daniel

  Burden, F. A.

  Dixon, Piers

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

  Dodds-Parker, Sir Douglas

  Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

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

  Drayson, G. B.

  Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord

  Carlisle, Mark

  du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Dykes, Hugh

  Batsford, Brian

  Cary Sir Robert

  Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John

  Bell, Ronald

  Channon, Paul

  Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

  Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

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

  Benyon, W.

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Emery, Peter Eyre Reginald

  Berry, Hn. Anthony

  Churchill, W. S.

  Farr, John

  Biffen, John

  Clark, William (Surrey, E.)

  Fell, Anthony

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

  Blaker, Peter

  Cooke, Robert

  Fidler, Michael

  Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

  Coombs, Derek

  Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)

  Body, Richard

  Cooper, A. E.

  Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

  Boscawen, Hn. Robert

  Cordle, John

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Bossom, Sir Clive

  Corfield, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Bowden, Andrew

  Cormack, Patrick

  Fortescue, Tim

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Costain, A. P.

  Fox, Marcus

  Brewis, John

  Crouch, David

  Foster, Sir John

  Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford & Stone)

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Fry, Peter

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

  Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Gardner, Edward

  Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)

  Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey

  Gibson-Watt, David

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

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)

  Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

  Longden, Sir Gilbert

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Gilmour, Sir John (File, E.)

  Loveridge, John

  Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

  Glyn, Dr. Alan

  Luce, R. N.

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Rost, Peter

  Goodhart, Philip

  MacArthur, Ian

  Royle, Anthony

  Goodhew, Victor

  McCrindle, R. A.

  Russell, Sir Ronald

  Gorst, John

  McLaren, Martin

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Gower, Raymond

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

  Scott, Nicholas

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

  McMaster, Stanley

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Gray, Hamish

  Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Maurice (Farnham)

  Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)

  Green, Alan

  McNair-Wilson, Michael

  Shelton, William (Clapham)

  Grieve, Percy

  McNair-Wilsor, Patrick (New Forest)

  Shersby, Michael

  Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

  Maddan, Martin

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Grylls, Michael

  Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

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

  Gummer, J. Selwyn

  Marten, Neil

  Soref, Harold

  Gurden, Harold

  Mather, Carol

  Speed, Keith

  Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)

  Maude, Angus

  Spence, John

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

  Sproat, Iain

  Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

  Mawby, Ray

  Stainton, Keith

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Hannam, John (Exeter)

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Mills, Peter (Torrington)

  Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

  Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)

  Hastings, Stephen

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

  Havers, Sir Michael

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

  Stokes John

  Hawkins, Paul

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

  Hay, John

  Moate, Roger

  Sutcliffe, John

  Haynoe, Barney

  Molyneaux, James

  Tapsell, Peter

  Heseltine, Michael

  Money, Ernie

  Hicks, Robert

  Monks, Mrs. Connie

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Higgins, Terence L,

  Monro, Hector

  Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

  Hiley, Joseph

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)

  Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)

  Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

  Tebbit, Norman

  Holland, Philip

  Morrison, Charles

  Temple, John M.

  Holt, Miss Mary

  Mudd, David

  Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret

  Hordern, Peter

  Murton, Oscar

  Thomas, John (Stradling (Monmouth)

  Hornby, Richard

  Neave, Airey

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

  Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)

  Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

  Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

  Tilney, John

  Howell, David (Guildford)

  Normanton, Tom

  Trafford, Dr. Anthony

  Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

  Nott, John

  Trew, Peter

  Hunt, John

  Onslow, Cranley

  Tugendhat, Christopher

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

  Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir John

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Osborn, John

  Vickers, Dame Joan

  James, David

  Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)

  Waddington, David

  Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

  Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)

  Walder, David (Clitheroe)

  Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

  Page, John (Harrow, W.)

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

  Jessel, Toby

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Walters, Dennis

  Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

  Peel, Sir John

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

  Percival, Ian

  Warren, Kenneth

  Jopling, Michael

  Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  White, Roger (Gravesend)

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine

  Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Kimball, Marcus

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

  Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

  King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

  Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

  Woodnutt, Mark

  King, Tom (Bridgwater)

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Worsley, Marcus

  Kinsey, J. R.

  Raison, Timothy

  Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

  Kirk, Peter

  Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

  Younger, Hn. George

  Knight, Mrs. Jill

  Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

  Knox, David

  Redmond, Robert

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Lambton, Lord

  Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

  Mr. Bernard Weatherill and

  Lamont, Norman

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Mr. Walter Clegg.

  Lane, David

  Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  Bradley, Tom

  Albu, Austen

  Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton)

  Broughton, Sir Alfred

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Baxter, William

  Brown, Robert C. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne, W.)

  Allen, Scholefield

  Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

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

  Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Brown, Ronald(Shoreditch & F' bury)

  Ashley, Jack

  Bishop, E. S.

  Buchan, Norman

  Ashton, Joe

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

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

  Atkinson, Norman

  Boardman, H. (Leigh)

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Booth, Albert

  Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

  Barnes, Michael

  Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)

  Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)

  1752

  1753

  Cant, R. B.

  Huckfield, Leslie

  Oswald, Thomas

  Carmichael, Nell

  Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfleld)

  Hughes, Mark (Durham)

  Padley, Walter

  Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

  Paget, R. T.

  Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Palmer, Arthur

  Clark, David (Colne Valley)

  Hunter, Adam

  Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

  Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)

  Parker, John (Dagenham)

  Cohen, Stanley

  Janner, Greville

  Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

  Coleman, Donald

  Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Concannon, J. D.

  Jeger, Mrs. Lena

  Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

  Conlan, Bernard

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Pendry, Tom

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  John, Brynmor

  Perry, Ernest G.

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Johnson, Carol (Lewishem, S.)

  Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.

  Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard

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

  Prescott, John

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

  Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

  Price, William (Rugby)

  Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)

  Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

  Probert, Arthur

  Dalyell, Tam

  Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

  Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

  Darling, Rt. Hn. George

  Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

  Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

  Davidson, Arthur

  Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)

  Rhodes, Geoffrey

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Kaufman, Gerald

  Richard, Ivor

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Kelley, Richard

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)

  Kerr, Russell

  Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

  Kinnock, Neil

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Deakins, Eric

  Lambie, David

  Roderick, Caerwyn E.(Brc'n&R'dnor)

  de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

  Lamborn, Harry

  Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Delargy, Hugh

  Lamond, James

  Roper, John

  Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

  Latham, Arthur

  Rose, Paul B.

  Dempsey, James

  Lawson, George

  Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

  Doig, Peter

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Rowlands, Ted

  Dormand, J. D.

  Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Sandelson, Neville

  Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

  Leonard, Dick

  Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)

  Lestor, Miss Joan

  Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)

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

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton,N.E.)

  Dunn, James A.

