Commons Sitting of 26 July 1974

Preamble
The House met at Eleven o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRAYERS
  PETITION

    Violence (Young People's Protest)
    Mr. A. W. Stallard: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I wish to present a petition from young people in schools in London and in Cambridgeshire. These youngsters are extremely concerned at the spread of violence locally and nationally in our great cities and internationally in areas particularly at this time in the Middle East. I am sure that the whole House will welcome and applaud any efforts on the part of our young people to combat and protest against violence from wherever it may come.
    In their petition these youngsters say
    That at this time of violence in the Middle East and in many other places, including cities in Great Britain, there is great concern that nations are preparing weapons 200 or more times as destructive as the bomb which destroyed Hiroshima, and that Great Britain has pursued this policy, which has caused distrust among nations and a fear that we might be planning an attack.
    At the end of their petition they say:
    Wherefore your petitioners pray that the House of Commons will enact legislation to reverse these policies, to bring about an adequate initiative at the United Nations towards world disarmament and, as an immediate step, to halt the testing of nuclear weapons.
    And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
    To lie upon the Table

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  ROAD TRAFFIC BILL
  [Lords]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Mr. GEORGE THOMAS in the Chair]

  ROAD TRAFFIC BILL
    Clause 1

      LIABILITY OF VEHICLE OWNER IN RESPECT OF CERTAIN FIXED PENALTY OFFENCES
      11.8 a.m.
      Mr. Peter Fry: I beg to move Amendment No. 55, in page 3, line 33, at end insert:
      `and
      (d) subsequent death of the person alleged in the statutory statement of facts to be the driver of the vehicle at the relevant time shall discharge the liability of any other person for the offence specified in the notice'.
      The purpose of this probing amendment, which follows a short debate in the upper House when the Bill was debated there in the last Parliament, is to establish that no liability will fall on an innocent person through the demise of the real offender after signing a declaration that he or she was the driver of the vehicle concerned.
      I am aware that there are difficulties about this matter, as there are other categories where similar problems could apply—for example, when someone has emigrated or been sent abroad on business after having signed such a declaration.
      I should like an assurance from the Minister that in such cases the matter will not merely be left to the common sense of the police. I am not in any way decrying that common sense. However, I am anxious to ensure that there are sufficient safeguards and that there will be no basic unfairness on this point.
      The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon): The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Fry) asked for an assurance about the signature on the statement of facts by a man—who subsequently dies—that he was the driver of the car. That is the precondition of having a statement of facts under the Bill that we have introduced.

      1991
      This is a change from the Bill as it appeared in the last Parliament, because now, under Schedule 1, the alleged driver has to sign the statement of facts. In that case, it may be that the amendment is slightly defective, but I make no point about that.
      The hon. Gentleman asks that if a person signs and is subsequently found to have died the police will not prosecute. I am bound to tell the hon. Gentleman that it is unlikely that they would ever do so in those circumstances. But if there were reason to think that there had been some collusion between the owner and the alleged driver to sign, clearly the police must have the power, if need be, to go ahead. Since, in the limited circumstances of that nature, the power would be required, it is better to leave it to the discretion of the police. The hon. Gentleman may be assured that in those circumstances no innocent owner would ever be prosecuted.
      Mr. Fry: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
      Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
      Clauses 2 to 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 5

      PROVISIONS SUPPLEMENTARY TO SECTIONS 1 TO 4 AND SCHEDULE 1
      Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 9, line 39, leave out and used'.
      The Chairman: With this we are to take Government Amendments Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 5.
      Mr. Lyon: I think that I can deal with these matters very briefly. These are technical amendments that arise out of the definition of "owner" that is at present contained in the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations of 1971. I do not think that I need explain the technicalities to the Committee, but there will have to be a change of the system when there is a centralisation of vehicle registration records at Swansea on 1st October of this year. As a result, it is
      1992
      desired to change the definition so that the matter can be dealt with under the computerised records. That is the only purpose of the amendments. There will be no change in the practical effect.
      Amendment agreed to.
      Further Amendments made: No. 2, in page 9, line 43, leave out from person ' to end of line 45 and insert:
      'in whose name the vehicle was at that time registered under the Vehicles (Excise) Act 1971'.
      No. 3, in page 10, line 3, leave out from 'person' to end of line and insert:
      'in whose name a vehicle was so registered'.
      No. 4, in page 10, line 5, leave out 'and used'.
      No. 5, in page 10, line 6, leave out ' and used".—[Mr. Alexander W. Lyon.]
      Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: I beg to move Amendment No. 6, in page 10, line 15, at end insert—
      '(5A) Where the person on whom a notice under section 1(6) or section 2(6) above is to be served is a person who subsequently or at the time claims diplomatic immunity, this fact shall be notified to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office forthwith'.
      I understand that in the Metropolitan Police District, in the last year for which records are available, there were about 600,000 offences involving notices of the sort dealt with in the clause, of which about 60,000 were unservable or returned because the person who committed the offence claimed diplomatic immunity.
      We have seen in London an increasing disregard by the diplomatic community, with some notable exceptions, of the road traffic laws of this country. I appreciate that diplomatic immunity is conferred under the Vienna Convention. None the less, instructions go out regularly from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to our diplomats abroad to ensure that they comply with the laws of the land which receives them and, if I may put it this way, in which country they are meant to be our representatives and a credit to us. Any diplomat who continually offends the laws of this country is bringing discredit upon his country. It may be that the countries concerned do not know the diplomats who are constantly offending our laws, and I want to make certain that this matter is brought to their attention.

