Commons Sitting of 11 December 1974

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS
PORT OF TYNE (NORTH SHIELDS FISH HARBOUR) BILL [Lords]
As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.
DUMBARTON BURGH ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Read the Third time and passed.
SCOTTISH TRANSPORT GROUP (OBAN QUAY) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Considered; to be read the Third time tomorrow.

TRADE
Ordered,
That there be laid before this House Statistics relating to Overseas Trade of the United Kingdom for each month during the year 1975.—[Mr. Shore.]

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  SCOTLAND

    Police Pay
    1. Miss Harvie Andersonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has received a request from the Joint Central Committee of the Scottish Police Federation for an increase in pay and improved conditions; and what action he proposes to take.
    2. Mr. Corrieasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what progress is being made in improving police pay; and if he will make a statement.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Harry Ewing): No approach
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    has been made to my right hon. Friend by the Scottish Police Federation. Police pay and conditions are matters in the first instance for the Police Council for the United Kingdom, and the last settlement took effect at 1st September 1974. The council has since set up a working party, on which my right hon. Friend's Department is represented, to review the structure of police pay. The working party hopes to report by the spring of 1975.
    Miss Harvie Anderson: When the working party reports, will the hon. Gentleman remember that police pay in real terms has fallen considerably below a level which can be regarded as acceptable? Does he agree that it is only by working a great amount of overtime that the police are getting a level of remuneration that matches their commitments? In view of the important security aspects now added to their work, and in view of the excellence of their work generally, will the hon. Gentleman bear this well in mind with a view to urgent action being taken?
    Mr. Ewing: The right hon. Lady will appreciate that we, for our part, appreciate the efforts made by police throughout Scotland, sometimes in very difficult circumstances, and we recognise the problems that are faced from time to time by them. The matters to which the right hon. Lady referred are matters for the working party at this stage and it would be wise for the House to await the outcome of the working party's report.
    Mr. Dempsey: Will my hon. Friend draw the attention of his representatives on the working party to the fact that were not long hours of overtime worked there would be a serious shortage of police in Scotland? As we get only what we pay for, will he ask his representatives to represent strongly that our police officers, who do an excellent job despite most difficult circumstances, should receive an adequate increase for the service they render to the community?
    Mr. Ewing: It is most important that we do not pre-empt the work of the working party. No doubt the views that my hon. Friend has expressed will have been taken note of and the working party will be giving consideration to the views that are expressed.
    Mr. Corrie: Is the Minister aware that many younger police officers are contemplating taking industrial action because they are so disillusioned with their present pay and conditions? Can something be done urgently about this? I appreciate the answer the Minister just gave, but is he aware that the miners are now asking for a greater pay rise than the average constable on the beat receives in pay at present?
    Mr. Ewing: Such supplementary questions do nothing to help the situation in Scotland. When the recent pay award was implemented at 1st September this year, the increases ranged from about 16 per cent. to 23 per cent., with the greatest increases going to those at the bottom of the scale, namely, the younger police constables to whom the hon. Gentleman referred. It does not do any good to refer in terms such as the hon. Gentleman used to the prospect of industrial action.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that since September there has been an explosion of many industrial wage rates in Scotland. I hope that this will be taken into account by the Minister. He will be aware that the Home Secretary announced a review of the establishments of police forces in England and Wales. Does his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State hope to undertake a review of establishments in Scotland as well?
    Mr. Ewing: We noted with interest what the Home Secretary said in Monday's debate. The Scottish Office is presently considering what was said in that debate before reaching any conclusions. I shall not comment on the hon. Gentleman's remark about an explosion in wage rates. We should leave the question of police pay with the review body which has been set up to deal with the matter.

    Hospitals (West Fife)
    Mr. Adam Hunterasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has received regarding the progress being made for the provision of a new District General Hospital in West Fife; and if he will make a statement.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Robert Hughes): Fife
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    Health Board's proposals for phase I of the West Fife District General Hospital were submitted to my right hon. Friend's Department on 29th October 1974 and are being considered. No representations on the matter have reached me since I took office, but I am well aware of my hon. Friend's concern to see progress made.
    Mr. Hunter: Now that the proposals are in the hands of the relevant Departments, will my hon. Friend promise to take speedy action on these proposals and make the new hospital a reality in the reasonably near future?
    Mr. Hughes: I am aware of the urgency behind my hon. Friend's remarks. There is a great deal of detailed planning and design work to be done. It would be unrealistic to expect to start phase I in less than three years. We shall certainly do nothing to hold matters up.
    Mr. William Hamilton: Is my hon. Friend aware that some of us in the House have been campaigning for this hospital for 20 years? We seem to be no further forward now than we were at the beginning and, in the meantime, hospital services in the area have deteriorated. Will the Minister give a specific date when work can be started on this project, despite the undoubted financial difficulties which have been inherited by the present Government?
    Mr. Hughes: I am afraid I cannot give a specific date. All I can say is that the importance of the project has been recognised by authorising a start to the scheme as soon as planning can be completed, subject only to financial consideration at the time.
    Mr. Fairbairn: Will the hon. Gentleman assure the House that when this hospital is started it will not—like the Ninewells Hospital—take 10 years to build, cost four times the original estimate, and be so expensive to run that all the local services are drawn away into it to justify its monstrous creation?
    Mr. Hughes: It is unfair to bring Ninewells Hospital into this question. The proposals for phase I involve 90 geriatric beds, 90 psycho-geriatric beds and 30 psychiatric beds. These services are urgently required in this area. The Department will see that as planning

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    proposals go forward and that there is proper estimating of cost.

    Industrial Bodies
    Mr. Sillarsasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next plans to meet industrial interests in Scotland.
    Mr. Alexander Fletcherasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he plans to meet representatives of the CBI in Scotland.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. William Ross): I have no firm plans for specific meetings at present but I, and my noble and hon. Friends, keep in close and continuing touch with industrial opinion both on an individual basis and through bodies such as the Scottish Trades Union Congress, the Scottish Council of the CBI and the Scottish Council (Development and Industry).
    Mr. Sillars: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the intense interest in the Scottish TUC and elsewhere in Scotland over the fate of the Scottish Development Agency in Cabinet discussions? Is he further aware that most sensible people in Scotland regard it as imperative that the agency should be equipped with the finance to carry out a powerful regeneration job on the Scottish economy? Will he give an assurance that he will do all he can to give the agency Section 7 powers under the Industry Act?
    Mr. Ross: There are one or two questions on the Order Paper on this topic. I agree with my hon. Friend that the Scottish Development Agency must be equipped with adequate powers and finance to do the job that we have set for it, but I shall be arranging consultations with the bodies I have mentioned at a later stage.
    Mr. Alexander Fletcher: When the Secretary of State next meets Scottish industrialists and the Scottish Council and the CBI, will he explain what the conciliation and arbitration service is doing to reduce the number of industrial disputes in Scotland?
    Mr. Ross: If the hon. Gentleman is interested in the conciliation and arbitration service he would be far better advised to table a Question directly to the Minister concerned.
    Mr. Crawford: When the Secretary of State meets the Scottish TUC, the CBI and the Scottish Council, will he discuss the possibility of establishing venture capital, as a combination of both Government and private industrial money, which could be used to invest in entrepreneurs in Scotland, whatever their nationality, so that the flow of decision-makers out of Scotland can be reversed?
    Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman should examine his question in the light of the policies of his own party.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: Is the Secretary of State aware that there is considerable concern in Scottish industry about the future of electricity supplies, bearing in mind the fact that coal stocks are low and that a madly inflationary wage claim has been submitted by the NUM? What are his plans to maintain electricity supplies in the event of a miners' strike?
    Mr. Ross: I assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no danger to electricity supplies. I am surprised that he should try to spread his "Cathcart gloom" around the place.

    A75 (Bypasses)
    Mr. Thompsonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what stage his plans have reached for bypassing the following centres of population on the A75, namely Castle Douglas, Gatehouse-of-Fleet, Creetown, Newton Stewart, and Glenluce; and when he expects work to start on each of them.
    The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Mr. Bruce Millan): Schemes for bypassing all these communities are in various stages of preliminary preparation. I cannot yet forecast when work on each might start.
    Mr. Thompson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for the assurance that schemes are under way. Will he accept that many of my constituents who live in these towns are seriously worried about the situation? Will he look soon at the situation in Newton Stewart and Glenluce?
    Mr. Millan: I know some of the problems in the areas mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. In the case of Newton Stewart a draft line of route and side-road orders have been published, and has

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    a draft order for the compulsory acquisition of land. In this case, because of objections there may be a need for a public local inquiry, but, as in the other cases instanced by the hon. Gentleman, preliminary preparations are in hand.
    Mr. Monro: Will the Minister accept that large sums of money have been spent on the A75 in recent years and that there have been worthwhile improvements? Does he agree that the increased traffic on the Stranraer to London route, particularly container traffic, is causing a major bottleneck at Dumfries? Will he consider authorising the construction of a ring road as soon as possible?
    Mr. Millan: Dumfries is not mentioned in the original Question, but if the hon. Gentleman tables a Question on that area I shall be happy to answer it. The general question of container traffic to Stranraer is an important consideration in examining road plans for the whole area.

    Alcoholics
    Mr. Robin F. Cookasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will issue a circular to local authorities on community services for alcoholics.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: A circular of guidance outlining the respective rôles of health boards, local authorities and voluntary bodies—all of which have an important part to play in the provision of community facilities for alcoholics—is under consideration.
    Mr. Cook: Will the Minister confirm that a draft circular has been going around the Department for over a year? Is it not time that the document was given more general readership? Is he aware that a similar circular was issued to English authorities in May 1973? Is it not an unacceptable situation that Scotland, which has a much greater problem of alcoholism, should be left so far behind?
    Mr. Hughes: There has been a draft circular under discussion in the Advisory Council on Social Work, but before it is ready to go out there will need to be proper consultation with the interested bodies. It is true that a Department of Health and Social Security circular was sent out in 1973, but about the same time my Department issued a circular about financial assistance to be made available
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    to voluntary bodies, which referred to accommodaton for alcoholics as an example of the type of project eligible for grant.
    Mr. Sproat: What provision in schools will the Minister seek to encourage to make pupils aware of the dangers of alcoholism, in parallel to the information issued about the dangers of smoking?
    Mr. Hughes: These matters are dealt with by the Health Education Unit. I shall make inquiries to see whether the point made by the hon. Gentleman could be developed.

    Hill Farming
    Mr. MacCormickasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is satisfied that the provisions recently announced are adequate to meet the situation in the hill fanning and marginal areas of Scotland; and whether he has any further proposals to make.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Hugh D. Brown): The measures we have announced represent a very substantial injection of additional capital into the hill and upland sectors in the current financial year. My colleagues and I have been considering further action to deal with the problem of fodder shortage in certain parts of the country.
    Mr. MacCormick: I thank the Minister for his answer. May I draw his attention to the problem of the islands off the West coast of Scotland where hill farmers' difficulties are exacerbated by high transport costs? Will he look into the subsidising of the carrying of fodder into the islands as well as the carriage of livestock out of the islands?
    Mr. Brown: I hate hiding behind an official departmental reply, but if the hon. Gentleman wants to ask about transport costs he should not direct his question to me. Nevertheless, there is a special subsidy for farming interests in the islands, of which I am sure he is aware, I am more concerned about the overall problem of fodder shortage, in respect of which we shall give special attention to the islands.
    Mr. Grimond: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that his promise of further assistance is very welcome? Is he also aware that there is still widespread concern in

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    the industry, particularly over the very low prices? Have the Government got a target in mind to which they hope to raise prices for, say, beef or lamb?
    Mr. Brown: That goes rather wider than the original Question. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, there is a hope— I think that we shall succeed in achieving it—of averaging £18 a hundredweight for beef through the premium payments topped up by the latest agreement. The measures already taken, amounting to an additional £16 million for hill and upland farmers in the curent financial year, should help to create confidence about the long-term future for the industry.
    Mr. Fairgrieve: In view of the Minister's remarks about the fodder shortage, will he urge on his colleagues the need for an early debate to implement the findings in the O'Brien Report?
    Mr. Brown: This matter has been raised by hon. Members on both sides of the House, and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has given assurances on it. I should welcome pressure from any section of the House to get this matter out of the way. We all have problems. However, we should not overestimate the importance of the matter. It would be wrong to create the impression in farmers' minds that this will solve the problem. Nevertheless, it is a matter of some urgency, and I hope that we can dispose of it as soon as possible.
    Mr. Buchan: Despite the euphoria during the last 24 hours over the skirmishing in the foothills of the Common Market, I hope that my hon. Friend and his right hon. Friend will recognise the particular problems of Scotland, because of our heavy concentration on grasslands, and will ensure that the direct support that we have achieved over the last few weeks relating to beef prices is maintained rather than seen as a temporary derogation?
    Mr. Brown: I am not sure what my hon. Friend—
    Mr. Buchan: I am asking about beef prices.
    Mr. Brown: The question covered so many points that I was not too sure. There is a general recognition that the last agreement is moving in a direction
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    that seems to commend it to the majority of farmers.
    Mr. Monro: Is the Under-Secretary aware that he can rely on me to lean very heavily on him in support of what he said about the O'Brien Report? The hon. Gentleman in his original reply mentioned, I think, capital injection. Perhaps that was a mistake for cash injection. If not, I should be grateful if he would explain what the capital injection is. Will he also tell us when we can expect an announcement on help towards the cost of fodder? This is a critical situation at present and any hope of help in that direction will be welcomed by the farming industry.
    Mr. Brown: If I said "capital", obviously it was meant to sound like "cash", because that is what farmers appreciate. I take the hon. Gentleman's point. I hope that an announcement will be made in the near future on the measures that we propose to deal with the fodder shortage.

    Area Health Boards
    Mr. Monroasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many of the 18 appointments to area health boards in August 1974 were to members of the Labour Party, or to persons to sit as Labour members of local district or regional authorities; and how many are qualified nurses.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: Nomination forms for health board membership do not ask for information about the political affiliation of those nominated. Two of the 18 new members are qualified nurses.
    Mr. Monro: Does the hon. Gentleman remember attacks on the Conservative Party last year on the lack of serving nurses appointed to health boards, and the work that we put in to make non-political appointments? Is he aware that of the 18 appointments made in August, none is a serving nurse—although at least two are qualified—and at least 15 are well-known members of the Labour Party, including the political agent of the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton)?
    Mr. Hughes: I am well aware of the attacks that were made on the hon.

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    Gentleman—in an Adjournment debate a year ago—in respect of his right hon. Friend's appointments. I recall that at that time the hon. Gentleman said that he was not ashamed of the appointments that had been made. Neither am I ashamed of the appointments made by my right hon. Friend. We have taken the view that in these 18 appointments— which were to fill vacancies—we should work towards the spread of appointments laid down in the consultative document. There are, in fact, two qualified nurses among the recent appointments, but more will be considered as and when the next round of appointments takes place in the new year.
    Mr. Alexander Wilson: Will my hon. Friend complete the education of the House, and particularly of Scottish Members, by giving us information on how many appointments made before August 1974 were of members of the Conservative Party?
    Mr. Hughes: I do not have that information, but there was widespread discontent at the last round of appointments. I believe that we have gone some way to resolve some of the discontent.
    Mr. Russell Johnston: Is it not dodging the issue for the Minister calmly to stand up and say that political affiliations are not inquired into? The fact is that when the Labour Party is in power there is a bias towards Labour appointments and when the Conservative Party is in power there is a bias towards Conservative appointments. Will he—
    Mr. Skinner: How did the hon. Gentleman get to Strasbourg?
    Mr. Speaker: Order.
    Mr. Russell Johnston: Will he confirm that membership of a party other than the Labour and Conservative Parties is not a disadvantage to people who make themselves available for public service?
    Mr. Hughes: No nominee for appointment to a health board is debarred because of membership of any political party or, indeed, of none. That is as it should be. In making the appointments we take great care to ensure that people of experience and personal quality who can do the job are appointed. From time to time members of political parties
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    will be appointed, but this is only natural when they are selected to reflect the character and views of the areas from which they come.
    Dr. Dickson Mabon: I congratulate my hon. Friend on redressing the balance and restoring the equilibrium disturbed by the Tory Government. Regarding the health councils which are shortly to be appointed, will my hon. Friend make absolutely sure that voluntary organisations, including, for example, the Co-operative movement—against which the then Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro), had a grievance at the time—will not be excluded from the list from which selections are made?
    Mr. Hughes: We are in the process of looking at the schemes drawn up by health boards for representation on local health councils and we shall take into consideration the point made by my hon. Friend.

    Rates
    Mr. Teddy Taylorasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what estimate he has made of the increase in local rates which will take place in Scotland in 1975.
    Mr. Millan: No such estimate is possible pending the settlement of rate support grant.
    Mr. Taylor: Is the Minister of State aware of the serious alarm in Scotland at what the level of rates might be in 1975? What steps is he taking to reduce some of the spending which has been estimated? In particular, what steps is he taking to stop the empire building in some of the new authorities? Finally, does he agree that it was a kick in the teeth to the ratepayers of Scotland when the Government yesterday presented a Bill which will add £7 million to the amount that they have to pay?
    Mr. Millan: On the question of local authority expenditure, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that a circular has been issued drawing particular attention to the need to prevent excessive increases in staff costs.
    Mr. Alexander Wilson: Will the Minister accept that under local government reorganisation there will be huge

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    increases in rates? Will he tell the House how much of that increase will be directly attributable to the astronomical rise in wages and salaries now being agreed for officials?
    Mr. Millan: The Government have made it clear that we do not see local government reorganisation as an excuse for local authorities either to indulge in empire building or to grant excessive increases in salaries. These matters are not the direct responsibility of the Secretary of State, but we have drawn the attention of the new local authorities to the dangers. We do not believe that many of the difficulties that have apparently arisen in England need arise, or will arise, in Scotland.
    Mr. Alexander Fletcher: To what extent will rates be increased because of the reorganisation of local government, and particularly the salaries' bill, to which reference has been made? What positive action is the Minister taking to try to ensure that rate increases are kept to the absolute minimum?
    Mr. Millan: The answer to the first question is that there is an element in the existing rate support grant for the current year that takes account of the additional expenses that are necessarily incurred during local government reorganisation. Next year there will be an element in the rate support grant arising from reorganisation, but there will be nothing like the exaggerated increases that many people apparently believe are likely to occur.
    We have drawn to the attention of local authorities the dangers of spending excessively on salaries or, indeed, on anything else because of reorganisation. In the last analysis, however, some of these matters must be decided by the local authorities themselves, and the House, which in other circumstances plays a great deal of lip-service to local authority freedom, must not expect the Secretary of State to exercise powers over local authorities which he does not have in any event.
    Mr. MacCormick: Will the Minister accept that in an area such as Argyll, which is about to be swallowed up in the Strathclyde Region, there is widespread alarm and despondency among all sections of the population? Does he agree that the inevitable consequential rate in-
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    crease could be abolished merely by stopping the creation of Strathclyde and dismembering it immediately?
    Mr. Millan: That matter was considered exhaustively during the passage of the Local Government (Scotland) Bill. Now that we have the regions established, it is important that they should be made to work. Whatever may have been the views of individual Members in the first place about the establishment of these regions, this constant criticism of and attacks upon the regions are bound to fail, because it is impossible to dismember the regions. What is more, these attacks and criticisms are damaging the morale of the elected members, the new officials, and people in the areas. These regions have been established and will operate under the new authorities from May of next year. The important thing is to ensure that they operate effectively.

    Sewage Sludge (Forth Estuary)
    Sir John Gilmourasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether the city of Edinburgh has applied for a licence for the dumping of sewage sludge in the estuary of the Forth under the terms of the Dumping at Sea Act 1974; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Hugh D. Brown: Yes, Sir. The corporation has applied for such a licence. My right hon. Friend has decided that this dumping can be allowed under strict control and he proposes to grant a licence subject to conditions which he is now considering.
    Sir J. Gilmour: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that people in Fife, particularly those in the fishing industry, object to the dumping of effluent from Edinburgh loos off their coast? Does the hon. Gentleman think it right to grant borrowing powers for a ship to deposit this sludge before the application for a licence has been made?
    Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman and I have had regular sessions debating this fascinating subject. He knows that Fife loos deposit sewage into the Forth— [Interruption.] I do not know whether there is any difference between the two types of effluent. That is a matter of opinion. The hon. Gentleman knows that, time and again, we have offered to consult the fishermen of Fife to see whether we

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    can arrive at an alternative site that will satisfy the needs of both Fife and Edinburgh loos.
    Mr. Dalyell: Can it be confirmed that since the coming into office of the enlightened Labour administration Edinburgh is no longer a city which at festival time powders its nose and for the rest of the year forgets to wipe its bottom?
    Mr. Brown: I shall not even attempt to compete with that. To introduce a serious note, I am sure the House will appreciate the steps that have been taken by Edinburgh. Approval in principle has already been given by the Secretary of State, and the vessel has been ordered. The least important part is the technicality of seeking the actual licence. There is still time to reach agreement on a negotiated site. That is what it all amounts to.
    Sir J. Gilmour: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible opportunity.

    Battered Wives
    Mr. McElhoneasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will investigate as a matter of urgency the problem of battered wives in Scotland in general, and in Glasgow in particular.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister indicated in reply to a Question on 23rd July by my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton)—[Vol. 877, c. 1293–4]— a Select Committee is to be set up to look into the problem of violence in marriage.
    Mr. McElhone: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Does he agree that Scottish local authorities do not make provision for battered wives? Does he also agree that the situation in Glasgow is critical, with perhaps one three-apartment flat housing as many as 30 women and children? In spite of the promise of a Select Committee, will my hon. Friend urge local authorities to take urgent action on this deep and growing social problem?
    Mr. Hughes: Some local authorities do provide refuge for wives exposed to violence. Glasgow Corporation has made a start on this, but other authorities are involved.
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    Local authorities are expected to provide housing or temporary accommodation for wives and children who leave home as a result of violence. Housing does not come within my responsibility, but we shall see whether we can encourage more local authorities to look into the problem.
    Dr. M. S. Miller: Will my hon. Friend impress upon our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that there is some urgency in this matter? East Kilbride local authority makes a certain amount of provision but it is looking for a lead from the Government in what is a national problem that should receive national assistance.
    Mr. Hughes: The provision of accommodation for battered wives is the responsibility of local authorities. If my hon. Friend is referring to the appointment of a Select Committee, I must tell him that that is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council, and I shall bring this problem to his attention.
    Mr. Russell Johnston: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this is a much wider and more serious problem than many of us realise? That being so, would it not be a good thing if his Department were actively to press all local authorities to provide temporary accommodation, the shortage of which is often critical, particularly if children are involved, until the Select Committee reports?
    Mr. Hughes: I shall take every opportunity to stress to local authorities their responsibilities in this matter. But it is not the case that no investigations are being carried out. With financial assistance from my Department, Stirling University is undertaking a study into the causes of violence in marriage, and we are asking the Royal Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children to see whether there are avenues of joint research or other action that might be helpful to explore.

    Scottish Development Agency
    Mr. Gordon Wilsonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what progress is being made in the establishment of the Scottish Development Agency and whether he will make a statement on its proposed scope and powers.
    Mr. Reidasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what projection he has made of the first year's operating budget of the Scottish Development Agency.
    Mr. William Ross: I have nothing to add to my replies to the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Johnston) on 10th December.
    Mr. Wilson: Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that considerable concern has been expressed in Scotland about reported interdepartmental disagreements between the Scottish Office and the Departments of Trade and Industry in respect of the functions of the Scottish Development Agency? Is it possible for the right hon. Gentleman to assure the House that he has achieved victory if there have been disputes, and that the agency or his own office will take over the functions that have so far been exercised by the Department of Trade and Industry within Scotland, as well as the economic planning facilities that his Department presently enjoys?
    Mr. Ross: I very much welcome the hon. Member's confidence in the Labour Party's policy in respect of the Scottish Development Agency, although it is rather belated. He should not believe all that he reads in the papers, and he should be a little sceptical even about things that he says himself.
    Mr. Reid: Is the Secretary of State not aware of the growing concern in Scotland, which he has done little to allay, that the Scottish Development Agency will become little more than a powerless offshoot of the NEB? Is not the best way to allay such doubts to state clearly that the assembly will have full powers over trade, industry and development, and direct financing of North Sea oil?
    Mr. Ross: The hon. Member should cease his speculation about rumours. We shall be publishing soon a consultative document which will be available to everyone. We shall be grateful for constructive criticism from all parts of the House in respect of it.
    Mr. Sproat: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to see that whatever the document may say he will ensure that the SDA takes as one of its main functions the direction of finance to the north-east of Scotland to get the infrastructure under
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    way—it is at present behind schedule— and to relieve the excessive burden on ratepayers which has been brought about because local authorities cannot cope with the financing?
    Mr. Ross: At the moment it is not money which is required in the north-east of Scotland but a proper organisation of resources. It is no good the hon. Member's telling me about housing being needed in the north-east of Scotland today. It should have been provided three years ago, when his right hon. Friends were in office. The regeneration of Scottish industries is an immense task and that does not apply particularly to any one part of Scotland.
    Mr. Sillars: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the latest Press rumour that I read about the inter-departmental row is that he has won the battle? If that proves correct, is he aware that all of us on this side will be delighted, and some hon. Members opposite will be disappointed?
    Mr. Ross: I ask my hon. Friend to be patient. All will be revealed in due course.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Will the right hon. Gentleman assure us that what is needed in Scotland is cash to modernise old industry and create new jobs? Is this agency to become simply a vehicle, through the NEB, for an extension of public ownership which neither will create new jobs nor is wanted in Scotland?
    Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the purpose and idea of the SDA. I suggest that he reads again what we said in our manifesto about it and clears his mind.

    Police Federation
    Mr. Rifkindasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next intends to meet the Scottish Police Federation.
    Mr. Harry Ewing: My right hon. Friend met representatives of the federation as recently as 22nd November at a meeting of the Police Advisory Board for Scotland. Further meetings can be arranged as required.
    Mr. Rifkind: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the increasing demand throughout Scotland—particularly in the large

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    council estates, including Westerhailes, in my constituency—for a return to policemen on the beat? Is he aware that the main problem in resolving this matter is the pay of police officers? Will he assure us that when considering the future of police pay he will seek to ensure not only that the present members of the force are satisfied but that the award will attract a sufficient number of new recruits?
    Mr. Ewing: The hon. Member should be aware that we dealt earlier today with the question of police pay. It does no good, and reflects no credit on anyone, to try to stir up trouble in this way where none exists at the moment. If the House will permit, we shall leave police pay to the review body which has been set up with the agreement of the police organisations to deal with pay and will await its report in the spring of next year. As for the return of policemen to the beat, this matter will no doubt continue to be discussed. No doubt all views such as those expressed by the hon. Member will be considered in the discussions that follow.

    Greater Glasgow Passenger Transport Authority
    Dr. Mabonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what consideration he is giving to the extension of the designated area of the Greater Glasgow Passenger Transport Authority.
    Mr. Millan: The present designated area reflects the main pattern of commuter demand in the West of Scotland. It will be reviewed with Strathclyde Regional Council when travel to work information becomes available from the 1971 Census, in a few months' time.
    Dr. Mabon: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is considerable dissatisfaction in my constituency, and indeed all the lower reaches of the Clyde, at the present inadequate public transport system, and that we welcome his assurance that a review will be undertaken? If the Secretary of State does not, by extending the designated area, bring us within the passenger transport authority, what will be the position if Inverclyde District Council is asked to operate the bus services in that area in a similar manner?
    Mr. Millan: I should have to wait until I saw what any proposal involved. If and when it is put to me, obviously I shall consider it, but this is a matter which in any case would have to be discussed in the first instance with the Scottish Bus Group, which is responsible for bus services in the area at the moment. I am glad to say that my hon. Friend is to discuss the problems in the area with senior officials from the bus group. I think later this week.
    Miss Harvie Anderson: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that representations are already being made which require improvements beyond the designated area to make the whole operation successful? Will not he look at these areas or lead the new transport authority to look at them, so that we may have extensions which will obviate the delay now being experienced in plans which have to reach beyond the present designated area?
    Mr. Millan: Some movement has already taken place in rail services. For a general look at the matter in the region, we shall have to rely on the assessment of the new regional council. Obviously, we shall seriously consider any propositions which it puts up which involve Government action.

    Crofters (Legislation)
    Mr. Grimondasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to introduce a Crofters Bill.
    Mr. Hugh D. Brown: As he recently indicated in replies to the hon. Members for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Gray) and Argyll (Mr. MacCormick)—[Vol. 881, c. 139 and 418]—my right hon. Friend intends to introduce a Crofting Reform Bill as soon as parliamentary time can be made available.
    Mr. Grimond: In the meantime, is the hon. Gentleman confident that crofters are getting their fair share of the increased value of land in the Highlands and Islands consequent upon oil development?
    Mr. Brown: It is true that crofters whose land is acquired for development in advance of a Bill being enacted will have no statutory right to a share in the development value of their land and will be compensated on the basis of

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    their agricultural loss, unless the landlord follows my practice with my own crofting tenants and shares the development value in keeping with the spirit of the proposed legislation.

    Fishing Industry
    Mr. Douglas Hendersonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will make a statement on the future of the Scottish herring fishing industry.
    Mr. Hugh D. Brown: There are good grounds for taking a confident view of the prospects for the Scottish herring fishing industry. Herring are now more highly valued than in the past, and this is reflected in market prices. In addition, we have been successful in getting international agreements for conservation which safeguard the stocks and our current level of catch.
    Mr. Henderson: Is the Minister aware that his optimism is not shared by most of the people who actually catch herring and operate the boats? Is he aware that the quotas being introduced are seriously below the potential capability of the Scottish herring fleet and that, with the increase in costs of oil and other charges which they are encountering at present, the profitability of the fleet is declining seriously?
    Mr. Brown: Hon. Members should stop girning and greeting. If there is a lack of confidence in the herring industry, they should not add to it.
    Mr. Henderson indicated dissent.
    Mr. Brown: The hon. Member can shake his head if he likes, but the facts suggest to me that there is every reason to be confident about the future of the herring industry, although I confess that the operation of a quota system which is provided in the best interests of the industry is difficult to understand for hon. Members who do not want to understand it.
    Mr. Sproatasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what new measures he proposes to help the Scottish fishing industry in its present difficulties.
    Mr. Hugh D. Brown: We are examining a request by the Scottish Trawlers' Federation for subsidy, based on a statement of costs and earnings. Until we
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    have evaluated this I cannot say whether new measures are required.
    Mr. Sproat: I appreciate what the Minister said, but does he not accept that the combination of the increased building costs and operating costs— especially fuel costs—and lower fish prices and quota restrictions, is posing unprecedented problems to the fishing industry? Does he accept that the industry now needs proper financial support in the form of subsidy in order to protect employment in this vital activity?
    Mr. Brown: I recognise that there is a serious problem here, and so does my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture. The question of a subsidy raises complex issues going wider than the trawling sectors concerned, which is why I said that the study would take some time. We are well aware of the additional burdens that increased fuel costs have imposed upon the industry, and it is because of the evaluation that we are making that we need time to consider in what way we can best help.

    Transport (Rural Areas)
    Mr. Fairgrieveasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will take steps to alleviate the hardships being inflicted upon those living in rural areas of Scotland owing to a combination of strikes in the public sector and the increase in petrol prices.
    Mr. Millan: The bus employers have made the offer of a substantial increase and there has already been a return to work in many areas. To those still on strike against the advice of their union I repeat the appeal my right hon. Friend made on 29th November for them to return to work. The Government exercise influence over petrol prices principally through taxation and Questions on this subject are for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
    Mr. Fairgrieve: Does the Minister of State agree that during the present wave of industrial separatism in Scotland the suggestion was posed in February—and evaded in October—that only those with strong organisations behind them who take militant action get anywhere and that those who settle and keep their bargains are suckers?
    Mr. Millan: I do not agree with that at all.
    Mr. Sillars: Is my hon. Friend aware that part of the problem of low-paid people like bus drivers is that in the past when they were non-militant no one ever bothered about them or their living standards? One of the reasons that people like that are out at the present time—I am not endorsing their unofficial action against the trade union—is that their past history has clearly indicated that the only way in which they will get attention and money is to hit the street.
    Mr. Millan: I do not agree with my hon. Friend either. The union concerned has advised the strikers to return to work and I would endorse that advice.
    Mr. Younger: Does the Minister of State agree that in many rural areas there is virtually no public transport and that though the higher price of petrol may be understood elsewhere, to the people of these areas it represents a vicious extra tax on their daily budget? Will the hon. Gentleman support a scheme that I have proposed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer whereby coupons could be issued to specific priority categories in rural areas, so that people in them could buy petrol at lower prices?
    Mr. Millan: The hon. Member's last point is basically a matter for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As I think I said earlier, the principal source of support for rural bus services should be the local authorities, which are in a better position than central Government to determine the need for the services in the area. Anything that is done there in its turn attracts a central Government grant.

    Teachers' Pay
    Lord James Douglas-Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether the Houghton Committee has yet made recommendations or interim proposals; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. William Ross: As the hon. Member will recall from my statement in the House on 2nd December, the £100 lump sum payment on account recommended by the Houghton Committee on 28th
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    November was rejected by the teachers' side of the Scottish Teachers Salaries Committee. When I met the teachers' side on 6th December and urged it to accept the interim payment and call off further strike action, it refused to alter its position.
    As the Houghton Report is expected before Christmas and no payment on account can now be included in teachers' December salaries, the strike action now taking place is pointless. I hope the House will join me in condemning this further disruption to children's education, which is wholly unnecessary and unjustified.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: What contingency arrangements does the Secretary of State have in mind to ensure that schoolchildren in Scotland can sit their forthcoming public examinations?
    Mr. Ross: We are looking into this point in so far as it affects the exams which come very much later in the session, and we intend to ensure that the children are given every chance.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: In view of the serious disruption in the schools and the damage being done to the children's education, will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the moment the Houghton Report is made available the teachers' salaries committee will be reconvened to review the size of the interim payment? In view of what the Secretary of State has done today, will he reconsider his own position in his dealings with the teachers? Is he aware that his dour, unhelpful, and, at times, insulting answers to reasonable questions today provide us with a reasonable clue to the reason why all the meetings with the teachers have ended in total disaster?
    Mr. Ross: We are accustomed to the incantations from Cathcart. The hon. Gentleman is not in Mozambique now. The matter to which he referred is one of those that I discussed with the teachers last Friday. I said that we could look quickly at the possibility of a further interim payment in January. The teachers turned that down. Despite that, I assure the hon. Gentleman that we intend to waste no time once we receive the Houghton Committee's report.

    TREASON
    Mr. Fairbairnasked the Lord Advocate whether he is satisfied with the Scottish law of treason.
    The Lord Advocate (Mr. Ronald King Murray): There have been no recent trials for treason in Scotland and, accordingly, this branch of the law has not been tested for a long time. Anomalies exist in the present law of treason, which is applicable throughout the United Kingdom, and in my view there is scope for reform.
    Mr. Fairbairn: There have been no recent trials for piracy, either, but that did not prevent the offence taking place recently. Will the Minister accept that if the acts committed in Northern Ireland and in England by the IRA and others had happened in Scotland they would have been acts of treason, and will he give an assurance that if they occur in Scotland they will be treated as acts of treason and not as lesser offences?
    The Lord Advocate: I do not agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman's extravagant language, nor can I give the undertaking for which he asks.

    PRISONS
    Mr. Corrieasked the Lord Advocate how many prisons he has visited since taking office.
    The Lord Advocate: I have not visited any prisons since taking office as Lord Advocate. I have, of course, visited many prisons in the past, but they are not my responsibility as a Minister.
    Mr. Corrie: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman impress upon his right hon. Friends the need to improve pay and conditions for prison officers, in view of the good job that these officers do?
    The Lord Advocate: I agree that prison officers do a good job, but the hon. Member should not have directed that supplementary question to me. If he wants a reply to it he should table a Question to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
    Mr. Buchan: I recognise that prisons are not the responsibility of the Lord
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    Advocate, but will my right hon. and learned Friend encourage the sheriffs, the magistrates and the judges to visit prisons so that they may know something about the conditions to which they sentence people—sometimes, I think, without understanding all of the implications of those sentences?
    The Lord Advocate: Without agreeing with the latter part of the supplementary question, I certainly agree with the former part.

    GLASGOW
    Mr. Monroasked the Lord Advocate when he next intends to pay an official visit to Glasgow.
    The Lord Advocate: I have not made any arrangements to visit Glasgow on any specific date, but I do intend in the fairly near future to visit the procurator fiscal there to discuss his workload and the working conditions of his staff.
    Mr. Monro: That is good news. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman take the opportunity of going on to Dumbarton and explain what advice he gave to the Secretary of State on the indemnification of councillors who acted illegally? Does he accept the view of the Attorney-General who, when a shadow Law Officer, said that any legislation would set a dangerous precedent?
    The Lord Advocate: The hon. Member knows only too well that matters of advice given by Law Officers to other members of the Government are confidential and, therefore, that I cannot answer his question. If he wants a specific answer on any matter in connection with Dunbartonshire, no doubt he will table a Question to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

    EEC LAW OFFICERS
    Mr. Rifkindasked the Lord Advocate what contact he has had with the law officers of member States of the European Economic Community.
    The Lord Advocate: I have had contacts on two occasions since I took office. The more recent was a meeting of the

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    Council and Conference of EEC Ministers of Justice held in Brussels in November, at which I was a member of the United Kingdom delegation. Earlier, in May of this year, I attended the Ninth Conference of European Ministers of Justice, held under the auspices of the Council of Europe, at which Ministers from the other member States of the European Economic Community were present.
    Mr. Rifkind: The House will value the contact that has taken place, but will the right hon. and learned Gentleman say whether he is satisfied that the Community appreciates the problems arising from a separate Scottish legal system? Will he give an assurance that these considerations are taken fully into account in determining regulations which will affect Britain, including, of course, Scotland as part of it?
    The Lord Advocate: I can answer the hon. Member affirmatively on each branch of his question. Where I have been personally involved I have taken particular care to ensure that officials and members of the European Community are aware of the separate nature of Scottish law and Scottish legal institutions, and at official level this point has been brought home perhaps almost to the extent of boredom in Brussels.

    STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS
    Ordered,
    That the draft Apple and Pear Development Council (Amendment) Order 1974 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Edward Short.]
    Ordered,
    That the draft Housing (Amount of Approved Expense) (Scotland) Order 1974 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Edward Short.]

TRANSPLANT OF HUMAN ORGANS BILL
3.31 p.m.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to allow hospitals to take the organs, such as kidneys, of any patient, once clinical death has been established, other than those of a deceased person who has contracted out during his lifetime by registering, on a central computer, his desire not to donate organs.
This is the fifth time since 1971 that I have sought the leave of the House to introduce such a Bill, in the light of the report of the committee under Sir Hector MacLennan. Sponsors have included two former Secretaries of State for Social Services—
Mr. Russell Kerr: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Some of us are very interested in the Bill. May we have some "shush"?
Mr. Speaker: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for that suggestion. Will the House please comply?
Mr. Dalyell: The sponsors have included in the past two former Secretaries of State for Social Services—the late Dick Crossman and my noble Friend, Lord Houghton, then Mr. Douglas Houghton; seven members of the present administration, including both Ministers of State at the Department of Health and Social Security—my hon. Friends the Members for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) and Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen); and such distinguished members of the Opposition as Miss Mervyn Pike and the late Dr. Sir Malcolm Stoddart-Scott, Dr. Anthony Trafford, a renal surgeon, and—I am glad to see him here—the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane), late Undersecretary of State for the Home Department.
The Bill is prompted by the fact that 450 kidneys are transplanted in the United Kingdom each year, whereas 2,000 or more people a year need transplants. That figure does not include many young and middle-aged patients who are dying without even so much as the offer of dialysis or transplantation. For want of matching tissue, several transplantation centres have virtually

513
ceased work. I understand from Sir Michael Woodruff, a professor in Edinburgh, that there is not a single unit in the United Kingdom which is working to full capacity or anything like it.
The question arises why we are so short. The most important factor is the attitude of most members of the medical profession. One small district general hospital, where keen young medical staff have transplantation in mind, provides an average of half-a-dozen donors a year —12 kidneys. Yet many of the largest teaching hospitals, with active transplantation units, including some of the most prestigious in Britain, have provided not a single kidney for transplantation.
It is altogether too easy to blame the doctors. The argument behind the Bill is that if they saw the law in a different light, if it were altered in the direction of contracting out, doctors would be less uneasy and more willing to make organs available.
First, as things stand, a doctor or surgeon has to contact the next-of-kin at the time of maximum grief and to put this awful question "Can we have the organs of your loved one?" How many of us, if we were doctors, would have the heart to put to a shattered mother or father or a young wife such a question within minutes of their hearing, for example, of a motor smash? Yet if the question is delayed, the organ deteriorates and become less useful to someone in need. After an hour, the kidney becomes completely useless.
It is pertinent to add that four of our most distinguished renal surgeons— Barnes, Calne Hopewell and Sells—say that the poor quality of kidneys transplanted in the United Kingdom is well known on the Continent, because of the relatively high proportion of organs damaged by ischaemia, as a result of doctors waiting to obtain permission to transplant them.
In a contracting-out situation, as envisaged by the Bill, a telephone call to the computer in Bristol could determine whether a victim had willed "Do not take my organs." Delay and deterioriation could then be cut to a minimum. All transplant surgeons can cite cases where the relatives at first refused permission and then changed their minds when it was too late. The present system dis-
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courages even the most public spirited. It is distressing for the relatives and difficult for the doctors, and it stops lives being saved.
Secondly, doctors often fear that by being involved in an organ donation they might in some way be contravening the law, with its present uncertainty of interpretation. Despite the issuing of donor cards, very few kidneys have been taken from donors or potential donors carrying cards. Even the carrying of cards became less popular after their legality was questioned in the House, if he will forgive me saying so, by the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir Keith Joseph). I never had any great hope of the donor card system in the first place, for the very human reason that accidents are things that happen to other people, not to any of us, and therefore many of us forget to to carry a card, even if we have one.
Besides, doctors are understandably nervous of the contrasting attitudes among coroners. The Bill takes the view of the Inner West London Coroner, Dr. Gavin Thurston, who says that there is seldom difficulty in telling whether a body is likely to be investigated because of the possibility of murder or manslaughter. He argues that in such cases organs should not be removed, as the removal of clothing would interfere with the taking of photographs, which might constitute important evidence. However, in his experience, most cases do not fall within that category. Dr. Thurston considers that coroners could give permission for organs to be removed in the majority of accident cases, including those which lead to prosecution for causing death by dangerous driving.
Thirdly, doctors do not want to be accused of hastening the death of a potential donor. The Bill makes it clear that, before any organ could be removed, clinical death or brain death would have to be certified by two doctors, neither of whom was a member of the transplant team.
After I last introduced such a Bill in February and May, a number of colleagues on both sides of the House told me, "I could go along with the Bill, but I am not sure I could sell it to my constituents." A survey by me in West Lothian in 1969 showed that 364 people out of a thousand could go for

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contracting-out and 312 for contracting-in, with 116 against, and the balance of 208 being "Don't knows". But there seems to be a shift of opinion towards kidney donation.
In the spectacular heart operation, public opinion is concerned with the old concept of "heart and soul", which is altogether more difficult. The Bill is basically concerned with kidneys.
Determined opposition has come from only one source—the Chief Rabbi and his staff, who would go for contracting-in but are passionately opposed to contracting-out, on grounds of freedom. I do not want to make a cheap debating point to the Rabbi or the Jewish community, but the most free form of contracting-out in Western Europe is in Israel.
Perhaps here we have the example of a legislature such as our own which has rather fallen behind medical progress.
Of course the wishes of the bereaved must be respected, particularly at a time of extremely emotional strain. On the other hand, we must realise that every individual refusal could prejudice the lives and futures of two other people who are for the moment still alive but seriously ill. I suspect that the Department is over-concerned with what it thinks may be the wishes of the relatives and under-concerned with the desperate plight of families in need of kidneys.
May I briefly refer the Secretary of State to her own revealing contribution to The Sunday Times of 10th June 1973, entitled,
"Barbara Castle on Mandarin Power"
when she complains that one of her own permanent secretaries, the late Sir Andrew Cohen, would come to her seven times a day and say, "Minister, I know that the ultimate decision is yours, but I would be failing in my duty if I did not tell you how unhappy your decision makes
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me." May I ask the Secretary of State to be cautious of the pressures of Alexander Fleming House and to challenge their arguments in depth.
Let us put ourselves in the position of having a child or teenager who will die in the absence of matching tissue. Would not every one of us, as parents, be desperate to find matching tissue for a child of ours? It is for the young and middle-aged men and women and their relatives, with the prospect of useful working lives ahead of them, that I ask the Government to look sympathetically on the substance of the Bill, and the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to allow hospitals to take the organs, such as kidneys, of any patient, once clinical death has been established, other than those of a deceased person who has contracted out during his lifetime by registering, on a central computer, his desire not to donate organs: and that Mr. Tam Dalyell, Mr. Lewis Carter-Jones, Dr. John Cunningham, Mr. A. E. P. Duffy, Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody, Mr. William Hamling, Mr. Peter Hardy, Dr. Dickson Mabon, Dr. Maurice Miller, Mr. Brian Walden, Mr. Terry Walker, and Mr. Philip Whitehead do prepare and bring it in.
TRANSPLANT OF HUMAN ORGANS
Mr. Tam Dalyell accordingly presented a Bill to allow hospitals to take the organs, such as kidneys, of any patient, once clinical death has been established, other than those of a deceased person who has contracted out during his lifetime by registering, on a central computer, his desire not to donate organs: and the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 7th February and to be printed [Bill 49].

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  HOUSING RENTS AND SUBSIDIES (SCOTLAND) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question put (pursuant to Standing Order No. 67 (Public Bills relating exclusively to Scotland)), That the Bill be committed to a Scottish Standing Committee.—[Mr. Coleman.]
  Question agreed to.
  Bill (deemed to have been read a Second time) committed to a Scottish Standing Committee.

  CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
  Mr. Speaker: Before calling the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Walden) to move his motion, I should tell the House that I intend to call after him the hon. Lady the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) to move the amendment in her name and the names of her hon. Friends. That is the only amendment that I have selected.
  More than 60 right hon. and hon. Members have already told me that they want to speak. Therefore, I hope there will be a self-denying ordinance as regards both interventions and the length of speeches.
  3.43 p.m.
  Mr. Brian Walden: I beg to move,
  That this House, while recognising that political terrorism requires a reappraisal of established attitudes, is of the opinion that a re-introduction of the death penalty would neither deter terrorists nor increase the safety of the public.
  I was one of those who sought an early debate on this subject because I believe that the House of Commons should speak out clearly today and set at rest all speculation about our intentions.
  I want to set against the outrages of the terrorists and the justifiable anger and dread of our people the reasoned judgment of the House of Commons. I choose to take my opponents' arguments at their strongest. I question no man's motives. Indeed, I put it on record that I accept that those who sincerely disagree with me do so out of concern for the safety of the public, and I hope that we shall conduct our deliberations today in the finest traditions of this House— to oppose a man's opinions without questioning his motives. One of the very reasons why I think our judgment will be so crucial is that we have our high and perhaps unique privilege of being able daily to listen to opinions that we cannot endorse.
  Before I turn to capital punishment, may I refer to the earlier part of my motion and assure the House that it is not simply idle verbiage. Terrorism has changed our attitudes, and we shall have to accept further change. Already this House has substantially curtailed civil

  519
  liberties—in my view, an entirely justified decision, but undoubtedly a departure from our traditional values, and we shall have to accept without flinching the justifiable business of counter-terrorism and with good cause.
  Since I think deterrence will form a large part of our discussion today, let me give my view on that matter immediately. If I am asked what is the greatest deterrent that we can have against political terrorism, I answer thus: "why, Sir, the same deterrent as we have against any crime—the probability of apprehension. That is the greatest deterrent against criminal acts. That is why the whole House welcomes the arrests that have been made in Birmingham and in Guild-ford. The police are alleging murder against some of those remanded. It is not for us to presume judgment on the likelihood of innocence or guilt, but we are entitled to say, and I shall say it, that in my view those widespread arrests will have done more to reassure the public than any scaffold that we might build.
  I mention "scaffold" because I think of murder and capital punishment for it in terms of hanging. But let us waste no time on that. It matters not one jot whether we hang a terrorist murderer, execute him by firing squad, put him in an electric chair or give him a lethal injection. We cannot paint and varnish a judicial execution to make it appear anything other than what it is—the cold-blooded decision of the State to take a life, a wholly different matter, let me add, from killings by servants of the Crown in attempting to counter terrorism or in suppressing rebellious uprising. It is a completely different matter.
  Winston Churchill put it in context:
  "Flowers grow soon over the battlefield, but over the scaffold—never."
  I think the House should weigh those words.
  We are told that it must be done and we are given reasons. I want to examine those reasons, I hope logically and perhaps without passion and in a full understanding of the gravity of what we are here determining. I apologise for the fact that I cannot disguise the strength of my convictions, but my respect for those of others remains unabridged.
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  The first argument that we are given is that the public demand the reintroduction of the death penalty for this crime. I concede that. I think the majority of them do. Any expression of public opinion must be a matter of grave concern to this House. It must form part of our judgment—part of our judgment, not the whole. Are we a House of delegates? Some of my hon. Friends who support me today will know that never in any context have I succumbed to the constitutional heresy of seeing this House as other than what it is—a body ultimately responsible to the people but mandated by no one.
  Against the strong arguments of my hon. Friends, I have said, and will say now, that I shall never change that opinion. I shall ever hold to it. When it does, parliamentary democracy will die with it and one may make one's peace with plebiscitary democracy, that friend of tyrants and demagogues. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I hope that all my points will be so well taken by hon. Members opposite. No man should surrender what he owes most to his constituents, his judgment, simply because he fears that the expression of his convictions might prove unpopular outside this House. Our duty is to use our reason, and to use it well.
  The second argument we are given is that retribution is called for and that the only just retribution for this crime can be death. I do not know whether the Divinity exists, but if He does, retribution is certainly a matter for Him and not for us. If a word is to be used in the debased sense which has become current, then retribution is no different from revenge and there is no distinction between them This House should have no business with revenge. Bacon said that it was the foremost function of law to root out revenge —the more so because men are inclined to it when faced by atrocity or terror. I believe that to be true. The business of this House is justice, and justice is that punishment for the guilty that best preserves the lives and the values of the innocent.
  The third argument that we are given is that we are not asked to discard our conscientious convictions; we are asked merely to bend them a little. It is not to be capital punishment for all murder but only capital punishment for murder in furtherance of a terrorist act. I do not find

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  it either surprising or reprehensible that men should seek to draw moral distinctions between different kinds of murder, but I must remind the House that every attempt to give legislative effect to that distinction has proved an abject failure. If we do it, we riddle ourselves with anomaly and legal absurdities. We would in all cases, but especially in this one. Think what would be involved.
  A woman who hands explosives to a man knowing that those explosives are to be used to commit an act of murder may hang, but a man who commits multiple murder in furtherance of rape will not hang. How long do we think public opinion would be at ease with the moral standards implied in that judgment? In this case, it is doubly absurd, because I think that it is universally conceded that no man should suffer capital punishment without the benefit of trial by jury, which, as we are now situated, would produce the absurd situation that the terrorist murderer would hang in Great Britain but would not hang in Ulster.
  I am told that this is a detail, that we could get round it and bring back trial by jury in Ulster—a fine disregard for the reasons why it was abolished in the first place. I wish hon. Members joy of all the jurors they could empanel in Ulster who would convict a man on a capital charge.
  I am told that there must be some other legislative way around it, or that, if the worst came to the worst, the man could be tried in front of military tribunals. When we get to that point, wise men will ponder the path down which they are being asked to walk.
  Then we come to the very heart of the case for those who wish to reintroduce capital punishment, the claim that it will deter terrorist murderers. I should have thought that the whole of human history stood in disproof of that contention. But let us just consider the particular case of the IRA. Does anybody suppose that the self-appointed chiefs of staff of the Provisional IRA, men careful never the expose themselves to apprehension, are going to be deterred by the possibility that we might execute their convicted followers? Death is their business. It is from the ghastly images of death that they draw their inspiration. It is the abiding characteristic of fanatical men that they can take no joy nor any
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  consolation from that which exists. Destruction does not perturb them.
  We have seen it before, have we not? We solemnly shot the leaders of the 1916 Easter rebellion. I do not know whether that was just retribution or not, but much good it did us. It saved not a life, and it cost thousands. A population which had previously had no use for Sinn Fein was converted to it. That was the consequence of what we did then. Would it be different now? Can we never learn? Do we really want yet again to give birth to some of Yeats' "terrible beauty"? Is that the best judgment that the House of Commons can make on the difficulties that currently confront us?
  It would not only be the fact that the Provisional IRA would treat anybody we executed, especially if it were a 20-year-old girl, say, as another martyr for all Ireland, another source of fable and legend and stirring of ancient rancour. It is not simply that. However distasteful it may be, the House must consider the hostage issue. I say that it is distasteful because, naturally, neither I nor any other hon. Member wants to discuss the hostage issue in such a way as might lead the IRA or anyone else to suppose that the processes of justice in this country can be coerced by the taking of hostages. But we cannot avoid the issue.
  Some hon. Members will have seen the quite disgraceful interview which has been given by O'Connell in Bonn today, in which he threatens that for every convicted IRA terrorist we hang the IRA will take and hang two British soldiers. It might be said that they will take hostages anyway, and so they might. I will give my view on that. It is a considered one, and one which I give with grief and with conviction. I would release no murderer to save any hostage. I think that that has to be done and that we should give no encouragement to them to suppose otherwise. But we should not deceive ourselves that they will not do it. They will do it.
  Better people than these scum have done it. After the war we executed some Jewish terrorists. The Irgun Zvei Leumi took three British sergeants and hanged them as a direct reprisal. That appalled the then Israeli leaders. Ben Gurion was shocked. There are probably no other people in the world with

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  a greater moral concern for the preservation of life than the Jewish people. But some Jews were prepared to do that. Why? Because ritual execution plays into the hands of terrorists. It is a game that they understand. They will always "up the ante" on it. It gives them everything they desire—martyrs, publicity and a greater degree of approval within their community, without which they cannot effectively work.
  That is my answer to the case which forms the heart of the conclusion that we should restore capital punishment. I think that we should not. In an earlier speech to this House I said that we may have to choose between victory or vengeance. I had just such an occasion as this in mind. The price that we would pay for reintroducing capital punishment is unacceptable in terms of life and law. It would even destroy the Royal Prerogative of mercy. Does anyone suppose that this House can now reintroduce capital punishment for terrorist murder and then have the Secretary of State, not this Secretary of State but any Secretary of State, reprieving all the murderers? Fine nonsense that would be.
  The Secretary of State would be under compulsion in effect to allow the execution to go through. That is another fact we would have to face. We must face hard reality. We must brace ourselves to defeat the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and there is no short cut to so doing. We must endure and we must entreat others to endure. We must not do things that will give some transient popular gratification but will carry afterwards, very probably, a terrible price for us to bear on our consciences as legislators.
  All hon. Members will do their duty. Those who choose to do it with me can know that I respect all views. Those who come into the Lobby with me can have my assurance, after careful consideration of all the great pressures that have come from my constituency and my own town, that they will be prizing principle above popularity, they will be putting sense and reason above passion, they will be acting in the interests we all seek to serve— the interests of victory. But it is a victory not purchased at an unacceptable price, a victory not simply for our policies but
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  a victory for our values, without which those policies are meaningless.
  4.4 p.m.
  Mrs. Jill Knight: I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  is of the opinion that death should be the penalty tor acts of terrorism causing death and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to introduce at an early date legislation to enable Parliament to give effect to that opinion.
  Today we are discussing the death penalty—not hanging—for terrorist killings and not for other matters. My hon. Friends and I who support this amendment believe that there is a crucial difference between murder by individuals of individuals for private motives and murder by an equipped and organised army acting against the State in the person of any luckless civilian who happens by chance to be in any given spot on any given day. These are not ordinary killers and we cannot treat them as such. They have declared war on our country and they plan and carry out indiscriminate murder on totally innocent, harmless, law-abiding and unarmed people.
  Everyone in this land is a possible target solely because we stand on British soil. These are not ordinary killers and they cannot be dealt with in the ordinary way. A prison sentence will not deter these men. To them appeasement reads surrender. To them only fools and the vanquished use kid gloves. Their aim is to defeat Britain, and unless we stiffen our resolve they will succeed.
  The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Walden) spoke of the demand for the death penalty as being merely a demand for vengeance. I must tell him with all the sincerity at my command that neither I nor any of my hon. Friends are interested in vengeance. We are urging the House to enact the death penalty for terrorist murders because we are convinced that it will deter and will save the lives of innocent people. If I were not utterly convinced that the threat of death would stay the hands of the IRA, I would not urge it.
  I have no wish to kill anyone. But I have a duty, as we all have in this place, to act in such a way as will protect our people. Indeed, the first duty of any Government is to protect the

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  citizens of a country. While teenagers can be blown to bits over an evening pint, we must face the fact that Parliament is failing in its duty. Does the threat of death deter? The hon. Member thinks that it does not. I must tell him that the IRA thinks that it is a deterrent. It uses it contantly on its members to ensure that those members do not step out of line.
  I am told by Army personnel and residents of Ulster that the fear of death daily deters IRA members there from directly attacking the soldiers, which they could do if they were not deterred by the thought of death. Instead they make booby traps and disappear well out of the way. They make their frontal attacks all right, but upon unarmed civilians at their own front doors. They ring the bell and when a person comes they shoot him—a totally unarmed man. Fear of death stops the IRA from attacking armed men.
  The hon. Member for Ladywood went back to 1916. I will go back to 1922 and remind him that after the treaty of that year some men broke away from the Sinn Fein and formed the Provisional IRA. They killed wholesale, partly to settle old scores, partly for other reasons. Murder became commonplace. This is all in the history books. The Dublin Government of the day was loath to hang the convicted killers and the situation became desperate. Many murderers were imprisoned but the killings showed no sign of abating.
  Finally, the Government steeled their will and ordered the death penalty to be carried out. In one morning 77 executions took place in Dublin Castle—
  Mr. Leo Abse: And what happened?
  Mrs. Knight: What happened was that the rebellion collapsed overnight and the murders stopped.—[Interruption.] Hon. Members should at least listen. The fact that they do not like what I say is no excuse for not listening. May I remind them of what happened in Coventry in the thirties when a bomb went off and two or three people were killed. The bomber was caught and hanged. There were no more bombs.
  Mr. Stanley Newens: What about 1974?
  Mrs. Knight: Life is precious, even to a terrorist. I will concede that probably there are some terrorists who are prepared to die for their cause. But the dupe and the mercenary, the bully, the immature, the unstable and the neurotic—all of whom are presently drawn into the IRA net—would be deterred if they knew that they faced the death penalty. These men frequently act as killers. The paranoid fanatic who would not be deterred is a rare bird. He is the hard core of the local or national organisation. He is not often the man who goes out on the streets to kill. He sends others to do that job. Neither prison nor shot will deter him, but I believe that many innocent lives would be saved if we could deter the others.
  How much does the threat of imprisonment deter? The hon. Member for Ladywood said that the deterrent was in the question whether these killers were caught. But may we not go a step further and ask what is to happen when they are caught? If it is imprisonment, does imprisonment deter? The IRA killers may be sentenced to 20 or 30 years in prison, but they are well aware that as political prisoners they will probably be released under an amnesty long before that time is up. I am told that most of them reckon on two or three years inside at the most.
  I do not believe that the threat of imprisonment deters these people in the slightest. To be a guest of Her Majesty is not altogether unpleasant these days. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] We are talking about deterrence, and hon. Members opposite had better take this matter seriously, because the country does. It is said that innocent people may be taken as hostages and shot to force the authorities to release a convicted killer who faces death. Much play was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Oxon (Mr. Hurd) in a newspaper this morning about the case of Leila Khaled who was released because an airliner had been hijacked in Jordan and the passengers had been threatened with death unless the authorities let her go.
  That situation could arise again; I concede that. But it could arise far

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  more often and over a far longer period if the killer were merely imprisoned instead of being executed. The phenomenon of hostages being taken in batches and shot until prisoners are released is becoming quite common. It happens in the Middle East and elsewhere and I have no doubt that it will spread to this country if more and more murderers are given prison sentences.
  Juries in Northern Ireland are frightened, and have been frightened for a long time, of convicting anybody. What an appalling indictment it is on our Government that juries should be afraid to speak the truth in court. Is it right that, because juries are frightened, we should concede that we shall never put them in the position of having to decide whether to convict a man? The hon. Member for Ladywood said that it had been reported on the tapes this morning that an IRA man had stated that for every IRA killer executed two soldiers would be strung up. Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that we should give in to threats like that? When we give in to threats by the IRA, or any other bully or terrorist, we concede that they have won, and that I shall never do.
  On the question of court procedure, I believe that as a country at war we cannot countenance the long-drawn out process of intervals between arrest and trial, between trial and appeal, between appeal and decision, and between decision and execution. The course of justice, like the mills of God, grinds slowly in an ordinary situation and against ordinary killers. But the people we are discussing are not ordinary killers. Neither their acts nor our circumstances are ordinary. It is therefore essential that we should take extraordinary measures against them.
  I do not think that the method of execution should be hanging. I do not advocate the use of the gallows. There are many other ways of executing people. But these are not the major points for us to discuss now. When people talk as if we are discussing simply hanging, they are wrong. We are talking about the execution of enemies by a country at war.
  We must also consider the people's view. An overwhelming number of people want Parliament to tell our enemies loud and clear that they will die if they kill.
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  If a referendum were taken now or in six months' time on this issue, the vote would be in favour of the death penalty. [HON. MEMBERS: "So what?"] Hon. Members say, "So what?". I remind them that they belong to a party which says that we should have a referendum on the question of our membership of the Common Market. If I understood the hon. Member for Ladywood correctly, he has told his Front Bench that there is no point in having a referendum because we should not work like that and we should not govern in that way. I hope that the Government will listen, but I doubt it.
  I have received over 8,000 letters and signatures from people all over the United Kingdom who demand the death penalty for terrorist killings. One hundred and fifteen people have written to me expressing the opposite view. Very few of the 8,000 want vengeance. Some want justice, but that it not quite the same thing. However, not one of the 115 people has suggested an alternative deterrent. What worried me about the speech of the hon. Member for Ladywood was that he never suggested an effective deterrent. [HON. MEMBERS: "He did."] I suggest that hon. Gentlemen opposite read the hon. Member's speech tomorrow. It is fair to say that there is an overwhelming demand in the country, not merely for apprehension and two years' imprisonment but for execution of these killers.
  Do we care what the public want, or are we convinced that our judgment is superior, that our rectitude sets us above the common herd and that the people's voice does not matter? I remind the House that this country is supposed to be a democracy. We are supposed to care what people say. It is true that the electors send us here to make up our minds on the evidence available, but it would be a foolish Member who thumbed his nose at what his constituents and the country thought.
  It is important to warn the House that if the people lose faith in the protection which authority gives them they are likely to take the law into their own hands. The people of Ulster looked to their Government to protect them. When, after two or three years, they felt that their own Government did not sufficiently do that, they mounted their own campaign, which was an appalling disaster.

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  Any action of that sort is bound to make the situation worse. We must not provoke the people by failing them, by ignoring them or by treating their killers with tolerance and softness, not least for for the sake of the innocent Irish people who are already well aware, from experience in Birmingham, that they will be the first to suffer if there is a backlash.
  I am not being alarmist. There was a backlash after the Birmingham massacre and it was held in check because people realised that new measures were being taken by the Home Secretary to protect them. Now they are not so sure. They want to know why the Birmingham bombers were not charged with treason, for which the punishment is death. It seems probable that they were guilty of treason—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] They have been apprehended, and it seems very likely; that is all I say. It is astonishing that hon. Members opposite have so little faith in the police that they believe that they have got the wrong men. Was the charge of treason not made because the Home Secretary knew that the prescribed punishment would be death? If so, he was re-writing the laws of England to suit his own views.
  Mr. Speaker: Order, I should prefer the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) not to deal with a specific case now before the courts.
  Mrs. Knight: A heavy duty lies on our shoulders tonight. The House has a basic duty, which we cannot avoid, to tell the people that their Parliament intends to protect them. I believe we can most effectively do so by passing the amendment. The onus is on those who take the opposite view to prove to the people that some other step to protect them is to be taken. If so, what is that step? The status quo, as with patriotism, is not enough.
  I draw the attention of the House to the fact that the duty of hon. Members is clear. The people wish to know that their Parliament will protect them.
  4.21 p.m.
  Mr. Alf Bates (Bebington and Ellesmere Port): I believe that it is right that the House should today be debating this matter. It is important that we should be seen to be discussing matters which are of grave concern to the people.
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  I do not wish to go into the general questions surrounding capital punishment because we find ourselves in a new and difficult situation. In that situation, those of us who are opposed to the use of capital punishment face a special danger, which is that we shall be labelled as friends of the IRA. Nothing could be further from the truth. My attitude on this matter springs from a desire to save lives and to see that brutal organisation firmly beaten.
  I hope that it will not be suggested in the House that those hon. Members who oppose the death penalty are in any way less hostile to the terrorists or less revolted by their senseless acts of violence, because these murdering Fascists are the sort of people whose political philosophy I most detest and whose monstrous acts fill me with a deep sense of revulsion.
  However, the House has a duty not just to react to an emotion. It must also consider very clearly the consequences of its actions. It must consider whether we might not be provoking further violence.
  It may be said that it is right and fitting that death should be the only punishment for these bombers. I cannot accept that. We must ask ourselves: what is the purpose of the punishment? Surely it cannot be argued that the death penalty would be a deterrent. There is no evidence that hanging ever was a deterrent. However, we are now all agreed that these deplorable acts are committed by fanatical terrorists, who are least likely to be deterred by the threat of death because they accept the threat of death every time they plant one of their own bombs. We know that that is true of Ireland. No one could suggest that Ulster was a peaceful place before the death penalty was removed last year. When the hon. Lady the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) suggests that the IRA believes in the death penalty because it uses it constantly as a threat against its own members, if it uses it constantly, it is clear that it does not work. If it will not deter the hardened terrorist, will it deter those on the fringe? I suspect that the opposite is the case.
  The bombings have been greeted with horror and disgust by the British people.

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  The IRA finds no acceptance amongst the Irish community in England, but, as has happened at other times, the likelihood is that a single hanging of a member of the IRA will produce more members of the IRA in this country than any recruiting campaign that the IRA could possibly mount. I suspect that we would have to face the horrible responsibility of having switched the IRA to the use of younger bombers, below the age at which they could possibly hang.
  If the argument is not about hanging being a deterrent if it will not deter the bombers and reduce the bombings, exactly what is it? I can understand the emotions aroused in this case. However, the House must face the consequences of its action. We must face the possibility of hostages being taken and of counter-reprisals. As soon as a terrorist was arrested for a capital offence, the position of the police and of the security forces would be intolerable. If the terrorist was convicted, the Home Secretary would be in an impossible position. If the terrorist was executed, the public would be in danger of a wave of bombing the like of which we have not yet seen. Knowing whom we are up against, we must face that possibility. We shall set for ourselves a fearful trap of violence.
  The feelings of many people are understandable, but hon. Members, who have to take a decision tonight, must be ready to accept the consequences of that decision. We must be very confident that we are right before we decide to hang a man. It may well be said, and has been said, that these possibilities should not enter into our consideration, and that we should do what we consider to be right, irrespective of the consequence. I do not believe that bringing back the death penalty would be right. It would not deter and it would not reduce the bombings.
  Right or wrong, surely we must consider the consequences of our actions. We cannot blindly take a decision which might provoke a great deal of further violence. That would be foolish and irresponsible. The prime responsibility of the Government is for the lives of their citizens. That is what we are talking about. We are not engaged in an academic argument which may seem plausible in theory and yet disastrous in
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  practice. In my view, the possible consequences must be taken into account.
  The argument I put forward is simple. I do not believe that there is any evidence that capital punishment is a deterrent, and it is least likely to be so in the case of terrorists. Indeed, its reintroduction would lead to a greater use of violence and would strengthen the IRA. It is precisely because I am revolted by the acts of violence which have taken place that I hope the House will reject the moves to bring back the death penalty.
  4.29 p.m.
  Sir Keith Joseph: I rise at this stage in the debate because I wish to express my personal opinions. I emphasise that I do not speak for the Opposition. In fact, what I conclude will probably be different from the conclusions of many of my right hon. and hon. Friends. I am speaking personally.
  I think that what I shall say next will be generally welcomed. The House has been fortunate in the opening speeches. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Lady-wood (Mr. Walden) did that which is most difficult. He lived up to his own standards. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) put her points of view crisply and in a restrained way which will have met with a response on both sides of the House and in many parts of the country.
  The whole House will also agree with what the hon. Member for Ladywood said, that we should congratulate the police and the Special Branch on their apparent success in identifying people who merit charges. We must hope that they continue to be successful. The hon. Member for Ladywood was right in saying that the arrests in themselves will do more to reassure the public than whatever the result of today's debate may be. He was right to assert that, whatever the result of this debate, the safety of the public will depend more than anything else on the slog of counter-terrorism.
  We all recognise that there is no difference between any of us in abomination of terrorism and that in most cases there is no difference between any of us in determination to win.
  I have been against capital punishment for murder because most murders are unpremeditated, and that is still my

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  position. So far it has not proved practicable to devise a workable distinction between the premeditated and the unpremeditated civil murder. But in my view terrorism is quite different, and I ask the hon. Member for Bebington and Ellesmere Port (Mr. Bates), who made a very sincere speech, to recognise that in terrorism there is no question of impulse. Every action is premeditated. Terrorists equip themselves to kill.
  For today, therefore, my abolitionist views do not apply. Nor is there any question of how an execution should be carried out, whether it be hanging, shooting or whatever it may be. That is not the issue. The issue today is whether capital punishment for terrorism is in the public interest.
  It is common ground that the first duty of the State is to protect life. We have struggled to do so. Successive Governments have struggled to do so in Ulster. The IRA seeks not just to unite Eire and Ulster but to impose its own dictatorship on a united Ireland.
  The IRA has failed at the ballot box, humiliatingly, north and south of the border. It has imposed terrorism on Ulster. Now we face a new situation— terrorism in England on an increasing scale which is no result of any escalation of ours. The intensification comes partly perhaps from the stalemate position in Ulster and partly perhaps from the sense that there are divisions among us to be exploited.
  War has been declared upon us in Ulster and here. We must win. The alternative is to lose and to expose our people to greater horrors. War has been declared upon us by Urban terrorism, and the essence of that is that we are not free to make war back. It is a one-sided war against the British people with the aim of changing British policy as a step towards dictatorship over all Ireland. We shall win only if there is intense political and security action against the IRA in the United Kingdom and on both sides of the border.
  The issue will be decided by will power. The IRA has the will to win. Successive Governments here also have had, and have, within the constraints which they have seen as necessary, the will to win. But the will now has to be
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  exercised in the new circumstances of terror in England.
  The legitimate reaction to murder by terrorism is that the life of the terrorist should be forfeit. Only then can the State assert its resolve to defeat terrorism and its determination to protect its subjects.
  Against this proposition several arguments are put. It is said that urban terrorists aim to provoke over-reaction to win sympathy. It is said that we should be over-reacting since no other country applies the death penalty to terrorists. That is not precisely true. But no other European country has had to endure in its homeland so sustained a campaign as we have had to endure from the IRA.
  It is said that capital punishment will be welcomed by the IRA as likely to make martyrs for it. The IRA is in business to persuade. It will make propaganda whatever we do. Perhaps capital punishment will make some martyrs. But it is also said often by the same arguers —and with all his sincerity the hon. Member for Bebington and Ellesmere Port was guilty of this contradiction—that, far from seeking martyrdom, the IRA would use juveniles to escape the death penalty. Further, it is said that to save an IRA member from execution the IRA would take hostages. These arguments may have validity, but they weaken the proposition that the death penalty will be welcomed by the IRA as manufacturing martyrs.
  The real issue surely must be whether there is any reason to justify the State's not seeking to protect its citizens by using the ultimate sanction against terrorists.
  There are three reasons given. The first is that capital punishment would not be a deterrent. We cannot know for sure. But is not it probable, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston said, that capital punishment will deter some people? It cannot but be a greater deterrent than that which exists now.
  Prison is no deterrent in the current situation, here or in Ulster. The IRA is convinced that there will be an amnesty and a political bargain. The other day the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland announced firmly that there would not be, and the whole House believes him. There is no question of any disbelief in this House. But I doubt whether

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  the IRA believes him. [An HON. MEMBER: "It will now."] I hope that it will. But the fact is that it hopes for a political bargain.
  It may be that death will not deter all terrorists, but it will deter some, and it will demonstrate the essential determination to win in a way which cannot be achieved otherwise in the constraints operating upon us. A deterrent is necessary. An assertion of determination is necessary.
  The second objection is that capital punishment would lead to reprisals. The hon. Member for Ladywood said very properly that outrages, whether reprisals or not, would occur whatever we did— I would add, while the IRA retains the will to win.
  The hon. Member for Ladywood went on to take a very proper attitude about hostages. They can and may be used whether or not we have capital punishment. But the examples of countries which do not have capital punishment show that hostages are used to get people out of prison. The fact is that the IRA will erupt against any deterrent, be it capital punishment or effective prison.
  What this House has to consider is what the result will be if we continue without an effective deterrent. Will not the IRA feel encouraged to continue its outrages with impunity? In my view, colleagues today should not shrink from the only conceivable deterrent on the ground that it might provoke the terrorists to reprisals.
  Who can tell which process will involve the larger number of victims? I repeat, who can tell which process—possible reprisals due to capital punishment, or possible outrages due to a demonstration that we flinch from deciding on capital punishment—will involve the larger number of victims?
  Many right hon. and hon. Members think that capital punishment will lead to more horror than now. They may think that I underestimate the extent of reprisals. I may think that they underestimate the repercussions of appearing to be intimidated. We all seek the public good.
  I come now to the third and biggest objection to capital punishment. Can it be applied to Ulster? The security decision is for the Government. But, to me,
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  the absence of juries makes the death penalty in Ulster unacceptable in present circumstances. Therefore, those who agree with me approach a very difficult dilemma: can we apply capital punishment to Great Britain and not to Ulster? If the answer is "Yes", right hon. and hon. Members who see the unity of the application of law to the United Kingdom as almost paramount will have another objection. But let them observe that there is jury trial in Great Britain and not in Ulster. Let them observe that there are emergency powers in Ulster and not in Great Britain. I think that we can, and should, differentiate.
  I come, finally, to the question of public opinion. I agree with the hon. Member for Ladywood that we are not mandated. We must use our own judgment. It may well be that, though the majority of the public apparently want capital punishment for terrorism, they do not realise the full implications.
  The hon. Member for Ladywood spoke of those who happen to agree with me as erecting principle above popularity. I do not believe that the road that I believe is correct would be a popular road in the long run. I believe that the pressures at work upon the Government of the day might swing public opinion from time to time. The public do not realise what those pressures might be and do not even realise how the sympathy of the public can move in favour of an individual person convicted months and months after the horrible event.
  The duty of all of us is to warn the public that there will probably be outrages, anyway, whether or not there is capital punishment and perhaps a special turbulence if capital punishment is used. If the public will the end, they should understand the road to the end. I believe that the public can be convinced that there will be fewer horrors if we take this step than if we do not. That is the act of judgment that we must make.
  These, then, are my personal views. I have a very high respect for the Home Secretary and, before carrying my views to a vote, I shall listen very carefully to what he says, because it may be that there will be arguments which totally defeat what I believe at present. However, at this moment, I am on balance in favour of bringing back capital punishment for terrorism in Great Britain.

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  However, the amendment does not confine capital punishment to Great Britain, for it does not except Ulster. There is no way in which anyone who has my opinion can tonight vote for what he thinks right; namely, the reintroduction of capital punishment—or, rather, the introduction of legislation which we then consider for capital punishment—in Great Britain but not in Ulster.
  Nevertheless, because the logic of my conclusions leads me towards the amendment, I shall vote for it tonight, subject to what the Home Secretary says and subject also to the condition that I would not vote for a Bill that included under present conditions in the reintroduction of capital punishment no exception as to Ulster.
  In my view, we are not properly asserting our will to defend the lives of the people unless we vote in the general direction indicated by the amendment. Unless we show this resolve to win, we shall have our policies changed first by the IRA and then, perhaps, by other terrorists.
  4.42 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Stewart: The right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) developed in part of his speech an argument he had put before the House earlier; namely, that whatever we might personally think on the question of capital punishment, we ought at least to take into account the deep feeling in the country, that we ought to give it proper weight, that we had to avoid the suggestion that the House was lacking in purpose and in firmness, and that if we did give the impression that the House was lacking in firmness and purpose, this would have a bad effect on the situation.
  Then came the end of the right hon. Gentleman's speech. I put this proposition to the right hon. Gentleman and to the House. Suppose things were to go as the right hon. Gentleman wants. Suppose it were to go out from the House that we had voted for the restoration of capital punishment for terrorism in every part of the United Kingdom except Northern Ireland. What on earth would public opinion make of that? What view about our firmness of purpose would arise if that were decided?
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  The hon. Lady the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight), who moved the amendment, prayed in aid the executions carried out by the Irish Free State Government, as they then were, against those of Sinn Fein who were attempting by killing and violence to turn the Irish Free State into an independent republic. The issue between the two parties was whether Ireland was in future to be the Irish Free State as defined by the treaty and subsequent Act of Parliament or was to be an independent Irish republic.
  From the moment those executions were carried out, the cause of the Free State was irretrievably lost. The Irish Free State Government on that occasion made the very error to which my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Walden) referred. They chose vengeance, and they lost victory.
  The motion asks the House to recognise that we need to reappraise our traditional attitudes in view of terrorism. My hon. Friend pointed out that we did that very seriously when we passed the Prevention of Terrorism Act. I think that the important thing about that Act was that the measures taken in it were relevant to the problem we had to deal with, and this is something that the House must lay hold of firmly.
  We should make a very great error if we were to approach this with an attitude of mind which said, "We must do something striking and spectacular to reassure public opinion without inquiring too closely whether it will deal with the problem of terrorism."I believe that the merit of the Prevention of Terrorism Act was that it was relevant. What is at issue between us today is whether the restoration of the death penalty for terrorism would be relevant to the problem of defeating terrorism.
  The figures of homicide in this country since the death penalty was abolished can be tossed to and fro, but I think that this can be asserted definitely. Nobody can now on the basis of evidence demonstrate that for what one might call ordinary homicide the death penalty is a necessary deterrent. If we are to approve the amendment tonight, therefore, it must be shown that there are reasons why the death penalty, which plainly we do not need for what I have called ordinary homicide, should be

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  necessary or should be more appropriate or effective in the case of terrorism.
  I shall hope to advance briefly some arguments why in the case of terrorism not only is the death penalty less likely to be effective than in the case of ordinary homicide but it will increase the public danger. What must be noticed, first, is the nature of the motive that drives a man to commit an act of terrorism.
  I think it is just arguable that people who engage in the cold-blooded planning of robbery and murder for gain—a crime which is done by people who are moved by an ordinary human motive to want to be better off but who allow that motive to pervert them into evil courses of action—may stop and think and weigh up the penalty, but the terrorist who believes, horribly enough, that he is serving a cause is much less likely to be deterred.
  Let me make it clear that I do not regard the fact that the terrorist regards himself as serving a cause as in any sense a palliation of what he does. It is not sufficient for a human being to say, "I am sincere. I am acting according to my lights." If the light that be in him is darkness, how great is that darkness. The person who kills for a cause is more evil but—this is our problem—he is less likely to be deterred.
  Nor do I think that we can ignore as a second argument what I would call the dreadful attraction of the gallows for those who perpetrate acts of terrorism. Execution can turn what was a disgusting, sordid act into something which, over the years, will be regarded as a piece of heroism. There are plenty of examples in history of crimes which when committed were disgusting and contemptible but over which a glamour has been thrown by the fact that the criminal was subsequently judicially put to death. That is particularly true of a terrorist crime. I believe, for the two reasons I have advanced, that it is less likely that a terrorist will be deterred by the death penalty than an ordinary murderer would be.
  There is another practical argument that we should not ignore. Those who have experience in combating terrorism will say that one valuable weapon lies
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  in bringing about some cleavage of policy among the terrorists and moving some to act as informers against the rest. We have reason to believe that something of this nature is already happening, and it is of value to the police in dealing with recent outrages.
  Mr. A. J. Beith: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, particularly in the Northern Irish situation, the confidential telephone device has encouraged people to inform on quite close friends and relatives in a way which they would not do if people were being sent to the gallows?
  Mr. Stewart: The hon. Gentleman has completed the argument which I was about to advance to the House. I was arguing that encouragement to give information plays a valuable part in combating terrorism, and I was inviting the House to consider whether if we were to introduce the death penalty specifically for terrorism we would be likely to get more information or less. We must approach the problem on this sober and practical level.
  We cannot deny the force of the argument advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington and Ellesmere Port (Mr. Bates)—an argument which was quoted but not refuted by the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East— namely, that it is an obvious invitation to those who plan terrorism to get the acts carried out by people who are under age.
  Let us get one point clear. Whether or not people are deterred by the death penalty for terrorism, it is clear that people who cold-bloodedly plan terrorist activities do not want to lose any more of their men than they need. If they know that the penalty is death, they will react by saying, "Let us use in committing these acts people on whom the death penalty cannot be imposed." I do not know whether the hon. Lady for Birmingham, Edgbaston would regard as what she called a "Committee point" whether we should make the death penalty for terrorists inflictable on persons of all ages. If she is not to do that, she should consider the point which I have mentioned.
  I should like to add to my general argument one consideration based on experience. Among all the letters which

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  appeared in the Press on this topic—and there have been many—one letter has been given less attention than it deserves. The letter appeared in The Guardian from a soldier who had served in Cyprus at a time when the death penalty existed for terrorism. He was a man who had the strongest possible interest in an effective policy against terrorism. His verdict clearly was that the existence of the death penalty did not reduce terrorism. Therefore, anybody who is thinking of voting tonight in favour of the amendment should weigh this piece of practical experience from a man who was overwhelmingly in a position to know and who had the strongest possible motive in trying to reach a rational and right conclusion.
  Sir Frederic Bennett: I would not have dreamt of intervening in the right hon. Gentleman's speech had he not mentioned Cyprus. Since he has mentioned Cyprus, I think it right to recall the name of Colonel Sampson, who was reprieved, and who has since been guilty of further crimes of a terrorist nature at the cost of a lot more innocent lives.
  Mr. Stewart: That may be an argument against premature release. It is not an argument for the death penalty, which is what we are talking about at present.
  I wish to conclude by mentioning one or two of the arguments which have been advanced by those who would like to see the amendment carried. One argument takes the form, "Well, if you catch a terrorist and hang him, whether you deter others or not you have at any rate stopped him from committing any more acts of terrorism". But surely this is a hydra-headed monster. Do not let us imagine that because we have caught one and killed him that will reduce the number of people coming forward ready to commit such acts in future. For reasons which I have already advanced, it is at the very least equally probable that the fact that the man has been killed will exalt the dreadful profession of terrorism from the disgusting thing it is into an occupation which men might feel that it was honourable to perform.
  A further argument used is that terrorism is a crime of such gravity that the heaviest possible penalty ought to be imposed. I do not regard this as very
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  much more than a civilised version of the mere argument of vengeance. I do not believe that the question how wicked any one of us may be is ultimately for a human tribunal to decide. Human beings generally get things wrong when we start working ourselves up over the question of how wicked we all are. We should do much better to apply ourselves to the problem which is properly within human judgment and duty: how dangerous are these activities and what action is most likely, on the grounds of practicality and common sense, to bring these activities to an end?
  I would counsel the House against the argument that because the crime itself is so wicked the punishment must be proportionate. We are not concerned —and in the last resort it is not our human concern—with exactly how wicked any man is. We are concerned with how dangerous he is and what we best can do for the protection of our fellow citizens.
  Finally, there is the argument, "Whatever we may feel, even if we feel that the re-introduction of the death penalty will not help, none the less is it wise to become too divorced from public opinion?" That argument is not much better than a dressed-up version of the argument that we should all turn ourselves into delegates. I do not think it could be argued—deep as no doubt are the feelings in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Ladywood and indeed in the surrounding constituencies—that there is any feeling on the lines, "If Parliament will not hang, we will lynch." If public opinion had reached that point—and I am not sure that it would be decisive for us—it would face us with a grave dilemma, but I do not think it can be contended that public opinion has reached that point or is ever likely to reach it.
  Mr. Andrew Faulds: I had not meant to intervene in an excellent speech which is moving me to reconsider my present state of mind that I must support the amendment. It is an extremely effective speech in convincing people like me who are wavering, but my right hon. Friend is wrong if he thinks that there are not people whom we represent—not the business men in Birmingham whom the Tories represent but the workers whom we represent, people

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  on the shop floor in Birmingham—who are talking in exactly those terms—[An hon. MEMBER: "Rubbish."] My experience—and I can talk only of my constituency of Warley, East—is that there are many who are making this exact point. If we do not go to meet public opinion on this matter I dread what may happen after another bomb incident in Birmingham if some people decide to take their own measures. The House must consider this factor.
  Mr. Stewart: We all know that what any of us—electors, Members of Parliament, whoever we are—sometimes say as the immediate reaction to a terrible thing is not always an exact indicator of what we would do. I should not dream of passing judgment on any passionate or vindictive statement made in the areas where these activities have taken place. I am saying that Parliament is not in a position where, if it does not reintroduce the death penalty, it will have it use the armed forces of the State to prevent lynchings. If my hon. Friend thinks that over and consults those of his hon. Friends who have had similar experiences and may not have reached the same conclusion, he will see the validity of the point that I am making.
  It seems to me that for a Member of Parliament to say, "I personally do not think that this is right, but I feel that I must refer to deeply held public oinion", is contemptuous towards the public. It is one thing to say to one's constituents "I have listened carefully and I disagree" —we can all disagree with another man without being contemptuous of him— but quite another to say "I disagree with you and, what is more, I despair of ever persuading you. You are not a person who can be persuaded either by fact or by argument, so I must just give in to what you, in what I believe to be your ignorance, are saying."
  That is not the position to which a Member of Parliament should descend. Certainly his duty is to listen to his constituents with attention and respect. He must weigh their arguments and all the other arguments that are put before him and, drawing from his own experience, form his opinion, act upon it, and state his reasons for acting as he has done and seek to persuade those who disagree. That is the honourable task
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  of a representative in a parliamentary democracy. I hope that that is how we shall all approach the Division tonight.
  5.2 p.m.
  Mr. Emlyn Hooson: I have had the opportunity of taking part in every debate on capital punishment over the past 12 or 13 years and I have never found it as easy to make up my mind as today. Surely there is a simple answer to today's problem. We can look at this problem in a detached way because we are not dealing with capital punishment over the whole range of murder. The answer to the dilemma is simple. I think that if we introduced capital punishment for terrorism we would be doing more harm than good. We would be doing more harm both to the State and to ourselves.
  As I listened to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) and the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) I could not help reflecting to myself that the whole of British history was against them. Anyone would think that there had never been a Cyprus or an Aden and that the measure that we are proposing today for dealing with terrorism had not been tried before. It has been tried.
  I thought that there was greater validity in the hon. Lady's speech than in that by the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East. The hon. Lady was conveying to the House a deep-seated emotional feeling which is held throughout the country and which we would be foolish to ignore however much we may disagree with the result of that feeling.
  On the other hand, the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East appeared to engage in an exercise of diffuse and very dubious logic. I have always maintained that the only valid argument for the death penalty in a modern civilised State is the one, which most people in this country feel, in favour of retribution.
  I do not think that this feeling for retribution should be accepted. However, none of us in the weekend that followed the terrible bombings in Birmingham could easily resist the feeling that justice ought to be meted out to those who had caused the deaths there. That feeling, dress it up as we may, call it justice, and so on, is the deep-seated human emotion that there ought to be retribution—" an eye for an eye, a tooth for

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  a tooth". That is a perfectly valid argument which many people at different stages in our history have felt compelled to accept. However, it is an argument which must be rejected in a modern civilised State.
  The truth is that many who support the imposition of the death penalty have argued not only in this debate but in all the debates that I have heard in this House on the basis of retribution. No matter how they dress up the argument —they may call it deterrence or justice; they say that we must seek a deterrent, or that we must seek justice—they are giving vent to a deep-seated human feeling for retribution which is entirely understandable and which we all feel to a greater or less degree. It is a natural reaction.
  I now want to come to the actual arguments that have been put forward today in favour of the death penalty for terrorism. If we were to introduce the death penalty for terrorism today, we would be facilitating the making of martyrs out of murderers. It is not that terrorists actually seek martyrdom. Very few of them do that.
  Mr. Arthur Lewis: What about the Price sisters?
  Mr. Hooson: I will come to the Price sisters later. I should be grateful if the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis) would not interrupt me from a sedentary position.
  There is a reason why people are made into martyrs. An organisation like the IRA is careful of its manpower. Obviously, it does not want to lose people; it does not want its members to be captured. However, when they are captured, and particularly if they are to be executed, the organisation can transform them into martyrs as a measure of propaganda. The IRA uses terrorism as one weapon, but propaganda is another of its weapons to achieve certain ends. When the Price sisters were captured and convicted, part of the process of the IRA, including themselves, was to change them into martyrs.
  The whole of British history illustrates that, although capital punishment can be a deterrent, to a few people it is not a general deterrent. In 1810 this House and the other place were considering a change in our law—that the death penalty
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  should be abolished for shoplifting of goods to the value of 5s. or more. As that time there were between 200 and 250 offences for which capital punishment could be levied. The arguments for change were rejected at that time. Lord Ellenborough, in the other place, forecast that if the law were changed there would be a tremendous spate of shoplifting of property worth over 5s. In fact, the change in our law on that matter did not take place for another 30 or 40 years. Indeed, Sir Robert Peel, in 1842, said that this country had the most savage penal system of any civilised society. Throughout history, for a variety of reasons and in different contexts, people have argued that if we removed the death penalty there would be infinitely more sheep stealing, or breaking and entering, or pickpocketing, or murders. They have all been wrong.
  During the last few days I have read the debates on the death penalty in which this House has indulged over the last 12 years. Forecasts that there would be wholesale murders of warders in prison and the murder of many more policemen have not come true, and the evidence points to the fact that capital punishment is not, to ordinary criminals, a deterrent in the broad sense, although I accept always that it may deter a few.
  What reason have we for thinking that the death penalty would be a deterrent to a terrorist? Experience shows that most terrorists are young people who have been brainwashed in a variety of ways and that if they are caught the transformation in their minds whereby they become ready for martyrdom is easily made.
  I often reflect upon the 1916 rising in Dublin. I am not an expert on Irish history. I am told that many of the instigators of that rising, who had many deaths on their hands, were virtually unknown in Ireland—or unknown to the vast majority of people—before their martyrdom. Having been brought up in a small Welsh school in the 1930s and early 1940s, I knew the names of Padraig Peirse and James Connolly. The fifth and sixth formers talked about them all the time as martyrs, but nobody gave a thought to those whom they had killed.
  Did the death penalty prevent the processes that were then taking place in Ireland? The answer is that of course it

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  did not, and I should have thought the whole of our experience in this country, in Ireland, in Cyprus, in Aden, and in many other countries should warn the House not to go down the slippery slope and not to play into the hands of terrorists by creating this added dimension for their propaganda.
  The death penalty creates an added attraction for some. During my legal career I have appeared for people—I admit very few—who felt themselves to be deprived when the death penalty could no longer be imposed, who loved the macabre side of it and wanted to continue to be the centre of a drama. I think that the case for the death penalty for terrorism on the ground that it is a unique deterrent is not made out. It is less likely to deter a terrorist.
  It is then said that the death penalty would provide a means of ensuring justice. There is a deep feeling that it would be only just to put terrorists to death. Nobody could argue that terrorists do not deserve death. They cold-bloodedly plot to inflict death on innocent people, and they have no regard for the devastation that they cause. The argument is that if anybody should pay the death penalty it is the terrorist, and one can apply that argument to certain murderers. There are sometimes premeditated ruthless murders, and the argument is that if anybody should pay the death penalty it is those who carry out that type of murder.
  Would it therefore be right to reintroduce the death penalty for selected murders in present circumstances? Why should the IRA dictate what are to be the standards of this country? Why should the IRA push this country back to a more barbaric form of punishment than we have at present? What is the wisdom of the matter? I can understand the argument for swift retribution in certain circumstances, but the judicial process, which we should not for one moment want to abrogate, is a lengthy one.
  When a terrorist commits a murder, there is an immediate outcry against him. Weeks, or even months, later there may be committal proceedings, which may or may not be reported, and then there is the trial. Anybody with any experience of murder trials when there was the
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  death penalty knows how fantastically different they were from trials for murder for which there is no death penalty. From the moment the verdict and the sentence were pronounced in the old days the whole interest of the public and the Press switched from the victim to the accused. Everyone was interested in his family and comments of his friends and in what he said, and he received a tremendous write-up. There then follows the appeal. Every facet of the judicial process would be used by the IRA. Once again there was, and would be, great interest because the death penalty hangs over the man. Then we come to the final part of the drama, the build-up to the day of execution itself.
  All those circumstances enable an organisation such as the IRA to use each occasion for its own propaganda or other purposes. In the result, people know of James Connolly and Padraig Peirse, as martyrs but they forget the people for whose deaths those men were responsible.
  Sir Raymond Gower: I am following the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument with a lot of sympathy and agreement. Perhaps he will deal with one point which to many people appears to be more important than any of the matters with which he has dealt; namely, that if the House does not take the course suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) it will be so completely out of touch with the broad swell of public opinion that it will be felt that a gap is developing between Parliament and the public.
  Mr. Hooson: I was under the impression that the right hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Stewart) dealt with that. I could not deal with it as adequately as he did, but I shall try to do so in reply to the invitation from the hon. Member for Barry (Sir R. Gower).
  I accept that if there were a referendum today on whether the death penalty should be brought in for terrorism the public would probably vote overwhelmingly for it, yet I think they would be wrong to do so. I also feel that in this House we have the responsibility for deciding these things. We have to look at the matter in much greater depth than the general public. We have a duty not only to ourselves, to the State and to the people who elected us, but to future generations.

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  We have a duty towards our institutions, and we have to sift carefully these arguments for ourselves. I think that if the public were fully aware of all the arguments that are heard in this House and were sitting here today the result of a referendum would be very different from the result that would follow if a vote were taken without all the arguments being heard.
  The right hon. Member for Fulham was right to say that we have to listen to all the arguments and take into account the deep-seated feelings expressed by our constituents. We have to sift these things, but we have the ultimate responsibility of saying to ourselves "Do they convince me? Are they right or wrong?", and if we think they are wrong it is for us to lead public opinion.
  I think that in the ultimate the public will agree with this House, because they perhaps cannot now appreciate, but will in time do so, that we would be unwise and wrong to take the retrograde step of going back to the death penalty, even for terrorism.
  5.19 p.m.
  Mr. Leo Abse: I was interested to hear that the experience of the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) in defending murderers corresponds with my own. Those who participated in trials when the gallows were still in the land have vivid and unpleasant recollections.
  The hon. and learned Gentleman stressed in passing something that clearly had not been understood either by the hon. Lady the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) or the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph); namely, that the dealth penalty, far from necessarily being a deterrent, is to many murderers a positive attraction. I can recall a murderer whom I was defending who for no apparent reason had cut his wife up in shreds in the bathroom of their surburban home. He told me, courteously and gently explaining his savage conduct, "It was absolutely necessary to kill her. If I had not killed her, I should have had no choice but to kill myself." His mad frankness may have been somewhat unusual, but his motivation for murder was lamentably orthodox.
  The lure of self-destruction, the attraction of death, is often warded off only by
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  turning outwards the aggression which threatens to destroy the potential assailant. If there are those who think that this is bizarre and believe that the ultimate consummation of hanging is not desired, that death is not desired by the killer, let them look at the statistic that a third of the murderers in Britain commit suicide before being brought to trial, and many more make many determined attempts, sometimes with a high sense of occasion, as I found when I once arrived at an interview in a prison with a murderer client who had so timed the appointment that he was able to receive me with a freshly-cut throat and slashed wrists. Many murderers kill to die, and so long as the gallows survives, the State fulfils their deepest needs by strangling them to death. The attraction of the gallows often guarantees rather than deters killing.
  Mr. Michael Males: I understand the hon. Gentleman's argument in referring to murderers, although I do not agree with it, but does he seriously suggest that this bizarre death wish is the motivation of the sort of terrorists with whom we are trying to deal? That is what the amendment is about.
  Mr. Abse: I am leading naturally to the more relevant problem of the terrorist murderer, and if the hon. Gentleman will have patience he will hear me trying to reach that point.
  What one is dealing with in this matter is the dynamics of the masochist, which are so strange and so alien to the more normal but which many believe are operating far more dangerously today than ever. Certainly it is established that certain disastrous social conditions such as those in which the lost generation of Belfast have lived and are living tease out this masochism. Those young people in Belfast are being brought up in a world where there is much hate and little love. Those are exactly the conditions which lead to the awkward, ataxic, behaviour so often infuriatingly found and provocatively displayed nowadays by so many young people in their manners and intercourse with older people. Behind the provocations is the deep disappointment prompted by lack of love, a terrible fear of being alone, the fear of losing contact in the world so that the youngster then seeks to establish contact inadequately through spite and provocation.