  Lipton, Marcus

  Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

  Dunnett, Jack

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

  Eadie, Alex

  Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

  Sillars, James

  Edelman, Maurice

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

  Silverman, Julius

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Skinner, Dennis

  Ellis Tom

  McBride, Neil

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  McCartney, Hugh

  Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)

  English, Michael

  McElhone, Frank

  Spearing, Nigel

  Evans, Fred

  McGuire, Michael

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Ewing, Harry

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Stallard, A. W.

  Faulds, Andrew

  Mackie, John

  Steel, David

  Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)

  Fisher, Mrs. Doris (B' ham, Lady wood)

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

  Stoddart, David (Swindon)

  Fitch. Alan (Wigan)

  McNamara, J. Kevin

  Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John

  Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

  Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

  Foley, Maurice

  Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)

  Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

  Foot, Michael

  Marks, Kenneth

  Swain, Thomas

  Ford, Ben

  Marquand, David

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

  Forrester, John

  Marsden, F.

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Fraser, John (Norwood)

  Marshall, Dr. Edmund

  Tinn, James

  Freeson, Reginald

  Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

  Tomney, Frank

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Tuck, Raphael

  Garrett, W. E.

  Meacher, Michael

  Urwin, T. W.

  Gilbert, Dr. John

  Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Varley, Eric G.

  Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury)

  Mendelson, John

  Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)

  Golding, John

  Mikardo, Ian

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Gourlay, Harry

  Millan, Bruce

  Wallace, George

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Miller, Dr. M. S.

  Watkins, David

  Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)

  Milne, Edward

  Weltzman, David

  Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

  Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)

  Wellbeloved, James

  Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

  Molloy, William

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

  Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

  White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

  Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Whitehead, Phillip

  Hamling, William

  Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

  Whitlock, William

  Hardy, Peter

  Morris, Rt. Hn John (Aberavon)

  Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Harper, Joseph

  Moyle, Roland

  Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

  Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

  Murray, Ronald King

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Hattersley, Roy

  Oakes, Gordon

  Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

  Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

  Ogden, Eric

  Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

  Heffer, Eric S.

  O'Halloran, Michael

  Woof, Robert

  Hilton, W. S.

  O'Malley, Brian

  Horam, John

  Oram, Bert

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Orbach, Maurice

  Mr. Ernest Armstrong and

  Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

  Orme, Stanley

  Mr. James Hamilton.

  Question accordingly agreed to.

  Main Question, as amended, Put:—
  The House divided: Ayes 290, Noes 263.

  Division No. 47.]

  AYES

  [10.15 p.m.

  Adley, Robert

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)

  Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

  Fortescue, Tim

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

  Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

  Foster, Sir John

  Longden, Sir Gilbert

  Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

  Fox, Marcus

  Loveridge, John

  Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)

  Fraser. Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'ftord & Stone)

  Luce, R. N.

  Astor, John

  Fry, Peter

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.

  MacArthur, Ian

  Awdry, Daniel

  Gardner, Edward

  McCrindle, R. A.

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Gibson-Watt, David

  McLaren, Martin

  Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

  Gllmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

  Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord

  Gilmour, Sir John (File. E.)

  McMaster, Stanley

  Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Glyn, Dr. Alan

  Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Maurice (Farnham)

  Batsford, Brian

  Godber, Rt. Hn. J B.

  McNair-Wilson, Michael

  Bell, Ronald

  Goodhart, Philip

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

  Goodhew, Victor

  Maddan, Martin

  Benyon, W.

  Gorst, John

  Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

  Berry, Hn. Anthony

  Gower, Raymond

  Marten, Neil

  Biffen, John

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

  Mather, Carol

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Gray, Hamish

  Maude, Angus

  Blaker, Peter

  Green, Alan

  Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

  Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

  Grieve, Percy

  Mawby, Ray

  Body, Richard

  Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

  Maxwell-Myslop R. J.

  Boscawen, Hon. Robert

  Grylls, Michael

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Bossom, Sir Clive

  Gummer, J. Selwyn

  Bowden, Andrew

  Gurden, Harold

  Mills, Peter (Torrington)

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)

  Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

  Brewis, John

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Brinton, Sir Tatton

  Hall-Davies, A. G. F.

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

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Bruce-Gardyne, J.

  Hannam, John (Exeter)

  Moate, Roger

  Bryan, sir Paul

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Molyneaux, James

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

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Money, Ernie

  Buck, Antony

  Hastings, Stephen

  Monks, Mrs. Connie

  Bullus, Sir Eric

  Havers, Sir Michael

  Monro, Hector

  Burden, F. A.

  Hawkins, Paul

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

  Hay, John

  Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

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

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Morrison, Charles

  Carlisle, Mark

  Heseltine, Michael

  Mudd, David

  Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Hicks, Robert

  Murton, Oscar

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Higgins, Terence L.

  Neave, Airey

  Channon, Paul

  Hiley, Joseph

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

  Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

  Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)

  Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Holland, Philip

  Normanton, Tom

  Churchill, W. S.

  Holt, Miss Mary

  Nott, John

  Clark, William (Surrey, E.)

  Hordern, Peter

  Onslow, Cranley

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Hornby, Richard

  Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

  Cooke, Robert

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Coombs, Derek

  Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

  Osborn, John

  Cooper, A E.

  Howell, David (Guildford)

  Cordle John

  Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

  Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)

  Corfield, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick

  Hunt, John

  Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)

  Cormack, Patrick

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Page, John (Harrow, W.)

  Costain, A.P.

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Crouch, David

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Peel, Sir John

  Crowder, F. P.

  James, David

  Percival, Ian

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

  Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

  Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)

  Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Jessel, Toby

  Pink, R. Bonner

  d'Avigdor-Goidsmid, Maj. -Gen. Jack

  Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

  Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

  Dean, Paul

  Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Jopling, Michael

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

  Dixon, Piers

  Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

  Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

  Dodds-Parker, Sir Douglas

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Drayson, G. B.

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine

  Raison, Timothy

  du Cann, Rt. Hon. Edward

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

  Dykes, Hugh

  Kimball, Marcus

  Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

  Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John

  King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

  Redmond, Robert

  Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  King, Tom (Bridgwater)

  Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

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

  Kinsey, J. R.

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Emery, Peter

  Kirk, Peter

  Ronton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

  Eyre, Reginald

  Knight, Mrs. Jill

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Farr, John

  Knox, David

  Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

  Fell, Anthony

  Lambton, Lord

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

  Lamont, Norman

  Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey

  Fidler, Michael

  Lane, David

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)

  Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Rost, Peter

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

  Waddington, David

  Royle, Anthony

  Stokes, John

  Walder, David (Clitheroe)

  Russell, Sir Ronald

  Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Sutcliffe, John

  Walters, Dennis

  Scott, Nicholas

  Tapsell, Peter

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Warren, Kenneth

  Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)

  Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Shelton, William (Clapham)

  Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)

  White, Roger (Gravesend)

  Shersby, Michael

  Tebbit, Norman

  Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Temple, John M.