      1993
      The only way in which it seems possible to do that is for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to be notified on each occasion when such immunity is claimed. It would be difficult to put into the Bill what the Foreign Office should do, but one would hope that on receipt of such notification it would notify the ambassador or the high commissioner that there was a constant flouting of British traffic laws by one or more of their diplomats.
      11.15 a.m.
      I am certain the Minister will say that the amendment is technically defective. I accept that, but last night we passed a Bill which it was said was defective but which will soon become the law of the land. This is the constraint under which we operate. If the Minister is able to say that he takes the point and will undertake to consider it, and if he does not feel like putting this in the Bill but says that he might by administrative action achieve the same object, I shall be perfectly happy.
      Mr. Philip Goodhart: I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) has done a service by introducing this amendment. The flouting of our parking and traffic regulations by some members of the diplomatic corps is a nuisance in London, but we know from experience in other capital cities—and I am thinking particularly of Washington and Paris—that it can in time become a menace, and I suspect that the situation in this country will get worse, because if the GLC persists in its unfortunate police policy of harassing the private driver more summonses will be served on diplomatic car drivers and the proportion of offences committed by the diplomatic corps will, if anything, increase.
      My hon. Friend wants notification to be made to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and I hope that that can be done. I hope, too, that when notification is made the Foreign Office will, as a matter of regular form, publish lists of those embassies that are most persistent in offending in this way, because it is only by adverse publicity that one will get embassies to check on the members of their staff who are flouting the regulations. I further hope that if some embassies persistently take no action some way can be found of limiting the
      1994
      number of their vehicles that have diplomatic immunity.
      Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: The Amendment is not only technically defective, but unnecessary. The hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) wants the police, the Home Office or the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to inform embassies of these breaches on a regular basis. That is already done. Every month each embassy is given a list of the cars that have been the subject of these fixed penalty tickets, so the matter is already dealt with.
      The hon. Gentleman is right in saying that the only sanction that we have in this matter is adverse publicity, and there has been adverse publicity over the last few years about this whole matter. Figures have been published in HANSARD in reply to Written Questions about the embassies with the greatest number of fixed penalties awarded to them. All I can say is that, judging by the figures, there seems to have been some improvement at least in the record of some of the worst embassies. Perhaps the matter could best be dealt with on that basis.
      Mr. Finsberg: Will the Minister ask his right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary to consider taking the matter a little further so that, apart from just distributing the figures to each embassy, if there were constant breaches he would draw an embassy's attention specifically to that, and ask what action that embassy would take?
      Mr. Lyon: That is hardly a matter for a Home Office Minister. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman might care to take it up with the Foreign Office. As I understand the position—I speak here only from the standpoint of my departmental responsibility—the Foreign Office draws the matter to the attention of embassies.
      Mr. John H. Osborn: My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) has raised an important matter, and he seeks by his amendment to bring about effective action. The Minister tells us that there is already a system by which embassies are notified of offences, but I urge upon him that there is a strong case for delving further into this matter to find out what

      1995
      other countries do. I realise that this is not covered by the amendment, but we should like to know what steps are taken by other countries faced with a similar problem.
      What international efforts could be made, with the emphasis on transport rather than on diplomatic approaches, to point out that this is becoming extremely offensive in over-crowded cities such as London, and that the diplomatic corps is gaining an increasingly bad reputation for flouting the law?
      Mr. Lyon: I do not think that it could be approached on that basis. There is diplomatic immunity, and if a diplomat commits an offence he cannot be brought before the courts. That is part of the international convention, and we have to respond for our part because there is reciprocity in relation to our diplomats elsewhere. Therefore, it cannot be done on the basis of treating certain vehicles in different ways because they are diplomats' vehicles.
      The only way is by the pressure of public opinion and the pressure of out own Foreign Office in relation to those embassies which offend most. I have no doubt that this debate will be noted and will play its small part in that pressure. Equally, I shall draw the attention of Foreign Office Ministers to the views which have been expressed in the Committee today.
      Mr. Finsberg: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
      Clause 5, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 6

      TRAFFIC SURVEYS
      Mr. Fry: I beg to move Amendment No. 54, in page 11, line 7, at end insert:
      '(4) Nothing in this section shall permit a constable to prevent immediate departure of any person who when given a traffic direction indicates that he is unwilling to furnish information for the purposes of a traffic survey'.
      Subsection (2) of the proposed new Section 22A provides specifically that the power
      1996
      "does not include a direction requiring any person to furnish any information for the purposes of a traffic survey".
      That clearly rules out any element of compulsion. I have proposed this amendment, however, because it should be made clear that anyone who decides not to co-operate should not be penalised, even unofficially.
      The vast majority of motorists are only too happy to provide information and to co-operate with the police and the Ministry. On the other hand, we need an assurance, and I suggest that a directive might be given by the Home Office to police forces that an over-zealous policeman should not penalise anyone who decides to exercise his undoubted right not to furnish information required at a survey point.
      The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Neil Carmichael): The hon. Gentleman has raised an important matter, and I hope to reassure him on it. The definition specifically excludes a direction requiring any person to furnish information. The effect will be that a constable will be able to divert motorists to a survey point, but motorists will not be obliged to answer questions or give information, and any motorist who does not wish to furnish information will be free to go on his way without delay.
      The survey sites will be designed so that no one will be held in queue if he is not taking part in the survey. I hope that that explanation is satisfactory.
      Mr. Ronald Bell: I am afraid that that does not meet the point. Immediate departure, or departure without delay, should not in this context mean departure after the person has waited and been interviewed by whoever is taking the survey. That is not good enough.
      I regard the whole clause as a serious interference with the normal rights of people on the highway. A person may be in a great hurry. There are occasions in life when one has no time to draw in and wait while particulars are taken by someone conducting a survey. The subject must have the right to say to the policeman, "No, I shall not go through the control. On this occasion, I do not wish to co-operate." He must then be free to go, and he will not be unless this amendment is accepted.