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  If people think that this is a pattern that we do not know in this country already, let them look at the postcards of Soho or the current huge sales of flagellation pornography, which reveal how many in our own lonely and alienated society are yearning to establish contact by wishing to be punished, to be fettered or whipped. In alienated Belfast there will be no shortage of young recruits seeking to assuage their perverted yearnings on the gallows. They have been brought up in the violent and lonely society which is exactly the well fertilised base upon which masochism flourishes.
  Do we not note already with dismay as we glance at these arrests that a pattern is emerging? The older men plot, while those of tender years go out to plant the bombs and become the sacrificial lambs. The return of the gallows, rather than being a deterrent, will, within such an appalling sub-culture as has been bequeathed to the young in Belfast, be a veritable incitement.
  Nor should we forget how the masochistic tendencies of the society with which we are now dealing and about which we are concerned have been traditionally, powerfully and positively contained in Northern Ireland. The passion, the contemplation of the agony of the Cross, the identification with the Saviour, can, as we all know, be the source of the higher values, but we live in secular days, and in these secular days the same basic feelings can be aroused not for the positive good but for the most perverted of goals.
  Hon. Members should be warned that it is possible that they could create the conditions, if they accepted the amendment, in which the young of Northern Ireland could embrace the gallows with the same passion as their grandparents more happily embraced the Crucifixion.
  A return to State strangulation would be a victory, not a defeat, for the IRA. That is not only because these men, together with those who constitute the Ulster majority, would have coarsened our society and values. The IRA is a small minority unable to obtain through the ballot box the support of the overwhelming majority of the Catholic community of Northern Ireland, and in its frustration it acts undemocratically. But its crimes in the eyes of its own members
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  succeed as a force only when they are public. The criminal proceeds by stealth, but the IRA, like all terrorists, succeeds only when its crimes are known and heavily publicised.
  Their so-called success depends on the media. The reality of blowing up a building or killing innocent soldiers is dependent not upon the actuality of the occurrence but upon the events being emblazoned abroad. No matter how awful the event, it is not the corpses but the television screens that corroborate, indeed prove, their senseless killings. A blanket silence upon their attacks would defeat their essential goal. The bank robber is satisfied if he escapes with the money. The IRA regards an operation as fulfilled only if it attracts maximum attention to their distorted goals.
  Nothing would marry in more with their aims than the inevitably heavily-publicised murder trials in which the accused could end on the rope. It has always been so. Hundreds of thousands of cheering Londoners were out in the streets when the notorious housebreaker Jack Sheppard and later the highwayman Dick Turpin were hauled to the gallows. Times, alas, have not changed that much. How many more acres of print were used by the Press when the end of a murder trial could be a hanging? Indeed, it was the obscenity of the pre-hanging publicity that brought home to many who otherwise would not have been convinced the necessity to abolish hanging. To be or not to be, to live or to die—no drama could excite more attention.
  The IRA, like the PLO, wants a world audience as it stages its psychopathic theatre. Voting for a hanging resolution would be booking a reserved seat for these obscene dramas which would be put on with the histrionic talents which can be used in so many more laudable ways by the Irish people being used most perversely.
  The answer to the IRA is not hanging. It can only be to have policies that will make the IRA irrelevant. The House has had its bipartisan policies frustrated by the obduracy of the majority group in Northern Ireland, whose leader, the hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux), only last week yet again in this House confirmed his refusal to have any meaningful power sharing with a

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  minority group. So the Ulster majority continues on that disastrous course despite all that we say.
  Many in the course of the debate have explicitly said that we should not in coming to our conclusion give way to blackmail. That is right; we should not yield to blackmail. But I believe that the real blackmail comes from the political strikers of the Ulster majority and is contained in the implicit or explicit threat that if we withdraw troops and money a pogrom of the minority will follow in Northern Ireland. Hanging IRA men does not resolve that dilemma. We should insist that either the wishes of Britain to have power sharing in Northern Ireland are realised or we withdraw our troops and our money, seeking only to help in rehabilitation and rehousing of the minority who may consequently suffer.
  If we passively yield to the stubborn men of Ulster the erosion of our civil liberties will continue, the excuses will mount for the IRA to justify its demented attacks, and hanging will in the end lamentably return. Before the vulgar and primitive aims of the hon. Member for Antrim, South and his allies triumph it is surely necessary for us to speak out plainly and make clear that we have a contingency plan for withdrawal which should be publicly spelt out. Then, and only then, will Ulster clearly understand that Britain and the House of Commons are not to be manipulated into making regressive responses, such as that contained in the amendment, to the unnecessary tragedy of Northern Ireland.
  5.32 p.m.
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I have the honour to represent the constituency of Edinburgh, West which contains within it one of Scotland's most famous battlefields, and I am referring not to Bannockburn but to the Murrayfield rugby football ground where a short time ago the Scots inflicted a decisive defeat on the English which I welcomed with patriotic enthusiasm. My predecessor, Mr. Anthony Stodart was a member of the House for 15 years, and he made many friends on both sides, representing his constituents extremely well at all times.
  Some six years ago the right hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Murray), now the Lord Advocate,
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  asked me to assist him with the prosecution of a large number of persons who had been charged with murder. As far as I can remember, each case that he prosecuted was followed by a conviction, and at that time it was impressed upon me that if capital punishment had been the penalty it would have been very much harder to have obtained the necessary convictions from the jury.
  As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Walden) said victory over the IRA and vengeance may not necessarily be the same thing. Indeed, it may be possible that the two are in conflict, and, however natural it may be to demand a return of the old law, surely we should not allow our instincts however natural they may be, to make a final victory over these terrorists harder to obtain.
  I wish to put before the House four difficulties which might be encountered in the reintroduction of capital punishment for acts of terrorism. The first is the problem of defining murder by an act of terrorism. Surely it would be difficult for a prosecutor to distinguish political murder from other types of murder. Secondly, even if the prosecutor successfully differentiated between different forms of murder and obtained convictions, would the threat of execution deter the committed terrorist? After all, we saw only a short time ago that a man who blew himself up with his own bomb was hailed as martyr by his fanatical supporters. How much more clamour would there be for a man who was executed by the public executioner of a country which was regarded by those supporters as a foreign oppressor? The execution would provide the opportunity for exhibitions of sympathy for men of violence and for their causes.
  Anyone who has studied the history of modern Ireland and read about the Manchester martyrs and the martyrs of the 1916 uprising will realise the impact of the cult of martyrdom on the brooding consciousness of the Irish people. I feel that the pitiful psychopaths who form the terrorist squads judge that their own unaided actions will not provide a place for them in history, so why should we rush to give them the notoriety they want by means of public execution or firing squad?

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  Thirdly, even if the prosecutor obtained the necessary conviction, and even if that conviction carried with it the sentence of capital punishment, would it not inevitably be some time before the appeal was heard in accordance with normal judicial procedures, and might not that give an opportunity for the terrorist's friends to retaliate and take hostages? In these circumstances, by going through with an execution is it not very much an open question that the situation may be reached in which there might be more violence and deaths, and not a net saving of life?
  Fourthly, even if the convicted terrorist's appeal was dismissed and the sentence of execution were carried out, no hostages having been taken in reprisal, is there not the appalling, if remote, possibility that the wrong man might have been executed? I am reminded of the famous Scottish cases of Oscar Slater who was sentenced to death and whose sentence was finally communted to one of life imprisonment. Only after he had served 20 years in the most sturdy of all Scottish prisons—Barlinnie—was it discovered that he was entirely innocent. I need hardly remind the House that execution of a man for an act of terrorism because he had been in the wrong place, had the wrong accent and the wrong build, and was there at the wrong time might lead to appalling repercussions.
  What, therefore, is the alternative to capital punishment? In the simplest terms it is that terrorists convicted of murder should serve sentences of imprisonment for much of the rest of their lives without favours as so-called political prisoners and without amnesty. The alternative must be very long sentences, and that is a principle which surely should be applied not only to terrorists.
  Some two years ago Lord Emslie, the present Lord Justice General of the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland, reported to the Government, as he had been instructed to do, on the penalty for murder. His committee recommended that it should lie within the discretion of the judges to specify the minimum number of years which the convicted murderer should serve in prison. His report was completely disregarded. The failure to implement that report has caused resent-
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  ment in Scotland. The fact that some English judges might have thought quite differently from Lord Emslie is irrelevant because there has not been a single Scottish criminal appeal to England since the days of King Edward I, and King Edward I was extremely unsympathetic.
  Throughout Scotland there is very strong feeling that the average sentence for murder of eight or nine years is far too short, and I would ask the Government and the Secretary of State for Scotland to give full consideration to implementing Lord Emslie's report, which is now more relevant than it was when it first appeared two years ago. As long as the Government are absolutely firm and determined not to be blackmailed in any circumstances, and as long as they refuse to release a single convicted criminal under duress, the case for capital punishment sureley assumes less significance and the need to increase police effectiveness reaches paramount importance.
  Surely the recent measures will help. Most terrorists are surely more likely to be deterred by the prospect of immediate detection than by the likelihood of possible capital punishment. Those who seek to reintroduce capital punishment must prove beyond any reasonable doubt that it will lead to a net saving of human life. That has not been firmly established tonight. It therefore seems that the final verdict in this debate for or against capital punishment must remain that peculiarly Scottish verdict "Not proven."
  5.40 p.m.
  Sir Geoffrey de Freitas: It gives me great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) and to congratulate him on his maiden speech. I use the traditional words, that we look forward to hearing from him again. They are traditional but they are sincerely meant.
  I looked up the hon. Gentleman's constituency while he was speaking and saw that there are 52,000 electors in it. I mention that because it seems that all the Scots, like the Irish, are already in my constituency. They come to work in the steelworks. There are thousands of Scots and Irish. But what is more significant, for the purpose of the debate, is that the Registrar-General's report proves that in my constituency there are more people

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  from Northern Ireland than in any other constituency in Great Britain. It is not in Glasgow or Liverpool but in the heart of Northamptonshire. They are working in the steelworks.
  What is the relevance of that? It is that they live together in Corby in peace and friendship, even when the symbols of the older people are flaunted, as in a picture of his Holiness the Pope in a window on one side of the road and confronting it on the other side a picture of His Majesty King William. The atmosphere in Corby is tolerant and full of goodwill.
  If the people are divided into little groups it is not by reference to the Churches to which they belong or are expected to belong. If I am in a working-men's club and I am asked "Are you Celtic or Rangers?", I reply "I am the referee." If I were pressed, I would say that I am Church of England, but the people there do not press me. Why? It is because to live and let live is the premise of the life of that community. It is tolerant. It provides a delicate balance, but a balance so delicate that if there were an excuse for a return to traditional attitudes there could be a great deal of unhappiness—and I use the most modest and gentle word.
  I have no doubt—and this certainty is shared by many people in the Churches— that the most provocative act would be the hanging of a terrorist. Overnight the murderer could become a hero, and the outrage could become an act of patriotism. Before one could say "Napper Tandy", the facts would disappear in the twilight of truth, and people would say that men and women were being hanged "fo' the wearin' o' the Green".
  Army officers who have served in Northern Ireland seldom agree on what should be done. After they have left Ireland, they have ideas, but they seldom agree on the solution. However, I have found increasing agreement that one of the needs of the IRA is fresh martyrs.
  If there were any evidence that capital punishment was a deterrent, it would be our duty to put it in the balance against the possibility of creating martyrs. But there is no such evidence. Murderers are seldom rational people. Terrorists are mostly killers moved by passion and not by reason. The hon. and learned Mem-
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  ber for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) said that he had been reading HANSARD covering the period during which he had been a Member and during which we had debated the subject. I, too, re-read HANSARD last night and came to the conclusion that in so many of the debates starting from 1955 what appeared to be rational argument was really emotional.
  I was not surprised to find Sir Ernest Gowers, Chairman of the Royal Commission, quoted in one of the early debates as saying:
  "I became convinced that the abolitionists were right in their conclusions … and that so far from the sentimental approach leading into their camp and the rational one into that of the supporters, it was the other way about."
  Sir Ernest had spent four years studying the matter intensely.
  I hesitate to put my small experience before the House immediately after quoting Sir Ernest. I do so because I was impressed by the reference of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West to the case of Oscar Slater. I spent two years at the Yale Law School, where one of the subjects I worked on from the beginning was the possibility of judicial error. I worked under Professor Borchard, who wrote the standard book on innocent people who had been convicted. The book set me worrying about the consequences of judicial error and the appalling consequences when there was capital punishment.
  The more I have studied the subject, the more I have read of the debates over the past 20 years, and the more I have heard tonight, the more I am convinced of the possibility not only of the innocent being convicted but that the case for capital punishment is essentially emotional and not according to what evidence there is.
  In all the debates on the matter, no evidence has been produced in the House that capital punishment is a deterrent. The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery referred to the figures before and after abolition, and quoted Lord Ellenborough in another place. We have figures not only for before and after abolition but for adjoining States in the United States and in Australia, one with and one without capital punishment. The situation is always the same. There is no difference in the murder rate.

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  But the argument tonight is that the murderers we are talking about are different. I agree. They are even more irrational. They act through passion and risk a hero's death by being hanged— and on a British gallows—so as to live for ever in Valhalla. They are dedicated to force. They are dedicated to war. In war, the soldier risks his life as a duty, and it is a duty of which he is proud. Of course, I do not feel proud of these men, but this is a fact. We must recognise that they feel that they are at war, and I do not see how the death penalty can be relevant.
  My last argument is the power of the State, which must not be ignored. It is only recently in our long European history that we have had to consider the power of the State not only over its enemies but over its own citizens. It is no accident that during Mussolini's rule in Italy capital punishment was reintroduced, not, as the Minister of Justice of the Fascist Government said, because there was any statistical evidence to justify it, but because, as he said, it conformed to the whole spirit of Fascism. Similarly, many Communist countries have capital punishment because a Communist State seeks to dominate the people in it.
  One of the first things the Italians did after the war, when Mussolini went, was to abolish capital punishment. The Germans did the same. The Germans recalled the tens of thousands of their citizens who had been killed by the German State exercising its power in the gas chambers.
  In this House we must insist that the State fosters any instinct or belief that human life is the most precious thing there is. Above all, we must demand that the State sets an example and does not itself take human life.
  5.50 p.m.
  Sir Peter Rawlinson: Like the right hon. Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas), over the past 20 years I have taken part in many debates in which the issue has been: what is the correct penalty for murder? I should have thought that the one thing which all who have taken part in those debates must have learnt is that it is a matter which everybody must approach with the greatest of humility.
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  The only persons for whom I have any contempt are those with a certain intellectual arrogance who sneer at and deride the arguments and beliefs of others. I do not think this will happen in this debate today because I do not think anybody can be so foolish as to come to this debate determined that the question is easy to answer. I certainly do not believe the question is easy to determine. Some of us have, of course, made up our minds, but I do not believe that any person who sincerely tries to do his duty as a Member of Parliament, with his responsibilities, can have reached a decision without a great deal of grave and worried thought. When I come to my conclusion, I fully accept the risks and dangers in what is necessarily involved in the recommendation which I shall make to the House.
  Those hon. Members who have obviously thought about this issue have also taken into account that which is deeply felt by many persons outside this House. We ought not to accept their view merely because there is a mass of opinion in favour of the restoration of capital punishment. But we would be very arrogant and foolish if we did not pay a real respect to this belief, the idea and conviction held by many people who have just as many wits, just as much brain and heart as any of us who have the honour to represent them here in this Chamber.
  Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
  Sir P. Rawlinson: It seems to me that this question is this. After the experience, not only in this country and in Northern Ireland—but in international experience, over the past 10 years and after the developments that we have seen across the world, sometimes involving British people, though very often not, should we now reintroduce the death penalty for acts of terrorism, not as an act of vengeance or retribution but as a deliberate act of State, by the State to protect the State and the people who make up the State? I presume that we would only do that if we believed that it would be effective and that it would firmly demonstrate to the terrorist groups across the length and breadth of the world the seriousness of purpose and the will of the people, Parliament and Government of the United Kingdom.

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  I said in July that the time had nearly arrived when we ought to consider once again this penalty. It is in respect of people committing crimes involving the illegal acquisition of explosives, the hiding of those explosives and of making them up; the organisation, the orders, all the concentrated and very skilful, deliberate and well-planned acts which lead to the final act of leaving a package bomb and then slipping away, while innocent persons are blown to pieces. I said in July that the time had nearly arrived when we ought to consider it, and I think the time has now arrived.
  I differ from my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) when he said he felt that the reintroduction of capital punishment should be limited only to Great Britain and should not extend to all the United Kingdom because of the present mode of trial in Northern Ireland. In 1973 I voted as a member of the Government for the Act which brought the law of Northern Ireland into line with that of the United Kingdom, first because Section 10 of the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1966 was totally inoperative and ineffective and, secondly, because we cannot have a different law in different parts of the United Kingdom on the matter of the penalty. But this issue is wider than the IRA and Northern Ireland. Sooner or later this country will be faced more than it has been up to now by similar situations which have been faced in Holland, France and Italy.
  It seems to me that there is now no sanction against the international terrorist. The State is powerless, and the terrorists have demonstrated how powerless the State is. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Walden), who opened the debate, said that the real deterrent is the probability of detection and apprehension. But that is a real deterrent only if there follows from it the certainty of incarceration for very long periods of time, and it has been demonstrated that that does not happen because if terrorists pile terror upon terror, as they do, they can demonstrate to those whom they recruit into their organisations that no matter where their members are in prison, their comrades will use terror once again and will get their people out of prison. Time and time again this has happened.
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  What does the State do when it is presented with these problems? In order to save other lives it has to release those persons. It is rather ironic that only now, when the PLO has become respectable, that organisation is going to apply its own sanctions—the PLO whose members have fought, shot and murdered their way into respectability. If a State is going to hand over these persons whenever it is faced with this agonising problem, how easy it is to recruit into those organisations. They say "Do this. It does not matter how many innocent people you kill. You will only be sent to gaol, and we will get you out of gaol. See, we have already done it. We shall do it again." Only if the State has got the resolution to say "Terrible though it may be, nevertheless this is what has got to happen… You must die".
  Mr. Churchill: What evidence would my right hon. and learned Friend advance for the premise which he has just put forward? Two States which, along with the United Kingdom, are most faced with acts of terrorism are the State of Israel and the State of Jordan. In neither case have they given in to threats and the taking of hostages.
  Sir P. Rawlinson: The State of Israel has done so on one occasion in fact, but I agree it does not usually do so. However, my hon. Friend must have misunderstood me. What of the Japanese group, and the Arab group involved in the Rome massacre? Were they not released from Holland? Only if the State says that crime, such as murder of the German business man in the VC10, will be met by trial and death if there is a conviction will it be possible to show that the State will sustain the State and society.
  Mr. John Gorst: At least in the case of Israel, where there is no death penalty, there is nevertheless a general assumption that there will be summary execution accompanied by retaliation on a massive scale in foreign territories.
  Sir P. Rawlinson: That seems to be so. Israel seems to do it very effectively because it considers itself to be in a state of war, and treats those who engage in

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  terrorism as engaged in war against the State and meriting instant death.
  Then there is the question of recruitment. Members of the IRA active service units who come here and make acts of war are assured that they will never be deserted, that there will be no political settlement unless and until they are released. They are told that they will never have to serve their full term of imprisonment, that they are prisoners of war, and that one of the first conditions of a political settlement will be their release.
  I do not believe that any Secretary of State, of whatever party, would ever be able to state on oath to the House that he would never be a party to any such condition. There is no such word as "never" in politics. This is why the IRA will say to its members "You will come out of prison when the political settlement comes." No Secretary of State can ever say that he will never permit that condition to be made.
  So what is the sanction? Persons are prepared to kill innocent people in furtherance of political opinions. They are prepared to murder in order to destroy the State. The State which is conscious of its validity and has faith in its rights is entitled to say in such circumstances "If you do this, you too will die." I do not believe that that is an intolerable stand. I do believe that that is an attitude which can be held.
  It may be said "You will make martyrs." But the present situation has not prevented martyrs from being made. The martyrs are there—for example, the Price sisters. They came here, engaged in terrorist activities, lied on oath, denied that they had come here to do that which they did, and accused the police. They are not in the noble tradition of Irish patriots, some of whom stood in the dock and refused to acknowledge the court. Nevertheless, they were made into martyrs and could die by hunger strike. We shall not prevent martyrs from being made if the IRA wishes to make them. Propaganda will be raised for them, whatever it may be.
  The 1916 Easter rebellion was different. The flag flew over the Post Office in Dublin. Peirse and Connolly wore the uniform. They were there in the great
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  tradition of the Irish Republican Army. They became the great martyrs. But it is different now. Those who took part in the 1916 rebellion were very different from the sneaking riff-raff who take a bomb into a public house or a shop and then leave before it blows innocent people to pieces. That is very different from taking a rifle, and saying "I stand for a united Ireland", and fighting for it openly and manfully. Sneaking a bomb into a shop or a public house is a safe method, except for the very few who kill themselves by accident. It is a very safe method of murder.
  How does the State defend itself? We may be told by the Home Secretary, to whom I will listen with great care, that the security forces will find the situation intolerable if there are persons under sentence of death. We should listen to his words very closely, but are the views of the security forces unanimous? I am not sure that he will be able to tell us that they are, but if he does say so, it is a confession of grave weakness.
  I have from the beginning accepted that in the short term the reintroduction of the capital penalty would bring grave consequences. There would be the taking of hostages, violence and assissina-tion. It would take courage and determination. But if the State was seen to withstand, to hold fast, I do not believe that such events would often be repeated. Unless the State so demonstrates its national will to defend itself and its institutions, we shall never limit the assault upon the State and society.
  We have an obligation to our own people. We have it as Members of the House of Commons, and the Government have it because they are the Government. We have to establish with our people the credibility that the State believes in itself and will fight for itself. For months until fairly recently I had the not very pleasant experience of having my house turned into a fortress, with police officers around it with dogs and electronic devices. I had all that until I was relieved of my duties by the electorate, and then the police went away. But from the very fact of my speaking last Monday on television and saying what I had to say, the threats returned. I am glad to say that the police returned with them.
  We must not underestimate what these persons are about, what they want, what

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  they intend to do. There is no Member of this House who will not be fully conscious of the dangers, public and private, which exist. But I believe that this is war. I remain convinced that unless and until this country and others prove that they have the will to defend themselves to the death, terrible as that may be, our States and our peoples will remain at the mercy of international terrorism.
  6.8 p.m.
  Mr. Ray Carter: I shall not make a long speech for the simple reason that what I have to say can be put into very few words. Nor do I intend to support my argument with the use of the statistics, technicalities and logistics without which so many people believe their arguments to be valueless. I say these things because I am an unrepentant abolitionist, and at this point I am prepared to let my argument rest on the simple faith that has sustained it all my thinking life. I will not even enlist the doubtful and transitory aid of principle.
  However, as a preface to what I have to say, I want to deal with the question of the victims involved in acts of violence and murder, and the suggestion contained in many letters sent to me after the Birmingham bombings that those who support the abolitionist argument have no sympathy for those victims. That is a wilful misrepresentation of the abolitionist argument because, as even any fair-minded supporter of capital punishment will concede, it is the whole question of sympathy that lies at the centre of the abolitionist case.
  The abolitionists did not have to wait for the Birmingham bombings to have their sympathy aroused. It has been alive, consistently opposing violence at all levels and in all places, for a long time. No one can claim a monopoly of sympathy. What we must do is to distinguish between what passes for sympathy and what is no more than open and naked revenge. In a world in which social and political values are being overturned and reborn only to disappear again with even greater rapidity, today's debate gives us the opportunity, albeit an unwelcome one, to examine the values upon which we believe civilised society should be based.
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  For my part I am bound to say that, notwithstanding the battering that my political faith has been subjected to over the past two decades, I remain unflinching in my view that violence is repugnant to and in contradiction of civilised society. To institutionalise it in the form of capital punishment is to undermine in the most savage of ways the values upon which a civilised society claims to rest. My reasons for saying that are more instinctive than acquired, more felt than thought and more a question of faith than anything else.
  I know that that statement will not meet with the wholehearted approval of large numbers of my electorate. But I hope that on this issue, above all others, the public will be prepared to leave it to this place to decide the issue. I say that because I find it strange that some of the people who are strongest in their demand that Members of Parliament should be free to exercise their conscience at all times on all issues are now the people telling me that I should reflect public opinion and support the reintroduction of capital punishment.
  The question before us today is about rather more than the straight issue of capital punishment. In a much wider sense it is about the way in which we as a society react to what could be a mere prelude to a period of great trauma in world history. If we now over-react with a policy of violence to meet violence we shall, for the duration of our troubles, set ourselves on a course from which there will be no turning. There is, however, another way. Our responsibility is surely to ensure that everyone, including the violent or potentially violent minority among us, travels that other way. That is not an easy task, but nothing worth while ever is.
  If we still claim to live in a tolerant society we must at all times, as leaders of opinion, affirm our belief in tolerance. If we do not, have not the bombers won? I sincerely hope not only that the reintroduction of capital punishment will be soundly defeated tonight but that in defeating it we shall make some contribution to the withering away of the violence that has caused this debate to take place.
  6.15 p.m.
  Mr. Charles Irving: I feel somewhat apprehensive, Mr. Deputy

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  Speaker, about being your second "maiden" of the day. Nevertheless I will try, in accordance with the good custom and tradition of this House, to be concise. I know that there are many hon. Members wishing to speak, and I can tell you that I shall take only 10 minutes of the time of the House. I timed my speech several times in the bath at 3 o'clock this morning and it is exactly 10 minutes long.
  In accordance with custom, I pay tribute to my predecessor, Sir Douglas Dodds-Parker, who gave long and faithful service to this House over 30 years. He was a dedicated parliamentarian and, along with his wife, was popular and well thought of in the constituency. I follow that by saying how greatly I have appreciated the honour of being elected to serve Cheltenham in this House. Cheltenham is my home town, where I was born and bred. It is a beautiful town, and I hope to serve it for many years to come. It is a difficult seat, but I will try to retain it.
  I must now turn to the bombings at Guildford, London, Birmingham, and elsewhere. Capital punishment is perhaps a macabre subject for a maiden speech. I have been involved for 20 years with penal affairs, and I felt that this was a subject on which I should express a view. There is no doubt that these bombings have aroused feelings of intense revulsion, feelings which I fully share and understand. There may be a logic which some would use to justify such happenings but it is one hidden from ordinary reason and totally foreign to all feelings of common humanity.
  Let me say a word about the victims. For those who died there is, alas, little that we can do. But for the living, some of them deformed beyond description, there are provisions under the criminal injuries compensation scheme. I have been involved for some years with a number of such schemes aimed at helping victims. But I speak from bitter experience when I say that the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board is totally and utterly inadequate to handle the task now confronting it. Many victims do not even hear of the board's activities, although I am aware that special efforts were made to publicise its proposals after the bombings. Many victims never apply
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  for compensation, and for those who do, the relief they get is often too little and too late.
  I fear that many people are thinking not necessarily about the victims but about retribution. That is a wholly understandable reaction, but it brings with it some wholly undersirable consequences. As the cry of "Hang the bombers" goes up, not only in the streets of Britain but in the Lobby of Westminster, it is time for an angry nation to ask itself a realistic question. If total retribution is to be our policy against the IRA, have we really got the guts to go through with it? While it is easy and satisfying to execute some nameless terrorist on the Order Paper of the House, in the bar of the local pub or in the columns of a newspaper, such a decision by Parliament would bring appalling perils, not only for the community but for law and order itself.
  The reality is that carrying out such executions might well prove politically impossible even for the most determined Government. It is simple enough perhaps to think of the due process of law—the trial, the black cap, the appeal, the refusal of a reprieve, the pulling of the lever and the lonely interment in an anonymous grave behind the prison wall. But what does the Home Secretary do, for example, when two days before the execution is due he receives a message, complete with the identifying code of the IRA, saying that five children have been kidnapped and will be killed if the bomber is not reprieved or perhaps released?
  I hope that we have seen the last of that obscene public servant, the hangman, but even if some special provision such as an amendment of the Treason Act could be introduced which allowed only the execution of terrorists the problems of implementing it would be immense. Does someone have to die in a bomb attack before the death penalty can be invoked? Do we execute the minor bombers of a murder gang who happen to be caught whilst the principals remain at large? If the death sentence is not mandatory in all cases of terrorism, are we to ask judges to make political decisions about who is to live and who is to die? What would be the personal consequences of that to them and to their families? How will the Home Secretary respond to the seizure

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  and threatened killings of innocent hostages held against the lives of condemned terrorists?
  The last time we had a partial application of the death penalty in this country the Judiciary found it intolerable, impracticable and unworkable. On a diferent plane, the last time British firing squads shot members of the Irish Republican movement was in the wake of the 1916 Easter rising in Dublin. The result of those shooting was a massive shift of Irish sympathies which led directly to the establishment of Eire and the partition of Ireland. No one can say what the effect would be today, but the IRA would welcome a fresh crop of martyrs to renew the faith of its flagging supporters.
  In Ireland the past lives on in the present like nowhere else in the world. Ulster represents the unfinished business of Cromwell and Lloyd George. The present troubles are only the latest instalment of a war which has been going on for nearly 800 years. If we are not to endure many more hundreds of years of violent strife, greater efforts than ever before must be made to find a political solution to the Ulster question. Let us invite those who cry loudest for vengeance to be the first to put forward their positive and constructive proposals for solving the Ulster problem by political means. The judicial killing of a few fervent terrorists is a poor substitute for thoughtful policy and no help at all to the victims of the Birmingham bombers.
  I am sorry that I cannot support the amendment.
  6.23 p.m.
  Mr. Raymond Fletcher: This is the first time in 10 years' membership of the House that I have had the opportunity to congratulate a maiden speaker. It always involves certain conventions. When I say that I want the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Irving) to speak often and as sensibly as he has just spoken, and to address the House with the confidence which he has just displayed, that is not a mere convention. Many of us remember his predecessor, Sir Douglas Dodds-Parker. It can now be revealed, as it cannot possibly do him any political damage, that Sir Douglas had as many friends on this side of the House as he had on his side. The hon. Gentleman
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  is well on the way to making that kind of enviable reputation.
  I have here an absolutely splendid speech which, again for the first time in 10 years, I have bothered to write, but unfortunately most of the main points in it have already been made. Although occasionally I may irritate and annoy the House, I do not think that I have ever been guilty of boring it. So I put the notes for that speech on one side.
  It is difficult for anyone to approach this subject without having very strong emotions. I am no exception to that general rule. We should, however, remind ourselves what we are not debating. We are not debating capital punishment as such. We are not discussing whether there is more moral rectitude among Members on this side of the House than among Members on the benches opposite. No one has challenged the sincerity or motives of Members who have spoken. Therefore, I repeat that we are not talking about capital punishment as a deterrent in general, and we are not going through a series of postures to demonstrate to our local vicars what virtuous parishioners we are.
  I wish to talk about this method of deterrence as a means of bringing to a successful conclusion a type of warfare which this country has never experienced except in this century. It affects not only Northern Ireland but the Middle East, even the United States, the Federal Republic of Germany and most other countries. The vital difference between this kind of activity and the forms of guerrilla action which have established States in the past is this—and I propose to use the grab bag of history to illustrate my argument. The guerrillas who supported the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsular campaign were terrorists to the French and pretty rough customers, but they fought for a political objective— the ejection of the Bonapartist army from Spain. Guerrilla movements have always been the cutting edge of political movements which, after the victory of the guerrillas, were able to organise new States or new communities.
  But the kind of terrorism against which we legislated the other day and which we are now discussing is terrorism with no political objective whatever. What can be the objective of the IRA except to stick a flag on the ruins of Belfast and

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  the ruins of Dublin? There is no ideology and no strategy. It is terrorism for terrorism's sake by degraded individuals who find in this form of activity a satisfying way of taking their revenge on a society in which they have not been able to make their way. Most of them are social rejects having nothing in common with the Irish rebels of 1916, the Russian revolutionaries of 1917 or the officers in the Portuguese army who staged a revoluution not long ago.
  Therefore, how do we deal with this new type of attack against what I have described in the House on a previous occasion as the whole fabric of Western civilisation? The question that has to be answered, and I hope it will be answered in the Lobbies tonight, is whether the reintroduction of the death penalty for this crime would be an effective weapon for the defence and preservation not only of the State but of the nation.
  First, I do not challenge the right of the State to kill. In two world wars the State killed on a large scale in an organised way. In my view, its right to do so was absolute.
  Secondly, I do not feel that I am obliged by any religious convictions, either of my own or those conveyed to me by my theologically trained friends, to place an absolute value on human life. If I were confronted with a terrorist and I had the kind of abilities that I possessed 25 years ago—in other words, if I could handle a pistol, see straight and aim properly—I should have no more compunction about shooting that terrorist in the act than I would about squashing a scorpion walking into this Chamber, even though it might be heading for the Opposition Front Bench.
  I do not speak through sentimentality. I am trying to speak with the cold sense of realism. If a deterrent, which includes death, has to be applied either in Northern Ireland or in other parts of the United Kingdom, let me assert, without the opportunity to document this, that the more indiscriminate and ruthless the application of death, the more successful it is as a deterrent. In fact, the hanging of an innocent man serves as much as a deterrent as the hanging of a guilty man. Do not let us delude ourselves that there is not a military solution to the problems
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  of Northern Ireland. There is a military solution which has frequently been applied by other countries in their past tormented histories.
  The Committee of Public Safety, which carried through the reign of terror under Robespierre, is recalled with horror even by those of my hon. Friends who are revolutionaries. Nevertheless the French people have named a Metro station after Robespierre and were quite right to do so because in spite of, and perhaps because of, the indiscriminate slaughter and shedding of blood in that area, which is now the Place de la Concorde, the Committee of Public Safety saved France and the revolution. That may not be regarded as entirely desirable by certain hon. Members but it is too late to change it now. Even under the terms of the Treaty of Rome we cannot rescind the French Revolution. These are historical facts. Because this type of deterrent, both indiscriminate and ruthless, was applied, the effect on French fighting capacity to defend the State during the revolution was very effective. In describing that, I hope that I shall not be accused of advocating it.
  I start from what I consider to be a somewhat dubious premise, and I am trying to move from that to what I think is the awful inevitable conclusion that the more indiscriminate we are about killing, the more effective the quality of deterrence will be. If we hang or shoot a terrorist, we obviously do not deter him because afterwards he will be placed in the lime pit and will be burned away. He will have gone. It is equally evident that, because of the very nature of this type of terrorism, we can have little effect on deterring his fellow terrorists, because the most recent equivalent to this type of person was the kamikaze pilots who crashed their aircraft on the decks of United States ships in the Pacific during the closing weeks of the Second World War. The terrorists and the kamikaze pilots resemble each other in several respects.
  Allow me to pursue the argument about the type of deterrent which can be effective. I hope that nothing I say will be misinterpreted and that the House will recall that I am describing, not advocating.
  It is generally assumed that the Nazi policy of repression in occupied Europe

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  was unsuccessful. That is not true. That policy involved the total destruction of Warsaw. It involved horrors which we do not like to think about, even now. However, as a method of cowing and the terrorising a population it was effective, because the resistance movements, much as I honour them, did not have a serious effect on the efficiency of the German Army, which confronted our troops from June 1944. We must not be hypnotised by the myths perpetrated by Hollywood films when we take this cold look at the situation when Europe was under the control of the most ruthless advocates and practitioners of deterrence that the world has probably ever seen.
  The policy of deterrence, if we are to follow it, must in the light of history resemble the historical deterrence which I have described. Would any hon. Member support that kind of policy? I honour the soldiers carrying out their duties in Northern Ireland. A few days ago I had the terrible job of writing to the parents of an 18-year-old boy killed there. It is a most awful duty to perform. However, is there a soldier, of whatever rank, in Northern Ireland who would obey such orders and carry out such a policy to lay waste at least half of Belfast to terrorise the people who constitute the sea in which the urban guerrillas swim? I doubt it very much.
  We have therefore to answer this question. "Liquidation" is a horrible phrase which has crept into the language of murder during the past 30 years. Can the liquidation of the individual terrorist help those who are trying to impose order and some kind of social organisation on the tormented Province of Northern Ireland, to say nothing of Birmingham and other cities which are equally threatened? I do not believe that it will help.
  Sometimes, to the accompanying laughter of my hon. Friends, I assert that the Labour Party should be more the party of order than the Conservative Party, by which I mean order sustained by law. Nevertheless, would the reintroduction of the penalty for terrorists help those who must fight this new kind of war against this new enemy who has no ideology, no strategy and no ideals but only a nihilistic desire to destroy that of which he is too inferior to become an effective part—that is civilised society? For the reasons adduced by my hon.
  574
  Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Walden), I cannot believe that it would help.
  In spite of the fact that I share the feelings of many hon. Gentlemen who will vote differently, and in spite of the fact that I too can feel a desire for retribution and vengeance as strongly as any of my constituents or the citizens of Birmingham, I am compelled to look at the question before us in as cold and as unemotional a way as I possibly can, even though he who could be totally cold and unemotional about this matter would be some kind of monster. In the circumstances, therefore, I have no alternative but to support the motion.
  Mr. Gorst: I have not made up my mind on how to vote on the motion. May I describe to the hon. Member the way in which the matter was presented to me by a judge when capital punishment was abolished? That judge said that the State had downgraded the crime of murder. Would not the hon. Gentleman consider that in this particularly horrible situation the State now ought to upgrade the penalty for terrorism?
  Mr. Fletcher: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hendon, North (Mr. Gorst) for making that intervention. However, to reply to it effectively would require me to make another speech, and I should be in serious trouble if I tried to do that.
  It seems to me that by ourselves refusing to take even the most despicable of lives we are in some sense maintaining the values by which we wish to live and sustaining the fabric of that civilisation of which we are all a loyal part. That is not an effective answer, I know. I wish that the hon. Gentleman, who is a personal friend of mine, had put his question to me a little earlier.
  6.40 p.m.
  Sir Derek Walker-Smith: I begin by associating myself with the congratulations and tributes fittingly paid to my two hon. Friends who have made such admirable maiden speeches today. They must have realised from the warmth and attention with which the House listened to them how much their contributions were appreciated and how much the House looks forward to hearing them again.

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  Over the years I have taken part in several debates on the subject of capital punishment. It is a subject which I have found a peculiarly difficult one, giving rise to many doubts. If I may paraphrase Dr. Johnson's words on another subject, I have never known whether to envy or marvel at the certainty with which some are able to invest these problems.
  All questions involving the death penalty arouse in an acute form anxieties and complexities concerning the old and enduring problem of the rights and duties of the State in regard to punishment. The problem is as old as organised society itself.
  I have taken the view that in general circumstances the death penalty is inappropriate in modern society. I have taken that view not because I feel that the death penalty is inherently inadmissible or morally wrong in all circumstances but because, on the balance of relevant considerations, that is the correct position.
  Today, however, we are dealing with one specific aspect—the limited imposition of the penalty for certain acts specifically directed against society as a whole, and the question for me, and perhaps for many in this House and outside it, is whether these offences warrant and require a treatment different from the general. Can this genus of planned political murders—of terrorist murders—be distinguished in principle, and effectively differentiated in penalty from the general run of murder? After much anxious thought, I have come to the conclusion that it can.
  After all, so much is different. Whereas the ordinary murder, if I may call it that, is specific, limited and individual, terrorist murder is, or is likely to be and is intended to be, general, widespread and haphazard. Motive, method, scale of operation and the mentality of the murderer all tend to be different. Whereas the ordinary murder is an isolated and frequently wholly uncharacteristic act, the terrorist murder is part of a pattern designed to promote and encourage the perpetration of further killings.
  Therefore, I believe that it is possible and proper to distinguish in principle the terrorist murder from the generality, and I do not consider that the reintro-
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  duction of capital punishment for this type of murder, and this alone, would impose any logical necessity for a more general reversion to the death penalty. I believe that it is probably the reverse and that it makes it more likely that we would be able to retain the non-user of the death penalty in the ordinary way.
  Since terrorist murders are sui generis, since they are political or anarchical, I do not believe either that it would impose any logical necessity for reintroducing the general dual classification of murder attempted, unsuccessfully in the event, in the Homicide Act.
  If these crimes can be distinguished in principle from the generality, the next question is whether it would be proper and practical to treat them differently. Would there be a specific benefit as well as a justification to society in so doing? Some may feel—we know that some do in the country—that the element of retribution should here weigh heavily and sufficiently of itself. There has been some misunderstanding in the debate about the use of the word "retribution". The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Walden) wholly excluded retribution. Probably he has not recently refreshed his memory with the locus classicus on punishment, Professor T. H. Green's essay on the right of the State to punish, which includes as well as reformation and prevention, or what we call deterrence, the element of retribution. But Professor Green was careful to point out that retribution, properly understood, as an element of punishment, excludes vengeance and the concept of the equivalence of suffering. The difference is, I would think, that one should take into account the just imposition of punishment but should exclude the angry exaction of revenge.
  The main matter here is the question of deterrence. In the ordinary case of murder, that is a difficult question enough, not least because it assumes a degree of calculation in a single individual committing an isolated act which in the state of his mind before committing the offence may not exist at all. Terrorist murders are not isolated individual acts. They require a much greater degree of planning and preparation and a much more sophisticated organisation. In such a case there is

  577
  and must be always the hope and possibility in the context of deterrence that the strength of the chain will prove to be the weakest link.
  Probably there would be no deterrent in the case of some, perhaps the prime participants or the most resolute. But in the case of others—principals in the act of murder, although secondary perhaps in role and status, whose co-operation is required for the success of the dreadful undertaking—the deterrent factor might well be real. The totality of the perpetrators is likely to be large. All these people who participate, who aid and abet, who "invite, procure, set on and stir up"—in the ancient words—the commission of these crimes make up a large number. Therefore it seems likely that there must be some amongst them on whom this penalty would act as a deterrent.
  It does not follow that the principal in the first degree—the planter of the bomb himself—is the most impervious to deterrence. He may be only a tool, or conceivably a mercenary. If there is an effective deterrent at any point in the chain, be it in the planning sector, the operating sector or the aiding and abetting sector, the task of those who pursue these methods becomes cumulatively harder at each point.
  It is said by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood that apprehension is more important. Apprehension is vitally important. No deterrent whatever it may be, is of any value without detection and apprehension. Equally, however, the efficacy of apprehension is dependent on the adequacy of the penalty to which it leads. If this be right, if there is a reasonable chance and prospect of this penalty acting as a deterrent, that is something which must weigh heavily against the general disinclination to exact it.
  If it be right to entertain the principle, can effect be given to it? It can scarcely be impossible one would think, as a matter of definition, to define the offence of killing arising out of or occurring as a result of operations instituted for political objectives or designed to induce fear in Her Majesty's subjects or substantial sections thereof.
  Apart from the question of principle and the possible complexities of defin-
  578
  ition, there is the further argument that the imposition of the death penalty would expose society to a greater risk of reprisals. That is a matter which must be closely and earnestly considered, though in considering it we as the House of Commons must have regard to the implications of such an argument, since it carries with it in the final analysis a consequence that the content of law might be fashioned and its limits prescribed, not by the law maker, but by the law breaker. We have to consider, therefore, the implications for the rule of law of the application of that principle.
  In any event, there would be a contrasting consideration. If the terrorist is apprehended he will be sentenced, if not to death, to a lengthy term of imprisonment. May not the arguments about violence and the exaction of hostages apply to the release of prisoners as well as to the avoidance of execution? The impulse may not be so immediate or so strong, but the motive and the occasion will be more lasting. The danger may not be so prompt, but it will be more protracted.
  There is the further consideration with political crimes that the deterrent effect of imprisonment is likely to be mitigated, not only by the hope of release by reprisals, but by the possibility of easement through political pressure, of a change of sentiment, or the hope of amnesty. If the apprehension of execution is softened by the possibility of the martyr's crown, the penalty of imprisonment is mitigated by the prospect of political promotion, by the hope that the prisoner of today may be the president of tomorrow. There is no lack of examples, ancient and modern, for this proposition.
  I agree with those who have said that capital punishment would not and should not, in this context, be synonymous with hanging. One would not suggest a return to that or to the macabre associations that it carries. If the penalty exercises the deterrent effect that is hoped for, its actual application would be very rare. Where it has to be done, it would have to be done as expeditiously as is consonant with justice, as humanely as possible, and with the minimum of that attendant publicity to which reference has been made.

  579
  I view this as a limited expedient. I will listen, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph), with whose approach to this I found myself very much in agreement, said, to everything that is said in the reply of the Home Secretary and the rest of the debate, bu I regard it in any event as a limited expedient and one to be embarked on only with reluctance.
  It is right to say that the circumstances attending, first, the suspension of the death penalty all those years ago in 1948, and then its abolition in the 1960s, are not paralleled in the special circumstances of today. In one of those early debates I ventured to propound, as the test for one's approach to questions of social and legal reform, the attempt to project oneself 50 years forward and credit oneself with the notional hindsight of how it would look at that time.
  It is fair to say that when I spoke those words I no doubt shared to a large extent the comfortable assumption of our forebears of the doctrine of the inevitability of progress. Fifty years forward would be 50 years better and wiser, and 50 years forward would be 50 years more tranquil and more tolerant. Over half of that period has passed since I propounded that test, and I am bound to say that I am disappointed by the result that has been achieved. Today we have to take the situation as we find it and deal with it as best we may in this specific context in which we find ourselves.
  A threatened society must equip itself with the defences and deterrents at its command, in the hope that the need for them will be limited and brief and in the knowledge that their application will be in the spirit of the rule of law, carried out, not in a spirit of vengeance, but in the defence of and for the protection and survival of a free and fair society.
  6.57 p.m.
  Mr. William Craig: Once again we are concerned with the problems arising out of terrorism and, unhappily, once again we are only considering one aspect, though a very important aspect. The tragedy of Birmingham and the fall-out from Birmingham has caused many of us to rethink the position, not because we are simply reacting out of
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  Birmingham but because we fear a continuation and an escalation of terrorist campaigns. Surely, if we fear a continuation and escalation we should be looking at the problem on a much greater scale.
  I have no doubt that the death penalty may have a part to play in dealing with terrorists, but if it has a part to play I would want to be sure that we are resorting to that decision because there is nothing else left to complete the armoury against the terrorist. It is for that reason that I and my colleagues would like to have seen a much wider-ranging discussion, looking at all the problems that arise out of the various crimes that terrorists commit.
  Perhaps the only different thing I can say from what has been generally emphasised in earlier speeches is that terrorist crimes are different, not only because of their indiscriminate nature or because of the horror of the deed but for another reason altogether. They present a threat to the rule of law, because they produce a condition that invites retaliation. We in Ulster know what that means, and I think that hon. Members are probably beginning to know because, as I understand from some hon. Members who have a ground knowledge of Birmingham, there was very real evidence of a serious backlash. We must pay special attention to this problem.
  It is a threat to the rule of law. I think that the rule of law breaks down on three occasions—when crime is not detected or followed through, if crime is detected and there is no follow-through, or if the perpetrator is arrested and the law is inadequate.
  We have been told by a number of hon. Members that by and large people feel strongly about this matter and appear to be in favour of the death penalty. In considering the possibility of a breakdown in the rule of law because of a lack of confidence and a feeling that it is inadequate, we must weigh this feeling very carefully. At the same time we must ask the question "If this feeling of inadequacy exists, is there any other way to repair it?"
  I believe that there is a good case for a special code of law dealing with the crimes arising out of terrorism. We have a law for murder, a law for arson and a law for armed robbery, but when offences

  581
  are committed in pursuit of a political terrorist campaign they are all of a different nature and should be dealt with by a special code of law.
  We have also to think of a special judicial arrangement. This is of particular importance to Northern Ireland. We were rather startled to hear one learned person suggest that Northern Ireland might be exempted from any decision on the death penalty. I think that there is a good case for a special division of the English High Court or some court to have a United Kingdom jurisdiction to deal with offences arising out of terrorism. There is absolutely no objection to criminals being brought from all parts of the kingdom to a central court to be dealt with for crimes which are a threat to the nation.
  A special judicial arrangement of that nature could get over a number of difficulties, because a special division of the court would not have the same backlog of cases as exist in the ordinary courts and might result in a more expeditious administration of the law. We in Ulster would seriously advocate a code of law to deal with terrorist crime in general and a special court to administer it. Against that overall code we would have to weigh the decision whether it was right and proper to institute the death penalty.
  I have listened carefully to all the arguments as to whether the death penalty is a deterrent and what dangers there might be. No doubt there are fresh arguments to come. But the overriding consideration in my mind is what gives confidence to the people. We need to weigh against that the difficulties which have been mentioned—for example, the problem of creating martyrs. We tend to assume too easily that we shall make martyrs of these people. We have only to remember the man who, in seeking to carry out a terrorist act, recently blew himself to pieces in Coventry. It was difficult to get that man buried. In the first place it was difficult to get the man out of England since the airport workers would not handle him, and there was great difficulty in handling the situation in Dublin. There appeared to be no question of that illustrious member of the IRA being regarded as a martyr. These crimes spread horror in the hearts of all and I would be inclined to discount the risk of martydom.
  582
  The question of deterrence is not an easy one to answer. It is true to say that these terrorist organisations comprise a very few people. They depend for their success on manipulating other people and in taking advantage of the feelings in the community. If the law is such that it indicates to people the abhorrence of the whole nation at such a crime, it will be more difficult for the terrorist to manipulate, particularly if we take the firm view that we are dealing with criminals rather than with patriotic freedom fighters.
  There is the problem of the young teenager who can be used to plant a bomb or to pull the trigger of a gun. It has been argued that we may only encourage the IRA to use teenagers. I doubt very much whether that is a significant argument. The teenager by and large has been conned into doing these things because a false sense of patriotic duty has been cultivated. If the penalties are very severe, including perhaps the death penalty, the teenager will not be so easily conned and his parents will be very much more concerned about what he is up to.
  I am sure the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will confirm that in recent times there has been a greater flow of information about people involved in terrorist organisations. That flow has increased because of the growing sense of horror and desire among people to see the law cope with the terrorist. I am sure that there have been cases where parents have seen to it that their sons have been locked up because they feared that if they were allowed to continue in freedom in these terrorist organisations they would eventually be guilty of more dreadful crimes.
  There has been reference to the problem of trial by jury. I am sure that none from Ulster would support the death penalty in the absence of trial by jury. In Great Britain there is trial by jury, but on the basis of a majority verdict. I would find it extremely difficult to accept a majority decision that would inflict capital punishment. This matter would have to be dealt with in the context of the new judicial machinery which I advocated earlier All of us, want to show the country that the forces of law and order will win the battle against terrorism

  583
  and that the law adequately demonstrates that this is the case.
  We have not been fortunate to have been given an authoritative review of the situation. If we had before us the considered opinion of the police, the Army and experts in terrorism, we would all be in a much better position to decide how to vote tonight. But we are not in that position. The police in a general way in Northern Ireland have said that they favour the death penalty, and indeed the Police Federation has said that on behalf of its men. I know that it is the opinion of many Army officers that the death penalty should be introduced. But we cannot say that those opinions are based on an authoritative examination of the subject. Because we feel the lack of such an examination, my colleagues and I have tabled the amendment.
  We find ourselves in difficulty this evening. Are we to vote for the motion, are we to vote for the amendment or are we not to vote at all? I personally feel that we have got to vote. The country should know how its elected representatives feel in this situation. Despite all the reservations and qualifications which I have expressed, I feel that I must vote for the amendment.
  The motion rules out something which it may be necessary to consider after the most careful review; all the problems which have been related to the adoption of the death penalty could possibly be resolved in a study of the problem. I feel that if we were to abstain we should fail to give a lead to the country that we intend to deal with this serious problem. I certainly hope that the message that will emerge from this debate is that we intend to deal with the problem.
  7.10 p.m.
  Mr. Douglas Hoyle: I am indebted to you, Mr. Speaker, for calling me because my constituency will always be associated with the abolition of capital punishment through the activities of Sydney Silverman, who spent a large part of his life fighting to bring that about. I am sure that as we speak his spirit is with us bobbing up and down on the benches. I have no doubt that before he died he thought that this matter was at last at rest. Nevertheless, I appreciate that changed circum-
  584
  stances make it necessary for us to debate this subject today.
  At the outset I should like to express my sympathy to all the victims of the bomb outrages in Birmingham and London and to the people of Northern Ireland who have suffered so long from terrorist activities.
  In view of recent happenings, whether we like it or not, we must accept that this is an emotion-charged debate. Indeed, it would be very difficult at this time if it were not.
  The debate has been of a high quality in examining the problem. However, I find some of the arguments somewhat illogical. The right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) said that he could see a case for the reintroduction of capital punishment in Great Britain but not in Northern Ireland. I find that rather illogical. It is also illogical that on 14th May 1973 the right hon. Gentleman should have voted against capital punishment in Northern Ireland if he believed that it was a deterrent.
  Many hon. Members have said that we do not know the policy of the Army. The only cutting I have found which could refer to the Army is from a recent Sunday Telegraph. It states that many of the fears that we have expressed, particularly on this side of the House, are backed by intelligent experts of the security forces in Northern Ireland. They have said:
  "These men and women are psychopathic murderers. Capital punishment would only spur them towards more and greater atrocities to attract an aura of martyrdom to their cause. The death penalty in the circumstances can only be counter-productive and would not help one iota in the fight against terrorism."
  There is a further reference to the need particularly of the Provisional IRA for martyrs. It suggests that they are hungry for modern martyrs and that one result would be
  "a spate of private memorials like the one recently erected in the border town of Crossmaglen to Michael McVerry, local Provisional IRA Commander, responsible for the deaths of 23 British soldiers, who was shot dead in November last year. The memorial has cost local people £10,000."
  Is that the kind of situation we want to create? Would it help one whit towards bringing about peace in Northern Ireland? I do not think so. I do not think that would be the result.