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

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

  Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)

  Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

  Soref, Harold

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Speed, Keith

  Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)

  Worsley, Marcus

  Spence, John

  Tilney, John

  Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

  Sproat, Iain

  Tralford, Dr. Anthony

  Younger, Hn. George

  Stainton, Keith

  Trew, Peter

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Tugendhat, Christopher

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

  Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin

  Mr. Bernard Weatherill and

  Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

  Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

  Mr. Walter Clegg.

  Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)

  Vickers, Dame Joan

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

  John, Brynmor

  Albu, Austen

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Johnson. Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Duffy, A. E. P.

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

  Allen, Scholefield

  Dunn, James A.

  Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

  Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

  Dunnett, Jack

  Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

  Ashley, Jack

  Eadie, Alex

  Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

  Ashton, Joe

  Edelman, Maurica

  Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

  Atkinson, Norman

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Edwards, William (Merioneth)

  Kaufman, Gerald

  Barnes, Michael

  Ellis, Tom

  Kelley, Richard

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  English, Michael

  Kerr, Russell

  Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton)

  Evans, Fred

  Kinnock, Neil

  Baxter, William

  Ewing, Harry

  Lambie, David

  Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Faulds, Andrew

  Lamborn, Harry

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.

  Lamond, James

  Bishop, E. S.

  Fisher, Mrs. Doris (B'ham, Ladywood)

  Latham, Arthur

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

  Lawson, George

  Boardman, H. (Leigh)

  Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Booth, Albert

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)

  Foley, Maurice

  Leonard, Dick

  Bradley, Tom

  Foot, Michael

  Lestor, Miss Joan

  Broughton, Sir Alfred

  Ford, Ben

  Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)

  Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)

  Forrester, John

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

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

  Fraser, John (Norwood)

  Lipton, Marcus

  Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury)

  Freeson, Reginald

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Buchan, Norman

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

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

  Garrett, W. E.

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Gilbert, Dr. John

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

  Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury)

  McBride, Neil

  Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)

  Guiding, John

  McCartney, Hugh

  Cant, R. B.

  Gourlay, Harry

  McElhone, Frank

  Carmichael, Neil

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  McGuire, Michael

  Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)

  Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

  Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

  Mackie, John

  Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

  Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Clark, David (Colne Valley)

  Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

  McMillan. Tom (Glasgow, C.)

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

  Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

  Cohen, Stanley

  Hamling, William

  McNamara, J. Kevin

  Coleman Donald

  Hardy, Peter

  Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

  Concannon, J. D.

  Harper, Joseph

  Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)

  Conlan, Bernard

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Marks, Kenneth

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

  Marquand, David

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Hattersley, Roy

  Marsden, F.

  Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard

  Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

  Marshall, Dr. Edmund

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

  Heffer, Eric S

  Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

  Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)

  Hilton, W. S.

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Dalyell, Tarn

  Horam, John

  Meacher, Michael

  Darling, Rt. Hn. George

  Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Davidson, Arthur

  Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

  Mendelson, John

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Huckfield, Leslie

  Mikardo, Ian

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Millan, Bruce

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)

  Hughes, Mark (Durham)

  Miller, Dr. M. S.

  Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

  Milne, Edward

  Deakins, Eric

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)

  de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

  Hunter, Adam

  Money, William

  Delargy, Hugh

  Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)

  Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

  Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

  Janner, Greville

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Dempsey, James

  Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

  Doig, Peter

  Jeger, Mrs. Lena

  Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)

  Dormand, J. D.

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Moyle, Roland

  1758

  1759

  Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Swain, Thomas

  Murray, Ronald King

  Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon)

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

  Oakes, Gordon

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Ogden, Eric

  Roderick, Caerwyn E. (Br'c'n&R'dnor)

  Tinn, James

  O'Hatloran, Michael

  Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Tomney, Frank

  O'Malley, Brian

  Roper, John

  Tuck, Raphael

  Oram, Bert

  Rose, Paul B.

  Urwin, T. W.

  Orbach, Maurice

  Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

  Varley, Eric G.

  Orme, Stanley

  Rowlands, Ted

  Walden, Brian (B'mham, All Saints)

  Sandelson, Neville

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Oswald, Thomas

  Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)

  Wallace, George

  Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

  Watkins, David

  Padley, Walter

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

  Weitzman, David

  Paget, R. T.

  Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N.E.)

  Wellbeloved, James

  Palmer, Arthur

  Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

  Sllkin, Hn. S. C (Dulwich)

  White, James (Glasgow. Pollok)

  Parker, John (Dagenham)

  Sillars, James

  Whitehead, Phillip

  Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

  Silverman, Julius

  Whitlock, William

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Skinner, Dennis

  Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  Williams, Alan (Swansea W.)

  Pendry, Tom

  Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)

  Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

  Perry, Ernest G.

  Spearing, Nigel

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

  Prescott, John

  Stallard, A. W.

  Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

  Price, William (Rugby)

  Steel, David

  Woof, Robert

  Probert, Arthur

  Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)

  Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

  Stoddart, David (Swindon)

  Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

  Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Rhodes, Geoffrey

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

  Mr. Ernest Armstrong and

  Richard, Ivor

  Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

  Mr James Hamilton

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House welcomes the Government's policies for Secondary Education, the importance attached by the Secretary of State to educational considerations, local needs and
  1760
  wishes, and the wise use of resources, in the exercise of her powers to decide individual proposals under section 13 of the Education Act 1944 (as amended), and the Government's determintion to have regard to the wishes of parents about the education of their children.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL
  Considered in Committee; reported, without Amendment.
  Motion made and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 93 (Consolidated Fund Bills), and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