      1997
      If the Government intend that the procedure shall operate in the way I have just described, they should accept the amendment. Otherwise, the motorist will not be entitled to do that. He will be told to divert to a particular point and there wait. He will not be free to go. Indeed, I suppose that under the terms of the new Section 22A the policeman could keep him there almost indefinitely if he were bloody-minded enough to do so. If he took the view that the citizen was being bloody-minded, he might choose to be bloody-minded himself.
      I am not happy about the clause. We ought not to give the police power to direct the law-abiding citizen to go to a point indicated by the policeman if he does not wish to do so. At the very least, therefore, this amendment should be accepted. For my part, I hope that the clause will not be retained in the Bill. It is a dangerous departure.
      Mr. Carmichael: I hope that I can reassure the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell). Part of the reason for giving the police power to give a direction is specifically to prevent the possibility of a build-up of traffic on the road while a census is being taken. I have already said that the survey sites will be designed so that no one will be held in a queue if he is not taking part in the survey. But first there will be a direction from a police officer—we must all abide by the directions of a police officer in uniform on the road—and the police officer will merely divert the motorist to the specially constructed or arranged site, at which point the motorist will be free to say, "I do not wish to take part "—or he may tell the policeman he does not want to take part in it—and then go into the lane which will take him straight out of the laid-out site.
      The hon. and learned Gentleman speaks in terms of a policeman possibly being bloody-minded. If any policemen were so bloody-minded, I do not think that they would need the excuse of a survey to hold up someone for a long time.
      The House is always anxious, as I am, to ensure that citizens' rights are protected. But surveys are important. Most people, as the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) said, will co-operate in a survey, but we want them off the road so that there will not be a long
      1998
      queue of traffic forming perhaps on a busy road. It should be remembered that surveys are often taken on busy roads.
      I fully appreciate that the amendment is put down with a constructive intention, but I hope that I have reassured the Committee. The operation of these arrangements will be watched carefully. They will be supervised by fairly senior police officers—perhaps not all the time, but fairly senior officers will certainly be there at the lay-out stage and will always be available. I hope that the Committee will accept the proposal as it stands in the Bill.
      Mr. Bell: I wish that I were more impressed by that assurance. If I have learned one thing in this place, it is that ministerial assurances, though always given in the utmost good faith, are always valueless. I can remember so many. For example, when the 30 mph speed limit was first introduced, an amendment was moved that it should not apply after 11.30 at night. The Minister gave an assurance that the police would not bother motorists on empty roads and that the amendment was therefore not necessary. Nobody even remembers now that that was said, and I should not like to be the motorist who tried to remind a policeman of it nowadays after being pulled up at 1 o'clock in the morning on an empty road for going at more than 30 mph or whatever the limit might be.
      I cannot remember the precise occasion, but I know also of an assurance that people making facsimiles of postage stamps would not be unduly harrassed, and that the prohibition was necessary just to deal with forgers. I recall that not long afterwards somebody appeared in the High Court for printing a stamp album which contained ordinary photographic reproductions of stamps, and the court said that not only was he guilty but the policeman who bought the album to give evidence against him was guilty, too. With great respect, that is an indication of the value of ministerial assurances.
      The Under-Secretary says—and, of course, he means it—that there will always be, or almost always be, a senior police officer supervising the arrangements. I can assure the House that there will not. Indeed, there will not even be officials from the Department, probably only students doing a vacation job and