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  It is necessary to clarify in our minds to whom capital punishment would apply. Would it apply to the person who plants the bomb or the explosive, or would it also apply to accomplices behind the scenes? If it applied to accomplices, we could well be executing as many as 30 people for one offence. I am sure that that is a matter that this House would not wish to contemplate.
  One of the tragedies of the situation in Northern Ireland has been the involvement of many children. I have grieved about it. I believe that this stirring up of hatred, particularly amongst the young, is not much encouragement for the future. Whatever is said, it must logically follow that if we bring in capital punishment terrorists will turn to using very young children to plant explosives in order that they may escape the consequences of their actions. Again, I do not believe that is what this House would desire.
  The great question of martyrs needs to be looked at in detail. There is no doubt that Irish history is littered with martyrs. By the very fact that they carry the explosives, those who plant bombs already risk their lives, as we know from the incident in Coventry where a man was blown up while planting explosive. Therefore, I do not see how capital punishment would be a deterrent to that kind of person.
  Mr. John Stokes: Surely terrorism is a world problem. It is not confined to the IRA. Unless the nations of the world unite and are determined to defeat terrorism, it is a counsel of despair. What constructive suggestions can opponents of capital punishment make to put an end to terrorism?
  Mr. Hoyle: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for asking me that question. I was dealing first with Northern Ireland and was hoping later to come on to hijacking and other matters.
  There can only be a political solution to the problems in Northern Ireland. It is only by working towards a long-term political solution that we shall bring an end to terrorist activities there. Terrorism has only just occurred in this country, but it has been going on for a very long time through all the troubles
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  that have befallen Northern Ireland. The people there are somewhat cynical about the reaction in this country, because they have had to put up with these activities for such a long time. Capital punishment was not a deterrent to terrorist activities in Northern Ireland, because it had not been used since 1961 up to its abolition.
  The hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes) very fairly asks how I would tackle the problem of the urban guerrilla or the hijacker. I am particularly concerned about the hijacking problem. I have an interest because I am a member of ASTMS, a trade union which has members working for airlines. Here again we have a determined group of people who know when they get on board a plane that they put at risk the lives not only of innocent people, but of themselves. In those circumstances, I do not feel that capital punishment would be a deterrent.
  The only answer I see to the hijacker is for every country in the world to refuse him asylum. If that is not done, and done fairly soon, many of my members will refuse to fly to countries that harbour and give asylum to these despicable people.
  Mr. Michael Shersby: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House what evidence there is to show that hijackers believe they are likely to lose their lives? My recollection of recent hijackings is that few hijackers have lost their lives compared with the numbers who have been involved in this business in recent years.
  Mr. Hoyle: I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman when he says that few hijackers have lost their lives, but the fact is that they know they run the risk of losing their lives because they carry the explosive with them if it is a bomb, or if they carry a pistol they run the risk of being shot if the security forces suddenly appear at the airport. We know that some hijackers who have tried to hijack Israeli airliners or carry out their activities at Israeli airports have lost their lives, and any hijacker must take that into account.
  Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn (Kinross and West Perthshire) rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I asked for limited interventions. The hon. Member who has the Floor has given way twice, and I hope that he will be allowed to finish his speech.
  Mr. Hoyle: I take note of your comment, Mr. Speaker, and I shall not be much longer.
  I do not think the case has been made for bringing back capital punishment, particularly for dealing with terrorists. I should hate to debase our civilised standards in the eyes of the world. I should hate also to think that this country's answer to the gunman and the bomber is the rope, and I hope, therefore, that the amendment will be overwhelmingly rejected.
  7.23 p.m.
  Mr. Robert Banks: I am associated with the amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) and I am grateful for this opportunity to speak in favour of it.
  I am sure that the whole country will welcome this debate. Over the months there has been growing in the House a deep anxiety about what is happening not only in this country but in Northern Ireland. We are experiencing for the first time the fear that ordinary people have for their safety, and we are seeing terrorism gradually escalating. It is, therefore, right that the House should debate this crucial issue tonight and give a lead which is what the country is calling for in grappling with this problem.
  We are seeing the horrors of Northern Ireland brought to us, and this is creating a new dimension and a new situation. There is no precedent in my life in peace time for circumstances such as those we have seen on the M62 and in Birmingham recently. This action is tactically calculated and run on military lines. It is a campaign that goes beyond the rules of war and has no regard for human and innocent lives. The aim of the IRA is to secure a political victory and the withdrawal of our protection from Northern Ireland.
  In these circumstances we should restate our aims, which are to secure peace, reason, sanity and security. We must be master in our own land It is inconceivable to me that a policy of
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  appeasement will succeed. It is my view that if we hold back from making the decision that we feel in our hearts we must make we shall do a grave disservice to this country and adversely influence what may happen in the future.
  It would be unwise of Parliament to ignore public opinion and the strength of it. Many people have come to the conclusion that we should introduce capital punishment for acts of terrorism. Are we so wrong in thinking that we should take that step, and are all these people so wrong in saying that that is what we should do?
  This debate is not born of a sudden passion or a desire for vengeance for what happened in Birmingham. It is, perhaps, born of a love for our countrymen and a desire to see that they have the fullest protection that Parliament in its wisdom can provide.
  A sense of vengeance is understandable amongst those who lost relatives in Birmingham or in bombings in other areas, or whose relatives have been maimed for life or severely injured. Vengeance is a human characteristic, and is closely equal to justice, but justice must be equal to the extent of the crime and vengeance is something that exceeds the moral line of justice. I do not doubt that crimes of terrorism involving death demand and should receive a sentence of capital punishment. After all, surely those who trade in death value their own lives and appreciate the risks they are running.
  We have seen a gradual increase in the succession of bombings, deaths and casualties in Northern Ireland, and now here, and this is strengthening the call for a lead from Parliament to do something more than we have done so far. People wish to be satisfied that sentences not only fit the crime but offer the strongest possible deterrent, and the deterrent value is worth only as must as the public's understanding of it.
  The expression "life" in a term of imprisonment has, to my mind, and in the view of many people, been devalued because it can cover a varying span of years. The facts show that criminals who are sentenced to life imprisonment spend anything from 10 to 15 years in prison, and to many people that is not the deterrent that we need to combat terrorist activity. The reintroduction of

  589
  capital punishment would, I believe, bring in a new deterrent.
  This is a controversial issue, and many hon. Members have given their views on whether they see capital punishment as a deterrent factor. I think that we should look at it from the human angle of the young person who may be tempted to be drawn into a terrorist organisation, go through his training, his practice and his planning for his activities. Surely somewhere along the line there is a point at which he must stop and realise that if he is caught his life is the sacrifice that he will have to make.
  A prison sentence can vary in number of years, but add to that the chance of an amnesty, or the possibility of escape, or of realise earlier than the term of years specified, and I think that we would come to the conclusion that that is not a sufficient deterrent for the type of crime that leads to the death of possibly, two, 12 or 20 people, and the maiming of several hundred other people. It is the public's sense of recognising this that has, I believe, called for this debate. I believe that capital punishment for acts of terrorism involving death has a deterrent factor. I do not think anybody would doubt that the crimes would deserve it, and I think that the morale of the public demands it.
  Against this amendment we have two dangerous arguments both of which are hypothetical—that martyrs will be made of those who are executed, and that hostages may be taken to secure the release of terrorists before their execution.
  It is not the sentence that creates the martyrs. It is the words and the actions of the terrorist organisation. We must ask ourselves whether the nation will stand by and accept the hero worship and martyrdom of those people who have been sentenced, if we agree to the amendment. I do not believe that people will stand by in this way. Equally that could apply to those people who are imprisoned or even those who blow themselves up through their own actions. It is in the mind of the terrorist organisation that there is a martyr, and not the nation's.
  This can also apply to hostages who might be taken in order to release prisoners, and it is dangerous to use this argument specifically on capital punishment. Come what may, if, Heaven forbid,
  590
  hostages were to be taken to secure the release of prisoners we would be faced with exactly the same situation as if those people were under the sentence of death from the courts.
  The debate is about beating the terrorist. Nobody wants to bring back capital punishment simply to secure the death of an individual, but we must show our will to beat the terrorist. The debate must not be about whether we have the courage to take action but about whether we feel, in our conscience, that it is morally justified. The consequences of not passing the amendment must be considered. If we were not to pass the amendment because of fear of reprisals arising from capital punishment sentences we would be abdicating our ability to govern by law. We must stand firm against the challenge to our authority. People look to us for the courage of our decisions. They also look for a total abhorrence in the House of the acts of terrorism which have occurred, and for the strength of our resolve to win, to beat the terrorist.
  It is time that the lion of Britain stirred, and stood beside justice in defiance of terrorists who seek to impose their will through the killing of innocent people.
  7.34 p.m.
  Mr. Phillip Whitehead: In this debate it is the first duty of every hon. Member to act, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Walden) said, as a representative and to use his best judgment in deciding how to vote, not as some kind of arid intellectual exercise but in what he will suppose to be the best interests and welfare of the community which we all represent, a community threatened today, as many hon. Members have said, on all sides not merely by the urban terrorism of the IRA but by other forces of unreason which are now stalking the land.
  The hon. Member for Harrogate (Mr. Banks) said that terrorism is on the increase, and so it is. But precisely these forces are on the increase throughout Western society partly in response to the stress and strains which our society in general is undergoing and partly for other, perhaps deeper, reasons as yet imperfectly understood. When we consider the activities of the Palestine Liberation

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  Organisation and its many perverted offshoots, and the activities of the Baader-Meinhof gang in Germany, and the Symbionese Liberation Army in the State of California, and many similar groups we can see that the escalation of terror and objections to reason are prevalent throughout society.
  The hon. Member for Harrogate said that our constituents expect that in the debate we shall do what we can to represent their views. My views are known on this matter. I am a sponsor of the motion before the House, and my constituents have put their views to me forcibly. Our constituents say "We expect you here to do what we in the white heat of our passion at the moment desire". One constituent has written to me to say that he does not expect me to have the luxury of a conscience here tonight, because that would mean that we would forget the victims of the outrages, the broken bodies in Birmingham and Guildford, and in many parts of Belfast, and throughout the Six Counties of Northern Ireland.
  But, as I hope to show in a brief speech, I think that we would be doing a disservice to the victims, and providing the one thing that might guarantee that these broken bodies were forgotten, if we were to reintroduce capital punishment for terrorism and put the lurid spotlight of publicity on martyrdom of the men in the death cell—if that is the judicial process that we reintroduce in this country.
  We are in one sense different in our deliberations here today, not because in any sense we are an elite or that we are considering in the debate matters removed from our constituents, but because it is here in this assembly that laws are made and changed. If the amendment were passed we would not only be doing what the last Royal Commission on the matter, 20 or more years ago, warned against but what the experience of many Parliaments has warned against—creating differential categories of murder—and anomaly piled upon anomaly, differential penalties between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.
  I do not believe that that is the right answer. I do not believe that we here, particularly in this assembly, have the right individually to say to some of our
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  colleagues that they must take the decisions that they would have to take on the death penalty if we reintroduce it and have to decide which man should have the right to live and which man should not. Within the 635 Members of Parliament there are four who have already served as Home Secretary, there are those who have held supreme responsibility in Northern Ireland, and others who will aspire to hold these high offices. It would be their responsibility. We would be saying to them that they must take a grim decision as to who would be done to death following conviction.
  We have heard little from those who support the various amendments about precisely what categories of terrorist would be involved. We are led to believe that there would be a sweeping category of capital offence for terrorism, and not merely the man who pulled the trigger or planted the bomb would be sent to the gallows but the man waiting outside with the car engine turning over, the man who had manufactured the bomb, and the accomplices to the act.
  This brings us back to the central dilemma which we have all had to face in considering the capital penalty, which is the appalling anomalies which throughout the years were revealed when we had differential punishment for murder. Some categories of crime were open to the capital penalty and some were not. Some categories of offender were open to that penalty and some were not.
  Supposing that the man who plants the bomb is 17 and does not hang, while the man outside waiting with the getaway car is 18 and must go to the gallows. That was the situation, more or less, in the Craig and Bentley case 20 years ago. We all remember that case, but who in this House now remembers the policeman who was killed by Christopher Craig? As my right hon. Friend said when he opposed the Ten-Minute Bill over a year ago, the spotlight goes on the murderer and away from the victim. We do no service to the victim if we put the spotlight on the murderer.
  There is also the possibility of error. My right hon. Friend knows that I have been concerned in pressing him for an inquiry, which has now opened, into a murder many years ago for which many of us believe the wrong man was hanged.

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  In posthumous vindication of that man, we have pressed for an inquiry and a review of the evidence. In this kind of situation, with the possibilities of denunciation, with the problems of obtaining conviction when a man is facing the capital sentence, we would put on the right hon. Member who was Secretary of State for the Home Department the responsibility of deciding whether or not to send a man to the gallows who might conceivably not be the person responsible, when there might be a scintilla of doubt.
  There is a final consideration which, to do him justice, the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) conceded, which is that the House, in willing the end, must also will the means. If, by some chance, the amendment were passed and capital punishment for terrorism were reintroduced, we should then see the emotional pull which would transfer to the man or woman in the death cell. It might be the Price sisters; it would be their contemporaries, people like them. It would be the young girl of 18 or 19 who has lived by the bomb and the Armalite rifle who is a murderer or a terrorist but in the death cell, awaiting the decision on whether she goes to the rope—the British rope, as it will be put about by her criminal and terrorist associates—will inevitably become an object of sympathy.
  We may not like to realise this fact, but once the person concerned is in the death cell, other factors begin to apply. Public opinion, particularly international public opinion, is fickle. The person in the death cell is discovered to have an old mother who is petitioning the Home Secretary, young children and dependants, a wife, others who will be bereaved. Sympathy tends to switch, and how much more does it switch when so many torn loyalties are involved as in this case.
  The hon. Member for Harrogate said that this was pure hypothesis, that we did not know whether martyrs would be created. But the whole terrible history of Ireland over the last hundred years suggests that, however ghastly the murder, however great the repugnance at the time, sympathy has switched during the judicial processes which led, after four, six or eight months, to the execution.
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  There was universal condemnation for the assassination in Phoenix Park of Mr. Burke and Lord Frederick Cavendish, but all Ireland mourned at the gallows by the time the executions took place. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton), in a remarkable maiden speech, referred to the Manchester martyrs, precisely another case in point. There is not a single pub in Ireland where one cannot hear every verse of Kevin Barry sung. Who now remembers, who can tell us the name of, the young soldier, also 19, who was shot by Kevin Barry? We do not remember the victims. We tend to remember the man who goes to the gallows.
  I believe that these people should be given the anonymity of a life sentence, a real life's sentence, one which means just that. They should not be given the glory of the gallows, as they would see it. They may end their own lives—some are determined enough to do so. That in itself is a situation which makes for an agonising dilemma by my right hon. Friend or whoever may be discharging his responsibilities. In the case of the Price sisters and their hunger strike, he took precisely the right line, but we only had to see there, when they had decided to end their lives, when society was not ending their lives by an act of judicial killing, what an emotional pull was exercised on the Home Office to concede their demands and let them go back to Northern Ireland.
  Finally, on the question of hostages and hostage taking, we should all remember again, looking at the historical parallels—we are not speaking ex hypothesi here—that many societies have undergone this, and that we underwent it under the Palestine Mandate. After the execution of Dov Gruner by the British in 1947, a whole spate of reprisal and counter-reprisal took place, culminating in the execution of the three British sergeants. That is probably one of the reasons why to this day the State of Israel, which suffers terrorism every bit as frightful as anything that we have experienced, is resolutely set against the capital penalty. They do not need to be told about terrorist atrocity who have recently suffered Ma'alot and things like that. But they remember what happened, if one put the spotlight back again on the man who has committed the crime and what may happen if one executes him.

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  I believe that hostage taking would be more prevalent. It is not enough simply to say that they may take hostages just to get someone out of prison. The pressure on the Home Secretary of the day would be quite different if it were simply a matter of saying to him "There are two innocent lives at stake because they are being held by the IRA and there is another life in the death cell. Commute the penalty and you have saved three lives." That is an intolerable pressure, and it is quite different from saying "You should let the convicted murderer go scot free from prison in response to an act of hijacking or hostage taking."
  So hostage taking would increase, although I do not believe that the threats made by Mr. O'Connell in the interview he gave to a Bonn newspaper should influence this debate one way or another. We should all hold a healthy contempt for Mr. O'Connell and all that he represents.
  Like many other hon. Members, particularly on this side, I represent a constituency with a significant Irish population, many of them involved in the community and in local public life, but with their own separate clubs, churches and schools—an integrated community still with its own sense of identity, not a community at the moment set aside, not alienated. If we were now to offer as some of them might see it, evidence either of harassment through the new legislation or, even worse, the taking of young people—misguided people, as some of the Irish community might see it—and putting them in the death cell, there would be a real chance of their repugnance at the crimes committed, like the repugnance of many Irish people at those committed in the last century and in the time of the troubles, being significantly changed because of all the emotional pulls which go with this.
  When the British shot 15 and hanged one of the leaders of the Easter rebellion in 1916, in a mood very similar to the present, those people were seen as traitors, rebels against the Crown. The Ulster Division were dying in their thousands on the Somme, and at that moment there was a stab in the back. Of course there was widespread public support, to which the Asquith Government capitulated, to have them shot out
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  of hand. One of those who recorded this for us and has immortalised it for us was the poet Yeats:
  "O but we talked at large
  Before the sixteen men were shot,
  But who can talk of give and take,
  What should be and what should not,
  While those sixteen men are loitering there
  To stir the boiling pot?"
  What is the business of this House except with give and take in the democratic arena, with accommodation, reason, argument, persuasion? We all feel the heat of the boiling pot today, and I am not talking just about the IRA and the Northern Irish crisis. I am talking of winning and preserving the values on which our society is based.
  It is not a matter of not having the will to win, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) said. General Massu and Field Marshal Harding had the will to win and for a time they prevailed, but the only way in which we shall prevail is if we are not stampeded into an atmosphere of reprisal and counter-terror. That may madness lies. A society that blindly lashes out at the psychopaths and terrorists who threaten it is demonstrating not its strength but its weaknesses. If we reintroduce capital punishment today, we shall not be diminishing terrorism; we shall be diminishing ourselves.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): Order. Hon. Members are bound to have seen the stream of Members coming to the side of the Chair. I can assure the House that they were not inquiring after my health, but were all anxious to take part in the debate. If speakers could limit their contributions to a maximum of 10 minutes the Chair could accommodate most of those who are anxious to take part. The closing speeches are due to commence at 9 o'clock, so there is little time left and hon. Members will need to co-operate if we are to avoid too many disappointments.
  7.50 p.m.
  Mr. Reginald Eyre: I accept your guidance on the restrictions about time, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Contrary to the views expressed by the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) I believe that in this debate it is right and necessary that I should put before the House what I have

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  good reason to believe are the views and feeling of a strong majority of Birmingham people.
  My first point relates to the scale and nature of the outrages in Birmingham. When I left Westminster and returned to Birmingham on that unhappy Friday afternoon a November mist was gathering in the city streets. Walking the short distance between the sites of the two explosions—the Mulberry Bush and the Tavern in the Town—I became immediately aware of the smell of explosives, contained by the mist, and still persisting in the air. The bomb sites themselves were piled with splintered wood, broken masonry and heaps of other debris. The police stood in groups, and the firemen still worked on clearance. More than 220 casulties had been removed to hospital, and 21 were dead or dying. Crowds of people moved slowly along the pavements opposite assessing the damage.
  It was, on a smaller scale, a repetition of the city's war-time experience of November 1941. The same smell of death and destruction was immediately recognisable by those who had experienced the war-time blitz on the city. For thousands of Birmingham people, therefore, these terrible incidents were at once identifiable as acts of war. The strength of feeling in the city and the judgment on the nature of what had happened must, therefore, be understood upon that basis.
  It is clear to me that the effect upon the people of a recognisable act of war of this kind is to bring out their instinctive feeling that the society of which they are a part is in danger and that their survival and the survival of society as a whole is threatened. They therefore expect the seriousness of the terrorist attack to be recognised by the system of law under which they hope to live in peace. They would expect the repugnance of society to the unspeakable wickedness of the assault to be registered, otherwise they would think that society, for some reason of weakness or lack of will to preserve itself, had failed to recognise and record the terribly serious nature of the threat being made to the very basis of its existence.
  So, many Birmingham people said at once and instinctively that the dreadful nature and scale of the attack was an act
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  of war against the people as a whole and that those who wage this kind of war deserved, and could expect nothing less than, the penalty of death. For more than a week following the outrages considerable apprehension and quite deep fear was felt in the city. People did not care to go into the city centre or, if they went, to say there after dark. They experienced a real sense of danger in visiting public houses and stores and other places of public access. For a time many people felt insecure in their own homes. Fortunately, nearly all these apprehensions have lessened, precautions have been taken and greater vigilance is being exercised, but people will not easily forget those hours of emergency when they felt that their survival was endangered by acts of war. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) expressed this judgment well and with great understanding in his remarkable speech this afternoon.
  Here I pay tribute to the police and the firemen who acted so speedily and efficiently, and to the doctors and nurses who laboured with great dedication throughout the weekend to tend to the urgent needs of the wounded and the dying in the hospitals. I pay tribute, too, to those who volunteered their services in so many ways, including the taxi drivers who immediately ferried the casualties to the hospitals. I am proud to say that all these people gave unstinting service to those in need in a manner which echoed the spirit of 1941.
  I want to say a few words in defensive praise of the general population of the city, who are, in spite of the great disadvantages of living in an over-populated industrial city, tolerant and kindly. After the first understandable burst of indignation and a very small number of minor regrettable incidents it soon became accepted that the overwhelming majority of Birmingham residents of Irish origin were entirely repelled by these outrages. They are as quick and sincere in their condemnation of these terrible acts as other Birmingham residents. The number of letters I have received from those of Irish origin confirms this, and many of those letters included support for the death penalty for acts of terrorism.
  I wish to comment on two main points which have been raised in the debate. The first relates to the creation of

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  martyrs. A factual account of the Birmingham outrages shows that James McDade took a bomb to Coventry and killed himself as a result of its premature explosion. The Birmingham Roman Catholic Archbishop very properly refused funeral rites within his diocese. A great deal of attention was given by newspapers and television to this situation and to the arrangements for the transfer of the remains to Belfast for burial. James McDade had already become a martyr as a result of what happened, and revenge for this event was wreaked upon innocent and mainly young people in Birmingham by the bomb terrorists. That is where the word "revenge" properly occurs. This simple account shows that judicial death penalties are not needed for the creation of martyrs.
  On the question of the deterrent, anyone who has seen the hole blasted in the concrete floor of the Tavern in the Town would realise that a very heavy and powerful explosive was used. The assembly of materials for the manufacture of this wickedly damaging device is not easy. The transport of it and the terrorist to the selected site also requires organisation. Although the person actually placing the bomb may or may not be a fanatic all those knowingly involved in the line of supply are calcula-tingly and intentionally taking part in acts of terrorism and murder. If those people were in danger of suffering the death penalty, many Birmingham people believe, it would be more difficult to get this deadly work done. They believe that fewer bombs would be assembled, transported and delivered, thus saving innocent lives.
  I return to the main point about the instinctive judgment of so many people in Birmingham that those terrible acts were acts of war deserving and requiring the extreme penalty. Those who oppose the amendment tonight may argue that the present measures are sufficient to win that war. It is undoubtedly true that quick action by the police in making rapid arrests has given hope that those responsible will be apprehended and that the terrorist organisations will be weakened, but the question I would have difficulty in answering in Birmingham, should the amendment not be carried, is, what does one do if the war goes
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  on? There are those in the city who with great feeling say to me that in those circumstances they would regard Parliament as having failed in its responsibilities. They say that they would act themselves to do what they believe to be merited by a lawless situation in what has become an area of war.
  It is at once apparent how undesirable such consequences could be. It is necessary for the amendment to be carried as proof of the State's right and determination to defend itself and its people against active war taking place within its homeland.
  8.0 p.m.
  Mr. David Stoddart: I have listened to most of the debate and have been impressed by its high level. I have also been impressed by the manner in which it has been conducted, without rancour and without name-calling, bearing in mind that this is an emotional issue, and with great understanding on both sides of the argument. The House has done itself great credit in carrying on a debate at that level.
  I understand the point of view of the constituents of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Eyre), with whom I sympathise very greatly in their present stress. I can understand that after the bombing there was a state of apprehension and that people were afraid, but that now the fear has largely gone. The apprehensiveness has disappeared and people are coming back into the town centre. But I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that the reason why people are less afraid, why they are coming back, is that the police have been successful in tracking down the people who were, they think, responsible for terrorism. I believe that it has everything to do with that and nothing to do with our debate today. The point was well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Walden), when he opened the debate, that the best way of curing terrorism is to catch the terrorists and to ensure that they know that there is a good chance of their being caught.
  The other point I would like to take up with the hon. Member for Hall Green is one that Members of Parliament and the public should consider seriously. It is the point of view that acts of terrorism are acts of war. I do not believe that they

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  are acts of war. Indeed, it is to put the vicious, dreadful acts on much too high a plane to consider them as acts of war. I would prefer that people did not glorify such acts as the Birmingham bombings as acts of war. If we say that they are acts of war, we are saying that the people who perpetrate them are soldiers. They are not soldiers. They are louts, they are scum. Furthermore, we do not execute prisoners of war. I hope that when people use the argument that terrorism is an act of war they will think clearly about what they are doing.
  I have been impressed by many of the arguments. I shall vote against the amendment because I believe that it will not help to cure terrorism. We have heard of the possibility of hostages being taken if a man is in the condemned cell. That is a very real probability. What concerns me is that if such a thing happens the pressure will mainly be on the Home Secretary. It is not the 635 Members of Parliament who will have to take the decision whether to reprieve the terrorist or let the innocents die. It will be this one man, and it is an intolerable burden for any man to carry.
  Past Home Secretaries have written about what they went through when they had to decide whether to reprieve a murderer. Think of the situation where the lives of, perhaps, six innocent children have to be decided by one man, the Home Secretary—one terrorist or six children. That is a serious point, which we must consider when we vote.
  I shall not deal with many of the other arguments as they have already been very well put. However, I would like to take up a point raised by the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith). In a lucidly argued speech he said that we could, without danger of extension, restore the death penalty for terrorism. He believed that we could say that for all categories of murder other than terrorism there should be no death penalty but that for murder by terrorism there should be the death penalty. I wonder whether he is right. We must consider the matter deeply. One can imagine what the situation would be if the death penalty were reintroduced for terrorist murder.
  Would not a comparison be made if, for example, three children had been
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  raped and then murdered, as recently happened in this country, and the murderer went free, while a terrorist murderer, who had killed one adult person, perhaps 75 years of age, were hanged. Would there not be an extension of the demand? Would not people say "Isn't it absurd that a man should be hanged for killing one, but another man should not hang for killing three?"
  It is extremely difficult to distinguish between forms and sorts of murder. There is no doubt that the legal profession would have a heyday in arguing that particular murders were not terrorist murders, when perhaps they actually were. British juries, which were becoming increasingly reluctant to convict for crimes of murder, would be even more confused.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) spoke of the possibility of hanging an innocent person and of the confusion that could arise. He mentioned the Craig and Bentley case. What he did not mention was that Bentley who was hanged was actually in custody when the policeman was killed.
  There are many others who wish to speak, and in conclusion I merely reiterate, for all the reasons which I have adduced and for reasons adduced by other speakers, that I shall vote against the amendment.
  8.10 p.m.
  Mr. Carol Mather: I support the amendment in the name of my hon. Friends. I shall pick up one or two points in the speech of the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Stoddart) as I go along.
  I think we must understand the nature and psychology of terrorism. It is so to sicken public opinion by the horror of the crimes which these terrorists commit that public opinion and, by implication, Governments bow to their demands. As applied to the present situation, this means the abandonment of Northern Ireland at the point of the gun and the eventuality of an amnesty, as we have had abandonment at the point of the gun in Palestine. I was interested when the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Walden) specifically mentioned Palestine and the three sergeants. I was in the search party hunting for those three sergeants, and so I have had experience of these matters.
  The converse to the terrorists' aims is that, being cowards, they respect strength.

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  They despise clemency as a sign of weakness. This is an unfortunate fact which we have to recognise. It is a war of nerves and a battle of wills. The only way in which we shall win this battle of wills is by persuading the terrorists that their defeat is inevitable. Then we shall find that two-thirds of the battle is won, in the same way as we persuaded the IRA in the previous campaign in Northern Ireland which ended in 1962 that their days were numbered and that they had better give the game up.
  Where I think the argument of the hon. Member for Ladywood fell down—it was an eloquent speech—was when he said that we must concentrate on catching the terrorists and convicting them. But the point is that there is no deterrent. Every terrorist knows that if he pushes hard enough and if he and his friends continue escalating the terrorism, the chances of his release and of an amnesty are that much greater. The hon. Gentleman's argument falls down, as do other arguments from hon. Members on the Government side, because there is no deterrent. I should be interested if anyone could suggest an adequate deterrent.
  Neither do I think that the argument about martyrs applies. There are hundreds of martyrs in Northern Ireland. The pages of history of the last four years are littered with martyrs. We have them by the barrow load. One or two more will not have any effect at all. We find in these days that a live martyr—such as the Price sisters—is far more successful and more significant than a dead one. Continued imprisonment must be an open invitation to further acts of terrorism.
  On the question of hostages, it may happen that hostages are taken if we bring in the death penalty for terrorism, but if we fear the taking of hostages and we do not bring in this change of policy for that reason, we are saying that we are not willing to defend ourselves for fear of reprisals. We now have to take our courage in both hands. It is worth taking the risk—and I doubt whether there is much of a risk—because it will save more lives in the long run.
  If we have another Birmingham, can we in Parliament face the country with a clear conscience unless we have made certain that we have left no stone unturned to combat terrorism? It may be
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  said "If it comes to the crunch and if hostages are taken, have you the guts to see it through if they threaten to shoot the hostages?" If we do not have the guts to see it through, shall we not be worse off in the long run? If we pursue this argument, it means that we have no stomach for the fight and that we might as well fold our tents and steal silently away. Some people may say "Suppose public opinion will not support this attitude." I do not believe that public opinion in this country is like that. I believe it is doing public opinion a great injustice to say that it is like that.
  As to whether it is right to have a difference in the law between Britain and Northern Ireland, I was strongly opposed to the abolition of the death penalty in Northern Ireland, but I believe that in this instance a red herring is being drawn across the trail. We have a clear precedent. Before the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act last year there was a difference in the laws, and it is no good arguing that we cannot have this difference. We are considering terrorism in Britain and we have to set our minds to this and deal with the Northern Ireland situation later. Our amendment follows closely on the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act. It stems directly from it. We therefore have a precedent there. There is a difference in Northern Ireland. There is virtually a state of martial law there. We have 15,000 troops stood to arms, and a security blanket hangs over the Province. We do not have that protection in this country at the moment.
  I believe that we in Parliament now stand before the court of the country. If we fail the country and if there happens to be another outrage, the backlash which the Home Secretary so greatly fears may become a reality and people may begin to take the law into their own hands. We may find to our utter dismay that we have imported into this country the most hideous aspect of the war in Northern Ireland—inter-communal killings. This is a very real danger.
  We must ask how long we in this House can continue to fly in the face of public opinion. We hear a lot about the alienation of Parliament from the people. If there is another outrage, let us not ask, then, for whom the bell tolls. I believe

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  we are debating not so much the effectiveness of the measures which are proposed but the effectiveness of Parliament, our parliamentary will and our parliamentary response to the clearly expressed opinion of most people in this country.
  8.18 p.m.
  Mr. Tom Litterick: As so many hon. Members have referred to public opinion, or what they imagine it to be, I feel that I should contribute my own equally insubstantial evidence of what public opinion is.
  In the wake of the Birmingham outrage I received, as did many others, a large number of letters demanding the death penalty for that sort of crime. As time went on, not only did the flow of that kind of letter fall off, but a different kind of comunication took its place—the still, small voice saying "Do not hang people"—for various reasons. Just as the hangers had different reasons for wishing to hang people, the people who opposed hanging do so for different reasons and with different degrees of persuasiveness. The number of letters that I have received is about equal on either side of the argument. I would not wish to suggest that that is conclusive proof of anything. I am sure that most of us know enough about statistics to know the difference between a significant statistical sample and an insignificant statistical sample.
  One of the disadvantages of coming into a debate like this is that one can in all conscience be brief because most of the points have already been made, and I am left with only one or two.
  I accept, on the basis of the evidence of years of terrorist activity, that if the death penalty is used hostages will be taken and hostages will be killed. Can we ask our fellow citizens to be prepared to die for a decision we may take here today? That is what it boils down to. We know that the terrorist organisations are prepared to kill hostages. They will do it without compunction. That is the sort of people they are. They have a kind of crazy conviction of their own Tightness which makes such an horrendous act of inhumanity easy for them.
  How is one to explain oneself, as a law maker, to the next of kin of victims taken as hostages? How can one tell a
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  mother who knows that a single word by the Home Secretary could save her child that this must not happen because it would be seen to be weakness in the face of the enemy? Most of us have not the heart for such inhumanity, because that is what it would be.
  Since so many hon. Members have used the analogy of war, we also have to ask ourselves what kind of war it is and whose war it is. In this connection, I have to raise a point which may be embarrassing to many of us. We are really talking about Ulster here, and there is an important sense in which what is going on there is not our war. Scratch an Englishman and one finds under the skin an Englishman, not something called "British" but an Englishman who is aware of his Englishness. Much more important in this context, he is aware that he is not an Irishman. He is bewildered by the behaviour of Irishmen towards one another. He is a little more than bewildered by the behaviour of some Irishmen towards him.
  I suspect—I put it no stronger than that—that the vast majority of Englishmen now feel that they have nothing to do at all with what a great Irishman once called "John Bull's other island". I do not think that John Bull wants it any more, whoever and whatever John Bull might be.
  A peculiar war is going on in Ulster, waged by people who when not throwing bombs at each other or killing each other in other ways, fight a dialectical war that Englishmen cannot come to terms with. It is not part of the Englishman's life. Englishmen are not sectarian people; they know nothing of sectarian intolerance. They are bewildered by manifestations of disrespect for law because they do not know or realise that the business of law making, of the administration of law and of the administration of the State in Ulster has for more than 50 years been prostituted for partisan ends and is so calculated as to provoke contempt for law and order in the minds of those who are at the wrong end of the power system.
  Englishmen know nothing of all this. Perhaps it is our fault as non-Irishmen, as it were, but that is how it has happened. People have come to the conclusion that in Ulster the political process cannot be made to work. I bring the

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  House's attention to what is not an untypical statement made by Irishmen about Irish politics:
  "The Roman Catholic church must be declared an illegal organisation.
  All Roman Catholic centres of education must be closed.
  Police will be fighting side by side with us against a common foe, namely Romanism. …
  We need men of conviction, men of high principle, men of courage and of faith who are prepared to resist to the death. …".
  It goes on to talk about knowledge of ballistics and military tactics. That document was issued by a religious organisation in Ireland.
  Mr. John Dunlop Mr. John Dunlop (Mid-Ulster) rose—
  Mr. Litterick: No. I want to be brief. You people have done enough damage to British politics.
  I find this kind of document shocking to the point at which my insides heave. Is this not evidence of a community which knows nothing of the civilised processes? I happen to know, although unfortunately I cannot produce them now, of similar documents issued on the other side of the divide in Ulster. In them is to be found equal evidence of lunacy. This is not a climate in which men can talk to one another about religious differences. It is a climate in which we must conclude that they are not fit to govern themselves, or that we should have nothing to do with them. It may be that hon. Members suggest other conclusions, but there is one that we should resist— that the answer to all this is that we should start hanging one another.
  8.26 p.m.
  Sir Frederic Bennett: The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Litterick) introduced a rather strange note into a debate the high level of which he had just praised. I suggest that, after saying scratch a Britisher and one finds under the skin an Englishman, he will need police protection in Scotland or Wales, in the foreseeable future. Also, when a Member introduces the sort of document which the hon. Gentleman has read from it is only right that he should say what body produced it. Anyone in this House can always produce some document by some lunatic fringe right across the political spectrum.
  Mr. Litterick Mr. Litterick rose—
  Sir Frederic Bennett: No. The hon. Gentleman would not give way. It would have been fairer of the hon. Gentleman to have attributed that document.
  Mr. Litterick: I would not give the authors publicity.
  Sir Frederic Bennett: The hon. Gentleman has given them publicity very successfully.
  I am sorry that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Walden) is not here and has not been here for some time, because I want to make one or two comments about his speech. I thought that it was one of the most persuasive I have ever heard in the House. If anyone could have persuaded me, he might have done. But I must add one note of criticism. He lowered the standard of his speech when he claimed, at the end, for those who would support him, that they and they alone were putting principle above popularity.
  I say this with great conviction because I am a life-long abolitionist. Frequently over the years I have been challenged in my constituency because of the attitude I have taken—for instance, in voting for the original Bill introduced by the late Sydney Silverman. The right hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Stewart) said that to try to draw a distinction between different types of murder was an absurdity. If that is so then every right hon. and hon. Member has been guilty of that over the past 25 years. Even the late Sydney Silverman, who can claim a great responsibility for the abolition of the death penalty, agreed in this House, in debate after debate—it can be checked in HANSARD—that the law of treason covering terrorism against the State should continue and that the death penalty should continue to operate in that context.
  This House and all parties in it have accepted over the years that it is not an absurdity to seek to draw a distinction between different types of murder if one type of murder amounts to an assault on the State and comes under the law of treason. I wish that I had the time to develop the theme of treason because I have tabled an amendment stating that the simplest and most effective way of dealing with this situation would be for the Government not to overlook the law

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  of treason in appropriate cases. If we had not done that in the past a great deal of the heat might have been taken out of the present controversy.
  Since my amendment has not been selected and as there is no possibility of the Government invoking the law of treason which would precisely cover the sort of offences about which we have been talking I am driven for the first time in my life, in pursuit of consistency, to support the selected amendment because it ties up in effect with what Parliament has been doing over the last quarter of a century.
  In these circumstances I can shorten my speech by making only three points. First, today we have heard a great deal of wisdom from those who are supporting the amendment to the effect that one of the factors to be taken into account in a democratic Parliament is the need to meet the sense of public outrage even without being too certain of what the ultimate effects will be. Only three weeks ago I tabled some Questions to the Home Secretary asking for the immediate banning of the collection of funds in London to buy weapons for the IRA—in tins which were labelled "10 new pence will help to kill a British soldier." I was told in a parliamentary answer on the Thursday before the Birmingham bombings that it was impracticable to do this and that legislation would not be effective in that context.
  Then came the Birmingham bombings. I tabled a similar Question the following Tuesday, five days later, and I was told that the Home Secretary was introducing legislation to deal with this problem. In his explanation to the House the right hon. Gentleman said that public outrage had now got so strong that we had to do something about it by way of banning the IRA and the collection of funds for it. We are being perfectly logical tonight in saying that the sense of public outrage at present is one to which the Home Secretary in one context has already had to yield. I suspect that if he does not yield tonight, and if further outrages of the sort we have experienced in Birmingham take place, the right hon. Gentleman will have to change his mind again, because he will be driven to yield to the sort of amendment which is being put forward. Public opinion will
  610
  demand it so stridently that he will have no alternative.
  We must get this point about hostages out of the way. It is such an easy argument to advance, to talk about six little children being held hostage while one terrorist is under sentence of death. What about the same six little children being held till someone serving a term of imprisonment is released? No one has mentioned that. Why are the six little children less likely to be sacrificed if they are held hostage till Mr. X has his sentence of 20 or 30 years cancelled? The argument that hostages are only taken when the death penalty is involved is made a nonsense of by recent hijackings throughout the world. Over and over again hijack demands have involved the setting free of someone serving a term of imprisonment.
  In my amendment I said that not only should we invoke the law of treason but that, if the lawyers think that in reinforcement this is the quickest way to accomplish what I believe the great majority of people want, we should have another look at the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 1966. That Act was passed during the lifetime of a Labour Government. No objection was taken to it. If that Government or the succeeding Conservative Government had objected to it they could have overridden it by repeal. I have checked that this is so with the authorities. So I will read two paragraphs from the Act which summarise exactly what most hon. Members who support the amendment believe. This was the law of part of the United Kingdom until a short time ago. The Act says:
  "Subject to subsection (2), the following murders shall be capital murders, that is to say,—

  (a) murder of any constable or person in the service of the Crown acting in the course of, or of any person assisting any constable or person in the service of the Crown acting in the course of, any duty involving the enforcement of the law …

  (b)murder done in the course or furtherance of any seditious conspiracy or of the activities of any association or organization which is an unlawful association"—

  and so on. That Act, which by implication was consented to by this House because no steps were taken to override it, was until recently on the statute book for a number of years.

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  The provisions which I have just read to the House are all that hon. Members who support the amendment wish to see re-enacted. That is not an unreasonable demand.
  8.35 p.m.
  Mr. Leslie Spriggs: I wish to refer to what has been said time and again about what the reintroduction of capital punishment would do, notably to the bombers and hijackers. We should discuss such matters as terrorism on an international basis. We should not make a special case of the IRA, because it has been proved that terrorism can win the day in various parts of the world. Unless all countries come to the conference table and sign an international agreement refusing to allow hijackers to use their airfields, terrorism will pay off.
  Irishmen value freedom and life as much as we do. The many assertions which have been made about the creation of martyrdom is a lot of rubbish.
  Mrs. Knight: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Spriggs: I do not support the amendment, so do not cheer too soon.
  As a Socialist, and, as someone who believes in justice for everyone, I think that it is wrong to intern people without trial, and the sooner the Government find a way of sorting out the not so bad from the very bad and putting on trial people against whom they have sufficient evidence the better, so that we can show the people of Ireland that we, too, believe in justice. We call upon our Government to take emergency steps to end internment without trial.
  I cannot understand the motive behind the motion. There is no motion calling for the introduction of capital punishment. Had the motion stated
  "That this House recognises that political terrorism requires a reappraisal of established attitudes"
  and stopped there, I could have gone into the Lobby in support of it. But it continues
  "is of the opinion that a re-introduction of the death penalty would neither deter terrorists nor increase the safety of the public".
  There is something wrong with that. It is the wrong way round.
  I voted to end capital punishment. We already have this power on the statute
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  book, yet here we have a motion which says
  "That this House … is of the opinion that a re-introduction of the death penalty would neither deter terrorists nor increase the safety of the public."
  How do its sponsors know? What do they know about it? For years we have been in Northern Ireland trying to show the Irish people how to behave and how to enforce the law. We passed certain measures in the early stages to abolish the B Specials at the request of certain people in Ireland. Arms were taken away from the police in the early stages as a result of the common demand of the Irish people.
  This is an important matter not only for the people of Northern Ireland, who are only asking for the right to govern their own country in their own way, but for the economic and safety position of the people of this country. We are jeopardising the safety of the citizens of the United Kingdom and it costs us many millions of pounds per year to station British troops in Northern Ireland and to maintain and service them.
  I believe the motion to be wrong. Its timing is wrong. Ministers have said that no discussion should take place on capital punishment until the emotional period had come to an end, when tempers had cooled and when people had had time to think. Very few people want revenge. We want a common sense end to the attitude of those who want to hold on to a part of Ireland as a colony of this country rather than to give the people of Ireland a political settlement and the right to govern themselves.
  8.43 p.m.
  Sir Nigel FisherThe hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) will forgive me for not following his argument in any detail because at this hour I must be very brief. I do not believe in capital punishment unless and until it can be shown to be an effective deterrent, but I shall confine my few comments to the context of Northern Ireland.
  I know Northern Ireland very well— about as well as any Englishman can—although that is not saying very much. I have learned a little over the years of the way in which the terrorists think and act. By our English standards they are murderous fanatics, and no one deserves the death

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  penalty more than they do, but by their own standards, they are fighting a holy war, in which, at least to some of them, even martyrdom may be welcome. To them, any means justifies the end. Hanging them will not deprive their cause of sympathy and support. It will make new martyrs and create new patriotic fervour among their followers, ft will contribute nothing to the defeat of the IRA.
  These men do not think as we do. They have no compassion, no mercy and very little fear. They are prepared to blow themselves up in the course of planting their own bombs. If they fear anything at all, it is not the decision of a British court of law. It is the torture and reprisals by their own kind. They genuinely believe that their atrocities are justified because they believe that they are furthering a cause to which they are totally dedicated. Of all murderers, this kind of murderer is the least rational and the least likely to be deterred by any penalty. The deterrent argument is in this case quite illusory.
  It is for this reason, no doubt, that the death penalty has not been used for years in any country which has suffered from terrorism—not even in Israel against the Arabs. I believe that those who advocate capital punishment today are over-reacting to the horrifying bombs in Birmingham and Guildford. They did not demand the death penalty for the bombs in Belfast, day after day and week after week for the past five years. Indeed, the House of Commons abolished the death penalty in Northern Ireland only 18 months ago.
  I understand that some of my hon. Friends who take a different line are reflecting the views of their constituents. But in doing so they are reacting emotionally from revulsion, perhaps from their fears, but not logically from their minds. Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight), I have always believed that Parliament should lead, not follow, public opinion. Anger, revulsion and fear, although very understandable, are not the best bases for legislation in this House of Commons.
  It seems to me that many hon. Members who have spoken in the debate either do not know and understand the Irish, or have not thought through the consequences of their own policy. I beg them to do so. Inevitably, judicial killing is a
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  very protracted process. In Britain we do not kill people without trial and without the right of appeal and the possibility of reprieve—
  Mr. Gerard Fitt: At the moment.
  Sir N. Fisher: At the moment—and I disagree very much with one of my hon. Friends. Let me ask him: what would be the position of the Home Secretary if the IRA kidnapped two or three innocent people—women and children or perhaps British soldiers—and then telephoned the Secretary of State at the Home Office with a demand for the release of the convicted murderers and a threat to kill the hostages if a reprieve was not granted? The point is that the IRA would kill its hostages and, therefore, the Home Secretary would be signing the death warrants of innocent people if he refused to sign the reprieve. Can the right hon. Gentleman do that? Would he do that? Should he do that? If he reprieved the murderers, the law would be a charade, inoperative and unworkable.
  It is not surprising to me to be informed that the best military advice from those who have served in Northern Ireland is against reintroducing the death penalty because it would lead to an escalation of reprisals.
  There is another aspect—intimidation. A man is told to abandon his car with a bomb in it. If he refuses, he is threatened with reprisals against his wife and children, which he knows will be carried out. Which should he choose? His choice is between the possible death of some, to him, unknown people and the killing or maiming of his own family. It is a very difficult choice. Surely we could not hang him for murder under duress. But if not, we should have to write into a homicide Bill different categories of capital and non-capital murder. And how can duress be proved?
  Those who remember the Homicide Act of 1957—I confess that, rather naively, I voted for it at the time—know perfectly well that the death penalty must apply to all murderers or to none.
  Another aspect of intimidation, if we are to revive trial by jury in Ulster, is that it is very unlikely that any jury in Northern Ireland would dare to convict for a capital offence.