  VALUE ADDED TAX
  10.27 p.m.
  The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Terence Higgins): I beg to move,
  That the Value Added Tax (Cars) Order 1972 (S.I., 1972, No. 1970), a copy of which was laid before this House on 21st December, be approved.
  Mr. Speaker: I think that it would be for the convenience of the House to discuss at the same time the second motion:
  That the Value Added Tax (Works of Art, Antiques and Scientific Collections) Order 1972 (S.I., 1972, No. 1971), a copy of which was laid before this House on 21st December, be approved.
  Mr. Higgins: It would, Mr. Speaker, be convenient to take also the other order on value added tax.
  May I first speak briefly about the order concerning motor cars. It is a composite order which applies to motor cars three separate provisions of the VAT legislation contained in the Finance Act 1972. Under the powers conferred by Section 3(6) of that Act, the deduction of input tax on motor cars acquired by a taxable person for use in his business is disallowed; under Section 6 tax is applied to the "self-supply" of certain cars, and, under Section 3(6) and Section 14 provision is made to relieve second-hand cars from the full tax and instead to tax them "on the margin", that is to say, the difference between their buying and selling prices.
  In order to give traders as much advance notice as possible, two orders
  1762
  were made last year in respect of the non-deduction of input tax and the self-supply of motor cars. As it will be convenient, however, for those in the trade and their legal advisers to have all the provisions relating to cars in one order, the earlier orders are revoked and the substance of them is included in this order. I thought that it might be helpful to make the position clear regarding earlier orders.
  On the restriction of deduction of input tax all countries with a value added tax have found it necessary to restrict the right to claim credit for input tax in the case of certain goods and services which are likely to be used for both business and private purposes.
  Business cars are extensively used for private purposes, and it is desirable to prevent such use free of tax to avoid inequity of treatment between individual taxpayers, erosion of the revenue and distortion of trade due to the tax incentive given to the private use of business cars. The problem has been overcome by disallowing the whole of the input tax on the purchase of business cars.
  On self-supply, Article 5 is required solely as a complementary provision to Article 4. Under Article 4 input tax is made non-deductible on cars acquired by taxable persons for use in their business. But Article 4 does not apply to new cars held in stock for resale by manufacturers and dealers. These traders could therefore take tax-free cars from stock for their own use without incurring any tax charge. This would clearly be discriminatory and inequitable. The article therefore imposes a self-supply tax charge on any such cars taken from stock for a registered trader's own use. This charge then becomes non-deductible under the provisions of Article 4. There could also be scope for tax avoidance if a registered trader bought a non-car—a van without side windows—for his business, on which he could claim a deduction of tax, and then converted it into a car for his own use, by making it a van with side windows, for use in his business. This is conversion by a registered trader of any vehicle which is not a car into a car. I thought it might be helpful to make that absolutely clear.
  I turn finally on this order to the provision of relief for used cars. The House will be familiar with the discussions we

  1763
  had last year on this subject. I will make clear the conditions for obtaining relief. All used cars, except those which a car manufacturer has used solely for research and development, qualify for relief since, by virtue of the earlier provisions of this order, no deduction of input tax can be claimed on a car which is used otherwise than under the special provision for research and development cars. When relief is claimed the supplier must not show a separate amount as tax on the invoice since the buyer will not be entitled to deduction of any input tax. The relief is subject to the keeping of special records.
  I turn to the nature of the relief. Instead of charging tax on the full value of the used car, tax will be chargeable only on the excess, if any, of the seller's price over his buying price—that is, the added value or margin. If there is no excess, no tax will be chargeable. But no refund of tax can be claimed if the sale was at a loss. Provision is made for determining the appropriate values to calculate the margin where the car was imported.
  The second order is concerned with works of art, antiques and scientific collections. I need not weary the House with the discussions that took place last year on this matter during proceedings on the Finance Bill. This order is also made under Section 14 of the Finance Act 1972. Its effect is to apply VAT in respect of a specified coverage of works of art, on the dealer's margin instead of on the full proceeds of sale.
  The House will recall the fairly extensive debates that we had last year both in Committee, when my right hon. Friend undertook to look into the matter, and on Report, when I was able to announce in principle that such a scheme would be introduced. We have since had numerous discussions with the trade, and the order has been produced as a result of the undertakings that we gave last year and the subsequent discussions.
  I should make one initial point which has not been clear to those concerned with the coverage position. The margin scheme is optional. It will be a matter for the individual taxable person to decide whether it is worth his while in any case to comply with the additional
  1764
  accounting requirements which the scheme entails. It will be open to a dealer to use the scheme for some items and not for others.
  I said on Report last year that the coverage is based upon, but not identical to, Chapter 99 of the Customs and Excise Tariff, which covers essentially paintings, engravings, sculptures, antiques over 100 years old and certain collections and collectors' pieces.
  As to imports, importance is attached by the trade to the free movement of works into the country so that the international market based on London should not be jeopardised. The House will be pleased to see that it has been possible to meet the trade on this. The order provides for relief from VAT at import for the works of art and so on covered by the order, restricted to works of art acquired from the artist or his estate before 1st April 1973. This is to avoid discriminating against United Kingdom artists. In short, it will continue to be possible for an overseas resident to send a work to London for sale without incurring VAT. This has been welcomed by the trade and it is reasonable to suppose, given the response of hon. Members on both sides last year, that it will also be welcomed by the House.
  The order applies to second-hand works of art and so on which have been sold at least once before 1st April 1973, or at least once after that date by a seller who did not charge value added tax. To take advantage of the scheme sellers will have to maintain a stock book allocating to each item a unique reference and maintaining its identity until it is sold. Tax will fall on the difference between the taxable person's buying and selling price, which will be regarded as tax-inclusive. Taxable persons will not be able to issue tax invoices when selling items under the scheme.
  I hope that this summarises the main points arising on the orders. I shall do my best to answer any points hon. Members may wish to put to me.
  10.37 p.m.
  Mr. Tam Dalyell: As one who took part in the discussions last summer, may I confirm that in the discussions with the trade the trade has

  1765
  indicated that the present arrangement is wholly to its satisfaction?
  May I also confirm my impression that the order in no way discriminates against the living artist? The Financial Secretary will remember the discussions about the position of the living artist. Will he confirm that the living artist is in no way disadvantaged? Thirdly, what precisely was meant by the phrase "additional accounting requirements"?
  I have one question on the first order. In our constituency work we hear complaints from time to time about the definition of what is and is not a business car. Most of the complaints may well be without foundation, but we all know that there are complaints that So-and-so has a car on business expenses but uses it for his private purposes. Is the definition of "business purposes" to the Treasury's satisfaction?
  10.39 p.m.
  Mr. Patrick Cormack: The order applying to antiques was produced only recently. There is a fair amount of anxiety in the trade that it has been left for a long time before all the details could be known. It is a very complicated process. Can my hon. Friend briefly comment on that?
  10.40 p.m.
  Dr. John Gilbert: I will take the orders in the sequence which the Financial Secretary has dealt with them.
  We entirely accept the arguments put forward about the self-supply provisions. The Financial Secretary tended to lose us in a metaphysical discussion about when a car was not a car and how one turned what was not a car into a car. One of these days we might get him to give us a definition of what is a car. I predict that it will not be long before he comes here and has the same sort of problem changing what is not a taxi into a taxi or back again. We had similar problems last year, and I am afraid that we have not seen the end of them in this tax which is supposed to be so free from anomalies.
  We had a full discussion last year on the treatment of second-hand cars, and I do not want to add anything to what the Financial Secretary has said. This is acceptable to us. I am interested in getting information from him about the
  1766
  disallowance of input tax on new cars acquired for use by persons in their business. Why is a distinction being drawn between bought cars and rented cars? Why is the tax being disallowed solely on the purchase of cars whereas the great fleets of hire cars will apparently still be able to have the input tax deducted as a business expense?
  It will not come as news to the hon. Gentleman that more and more large firms lease their cars and trucks—these things that might not be cars and will be cars and these things that are cars already. This is an enormous loophole which makes nonsense of the disallowance on the acquisition of new cars. Any firm in its right mind will go out and make sure that it does not buy any cars for its own use but merely leases them.
  I support the question asked about the second order by my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) about the way in which the living artist is being treated. Works of art by such artists are taxed at the standard rate—I am grateful to the Financial Secretary for nodding—on the full value of the work at its selling price. It seems that there is discrimination in favour of the foreign artist, at least with respect to works of art which are imported having been acquired from that artist before 1st April 1973. I should refine that and say discrimination not in favour of a foreign artist but in favour of any artist who executed his work abroad before 1st April 1973. This seems an unimportant anomaly but it is one requiring explanation.
  Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that items that have not been sold at least once before 1st April 1973 will attract VAT on the full selling price?
  10.44 p.m.
  Mr. Higgins: I will seek to reply to the points which have been raised. I take first that made by the hon. Member for Dudley (Dr. Gilbert) about the initial situation. Normally the VAT credit mechanism operates and it flows forward. The provisions in the order create a situation where, if it is wished to operate an optional scheme thereafter, in, say, the antique trade and the dealer so opts, he will be charged only on the margin.
  I deal now with the living artist. Hon. Members will remember that when we debated this matter upstairs in Committee