      1999
      the constable directing traffic off the road into a lay-by. What the Minister said in the House of Commons on a morning in late July will simply not come into the picture. There may be a queue and the motorist may well be in a hurry and may not want to stop. He should be in the position of not having to stop. Most people will want to co-operate because we are not a bloody-minded people, but the occasion will arise when a motorist cannot stop because he is a bit late already and does not want to break the speed limit or, at any rate, be found breaking the speed limit.
      11.30 a.m.
      It should be enough to say to the policeman, "I am sorry but on this occasion I am afraid I cannot help". The police usually stop every tenth car and it only means the car behind being stopped. The citizen should have this right in law, but he will not have it unless the amendment is accepted. It will not do the slightest harm to the purposes that the Government have in mind for the clause. Their aims will not be diminished or damaged in any way and there is no reason for not accepting the amendment.
      Mr. Graham Page: I seldom find myself co-operating with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) on road safety matters, but I wish today to support what he said. Unless the amendment is made there will be a right for the police to keep a citizen there indefinitely. It may not be because the policeman is bloody-minded, but simply because it is a convenience in ordering the queue. Ninety-nine out of 100 of us enjoy reciting to these surveys where we have come from and saying exactly which girl-friend we have been with, and such personal things. But there are occasions when we want the freedom to pass by a queue, and we shall not have it unless the amendment is made.
      I am sure that the Minister would make a wonderful policeman handling any of these queues. He would be courteous to everybody and anyone who wanted to go by would be told to sweep on down the line. But the Minister will not be there. There may be those who want to order matters to the disadvantage of the citizen, and we should protect the citizen. There
      2000
      is no danger in putting this provision in the Bill. The authorities will still get their information, so let us be fair to the citizen.
      Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: This little piece of legislation has crept into the Bill because the civil servants noticed the recent court case where a private citizen upheld his rights. That shows that the police were not aware that people could be allowed to pass them by. I hope that my hon. Friend will press the amendment. Many of us must have taken part in these surveys on a voluntary basis, and perfectly happily, but I cannot recall in 20 years driving ever being flagged down by a police officer above the rank of constable, and the Minister said that a senior police officer would "usually" do the job.
      Mr. Carmichael: I suggested that the lay out would be supervised by a senior officer and that he would be present some part of the time when a survey was being taken. I did not say that he would be stopping people. If I have misled the House I am sorry.
      Mr. Finsberg: There must have been a misunderstanding. If the Minister has ever participated in these surveys, I wonder whether he, or for that matter any hon. Member, can recall being stopped by a police officer above the rank of constable. I do not believe that anyone ever has.
      These surveys take place sometimes on roads where there is not usually a through path, so I hope the Minister will accede to the wishes of the Committee. There was no need for the amendment originally. The courts upheld the citizen's right. The provision in the Bill is a piece of bureaucratic nit-picking which arises because some Civil Service draftsman did not like the courts upholding the citizens' rights. I hope my hon. Friend will press the amendment and I hope that the Committee will support it.
      Mr. Anthony Berry: Very often at these surveys there is a barrier between through traffic and the traffic that will be questioned. By the time the driver has got into the queue of motorists to be questioned and has told the policeman that he is in a hurry to catch a train or to vote in a Division, other cars are close behind him and it is physically

      2001
      impossible for him to get out. If he does not want to take part in the survey he must have the right to say so to the police officer.
      Mr. Paul Hawkins: I support the amendment. The Minister is a reasonable man. I am sure he must have spent a great deal of time motoring around the countryside and he must have encountered these situations. I have done so on many occasions and I have noticed that some people resent taking part because they are so busy and have long distances to travel, particularly in Norfolk where the roads are not very good. I cannot believe that rural police forces are big enough to allow senior officers even to do the lay out. I am sure they would not have the time. The job is always done by a junior constable, who does it to the best of his ability. But the constable must know where he stands if he is to say to a motorist that he is obliged by law to take part. I ask the Minister to think again.
      Mr. Paul Tyler: I, too, support the amendment. The normal procedure in surveys of this sort—and I do not share the enthusiasm for them expressed by the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page)—is that the police select, say, every fifth, third or second vehicle, and that leads to a complicated arrangement which must be operated by the constable on duty who must ensure that the right vehicle goes into the survey queue. It does not matter, however, if occasionally he sends in the fifth instead of the sixth vehicle or vice versa. The amendment would not present difficulties in that respect. The difficulties arise in ensuring that the instructions to the constable and all concerned with the survey are clear. That is why the assurance by the Minister is not satisfactory and why we should place a clear instruction in the Bill.
      Mr. Marcus Fox: I think that the Minister is missing the point when he talks about the lay out of these surveys. If these surveys are to be of any use the public must co-operate, and if the Minister is not prepared to accept the amendment they will be valueless. There is nothing more frustrating for people who have to be in a certain place at a certain time to be denied their liberty in this way. The amendment will not in any way change the aims of the Bill.
      The Minister for Transport (Mr. Frederick Mulley): The difficulty is that the Committee has misunderstood the reason for the clause. The clause does not seek to amend or change existing practice. A defect in the Road Traffic Act 1972—I believe Section 22—was the subject of recent judicial proceedings this year in a case of Hoffman v. Thomas which could make it impossible to conduct any kind of traffic census or survey. The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) might feel that that was a good thing, but we are quite frequently and properly pressed by hon. Members and local authorities in considering road plans to give traffic figures. If I were ever unable to give those figures, hon. Members would naturally feel concerned and upset. The question is, therefore, whether we can go ahead with these surveys. The whole purpose of the clause is to revert to the situation as it was before this legal decision. The reason for having a direction by a police constable to take people to a specially selected site is to give minimum interference with traffic so that people who are unwilling to give information—and there is no obligation on them to do so—may go through.
      I make no complaint about it, but the words "prevent immediate departure" could be the source of substantial judicial argument. Having solved the difficulty of the recent case, up to a point, we may be just asking for another case to decide what is "immediate departure".
      If there were more time, this is the kind of situation in which I should normally give an undertaking to try to meet the hon. Gentleman's point by redrafting. I acknowledge the tremendous cooperation I have received from hon. Members throughout the House. Without it, we could not be debating the Bill today, and there would be no chance of passing the Bill, which has been through the other place twice in substantially the same form. I am most grateful to all concerned.
      Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: If my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Fry) withdrew the amendment now, could not the Minister's draftsmen, who have nothing else to do on the Bill, try to find an acceptable form of working for Report? If it is technically defective, could not the Minister accept it and have it tidied up later? There is always a