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  I come, lastly, to a point on which I disagree with the right hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Craig). Is it seriously suggested that the law of Britain should be further altered to execute those who are under age? If not, hon. Members who ask for the death penalty are putting a premium on the terrorist tactic of training teenagers to kill, which is already a feature of IRA policy in the Province of Ulster.
  The truth is that there is only one real argument for hanging. It is the emotional argument of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It is understandable, perhaps, in the context in which we are talking today, but I hope that in the second half of the twentieth century a civilised State no longer legislates for retribution and revenge.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before calling the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) may I say that certain arrangements have been made regarding an orderly winding up of this very important debate, and I hope that the hon. Member will respect the wishes of the Chair by resuming his seat, if at all possible, by 9 o'clock.
  8.52 p.m.
  Mr. Gerard Fitt: I do not propose, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to exceed the limits which you have imposed upon me.
  Unfortunately I was not here this afternoon to hear the remarks of the right hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Craig). I can quite understand the feelings of revulsion which have swept through the whole of the British population—in this context when I say "the British population" I include my own constituency of Belfast, West—in the wake of the Birmingham bombings. I understand that there is a natural wave of anger and revulsion and that some people are seeking revenge.
  I can understand the feelings of the hon. Lady the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) when she demands the reintroduction of the death penalty in this context. I live in Belfast. I have seen many atrocious killings, not only by the anonymous means of bomb-but by assassination. In my capacity as the representative of Belfast, West in the
  616
  House and as the representative for Belfast, North in the Northern Ireland Assembly, I have carried 84 coffins on my back. I know this figure because this afternoon I made a count before coming here to make this speech.
  Those coffins contained the bodies of 84 innocent people who were killed in bombings. They contained the bodies of ordinary Catholic and Protestant people who had been assassinated. I speak from a fund of knowledge that I never sought. I did not want to carry even one coffin on my back if it contained the body of someone who had lost his life through violence.
  In Stormont I opposed capital punishment, as I did in this House. With the knowledge of all that is happening in Northern Ireland, I ask: has anything happened because of Birmingham, Guild-ford and Woolwich to change my opinion? When I saw on television what had happened in Birmingham, Guild-ford and Woolwich, my immediate gut reaction was "Hang them. Get them out of society." That was an immediate reaction that any human being must have arising from the atrocities which had been committed.
  Next day I thought to myself "Would hanging bring this situation to an end?" I live in Belfast and I shall be returning there tomorrow. There will probably be assassinations, bombings and killings in Northern Ireland, and capital punishment will not bring them to an end. I agree with what was said by the hon. Member for Surbiton (Sir N. Fisher) and his analysis of what is happening in Northern Ireland.
  I believe that the explosions in Birmingham have lead to a watershed situation. People in Birmingham, London, Guildford and all the other areas have stood back and said "What will happen to Britain and, indeed, to Northern Ireland?" We must remember that since the Birmingham explosions there has not been a single assassination in Northern Ireland. Long may that situation continue. Indeed, since the Birmingham outrage there has not been a bomb explosion in Northern Ireland. I believe that the Provisional IRA is on the run—and long may that continue. People in Northern Ireland, both Catholics and Protestants, are defeating

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  the IRA. This will be a continuing process.
  If tonight the House supports the move to a restoration of capital punishment, it will be the greatest disaster not only for this House but for the whole of the United Kingdom. We in Northern Ireland know the great emotional value of funerals in the IRA cause. A funeral recently took place of a young man called McDade, who died when trying to set off a bomb in Coventry. When the man's body or his remains were brought back to Northern Ireland, there was a great deal of intimidation among ordinary Catholic people to try to persuade them to go out on the streets to support the funeral. But the ordinary Catholic people in Northern Ireland said "No, We are not going." Furthermore, a funeral took place yesterday involving a young girl who had been making letter bombs and who in the process unfortunately lost her life. I do not want to see anybody lose his life. Once more, that funeral was not supported by the overwhelming majority of Catholics in Northern Ireland.
  I believe that the age of martyrdom in Northern Ireland is coming to an end. Therefore, if we were to agree to a restoration of capital punishment—I do not believe the House will take this course—we would give the IRA a piece of armoury which it does not have at the moment.
  The tone of the debate so far appears to have been geared to the activities of the IRA. We must remember that there is not only one violent force in Northern Ireland; there are many violent forces there. I refer to the UDA, the UVF, the Ulster Commandos, the Red Hand Commandos and God knows what.
  It will be interesting to see the result of this debate. There are many people who are now in prison in Northern Ireland who have been shooting policemen and soldiers. They are not on my side of the political fence but are members of the UDA and the UVF.
  Mr. Craig: The hon. Member has made an allegation that there are people in Long Kesh from the UDA and UVF who are there because they have shot policemen and soldiers. I should like the hon. Member to produce evidence to back up that statement.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Before the hon. Gentleman responds, may I say that I hope that he and others will respect my wishes.
  Mr. Fitt: Of course I shall respect your wishes, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In answer to the point made by the right hon. Member for Belfast, East, I would say that the majority of people who have been convicted in Northern Ireland of murdering policemen are from the Unionist or so-called Loyalist side of the fence. I make that statement without fear of contradiction.
  I am opposed to capital punishment. I recognise that the debate is taking place in the wake of the Birmingham explosions. However, the judicial killing of alleged terrorists in Northern Ireland will in no way help this country in its war against violence.
  9.0 p.m.
  Mr. Ian Percival: First, I should like to echo the congratulations that have already been offered to my hon. Friends the Members for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) and Cheltenham (Mr. Irving) who made their maiden speeches today. I do not think that either of them would expect me to agree with the content of their speeches. Many of us knew, liked and respected their predecessors very well. We hope and expect that, they, too, will enjoy the happiness and respect so richly enjoyed by their predecessors. Secondly, I should like to apologise to hon. Members whose speeches I have not heard between half-past seven and eight o'clock.
  I want to get on as quickly as possible, because I understand that the Home Secretary wants to start his speech promptly at half-past nine.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I understand that the right hon. Gentleman wants to start at 9.25.
  Mr. Percival: I think that is a little optimistic but I shall do my best, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  I want to get through what I have to say as quickly as possible, because I do not underestimate the importance of what the Home Secretary has to say. I must emphasise that this is an unusual feature of the debate. It is the only time in the

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  15 years that I have been a Member of this House that I have had to wait for the Government's view until all opportunity for question or comments on it had passed. Therefore, if I do not anticipate some of the points that the right hon. Gentleman may make, I hope he will be generous in giving way to short interventions. There is no other way of replying to the new points which he may make.
  I want to pick up some of the points that have been made in favour of my amendment, answer as many of the arguments against it as I can and give some of my personal beliefs and commitments. Many hon. Members have said that there is no certainty about anything. It is very much a matter of personal belief and judgment.
  I should like to start by emphasising what was said by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith). We are dealing with a situation quite different from anything which we have had to deal with in our previous debates on this subject. We are not talking about the reintroduction of anything. This is half way between what we abolished and what we kept. We still have the death penalty for treason. During my 15 years here no attempt has been made to abolish that.
  I do not want to get into the argument about how much comes within the law of treason. That would be counter-productive. If we are to change the law to deal with the present situation, by all means let us build on what we have if it is useful, but let us not be trammelled by it. But the matters about which we are talking are more in the nature of treason. They constitute offences against the community rather than against individuals.
  The different nature of the problem before us gives rise to two very important considerations advanced in the tremendously important speech made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Sir P. Rawlinson). The first was that we must accept that what is proposed in the amendment is no easy answer to the problem and is likely of itself to bring dangers. We have a real obligation to tell those in whose name we purport to
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  do what those who support my amendment are seeking to do what it entails in practice. If we are to ask them to support us—and we get nowhere in any aspect of this war without their support— we must tell them what we are about.
  The second point made by my right hon. and learned Friend was also made by other speakers, but the House may have felt—I mean no disrespect to anyone else who made the point—that it came particularly strongly from him. He said that this was a war of wills. We are dealing with attacks on our integrity of an indescribably cowardly, cruel and evil nature, and it is not only the nature of them but also their purpose that is so evil.
  The purpose of the attacks is to break our spirit, to impose upon us the obligation to do that in which we do not believe, and not to do that in which we do believe, for fear of the consequences. That degrades us individually and collectively and makes us a great deal less than the free men we have been so proud to be for so long. It will therefore be no surprise to the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) if I say that I take an entirely different view of this war from that which he advanced.
  Two main points emerge from what I have said. First, are we really saying that those who engage in these indescribably cowardly and evil actions will become martyrs in the eyes of all but the meanest few? Have not we in this House perhaps done something to elevate them to a status far above anything they deserve? If they are remembered at all, will they not be remembered as the beasts they were, who maimed and murdered indiscriminately?
  Two different views have been advanced on this by two Members for two divisions of the same city, the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) and the right hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Craig). The House must form its own judgment. For my money, I thought that the right hon. Member for Belfast, East, who has been so near to so many of these atrocities, spoke with a degree of restraint that one could not but admire enormously. Speaking for myself, I am bound to say that his attitude towards the likelihood of any of these people becoming martyrs was much more persuasive

  621
  than any view advanced by any other hon. Member.
  The other thing that emerges from what I have said—I put it starkly because this is a stark business—is that this is a war of horror and wills, horror on the one side to break the will on the other.
  That leads me, I think quite naturally, to the broad propositions that govern my thinking and which, I think, must govern the feelings of others. If we expect to beat this horror without suffering, we are out of our minds. There is no way to beat it but by being prepared to stand up to it and take what suffering it may bring.
  It needs a combination of strength of will and willingness to suffer, but on whose part? The answer is not only this House but the whole people of the United Kingdom, of Northern Ireland, of Scotland and of England. Therefore, the strength of public opinion is of great importance in beating this war of horror against will. We do not do it by talking here. We do not even do it by our own strength of will, assuming that we have it. We do it, if we do it at all, with the strength of will and the backing of the people of this country. We therefore have the strongest of all reasons on this occasion to pay heed to their feelings and wishes in this matter.
  Lives will be lost. I accept that, if we do what my amendment calls for, lives may be lost as a result, but is it not as plain as anything could be that anything we do to resist this evil is likely to result in the loss of lives in the short run? Is it not perfectly clear that the one way to stop that loss of life is to beat the terrorist? Is it not equally clear that the one way to beat the terrorist is to convince him—yes, convince him—that we will not be intimidated. I suggest that we only begin to do that when, with full acceptance of the risks run by all members of the public in our United Kingdom, we in this House have faith in, believe in the people, the people believe in us once again, and the IRA believe that together this House and the people of this country have the spirit, the will and the determination to beat that organisation.
  I want to say a final word about personal commitment. I think it was a pity that some hon. Members talked about
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  revenge and vengeance, but I am glad that retribution was mentioned. If retribution goes beyond the bounds of propriety, if what is done in punishment is out of proportion to the offence being punished, that is revenge or vengeance. But could anything be disproportionate to the level of the offence here? Are the people of this country wrong when, in their millions, they sense that there is only one just penalty for these evil killings? Is it not, as the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) said, justice they are seeking rather than retribution? Is that very wrong?
  Is it not time that we in this country face up to this and say what justice is in these circumstances? Are our people not perhaps right in saying that justice demands for this evil offence the penalty of death? Has not the time come when we should say yes, that is right? And we should be prepared to stand up and take whatever consequences it may bring—
  Mr. Fitt Mr. Fitt rose—
  Mr. Percival: I am trying to get on quickly in order to give the Home Secretary as much time as I can, but I have a great deal to cover, and so cannot now give way to the hon. Gentleman. I have sat here all day and have not intervened even once during the debate, though the temptation to do so has been very great.
  I turn now to some of the points made against my amendment. My hon. Friend the Member for Surbiton (Sir N. Fisher) talked about the abolition of capital punishment in Northern Ireland. I do not know whether the Home Secretary will refer to this, but if he does he will, no doubt, bear in mind that a previous Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said on that occasion that the question was whether, having abolished capital punishment for murder in England, it should be retained in Northern Ireland. Now we are talking on a different basis—whether to have it over the whole of the United Kingdom, for terrorism.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Surbiton seemed to say that those who took the opposite view to his were merely reflecting the views of their constituents, on an emotional basis. He also said that it is our job to lead, not to follow. Is he, or anyone who takes that view,

  623
  suggesting that every time a Member takes a different view from that of his constituents he is ahead of his constituents and they should follow him? Is he suggesting that every time an hon. Member takes a view different from that of another hon. Member who is in sympathy with the feeling of the former that the latter is behind his constituents? Anyone who looks such ideas in the eye will cast them aside as unworthy.
  Much more difficult questions are raised by the application of the death penalty in Northern Ireland should the amendment be agreed. I accept at once that these are real difficulties. I do not shrink from them in the least. If the amendment were agreed we should have to get together all the expertise we could to seek the answer. Various answers have been put forward tonight and it would not be appropriate for me to plump for one or another. Certain things, like the desirability of jury trial, are in my nature, and I have accepted them as a lawyer all my life. The idea of a trial by one judge alone with capital punishment at the end is not attractive. These are the matters that we should have to consider with all the collective expertise at our disposal, but they do not go to the principle of what we are seeking to do today.
  It is also argued that, if we do this, the age of those planting the bombs would get lower and lower. Yes, that sends a chill up my spine, too, but the horror that it engenders in me is that anybody should be so evil as to send children about this dirty work to let them face the risk involved. That is what horrifies me. I entertain no doubt that the law which we would pass, whether we brought the old law up to date or made new law, would be sufficiently sensible to deal with that. The Home Secretary knows that anyone who is an accessory before the fact, who plays an active part is liable as a principal in the first degree. We should have to ensure that this applies in every respect necessary to deal with the situation. Do not let us be put off from saying what our principles are, and sticking to them, by having our spines chilled by the horrors which these people could perpetrate.
  I was hoping that we could have had a speech from the Government earlier, be-
  624
  cause one would like to have heard earlier the views of the security forces. I should like to draw the attention of the House to the observations of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell. We all know how closely involved he was in these matters and I respectfully commend his views to the House.
  I am sorry that there has been so much unattractive morbidity today about the gallows. With help from such as Hardy, Housman and Wilde's "Ballad of Reading Goal", this has been an emotive subject for a long time. It has nothing to do with what we are debating. The method is another matter. Of course we would all agree that, if we decided to implement what we are urging upon the House, the only tests for carrying it out would be speed and humanity. Let us not be diverted by such emotive considerations as have surrounded gallows and hanging for so long.
  I come now to the question of deterrence [Interruption.] I hope that hon. Members will realise that I have certain things that I propose to say and that if my time is taken up with interruptions the consequent loss may be shared with others. No one who has spoken against the amendment has tackled the question of what to do if we do not execute. There is only one alternative, a real life imprisonment. That is the only thing which will deter other than capital punishment. The belief that a man who commits crimes of this evilness will go to prison for life and stay there—and I have yet to hear any right hon. or hon. Member from the Government benches say that that punishment should be visited upon these people—is the only other deterrent.
  Many points have been made about deterrence. The real point is that at the moment we do not have a deterrent, and the question is whether what we are proposing would be more of a deterrent than the nothing we have now. However strong might be the resolve of someone to keep a man in prison for a substantial time, no terrorist believes it will happen. The terrorists all believe that either they will be got out by further acts of terrorism or, if they are still in when the settlement comes, they will be freed as a result of an amnesty. We are therefore talking about bringing in a deterrent where there is none.

  625
  I have said that if it was possible to convince the terrorist that the punishment would be prison for life, which is a most horrible thing to contemplate, that would be a deterrent. But does any right hon. or hon. Member think that that is practicable? If it is not, is it not plain that what we are proposing must introduce a deterrent?
  Of course there are fanatics, but is it likely that everyone in the chain of evilness is fighting for a cause and will risk everything to see it through? Have we not had evidence that there are a lot of cheap petty crooks in the chain who are used as front men so that the important members do not get hurt, and do hon. Members think that they will run the risk of execution for their paymasters? It is hard to believe. We are fortified in the belief that it does not make sense by the view of a good many who have long experience of these people.
  We should also remember an important consideration, that deterrence is part of the argument dealing with public safety. If someone convicted of these evil offences is executed, that certainly prevents further participation by that person or his being the cause of further acts of terrorism to secure his release.
  I shall speak a little more slowly now because I regard my final point as the most important in the whole matter for two reasons which I shall seek to demonstrate. I am sure that the Home Secretary will want to advise the House about this aspect. Of course, there is the danger that, if there are prisoners, hostages will be taken. That is a danger we run already. That is what most of the recent hijackings have been about. It is said that execution would provide another occasion, and that is right, but let us not think that it is a new ploy. The question is the same as is already before us.
  Would we break? If the IRA were to believe for a moment that the taking of hostages in any cases would break us it would be greatly encouraged. Is not that what this war is all about? I do not underestimate the agony of a Home Secretary faced such a decision, but it would be an invitation to escalation— here I echo what many other right hon. and hon. Members have said—if one word went out from the Home Secretary or
  626
  from this debate which led the IRA or any other terrorist organisation to believe that we can be intimidated. It would confirm them in the assumptions made by O'Connell if there were the slightest suggestion that we would not introduce the dealth penalty because we feared reprisals. They would be wrong to think that they could break us, but I fear that they might be tempted, relying on such a belief, to venture on a further fearful atrocity. I do not think that they would succeed but—and this is where public opinion is very important—such terrorist action might well cause such a fearful backlash as would wreak an awful vengeance on the guilty and possibly the innocent alike. Even worse, it would be a terrible blow to the rule of law. Therefore I beg the Home Secretary, whatever he may or may not say, to make it clear beyond the slightest possible doubt that neither he nor the Government will waver one inch in the face of terrorism, however evil, and that he will affirm his belief in hon. Members and the people and their will to do what they have to do.
  There is however one even better way to make it clear. If we pass the amendment we shall demonstrate both our determination to do what we and our people believe to be right, and our trust in our people. Therein lies the key. We in the House—Government and Opposition, Front Bench and back bench alike —must trust the people. If we do, they will not fail themselves or their country. If we do not, we might well fail them.
  9.28 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Roy Jenkins): I listened most carefully to the hon. and learned Member for Southport (Mr. Percival), but I thought that he was better at expressing the abhorrence of terrorism, which we all feel, and our determination not to be intimidated by it, which I reiterate, than in adducing detailed arguments in favour of his amendment.
  Debates on this subject, most of all in present circumstances, are necessarily and rightly sombre rather than inspiriting occasions. Nevertheless, today's debate has been conducted in a spirit of constructive inquiry and searching after sense.
  I add my congratulations to the two maiden speakers, the hon. and learned

  627
  Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) and the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Irving), both of whom made brave and lucid speeches.
  I begin with two propositions which, unlike some others which I may have to advance later, will probably be acceptable to those on both sides of the controversy. First, let none of us adopt a holier-than-thou attitude on this difficult issue. I do not regard the virtues of civilisation as being exclusively enshrined on one side of the argument. To believe otherwise would be to take an intolerably complacent and patronising view of people both inside and outside the House whom I greatly respect. Most of us are seeking a little uncertainly from where truth, justice and safety best lie.
  Secondly, I thought it right in the past two months, not only since Birmingham but since the Tower of London explosion in July, to try to reappraise my attitude to capital punishment. To do this I have sought to analyse and in a sense to set aside the main arguments which influenced me in the old pre-terrorist days. These I summarise as being as follows: first, almost as a prerequisite, there was the fact that no unique deterrent effect could be shown. Neither from this country nor from abroad did there begin to be a statistical case for believing that there was any clear correlation between murder rates and the existence or otherwise of the death penalty. On the contrary, the evidence suggested that murder rates in this country had been curiously constant over the whole of this century at least, although somewhat lower recently than in the first decade or so, but less volatile and less subject to deter rence by penalty than almost any other form of crime.
  This being so, the positive objections to the death penalty seemed to me, as to many other hon. Members on both sides of the House—although we might all, I suppose, define them slightly differently— to assume decisive importance: the ghoulish nature of the act and of the preparation for it; the degrading effect, strongly testified to, upon those who had to take part in a hanging, and, in the case of a widely publicised one, upon a large part of the nation; the fact that public sympathy—a fickle quality, as the
  628
  hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) rightly said—often as the day of execution approached, tended perversely to flow from the forgotten victim to the convicted and remembered criminal; and the finality of the penalty in relation to the frailty of human judgment. Out of 192 people hanged in Britain between 1945 and the end of capital punishment, there is thought to be considerable doubt over at least three of them.
  Mr. Victor Goodhew: Terrorists?
  Mr. Jenkins: I am coming to the subject of terrorists in a moment.
  Mr. Goodhew Mr. Goodhew rose—
  Hon. Members: Sit down.
  Mr. Jenkins: I am trying to reply, as I believe the great majority of the House would wish to hear a logical and restrained argument, and I am beginning by saying why, although I think it necessary now to reappraise my attitude and summarise my view, the decisive argument until recently—
  Mr. Goodhew: Will the right hon. Gentleman deal with terrorists?
  Mr. Jenkins: Yes, indeed, but cannot the hon. Gentleman take the point logically and in order?
  Three out of 192 seems to me to be a disturbingly high proportion if one takes the view that to be an innocent man in the death cell, or to have an innocent son in the death cell amounts to a degree of human anguish of a different order from the physical perils of life, the risks of accident or even attack to which we are all to some extent inevitably exposed.
  These are what may be called the classical arguments against the death penalty. I believe them to be very powerful. They have convinced me and much of the House over many years, but I have none the less come to believe in recent months, when we have witnessed a mounting wave of indiscriminate terrorist killing, that in this situation of special menace we should not rest upon traditional arguments. We should approach the matter afresh. This I have endeavoured to do, and if I were convinced that lives could be saved, that greater safety could be given to innnocent

  629
  citizens by the restoration of the death penalty for acts of terrorism, I would consider it my duty to overcome this repugnance, to subordinate any feelings of individual conscience I may have, to set aside these established arguments, and to recommend this change of mind to the House. That, however, is not the conclusion to which I come.
  I believe, after the most careful reflection, that the reintroduction of the death penalty, whether for acts of terrorism alone or more generally, whether for the United Kingdom as a whole or Great Britain alone, would not merely secure no improvement but would in all likelihood make matters worse, would lead to a still greater threat of violence than would otherwise exist, would mean warrants of death and not warrants of safety for innocent and as yet unidentified persons.
  Why do I believe this? First, I believe that, of all classes of killer, dedicated terrorists are the least likely to be deterred by the threat of execution. They have certainly not been deterred by the killing and the counter-killing in Northern Ireland. There, without question, death and violence have fed upon themselves. No one appears to have been deterred from the killing of others by the very real and immediate threat to his own life. It may be argued, however, that Northern Ireland is different from Great Britain and that a hot death in the streets is different from a cold death upon the scaffold. Let us take these points one by one.
  First, it was suggested by the right hon. Members for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) that we should restore capital punishment for Great Britain but not for Northern Ireland. That to me is a most extraordinary proposition—use the weapon where the threat is less and sheathe it where it is greater. That is surely no way in which to treat a favoured, allegedly effective and unique deterrent. I can see no argument, either of principle or of expediency, for such a course.
  Secondly, let us not delude ourselves that the threat of hanging, or of judicial shooting for that matter, would be particularly horrifying to those who are prepared to commit a major terrorist crime. I believe that those who so argue fail to
  630
  understand the psychology—or the psychosis—of fanatical terrorism.
  The martyrdom argument is an old one but it is not less valid for that reason. Although I do not put those who have committed the recent senseless and wholly ignoble acts of mass murder in any way on a par with those who made the 1916 Easter rebellion, it is undoubtedly the case that it was the executions which turned the fiasco of that unpopular rising into a national legend. It was the executions, not the rising, which led Yeats to write the haunting phrase that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Walden) quoted in his remarkable speech. There have been enough martyrs in the past, it may be argued, but fresh ones can always be used by an organisation like the IRA.
  I am, I need hardly say, totally without a shred of sympathy for those who perpetrate outrages such as we have seen. I suppose that I have seen the results of these more than almost any other hon. Member in the House. It has been my duty to see those in hospital after the incidents at the Tower, Guildford and Birmingham. I have no desire at all to preserve the lives of those who have perpetrated such horrible acts. But I do have a desire, in dealing with the enemy, not to play into his hands. I am as convinced as I can be that were this House to vote for the amendment tonight it would be regarded by the IRA not as a defeat or a deterrent but as a victory. Let us play no part in giving the IRA such a victory.
  I know that it is held by some—by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight), for instance—that these arguments may be valid for a core of hard-line terrorists but that the death penalty would none the less deter those who succour or support terrorists. This is a dangerous argument. Certainly a deterrent is not a deterrent unless we are prepared to use it. I do not believe that any significant section of this House or of public opinion, despite its recent mood, would be so prepared when it came up against the actuality of what was involved.
  We cannot hang landladies, we cannot hang mothers who shelter their sons, we cannot hang women who shelter their husbands. It is important in this context that we try to cast our minds a little into the future and not think merely of

  631
  the present. There would be a total revulsion of feeling if we were to hang such people. One of the great, essential battles at the moment in this fight against terrorism, which the police are handling very well indeed, is to prevent any significant part of the Irish community wishing to give cover to terrorists and instead to encourage them to help flush out the terrorists. That battle is going well at the moment. In my view it would go less well, not better, with the death penalty. There would be more of a temptation to cover up.
  The second major question is the protection we owe not only to the public but to the police and security services here and in Northern Ireland. Would it help them if we were to accept the amendment? First I deal briefly with Northern Ireland, which is not my direct responsibility but that of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. He has no doubt that there is no place, either in principle or in practice, for capital punishment in Northern Ireland. He is far from being alone. For instance, many hon. Members will have noticed the views attributed to senior police officers there in the Sunday Telegraph 10 days ago.
  Still more striking, however, as I told the House previously, is the statement made by the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Whitelaw) in the House in May 1973. Former retentionist as he was, he moved the abolition of the death penalty in Northern Ireland and referred to his experience. He did it in these words:
  "I am therefore absolutely convinced … that in the days immediately before and after any proposed execution the police and the soldiers would be at increased risk. As a result, the effort to protect the lives of policemen and soldiers by making an example in the case of a death which cannot be reprieved would be likely to provoke more shooting and more risk of death than to reduce it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th May 1973; Vol. 856, c. 1029.]
  I would simply add to those wise and courageous words that I believe that, broadly speaking, the same would apply in Great Britain, and I include the public among those whose lives would be additionally at risk.
  Mr. William Whitelaw: As the right hon. Gentleman has specifically referred
  632
  to me, and as I had major responsibility in Northern Ireland at the time that I moved the clause, it would be quite wrong if I did not tell the House what my present position is. To leave anyone in any doubt would be entirely wrong.
  Like all other right hon. and hon. Members, I have very carefully considered the new position. I have thought deeply about public opinion and the feeling of the public. However, I have concluded that I would wish to stand by the views which I expressed then. I know that my right hon. Friend the then Prime Minister concurs in this. Therefore, I must tell the House that, having worried very much about my decision, I shall vote for the motion and against the amendment.
  Mr. Jenkins: I salute the courage and forthrightness of the right hon. Gentleman.
  Then there is the question of the attitude of the police here in London and throughout Great Britain. I have hesitated about what, if anything, I should say on this matter. There is always the danger of being anxious to attribute views when it suits one's book and to suppress them when it does not. However, I have been persuaded by the fact that several right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House, but mainly on the benches opposite, have asked me about this matter in the Chamber and outside it.
  I am also influenced by the fact that the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis has volunteered a statement in a form which he would be glad to have used. It is an expert opinion which should be known to the House and to the country. I did not ask him for it; he volunteered it. He has rightly and cautiously said that
  "there is no collective police view of capital punishment and that no one can properly purport to express one."
  But he has also said that,
  "of the six most senior officers of the Metropolitan Police, five are opposed to the return of capital punishment. The five include the Commissioner, the Deputy Commissioner, and the Assistant Commissioners (Crime) and (Operational). All are long-serving professional policemen with extensive practical experience. The senior operational detective is of the same view."

  633
  I should add—I am not quoting now but speaking on my own responsibility —that in reaching this conclusion the Commissioner has been greatly influenced by his own view of effective deterrence. This he regards as the likelihood of detection followed by, for the guilty, the near certainty of conviction. He thinks that this process would be weakened by capital punishment. He fears that majority verdicts, which at present result in one out of nine convictions, including a number relating to terrorists recently, will have to go. As the author of the measure to introduce majority verdicts, which was passed by this House against considerable opposition, especially from Conservative Members, I do not think that such verdicts could remain for capital offences. Once we begin to say that a verdict is not good enough for one form of offence and for one form of punishment it becomes very difficult to defend it for others.
  The Commissioner also believes—this point was taken in a previous debate by the hon. and learned Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner)—that, majority verdicts apart, juries would in general be more hesitant to convict with a capital sentence. Again I agree with him.
  Let no one be in any doubt of the deterrent effect, where deterrence applies at all, given the psychosis of the individual, of a long, undramatic prison sentence.
  Mr. Nigel Lawson: What the Home Secretary says is of great importance. Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Commissioner of Police was talking about capital punishment in general or about the specific issue of terrorism?
  Mr. Jenkins: The Commissioner of Police was talking about capital punishment specifically in relation to the present debate and the present wave of terrorist offences.
  Sir Keith Joseph: I raise this point while there is still time for the Home Secretary to fit it in. I take seriously all he said. Will he find time to deal with the argument which affects many of us, that the IRA does not believe that its members will be left in prison for long, and that there is no effective deterrent in
  634
  the prison system because of the belief in a political bargain?
  Mr. Jenkins: I shall indeed do so. I make no objection. Had the right hon. Gentleman not put that point to me I would have been answering it already.
  Let no one believe that there is no real deterrence in, as I put it, a long undramatic prison sentence. I wish to introduce as little controversy as possible tonight. However, I think that some Opposition hon. Members have done great damage by endorsing the view, which I hold to be wholly false, that terrorists will be released from prison in a short time.
  No Home Secretary can bind his successor. But in my view—and I speak with full consideration here—there is no prospect of amnesties for those who have committed cold-blooded and indiscriminate murder or maiming in this country. I do not recognise political excuses for crimes of that order. Those who have received long sentences should, in my view, serve them, whatever political settlements there may be.
  Mrs. Knight: What would be the view of the Home Secretary if the situation were to arise where hostages were taken in an attempt to enforce the release of prisoners?
  Mr. Jenkins: My view is that no one can bargain for such circumstances. My view is also that, because of the heightened drama and the particular concentration on one moment, this would be a much greater threat after the death penalty had been carried out than the threat which exists now, and is not negligible when the moment is not so heightened. Therefore, I believe that this House would be detracting both from security and from deterrence were it to vote for the amendment.
  There remains the argument that if we take this view we are probably at variance with public opinion and may be, it is argued, dangerously so. However, this argument takes us to the heart of our representative and democratic dilemma. We are a new Parliament. We were all elected after the Tower, after Guildford, but not after the dreadful Birmingham incident. Presumably we were all asked at some stage in the

  635
  election campaign—certainly I was— about our views on capital punishment, and presumably we all gave them.
  I do not discount the doubts and fears of those who hesitate about going against what appear to be the wishes of their constituents. I do not dismiss it for a moment as cowardice or mere popularity seeking. None the less, it would be wrong to take a decision upon this basis.
  For those who are firmly convinced of the value of the death penalty, there is no problem. For others it might perhaps be reasonable to vote in accordance with outside views if they were convinced that hanging, even if it did no good, could at least do no harm. But that is not the position. None of us can claim infallibility of knowledge or judgment in this or in any other matter. But it is my view and that of nearly everyone who has had high responsibility for dealing with this new and horrible challenge that the potentiality for greater harm and greater violence is formidable.
  Nothing that we can do will guarantee us complete safety. Whatever course we take, it is likely that there will be further outrages. I believe, however, that the risks to our people, the risks to our police and security services and the prospect of an almost inevitable escalation of violence would be greater if we took this step tonight. What is more, the chances of a political settlement would be less.
  This is exactly the sort of situation in which this House should exercise its qualities of independent judgment and not merely those of reflecting opinion. Above all, it is an issue on which it is our public duty to import perspective, to learn from the past and to look to the future as well as to react to the present.
  I ask the House to support the motion and not the amendment.
  Question put, That the amendment be made: —
  The House divided: Ayes 217, Noes 369.

  Division No. 32]

  AYES

  [9.58 p.m.

  Adley, Robert

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  Holland, Philip

  Aitken, J. W. P.

  Dunlop, J.

  Hordern, Peter

  Alison, Michael

  Dunnett, Jack

  Howell, David (Guildford)

  Arnold, Tom

  Durant, Tony

  Hunt, John

  Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Awdry, Daniel

  Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  James, David

  Banks, Robert

  Emery, Peter

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick (Redbr.)

  Bell, Ronald

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Jesse!, Toby

  Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)

  Farr, John

  Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

  Bennett, Dr Reginald (Fareham)

  Fell, Anthony

  Jones, Arthur (Daventry)

  Biffen, John

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Fletcher, Alex (Edinburgh N.)

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Blaker, Peter

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Bowden, Andrew (Brighton)

  Fowler, Norman (Sutton C.)

  Kilfedder, James

  Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)

  Fox, Marcus

  Kimball, Marcus

  Bradford, Rev Robert

  Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St.)

  King, Tom (Bridgwater)

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Fry, Peter

  Kitson, Sir Timothy

  Brittan, Leon

  Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  Brotherton, Michael

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Lane, David

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Gardner, Edward (S. Fylde)

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

  Latham, Michael (Mellon)

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Godber, Rt Hon Joseph

  Lawson, Nigel

  Burden, F. A.

  Goodhart, Philip

  Le Merchant, Spencer

  Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

  Goodhew, Victor

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Carlisle, Mark

  Gow, I. (Eastbourne)

  Lewis, Arthur (Newham N.)

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Churchill, W. S.

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow C.)

  Luce, Richard

  Clark, Alan (Plymouth, S)

  Gray, Hamish

  MacCormick, lain

  Clark, William (Croydon, S.)

  Grieve, Percy

  McCrindle, Robert

  Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)

  Griffiths, Eldon

  McCusker, Harold

  Cope, John

  Grylls, Michael

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Cordle, John H.

  Hall, Sir John

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Cormack, Patrick

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Marten, Neil

  Corrie, John

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Mates, Michael

  Costain, A. P.

  Hannam, John

  Mather, Carol

  Craig, Rt Hon W. (Belfast)

  Harrison, Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Maude, Angus

  Crawford, Douglas

  Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss

  Maudling, Rt Hon Reginald

  Critchley, Julian

  Hastings, Stephen

  Mawby, Ray

  Crouch, David

  Havers, Sir Michael

  Maxwell-K'yslop, Robin

  Crowder, F. P.

  Hawkins, Paul

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutsford)

  Henderson, Douglas

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Doig, Peter

  Hicks, Robert

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)

  Mills, Peter

  Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

  Stokes, John

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Tapsell, Peter

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Renton Rt Hn Sir D. (Hunts.)

  Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)

  Molyneaux, James

  Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)

  Taylor, Teddy (Glasgow C.)

  Monro, Hector

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Tebbit, Norman

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Temple-Morris, P.

  Moore, John (Croydon C)

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Thatcher, Rt Hon M.

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff N.W.)

  Trotter, Neville

  Morgan, Geraint

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Tugendhat, Christopher

  Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral

  Ross, William (Londonderry)

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Morris, Michael (Northants)

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Vaughan, Dr Gerard

  Morrison, Peter (Chester)

  Rost, Peter (SE Derbyshire)

  Vlggers, P. J.

  Mudd, David

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Wakeham, John

  Neave, Airey

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Walder, David (Clitheroe)

  Neubert, Michael

  Shelton, William (Lambeth St.)

  Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek

  Nott, John

  Shersby, Michael

  Wall, Patrick

  Onslow, Cranley

  Silvester, Fred

  Warren, Kenneth

  Oppenheim, Mrs Sally

  Sims, Roger

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Osborn, John

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Wells, John

  Page, John (Harrow West)

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  Welsh, Andrew

  Paisley, Rev Ian

  Smith, Dudley (Warwick)

  Wiggin, Jerry (Weston-s-Mare)

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Spence, John

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Pattie, Geoffrey

  Spicer, James (W. Dorset)

  Wood, Rt Hon Richard

  Percival, Ian

  Spicer, Michael (S. Worcester)

  Young, Sir George (Ealing)

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Sproat, lain

  Younger, Hon George

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Stainton Keith

  Prior, Rt Hon James

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Stanley, John

  Mr. Reginald Eyre and

  Raison, Timothy

  Steen, Anthony (Liverpool)

  Mr. Keith Speed.

  Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Channon, Paul

  Fitt, Gerard (Belfast)

  Allaun, Frank

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushclifte)

  Flannery, Martin

  Amery, Rt Hon Julian

  Clemitson, I. M.

  Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

  Anderson, Donald

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol S.)

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Archer, Peter

  Cohen, Stanley

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Coleman, Donald

  Ford, Ben T.

  Ashley, Jack

  Colquhoun, Mrs Maureen

  Forrester, John

  Ashton, Joe

  Concannon, J. D.

  Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)

  Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

  Conlan, Bernard

  Fraser, John (Lambeth N.)

  Atkinson, Norman

  Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)

  Freeson, Reginald

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Corbett, Robin

  Freud, Clement

  Bain, Mrs Margaret

  Cox, Thomas (Wands, Toot)

  Garrett, John (Norwich S.)

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow M.)

  Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

  Barnett, Joel (Heywood)

  Crawshaw, Richard

  George, Bruce

  Bates, Alf

  Crosland, Rt Hon Anthony

  Gilbert, Dr John

  Bean, Robert E.

  Cryer, Bob

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)

  Beith, A. J.

  Cunningham, Dr J. (Whiteh.)

  Ginsburg, David

  Benn, Rt Hn Anthony Wedgwood

  Dalyell, Tam

  Goodlad, A.

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Davidson, Arthur

  Gorst, John

  Benyon, W. R.

  Davies, Bryan (Enfield N.)

  Gould, Bryan

  Berry, Hon Anthony

  Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)

  Gourlay, Harry

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Graham, Ted

  Bishop, Edward

  Davis, S. Clinton (Hackney C.)

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Deakins, Eric

  Grant, John (Islington C.)

  Boardman, H.

  Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

  Grimond, Rt Hon J.

  Body, Richard

  de Freitas, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Grist, Ian

  Booth, Albert

  Delargy, Hugh

  Grocott, Bruce

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Dell, Rt Hon Edmund

  Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur

  Dempsey, James

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Boyden, James (Bish Auck.)

  Dodsworth, Geoffrey

  Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

  Bradley, Tom

  Dormand, Jack

  Hamling, William

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Hardy, Peter

  Brocklebank-Fowler, C.

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Harper, Joseph

  Broughton, Sir Alfred

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Brown, Hugh D. (Glasgow Pr.)

  Dunn, James A.

  Hart, Rt Hon Judith

  Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle)

  Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth

  Hatton, Frank

  Brown, Ronald (Hackney S.)

  Eadie, Alex

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Buchan, Norman

  Edelman, Maurice

  Hayman, Mrs Helene

  Buchanan, Richard

  Edge, Geoffrey

  Heath, Rt Hon Edward

  Buck, Antony

  Edwards, Robert (Wolv. S.E.)

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Budgen, Nick

  Elliott, Sir William

  Heseltine, Michael

  Butler, Mrs Joyce (Haringey)

  Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)

  Higgins, Terencs L.

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P.)

  Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

  Hooley, Frank

  Campbell, Ian

  English, Michael

  Hooson, Emlyn

  Canavan, Dennis

  Evans, loan L. (Aberdare)

  Horam, John

  Cant, R. B.

  Evans, John (Newton)

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Carmichael, Neil

  Swing, Harry (Stirling)

  Howell, Denis (B'ham, Sm H)

  Carr, Rt Hon Robert

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

  Carter, Ray

  Faulds, Andrew

  Hoyle, Douglas (Nelson)

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.

  Huckfield, Leslie

  Cartwright, John

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

  Castle, Rt Hon Barbara

  Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

  Hughes, Mark (Durham)

  638

  639

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N.)

  Mendelson, John

  Silkin Rt Hn John (Lewish.)

  Hunter, Adam

  Mikardo, Ian

  Silkin, Rt Hn S. C. (Southwk.)

  Hurd, Dougias

  Millan, Bruce

  Sillars, James

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Miller, Dr M. (E. Kilbride)

  Silverman, Julius

  Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (L'pool)

  Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

  Molloy, William

  Small, William

  Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)

  Moonman, Eric

  Smith, John (N. Lanarkshire)

  Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Snape, Peter

  Jackson Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

  Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

  Spearing, Nigel

  Janner, Greville

  Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

  Stallard, A. W.

  Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

  Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Jeger, Mrs Lena

  Moyle, Roland

  Stewart, Rt Hn Michael (H'smith, F)

  Jenkins, Hugh (Wandsworth)

  Murray, Ronald King

  Stoddart, David

  Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (B'ham, St)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Stott, Roger

  John, Brynmor

  Newens, Stanley

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Johnson, James (Kingston, W.)

  Newton, Tony

  Strang, Gavin

  Johnson, Walter (Derby S)

  Noble, Mike

  Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Oakes, Gordon

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  Jones, Alec (Rhondda)

  Ogden, Eric

  Swain, Thomas

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  O'Halloran, Michael

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  O'Malley, Brian

  Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

  Judd, Frank

  Orbach, Maurice

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Kaufman, Gerald

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Thomas, Mike (Newcastle)

  Kelley, Richard

  Ovenden, John

  Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Barnet)

  Kerr, Russell

  Owen, Dr David

  Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Padiey, Waiter

  Thompson, George

  King, Evelyn (South Dorset)

  Palmer, Arthur

  Thorne, Stan (Preston)

  Kinnock, Neil

  Pardoe, John

  Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (Devon)

  Knox, David

  Park, George

  Tierney, Sydney

  Lamborn, Harry

  Parker, John

  Tinn, James

  Lamond, James

  Parry, Robert

  Tomlinson, John

  Lamont, Norman

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Torney, Tom

  Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

  Peart, Rt Hon Fred

  Townsend, Cyril D.

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Pendry, Tom

  Tuck, Raphael

  Lee, John

  Penhaligon, David

  Urwin, T. W.

  Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

  Perry, Ernest

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Lever, Rt Hon Harold

  Peyton, Rt Hon John

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V.)

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Phipps, Dr Colin

  Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)

  Lipton, Marcus

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch

  Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'dyw'd)

  Litterick, Tom

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Lloyd, Ian (Havant)

  Prescott, John

  Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Price, William (Rugby)

  Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

  Loyden, Eddie

  Radice, Giles

  Walters, Dennis

  Luard, Evan

  Rathbone, Tim

  Ward, Michael

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S.)

  Watkins, David

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

  Reid, George

  Watkinson, John

  Mabon, Dr J. Dickson

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Weetch, Ken

  McCartney, Hugh

  Richardson, Miss Jo

  Weitzman, David

  McElhone, Frank

  Rifkind, Maicoim

  Wellbeloved, James

  MacFarquhar, R.

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  White Frank R. (Bury)

  MacGregor, John

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  White, James (Glasgow, P)

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Rodgers, George (Chorley)

  Whitehead, Phillip

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Rodgers, William (Teesside)

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Maclennan, Robert

  Rooker, J. W.

  Wigley, Dafydd (Caernarvon)

  Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

  Roper, John

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C.)

  Rose, Paul B.

  Williams, Alan (Swansea)

  McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Williams, Alan, Lee (Haver'g)

  McNamara, Kevin

  Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilm'nock)

  Williams, Rt Hn Shirley (Hertford)

  Madden, Max

  Rowlands, Ted

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Madel, David

  Ryman, John

  Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

  Magee, Bryan

  Sainsbury, Tim

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E.)

  Maguire, M. F. (Fermanagh)

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Wilson, Rt Hon H. (Huyton)

  Mahon, Simon

  Sandelson, Neville

  Wilson, William (Coventry S.E.)

  Mallalieu, J. P. W.

  Scott, N.

  Wise Mrs Audrey

  Marks, Ken

  Sedgemore, B.

  Woodall, Alec

  Marquand, David

  Selby, Harry

  Woof, Robert

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Shaw, Arnold (Redbridge, IIf.)

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester)

  Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)

  Young, David (Bolton E.)

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Shepherd, Colin

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Mason, Rt Hon Roy

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Short, Rt Hon Edward (Newcastle C)

  Mr. John Golding and

  Meacher, Michael

  Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)

  Mrs Millie Miller.

  Mellish. Rt Hon Robert

  Question accordingly negatived
  Main Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House, while recognising that political terrorism requires a reappraisal of
  640
  established attitudes, is of opinion that a re-introduction of the death penalty would neither deter terrorists nor increase the safety of the public.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That at this day's Sitting, the Lords Amendment to the Social Security Amendment Bill
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  may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour and that the Motion relating to Collective Dismissals may be proceeded with, though opposed, until half-past Eleven o'clock or one and a half hours after it has been entered upon, whichever is the later.—[Mr. Edward Short.]

  SOCIAL SECURITY AMENDMENT BILL
  Lords amendment considered.
  SOCIAL SECURITY AMENDMENT BILL

    Clause 1
    CONTRIBUTIONS
    Lords amendment: In page 2, line 20, leave out from "£2,500)" to end of line 21.
    10.15 p.m.
    The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Mr. Brian O'Malley): I beg to move, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment.
    Mr. Speaker: I have to call the attention of the House to the fact that privilege is involved in the amendment.
    Mr. O'Malley: This is the fourth debate in the House on what would be a proper and fair level of contributions to be paid to the National Insurance Scheme by the self-employed from next April. When the Bill left the House to go to another place the provision was for a contribution of 8 per cent. on profits or gains arising under Schedule D between £1,600 and £3,600. The amendment moved and carried in the other place reduced that 8 per cent. to 5 per cent.
    Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
    Mr. O'Malley: In view of the cheers from the benches opposite perhaps I should tell the House that the public debate on this subject has been noticeable for the gross distortion of facts by Members of the Conservative Party, including the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) who speaks for his party on these matters—[HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."] —I shall demonstrate that to Tory Members who should not shout "Rubbish" before they hear the arguments or learn what their right hon. and learned Friend said.
    The first clear indication of this came in a report in the Daily Telegraph of 25th November 1974. In a speech to the National Federation of Self Em-
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    ployed the right hon. and learned Gentleman is quoted as having said:
    "Our proposals were fair and sensible."—
    That is what he said about the Class 4 contributions that are being attacked by members of the self-employed federation who are being misled by Opposition Members.
    "The self-employed would have paid at a rate of 5 per cent. on any earnings in excess of £1,150 a year up to a maximum of £2,500.
    "On this basis the maximum payable would have been £67·50 a year. But Barbara Castle proposes swingeing increases in these contributions with nothing in return."
    The right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East, who has never openly admitted it, knows from what was said by his noble Friend Lord Aberdare during the Committee stage of the Conservative Bill in another place that the band £1,150 to £2,500 was, as the then Undersecretary of State said, on a ratchet and would move as earnings and benefits moved. The Government have moved the band between £1,150 and £2,500 in the same way as the Conservative Government proposed to do in their Social Security Act 1973. We had better get that straight. If what has been said by the Opposition is not distortion, someone had better tell me what is.
    What was equally distorting was the party political broadcast on behalf of the Conservative Party on 4th December of this year, when the public were told:
    "But Labour wants to make many of them "—
    that is the self-employed—
    "pay at almost twice the rate we proposed."
    That is not distortion—it just is not true.
    In the £1,600 to £3,600 band, the difference between the parties, when we were debating whether it should be 8 per cent. or 5 per cent., was not almost double the rate, but the difference between, at most, £115 a year as opposed to £160 in the 8 per cent. proposals that have been put forward by the Government.
    Members of the Conservative Party have tried to present this proposal to the public as showing that the Government are hostile to the self-employed and are determined to clobber them. Tory Members have just lost an election, and they think that there are some cheap votes in

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    this. What we should be clear about is that we are discussing the Conservative structure. It was the Conservative Government who introduced the Class 4 contributions in the Social Security Act 1973, and what we are maintaining in this provision is the ratio between the Class 2 contributions along with Class 4 contributions on the one hand, and the total of Class 1 contributions on the other. We have not moved from the ratio and structure that was set down by the Conservative Party in its Social Security Act 1973.
    I propose to reply to the new arguments which have been deployed on this subject since the Bill left the House of Commons, but first it is necessary to set out the history of the affair. I shall do so briefly because I set out the facts at great length during the Committee and the Report proceedings of the Bill when it was previously before the House. Between 1948 and 1961, from the inception of the National Insurance Scheme and for 13 years, under successive Governments the ratio of contributions as between the self-employed contributions and Class 1 contributions was about 70 per cent.
    When the Boyd-Carpenter graduated pension scheme came in, because it was not possible to apply graduated contributions to the self-employed, the ratio dropped very substantially over the years until, when the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) was considering the restructuring of the National Insurance Scheme in the Bill which became the Social Security Act 1973, he clearly came to the decision that the ratio of about 70 per cent., which had endured for the first 13 years of the National Insurance Scheme and had declined to 40 per cent., was an unsatisfactory position. He therefore sought to move towards a system of earnings-related contributions for the self-employed. We on these benches supported that move and gave the right hon. Gentleman full backing in the House and in the Committee proceedings. The result of the decision to introduce Class 4 contributions was that there was not a move up to the ratio established in the first 13 years of the scheme, but to a ratio set at a new level —which the then Government thought necessary—of about 60 per cent. or somewhat higher.
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    The only decision made by the present Government in amending in any way the proposals as laid down by law in the Social Security Act 1973 was to give greater protection for those self-employed who had lower incomes. When hon. Members on the Opposition side attempt to say that this Government have done nothing for the self-employed, and that we are attacking the self-employed, it would be more becoming if they would point out that between one-third and one-half of the self-employed, according to the latest estimate we have, have incomes at or below £1,600 a year. Therefore at least one-third of the self-employed in this country will be paying less in contributions from April 1975 than they would have done under the Conservatives' proposals. We took a decision not to put up on the ratchet which existed in the 1973 Act the Class 2 contribution from £241 to £2·70, and at least one-third of all self-employed people have benefited as a result of that decision. That is the only amendment we have made in the structure and ratio which was proposed by the Opposition when in Government—
    Mr. John Gorst: Can the Minister assist the House by informing us precisely what is the total cost involved in the change which the Lords have made to this aspect of the Bill?
    Mr. O'Malley: The cost is £21 million —that is the difference between the 5 per cent. rate and the 8 per cent rate. The figure is £7 million for each 1 per cent.
    I turn briefly to the new arguments that have been adduced in another place and by the right hon. and learned Gentleman in the columns of the Daily Telegraph of 10th December. Lord Aberdare said on 5th December that under the 1973 Act the self-employed would have paid an estimated £143 million in 1976–77, that is 3·8 per cent. of the total of all the contributions paid by all classes of contributors.
    On the other hand, in this Bill, that figure of 3·8 per cent. is taken to 4·2 per cent., so the noble Lord argued that there should be a reduction of £21 million, which is what the amendment achieves, to go back to the 3·8 per cent. figure which was a part of the 1973 Act.
    I believed that that point, which was: newly raised, was a substantial one which needed detailed consideration. I have