  1767
  on the Finance Bill, there were before us two separate issues. One related to the living artist and the other to the subsequent sale of works of art. An additional argument was that sale should be subject to a margin scheme. It will not be in order for us tonight to debate the topic of the living artist, since we debated that matter at great length during the Finance Bill proceedings. I must confess that that was one of the most enjoyable debates of the Committee stage. Reference to those proceedings will show that the various points were covered in some detail on that occasion.
  I was asked about the reaction of the trade, and I must point out that we have gone to great lengths on this and on other issues relating to VAT to consult the trade. That is why the order is in this form. Although no doubt it will be said, as it is always said on these occasions, that we should have gone further in one direction or another, I think it can be said that these proposals have had the broad support of the trade.
  I have already described the additional accounting requirements. It is essentially a question of identifying individual items. If any members of the trade have problems or are not sure of the precise interpretation, the best course is to consult local VAT offices whose officials will be glad to go into matters in detail. The House will appreciate that, while waiting for this order to be approved by the House, local VAT officers have been somewhat inhibited in their actions. Therefore, anybody with VAT problems should now consult those officers and we shall be issuing a notice as soon as it can be printed.
  The hon. Member for Dudley asked for a definition of "motor car". The definition used for purchase tax purposes has been generally satisfactory and is used as the basis of definition in this order. There are some differences in the terms of definition in the corresponding purchase tax group but they have only a marginal effect on the situation. Incidentally, the purchase tax provisions include horse-drawn as well as motor vehicles, whereas in the present order we have a reference to vehicles
  "of a kind normally used on public roads"
  instead of a reference to "road vehicles." These are minor changes which largely
  1768
  reflect our experience of working with purchase tax. There has certainly been no broad problem of definition.
  The hon. Gentleman also asked whether there was any discrimination between purchasing, hiring or renting a car. The order involves no discrimination between the outright purchase or renting of a car for business purposes. The input tax on the car is blocked. The tax on subsequent charge for hiring or renting the car is deductible. There is no element of double disallowance, which I think was the point at the back of the hon. Gentleman's mind. There is no element of discrimination, and I hope I have put his mind at rest.
  Dr. Gilbert: We were concerned not so much about double disallowance but about deduction of input tax where cars were hired as distinct from purchase tax. As I read Article 4 of the order, tax shall not be deducted except where the supply is a letting or hire. Surely where there is letting or hiring now, tax must be deducted. Is not that the meaning of the provision?
  Mr. Higgins: Perhaps I may try an alternative form of words. That course is sometimes useful to the House. It is alleged that the tax on fleets of hire cars will be deductible. That is not so. The tax will be non-deductible when a car is bought by a firm for subsequent hiring out on rental. Therefore, there is no loophole. Tax will be blocked on all cars used on the road whether on hire or on outright purchase.
  The question was also raised about whether the order covers all cars used for business or private use. The answer is "Yes". All cars bought by a firm for any use will be tax blocked. Perhaps the problem is arising because the order is not being read as a whole. It covers three separate points and it is necessary to relate the various parts of the order. The effect of the order is as I have described it to the House.
  Mr. Brian Walden: My hon. Friends and I have obviously discussed the order but I am still not clear. Maybe we are under an illusion but I do not think so. I refer the hon. Gentleman to the Explanatory Note. The first sentence says:

  1769
  "This Order disallows deduction of input tax on new motor cars acquired by taxable persons."
  That is clear enough. The second sentence says:
  "The disallowance does not apply.…"
  It does not apply to a number of things—for example, cars for sale and other things
  "or to the charge for the hiring of a car."
  Why is the input tax disallowed for the purchase of a new car but not disallowed for the purchase of hiring a car? My hon. Friends and I do not understand that.
  Mr. Higgins: The purchase of hiring a car?
  Mr. Waldren: I withdraw those words. Let me rephrase it. Why is the input lax disallowed for the purchase of a new car but not disallowed for the hiring of a car? What is the principle involved in that?
  Mr. Higgins: I am seeking to understand the point which the hon. Gentleman has made. I was under the impression that I had already answered it in the form of words I first used and again in another form of words. It has always been a problem when dealing with these matters to find the exact form of words in order to elucidate the matter. Perhaps I might try again. The tax will be non-deductible when the car is bought by a firm straight, for whatever purpose, for private use within a firm or otherwise. So much is clear.
  Mr. Joel Barnett: Surely, when a car is bought for the purpose of resale by a dealer, the dealer is liable for input?
  Mr. Higgins: Let us not complicate the issue. If the hon. Gentleman looks at my original remarks he will find that that point is covered. I have already said that the order will cover all cars used for business or private purposes. All cars bought by a firm for any use, business or private, will be tax blocked. So far it is common ground.
  I understand that it is suggested that fleets of hire cars will be tax-deductible. However, tax will be non-deductible when the car is bought by a firm for
  1770
  subsequent hiring out on rental. Therefore, there is not a loophole. The tax will be blocked on all cars used on the road whether on hire or on outright purchase. I hope that that has made the position clear. I hesitate to try again in another form of words for the fourth time. We are not in Committee, but if hon. Members are still in some doubt about it I shall be happy to discuss the matter with them.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): Order. We must remember that we have abolished the Committee of Supply and that we are in the House of Commons. This is not a Committee.
  Mr. Higgins: I think that when hon. Gentlemen study what I have said they will find that I have dealt with the matter. We are not in Committee, and it is difficult for the debate not to become disorderly if we go over the same ground more than three times.
  Mr. Barnett: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not wish to mislead the House. There will be VAT on the rental element. When a car is rented to a firm, there will be VAT on the rental price. That is allowable as an input. In those circumstances, surely there must be an element in the rental price relating to the depreciation of the vehicle. Rental is not the purely profit part. It is on the basis of profit plus depreciation of the vehicle. In that sense, surely a person gets an allowance for input of the cost of a car—the depreciation element in it—when he hires a car as opposed to when he sells it.
  Mr. Higgins: I understand the point. There is no anomaly. The position is that the normal workings of the credit mechanism apply in the circumstances which the hon. Gentleman has outlined. The exact basis on which the price is calculated is a flatter for the person hiring the vehicle. It is for him to decide what accounting basis to adopt. That is not something which, even in theory, we need go into tonight.
  The position with regard to the purchase of a car, whether by a firm hiring a car or otherwise, is the same in both instances. Therefore, I do not believe that there is an anomaly. I suspect that this is a fifth form of words. I think hon. Gentlemen will find the position to be as I have described it, but if they