      2003
      Road Traffic Bill or Miscellaneous Provisions Bill, whichever Government are in power after any election. I appeal to the Minister, who is a reasonable person.
      Mr. Mulley: I have given an undertaking that if we had a normal timetable I should consider the matter with a view to meeting the Committee's proper concern for the rights of the individual. I have had no opportunity to discuss the availability of draftsmen. I can draft. I remember the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) saying that he often thought that he could draft better than the parliamentary draftsmen, and in fewer words. I feel that myself.
      However, if there is general agreement that I should try to obtain counsel to produce a manuscript amendment on Report, I shall do so. I understand that it would be in order for the hon. Gentleman to bring forward his amendment again then if I could not.
      Mr. Fry: In view of what the Minister has said, I am inclined to think that that would be best.
      The speed at which we are moving is not the fault of hon. Members on the Opposition benches. I am not blaming the Minister but one of the problems is that although the Bill could have had its Second Reading and other stages much earlier, we are now being stampede on many points affecting individual liberties, which the House of Commons exists to defend.
      Mr. Mulley: I was making no complaint about the shortness of time. Evidently, I did not do it very well, but I wanted to express my appreciation of the co-operation of everyone concerned. I have time to read the newspapers occasionally, and I gather that if we do not get the Bill through there may not be a further opportunity.
      Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: Would not it be better if my hon. Friend pressed the Amendment? If the Minister could accept it, that would be fine. Then if his draftsmen felt that it was defective it could be put right before Report.
      Mr. Mulley: If there will be no opposition to my producing a manuscript amendment if it seems desirable, I am
      2004
      happy to go along with that suggestion. I want to be as helpful as I can.
      Amendment agreed to.
      Clause 6, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 7

      PROHIBITION OF PARKING OF VEHICLES ON VERGES AND FOOTWAYS
      11.45 a.m.
      Mr. Fry: I beg to move Amendment No. 53, in page 11, line 12, after vehicle', insert:
      'other than a moped and'.
      The amendment is very important. To make a blanket prohibition of parking on verges and footways for all two-wheeled motorised vehicles as well as three- and four-wheeled vehicles is to go much too far, particularly in relation to mopeds. They take up very little room, and unless we are also to prohibit push-bikes I see no point in including them.
      The clause could well discourage the use of two-wheeled vehicles, and at this time in our history we should not do that. Apart from the effect on the motor-cycle industry, there are good reasons for encouraging people to use forms of transport other than motor cars. Indeed, a good case can be made out for removing mopeds from classification as motor vehicles. In many other countries where they are not so classified, there is much greater use of this form of individual transport. For example, in France one person in six owns a moped, whereas in this country the figure is one in 150.
      The moped is a logical form of personal urban transport which gives maximum door-to-door mobility and which has an excellent safety record, as is shown by the insurance premiums charged. Those reasons, as well as the energy and economy reasons, show that mopeds deserve more encouragement by the Government.
      As a means of easing rush-hour congestion, going by moped is better than occupying a large motor car. Although I am always interested in road improvements and road building, it is possible that if we persuaded more and more of our commuting population to use mopeds we should not need to have quite so many road improvements.

      2005
      Therefore, we should do nothing to discourage the use of mopeds. On the contrary, we should be taking a good step forward in excluding them from the clause.
      Mr. Mulley: I understand and sympathise with the point made by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Fry).
      The history of the clause is that in another place a clause which was more or less a blanket prohibition of parking on verges and footways everywhere was inserted in the previous Bill. I sensed on Second Reading that there was considerable sympathy for the proposition that there should be restrictions on parking on the footways, but that obviously we had to cater for particular circumstances and difficulties. That is what we have tried to do in the clause. It is not a clause that I would have sought to introduce, but I thought it only right to take account of the case expressed in another place and in this House.
      In fact, we can meet the point made by the hon. Member for Wellingborough under subsection (4) where by regulations we can exempt certain classes of vehicles. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman knows that we have begun discussions with the interests affected. Over many years of successive Governments it has not been the practice to come down firmly on details of this sort and to introduce regulations before consultations have been held with the bodies concerned.
      I can give the assurance that we shall consider this matter with a view to the possibility of exemption under the powers already in the Bill. For example, we shall probably want to consider the matter in respect of bicycles or motor cycles. It would be a little difficult if we had just one category written into the Bill when we wish to consider the whole matter. I cannot predict the outcome of our consultations but we shall not be unsympathetic to the point that the hon. Gentleman has made.
      Mr. John Farr: I ask the Minister to give a clear assurance that when he considers this matter he will take into account any representations which may be made to him by those representing motor cyclists. Apart from those who represent the moped industry and the many people that use them, there is no doubt that it is in the national
      2006
      interest that machines such as mopeds, which are extremely economic in the use of fuel, should be encouraged as much as possible. I think that a change in the law along the line that has already been indicated, and not confined only to mopeds but to all motor cycles, would be in the national interest.
      Mr. Mulley: I am prepared to give the assurance that the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) seeks. We began talks with the motor cycle interests only yesterday.
      Mr. Graham Page: I hope that the Minister will not look too favourably at these parking matters. Part of the reason for forbidding parking on the footpaths is to ensure that those with short sight or blindness do not fall over the moped, the motor cycle or the pedal cycle that is placed on the footpath. I happen to reside in a road in which there is a great deal of parking not on the footpath but in the residential road. It is frequently found that at night, when there is a slightest wind, motor cycles are blown over on to the pavement. They are a danger in a residential road in which the lighting is not very good. There is also the danger of oil spillage on the pavement from motor cycles. I hope that the Minister will take such matters into account.
      I support the clause as an ex-chairman of the Pedestrians' Association for Road Safety and I do not want it watered down by the pavements being cluttered with mopeds and motor cycles.
      Mr. Mulley: Of course, whatever I try to do I can never be right. That is why was not able to give an unequivocal answer. Naturally we have to consult the Pedestrians' Association for Road Safety. Indeed, as the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) knows, the clause stemmed from another chairman of the Pedestrians' Association for Road Safety.
      Mr. Fry: I accept the difficulties in which the Minister finds himself. I am glad that he has taken up this matter with the industry and the interests involved. In reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page), I must point out that if people always go around with their eyes shut they will fall over anything on the pavement. In view of the assurance that the Minister has