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    therefore consulted the Government Actuary, who is an independent and authoritative source of advice and who was responsible for the reports in question. He has advised that this conclusion is not a valid one to draw from his figures because, for technical reasons, the bases for the figures in the two reports are not comparable in that way. The increases in self-employed contributions were based on realistic assumptions about increases in benefits and earnings between July 1974 and 1975–76, but the Class I yields were based on a long-term assumption of an 8 per cent. per annum increase.
    Since it is important to the House to have the true comparisons, I have asked the Government Actuary to do a fresh calculation of these figures on comparable bases. These calculations show that the share of total contributions borne by the self-employed under this Bill will be 3·73 per cent. in a full year of operation, or slightly lower than the figure of 3·86 per cent. shown by the figures in Table 4 of the Government Actuary's report on the 1972 Bill.
    So far, therefore, from supporting the Opposition's contention that we are increasing the relative share of the cost of the scheme to be met by the self-employed, these figures support to the hilt the Government's claim that we are simply preserving the ratio set in the 1973 Act between self-employed and Class 1 contributors.
    It has been a feature of these debates on both sides of the House that there is a recognition that the present arrangements for the self-employed are far from ideal. However, this Government inherited a structure for the ratio as between Classes 2 and 4 contributors and Class 1 contributors. However, in our new proposals to implement "Better pensions", we are re-examining the relationships established by the Conservative Government to see whether there is any way of aligning the position of the self-employed more closely with that of the employed.
    We shall need to have regard to the differences in the situation created by our proposals for contracting out and to devise provisions which will be fair and acceptable to both employed and self-employed, bearing in mind that the employed already have to pay a substantial subsidy towards the benefits of
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    the self-employed. This re-examination will have to include a study of both the flat-rate and the earnings-related elements.
    All these matters will clearly take some time and I have already undertaken to consult those concerned. For example, the National Federation of Self Employed came to see me only a few days ago, and I gave them that undertaking. In the end, we may face the situation faced by successive Governments wishing to improve the structure of provision for the self-employed and may be able to devise nothing better than the present arrangements. But we are certainly willing to examine the matter in the context of our longer-term plans, and we are doing that at the moment.
    These debates over the years have shown, especially in view of the structure which was devised by the previous Government and supported by the then Opposition, that it was felt that, although the situation was far from ideal, the contributions structure was the best that could be devised. I give the previous Government credit for having done that and moved further towards earnings-relation in contributions than any previous administration.
    We backed the then Government in bringing those proposals forward. Clearly, what we have is not an ideal situation and we shall need to reconsider the whole question of the self-employed —[Interruption.]—once we get away from the structure of benefits and contributions laid down in the Conservative Social Security Act 1973. The Government have been in power for only a few months. We have already produced our White Paper "Better Pensions", which deals with the long-term provisions on an earnings-related basis with contracting out so that there can be a proper partnership between State provision and occupational schemes. We are now examining the changed situation which should arise because of the new structure laid down in "Better pensions" and how that affects the self-employed.
    10.30 p.m.
    The Government feel that the ratio set by the previous administration as between Class 2/4 and Class 1 contributions, although with a modification to help the lower-paid self-employed, is the best we

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    have in the present circumstances, although it is certainly not an ideal one. We want to improve that situation and the structure as it affects the self-employed as and if we can, and we are examining all the implications of the long-term proposals of "Better pensions" for the self-employed.
    For that reason I ask the House and my hon. and right hon. Friends to reject the Lords amendment.
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: The House welcomes this further opportunity of trying even at this late stage to persuade the Government to change their mind and modify what emerges as a particularly unjust and vindictive piece of legislation. Tonight as on previous occasions the Minister has sought to identify this as the responsibility of the last administration, when it is none other than the responsibility of himself and his Government.
    I welcome so far as it goes the Minister's observation towards the end of his speech, but I totally deplore the insensitive, arrogant and intolerant attitude which he has deployed throughout previous debates on the subject. There is a reluctance on his part to accept what I shall demonstrate beyond peradventure— the responsibility of the Government for a large part of what is being complained of. The Government should by now have recognised that their arguments have found less and less support on each occasion that they have been examined. When they were examined in another place they commanded so little support that an overwhelming majority of noble lords—87 votes to 28—carried the amendment and rejected the Government's case, and quite rightly so.
    Mr. George Cunningham: They did not understand what was being discussed.
    Sir G. Howe: The hon. Member says that the peers did not know anything about the argument which is being advanced. He has paid little attention to the fact, for example, that Labour peers were given private teach-ins by Lord Wells-Pestell. They were presented with documents and arguments setting out the facts, but notwithstanding that they rejected, and quite rightly, the arguments that the Government advanced.
    Mr. Cunningham: Some of those peers certainly needed that assistance. One of the noble lords of the Labour Party who spoke vehemently in favour of the reduction of the amount to be paid by the self-employed confessed that he was unaware at the beginning of his speech that self-employed persons carried an entitlement to widows pension. He also confessed when he was put right on that matter, that that took away three-quarters of the substance of his speech.
    Sir G. Howe: That may be a point the hon. Gentleman is now driven to rely on. The fact is that when the matter had been fully explained to the noble Lord, none other than the former Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, and when that explanation had been confirmed by the officials advising the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, he voted against the Government, as did other members of the Labaur Party.
    Mr. George Cunningham: He was wrong again.
    Sir G. Howe: The case against the Government was supported by not only the former Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, but a distinguished constituent of mine who argued powerfully against the Government, although he did not vote against them, a former chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, Lord Houghton. The Government's unwillingness to listen to such advocates is as astonishing as it is insensitive and arrogant.
    We have never sought to set on one side the principle of earnings-related benefits, nor have we shrunk from the proposition that if we seek to remove this additional burden on the self-employed we should suggest other ways of meeting the cost. We have put forward three possibilities—an increase in the flat rate, an additional contribution from employed people or an increase in the Exchequer contribution. The last possibility would be the easiest, and it would cost only £21 million.
    The fund to which the contributions go, increasingly mythical as it is, will be hugely in credit, substantially because the rate of wage inflation, as the Government Actuary admitted in his report on the Social Security Benefits Bill, is now running at 17½ per cent. a year on his

    651
    analysis, as opposed to the 8 per cent. a year assumption on which the Government's figures and the Bill are based. The fund is overflowing with the consequences of the breakdown of the social contract. If money must be raised, it can readily be raised from the Exchequer in that way.
    The Government do not need the money. The amendment says that, even if they did, they need not and should not resort to the proposed method of finding it.
    Mr. O'Malley: The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that the Government do not need the money. It is true that in 1975–76 there will be an estimated surplus of £268 million in the fund. But that estimate makes no allowance for the December 1975 uprating, and an uprating of the illustrative dimensions costing a further £235 million in 1975–76 alone. Therefore, there is not the surplus that the right hon. and learned Gentleman suggests.
    Sir G. Howe: The Minister misses the point. The calculations on which the Bill is based, calculations by the Government Actuary, are made on the assumption that the Government asked the Government Actuary to accept, of a rate of wage inflation of 8 per cent. In the report supporting the Social Security Benefits Bill the Government Actuary, unled by the Government, has accepted a more realistic assumption of a wage increase of 174 per cent. On that basis, the fund will be full to overflowing. Therefore, there is no reason for maintaining the additional impost on the self-employed.
    The Minister suggested that we are challenging the change in the bands of income on which the levy is payable. The amendment is not concerned with that. It is concerned solely with the Government's decision—it is the responsibility of the Government and of no one else—to increase the rate of contribution on the band, whatever it may be, from 5 per cent. to 8 per cent. That is very nearly a doubling of the percentage rate of contribution. That is what we castigate, and what the noble Lords castigated, as unnecessary, insensitive and wholly unjust. It is easy to see why the self-employed feel so aggrieved.
    Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware
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    that the Minister admitted in Committee that in computing the alleged deficit for the self-employed the Government Actuary had assumed a zero rate of inflation? As a result, the percentage of the self-employed that the Minister quotes as falling below £2,500 a year is grossly under-estimated, because as inflation progresses more and more of the self-employed will move into the category which has the 8 per cent. imposition, and the deficit in the fund will therefore be far less than the Minister is telling us.
    Sir G. Howe: My hon. Friend is substantially supporting the point I have already put. I am grateful to him.
    The self-employed feel aggrieved because they are aware of the extent to which they do not receive the same benefits as the employed person. They are also aware that as employers they are having to pay additional contributions to the employed person's stamp, and that under the present Government they are facing higher rates, higher taxes and soaring wages to their employees, unmatched by their own earnings. They feel strongly that they are being discriminated against in this way simply because they are not supported by powerful trade unions, and because they are excluded practically from the social contract and excluded emotionally from the social contract, as the Minister's attitude makes abundantly clear every time he speaks on this subject.
    The Government were urged by noble Friends of theirs in another place to see what they are proposing here as an additional hardship on a section of the community which is already suffering severe hardship. That is the argument which commended itself to Lord George-Brown. The Government were urged to see what they are proposing as an attack on a section of the community which is not able to fight back—an argument which commended itself to Lady Burton of Coventry, no friend of ours but an erstwhile supporter of the present Government.
    The Minister states that the proportion of contributions paid by the self-employed has been kept as it was under the 1973 Act and he has rehearsed the argument advanced by Lord Aberdare. The fact remains, on the figures published by the Government Actuary, that whereas under

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    the Social Security Act 1973 the self-employed would be paying 3·8 per cent. of all contribution income, under the proposals put forward by the present Government on the analysis of the figures published by the Government Actuary, the share will go up by 4·2 per cent.
    The Minister tonight advanced the proposition that there are technical reasons, hitherto not published, why the arithmetic should be set aside. He advanced the reasons at breakneck speed and with an uncharacteristic lack of conviction. We sympathise very strongly with the view which commended itself to Lord Houghton when he said in substance that this is a form of taxation where one should look beyond the arithmetic and at the equity of the matter.
    One can see the effect of what the Government have done if one looks at the figures in many different ways. Let us see what has happened to the contributions payable, on the one hand, by the employed person and, on the other hand, by the self-employed person since the Government came to office at the beginning of the year. For the employed person on £50 a week there will from next April onwards be a decrease in his contribution from £2·89 to £2·75, a decrease of 4·8 per cent. For the employed man on £60 a week there will be a small increase of 6·8 per cent., and for the employed man on £70 a week a still modest increase of 23 per cent. These are the figures, showing the way in which different categories of people, employed and self-employed, will be affected as from next April.
    The Minister should listen to the consequence for the self-employed of the changes introduced by the present Government. For the self-employed on £50 a week, since the present Government came to power, his contribution from next April will be increased by 98·5 per cent. For the self-employed on £60 a week, his contribution will be increased by 138·7 per cent. For the self-employed on £70 a week—the Minister should hearken to the entire argument—the increase, from the advent of this Government till next April, will be from £1·99 a week to £5·49 a week, an increase of £3·50 a week. That works out at £182 a year non-tax deductible.
    The effect of what the Government have done, by the time one takes account
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    of that, is that the self-employed again on £70 a week will have to find £270 extra out of taxed income from next April onwards. It may be said that a part of that is due to the introduction of Class 4 contributions. Indeed, it is true. If the figures are as much as that, they demonstrate the absolute folly of the Government increasing them at all by the deliberate decision to raise the percentage rate of contribution from 5 per cent. to 8 per cent. It shows total political mis-judgment and total failure to understand the difficulties which in any case were going to arise from these provisions.
    10.45 p.m.
    The effect is something for which the Government bear a large part of the responsibility and in respect of which they have remained continuously insensitive. Yet they have made some concessions to ease the impact of some of their tax changes in relation to business generally. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, rather surprisingly, speaking at the Labour Party Conference on 29th November said:
    "Whether you like it or not, 7 out of 10 workers work in the private sector and thousands of private companies are so short of cash that they are already beginning to lay off workers and are threatened with bankruptcy even though they have full order books."
    Because of that situation, the Chancellor altered his earlier Budget judgment and has done something to temper the wind to the shorn lamb.
    But the Minister of State, with continuing responsibility for this decision to raise the contribution from 5 to 8 per cent., has failed to do any such thing. It is high time for him to repent and show similar compassion, similar good basic political common sense, by accepting the Lords amendment instead of seeking even now to challenge it.
    I give one last comparison of the cash actualities. This again is how it looks from the point of view of the self-employed. I take the person on average earnings under the 1973 Act compared with the person on current average earnings today under this Bill. The self-employed person on £32 a week on the 1973 figures would have been paying 129 per cent. of the contribution of the employed person. Under this Government's proposals, the self-employed person on £46 a week—now the national average earnings—will be paying 143 per cent.

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    of the contribution of the employed person. So the gap between the cash payment of the employed person and the cash payment of the self-employed person will be increased at that level by 17 per cent.
    Secondly, I compare the position of a man with £60 a week. Under the 1973 provisions, a self-employed person on £60 a week would have been paying 118 per cent. of the contribution of the employed person. Under these proposals, he will be paying 144 per cent. At whatever level one looks at it, as a result of the change from 5 to 8 per cent., there has been a sharp increase in the burden of the self-employed, and the Minister of State and the Government, and no one else, must accept the responsibility.
    Mr. O'Malley: The right hon. and learned Gentleman should also deal with the at least one-third of the self-employed at or below £1,600 a year. Not only has there been no increase in their case but in real terms, because the contribution has been maintained at £2·41, there is a decrease from April 1975.
    Sir G. Howe: That may be so, and it may be legitimate to try to achieve it. But, if the hon. Gentleman wished to make that kind of change, the way to pay for it would be out of the Exchequer contribution—a burden falling on the taxpayer generally in a way which is regarded as acceptable. This was the argument which commended itself to Lord George-Brown, who thought it had a great deal of common sense. If the Minister had accepted that argument instead of persisting with the increase from 5 to 8 per cent., the House would not have been troubled tonight with the Lords amendment.
    Mr. George Cunningham: Are we to take it that Conservative policy is that the Treasury contribution should rise above 18 per cent.? If so, this is the first we have heard of it.
    Sir G. Howe: It is not a question of Conservative policy, but of how the Government can conceivably defend a decision, taken with their eyes open, to raise the percentage from 5 to 8. It is not for me to answer the hon. Gentleman's question because we have, in debates on this Bill, put forward various alternative ways of meeting the problem.
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    The one dominant feature has been the insensitive unwillingness of the Minister of State, who bears a heavy responsibility for this decision, to respond to representations made to him. I have one last complaint to make about the way in which the Government have responded to representations made. Two different groups of people specially affected by this provision had their cases advanced in another place. On the one hand was the Incorporated Society of Musicians, whose case was put by Lord Platt and on the other hand was the Writers' Guild of Great Britain, whose case was put by Lord George-Brown.
    Both groups, as I understand it, sought to see the Minister. I have been told by the Incorporated Society of Musicians that it wrote to the Secretary of State immediately after the debate on 2nd December, delivering the letter by hand on 4th December, asking if it could make representations. Lord Platt referred to that in the other place again on 5th December and hoped that the hon. Gentleman would be available to meet both groups.
    The musicians had received no reply by Monday of this week and as a result of a series of telephone calls to the Offices of the Secretary of State and the Minister of State were finally told yesterday that the Minister would be able to see them on Monday 16th December—after this legislation had passed through the House and when it would be too late to change anything. They were told that nothing better could be arranged at short notice. That explanation was a pretty unsatisfactory one.
    In view of the pressure on the Minister's timetable I thought that it might have been understandable. Imagine my surprise when I found that this afternoon the Minister was receiving a deputation on behalf of the Society of Authors, the National Union of Journalists and the Writers' Guild of Great Britain. How is he able to receive one deputation but not the other?
    Mr. O'Malley: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is making a personal attack upon me on a personal matter and I have to answer it. Immediately I was informed that the Writers' Guild and the NUJ wished to see me I gave them an immediate appointment and saw them this afternoon, before the Bill came on. Immediately I was informed that the

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    Incorporated Society of Musicians wished to see me I examined my diary and found that it was completely full during the whole of today. Of course I would have seen them and I am very willing to see them. No Minister in any Government would turn away or spurn approaches from any group of individuals affected by legislation and that is certainly not what I have done.
    Sir G. Howe: I notice that the Minister responded, as he put it, immediately to the proposition that the Writers' Guild and the NUJ should see him. So be it. Both these unions are affiliated to the TUC. The Minister did not mention the Society of Authors. One cannot resist the conclusion, certainly this is the feeling widely held by those involved, that he rejected an approach on behalf of the Incorporated Society of Musicians because it was not an affiliated organisation.
    In the other place Lord George-Brown drew attention to the distinction between affiliated and non-affiliated organisations. It is this approach which we regard as symptomatic of the way in which the Minister has approached the whole of this problem. If he were willing to respond to affiliated organisations this afternoon why could he not have invited the musicians there and then?
    Mr. O'Malley: As I am an ex-professional musician does the right hon. and learned Gentleman not think that if there was one group of people in which I would be personally interested it would be the musicians? I examined my diary, as did my Office, and I am giving them the first empty place I have in my diary. I do not think the House would accept that any Minister of any Government would be so remiss as to treat one group of affected individuals differently from other groups.
    Sir G. Howe: The fact remains that the Minister could readily have invited his former colleagues from the musicians' profession to join him if he had wished, and he failed to do so. An invitation to them to see him at a different date in future is of no validity or significance.
    The Minister closed his speech by saying, as apparently he has been saying in other quarters, that in some future consideration, in some future legislation
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    perhaps the problems of the self-employed can be dealt with and some way found of helping them in the context of this legislation. That is an unnecessary deferment of a modest abatement of what they feel to be an injustice. What the Minister needs to do—and it is easy enough for him even now to do it—is to concur, with more modesty than he has been prepared to show, in the amendment. If he does that, he will show what he has not shown so far, namely, that he is capable of responding to reasonable arguments responsibly advanced on behalf of people who feel that they are being unjustly treated.
    Mr. R. A. McCrindle: To listen to the Minister of State one would imagine that we were speaking of a miniscule body of people whose interests could be dismissed without much ado. It is wise to remind the House that we are speaking of something in excess of 2 million people. Nor is it wise for the Minister to suggest that, because we are talking only of the earnings-related contributions of one-third to half that amount, we can equally dismiss the interests of the people concerned. I estimate that with the movement of incomes among the self-employed we are talking of considerably in excess of 1 million people.
    Is the Minister suggesting that we can dismiss the interests of more than 1 million people without concentrating far more on the merits of the argument deployed by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe), by other Members on this side of the House and by members of another place over three debates? The Minister, uncharacteristically, has dealt with the matter in a cavalier fashion. If he concentrated his attenton on the merits of our argument, as a man who has proved to be reasonable and prepared to listen to arguments, he would accept that his speech tonight was considerably below his usual standard.
    The Minister in particular and the Government in general are being completely stubborn about the self-employed. They are proving to be singularly incapable of listening to the arguments deployed. They are treating the self-employed as little short of renegades. They have been too much affected by the

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    movement of the self-employed building workers into the lump, and they cannot conceive of self-employed people who are self-employed by choice and for the most respectable of reasons.
    The self-employed have no opportunity to set against tax the additional contributions they are being asked to make. In that respect they are singularly unusual. But, more than that, many of the self-employed people on whose behalf I am appealing yet again are small- to middle-sized business men and shopkeepers, and they are additionally prevented from increasing their prices. They are prevented from doing that because of the competition of the supermarkets and the exercise of price controls. Therefore I believe that the Government are getting at the self-employed not only by means of this Bill but in many other ways as well.
    11.0 p.m.
    The self-employed are being progressively driven out of business. Having listened to the Minister's contributions to debate after debate, I am led to the conclusion that that is not entirely unwelcome either to him or to the Government. I wonder whether I may ask what price the mixed economy, what price the public service, which is directed by the Government, in favour of the small business man?
    Is it surprising that one is led to the belief that the attack that has been deployed tonight by the Government against the self-employed is an attack against private enterprise, and is no more than a further turning of the screw of those actions introduced by the Government since they took office in March 1974.
    As he came to the end of his remarks the Minister seemed to be uttering mollifying noises. He indicated that the system which we are discussing is by no means ideal. If that is the case, why should the Government go out of their way seemingly to alienate the self-employed, in whose interests the Minister now seems to be speaking?
    After the defeat of the Government's proposals in another place, and after the arguments deployed by the Opposition over many debates, is not there now a case for the Government to think again even at the eleventh hour and, if the
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    Minister concedes that the system is defective, to say that the system will have to be looked at again?
    As we move towards the time when the more substantial permanent social services proposals will be brought forward by the Government, is not there an argument for thinking carefully as to whether we should not abandon these proposals, which are causing so much distress to the self-employed, until such time as the Government are able to come back to this House, having carefully rethought their proposals, and to put forward fresh proposals which would be much fairer and much more in the interests of the self-employed people of this country?
    Mr. David Penhaligon: This is the fourth time we have debated this matter in seven weeks.
    I have long believed that the whole National Insurance contributions idea needs to be scrapped and that the people employed by the fund should be found other jobs. I have been confirmed in that belief on hearing the relative mathematics argument concerning the contributions paid by one section as against another.
    I believe that the money should be raised by means of another form of taxation, and that this idea should be incorporated into another scheme.
    The situation is clear. We are talking about the application of an 8 per cent. tax rate.
    Let me simplify the mathematics by pointing out what the 8 per cent. rate means. A self-employed person making £30 per week, in our inflationary-based society, will be taxed at 41 per cent. I have made the point that this charge should be incorporated into other forms of taxation because, in the eyes of the general public and the self-employed, the National Insurance contribution is a straightforward sort of income tax.
    Mr. George Cunningham: Surely a self-employed person earning £30 per week will not be subject to the 8 per cent. tax, because he will be earning under £1,600 per year. He will not have to pay that tax on any part of his income.
    Mr. Penhaligon: The hon. Gentleman is correct. A self-employed person earning £30 per week in a 52-week year would receive a total of £1,560 and during a

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    53-week year would receive £1,590. We are therefore getting very close to nitpicking over the question of the relevant margins. It is no wonder that people view this rate of taxation as being ridiculous and that the self-employed believe they are being persecuted. Inflation is probably hitting the self-employed as hard as any other section of our society.
    Many profits are totally illusory. To someone running a small shop, every year the cost of the goods on the shelves increases, and the money to raise the extra value of those goods, illusory though it is, is raised out of profit. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that he will make an allowance for this next year. These people could do with help this year. Much of the profit of the self-employed is little more than interest on capital invested, and now it is proposed to charge the national insurance contribution on interest on capital. No one suggests that this should be done for the employee. But the person making £3,600 a year will find that what in his eyes is income tax will be increased by 20 per cent.—
    Mr. George Cunningham: In his eyes.
    Mr. Penhaligon: In the eyes of someone who receives a demand for that amount and has to write a cheque, it does not matter which column it comes under. In his eyes, it will be income tax, and 20 per cent. more is 20 per cent. more. On £3,600, it is £160 more.
    It is these people who very often receive the direct anger of the public about inflation, and there is no doubt that certain members of the Government are constantly digging away at them by innuendoes about excessive profiteering.
    For the sake of just £27 million, the Government have a chance—a second chance—to prove once and for all that they are not against the self-employed. I beg the Minister to accept the amendment.
    Mr. George Cunningham: We are discussing this matter for the fourth time, and the elucidation of the issues has proceeded over the four occasions from clarity to ever greater clarity and the facts have become more widely known as we have gone from stage to stage. We take that on faith, because there is no evidence for it on the basis of the
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    debates in this Chamber and in the House of Lords.
    The hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. McCrindle) said, and I agree, that we should endeavour to put a rational case and not to express emotion either in support of or in opposition to self-employed people as a class, which would be unjustified. As a result, I tried to note his hard points of argument in favour of his case. I noted two.
    The first, with which I agree completely, is that the self-employed are dis-advantaged by comparison with the employed person in that they do not receive tax relief in respect of any part of their contribution. I have said before, I am prepared to say again, and I am ready to vote accordingly, that that should be corrected. However, it cannot be corrected in this Bill. It is a situation which existed throughout the period in office of the Conservative Government, and the Opposition must bear that in mind when they suggest that it should be corrected now. But at some time it should be corrected.
    The second point argued by the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar is that the self-employed are unable to put up prices in many cases. He suggests two reasons for that. According to him, one reason is price control. However, price control is not price freezing. Price rises are permissible where there is justification for them. I do not know any Chancellor of the Exchequer who would suggest that an obligatory increase in costs deriving from national insurance contributions would be inadmissible as a ground for raising prices, along with all the other grounds which might be relevant to raising them.
    The other reason why the self-emploved are unable to raise prices, according to the hon. Gentleman, is that they are up against the competition of supermarkets. I thought that the Tory Party stood for competition and believed that this was the way to keep prices down. It is hard if one argues that the self-employed person should be protected from the free play of the market by having an unnaturally low national insurance contribution.
    There has been no mention tonight of what I suggest is the basic starting point from which we must advance with other

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    considerations. The point is whether the self-employed under the new system will be receiving benefits in excess of their contributions. The facts are known to every hon. Member who has taken an interest in this subject.
    When these increases take place, the self-employed will still be paying a contribution which is less than that required to pay for the benefits they receive. In saying that, I take account of the fact that they do not receive all the benefits. However, they receive the most expensive benefit, which is the retirement pension, and that accounts for about 70 per cent. of the national insurance benefit, and they are entitled to certain other benefits. The benefits to which they are entitled tot up to about 90 per cent. of the national insurance fund. The self-employed do not pay a contribution which meets those costs.
    If the self-employed are not making contributions which pay for the benefits they receive, it is not a burden that falls upon the taxpayer. It is a burden that falls upon the other contributors to the fund. We all know that. There can be a cross-subsidy in favour of one group of contributors only if that subsidy is paid for by another group of contributors.
    It is true that there could be a relatively large subsidy for the self-employed at the cost of a relatively small increase in the contribution of other contributors, because the self-employed are only a small number of the total. What hon. Members opposite must face up to but never have faced in these debates is the question: is it fair to make the employed person pay an unnaturally high contribution, even by a small amount, to subsidise the self-employed? I say again that it is ironic that the self-employed—the yeomen of England, who stand upon their own two feet and who are known for their self-reliance—should be the one group of contributors to the national insurance fund who should be subsidised by all the other contributors to the fund.
    Mr. Kenneth Clarke: The hon. Gentleman knows that from the moment national insurance came into existence till the present day it has never been the case that the self-employed have paid the full actuarial bill for their benefits, for the sound reasons that there is
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    no employer element in the total contribution for them, that they do not have tax relief, and many other reasons. Merely to point out what has always been a feature of the national insurance system is not a justification for the sudden increase in the Bill.
    Mr. Cunningham: It was not always the case that the self-employed did not receive tax relief. They received tax relief from the beginning of the scheme up to 1965. The self-employed have never been required to pay for the full value of the benefits they receive. There is a huge difference between paying for 60 per cent. or 70 per cent. of the value of benefits received and paying for 40 per cent. or 50 per cent.
    Tory Members must make a case for saying that, for all sorts of national reasons, employed persons must subsidise members of a group which, of all groups in our society, is known for its self-reliance. If Tory Members want to come up, as they almost did tonight, with a new argument and say that because the self-employed are subject to particular difficulties at present there should be, either in respect of those people or in respect of the whole national insurance fund, a higher Exchequer contribution than 18 per cent., let them do so. But until now we have not heard a word of that upstairs or in any of the proceedings on this Bill. If we were to bump up the Treasury contribution to 20 per cent., it would not get round the cross-subsidy argument. As long as that represented a general increase to the National Insurance Fund, there would still be a cross-subsidy from employees to the self-employed.
    Mr. Robert Boscawen: There is a cross-subsidy through the tax system to the lower paid, because they are not paying tax. They are not paying the 20 per cent. contribution.
    Mr. Cunningham: I take it that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the normal taxation system. We cannot keep shifting the argument. We cannot balance a feature of the income tax system with a feature in the National Insurance system. When I strayed into error on Second Reading in this respect, I was rightly rebuked by Conservative Members who said, "If there is something wrong with the taxation system, put it right in the

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    system. Do not balance matters between two entirely different systems." Therefore, I hope that in the remaining stages Conservatives will ask themselves whether it is right for employees to subsidise self-employed contributors to the scheme.
    11.15 p.m.
    Mr. Hugh Fraser: I am sure the Committee must welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham), who is so very knowledgeable on these matters, is not the Minister in charge of the Bill. Undoubtedly, if that were so the self-employed person would be asked to make a contribution as both employer and employee. That at least would clear up any metaphysical difficulties on the part of the hon. Gentleman in coping with this simple problem of the rights and wrongs of the matter. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to make a real contribution, I hope that he will table a suitable amendment to see that tax allowances are made to help the self-employed. If the hon. Gentleman decides to take that course, I am sure that many of my hon. Friends and I will support him.
    The wider question relates to the impact of inflation on the fund and whether the Minister at present should not be paying more attention to equity rather than to the figures which at the moment the Department seems to be unable to work out. If broadly we take the rate of inflation under the present Government, even a rate of inflation of 10 per cent., which is half the present rate of inflation, and if we project that in terms of a typist employed today in this House, we discover that by the time that lady retires she will be earning £100,000 a year. That is the sort of situation which those who are concerned with insurance, and particularly public insurance, should be considering.
    We are at present in the absurd situation that the fund will be grossly in surplus for the next two years. Anybody who wants to speculate on what will happen two years from now needs, not just a crystal ball, but a change of government.
    Having listened to Lord George-Brown and other distinguished Labour peers in the other place on this topic. I hope that the Minister will consider the wider implications of the social contract. I
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    suggest that the wider implication of the social contract at this stage, when there is a great deal of turbulence, unhappiness and uncertainty in our society, is to do something about the 2 million people— farmers, small shopkeepers, and others— who often cannot get the advantages of fiscal drag and inflation which others can get, whether they be workers or trade union members. The people to whom I have referred are far more fixed in their incomes than any other section of society, and they do not get any of the admittedly delirious impressions of wealth from this cracking rate of inflation.
    Therefore, the Government should consider as a matter of urgency a comparatively small sum of £20 million to £26 million as a means of solving this problem. When there is a huge estimable surplus in the fund, something should be given in the way of a come back from 8 per cent. to 5 per cent. If the Minister will not do that, I suggest that when he winds up he should make an official declaration that when the Finance Bill comes before the House a clause shall be brought in to see that the self-employed get the same tax benefits as the employee.
    Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Like many of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I have had an enormous number of letters from self-employed constituents who are not only angry, but desperately worried at the prospect that their contributions will be increased from 5 per cent. under the 1973 Act to 8 per cent. under this new legislation if the Government succeed in beating this Lords amendment.
    This very week a branch of the self-employed association is being formed in my constituency jointly with that of my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis).
    Shopkeepers are very hard hit. One shopkeeper in my constituency living not far from me was about to mortgage his home to carry out essential improvements to his shop. He is now so worried at the reduction in his liquidity which this increased contribution, if passed, would cause that he has decided not to make the improvements, essential though they be to keep him on a par with nearby supermarkets, but to hang on because he feels that he may need all the money that he can lay his hands on simply to

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    stay in business at his present level, let alone make any improvements.
    One category of people—I declare an interest—which is exceedingly hard hit by this proposal, a group which is already in financially difficult waters, is the farmers. The agriculture industry consists of 280,000 self-employed persons. They are in a particular difficulty because the Schedule D income of the self-employed farmer represents not only the income for his labour and management —that is fair enough—but the return on his capital invested in the business, whereas the contribution paid by an employee and by his employer on his behalf relates only to his income from employment.
    The national insurance contribution of the self-employed, to be comparable with that of an employed person, should relate only to the return for his labour and management. This is particularly serious in agriculture, because in recent years it has become a highly capital intensive industry. Yet at the same time it has a large number of self-employed people perhaps employing one other person. The element of a farmer's Schedule D income which represents a return on his capital is absolutely vital for reinvestment in the business and for the expansion that the nation needs from him if we are to get a reasonable balance of payments. It is unfair and illogical to gross up this element and base his contribution on it. This argument applies to many classes of people, but it applies particularly strongly to farmers, many of whom are on the verge of bankruptcy. This could be the last straw for many of them between staying in business and going out.
    As it is impossible to extract this capital return element from the Schedule D assessment, the only fair alternative is to accept the amendment so that self-employed people pay, as they would have done under our legislation, at the lower rate of 5 per cent. This is the only hope for farmers and the self-employed. They represent an element that we must preserve if we are to preserve our independence, and I beg the Minister to accept the Lords Amendment.
    Mr. John Farr: It is a pity that at this late hour, after a long debate last night, we are debating a matter of this importance. However dili-
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    gent we may be, it may be impossible for some of us to speak for as long as we should like to do or to pay sufficient attention to the debate in the early hours of the morning.
    Secondly, I support what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) said in condemning the Minister's attitude towards the Musicians' Union. It was deplorable that the Minister felt unable to see representatives of that union at a time when it mattered. If the debate is concluded tonight and a decision is taken to rub out the Lords amendment, any visit by the union will be of academic interest.
    Thirdly, it is a pity to see any Government trying to amend what I believe is the wish of the people as expressed in the amendment made by the other Chamber. As has been said, the amendment was made not by a few Conservative peers but by men and women of some consequence in the Labour Party. It is deplorable and unwise for any Government to fly in the face of public opinion as the Government are seeking to do.
    I want to raise two points. The first one has not been raised during the debate. What attention have the Government given to the position of the general practitioner in this sorry affair? The GP is a self-employed person, and he is forbidden by the British Medical Association and other rules and regulations from forming himself into a company so that he can enjoy the protection of becoming an employed person.
    I understand—and perhaps the Minister will confirm this—that a GP cannot seek protection from this legislation by being a member of a group practice which forms itself into a limited company and thus becoming an employee, or by being employed in a health centre which forms itself into a limited company and by that means becoming an employee. I understand that that avenue of escape is ruled out for a GP, and he is in an invidious postion compared with medical practitioners who are not GPs.
    There is one suggestion that I should like to make to the Minister in relation to GPs. I do not know whether he has even considered it. He may have read the letter that I wrote to him about three or four days ago. The hon. Gentleman should consider amending the Bill so that the Lords amendment is not entirely

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    eradicated but only part of the increase is implemented for the first year. After that period an assessment can be made of the position. The Government should then decide whether this is fair to all categories of self-employed, including general practitioners, before the full effect of the increase is brought about.
    11.30 p.m.
    The 300,000 or so who are self-employed in agriculture and horticulture should not be brushed aside as of no consequence. This matter is important not just to those employed in the industry but to everyone in Britain who wants, if not a prosperous, at least a healthy and efficient agriculture and horticulture. Those who pay self-employed contributions do not obtain the same number of benefits. Sickness benefit, for instance, can be obtained but it is more difficult.
    I particularly want to underline the anomaly of the Schedule D income of farmers and horticulturists. This is not just an assessment of the effort that a farmer and his wife put into an enterprise. It is also a notional estimate of their return on the tenant's capital in the business. If the tenant's capital in a farm is, to take a low figure, £20,000 or £25,000, at interest of only 10 per cent., that is £2,500 per annum or £50 a week to be added to what is established as the figure for labour put in by a farmer and his family. It is desperately unfair to calculate a farmer's income on that basis.
    The present Government's 1974 White Paper on the annual review said:
    "Farm income is not directly comparable with incomes in most other sectors of the economy, since it includes elements of wages and changes in stock valuation as well as profit. It provides a return to farmers and their wives for their manual and managerial labour, but it also provides a return on the occupier's investment in the farm business."
    In the light of that quotation from the Government's own White Paper, this situation is manifestly unfair; I call upon the Government to put the matter rightt.
    Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I made a brief intervention in the speech of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) because the basis on which the Minister sought advice from the Government Actuary is not relevant to the use which he has made of it. Earlier, he estimated that about a third of the self-employed will be better
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    off as a result of the Bill than would otherwise have been the case. But that assumes static incomes. In a period of howling inflation, we can expect people whose incomes were below the limit to which the amendment refers to be substantially transferred into the class which will suffer the 8 per cent. rate.
    Mr. James Lamond: Does not that view conflict with the view of the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends that it is impossible for self-employed people to raise their incomes because of the pressure of competition by supermarkets and so on?
    Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: It depends on how the self-employed earn their own livelihood. For instance, if they are under contract to the National Health Service and periodically receive increases, it should be obvious even to the hon. Gentleman that their monetary incomes will increase even if their purchasing power does not.
    The point I am making is an irrefutable arithmetical truth that if the monetary total of a person's income increases so that he receives, albeit in a depreciated currency, more than £1,600 a year whereas previously he received less in monetary terms than £1,600 a year, he will move from the category which the Minister claimed was benefited by the Bill into the category which will be penalised by the Bill. Therefore, the arithmetical assumptions which the Minister has made will become more grossly inaccurate the higher the rate of inflation.
    The House will be aware that in the course of the recent election the Prime Minister was at pains to try to convince the electorate that the rate of inflation in Britain was 8·4 per cent. when everyone else knew that that was totally incorrect and that the rate of inflation was more than double that—and it is now probably treble that.
    Therefore when, in Committee, in answer to a question which I put to him, the Minister of State revealed that the Government Actuary's calculations were done on the assumption of a situation which simply does not exist—namely, a zero rate of inflation—the arguments that follow from that are bound to be vitiated by the inflation which we are experiencing and which any reasonable person will expect to be with us into the foreseeable

    671
    future, despite the optimistic announcements made every now and again by the Chancellor of the Exchequer unrelated to reality.
    It is no good self-employed people heaving a sigh of relief and saying "I do not get caught by the 8 per cent. because my gross income"—gross income, not income after tax—"is under £1,600", because in two years' time if their income is the same, just under £1,600 a year, they could be having only half the standard of living that they are enjoying or enduring at present.
    Built into this apparently innocent clause is a massive transfer of self-employed persons from one category to another, from the unpenalised category into the penalised category. This is the point to which the Minister has not addressed himself. He has chosen to ignore it, as if the percentage movement from the one category to the other is an insignificant proportion, whereas he knows that it vitiates the whole basis of his assumption. Nobody in this House knows what, even in a year's time, will be the proportion of the self-employed who move from the unpenalised into the penalised category. All we can reasonably expect is that it will be a very significant proportion.
    It may well be that those engaged in retail trade, who will be afflicted more and more by the massive increase in rates, electricity charges, petrol tax and everything of that kind, do not move into the category of those above £1,600, much as they would wish they could move into it.
    On the other hand, many other sectors of the self-employed whose earnings, roughly speaking, move pari passu with inflation, can expect to move into this penalised sector. Any assertions by the Minister of State therefore about the proportions of contributions to the National Insurance Fund from the self-employed must be wild guesstimates. As the proportion of the self-employed who move into this penalised category increases so the proportion of the National Insurance Fund which is derived from the self-employed is bound to increase.
    I hope, therefore, that the Minister of State will have the humility to say that he has not the first idea what the percentage will be even a year after the Bill
    672
    receives the Royal Assent, if it does, and that he will not try to make predictions to the House to two decimal points in percentage terms which he must know are bound to be totally misleading, claiming for them a precision which they cannot possibly possess. To present estimates as if they had an inherent accuracy when their basis is fatuous is to do the House a disservice rather than to inform it.
    Will the Minister therefore give one undertaking? Will he introduce an amendment—he would have to introduce a one-clause Bill to do it—to provide that as the cost of living increases he will increase the base figure of £1,600 by the same percentage so that the arguments he has offered to the House as justifying a rejection of the Lords amendment retain all the validity he would like to think they have. If he will give that undertaking at least he will be true to his own arguments, even though they are so very incomplete. However, I do not think that he wants that to happen. I think he wants a continued transference from the unpenalised to the penalised sector of the self-employed. He knows that it will happen and the more his Government fail to bring inflation under control the more rapid will be this transference. It will be entirely at the expense of the self-employed and that is why we are entitled to say that the Bill represents an attack on the self-employed and that the Government are doing it knowingly rather than in ignorance.
    Mr. Robert Hicks: There is always a danger when the House is discussing matters of this nature that we shall become overwhelmed by the statistical evidence and in the process lose sight of the more important aspects. Those are the reasons for the introduction of the measure and its effects on the specific group of people directly involved and on the wider social and economic context in which these matters are set.
    I have gained the firm impression from listening to the debates on this issue that the Government realise that they are on very weak ground in assessing these broader issues, that is, the implications for the rôle and functions of the 2 million self-employed persons and specifically the 1 million-plus within the relevant band. That is why the Government have tried to concentrate on the arithmetic.

    673
    Important though the arithmetic may be, I am far more concerned about the effect of this penal measure on those economic activities which tend to be served by self-employed persons. My hon. Friends have already referred to them—the shopkeepers; the 280,000 farmers and market gardeners—we should not forget the grower, who is subjected to the most intense financial pressures at the present time; the local jobing builders; and above all the local craftsmen—the carpenters, welders and blacksmiths. They are in danger of disappearing.
    There are, of course, many other occupations similarly affected, but the people I have mentioned are in business, and remain in business, because they either produce a product useful to the community as a whole or provide a service required by the community. If they did not have a market for their output or their services, they would go out of business. They must produce or serve in order to survive.
    Most of these groups are already subjected to severe financial pressures, some created by the present Government, some purely a consequence of the overall economic climate. One has only to think of the farmer and his present difficulties, and the fact that many of our small businesses and retail outlets have had to face enormous increases in their rating burden over the past 12 months or so. They have also had to deal with the various price restraints. I imagine that each of us has received genuine representations during the past few weeks from small companies, retail shops and self-employed persons about their liquidity problems. The Government's failure to take on board the arguments from this side of the House tonight is further evidence of their insensitivity to the problems facing small businessmen and the self-employed in particular.
    What are the implications of the imposition of this increase in the National Insurance contribution for people who wish to start a small business? Our nation depends on the inventiveness of its people. The Government's failure to modify their views as illustrated by their squalid attitude will be a further blow to the initiative on which we as a country depend.
    Mr. Robert Adley: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May we have an assurance that in view of the grave implications of the Bill, and its importance, there will be no attempt by the Government to use the guillotine?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): That is not a matter for the Chair.
    Mr. Paul Hawkins: The most important matter at this time in our history is that the nation's unity be preserved. The Government's action in singling out a particular section of the community for a vicious attack will cause as much disturbance to the unity of the nation as did the attack upon ratepayers in the country districts a few months ago. I feel very strongly about this. My constituency has something like 100 small villages and only three small market towns. We do not have large supermarkets. We have many small shops, perhaps one shop per village, and we depend upon them for the elderly and those people who cannot get buses to the towns to do their shopping.
    These people, who are oppressed by the many measures of increased taxation which the Government are taking and, no doubt, have had to take and will take in the future, will give up, and then the position of the elderly, the pensioners and others who depend upon the village shop in the country districts will become much more difficult.
    We should have an explanation of this. I understand that as Members of Parliament we are suddenly going to be taken out of this position and will cease to be regarded as self-employed, and therefore we shall not contribute this amount next April. I could not willingly face my constituents with such a situation, and I should like to know how this has come about.
    Mr. O'Malley: I will tell the hon. Gentleman exactly how it came about. It was contained within the terms of the Social Security Act 1973. No regulations were laid or were necessary. It was as a result of the terms of the Act that Members of Parliament, judges and directors became Class 1 contributors as from April 1975. Therefore, it was the action

    675
    of the previous Government, and we believe that the previous Government were right.
    Mr. Hawkins: I thank the Minister for the explanation, but at the time of the passing of that Act nobody could know that this sort of thing would happen. Surely we cannot go to our constituents and justify taking ourselves out of this net and keeping others in.
    Mr. Peter Rost: Is my hon. Friend aware that many of the self-employed who are now vastly penalised suspect that the Government are changing the status of Members of Parliament in order to bribe their own back-bench Members not to vote against this measure?
    Mr. Hawkins: I do not want to say much more, but I hope the Government will bear this matter in mind, because it affects us all, and I do not want to face my constituents with it.
    Mr. Hal Miller: I am grateful for the opportunity to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, having sat in this Chamber for many hours endeavouring to be called, without success until now.
    I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) who raised an objection to the Government introducing such an important measure at such a late hour—an arrangement which I believe some of my hon. Friends feel may not be entirely irrelevant to the debate which took place before this one, in an effort to ensure a sufficient attendance.
    I shall resist the temptation to make the speech on the need to retain small businesses which I tried to make last Friday, and I shall come to the substantial points of this most objectionable measure. The notes which I have in my possession were sent by some of my constituents.
    I represent a constituency peopled by self-employed of various descriptions.
    Mr. Gerard Fitt: Where?
    Mr. Miller: Bromsgrove, where we make fishing tackle, needles and so on. Even the hon. Member for Whitehaven (Dr. Cunningham), who appeared to be
    676
    the most alert Member opposite, has now disappeared. But I am glad to see that there are occupants of the Government Front Bench.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We must continue with the debate.
    Mr. Miller: I was trying to make myself heard above the seated conversations opposite, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If you would like me to raise my voice, I am happy to continue. The hon. Member for Whitehaven suggested that it was impossible to deal with what he recognised as an inequitable situation tonight, because we would have to have recourse to the Finance Bill. But the remedy is before us in the Lords amendment.
    Mr. Arthur Lewis: May we put the record straight? Will the hon. Gentleman note that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) spoke in the debate and not my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven (Dr. Cunningham), who has not been present?
    Mr. Miller: I am grateful for that correction from the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis), with whom I have spent time on delegations. I apologise for the error.
    As I was saying, the remedy for the inequitable situation recognised by the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) is to accept the Lords amendment, which was made for good reasons. The Government need to recognise that, even if they manage to whip through their own supporters, they have not carried us with them and, more important, they have no hope of carrying the people to an understanding let alone an acceptance of their intentions.
    Let us take the case of a small employer and self-employed person who has the duty to make out each week the stamps and records for his employees. One can well understand the feeling of inequity among such people. Supposing their employees are on £50 a week. Such an employee is only paying £2·75, while the employer is paying the employer's contribution on top of that plus his own contribution, which is £3·95 at that level, assuming that he is fortunate enough to obtain that sort of return from his business.

    677
    Self-employed persons wish to be allowed the opportunity to contribute on a proper basis but in return for the same kind of benefit—in other words, an earnings-related benefit. We have not had a satisfactory explanation as to why the introduction of such a measure is impossible, because, as those of us who come from motor manufacturing constituencies know, the earnings of employees can fluctuate widely from week to week. If they can be accommodated in an earnings-related scheme, it is not clear to the self-employed why they should not be similarly accommodated. I hope that the Minister will see whether this cannot be made done.
    It has been suggested to me that the self-employed should be allowed to revert to the previous system of an option whereby they would be allowed to contribute on a voluntary basis, such contributions would be at the full employed rate with the slice on top of the employees' rate to be tax deductible. I should be grateful if the Minister would deal with this.
    I return to the main point about the equity and fairness of these provisions. General practitioners have been mentioned. I received today a resolution from my local BMA objecting most strongly to the imposition of this new Class 4 contribution. The local secretary writes:
    "I am at a loss to understands the difference between a self-employed man earning £3.000 a year and a working man in a factory earning £60 a week. The only obvious action that we as general practitioners can take is to refuse to pay and go to prison."
    He goes on to suggest that his union may withhold its labour and ends by saying:
    "Group action is our only hope."
    We are coming to a sorry pass if we have reached the stage when doctors are seriously considering taking such action on this issue. This is quite different from the sort of issue being dealt with by the Minister of State for Health and Social Security who I see has just sat down on the Government Front Bench.
    I wish to bring home the extent to which this measure is resented in the country by quoting from another letter I have received, from my local chamber of trade which also enclosed a petition.
    Mr. Rost: Can my hon. Friend explain why it is that Labour Members who have spoken have not read out any letters which they have received on this matter from their constituents?
    Mr. Miller: Obviously because such letters would not make good reading from their point of view. The letter I have received says:
    "If MPs wish to impose iniquitous poll taxes on other members of the community, from which they excuse themselves, they should not be surprised at the rise of another 'village Hampden'."
    The letter ends with what strikes me as a genuine, heart-felt complaint when my correspondent says:
    "This Class 4 contribution should be more properly termed a 'class contribution'."
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Robert Mellish)The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Robert Mellish) rose in his place, and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
    Question put, That the Question be now put.
    The House proceeded to a Division—
    Dr. Alan Glyn(seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In view of the importance of this issue and the fact that a number of hon. Members wish to speak, I consider that the debate should be continued without interruption from the Government Whips.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): The Chair is fully cognisant of all the points. All the relevant factors have been taken into account and a decision has been made.
    The House having divided: Ayes 297, Noes 281.

    Division No. 33.]

    AYES

    [12.5 a.m.

    Abse, Leo

    Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

    Benn, Rt Hn Anthony Wedgwood

    Allaun, Frank

    Atkinson, Norman

    Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

    Anderson. Donald

    Bagier, Gordon A. T.

    Bidwell, Sydney

    Archer, Peter

    Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

    Bishop, Edward

    Armstrong, Ernest

    Barnett, Joel (Heywood)

    Blenkinsop, Arthur

    Ashley, Jack

    Bates, Aif

    Boardman, H.

    Ashton, Joe

    Bean, Robert E.

    Booth, Albert

    Boothroyd, Miss Betty

    Grant, George (Morpeth)

    Molloy, William

    Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur

    Grant, John (Islington C.)

    Moonman, Eric

    Boyden, James (Bish Auck.)

    Grocott, Bruce

    Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

    Bradley, Tom

    Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

    Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

    Bray, Dr Jeremy

    Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

    Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

    Brown, Hugh D. (Glasgow Pr.)

    Hamling, William

    Moyle, Roland

    Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle)

    Hardy, Peter

    Murray, Ronald King

    Brown, Ronald (Hackney S.)

    Harper, Joseph

    Newens, Stanley

    Buchan, Norman

    Harrison, Walter (Wakefleld)

    Noble, Mike

    Buchanan, Richard

    Hart, Rt Hon Judith

    Oakes, Gordon

    Butler, Mrs Joyce (Haringey)

    Hatton, Frank

    Ogden, Eric

    Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P.)

    Hayman, Mrs Helene

    O'Halloran, Michael

    Campbell, Ian

    Heifer, Eric S.

    O'Malley, Brian

    Cant, R. B.

    Hooley, Frank

    Orbach, Maurice

    Carmichael, Neil

    Horam, John

    Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

    Carter, Ray

    Howell, Denis (B'ham, Sm H)

    Ovenden, John

    Carter-Jones, Lewis

    Hoyle, Douglas (Nelson)

    Owen, Dr David

    Cartwright, John

    Huckfield, Leslie

    Padley, Walter

    Castle, Rt Hon Barbara

    Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

    Palmer, Arthur

    Clemitson, I. M.

    Hughes, Mark (Durham)

    Park, George

    Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

    Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N.)

    Parker, John

    Cohen, Stanley

    Hunter, Adam

    Parry, Robert

    Colquhoun, Mrs Maureen

    Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A.(L'pool)

    Peart, Rt Hon Fred

    Concannon, J. D.

    Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)

    Pendry, Tom

    Conlan Bernard

    Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)

    Perry, Ernest

    Cook, Robin F. (Edin. C.)

    Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

    Phipps, Dr Colin

    Corbett, Robin

    Janner, Greville

    Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

    Cox, Thomas (Wands, Toot)

    Jay, Rt Hon Dougias

    Prescott, John

    Cralgen, J. M. (Glasgow M.)

    Jeger, Mrs Lena

    Price, William (Rugby)

    Crawshaw, Richard

    Jenkins Hugh (Wandsworth)

    Radice, Giles

    Crosland, Rt Hon Anthony

    Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (B'ham, St)

    Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S.)

    Cryer, Bob

    John, Brynmor

    Richardson, Miss Jo

    Cunningham, G. (Islington S.)