  1771
  care to pursue the matter with me individually I shall be happy to discuss it as I am anxious to clear up any misunderstandings that may still exist in the minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite.
  Mr. Cormack: There is one point which applies to both orders. If either a car dealer or an antiques dealer has a great deal of restoring work to do on an item before he sells it, presumably that can be allowed against his profit. In other words, if he makes a profit of £100 but has spent £50 on restoring the item, that can be taken into account.
  Mr. Higgins: That raises a more complex point. I think that my hon. Friend's interest is in antiques rather than in cars. The matter that was raised earlier by the hon. Member for Heywood and Royton (Mr. Joel Barnett) on the question of cars will obviously turn on the normal operations of the firm hiring the car. Certain inputs will come into operation, to which the usual rules will apply.
  The situation with regard to the art market is as I outlined in my opening remarks, and I think that the order makes the position clear. It is the case that the margin is the selling price minus the buying price, with no allowance for repairs and restoration. That is to say, it is charged on the margin itself. That is essentially the position which has been discussed with the trade and I believe that the trade is now familiar with it. If any trader has problems no doubt he will wish to approach his local VAT office, which will be very glad to go into the matter in as much depth as he wishes.
  Mr. Robert Cooke: No doubt the local VAT office will be helpful and friendly but perhaps my hon. Friend w ill say something here because his words might have a little more force. Obviously we do not want to expose the Revenue to a possible "racket", that the trader says it cost him the whole of his margin to restore the article and there is therefore no profit. We must guard against the situation where a dealer purchases particularly a picture but it may be a piece of furniture or any work of art, but because he is not allowed to charge any of the restoration against that margin he will do a quick clean-up
  1772
  and polish job which will be bad for the work of art.
  I am not a tax expert but I do not want to see anything in the tax system which will be a disincentive to do the job properly. Bad restoration may not be possible to be put right later and it sometimes does permanent damage. There are inducements in the other direction. The fact that books are zero-rated and prints are mentioned in the order will be an incentive not to split books up to sell them as prints, and that is a good thing.
  This is a difficult matter and we always knew it would be. In the order we have made it quite clear to anyone from abroad who wants to use the international art market based on London that there is no fear of VAT having a deleterious effect on his transaction. We do not want the international art market to be chased away from London because of anything we might do.
  Mr. Higgins: My hon. Friend's intervention was as courteous as it was long. I can confirm that I agree—[Interruption.] With great respect, we are not in Committee. I cannot keep standing up and sitting down indefinitely and it is therefore necessary for me to keep giving way. I in no way detract from my hon. Friend's remarks but I confirm that the provisions of the order are designed specifically to ensure—I must get the expression right because my hon. Friend has corrected me twice—that the international art market based on London will not be put at a disadvantage in its competitive position in international markets.
  I think that I answered the specific question which my hon. Friend raised when I replied to my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock (Mr. Cormack). The issue is clear from a study of Article 4 which defines the margin as the difference between the acquisition price and the selling price. The margin will thus include the cost of any restoration and so on effective between the acquisition and the sale. Any tax incurred by the seller in having such work done would be deductible input tax. I believe that makes the position clear.
  I think I am right in saying that I have covered all the various points raised in the debate.
  Mr. Dalyell Mr. Dalyell indicated dissent.
  Mr. Higgins: I always hesitate to say that because the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) always remembers one which I have forgotten. But I think I am right in saying that I covered even the initial point he made, which is apparently, the one he thinks I have not covered.
  Mr. Dalyell: It was the question of business abuse, but I do not want to labour it too long.
  Mr. Higgins: I think I have made the position clear. The hon. Gentleman is concerned about whether there is business abuse of cars. If he gives the matter thought, he will appreciate that this does not arise in the context we are discussing here because, as I have indicated, the input tax is applied to all cars which are bought by businesses for whatever purpose. Therefore, in this, context, the possibility of abuse does not exist. That is the answer. I am now reasonably sure that I have answered all the points raised, none of them more than three or four times. That being so, I hope that the House will feel able to give approval to the orders.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Value Added Tax (Cars) Order 1972 (S.I., 1972, No. 1970), a copy of which was laid before this House on 21st December, be approved.
  Resolved,
  That the Value Added Tax (Works of Art, Antiques and Scientific Collections) Order 1972 (S.I., 1972, No. 1971), a copy of which was laid before this House on 21st December, be approved.—[Mr. Higgins.]

  ADJOURNMENT
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Fortescue.]

  TELEPHONE TAPPING
  11.6 p.m.
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: This debate arises out of the controversy which surrounded the leakage from the Department of the Environment of a document which was ultimately published in the Sunday Times. As a result of
  1774
  complaints by my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield), which he aired in a debate last night, the attention of the Press was drawn to the question of telephone tapping.
  I do not want to go into aspects of the affair of the missing document or even of my hon. Friend's telephone being tapped. What I am concerned about is the subsequent publicity, which included an article in the Daily Mail, which suggested that in the past year 1,250 telephone tap warrants had been issued by the Home Secretary in relation to applications by the Metropolitan Police alone.
  Because of widespread anxiety about this matter, and in view of the fact that no previous figures had been given since 1958, the Secretary of State himself, on 22nd December last, in a Written Answer to the hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke), said:
  "I think it right to add, in view of concern which has been expressed about the interception of telephone calls, that the procedures for authorising interception which were described in the report of the Birkett Committee in 1957 are scrupulously followed."
  He added that the Secretary of State considers only those applications
  ".in connection with serious crime, which continues to be defined and interpreted on the strict and limited terms set out by the Committee."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd December 1972; Vol. 848, c. 494.]
  I therefore turned back to the report of the Birkett Committee—Cmnd. 283—and looked up what it said about the conditions under which warrants are authorised by the Home Office. What that Committee said was that the Home Office practice—which it approved—was set out in a letter in September 1951, which said that warrants would be issued only in the case of a crime where the offence was really serious. It also specified that:
  "Normal methods must have been tried and failed, or must, from the nature of things, be unlikely to succeed if tried"
  and there must be good reason to think that an interception would result in a conviction.
  It went on to say that for the purpose of the warrants, serious crime was taken by the Home Office to mean an offence where a man with no previous conviction could reasonably be expected to be sentenced to three years' imprisonment. I am very glad that it is the Minister of