      2007
      given, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
      Mr. Mulley: I beg to move Amendment No. 7, in page 11, line 15, leave out `highway, or' and insert:
      road, or
      (aa) on any land which is situated between two carriageways of an urban road and which is not a footway, or'
      The Chairman: With this we are to take Government Amendments Nos. 8, 9, 10, 11, 35 and 37.
      Mr. Mulley: This group of amendments is quite technical and I hope that it will not be controversial. The intention is merely to change the word "road" to "highway". That will permit the benefits of the clause to be applied to roads that are not technically public roads but are highways to which, either on foot or by vehicles, the public has access. The amendment also applies a prohibition on parking on land between two carriageways. We are trying to bring the Bill into line with the Heavy Commercial Vehicles (Controls and Regulations) Bill which was promoted by the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) in the last Parliament. We are trying to link the Bill with that measure and to strengthen its provisions. The amendment is also in line with legislation affecting the Greater London Council. I hope that this technical drafting amendment will be approved by the House.
      Amendment agreed to.
      Amendment made: No. 8, in page 11, line 16, leave out highway ' and insert road'.—[Mr. Mulley.]
      The Chairman: The next amendment ment is—
      Hon. Members: Where is he?
      Mr. Leslie Huckfield: The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Fry) has missed the boat.
      The Chairman: Order.
      Mr. Fry: I must apologise for delaying the Committee. Even I find it difficult to deal with two Ministers at the same time, especially when one is not in the Chamber.
      I beg to move Amendment No. 44, in page 11, line 31, at end insert:
      'or
      (d) that to have parked wholly on the carriageway would have had the effect of reducing the width of the carriageway available to other vehicular traffic to less than 12 feet or such other width specified by the Secretary of State in Regulations'.
      The Chairman: With this we may take the following amendments:
      No. 48, in page 11, line 39, after 'performed', insert:
      'or would reasonably have been expected to have obstructed traffic movement'.
      No. 49, in page 11, line 41, leave out paragraph (c).
      Mr. Fry: Transport interests welcome the exemptions that are already provided in certain circumstances for loading and unloading but are still concerned lest the parking of cars and other vehicles on narrow residential roads should obstruct carriageways, thereby impeding emergency vehicles and vehicles servicing adjoining premises. I believe that this concern is felt by many local authorities, particularly those which have to undertake street cleansing and refuse collection.
      I have tabled the amendment because it is a way of trying to help overcome the difficulties to which I have referred. Those who took part in the Second Reading debate will remember the widespread concern that was expressed from both sides of the House. I believe that the Minister himself expressed the wish to prohibit parking near the corners of roads. As a result of those fears the clause was, in my view, quite properly dropped from the Bill. Too often, however, there is still considerable congestion, and I believe that much more needs to be done to provide a freer flow of traffic in our built-up areas.
      We should not at this stage enact any legislation which would increase congestion. Congestion is conducive to considerable frustration, to waste of energy and to waste of time. I should have thought that in those circumstances every effort should be made to see that the greatest amount of access is provided. Nothing that we do should limit that.
      The points raised in Amendment No. 48 are exactly the same as those covered in Amendment No. 44. In Amendment No. 49 I am asking for an assurance on