    Johnson, James (Kingston, W.)

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Cunningham, Dr J. (Whiteh.)

    Johnson, Walter (Derby S)

    Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

    Dalyell, Tam

    Jones, Alec (Rhondda)

    Rodgers, George (Chorley)

    Dav dson, Arthur

    Jones, Barry (East Flint)

    Rodgers, William (Teesside)

    Davies, Bryan (EnfleldN.)

    Jones, Dan (Burnley)

    Rooker, J. W.

    Davles, Denzll (Llanelli)

    Judd, Frank

    Roper, John

    Davies, Ifor (Gower)

    Kaufman, Gerald

    Rose, Paul B.

    Davis, S. Clinton (Hackney C.)

    Kelley, Richard

    Ross, Rt Hon (Kilm'nock)

    Deakins, Eric

    Kerr, Russell

    Rowlands, Ted

    Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

    Kilroy-Silk, Robert

    Ryman, John

    de Freitas, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

    Kinnock, Neil

    Sandelson, Neville

    Delargy, Hugh

    Lamborn, Harry

    Sedgemore, B.

    Dell, Rt Hon Edmund

    Lamond, James

    Selby, Harry

    Dempsey, James

    Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

    Shaw, Arnold (Redbridge, llf.)

    Doig, Peter

    Leadbitter, Ted

    Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)

    Dormand, Jack

    Lee, John

    Shore, Rt Hon Peter

    Douglas-Mann, Bruce

    Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

    Short, Rt Hon Edward (Newcastle C)

    Duffy, A. E. P.

    Lewis, Arthur (Newham N.)

    Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)

    Dunn, James A.

    Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

    Silkln, Rt Hn John (Lewish.)

    Dunnett, Jack

    Lipton, Marcus

    Silkln, Rt Hn S. C. (Southwk.)

    Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth

    Litterick Tom

    Sillars, James

    Eadie, Alex

    Lomas, Kenneth

    Silverman, Julius

    Edelman, Maurice

    Loyden, Eddie

    Skinner, Dennis

    Edge, Geoffrey

    Luard, Evan

    Small, William

    Edwards, Robert (Wolv. S.E.)

    Lyon, Alexander (York)

    Smith, John (N. Lanarkshire)

    Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)

    Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

    Snape, Peter

    Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

    Mabon, Dr J. Dickson

    Spearing, Nigel

    English, Michael

    McCartney, Hugh

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Evans, loan L. (Aberdare)

    McElhone, Frank

    Stallard, A. W.

    Evans, John (Newton)

    MacFarquhar, R.

    Stewart, Rt Hn Michael (H'smith, F)

    Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

    Mackenzie, Gregor

    Stoddart, David

    Faulds, Andrew

    Mackintosh, John P.

    Stott, Roger

    Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.

    Maclennan, Robert

    Strang, Gavin

    Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

    McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C.)

    Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.

    Fitt, Gerard (Belfast)

    McNamara, Kevin

    Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

    Flannery, Martin

    Madden, Max

    Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

    Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

    Magee, Bryan

    Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

    Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

    Mahon, Simon

    Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

    Foot, Rt Hon Michael

    Mallalieu, J. P. W.

    Thomas, Mike (Newcastle)

    Ford, Ben T.

    Marks, Ken

    Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

    Forrester, John

    Marquand, David

    Thorne, Stan (Preston)

    Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)

    Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

    Tierney, Sydney

    Fraser, John (Lambeth, N)

    Marshall, Jim (Leicester)

    Tinn, James

    Freeson, Reginald

    Mason, Rt Hon Roy

    Tomlinson, John

    Garrett, John (Norwich S.)

    Maynard, Miss Joan

    Torney, Tom

    Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

    Meacher, Michael

    Tuck, Raphael

    George, Bruce

    Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

    Urwin, T. W.

    Gilbert, Dr John

    Mendelson, John

    Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

    Ginsburg, David

    Mikardo, Ian

    Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'dyw'd)

    Golding, John

    Millan, Bruce

    Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

    Gould, Bryan

    Miller, Dr M. (E. Kilbride)

    Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

    Gourlay, Harry

    Miller, Mrs Millie (Redbridge)

    Ward, Michael

    Graham, Ted

    Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

    Watkins, David

    680

    681

    Watkinson, John

    Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

    Wise, Mrs Audrey

    Weetch, Ken

    Williams, Alan (Swansea)

    Woodall, Alec

    Weitzman, David

    Williams, Alan, Lee (Haver'g)

    Wool, Robert

    Wellbeloved, James

    Williams, Rt Hn Shirley (Hertford)

    Wrigglesworth, Ian

    White, Frank R. (Bury)

    Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

    Young, David (Bolton E.)

    White, James (Glasgow, P)

    Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Whitehead, Phillip

    Wilson, Rt Hon H. (Huyton)

    Mr. Donald Coleman and

    Wigley, Dafydd (Caernarvon)

    Wilson. William (Coventry S.E.)

    Mr. Laurie Pavitt.

    NOES

    Adley, Robert

    Fry, Peter

    Luce, Richard

    Aitken, J. W. P.

    Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.

    MacCormick, lain

    Alison, Michael

    Gardiner, George (Reigate)

    McCrindle, Robert

    Amery, Rt Hon Julian

    Gardner, Edward (S. Fylde)

    McCusker, Harold

    Arnold, Tom

    Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)

    Macfarlane, Neil

    Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

    Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

    MacGregor, John

    Awdry, Daniel

    Glyn, Dr Alan

    Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

    Bain, Mrs Margaret

    Godber, Rt Hon Joseph

    McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)

    Banks, Robert

    Goodhart, Philip

    McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

    Beith, A. J.

    Goodhew, Victor

    Made), David

    Bell, Ronald

    Goodlad, A.

    Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

    Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)

    Gorst, John

    Marten, Neil

    Bennett, Dr Reginald (Fareham)

    Gow, I. (Eastbourne)

    Mates, Michael

    Benyon, W. R.

    Grant, Anthony (Harrow C.)

    Mather, Carol

    Berry, Hon Anthony

    Gray, Hamish

    Maude, Angus

    Biffen, John

    Grieve, Percy

    Maudling, Rt Hon Reginald

    Biggs-Davison, John

    Griffiths, Eldon

    Mawby, Ray

    Blaker, Peter

    Grist, Ian

    Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

    Body, Richard

    Grylis, Michael

    Mayhew, Patrick

    Boscawen, Hon Robert

    Hall, Sir John

    Meyer, Sir Anthony

    Bowden, Andrew (Brighton)

    Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

    Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)

    Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)

    Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

    Mills, Peter

    Bradford, Rev Robert

    Hampson, Dr Keith

    Miscampbell, Norman

    Braine, Sir Bernard

    Hannam, John

    Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

    Brittan, Leon

    Harrison, Sir Harwood (Eye)

    Molyneaux, James

    Brotherton, Michael

    Hastings, Stephen

    Monro, Hector

    Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

    Havers, Sir Michael

    Montgomery, Fergus

    Bryan, Sir Paul

    Hawkins, Paul

    Moore, John (Croydon C)

    Buchanan-Smith, Alick

    Hayhoe, Barney

    More, Jasper (Ludlow)

    Buck, Antony

    Heath, Rt Hon Edward

    Morgan, Geraint

    Budgen, Nick

    Henderson, Douglas

    Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral

    Bulmer, Esmond

    Heseltine, Michael

    Morris, Michael (Northants)

    Carlisle, Mark

    Hicks, Robert

    Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

    Carr, Rt Hon Robert

    Higgins, Terence L.

    Morrison, Peter (Chester)

    Chalker, Mrs Lynda

    Holland, Philip

    Mudd, David

    Churchill, W. S.

    Hooson, Emlyn

    Neave, Airey

    Clark, Alan (Plymouth, S)

    Hordern, Peter

    Nelson, Anthony

    Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

    Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

    Neubert, Michael

    Cockcroft, John

    Howell, David (Guildford)

    Newton, Tony

    Cooke, Robert (Bristol W.)

    Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

    Normanton, Tom

    Cope, John

    Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

    Nott, John

    Cordle, John H.

    Hunt, John

    Onslow, Cranley

    Cormack, Patrick

    Hurd, D.

    Oppenheim, Mrs Sally

    Corrie, John

    Hutchison, Michael Clark

    Osborn, John

    Costain, A. P.

    Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

    Page, John (Harrow West)

    Craig, Rt Hon W. (Belfast)

    James, David

    Paisley, Rev Ian

    Critchley, Julian

    Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick (Redbr.)

    Pardoe, John

    Crouch, David

    Jessel, Toby

    Parkinson, Cecil

    Crowder, F. P.

    Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

    Pattie, Geoffrey

    Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutsford)

    Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

    Penhaligon, David

    Dodsworth. Geoffrey

    Jones, Arthur (Daventry)

    Percival, Ian

    Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

    Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

    Peyton, Rt Hon John

    du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

    Kaberry, Sir Donald

    Pink, R. Bonner

    Dunlop, J.

    Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

    Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch

    Durant, Tony

    Kershaw, Anthony

    Price, David (Eastleigh)

    Dykes, Hugh

    Kilfedder, James

    Prior, Rt Hon James

    Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

    Kimball, Marcus

    Pym, Rt Hon Francis

    Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

    King, Evelyn (South Dorset)

    Raison, Timothy

    Elliott, Sir William

    King, Tom (Bridgwater)

    Rathbone, Tim

    Emery, Peter

    Kirk, Peter

    Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter

    Eyre, Reginald

    Kitson, Sir Timothy

    Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

    Fairbairn, Nicholas

    Knight, Mrs Jill

    Rees-Davies, W. R.

    Fairgrieve, Russell

    Knox, David

    Reid, George

    Farr, John

    Lamont, Norman

    Renton, Rt Hn Sir D. (Hunts.)

    Fell, Anthony

    Lane, David

    Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)

    Finsberg, Geoffrey

    Langford-Holt, Sir John

    Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

    Fisher, Sir Nigel

    Latham, Michael (Melton)

    Ridley, Hon Nicholas

    Fletcher, Alex (Edinburgh N.)

    Lawrence, Ivan

    Ridsdale, Julian

    Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

    Lawson, Nigel

    Rifkind, Malcolm

    Fookes, Miss Janet

    Le Marchant, Spencer

    Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

    Fowler, Norman (Sutton C.)

    Lester, Jim (Beeston)

    Roberts, Michael (Cardiff N.W.)

    Fox, Marcus

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

    Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St.)

    Lloyd, Ian (Havant)

    Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

    Freud, Clement

    Loveridge, John

    Ross, William (Londonderry)

    682

    683

    Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

    Stainton, Keith

    Viggers, P. J.

    Rest, Peter (SE Derbyshire)

    Stanbrook, Ivor

    Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)

    Sainsbury, Tim

    Stanley, John

    Wakeham, John

    St. John-Stevas, Norman

    Steen, Anthony (Liverpool)

    Waider, David (Clitheroe)

    Scott, Nicholas

    Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

    Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

    Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek

    Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

    Stokes, John

    Wall, Patrick

    Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

    Tapsell, Peter

    Walters, Dennis

    Shellon, William (Lambeth St.)

    Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)

    Warren, Kenneth

    Shepherd, Colin

    Taylor, Teddy (Glasgow C.)

    Weatherill, Bernard

    Shersby, Michael

    Tebbit, Norman

    Wells, John

    Silvester, Fred

    Temple-Morris, P.

    Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

    Sims, Roger

    Thatcher, Rt Hon M.

    Wiggin, Jerry (Weston-s-Mare)

    Sinclair, Sir George

    Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Barnet)

    Winterton, Nicholas

    Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

    Thompson, George

    Wood, Rt Hon Richard

    Smith, Dudley (Warwick)

    Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (Devon)

    Young, Sir George (Ealing)

    Speed, Keith

    Townsend, Cyril D.

    Younger, Hon George

    Spence, John

    Trotter, Neville

    Spicer James (W. Dorset)

    Tugendhat, Christopher

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Spicer, Michael (S. Worcester)

    van Straubenzee, W. R.

    Mr. John Stradling and

    Sproat. lain

    Vaughan, Dr Gerard

    Mr. Adam Butler.

    Question accordingly agreed to.
    Question put accordingly, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment:—
    The House divided: Ayes 297, Noes 278.

    Division No. 34.]

    AYES

    [12.17 a.m.

    Abse, Leo

    Cunningham, Dr J. (Whiten.)

    Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

    Allaun, Frank

    Dalyell, Tarn

    Hamling, William

    Anderson, Donald

    Davidson, Arthur

    Hardy, Peter

    Archer, Peter

    Davies, Bryan (Enfield N.)

    Harper, Joseph

    Armstrong, Ernest

    Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)

    Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

    Ashley, Jack

    Davies, Ifor (Gower)

    Hart, Rt Hon Judith

    Ashlon, Joe

    Davis, S. Clinton (Hackney C.)

    Hatton, Frank

    Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

    Deakins, Eric

    Hayman, Mrs Helene

    Atkinson, Norman

    Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

    Heffer, Eric S.

    Bagier, Gordon A. T.

    de Freitas, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

    Hooley, Frank

    Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

    Delargy, Hugh

    Horam, John

    Barnett, Joel (Heywood)

    Dell, Rt Hon Edmund

    Howell, Denis (B'ham, Sm H)

    Bates, Alf

    Dempsey, James

    Hoyle, Douglas (Nelson)

    Bean, Robert E.

    Doig, Peter

    Huckfleld, Leslie

    Benn, Rt Hn Anthony Wedgwood

    Dormand, Jack

    Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

    Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

    Douglas-Mann, Bruce

    Hughes, Mark (Durham)

    Bidwell, Sydney

    Duffy, A. E. P.

    Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N.)

    Bishop, Edward

    Dunn, James A.

    Hunter, Adam

    Blenkinsop, Arthur

    Dunnett, Jack

    Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (L'pool)

    Boardman, H.

    Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth

    Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)

    Booth, Albert

    Eadie, Alex

    Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)

    boothroyd, Miss Betty

    Edelman, Maurice

    Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

    Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur

    Edge, Geoffrey

    Janner, Greville

    Boyden, James (Bish Auck.)

    Edwards, Robert (Wolv. S.E.)

    Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

    Bradley, Tom

    Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

    Jeger, Mrs Lena

    Bray, Dr Jeremy

    English, Michael

    Jenkins, Hugh (Wandsworth)

    Brown, Hugh D. (Glasgow Pr.)

    Evans, loan L. (Aberdare)

    Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (B'ham, St)

    Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle)

    Evans, John (Newton)

    John, Brynmor

    Brown, Ronald (Hackney S.)

    Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

    Johnson, James (Kingston, W.)

    Buchan, Norman

    Faulds, Andrew

    Jones, Alec (Rhondda)

    Buchanan, Richard

    Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.

    Jones, Barry (East Flint)

    Butler, Mrs Joyce (Haringey)

    Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

    Jones, Dan (Burnley)

    Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P.)

    Fitt, Gerard (Belfast)

    Judd, Frank

    Campbell, Ian

    Flannery, Martin

    Kaufman, Gerald

    Cant, R. B.

    Fletcher, Raymond (likeston)

    Kelley, Richard

    Carmichael, Nell

    Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

    Kerr, Russell

    Carter, Ray

    Foot, Rt Hon Michael

    Kilroy-Silk, Robert

    Carter-Jones, Lewis

    Ford, Ben T.

    Kinnock, Neil

    Cartwright, John

    Forrester, John

    Lamborn, Harry

    Castle, Rt Hon Barbara

    Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)

    Lamond, James

    Clemitson, I. M.

    Fraser, John (Lambeth, N)

    Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

    Cocks, Michael (Bristol S.)

    Freeson, Reginald

    Leadbitter, Ted

    Cohen, Stanley

    Garrett, John (Norwich S)

    Lee, John

    Coleman, Donald

    Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

    Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton 4 Slough)

    Colquhoun, Mrs Maureen

    George, Bruce

    Lewis, Arthur (Newham N.)

    Concannon, J. D.

    Gilbert, Dr John

    Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

    Conlan, Bernard

    Ginsburg, David

    Lipton, Marcus

    Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)

    Golding, John

    Litterick, Tom

    Corbett, Robin

    Gould, Bryan

    Lomas, Kenneth

    Cox, Thomas (Wands, Toot)

    Gourlay, Harry

    Loyden, Eddie

    Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow M.)

    Graham, Ted

    Luard, Evan

    Crawshaw, Richard

    Grant, George (Morpeth)

    Lyon, Alexander (York)

    Crosland, Rt Hon Anthony

    Grant, John (Islington C.)

    Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

    Cryer, Bob

    Grocott, Bruce

    Mabon, Dr J. Dickaon

    Cunningham, G. (Islington S.)

    Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

    McCartney, Hugh

    McElhone, Frank

    Parker, John

    Strang, Gavin

    MacFarquhar, R.

    Parry, Robert

    Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.

    Mackenzie, Gregor

    Pavitt, Laurie

    Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

    Mackintosh, John P.

    Peart, Rt Hon Fred

    Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

    Maclennan, Robert

    Pendry, Tom

    Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

    McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C.)

    Perry, Ernest

    Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

    McNamara, Kevin

    Phipps, Dr Colin

    Thomas, Mike (Newcastle)

    Madden, Max

    Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

    Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

    Magee, Bryan

    Prescott, John

    Thorne, Stan (Preston)

    Mahon, Simon

    Price, William (Rugby)

    Tierney, Sydney

    Mallalieu, J. P. W.

    Radice, Giles

    Tinn, James

    Marks, Ken

    Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S.)

    Tomlinson, John

    Marquand, David

    Richardson, Miss Jo

    Torney, Tom

    Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Tuck, Raphael

    Marshall, Jim (Leicester)

    Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

    Urwin, T. W.

    Mason, Rt Hon Roy

    Rodgers, George (Chorley)

    Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

    Maynard, Miss Joan

    Rodgers, William (Teesside)

    Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'dyw'd)

    Meacher, Michael

    Rooker, J. W.

    Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

    Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

    Roper, John

    Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

    Mendelson, John

    Rose, Paul B.

    Ward, Michael

    Mikardo, Ian

    Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilm'nock)

    Watkins, David

    Millan, Bruce

    Rowlands, Ted

    Watkinson, John

    Miller, Dr M. (E. Kilbrlde)

    Flyman, John

    Weetch, Ken

    Miller, Mrs Millie (Redbridge)

    Sandelson, Neville

    Weitzman, David

    Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

    Sedgemore, B.

    Wellbeloved, James

    Molloy, William

    Selby, Harry

    While, Frank R. (Bury)

    Moonman, Eric

    Shaw, Arnold (Redbridge, IIf.)

    While, James (Glasgow, P)

    Morris, Alfred (Wylhenshawe)

    Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)

    Whitehead, Phillip

    Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

    Shore, Rt Hon Peter

    Wigley, Dafydd (Caernarvon)

    Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

    Short, Rt Hon Edward (Newcastle C)

    Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

    Moyle, Roland

    Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)

    Williams, Alan (Swansea)

    Murray, Ronald King

    Silkin, Rt Hn John (Lewish.)

    Williams, Alan, Lee (Haver'g)

    Newens, Stanley

    Silkin, Rt Hn S. C. (Southwk.)

    Williams, Rt Hn Shirley (Hertford)

    Noble, Mike

    Sillars, James

    Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

    Oakes, Gordon

    Silverman, Julius

    Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

    Ogden, Eric

    Skinner, Dennis

    Wilson, Rt Hon H. (Huyton)

    O'Halloran, Michael

    Small, William

    Wilson, William (Coventry S.E.)

    O'Malley, Brian

    Smith, John (N. Lanarkshire)

    Wise, Mrs Audrey

    Orbach, Maurice

    Snape, Peter

    Woodall, Alec

    Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

    Spearing, Nigel

    Woof, Robert

    Ovenden, John

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Wrigglesworth, Ian

    Owen, Dr David

    Stallard, A. W.

    Young, David (Bolton E.)

    Padley, Walter

    Stewart, Rt Hn Michael (H, smith, F)

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Palmer, Arthur

    Stoddart, David

    Mr. Walter Johnson and

    Park, George

    Stott, Roger

    Mr. John Ellis.

    NOES

    Adley, Robert

    Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)

    Gardner, Edward (S. Fylde)

    Altken, J. W. P.

    Cope, John

    Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)

    Alison, Michael

    Cordle, John H.

    Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

    Amery, Rt Hon Julian

    Cormack, Patrick

    Glyn, Dr Alan

    Arnold, Tom

    Corrie, John

    Godber, Rt Hon Joseph

    Alkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

    Costain, A. P.

    Goodhart, Philip

    Awdry, Daniel

    Craig, Rt Hon W. (Belfast)

    Goodhew, Victor

    Banks, Robert

    Critchley, Julian

    Goodlad, A.

    Beith, A. J.

    Crouch, David

    Gorst, John

    Bell, Ronald

    Crowder, F. P

    Gow, I. (Eastbourne)

    Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)

    Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutsford)

    Grant, Anthony (Harrow C.)

    Bennett, Dr Reginald (Fareham)

    Dodsworth, Geoffrey

    Gray, Hamish

    Benyon, W. R.

    Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

    Grieve, Percy

    Berry, Hon Anthony

    du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

    Griffiths, Eldon

    Biffen, John

    Dunlop, J.

    Grist, Ian

    Biggs-Davison, John

    Durant, Tony

    Grylls, Michael

    Blaker, Peter

    Dykes, Hugh

    Hall, Sir John

    Body, Richard

    Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

    Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

    Boscawen, Hon Robert

    Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

    Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

    Bowden, Andrew (Brighton)

    Elliott, Sir William

    Hampson, Dr Keith

    Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)

    Emery, Peter

    Hannam, John

    Bradford, Rev Robert

    Eyre, Reginald

    Harrison, Sir Harwood (Eye)

    Braine, Sir Bernard

    Fairbairn, Nicholas

    Hastings, Stephen

    Brittan, Leon

    Fairgrleve, Russell

    Havers, Sir Michael

    Brotherton, Michael

    Farr, John

    Hawkins, Paul

    Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

    Fell, Anthony

    Hayhoe, Barney

    Bryan, Sir Paul

    Finsberg, Geoffrey

    Heath, Rt Hon Edward

    Buchanan-Smith, Alick

    Fisher, Sir Nigel

    Henderson, Douglas

    Buck, Antony

    Fletcher, Alex (Edinburgh N.)

    Heseltine, Michael

    Budgen, Nick

    Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

    Hicks, Robert

    Bulmer, Esmond

    Fookes, Miss Janet

    Higgins, Terence L,

    Carlisle, Mark

    Fowler, Norman (Sutton C.)

    Holland, Philip

    Carr, Rt Hon Robert

    Fox, Marcus

    Hooson, Emlyn

    Chalker, Mrs Lynda

    Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St.)

    Hordern, Peter

    Churchill, W. S.

    Freud, Clement

    Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

    Clark, Alan (Plymouth, S)

    Fry, Peter

    Howell, David (Guildford)

    Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

    Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.

    Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

    Cockcroft, John

    Gardiner, George (Reigate)

    Howella, Geraint (Cardigan)

    686

    687

    Hunt, John

    Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

    Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

    Hurd, Douglas

    Molyneaux, James

    Shelton, William (Lambeth St.)

    Hutchison, Michael Clark

    Monro, Hector

    Shepherd, Colin

    Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

    Montgomery, Fergus

    Shersby, Michael

    James, David

    Moore, John (Croydon C)

    Silvester, Fred

    Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick (Redbr.)

    More, Jasper (Ludlow)

    Sims, Roger

    Jessel, Toby

    Morgan, Geraint

    Sinclair, Sir George

    Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

    Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral

    Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

    Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

    Morris, Michael (Northants)

    Smith, Dudley (Warwick)

    Jones, Arthur (Daventry)

    Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

    Speed. Keith

    Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

    Morrison, Peter (Chester)

    Spence, John

    Kaberry, Sir Donald

    Mudd, David

    Spicer, James (W. Dorset)

    Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

    Neave, Airey

    Spicer, Michael (S. Worcester)

    Kershaw, Anthony

    Nelson, Anthony

    Sproat, lain

    Kilfedder, James

    Neubert, Michael

    Stainton, Keith

    Kimball, Marcus

    Newton, Tony

    Stanbrook, Ivor

    King, Evelyn (South Dorset)

    Normanton, Tom

    Stanley, John

    King, Tom (Bridgwater)

    Nott, John

    Steen, Anthony (Liverpool)

    Kirk, Peter

    Onslow, Cranley

    Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

    Kitson, Sir Timothy

    Oppenheim, Mrs Sally

    Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

    Knight, Mrs Jill

    Osborn, John

    Stokes, John

    Knox, David

    Page, John (Harrow West)

    Tapsell, Peter

    Lamont, Norman

    Paisley, Rev Ian

    Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)

    Lane, David

    Pardoe, John

    Taylor, Teddy (Glasgow C.)

    Langford-Holt, Sir John

    Parkinson, Cecil

    Tebbit, Norman

    Latham, Michael (Melton)

    Pattle, Geoffrey

    Temple-Morris, P.

    Lawrence, Ivan

    Penhaligon, David

    Thatcher, Rt Hon M.

    Lawson, Nigel

    Percival, Ian

    Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Barnet)

    Le Marchant, Spencer

    Peyton, Rt Hon John

    Thompson, George

    Lester, Jim (Beeston)

    Pink, R. Bonner

    Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (Devon)

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch

    Townsend, Cyril D.

    Lloyd, Ian (Havant)

    Price, David (Eastleigh)

    Trotter, Neville

    Loveridge, John

    Prior, Rt Hon James

    Tugendhat, Christopher

    Luce, Richard

    Pym, Rt Hon Francis

    van straubenzee, W. H.

    MacCormick, lain

    Raison, Timothy

    Vaughan, Dr Gerard

    McCrindle, Robert

    Rathbone, Tim

    Viggers, P. J.

    McCusker, Harold

    Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter

    Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)

    Macfarlane, Neil

    Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

    Wakeham, John

    MacGregor, John

    Rees-Davies, W. R.

    Walder, David (Clitheroe)

    Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

    Renton, Rt Hn Sir D. (Hunts.)

    Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)

    McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)

    Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)

    Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek

    McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

    Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

    Wall, Patrick

    Madel, David

    Ridley, Hon Nicholas

    Walters, Dennis

    Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

    Rifkind, Malcolm

    Warren, Kenneth

    Marten, Neil

    Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

    Weatherill, Bernard

    Mates, Michael

    Roberts, Michael (Cardiff N.W.)

    Wells, John

    Mather, Carol

    Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

    Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

    Maude, Angus

    Ros3, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

    Wiggin, Jerry (Weston-s-Mare)

    Maudling, Rt Hon Reginald

    Ross, William (Londonderry)

    Winterton, Nicholas

    Mawby, Ray

    Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

    Wood, Rt Hon Richard

    Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

    Rost, Peter (SE Derbyshire)

    Young, Sir George (Ealing)

    Mayhew, Patrick

    Sainsbury, Tim

    Younger, Hon George

    Meyer, Sir Anthony

    St. John-Stevas, Norman

    Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)

    Scott, Nicholas

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Mills, Peter

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Mr. John Stradling Thomas and

    Miscampbell, Norman

    Shaw. Giles (Pudsey)

    Mr. Adam Butler

    Question accordingly agreed to.
    Committee appointed to draw up a Reason to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing to their amendment to the Bill: Mrs. Barbara Castle, Mr. Kenneth Clarke, Mr. J. D. Dormand, Sir Geoffrey Howe and Mr. Brian O'Malley; Three to be the quorum.—[Mr. O'Malley.]
    To withdraw immediately.
    Reason for disagreement to the Lords Amendment reported, and agreed to; to be communicated to the Lords.

  EEC (COLLECTIVE DISMISSALS)
  12.32 a.m.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Mutton): Before calling the Minister to move the motion, "That this House approves Commission Document No. R/2976/73", I wish to inform the House that Mr. Speaker has announced his decision not to select the amendment in the names of the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Gould) and his right hon. and hon. Friends.
  Mr. Nigel Spearing: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. After the announcement of this business by the Lord President of the Council last Thursday, I went to the Vote Office

  689
  and obtained the documents for this debate. The first was the document mentioned on the Order Paper. The second was the Explanatory Memorandum dated 17th April and signed about that time. I understand that subsequently— indeed, it is known—another supplementary Explanatory Memorandum was submitted by the Minister which altered the nature of the document before us. I know that that did not reach the Vote Office until this morning. Therefore, unless any hon. Member had known by word of mouth that it was there, he might not be aware of the important nature of that second document. I put it to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the procedure is, to say the least, irregular.
  I do not propose that we should not discuss the matter tonight or ask the Minister to withdraw it. However, I draw attention to the fact that this is the second time that there has been an irregularity concerning Explanatory Memoranda about this kind of order. The last time that I raised this matter was on energy when the Explanatory Memorandum was again late and was delivered the day before the document was to be discussed.
  Mr. Bob Cryer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am a comparatively new Member of this House. I wonder whether the House is competent to discuss a document which has been altered before reaching the House and on which hon. Members have so little information. My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) explained that this information has not been placed before the House. It concerns me greatly that this House should be placed in a position not only of discussing documents emanating from Brussels, over which we have no control, but that it should not be given information on documents which are altered before coming here and are put down as being unaltered.
  May I ask you to rule whether the House is competent to discuss the document on the Order Paper?
  Mr. Douglas Jay: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think that it will be appropriate for me to deal with
  690
  the two points of order that have been raised and then to return to the right hon. Gentleman.
  The point of order raised by the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) is not a matter for the Chair. I think that point will have been taken in other quarters.
  On the point raised by the hon. Member for Keighly (Mr. Cryer), it will be in order for him to raise that matter in the debate, if he so wishes.
  Mr. Jay: My point of order is that, if I understand the situation aright—and if I am wrong I hope somebody will explain the facts—we do not have before the House the document that we are being asked to approve. Am I not right in thinking that, owing to the extraordinary method of dealing with legislation by the EEC in Brussels, the document in question was suddenly withdrawn at short notice and is not before the House? All we have is the previous document that has been superseded in Brussels, and a short Explanatory Memorandum of a document that we do not have. If that is so, is it reasonable to ask the House to proceed on that basis?
  Mr. Peter Kirk: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If Labour Members had taken their places in the European Parliament they would be fully informed on all these matters. The document has been fully discussed there.
  Mr. Arthur Lewis: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Kirk) is addressing me on a point of order.
  Mr. Kirk: The complaints now being made by Labour Members are without very much validity.
  Mr. Arthur Lewis: On a point of order. Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I first refer to your original reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing)? I think you said that the matter he raised was not for the Chair. With respect, may I suggest to you that Mr. Speaker is responsible for seeing that papers and documents are available to hon. Members, so far as it is within his power to do that.

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  I appreciate it is not Mr. Speaker's fault that his officials have not obtained the appropriate document, but the fact is that we have to deal only with documents that are listed under the Orders of the Day. If we do not have the document that we are supposed to debate, surely we are not complying with the Orders of the Day. We cannot possibly comply with them because the document that is before us is not listed on the Order Paper. You know as well as I do that I am not allowed to take part in proceedings that are not listed on the Order Paper as Government business under the Orders of the Day.
  The document that we are being asked to discuss is not available. I am therefore sure that my hon. Friend is right in saying that Mr. Speaker has not been able to get the appropriate document to enable us to comply with the Orders of the Day. In those circumstances, I suggest that we cannot proceed, and the Leader of the House should move to report progress and ask leave to sit again.
  The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Edward Short): The motion refers to Commission Document No. R/2976/73. That document is available in the Vote Office, and I have a copy of it here. I understand that the amendment has not been selected, so the document on which the motion is based is available in the Vote Office.
  Mr. Jay: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I think the Leader of the House is mistaken. The original document was R/2976173. The amended document is also R/2976/73, but that does not alter the fact that we do not have the amended document.
  Mr. Paul B. Rose (Manchester, Black-ley): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Would it be for the convenience of the House if the Minister were to say whether the document has been amended? My right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) says that it has been amended. My information is that consideration of the draft is continuing by officials within the Council of Ministers' framework, as is stated in the Explanatory Memorandum. If that is the case and the matter has gone no further, the document before the House is the
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  last document, and my right hon. Friend is wrong. If that is not the case and there is a document in existence, then my right hon. Friend would be right. Could the Minister not tell us what the position is?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: This is not a point of order, but a question of a motion on the Paper.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. John Eraser): On a point of order. The Document 2976 has been before the House for several months now. What I have done is to lay in the Vote Office the memorandum submitted to the Scrutiny Committee. I thought that it would assist hon. Members in this debate to have that memorandum, which was submitted to the Scrutiny Committee on 29th November. The supplementary memorandum dated 20th November summarises the position taken by various Community States on the original draft document. It also sets out the position taken by the British Government. I hoped that the original Commission document, together with the memorandum which sets out both the present situation and the Government's view on it, would be enough to proceed upon.
  Mr. Norman Buchan: There is a genuine difficulty here with which the Minister has not dealt, and perhaps it should be answered from the Chair. It relates to the supplementary Explanatory Memorandum. These Explanatory Memoranda have particular force in view of the new mechanism which we have developed to deal with EEC matters. It is signed by the Minister himself and says:
  "A number of points have yet to be agreed, but the draft which is to be discussed at the Council meeting is expected to be on the following lines."
  So we are asked to discuss and presumably approve either an existing draft or a future draft which is still to be agreed, with a number of points to be put forward. The information given in the Explanatory Memorandum is that it is expected to be on certain lines. I do not know to what extent we or you, Sir, are the custodians of the dignity of the House, but this seems to be an extraordinary document to be approved by the House in those terms.
  Sir Derek Walker-Smith: Further to the point of order.

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  This motion is not in the ordinary form of asking that the House take note of the document. It asks that the House "approve" it, and it is in the name of the Prime Minister and other eminent right hon. Gentlemen. The House should be told which document the Government are asking it to approve—whether it is the existing document dated 4th December 1973, bearing this number and the subject of an Explanatory Memorandum on 17th April, or whether it is another document and if so whether that document exists and is likely to be before the House. The right hon. Gentleman will see the inherent inconsistency. The approval which is asked for in the motion is inconsistent with the last paragraph of the supplementary memorandum, which says that the Government are expressly dissenting from something in the revised directive. Perhaps neither proposition is correct, but both cannot be. Perhaps we should have some elucidation.
  Mr. Max Madden: Further to the point of order. This debate is taking place on the recommendation of the Scrutiny Committee. As a member of that Committee, I was given to understand yesterday that this document had been amended and that neither the amendments nor the supplementary Explanatory Memorandum was available to the Committee.
  Mr. John Davies: Further to the point of order. There should be a slight correction here. The supplementary memorandum was made available to the Committee, admittedly very briefly, before it sat. It is also relevant that, in developing these proposals, which are a matter of scrutiny by the Scrutiny Committee, there is a regular process of improvement and amendment by the Member States; inevitably, at any given moment, there may be matters which are not different from the original proposals. But we have before us a valid proposal which is down for debate.
  Mr. Arthur Lewis: The right hon. Gentleman must surely be wrong. He says that the memorandum was available but that it was available before the Committee sat. In that case there was no Committee. It is only when the Committee sits, has the documents put before it and is called to order that it is a Committee. Therefore, my hon. Friend
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  must be right. The memorandum was not available to the Committee as a Committee, in the same way as it is not available now to the House.
  Hon. Members: Withdraw it.
  Mr. Edward Short: There is no point in withdrawing it if the House wants to discuss this sort of thing. This is the kind of difficulty we are getting into. I hope the House will realise that it is not the fault of the present Government. The sovereignty of Parliament has been taken away from us in this kind of matter and we are trying to do our best to enable the House to discuss it. I fully accept that the present situation is not satisfactory.
  I do not know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether you would be prepared to reconsider the question of the amendment, but I understand that, if you were prepared to reconsider it, my hon. Friend the Minister would be prepared to accept the amendment. If this would be helpful to the House, I think that it would expedite our business considerably.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Perhaps I might explain to the House that the ruling was given by Mr. Speaker earlier yesterday, and I do not think I am empowered to alter a decision which he has taken.
  Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Further to the point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The fact that the Government have indicated that, for the assistance of the House, they are prepared to accept an amendment surely could not have been within the knowledge of Mr. Speaker, and I submit that it would be for the assistance of the House if you felt able to call the amendment.
  Mr. Jay: Further to the point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If the Government are willing to accept the amendment, and since our amendment states that the contents are subject to amendment by documents which are not before the House, I take it that the Government are agreeing with us that the relevant document is not before the House. If that is so and the Government agree with it, how can we be asked to approve it when we have not seen it?
  Mr. John Fraser: Further to the point of order. It might be helpful, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I indicate that the amendments

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  that are suggested to any Commission documents are made by a number of Community countries, in some cases by the Community itself. It is my understanding that, in accordinace with normal diplomatic practice, the amendments and the discussions which have taken place through the Community machinery would normally be treated as confidential. What the Government have tried to do in the memorandum is to give the House an indication of the view taken by other member Governments, to summarise those views and, as I said before, set out the view of this Government. That was the way I hoped the matter could proceed. The amendments, however, are made by other Governments.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Having heard the arguments, I think that I should be in order if I acceded to the request of the Leader of the House, because I feel that a new situation has arisen. I am sure the House will bear with me, however, when I say that, having heard the arguments, I am prepared to accede to what the Lord President has suggested because I think it is a new situation and because when Mr. Speaker made his original ruling yesterday morning the facts as they now appear were not then apparent.
  12.49 a.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. John Fraser): I beg to move,
  "That this House approves Commission Document No. R/2976/73."
  I do so subject, of course, to our being willing to accept the amendment when in due course it is moved.
  I fully understand the difficulties which face hon. Members who are not serving on the Scrutiny Committee in preparing for debates of this kind. As I said before, it was with this in mind that I arranged to have placed in the Vote Office a supplementary memorandum which had been submitted to the Scrutiny Committee. The memorandum sets out the form the directive is likely to take bearing in mind the views of the other Governments in the Community. It sets out one provision with which the Government are not prepared to agree and it generally sets out the Government's attitude to the directive. I hope that the information in the memorandum will go some way towards removing the doubts which
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  may exist in the minds of hon. Members about the Government's attitude towards the proposed directive. Because of these difficulties we shall be prepared to accept the amendment.
  I should like to devote most of what I have to say to the substance of the directive and the Government's attitude towards it. First I shall comment on the criticisms which are implicit in the points of order and in the amendment. Points which are raised about the procedure will be carefully listened to tonight. I do not propose to deal with the procedural matters which trouble the House except to say that the establishment of the Scrutiny Committee and the provision of debates of the kind we are now having represent an important constitutional development. But this is part of an evolutionary process which is why questions concerned with keeping the House informed of the Government's handling of Community business are currently under consideration by the Scrutiny Committee.
  My right hon. Friend the Lord President and my hon. Friend the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs are both well aware of the problems of distribution of Community documents, and I am sure that they will study the points of order and other points which may be made on the subject tonight. I further understand that my hon. Friend will be giving evidence to the Scrutiny Committee. It may be that there will be an opportunity then for these matters to be discussed more fully than they can be tonight.
  I turn now to the directive, which is of major social importance. The broad purpose of the directive as it is likely to emerge is to produce a common approach within the Community to the handling of mass dismissals, and basically it does two things. It requires employers to consult workers' representatives in advance about proposed redundancies, and it requires them to notify the redundancies to a public authority. In Britain that authority is the Department of Employment.
  The draft directive was part of the Social Action Programme drawn up at the summit meeting in October 1972. It was already under discussion in Brussels when we took office earlier this year. At the meeting of the Council of Ministers

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  last June, I reserved the United Kingdom's position because we needed more time to consider the proposals, to finalise our own ideas, to discuss them and to consult in our own country. I think that I said in answer to a Parliamentary Question in June that I did not apologise for delaying it so that it could be discussed in this House and in the country.
  Since the June meeting we have formulated and published our proposals in the consultative document on the Employment Protection Bill. Paragraphs 65 to 72 of that document embrace and go further than what I hope to agree at Brussels. We have received comments from the TUC and the CBI and other organisations on the proposals. Concurrently there have been intensive discussions in Brussels at official level with the Commission and other member States about the details of the proposed directive.
  As a result the draft directive, as it is now likely to come before the Council, is broadly in line with our own proposals for the Employment Protection Bill and its aims are entirely consistent with Labour Party policy. Although there are certain matters still to be discussed with the Council of Ministers when it meets next week in Brussels, the main provisions of the directive are of the kind we would want to put in the Bill whether we were members of the Community or not.
  We accept that there is advantage in having protection against mass dismissals throughout all the Community countries so that multi-national companies cannot set one country off against another. I therefore make no apology for commending the broad terms of the directive to the House, subject to further discussions just referred to.
  As the law stands, hundreds of workers can be and sometimes are made redundant at 24 hours' notice. Our own proposals are an immense advance. They require advance consultation with recognised independent trade unions at the earliest practicable time about all proposed redundancies, however small. They also require redundancies to be notified in advance to the Department of Employment. At least two months' warning would have to be given to the Department if more than 10 workers in any one
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  establishment were to be dismissed within a period of 30 days, and three months' warning if more than 100 workers were to be dismissed within a period of 90 days.
  These requirements would enable the manpower services to assist as necessary with redeployment or retraining and would also enable the Government to consider any further steps which might be needed to avoid or minimise the effects of redundancy. No individual notices could take effect until after the warning periods had expired, but individual workers could leave earlier if they so wished, and would keep their entitlement to redundancy pay provided they did so with the agreement of their employers.
  By contrast with the proposals in the Employment Protection Bill, the draft directive in its present form would make it possible for dismissals to take place 30 days after notification, but would enable the competent public authority to extend that period to 60 days if it thought fit.
  We propose to amend the directive so that we can comply with it by stipulating an initial period of notice of not less than 60 days, which fits into our proposals for the Employment Protection Bill. I would not agree to the directive if it did not contain that amendment. I regard the 60-day minimum period of notice of mass redundancies as more satisfactory than a 30-day initial period with only the possibility of extension by a public authority. We would have 60 days as our own standard requirement. There would be exceptions to cover special circumstances where notice would be impracticable.
  As the directive does not fix any minimum period, there is nothing to prevent member States laying down longer periods if they wish. The proposed directive establishes a minimum protection, but in no way inhibits member States from exceeding its provisions. In the Government's view, the proposals I have referred to represent an important advance in social policy. They should do much to ensure that proposed redundancies are fully discussed and considered in advance and that, where redundancies are unavoidable, they are handled in a sensible and humane way.
  I hope that the proposal, as it fits in with our own domestic proposals for

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  legislation, will commend itself and have the support of the House.
  Mr. Neil Marten: Before the Minister sits down—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): The Minister has already sat down.
  12.58 a.m.
  Mr. Bryan Gould: I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to end and to add:
  "while approving the objectives of Commission Document No. R/2976/73, considers that it can only be noted since its contents are subject to amendment by documents not before this House ".
  The document is important, covering a vital area in our industrial relations. Moreover, it covers a field which is already the subject of draft domestic legislation. Therefore, it raises, potentially at least, the whole problem of the compatibility of Community legislation with legislation emanating from the House.
  The motion asks the House to approve the document. It is not for me to speculate why that formula was adopted on this occasion. Some of my hon. Friends would argue that, given that the renegotiations are continuing and that the whole question of EEC membership is still outstanding, it is inappropriate for the Government to ask for approval of EEC documents. At least the procedure has the advantage that it impliedly recognises that the approval of the House is an important matter. It follows that to withhold approval would also be an important matter, which could not fail to have consequences for my hon. Friend the Minister when he goes to Brussels. It would be very valuable to have that confirmed by the Minister.
  I said that this document was important. It is also—at least, so we are told—unexceptionable because it marches along the same path as our own Employment Protection Bill. But with the best will in the world, we cannot approve this document because in essence it no longer exists in the form in which it was presented to the House. We are told in the supplementary Explanatory Memorandum that there will be a revised draft, that a number of points have yet to be agreed, that the draft which is to be discussed is expected to be on certain lines, and
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  so on. In those circumstances, it is impossible for this House to reach a view which is at all meaningful on this point.
  Let me give an example of the sort of difficulty that we face. The unamended document contains in Article 3(1) the provision:
  "The competent public authority may prohibit the notified dismissals …"
  We are then told that this document as it stands is accepted by the Government and we are invited to approve it.
  The only comment made in the Explanatory Memorandum is that this proposal poses greater difficulties for the United Kingdom. Then when we come to the supplementary Explanatory Memorandum we are told that the amended document may contain a proposal for the public authority to be empowered to veto the redundancies. That seems to be no different from the existing Article 3(1). Yet we are told in the supplementary memorandum that the Government may oppose this provision and will not accept a draft which includes it. Have the Government changed their mind as between one memorandum and another, or will the amended document be in a different form from that which we have? We cannot tell. There is no way in which the House can form any sort of opinion on this point. This is one of the most important points in the draft document, and yet seemingly we cannot have an answer from the Government on that point. As a result, this debate is regrettably a charade.
  Given the pressure on parliamentary time, especially in relation to EEC documents, it is a shameful waste of time. This is not a matter to be laid at the Government's door. It is one more instance of the total inadequacy of our present arrangements for dealing with EEC legislation.
  I am told by my friends on the Scrutiny Committee that no fewer than 15 1½ hour debates remain outstanding and the Commission is producing one proposal of this sort each day. In those circumstances, unless the Government wish to invite the House to make a fool of itself, they must either withdraw the motion or accept the amendment.
  1.4 a.m.
  Mr. Christopher Tugendhat: As the

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  Government have said that they will accept the amendment, and as the whole discussion concerning the amendment arose from a purely internal Labour Party dispute—[HON. MEMBERS: "No".] I am sorry; the bulk of the discussion came from the other side of the House. However, in view of the reaction to my remarks, I will totally withdraw.
  Mr. Buchan: Does the hon. Gentleman understand the point of the reaction? He is saying that these matters of legislation which affect this country deeply have to be treated as a bit of party infighting. They are nothing of the kind.
  Mr. Tugendhat: Clearly, I made a regrettable statement. There are two quite separate points at issue. There are important issues of principle enshrined in the document and also the different issues of principle concerning how Parliament treats legislation of this sort. It is on the document itself and not the way in which Parliament handles matters of this kind that I propose to speak. Among my hon. Friends are members of the Scrutiny Committee and of the European Parliament, and they are in a better position than I to deal with the points about the way the House deals with legislation of this kind as opposed to the issues in the document.
  This is the first time we have been dealing with legislation of this sort since the Prime Minister's apparent change of heart towards the Community at the Paris summit, and it is appropriate that it should be concerned with an area which is the direct responsibility of the Secretary of State for Employment. I was interested to note that work on the document was well advanced when the Government took office. It shows that the Community, contrary to what some people have argued, is very much concerned with important social issues and with the same kind of problems concerning the quality of life of the workpeople, the relationship of the worker to his employer, dismissals and conditions of service, as we are.
  This is perhaps in its way the most eloquent possible commentary on the nature of the concern in the Community and on so much of the misunderstanding in the Labour Party about what sort of Community it is. I do not suppose that the document will convert the Secretary of State, but it may go some way towards
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  softening his opposition to everything which comes from the Community.
  The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Michael Foot): Perhaps I can put the hon. Gentleman's mind at ease. All the confusions which have arisen have fortified my belief that the operation of the methods in Brussels is incompatible with the proper functioning of this House.
  Mr. Tugendhat: It has been agreed that that is a separate issue from the matters contained in this document. Clearly, the right hon. Gentleman finds himself in large measure in agreement with the Community on the document. We share his concern over the possibility of dismissals by multi-national companies in one country, designed to strengthen their bargaining position against workers in another, and his desire to ensure that dismissals in any case are conducted in reasonable and appropriate fashion, with due regard to the interests of the workers as well as of the company concerned. On that basis of principle, there is not a great deal between us.
  But some issues arise from the document and the Employment Protection Bill discussion paper which cause us concern. First, the document brings the State very much more directly into the whole question of dismissals than has normally been the practice here. I recognise that the European proposals do not break new ground, and that the principle of State intervention is rightly enshrined in the Redundancy Payments Act, but the document goes very much further towards bringing the State into the whole area of dismissals, and that reflects the fact that in some European countries trade unionism is not as highly developed as it is here, and therefore some problems which here are dealt with on an employer-union basis primarily might be more suitably dealt with with a greater degree of State intervention in some other European countries.
  In this country, with its established practices and its highly developed system of trade unionism, I should have thought that the degree of intrusion by the State goes rather further than we would like to see and raises certain problems. For instance, it is not clear at what point a company, finding itself in financial difficulties and feeling that it may have to lay off large numbers of men, as may be

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  the case in the coming winter, would have to disclose its intentions to the State and to the trade unions. Nor is it clear how the trade unions and the Department of Employment would inter-relate. The responsibilities of the two do not seem to be closely defined in the document.
  It would be desirable if the Minister could give us more information on how he sees the relationship between the Department, the employer and the trade unions in such matters. We are worried by the prospective powers which the document gives to the State to prohibit and delay redundancies. I listened with interest to what the Minister said about the fact that the Government would oppose the idea that the public authority should be empowered to veto redundancies. None the less it is there and it is a matter of some concern because it raises difficult problems for a company which finds itself on the verge of bankruptcy.
  I could see difficulties arising—if this document was passed into law—for a board of directors which had to meet the requirements laid down here. A company might find itself in a position in which, under the Companies Acts, it ought to cease trading. The implications of the document in that context are not clear.
  My final point is as equally relevant to the Employment Protection Bill, as we understand it, as to this document. Little attention is paid to the position of employers. We accept the desirability, indeed necessity, of paying due regard to the interests of working people when redundancies and dismissals take place. But so many of the provisions of the Employment Protection Bill and this document pay no regard to the great costs imposed on employers through having to deal with problems of this sort, when by definition, if they are laying men off, they are likely to be doing badly.
  This is an aspect of Government policy —whether in the Bill or the document— in which the Government and the Community appear to be paying little attention to the industrial realities of a company which finds itself in difficulties, which needs to lay off people and which may have to act quickly. New costs and impositions are constantly being placed
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  on companies which, in their present position, are in no condition to bear extra costs.
  The principle of the document seems to have much to recommend it. It also seems to have implications for companies and the existing legislative system as well as for our present system of handling relations between trade unions, employers and the Department of Employment which are, to say the least, unclear. I hope that the Minister can clarify these points when he replies to the debate.
  1.15 a.m.
  Mr. Ivor Clemitson: If there is to be a new version of this document, I hope that what purports to pass as the English language is improved. One particular gem which I liked was the phrase "increasingly less justifiable". There must be a shorter and more elegant way of stating the thought. The jargon is to be expected. For example, I am sure that workers in Vauxhall Motors or in other car factories will be pleased to know that they are to be beneficiaries of "upward harmonisation".
  I do not wish to quarrel with the conclusions reached in the document, although I, too, note that the Government seem to have changed their position. For example, in the 17th April Explanatory Memorandum, referring to the veto powers of public authorities, it is stated that:
  "The principle of granting powers to the Public Authority to delay or prohibit the proposed dismissals poses … difficulties."
  whereas in the latest Explanatory Memorandum there is the much more positive statement that
  "the proposal may also contain a provision for the public authority to be empowered to veto the redundancies. In common with the majority of other Member States, the Government is opposed to this provision".
  Presumably the Government have shifted their ground—[HON. MEMBERS: "The ground has shifted."]—or perhaps, as hon. Members say, the ground has shifted. Perhaps the Government will clarify this point.
  What I wish to quarrel with in the document is the way in which the conclusions have been reached. Incompatible arguments are adduced for doing the same thing. On the one hand, we have what might be called the argument from

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  the point of view of the welfare of the worker. There is talk of "security of employment" and of
  "improvement in the working and living conditions of workers and their upward harmonisation"
  —that blessed phrase. There is talk of "providing social protection". On the other hand, there is the argument about creating conditions for better, or fairer, or whatever other term we want to use, competition. What is the competition that is talked about in this document and in many other documents emanating from the EEC and its institutions? Is it the perfect competition of the classical economists?
  If I may be permitted to go back to the basic source, the Treaty of Rome, Article 85 provides:
  "The following shall be prohibited as incompatible with the common market: all agreements between undertakings, decisions by associations of undertakings and concerted practices which may affect trade between Member States and which have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition within the common market, and in particular those which:

  (a) directly or indirectly fix purchase or selling prices or any other trading conditions;

  (b) limit or control production, markets, technical development, or investment;

  (c) share markets or sources of supply;

  (d) apply dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions with other trading parties, thereby placing them at a competitive disadvantage;

  (e) make the conclusion of contracts subject to acceptance by the other parties of supplementary obligations which, by their nature or according to commercial usage, have no connection with the subject of such contracts".