  1775
  State who is going to reply to this debate because, as a former practising barrister, he will know that that is a very rare state of affairs indeed. It is not an average burglary; it is not even the average "mugging" case: it is a very serious case where a man with no previous conviction could reasonably be expected to receive three years' imprisonment. Therefore, it is not every case where a warrant could even be considered.
  Last year, which was a year of very considerable crime in this country, only 40,000 cases were dealt with in the higher courts. That means that if the Daily Mail figures are correct warrants were issued in one in 30 cases. The situation is really very much worse than that. A great percentage of the cases which are dealt with in the higher courts are cases where one would not in any case consider a telephone tapping—cases like the average family murder, cases of obscenity, cases of the kind which are classified in the statistics as theft. The average kind of case where this kind of action might be relevant would really come only in class 2 of the criminal statistics, which are regarded as burglary and other similar crimes, where the total proportion dealt with in the higher courts last year was about 16,000. In about one in 10 or 11 cases where it would be relevant a warrant was issued by the Home Secretary to the Metropolitan Police alone.
  We do not know whether these figures would be greatly increased if the figures for the whole of the country had been included. I do not know whether the Daily Mail figures are correct. The purpose of this Adjournment debate is to get some confirmation of that. But I suspect that the Home Office may choose to stand upon the last part of the Home Secretary's answer on 22nd December, part of which I have already quoted, when he said that it would, as the Birkett Committee had said, be against the public interest either to publish statistics about the extent of interception or to say whether interception had been used in any particular investigation.
  It is correct that the Birkett Committee did say that, but I question the wisdom of taking that kind of attitude if the growth in telephone tapping is anything like as great as has been suggested. It cannot be said that merely by giving
  1776
  the overall figures one warns off somebody of the ilk of the Krays or the Richardsons, or, indeed, Russian secret agents. The total volume of telephone taps would not do any more than indicate that there is a widespread use of this authority. It is that that I want to find out.
  If the figure is as the Birkett Committee suggested, between 1938 and 1956 an average of 130, perhaps there is no reason for qualm. But if it has grown, as the Daily Mail suggests, by 1,000 per cent. since that time—and, indeed, according to the Daily Mail, has doubled only in the last two years under this Government—clearly the Home Secretary has allowed this exercise of police authority to grow to an alarming degree.
  It cannot really be quite justified, as the Birkett Committee suggested, on the basis that the Secretary of State himself considers each one and is, therefore, the best safeguard of the citizen's right, because if 1,200 or more a year are being issued, and if one allows only 10 minutes of the Home Secretary's time to consider the warrant, that is about 200 hours' work a year for the Home Secretary in issuing warrants. The right hon. Gentleman is a hard-working Minister, but that is a considerable proportion of his working time. The fact is that he could not possibly give his time to considering whether a warrant was justified in individual cases if that volume of cases was coming before him.
  In the interest of genuine public discussion of the matter, which is of considerable public importance, it is time the Government gave us some official figures about the issue of warrants. I do not think that could do any harm at all, except perhaps to the image of the Government in showing that they allow this kind of untrammelled abuse of power.
  Can it do any harm that warrants are issued at this kind of level? I think it can. The Birkett Committee said that it did not really matter to the decent-living citizen if his telephone was tapped because the information was not divulged to anyone who was not in authority and, therefore, would not cause suffering to a great many people. However, there is a feeling of genuine disquiet about the possibility of telephones being tapped. My attention is increasingly being drawn

  1777
  to this by organisations in this country with an interest in matters of apartheid.
  A number of organisations complain to me that their telephones are tapped, and they believe that it is on the authority of the Home Secretary—official tapping in conjunction with the security service. The number of complaints is increasing enormously. I have referred a number of them to the Secretary of State and others to the Prime Minister, and on each occasion I get the reply that there has been no tapping.
  Whether or not that is true, the fact that a lot of honest citizens conducting activities which are perfectly lawful in this country and genuinely concerned about oppression in South Africa feel that that is possible in this country is an indication of how widespread are the fears about telephone tapping.
  It would help a lot if the Minister were able to deny the Daily Mail figures and give actual figures over a reasonable period, because that would do something to minimise the widespread disquiet.
  I do not believe that telephones should ever be tapped, except when there are overwhelming reasons on grounds of very serious crime or of a real threat to the security of the country, because unreasonable intrusion into the privacy of individual telephones should be avoided.
  The only reason a private conversation of this nature can be interfered with is because of the monopoly right of the Government to run the Post Office. I do not think that that right gives the State any more power over the individual than is absolutely necessary for the functioning of civilised society in this country.
  Unless a line is drawn now, there is a danger that this kind of practice will continue to increase.
  11.19 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr Mark Carlisle): The hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) has tonight raised a matter about which the House understandably has shown great concern in the past and no doubt will continue to show great circumspection in the future. I am grateful to him for raising the matter tonight if for no other reason than to give me the opportunity to dispel some of what I might describe
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  as the somewhat alarming remarks he made towards the end of his speech, and to lay down quite clearly the approach of the Home Secretary and the Government towards the question of telephone tapping.
  I accept at once that it is not easy, against our tradition of personal freedom, to accept that it may be necessary for the State, for whatever reasons, to intercept private conversations between one citizen and another. But, judging from the hon. Gentleman's remarks, I think he will agree that in certain circumstances no doubt it may be justified.
  The hon. Gentleman reminded us that it is now some years since the authorised interception of communications, including telephone calls, was the subject of an exhaustive inquiry by a committee of Privy Councillors appointed under the distinguished chairmanship of the then Sir Norman Birkett. That committee published its report in 1957 and since then successive Governments, of both political persuasions, have made it clear that the principles and procedures set out in the report have been scrupulously observed. I welcome the opportunity to repeat that assurance.
  It is indeed a matter for some encouragement that the committee's conclusions were clear and in such a form that the public at large can be assured that only in the most serious and essential cases will the interception of communications be authorised. I assure the hon. Gentleman that that is the present position.
  The Birkett Committee referred to two areas in which a warrant for the interception of communications might properly be authorised. The hon. Gentleman has mentioned one of them, and that was the detection of serious crime. The other was the safeguarding of the security of the State. As the hon. Gentleman has very helpfully pointed out, the committee further set out with some clarity what was meant by "serious crime". As the hon. Gentleman remarked, the committee said that it meant those offences
  "for which a man with no previous record could reasonably be expected to be sentenced to three years' imprisonment, or offences of lesser gravity in which a large number of people were involved."