      2009
      the question of the unaccompanied lorry driver. I am aware that there is a general understanding about the definition of "in attendance". In view of the tremendous shortage of lorry drivers and the fact that most delivery vehicles have only one person attending them we ought to have some definition of these words.
      12 noon.
      Mr. Tony Durant: I support the amendment. The Minister will remember that on Second Reading I raised the question of garaging space on council estates and the difficulties caused by the narrow roads there. Unless the clause is amended there will be a great deal of congestion on these estates. A number of council estates in my constituency have narrow roads. There is a shortage of garaging, because many of the houses were built before the war. But services operate through the estates.
      If the clause is not amended and there is a great deal of street parking there will be difficulty in operating the bus service. I have had strong representations from my constituents about this. I ask the Minister to give an assurance that the Government are aware of the problem. There is another side to this. The local authorities will shortly be asking the Ministry for more money to provide garages on these estates if this amendment is not carried.
      Mr. Farr: I support the amendment. There are houses in my constituency where the driveway is 12½ ft. long and the car is the standard length of 15 ft. The only way people can park their car is by having it protruding 2½ ft. on to the pavement. Sometimes it positively helps the flow of traffic if a driver parks partly off the road and partly on the pavement. I have in mind the situation late at night, when traffic flow through cities can be heavy while the pedestrian flow is light. Then the roads are not wide enough, while the pavements are very wide. Many of my friends and I believe that we are helping the traffic flow by putting a couple of wheels on to the pavement.
      We do not have to look far for examples of this. Nearly every night opposite St. Stephen's Entrance to the House of Commons, in Millbank, Members park their cars, and often, to help the traffic flow through that bottleneck,
      2010
      they put the two nearside wheels on to the pavement. I regret that the passing of this clause in its present form would make an offence of what I regard as a rather helpful motoring manœuvre.
      Mr. Graham Page: I cannot support my hon. Friends on this amendment. It is not only a question of the blind colliding with things on the pavement. My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Fry) misunderstood what I said earlier. It is not a case of people walking about with their eyes shut. I was talking about those who cannot see. They have to use the pavement, and that is not easy when it is cluttered with vehicles or other street furniture.
      There is, however, a further point. My hon. Friend talked about congestion on the roads. There can also be congestion on the pavements. I remember that 10 years ago I had a number of photographs taken showing congestion on pavements where cars were parked. I had photographs showing pavements crowded with shoppers experiencing great difficulty in entering shops because of parked cars. Even worse, a number of photographs were taken in Brixton showing mothers having to push prams out into the road to get round cars parked on the pavements because there was not enough room between the car and shop premises. This is a serious risk. We must think of congestion on the pavements as well as on the road.
      If we think merely of improving the traffic flow we are likely to cause greater danger to pedestrians. A further point to bear in mind is that pavements were not designed for vehicular traffic. They are damaged when cars or heavy vehicles pass over them. This results in greater expense for local authorities. Further, the services under our pavements—the drains and other utilities—are not protected from the weight of such traffic passing over them. I welcome the clause in general and do not want it to be watered down.
      Mr. William Molloy: I join the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) in supporting this clause. I do so for broadly the same reasons that he gave. Our constituency experience proves that there is urgent need for such a clause. My constituency has a massive problem. We are just outside London

      2011
      People come to my constituency by car and, because they have been encouraged not to travel right into London by car, they park their vehicles in my constituency and get the train into London.
      As a result my constituents suffer great frustration. They take their cars off the road and put them into garages. Then they discover that someone has parked his car on the pavement outside their house, blocking their garage. To prevent that happening they decide to park their car on the pavement. They are additionally irked because they still have to pay increased rates as a result of building a garage.
      In North Ealing there has been a growing number of accidents, which have included child fatalities, arising from cars being parked on pavements and children running out from behind them to cross the roads. Frequently, cars smash paving stones and old people then trip over the uneven surface, sometimes breaking a limb. There are those who feel justified in suing the local authority for failing to maintain the pavements. This clause would help to ease the situation.
      Mr. Hawkins: There are two points of view here, both of which have great merit. I see this situation every day in my constituency. It probably has more cars than a town constituency because, being a rural area, everyone needs a car to get to work. The Minister is in an impossible situation. We have to ask what will happen to those council house tenants who have cars but no garages. Many of our housing estates were built before the war, and the width of the road is insufficient to allow cars to be parked outside the houses. Indeed, some roads are not wide enough to allow delivery vehicles to get down them. Dustbins cannot be collected. It is a terrible problem.
      Mr. Durant: Would my hon. Friend include fire engines in the list of vehicles which cannot travel down these roads?
      Mr. Hawkins: Certainly. My right hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) is right, although I do not find that many pavements are broken as a result of cars parking on them. It is the heavy vehicles that do the damage.
      Mr. Graham Page: I can meet my hon. Friend's case regarding council estates.
      2012
      In subsection (5) there is a freedom to exempt a road where there are the sort of difficulties he has in mind.
      Mr. Hawkins: I am obliged to my right hon. Friend. I do not have the same knowledge of the Bill as he has.
      We have here two perfectly valid points of view. We must consider the difficulties of parking in country districts. I understand that at one stage in one of the Bill's migratory processes there was a proposal prohibiting parking on grass verges in country lanes, but often the only way to keep country lanes clear is to allow parking on grass verges, particularly if farm sales or similar events are taking place.
      Mr. Mulley: The right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) has—as he so often did in the last Parliament from this Box—answered effectively and persuasively some of the points raised. If I may deal with the history of the clause, it contained, as the hon. Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Hawkins) said a total ban which was inserted in another place in the last Parliament. That was unacceptable, and we saw, in response to representations from quarters which hon. Members have in mind, the reaching of a compromise, although we realise that some people will remain dissatisfied. I suspect that the friends of the right hon. Member for Crosby in the Pedestrians Association for Road Safety will be critical, because I have made a possibility of there being too many exemptions. The right way to tackle this is for exemptions and exceptions to be decided at local level. It would be nonsensical for me or my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to issue directions or instructions as to which roads were regarded as sufficiently narrow to be excepted and which were not. We have provided for the local authorities to make what exceptions are necessary.
      With regard to Amendment No. 48, we feel that this point is covered by the phrase "satisfactorily performed" in subsection 3(b) of the clause. We feel that this should be a sufficient safeguard to allow lorry drivers to park on pavements where necessary to carry out loading and similar operations.
      Amendment No. 49 relates to a vehicle not being left unattended. We are not