  Every one of those rules is broken by virtually every company in every industry and market in a modern economy. The objective of the modern company or corporation and especially the multinational company, which the document mentions several times without a hint of criticism, is to limit and indeed eliminate competltion.
  If the members of the EEC were serious about creating conditions for fairer and better competition, presumably there would be a wholesale attack on large companies and corporations, which would be about as effective as trying to sweep the Atlantic with a broom. As a corollary, we should be trying to free the labour market by a wholesale attack
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  on trade unions and on their restrictive practices, cutting out such nonsense as the Redundancy Payments Act, Contracts of Employment Act, which clearly interfere with the free working of the labour market.
  Action to protect employees and to provide them with security, and attempts to prevent the development of areas of mass underemployment, are incompatible with chasing this mirage of competition, and rightly so. Competition is as dead as the dodo. One can only come to the conclusion that talk of competition is some kind of ritual obeisance which has to be gone through in every document issuing from the EEC institutions. It does not add to the clarity or the consistency of any argument. As some of us suspect, it may be a little more sinister than that. It is in fact a cloak behind which the interests of supranational companies are protected and furthered.
  Any move towards furthering the protection and improvement of conditions of working people is to be welcomed, but let us do it for the right reason and not because of the nonsensical mishmash presented to us in this document.
  1.23 a.m.
  Mr. John Davies: The matter dealt with in this document is of unquestionable importance. That is why the Scrutiny Committee suggested that it was a proper matter for debate.
  It would be hard indeed to disagree with much that was said by the mover of the Amendment, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Gould) in terms of the difficulty which the House clearly faces in being asked to approve a document which, even in its first form, still contained the disagreeable characteristics to which the Government have referred in the supplementary memorandum.
  Here I have much sympathy with the point made by the hon. Member, but when he said that the debate had become a kind of charade he spoilt the efficacy of what he said earlier, because the issues are vital ones.
  The advantage possessed by this House in relation to these many legislative matters within the framework of the Community is that Parliament is party to the process of discussion and argument which takes place during the finalisation of proposals. This does not apply to

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  domestic legislation. In the case of domestic legislation the House is presented with a cut and dried proposition in its final definitive form, which has been worked out behind the shrouds of Government Departments, as I know well.
  Here the House has the desirable opportunity to get into the act during the preliminary stages. How we can call that a charade mystifies me. This is an opportunity for the House to exercise its powers in relation to all these matters.
  This is what the Scrutiny Committee was meant to do. It was put there to try to bring to the House matters which were in process so that hon. Members might have the opportunity to influence Ministers' minds, to declare their views, and to help in the formulation of proper and imaginative provisions within the framework of this legislation.
  Mr. Gould: If the right hon. Gentleman accepts the point which I made in the early part of my speech, it follows that the conclusion is also correct. The object of this debate was to ask the House to approve a document whose terms hon. Members could not know.
  Mr. Davies: I understand the hon. Gentleman, and I admit that the form of approval seemed inconsistent with the document presented to us. But if we took the hon. Gentleman's views to their logical conclusion, and any piece of domestic legislation was still subject to amendment, it might in the same form be termed a charade. But that is not the case. The purpose in handling domestic legislation is to influence it, to change its nature and to improve it. That is the opportunity which is provided through the mechanism of which the House has approved in setting up the Scrutiny Committee. It would be a great pity if the hon. Gentleman's view and the general objection to form, which is characteristic, understandable and part of the system of the House, were to prevent discussion of the fundamental issues at stake in matters of this kind.
  Issues of this kind touch the very centre of some of our most difficult problems, be they domestic or international problems. To allow the form constantly to dominate, when we should be more concerned with the essence, would be bad ,and would stultify our objective.
  Mr. Marten: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that the safeguard with domestic legislation is that we have a Committee stage, where the Opposition can move amendments? In the case of a document such as this, which will eventually be approved by the Council of Ministers, there is no opportunity for hon. Members to move amendments. My right hon. Friend agreed with the principle in this paper, but he had many criticisms. If we had been allowed a Committee stage on the wording of the document, he would have moved many amendments and fought them bitterly. But, because we are in the Common Market, we cannot do that.
  Mr. Davies: In relation to this form of legislative proceeding, we have a means of intervening at the stage of gestation. It is a valuable asset. It would be a great pity if the House discraded it or regarded it as a charade. Here we have an opportunity to influence Ministers' minds, if anything can. After the debate, they will be armed with the feelings of hon. Members. Let us not reject that. It would be unwise and short-sighted.
  1.29 a.m.
  Mrs. Audrey Wise: The acceptance of the amendment enables this House to avoid approving a non-existent or superseded document. We are thus enabled merely to take note of it. But we are still left in a very regrettable position.
  I cannot accept the view of the right hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies) that this debate is a valuable exercise. If he is right when he says that it is normal for us to have before us matters which have been prepared "behind shrouds" and which are "cut and dried", that may be a hint that some procedures of this House and Government attitudes and habits could stand improvement.
  The right hon. Gentleman omitted to consider the final and irrefutable argument that the House has the final approval. With ordinary legislation, Members of the House can say "Aye" or "No", whereas, however much we may exercise our minds in debate tonight, we shall not have any right to say "Aye" or "No".
  We are given to understand—not from any document before the House but by

  709
  the Financial Times—that the communique being issued from the EEC summit says:
  "To improve the functioning of the Council of the Community, they consider that it is necessary to renounce the practice which consists of making agreement on all questions conditional on the unanimous consent of the Member States."
  That is a statement of extraordinary importance. It is regrettable that we read it in the Financial Times. Those of us who have raised questions of parliamentary sovereignty have been told that we need not worry, that all will be well because there is a veto and Britain need accept nothing that it does not choose to accept. We are now told that that situation is slipping away from us. It is impossible in this situation for the House to consider the content of the draft document as though it were quite separate from the method.
  It seems to be agreed on both sides that the procedures for dealing with directives, regulations, and so on, leave much to be desired. However, I should not like the House then to be led into a search for what it might consider to be a more satisfactory mechanism to do a job that is impossible. We find ourselves in these difficulties perpetually, because we are dealing with a bureaucratic and centralised institution that does not lend itself to democratic scrutiny.
  We are told that it is in order for us to approve the contents of the document because it parallels our proposed employment protection Bill. This suggests that we are being told that the draft document is innocuous, not that it is helpful. After all, we are intending, in any case, to introduce an employment protection Bill. Therefore, we are being told that the House of Commons itself can deal adequately with the material before us.
  In this case the directive marches in line with the Government's thinking and, perhaps, with the thinking of the House. What if this were not so? Then whose will would prevail? Nothing which has been put before me during the months I have been a Member has done other than show me ever more clearly that in the last analysis the decisions will not be made by the House or in any way directly by the British people. If redundancy matters are to be adequately dealt with, we do not need somebody standing above us but we need better mechanisms more directly in
  710
  the work place. Let us seek more direct democracy; let us reject this bureaucratic and centralised system.
  I believe that it is sought to make a mockery of this House. I was astonished to hear the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Kirk) say that if we were in the European Parliament we would be better informed. How dare the hon. Gentleman stand in this Chamber and make such a statement. I regret that this debate is being conducted at such a late hour and that this point will not receive the publicity it deserves. The British people would be very interested to know what is happening in the House at this moment.
  Mr. Tugendhat: If at some point the Government chose to put the hon. Lady on a delegation to the United Nations, would she not find that very helpful and would she not return to this House better informed?
  Mrs. Wise: No. I was sent to the House of Commons by the electors of Coventry, South-West. It is to the House of Commons that they expect me to be responsible on their behalf, and to report back to them.
  I have never considered myself to be a tremendous parliamentarian. I happen to think that our parliamentary democracy is incomplete; I want to see it extended in many ways. But since I came to the House I have found myself more and more driven to the view that we must defend the parliamentary democracy we have because we are in great danger of being stripped of it all. Because I feel that it is incomplete, that does not mean I want to get rid of what we have got.
  What is being played out before us tonight is not a draft directive on redundancy but the question of the relationship of the EEC to this House. I suggest that that relationship is unsatisfactory and will remain so. I am deeply disquieted by what is being put to us as progress at the EEC summit. I feel that the one shred of protection which we were to be given is in danger of being thrown away.
  1.38 a.m.
  Sir Derek Walker-Smith: I shall be very brief indeed at this hour, particularly since the debate is subject to a time limit.

  711
  I think that there must be general agreement with the view put forward by the hon. Lady the Member for Coventry, South-West (Mrs. Wise) that so far we have not perfected any arrangement for the discussion of the manifold directives that come from the Community. That is no great surprise to any of us who have studied these matters. We could improve on the situation if the Leader of the House when asked about these matters, instead of assuming a rather pained expression and saying "This is the sort of difficulty into which we get landed", were able to make some constructive proposals—for example, by grouping a number of these directives and bringing them on at a more reasonable hour so that we could take longer to discuss them and also so that there could be a greater attendance of hon. Members.
  As for the constitutional position, the hon. Lady will appreciate that in the setup of the Community the Council of Ministers—paradoxically, in a sense, because they are executives in their own Governments—are the legislative body. The House of Commons is giving guidance to its Minister in order that he may put forward an appropriate view in the Council of Ministers. Under the terms of the treaty he has certain rights and powers. Under the so-called Luxembourg Convention he has additional powers. We shall be very interested in due time to see what the so-called renegotiations—I shall explain at a more appropriate time why I say "so-called renegotiations"—propose to do regarding the Luxembourg Convention.
  On the document itself, I should like to indicate the correlation of Article 1 and Article 3.
  Under Article 1 an employer who intends
  "to effect dismissals for one or more reasons not related to the individual behaviour of the workers … must notify the appropriate public authority ".
  Under Article 3, to which criticism has properly been directed,
  "The competent public authority may prohibit the notified dismissals if, after investigation, it is found that the reasons, within the meaning of Article 1, invoked by the employer are non-existent."
  Translated into terms of this country, that would mean that the Department of
  712
  Employment would be charged with the responsibility of considering the whole financial position and prospects of any company which regrettably found itself having to make redundancies. That seems a very difficult task for the Department to discharge.
  The processes of consultation are obviously good and appropriate, but one would have thought that, by and large, those would have been done in any event without too much intervention by the Departments of State over here.
  Finally, because I know that other hon. Members wish to speak, may I ask whether we can at last have an elucidation of this curious riddle which has baffled hon. Members at this time about the Government's attitude regarding Article 3 and how they come to table a motion for the approval of the directive which includes the provisions of Article 3 to which we are told, some months later, the same Government are apparently opposed? It is a peculiar paradoxical riddle. The Minister may satisfy the curiosity of the House when he replies by explaining how the Government have come to do that. I note that in this context they are prepared, in inviting the approval of the House of this document, to accept Article 6 with its mandatory provision for amendment of legislation to conform with the directive tabled at a time certainly when it included this obnoxious Article 3. An explanation of this apparently contradictory situation would help the House and inform our minds.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before calling the next hon. Member, I remind the House that the debate must finish at 2.19 a.m. There are to be two Front Bench winding-up speeches and it has been suggested to me that they should commence at two o'clock.
  1.44 a.m.
  Mr. J. M. Craigen: When the Minister winds up, will he deal with the problem which can arise where a large-scale company operates on the basis of integrated accounts and might determine to close one of its branches? There have been several cases in the West of Scotland during the past year where it has become very difficult not only for the employees within a company but for

  713
  the Government to unearth the true facts and know just how viable a particular unit of production is.
  This document talks about consultation and notification to the public body, about a warning period, and so on, but, in the kind of situation to which I am referring, unless these groups can really determine the true facts of the case it will be difficult for the Government to suggest to the company concerned that it should think again about its redundancies.
  1.45 a.m.
  Mr. J. Enoch Powell: The intervention of the Secretary of State in the speech of the hon. Member for the City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Tugendhat) anticipated the observation that I was going to make; namely, that it was an irony to find the name of the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot) attached to an invitation to the House to approve a document which illustrates in classical fashion the radical incompatibility of the very system of the EEC with the legislative powers and competence of this House of Commons. Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine a document which more clearly demonstrates the exorbitant ambitions of the EEC for harmonisation in the most rigorous sense within the Community as a whole.
  There are, as I understand it—and the hon. Member for Luton, East (Mr. Clemitson) was essentially on the same point—two possible approaches. The one which I imagine would command the support of the majority of hon. Members on both sides of the House is that the respective countries should as far as possible eliminate the obstacles to intercourse of trade and the movement of goods and capital between themselves.
  Of course, while they retain their own distinctive laws, their own distinctive practices—indeed, their respective national characters—the result of that would not be perfect competition; but it would be as close an approach to perfect competition as was compatible with other values which many people place higher than the perfection of competition. But if there is to be perfect competition in the academic abstract sense in which the Commission evidently envisages it there must also be total harmonisation, so that there is no inequality of practice, let
  714
  alone of law, between one part of the Community and another; and in the Explanatory Memorandum which prefaces the directive that is clearly set out as the motive.
  I notice that the Minister suggested that our proposed legislation for the protection of employment might be more generous, might be more embracing, might go further than the protection envisaged by the Commission. I am afraid that that will not do. I am afraid that that would defeat the objects of this policy as surely as if our protection were inferior to that which is here required.
  The logic here requires that we shall carry out neither more nor less than the protection in the specific form in which it is envisaged by the Commission for the whole of the Community. That means that this is a directive that has to be taken literally. Of course, it being a directive, we shall implement it in due course—we shall be obliged by our own legislation to implement it—but it is this directive—no other—that we must implement in order to comply with our duties within the Community.
  It is not suitable to be implemented in the law of this country. I take matters at random. Article 1 contains a definition of the circumstances in which the subsequent provisions are to bite. It is a detailed definition and is presumably, therefore, intended to be reflected in the legislation of all the member countries. But a coach and horses could be driven through this definition of the applicability of the provisions. Paragraph 2 refers to "at least 10 per cent." of the usual number of workers being dismissed over one month. But presumably there is no difficulty in dismissing 9½ per cent. in each of any number of successive months. Such is the wisdom of the Commission in drawing up the directive to component States.
  Article 3 says that the competent public authority may find the reasons stated by the employer non-existent, in which case it forbids the dismissals, but this is an extreme case. Let us suppose that, even though not non-existent—there must be some reason for the employer to dismiss a large number of employees— the public authority finds them more or less inadequate. What then? We are not told. There is no provision for that.

  715
  Article 4 provides for an entrenched mediation procedure, but there is no indication, if the mediation comes to no specific conclusion, of what is to follow.
  These are articles which are impossible to translate into tolerable legislation. Yet they or their successors will be binding upon this House in the terms of Section 2 of the European Communities Act 1972.
  I should have thought that this House and this country would have learned, even in our domestic context, the difficulty and sensitivity of matters affecting the security of employment and the relations between employers and employees. Here are instructions, not even backed by an intelligible philosophy, with no philosophy of financial relationship between the State and the firms or of the degree of responsibility which the State will take for the burden which it imposes upon employers and thus, indirectly, upon employees.
  Surely we have had enough of ill-considered legislation in this field in recent years to last us for a long time, without having this kind of stuff imposed upon us. It is only by our own mature legislation, first of all debated in principle and then, by the proper legislative process, considered in detail, so that, as far as possible, not only the mind of Government but all contingencies can be considered, that tolerable law can be made for the people of this country. This is not to be remedied by another stage in the consultation process. It can be remedied only by this House regaining its legislative competence, and that in turn means that Section 2 of the 1972 Act and all its works has got to go.
  1.53 a.m.
  Mr. Hugh Dykes: Whatever their views on the motion or some of the wider issues alluded to by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), I am sure that all hon. Members will agree that this has been an interesting debate. This is the fourth or fifth "take note" debate. I know that the motion is to approve, not to take note, but I use the phrase only in the widest generic sense to describe what the Chairman of the Scrutiny Committee was right to call a process and procedure of scrutiny of European proposals and secondary legislation, which, whether hon. Members opposite like it or not, is becoming increasingly effective.
  716
  This was a strange procedure to the House when it began, but it is now becoming more familiar. I am expressing only a personal view. Hon. Members on all sides will have varying views and nuances about these matters. I do not, however, think that what was said at the beginning of this debate by some Labour Members is valid. Their misgivings are for a totally different reason. They are not concerned with the procedures, despite the fact that they put down an amendment; but I shall not go too far in developing that theme. They are not so much concerned with that, nor is the right hon. Member for Down, South. They are concerned to continue to keep in existence the Second Reading debates on the accession legislation, which was debated at great length, incidentally, before certain hon. Members who have spoken in this debate came to the House. They have had the opportunity—I hope they have used it, but perhaps, if they have not, they will be honest enough to admit it—to read all those debates, not only the Second Reading of the treaty legislation but the Committee and all remaining stages.
  It may be for the pleasure of certain hon. Members that the House should continue on these "take note" or "approval" motions which will continue to come forward, because there is a great deal of business of this nature ahead of the House which is being processed through the Scrutiny Committee. It may be for the pleasure of some hon. Members to continue these interminable Second Reading debates, but they do the House a disservice, they do the country a disservice and, gratuitously, they mislead the public.
  It was extremely interesting in tonight's debate that not only Labour back-bench Members but the Secretary of State for Employment was nodding enthusiastically as hon. Members on their side of the House were waxing lyrical and querulous about every syllable in every paragraph of this draft directive.
  Mr. Madden: Will the hon. Member give way?
  Mr. Dykes: Not for the moment. I may decide to give way presently.
  Hon. Members should get all this in perspective. If I may say so without

  717
  sounding too presumptuous, my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Kirk) suggested—again, correctly— at the beginning of this debate that if the Labour Members had a delegation at Strasbourg, at a Parliament which is not elected—it is not a conflict of being elected to two institutions, to which the hon. Lady the Member for Coventry, South-West (Mrs. Wise) referred—they would have a chance to see the detailed stages of all these processes.
  Mr. Spearing: Will the hon. Member give way?
  Mr. Dykes: Yes, presently, to the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden), who rose first.
  If Labour Members do not want to send a delegation to the Parliament, cannot they send an observer? I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden reads the New Statesman. I read the Morning Star and Tribune. It is a good thing to know what the other side is about. Why do not Labour Members take more of a genuine interest in what the European Economic Community is doing in terms of the activities of its various institutions? That would be a very good thing.
  Now, I give way.
  Mr. Madden: The hon. Member must have a curious sense of humour if he thinks that those of us who are critical of the provisions of this document at 2 a.m. derive any great pleasure or comfort from being here. We are here to discuss these issues on the Floor of this House because they are issues of great moment and magnitude. They are also issues which it is our responsibility to discuss here.
  As the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), others of the hon. Member's hon. Friends and my hon. Friends have pointed out, we have serious misgivings and there are deficiencies in this document. I hope that those of the hon. Member's very well-informed Friends who attend the European Assembly have aired those grievances, otherwise one is left to assume that there are internal differences in the Conservative Party on these issues of great moment and magnitude.
  Mr. Dykes: That was a long intervention, and I apologise for having gone on for some time before giving way. I know that the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) and possibly some of my hon. Friends wanted to intervene, and there may yet be an opportunity for them to do so.
  I hope I am not misunderstood. The hon. Member for Sowerby has missed the point I was making, undoubtedly badly, for which I am sorry. The point I was trying to get at was not in textual terms on the draft directive that the hon. Member and some of his colleagues did not have misgivings about it and were worrying about having insufficient opportunity to debate it. Of course, the House may decide in the future that there are alternative modalities needed for the scrutiny procedure.
  The European Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favour of the proposals in the draft directive, and that vote included the Social Democrats and Socialists in the Assembly. The important Social Affairs and Employment Committee of the Assembly enthusiastically endorsed the proposals as well. I can refer hon. Members to many of the pages of the debate which show that the matter has been completely examined at that stage.
  Mr. John Biffen: My hon. Friend says that the European Assembly at Strasbourg voted overwhelmingly for this directive. Did the Conservative representatives at the Assembly vote for Article 3?
  Mr. Dykes: Yes, they did. [Interruption.] Does my hon. Friend wish to pursue the point, because I will give way again?
  Mr. Biffen: I would be grateful if my hon. Friend used these valuable few moments remaining to explain why he thinks the Government are wrong to exercise their potential veto on Article 3 and why he thinks that the Conservatives are right to support the directive as if stands without such veto.
  Mr. Dykes: I was not a party to the debate in the Assembly, but when reading the accounts—and I speak from memory on the point because I cannot find it, although perhaps the Secretary of State can find it more easily for me —it is necessary to bear in mind that the

  719
  Assembly is a consultative body where frequently approval is expressed for certain things which may be changed later and referred back to the national legislature.
  Mr. Marten: Come off it.
  Mr. Dykes: That is a reasonable answer, I think.
  Mr. Spearing Mr. Spearing rose—
  Mr. Dykes: I cannot give way at this stage.
  I should like to pass on to comment on what the Minister said in opening the debate. I wish to express a generalised and enthusiastic welcome for the principles in the directive, for its main articles and for the proposals, for example, for the definition of the unit of employment as described in the document.
  These are not highly controversial matters between the two Front Benches. A strong will seems to be developing in the House in favour of a rational framework of protection for employees faced with what on the Continent are frequently now being called collective dismissals and what in this country is sometimes called mass redundancy, the latter expression having an undesirable sound. This is particularly apposite when the economic situation of the nation is so serious and unemployment is likely to rise very sharply. The Secretary of State must be extremely worried about the trends in unemployment, and, therefore, any legislative measures the House can take to cushion the effects of that unemployment will be very welcome.
  But we are talking about unemployment of more than a small number of people in a small enterprise, which will occur for various reasons. It is important to bear in mind that what has been discussed in the Community at various levels and various of the institutions is the question of redundancies arising from mergers as well as from companies getting into difficulties. I hope that the Minister will say a little more about companies getting together on a national basis, which is the primary pattern.
  We should like more information about the veto on any action by the appropriate
  720
  public authority, which is the Department of Employment in this country, to stop dismissals. This will be a difficult point to cover. We wait to see the employment protection Bill. We wait for a date for its announcement, and hope that the Minister can help us on that tonight. On 3rd December the Secretary of State hinted that it might come before Christmas, as a kind of Christmas present, or soon after. The Bill is important in relation to the draft directive.
  I believe that there is a meeting of the ministerial council on the subject next week. Therefore, we are close to important decisions being made at the appropriate level, as we are still members of the Community.
  It would benefit the House if the definition of the sizes of the dismissal ratios could be clarified. In the draft directive there is the basis of, for example, at least five workers for a unit of employment of 20–50 workers, at least 10 per cent. of workers dismissed for 50–250 workers and at least 25 for more than 250. I may have misheard the Minister, but I thought that I detected a numerical conflict between what he said about the basis, the suggestions in the fifth section of the employment protection Bill consultative document and the basis given in an answer by his hon. Friend the Minister of State on 3rd December, when he said:
  "we envisage that any employer who lays off 10 or more workers in any one establishment, to be dismissed within a period of 30 days, will be required to give 60 days' notice, and any employer proposing to lay off 100 or more workers in any one establishment to be dismissed within a period of 90 days, will be required to give 90 days' notice."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd December 1974; Vol. 882. c. 1337.]
  What will be the Government's line on the ratios in the ministerial council?
  I repeat our welcome for the proposals in the draft directive. Our rejection of the way in which it emanated from the Council in response to the original drawn up by the Commission in November 1973 has been wrong or has hindered the directive's examination by the House. We have followed the normal procedure by which Economic Community Council proposals for directives have been processed so far. There is no objection today which would not have applied on previous occasions. After the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary

  721
  Provisions) Bill was debated last week at an early hour in the morning we had a "take note" motion. On that occasion there were very few Members in the House, no doubt because it was 9.30 in the morning, and no voices were raised against it. That motion was based on the development of Community documents which had developed in entirely the same way as those which have been debated this morning.
  I hope, therefore, that hon. Members who continue to be reluctant to accept the reality of this country's position in the wider European scene, and the need for us to rely on our European friends to help this country in respect of all sorts of matters, but not least our economic welfare in the future, will get their objections in perspective and within reasonably pragmatic limits and not seek to cause difficulties about important and desirable objectives such as the proposed Community legislation in this document.
  2.12 a.m.
  Mr. John Fraser: With the leave of the House, speaking for myself and, I think, for my hon. Friends, we reject the proposition that they ought to be going to Strasbourg to debate this matter. I applied a reserve—not a veto—and blocked the directive last time it came before the Council of Ministers. I did it because I thought it ought to be considered in this country, and I thought there ought to be an opportunity for Members of Parliament to discuss it. I make no apology for that, and I still take that view.
  May I now answer some of the questions put by the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes). He asked about redundancies arising from mergers. There are proposals, which are not likely to come up in the near future, from the Commission about mergers, employment and redundancy. I think I have enough on my plate dealing with this directive without going into any other matters at present.
  The hon. Gentleman asked me about Article 3 in the draft directive, relating to the power to veto redundancies altogether. May I make clear, as I hope the memorandum makes clear, that I would not agree to that provision. It does not cater for our country, and I would
  722
  not allow the document to go through with that provision in it.
  As to the employment protection Bill, we hope to see it published in the New Year.
  Mr. Biffen Mr. Biffen rose—
  Mr. Fraser: I cannot give way now. I am short of time.
  Inevitably many comments have been made about procedure. I cannot discuss procedure at length. All I can say is that there are unsatisfactory aspects to it. There will be occasions when this can be discussed.
  I accept the criticism that a motion to approve a document as a basis for discussion is not the best way to do it, and I express my gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Gould) for tabling his amendment approving the general objectives of the directive.
  I was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Test what the Government would do if the proposals were rejected by the House. Any Government, and particularly a Labour Government, would be very much at peril if they chose to ignore the wishes of the House and went to Brussels or Luxembourg and agreed something which did not have the support of the House of Commons. That is why we regard it as important to have discussions and consultations in the House, and with the trade unions and the CBI, before going back to try to agree something on the proposals which are now before us.
  I was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-West (Mrs. Wise) what would be the position if the directive were out of line with the feeling of the House. Where I have doubts about things like the veto and unilateral arbitration, I am not prepared to accede to them. I think the memorandum makes that quite clear.
  The hon. Member for the City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Tugendhat) asked about the relationship of the employer, the trade union and the Department when the redundancy notices are given. The Department set out in its consultative document the purpose for the Department in having advance notice. It is in the terms of our Labour Party manifesto to try to ensure that redundancy does not lead to unemployment, that it

  723
  should lead either to retraining or to redeployment.
  The period of notice will enable the Manpower Services Commission to look at the situation, perhaps ameliorating the effects of redundancy, and it will certainly give time to set up job teams and look at the possibilities of retraining and redeployment. We are not satisfied with a situation where hundreds of people can be given only 24 hours' notice, leaving the unions and the Department to sort out the subsequent mess.
  We shall use the advance notice for that purpose. The unions will have a period in which they can arrange the form which the redundancy takes. I am told that it is no good a man waiting until the end of the period of redundancy notice. Often, he will want to start looking for another job before the notice expires, and the union can negotiate that kind of arrangement.
  There may be other occasions when a union, because it is provided with information, is not satisfied that there is adequate reason for redundancies, and the period of notice gives it at least time to enter into negotiations with the management to see whether there are better ways to deal with the situation than by mass sackings.
  I was asked about a firm that is in financial difficulty. I may say that had certain firms which find themselves now in financial difficulties taken the unions and their work people into their confidence much earlier and followed the kind of procedures we hope to achieve by the employment protection Bill, it would have been better for them and the workers involved.
  There may be exceptional occasions where it is not possible to give long periods of notice. An example which comes to mind is Flixborough, where there was a massive explosion. In such circumstances, one could not expect management to give advance notice of the consequences of such a disaster.
  The Commission intends some kind of scale with regard to the size of the dismissal, and a scale has been put in the draft directive. We propose to keep to the figures we have in the employment protection Bill, a minimum of 10 over a period of 30 days or 100 over a period
  724
  of 90 days. We may reduce the figure to five in order to reach agreement with other countries, but apart from that we shall keep to the figures we have in the Bill.
  Finally, it is wrong to suggest that one has to try to achieve redundancy laws in order to have fair competition between one country and another. It is right throughout Europe to try to alter the balance of power in favour of ordinary working people and their families against multinational companies and large concentrations of power, and for its own sake and not for the sake of perfect competition. I endorse that view strongly. It fits in with our ideas, and I hope it has the support of the House.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House, while approving the objectives of Commission Document No. R/2976/ 73, considers that it can only be noted since its contents are subject to amendment by documents not before this House.

  HOUSING RENTS AND SUBSIDIES (SCOTLAND) [MONEY]
  Queen's Recommendation having been signified.
  Resolved,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to repeal certain provisions of the Housing (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1972, to make further provision as to the rents of houses provided by housing authorities in Scotland, and to amend the law relating to housing subsidies and accounts in Scotland, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of

  (a)any expenses incurred by the Secretary of State in consequence of any provision of the said Act;

  (b)any increase attributable to the said Act in the sums payable out of money so provided under any other enactment;

  and that it is expedient to authorise the payment into the Consolidated Fund and into the National Loans Fund of any sums so payable under any other enactment by virtue of any provision of the said Act of the present Session.—[Mr. Michael Cocks.]

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

  M5 (CONSTRUCTION PAYMENTS)
  2.20 a.m.
  Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: I am extremely grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to have been given this opportunity to raise a matter in this House which is of urgent public concern and of particular immediate concern to my constituent, Mr. Neil James, of Gloucester.
  Mr. James was, until 28th December 1973, a measurement engineer working for Messrs. Freeman Fox and Partners on sections 2 and 3 of the M5 motorway from 1970 onwards.
  As I shall attempt to show the House through the sequence of events that led up to his leaving the firm and subsequently, Mr. James is a person of very great integrity, public-spirited and completely unselfish, who in doggedly pursuing for more than a year the question of what he considers to be an unwarranted overpayment of public funds, did so at the expense of considerable personal financial loss to himself and his family, and seriously endangered his professional future.
  I understand that the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead), wishes to intervene if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. To substantiate what I have said from his own personal knowledge of Mr. James's character.
  During the course of the contract referred to, Mr. James became increasingly disturbed about the measurement of the works and other actions and claims by the company for which he was working. He continually challenged these, and finally made a representation to Mr. Honey, the Financial Controller of the South-West Region Road Construction Unit of the Department of the Environment on 7th November 1973—over a year ago—to which letter he has never received a reply from Mr. Honey. The issues raised in this letter were of interest to the whole nation—and contained potentially serious allegations.
  The first issue was the alleged discovery by Mr. James, as a result of his own re-measurement of the works, that 10 per cent. had been added to the measured quantities which form the contract, by means of a hidden contingency. This allegation alone should have merited
  726
  an immediate independent inquiry. This did not take place, however.
  The civil engineering contracts for this project were based on the standard method of measurement, and Mr. James questioned why the bills of quantities included this "hidden contingency" which, apart from its own cost, carried additional professional fees roughly 10 per cent on £1 million. He also raised the question of how many of the contractors knew of its inclusion, and, of course, pointed out that these hidden quantities changed the whole basis of the tenders by a substantial sum.
  The facts as revealed by Mr. James show clearly that the inclusion of this hidden contingency was known to certain senior persons within Freeman Fox and Partners, and that it was intended to utilise this in order to complete agreement with the contractors outside their terms of reference with the Department of the Environment, and to convert these sums of money into measured work, thus avoiding the reference to the Department. The system was almost foolproof, with one exception—Mr. James refused to implement the settlement and "lose" the items into measured work.
  The second point that he raised was with regard to the unnecessary breaking up of earthworks to form four balances, which admits the import of more material and added approximately £250,000 to the claim in measured work. A principle that had not been discussed with the South West Region Road Construction Unit.
  This is a very complex and major part of the contract, which involved further consequential costs, and this claim met consistent opposition from Mr. James throughout the whole period. He strenuously attempted to get this course of action corrected from the start. However, he failed to get acceptance of a correct form of measurement approved. Indeed, he was told off for giving too much detail in his own measurements.
  One internal company memorandum to Mr. Eyre from a Mr. Smith, dated 8th June 1971, read:
  "I enclose copy of letter received from South Western RCU from which you will see that our luck has run out. Will you please let me have a very brief factual summary of the main earthworks items showing over-expenditures and savings. I would hope that we can justify the whole of the £550,000 in terms of

  727
  additional quantities of billed items and straightforward additional items. I would hope at this stage to draw a decent veil over savings and the Piffs Elm settlement.
  Since we are asked for a 'brief explanation' there is no need to go into the sort of detail that we did for the drainage over-expenditure. Perhaps we can discuss this on the phone sometime."
  This memorandum was included with Mr. James's representations to Mr. Honey last November, as was a previous internal memorandum from Mr. Davies, of Freeman Fox, to H. Smith, dealing with measurements and claims, which in relation to a sum of £99,101 on the Piffs Elm settlement says:
  "This money is at present 'lost' in the earthworks but with the end of the works coming into sight, this is now difficult and I would like instructions as to its disposal.
  Should Variation Order No. 4 be approved, then it can once more be 'lost'."
  This second memorandum is in the context of the further allegations brought to Mr. Honey's attention concerning the settlement of the Piffs Elm claim for £93,000 which would not otherwise have gained departmental approval. It must approve claims of ever £20,000. The intent was to measure the claim into earthworks and so lose it in the calculations so that it was never placed before the Department of the Environment.
  Finally, there was the claim for the artesian cut, in which £130,000 was paid against Mr. James's wishes, and which after two years the project engineer at Freeman Fox agreed was possibly worth only £20,000 of the original estimate. On 25th October 1973 Mr. James managed to get this redressed estimate accepted. At a meeting on 12th November this was finalised, following which Mr. James was refused permission to take any part in the rest of the meeting, which concerned the other matters on which allegations had been made.
  Mr. James never returned to the office, and there followed a period of extreme pressure on Mr. James in an attempt by Freeman Fox to get him to return and to find out the nature of the allegations he had made. Previously Mr. James had been offered what amounted to promotion. However, he refused to return, and was formally dismissed on 28th December 1973. Since then he has been unable to obtain employment with any major construction company. Meanwhile, he
  728
  patiently awaited some action on the part of the South Western Region Road Construction Unit in reply to his letter of 7th November 1973 and subsequent telephone conversations.
  No written reply was forthcoming between November 1973 and 22nd March 1974—five months later—when he received a note from the Deputy Director of the South-Western Region Road Construction Unit in reply to a letter from him dated 20th March asking what action had been taken with regard to his representations to Mr. Honey. The letter from Mr. Jefferson said that he had been asked to furnish certain information in regard to the matters discussed between Mr. Honey and Mr. James. The consulting engineers had replied after five months that they required further time to consider these matters. When all the information was brought before him, appropriate action would be taken in accordance wih departmental instructions. I hope that the Minister will tell us when his Department was first informed of these circumstances. Was it at the time that this letter was written? If not, when?
  Mr. James replied on 1st April asking what question had been asked and what answers had been given. He received no reply to that letter. Towards the end of May 1974 he came to see me and for the first time expressed doubts as to the possibility of complicity on the part of the officials of the South Western Region Road Construction Unit in the light of their failure to report on any effective action taken on his allegations over a period of six months. He asked me to take up the whole matter at ministerial level, and, following an exchange of correspondence, the Minister agreed to see the hon. Member for Derby, North and myself on 29th August but refused permission for Mr. James to be at the meeting, although in such a complex technical case both the hon. Gentleman and I thought this most unsatisfactory. Indeed, it is one of the most unsatisfactory aspects of this whole matter that Mr. James who carried out the remeasurement himself and who knew the method of calculation employed and the system, has never once been called in for discussion or consultation by the South Western Region Road Construction Unit or by the Department.

  729
  The legal point on which the Minister refused to see Mr. James was that the Treasury Solicitor had advised him that Mr. James might be involved in a legal action and the Minister would therefore be involved as a witness. How could he be involved in a legal action for libel when the only evidence of such libel lay with the Department? I questioned that at the meeting.
  However, matters were fully discussed at the meeting, and the hon. Member for Derby, North and I expressed great dissatisfaction that such a lengthy period had elapsed since serious allegations had been made during which time no adequate investigation had taken place. The Minister gave an assurance that a detailed inquiry was in progress and that a remeasurement of the work was taking place by a consultation engineer employed by Messrs. Freeman Fox. Both the hon. Member and I expressed great dissatisfaction, which at that time the Minister did not accept. Yet on 19th November I received a letter from the Minister saying that it had been decided that a further independent investigation should be put in hand and that there would also be an interdepartmental investigation. He also said that the consulting engineer who had already taken the measurements had welcomed this. Of course he welcomed this. He welcomed a course of action which would mean another protracted delay in bringing this whole business to justice.
  The situation is that over a year since the first complaint was made the Department has now, and only now, decided to institute an independent investigation, and we are left wondering what would have happened if Mr. James had not come to see the hon. Member for Derby, North and myself. Mr. James is a man of very strong principles. Because of his determined efforts to see justice done, he has been virtually unemployed for over a year with a possibility of another nine months to go before the matter is resolved, which is accounting for no little hardship to himself and his family. During the past year he has been subject to continual frustration and doubt as to whether the matter would ever be aired.
  Indeed, the House may question why he did not come to me in the first place. The reason was that he took it for granted that the matter would be handled
  730
  quickly and correctly by the Department when he made the complaint, with no adverse publicity, which he wished to avoid at all costs. It was only when there was no other course open to him that he pursued the course that has led to this debate and the airing of the matter in public.
  When the Minister replies I hope he will be able to tell the House, as a result of the preliminary investigations that have taken place, and of the internal investigations which have taken place also, of the Department's attitude to the general principles that have been raised by Mr. James's questions in this matter.
  I hope above all that the Minister will be able to tell us that the matter has been expedited. Sufficient delay has already taken place. I am not prepared to accept a situation in which the whole matter is allowed to drag on until it is forgotten.
  Finally, I hope that the Minister will be able to give an undertaking that if the investigation upholds fully or partially what Mr. James has alleged, he will find some way of recompensing Mr. James for his loss and offering him some sort of commensurate employment since, obviously, his professional life in the industry is as good as ruined.
  2.32 a.m.
  Mr. Phillip Whitehead: I am grateful to the Minister and to the hon. Lady the Member for Gloucester (Mrs. Oppenheim) for allowing me to intervene.
  When Mr. James came to see me at the beginning of May he came as a lifelong friend and former constituent whom I believe to be of the highest integrity. I advised him to see his constituency Member of Parliament, and I congratulate the hon. Lady very warmly on the lucid but passionate way in which she has presented what seems to both of us to be a scandalous story.
  Mr. James was placed in a position where he had to ask himself at the outset "What in these circumstances should a good man do?" He took the honourable course, and he acted throughout, I think, with discretion and care. It was his concern that there should not be a public scandal harmful to a major firm which partly explains the delay before these matters were raised in Parliament.

  731
  The key issue which the hon. Lady and I sought to raise at the Department of the Environment on 29th August last was accountability, whose agent was the SWRCU, and what it should do when allegations like these made by Mr. James about overmeasurement on M5 contract 2/3 within Freeman, Fox and Partners are put before it?
  Mr. James put his allegations in writing before Mr. Honey of the SWRCU on 7th and, verbally, on 12th November 1973, 13 months ago. He was told by Mr. Honey that they would be passed to the director. Indeed Freeman Fox and Partners confirmed in letters dated 24th and 28th December 1973 that it knew of the matters put before the SWRCU. But who else did at that time? The key question to be asked in this debate is: did the SWRCU pass on these matters to the Department of the Environment or did it not? If not, did the tardiness lie in the Department? If not, it lies within the SWRCU. It must lie with one or the other.
  Mr. James next heard from the SWRCU on 26th March, in the Director's absence. What was happening in the meantime? We do not know. To this date we have not been able to find out.
  On August 29th we were told by my hon. Friend that checks were being carried out by employees of Freeman Fox and Partners. The hon. Lady and I could hardly contain ourselves at this information, but it was not until 19th November that we were told that independent surveyors were to remeasure the contract, which meant another nine months' work. At no time has anyone approached Mr. James and asked to interview or see him, or to consult his files, one of which I have in my possession My hon. Friend has only to turn and stretch out his hand for it. Here is some of the information which these investigations should have had before them.
  I have some hard questions for my hon. Friend which I hope that he can answer.
  First, why was there such a delay in the SWRCU reporting these charges to the Department? We do not need nine months of further quantity surveys to tell us that.
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  Second, what was the result of the first investigation into Freeman Fox and Partners?
  Third, has Freeman Fox and Partners been the subject of any other departmental inquiry or suspension before or during the period of these allegations?
  Fourth, is there any reason to believe that other contracts on the M5 have been over-measured by 10 per cent. so that the provisional quantities used in the earthworks calculations could be manipulated to advantage?
  Fifth, I understand that another measurement engineer formerly on the M5, Mr. Peter Scott, is prepared to come forward with corroboration of the inclusion of the 10 per cent. hidden contingency on other M5 contracts. Will the Department undertake to receive his evidence?
  This is not just a matter of Mr. James's virtual ruin since he decided to speak out about Freeman Fox and Partners, though that first concerns me. It raises the gravest issues of scrutiny of public expenditure on motorway construction and the rôle of the road construction units as the guardians of the public interest.
  Those are the matters to which my hon. Friend should address himself.
  2.37 a.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Neil Carmichael): I have listened carefully to the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mrs. Oppenheim) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead), and I take what both have said with great seriousness. I am well aware of the gravity of their allegations.
  I assure both hon. Members that I am not playing for time when I say that probably it would be of assistance to the House if I described the contractual procedures in some detail, since they are relevant to an understanding of the complaints which have been made and of the method of investigation which is proposed.
  Tenders are called for from suitable contractors, selected by the Department on the basis of documents prepared by the engineer to the contract. In the case to hand the engineer was the firm of

  733
  Freeman Fox and Partners. The documents provided are the conditions of contract, the specifications and drawings for the works and the bills of quantities.
  Of these, the bills of quantities are the most important to this debate. The bills of quantities set various quantities against item descriptions compiled from the Department's standard method of measurement. Each tenderer on the list selected by the Department values the work based on his experience and resources and enters rates against each item. Simple arithmetic leads to a tender figure. These bills of quantities as completed by each tenderer are submitted to the Department as his price for completing the works described. The contract for the work is awarded by the Department to the tenderer submitting the lowest tender. The estimated quantities then cease to have relevance since the whole of the work executed is subject to remeasurement as built. The hon. Lady and my hon. Friend will remember that we went through these points during the discussions in my office in August.
  Interim payments are made to the contractor at monthly intervals on the basis of work done. I must stress, however, that these are interim payments; full and final settlement is arrived at only at the end of the contract when all disputes have been resolved. This is not yet the case for the M5 Cheltenham-Gloucester contract.
  Civil engineering contracts rarely turn out as expected in every detail, and the earthworks bill provides the most difficult items for which to forecast quantities. Ground conditions, when work is in progress, are variable and often different from those assumed in the tender.
  Where work arises for which there is no provision in the bills of quantity, a variation order must be issued by the engineer describing and measuring the new work to be done. All variation orders have to be reported to the Department as the client. Further, where the conditions of contract provide for it the contractor may seek an extension of time or may make claims for matters which are not covered by his tenders. The client is also notified of all claims made by the contractor.
  The rôle of the engineer is to agree the measurement of the works with the contractor, to value the work carried out
  734
  under variation orders and to evaluate the contractor's claims made under specific provisions of the contract.
  It will be appreciated by hon. Members that this is a complex business involving a number of people and great expertise by the engineer. The Department is nevertheless, a technical client with expertise of its own and has a number of procedures to keep itself informed on contractual and financial matters. In the case of major motorway schemes prepared and supervised by consultants, the Road Construction Unit is the Department's main agency for maintaining adequate information on the contract.
  Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman. Time is short. Will he please get round to answering the important questions which have been put to him?
  Mr. Carmichael: The hon. Lady has made a number of allegations, as has my hon. Friend. It is important to set out, in order to assure the public, the methods used by the Department. I am the first to agree that one reason for methods being continually improved is precisely that hon. Members have raised questions and experience has been gained.
  Mr. Whitehead: Does not my hon. Friend agree that prima facie the person most likely to be qualified to investigate this position in the first instance and ultimately as the agent of the Department is the measurement engineer himself?
  Mr. Carmichael: It is important to remember that we are discussing one contract only. I have already assured the House that I am very concerned to get to the bottom of this matter and to investigate the allegations thoroughly. I must set out the methods used by the Department in all contracts. The Department of the Environment lets contracts worth several hundreds of millions of pounds a year. Although this contract is the one in question, we want to find out whether all our systems are proper and suitable and whether from this we can make any advantageous alterations.
  I stress that it is only an allegation that has been made. It is alleged that the engineer to the M5 Cheltenham-Gloucester contract has overmeasured the quantities, resulting in overpayment to

  735
  the contractor, and, further, that the settlement of certain claims on which the RCU should first have been consulted has been affected by an increase in measured quantities.
  As I explained very fully to the hon. Members when I discussed these matters with them on 27th August, these allegations were first made in November 1973 to the Director of the RCU who immediately requested a report from the consultants. In the meantime, the allegations were brought directly to me in July of this year.
  It is suggested that the time taken by the RCU to deal with the allegations was over-long. However, the director's action and prompting did result in the lengthy report which was available for study just after I last discussed this matter with my hon. Friends.
  Mr. Whitehead: Is my hon. Friend now saying, in effect, that seven months elapsed between the Director of the SWRCU receiving these allegations and their being brought directly to the attention of the Department?
  Mr. Carmichael: No, their being brought directly to the attention of the Minister, which is a rather different thing. When an allegation is made, surely it is the responsibility of the director of a road construction unit, where people in the unit are being accused of unprofessional conduct, to make a thorough investigation before he brings the matter to Ministers. The time taken to produce the report, bearing in mind the engineer's remeasurements, is not incompatible with the time required by an independent firm to undertake the same extensive work.
  Following the report's receipt, I concluded that it was necessary to have a completely independent report from a firm of quantity surveyors to see whether the allegations had any foundation. This I have done.
  Those quantity surveyors have now been appointed, and the independent investigation has been put in hand with the willing co-operation of Messrs. Freeman Fox and Partners. However, the House will recognise that it is a complex and detailed investigation which has now been ordered to take place, including some physical remeasurement, and it is likely that this work will take a minimum
  736
  period of between six and nine months to complete.
  The study will run separately from the work of finalising the M5 Gloucester—Cheltenham contract, which will continue with Freeman Fox and Partners acting as engineer to the contract. The fact that the contract is not yet finalised means that there are substantial moneys still in the Department's hands, and, furthermore, the consultant's fees have not been fully paid.
  I was asked whether Messrs. Freeman Fox and Partners has been subject to any previous investigation by the Department. I must report that it has. Early in 1972, following the publication of the report of the Royal Commission into the collapse of the Yarra Bridge in Australia, the Department thought it only prudent to satisfy itself as to the management organisation of the firm. This investigation was concerned primarily with systems in force for checking and keeping structural calculations and the arrangements between site and head office for dealing with engineering problems. There is no similarity in any respect whatever between that investigation and the one which I have now set in train. Freeman Fox and Partners continued in the Department's employ during the investigation, which was carried out by a team drawn from an independent management consultant firm and officers of the Department. The outcome of the investigation was that, following some changes in the firm's methods of checking and maintaining calculations, the Department was satisfied.
  I wish to deal briefly with the hon. Lady's point that I did not take the opportunity to see Mr. James to discuss the matter. I have with me a note of the minute. The hon. Lady rightly said that I was advised by the Treasury Solicitor. The point at issue was that as the decision to take the course asking the Director of Public Prosecutions to take a hand in the matter would be taken by the Secretary of State or by one of his Ministers, it would be inappropriate for any of the Ministers concerned to meet any of the people involved. That in no way removes the independence of the Minister. We were not at that stage becoming involved, nor were we competent to become involved, in the pure technicalities of the matter.

  737
  I think it would be inappropriate for me to say more at this time, except to reassure the House of my very firm personal resolve to see that all the facts are brought to light. I am glad that this debate has taken place, since it has brought forward more information. I
  738
  assure the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend that justice will be done and that taxpayers' money will not have been paid out improperly under the contract.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at eleven minutes to Three o'clock a.m.