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  In addition, it is right to say that the committee recognised that there was a large area of organised crime to be found in attempts to defraud the Customs or the Revenue. The committee said that while violence might not be used in frauds of that kind, very large sums of money might be involved. In the view of the Birkett Committee, the definition of "serious crime" should also include cases which involved a
  "substantial and continuing fraud which would seriously damage the revenue or the economy of the country if it went unchecked."
  That was the definition of "serious crime" as given by that committee as one of the justifications for telephone tapping on the authorisation of the Home Secretary.
  The other reason, as I have said, was on the basis of the safeguarding of the security of the State. Concerning that, the Birkett Committee set out the criteria to be used before warrants were issued by the security service in the following terms. First, there must be a major subversive or espionage activity that is likely to endanger the national interest. Secondly, the material likely to be obtained by interception must be of direct use in compiling the information that is necessary for the security service in carrying out tasks laid upon it by the State.
  In connection with crime the Birkett Committee also drew attention to two further checks as well as its definition of serious crime. The hon. Gentleman rightly reminded us of those. They were that in the committee's view it should be used only when normal methods of investigation had been tried and had failed or, in the nature of things, were unlikely to succeed if tried and, further, there must be a good reason to think that interception would result in a conviction.
  Warrants are issued only over the hand of the Secretary of State. In the case of England and Wales they are normally signed by the Home Secretary. The requirement is that they are over the hand of the Secretary of State, but in the absence of the Home Secretary another Secretary of State is entitled to sign the warrant. Warrants which operate in Northern Ireland or Scotland are signed by the relevant Secretary of State for Northern Ireland or for Scotland. There
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  is moreover a regular review of the warrants in operation at any one time with the purpose of ensuring that no warrant continues in operation for longer than is required for the purpose for which it was authorised.
  Since the Birkett Committee reported, the Government have, as I have attempted to make clear, adhered strictly to the procedure laid down. This has been stated in Parliament on many occasions, most recently by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary in a Written Answer to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) on 22nd December, as follows:
  "the procedures for authorising interception which were described in the report of the Birkett Committee in 1957 are scrupulously followed. This means that police requests for interception would be authorised only by me, or exceptionally, in my absence, by another Secretary of State, and that they would be considered only in connection with serious crime, which continues to be defined and interpreted on the strict and limited terms set out by the Committee."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd December 1972; Vol. 848, c. 495.]
  The answer by my right hon. Friend plainly had in mind a case which had arisen in England and Wales, but the same statement could equally be made in respect of Northern Ireland or Scotland, except that in those parts of the United Kingdom warrants would be authorised by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland or for Scotland.
  Mr. Lyon: As I indicated, the principles are plain. What gives rise to concern is how the principles are applied. That can be decided only if we know something about it. If the Daily Mail figures are correct, the principles are being misapplied.
  Mr. Carlisle: I have only seven minutes left in which to deliver half of my speech. I was about to come on to the figures. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept from what I have said already not only that the principles are plain but that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has specifically stated, as has been stated on many occasions, that the principles are being scrupulously adhered to, in exactly the same way as they have been under all Governments of different political complexions since the Birkett Committee's Report.

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  I apologise for keeping so much to the words before me, but this is an important subject as the hon. Member has said. I do not think that people would dissent from those general principles. I have referred to them in order to put into perspective what appears from time to time to be a mood of unjustified apprehension on the part of some members of the public lest the belief came about that the power to intercept communications was in some underhand manner being extended. I can assure the House that that is not so.
  Having said that and having given that assurance, I must nevertheless, despite what the hon. Member said—and I shall say something about the Daily Mail—restate what has been said on many occasions: that it is not in the national interest to give details of the way in which warrants are issued or the exact extent to which the power is used. As the hon. Member said, certain figures were given in the Birkett Report itself, but it was recognised at that time that it was a once-for-all exercise. The Birkett Committee itself in recommendation 165 said that it was against the public interest for the Secretary of State to give figures of the extent of the interception of communications.
  Any information about the operation of this power is bound to be of some value to those whose activities are under surveillance. As I said in reply to the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield), I am convinced that it is right to maintain the position enunciated by the Birkett Committee and reaffirmed on 17th November 1966 by the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. Harold Wilson), that it has been and should continue to be the established practice not to give information on this subject.
  But, despite having said that, in view of the questions that the hon. Member has asked and sticking as I do to the view that has always been taken about publication of the numbers, I can and do confirm what was said on behalf of the Home Office with regard to the allegations which were recently made in newspapers—and the hon. Member referred to the Daily Mail—as to the number of warrants in operation. I say
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  with the complete authority of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that the numbers quoted in the article were ludicrously high. Equally, just as one cannot deal with the actual numbers, it is not possible to confirm or deny allegations that any interception has been authorised in a particular case.
  Some hon. Members will have the experience, which certainly has been brought home to me as a Minister, of a constituent, perhaps an elderly lady, often of impeccable character, who becomes greatly disturbed or concerned by suspicions, which common sense suggests must be completely unfounded, that his or her telephone is being tapped. Any Member of Parliament in that position who has written, as Members of Parliament have from time to time written, will I am sure feel frustrated by the fact that my right hon. Friend feels quite unable to say whether or not those fears are indeed unfounded.
  It is clear, however, that if such allegations of any nature were ever denied, inferences would then be drawn in cases where no denial was forthcoming, which would frustrate the purpose of such operations. For those reasons, I fear that there is no alternative to maintaining the established rules of silence about individual cases.
  I was slightly surprised by what the hon. Member said about official care in relation to people or emphasis on a foreign country. Obviously I have made it clear in what I have said with regard to individual cases, but I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept what I have said about the circumstances in which any tap is ever authorised.
  I repeat that all the matters of this nature which are raised are subject to the personal consideration of the Secretary of State and no interception of a telephone is authorised without his authority. Moreover, that authority is exercised within closely defined limits as set out in the Birkett Report. There has been no relaxation of the criteria laid down by that committee and followed by successive administrations since then.
  I hope, therefore, that what I have said——
  Mr. Lyon Mr. Lyon rose——
  Mr. Carlisle: —I should like to complete this, and I have only 30 seconds left

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  —will serve to dispel any doubts that may have been aroused by recent speculation on this subject. I do not believe that it was right for the House to attempt to press me further on details which might put at risk the success of operations which are in the national interest.
  Mr. Lyon: To dispel doubts, can the hon. and learned Gentleman confirm whether, in defining security, the phrase is ever used to cover the security of any other State apart from our own?
  Mr. Carlisle: At this moment I can only reply to that by the definition of security as laid down by the Birkett
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  Committee and assure the hon. Gentleman that those terms are scrupulously abided by. As I have made absolutely clear, this is a matter wholly for the Secretary of State, and I think I must stick to what I have said, that security, is defined entirely——
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at twenty-four minutes to Twelve o'clock.