      2013
      arguing that there ought to be two people in a vehicle. We are making an exception only for normal loading and unloading operations, at which times there would be bound to be somebody in attendance. If we stretch the provision so that vehicles are left unattended we shall be back to existing problems. Parked lorries can cause difficulties for people with prams. The principle regarding this matter was endorsed in the Heavy Commercial Vehicles (Controls and Regulations) Act in the last Parliament.
      We have not laid down points about narrowness or characteristics of particular roads. Such matters will be left to local authorities. We hope that they will be given sufficient powers in this respect, and I am confident that they will exercise those powers responsibly.
      No one will be completely satisfied but we hope that we have made some attempt to meet the difficulties of road users with vehicles on the one hand, and on the other, people who use pavements. I hope that the Committee will be willing to accept my assurance.
      Mr. Fry: In view of the Minister's assurance, and provided that subsection (5) will be adhered to, so that where roads are not suitable orders will not be made, and with the further definition from the Minister on what he means by "unattended," I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
      Amendments made:
      No. 9, in page 12, leave out line 7 and insert:
      road may by order specifying that road'.
      No. 10, in page 12, line 9, leave out from 'it' to end of line 13, and insert:
      or to any part of it specified in the order, either at all times or during periods so specified.
      (5A) In England and Wales a local authority, within the meaning of section 36A of this Act, may institute proceedings for an offence under this section committed with respect to a road in their area'.—[Mr. Mulley.]
      12.15 p.m.
      Mr. Fry: I beg to move Amendment No. 50, in page 12, line 13, at end insert:
      '(5A) Traffic signs shall be erected to indicate lengths of highway in regard to which such orders have been made and the effect thereof'.
      This is a straightforward matter. The purpose is to ensure that road users be left in no doubt as to what regulations
      2014
      apply, and that there should be no misunderstanding. I say this because shortly before the 1970 General Election I was asked to take part in a radio broadcast and I parked my car in an unfamiliar city outside the broadcasting offices. When I came out I found I had been given a ticket. I discovered to my horror that I had parked in a no-parking zone. There were no yellow lines, and the notice about parking was so far away that I had not seen it. I was resentful that I had to pay a fine—but luckily I won in the subsequent election.
      I hope that the Minister will give a favourable reply to this proposal.
      Mr. Mulley: I have great sympathy with the proposal. We want to ensure, as far as is reasonably possible, that all road users are aware of parking regulations. We are considering this matter, but I am worried because we are also under attack from environmentalists and others, including motoring organisations, about having too many signs, especially in urban areas, with the result that it is difficult for motorists to take them all in.
      New legislative power is not required in order to have no-parking signs, but I shall examine this matter and write to the hon. Gentleman. If any difficulties arise in trying to make reasonable provision to meet this point we shall have to see how we can best deal with it—but I do not wish at this stage to write into the Bill provisions for a particular set of traffic signs, especially as in certain cases small areas of road may be involved, and problems would arise. A difficulty arises here because there has not been the usual interval of time between the Committee and Report stages.
      I hope that on the basis of what I have said the hon. Gentleman will ask leave to withdraw his amendment. We shall consider this point. If it is necessary to issue a circular or make regulations, the necessary powers are available.
      Mr. Fry: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
      Amendment made: No. 11, in page, 12, line 37, leave out 'highway' means a highway' and insert 'road' means a road'.—[Mr. Mulley.]
      Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
      Mr. Fry: Will the Minister give some explanation of subsection (2)(b) which states:
      "that it was parked in contravention of this section for the purpose of saving life or extinguishing fire or meeting any other like emergency…".
      I would like the Minister to amplify the words "any other like emergency", because many motorists have considerable problems, both personal and mechanical. It is likely that a motor car will break down and considerable difficulty ensue before it can be moved from where it has broken down. The motoring public are entitled to some understanding as to what these words mean.
      Mr. Mulley: As hon. Members know, no comments of mine will be of any assistance if there are legal arguments, because it is the words in the Bill that the court will consider. This form of wording has been used in order to permit the widest consideration by the court of any exceptional circumstances. For instance, someone may have to stop his car in a hurry because a lady on board is expecting a baby rather sooner than had been thought. All sorts of contingencies may arise, and it is difficult to foresee them all. If we spelt out a list, others that are not mentioned would be regarded as having been excluded.
      This provision is intended to give the motorist who parks his car the benefit of the doubt, but the way in which it is interpreted will be for the courts to decide on any particular occasion. I think that that is better than trying to spell out the circumstances. Giving a list would be of no assistance, because, even if anybody ever reads the OFFICIAL REPORT when it appears—no doubt many months after our debates—the words in the Bill would be all that the courts would consider. No doubt the courts would construe the wording in the widest sense for the benefit of the person concerned.
      Mr. Graham Page: I support my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Fry) in this query. The words are not quite as usually used. Using the words "any other like emergency" means that one applies not only the ejusdem generis rule, but the ejusdem very generis rule, because of the word "like". I know that there is not much that we can do
      2016
      about it at this stage of the Bill, but the wording means that the emergency is very restricted and will have to be either saving life or extinguishing a fire, or something like that.
      My hon. Friend asked whether it would be a physical emergency or a mechanical emergency. I have no doubt that if a reasonable police constable saw a car parked outside a public convenience he would treat that as a physical emergency, but I am not sure whether it would be ejusdem generis with extinguishing a fire.
      Mr. Mulley: That is a very good point. We shall cover breakdowns and accidents by the regulations that the Secretary of State will issue under subsection (4).
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause 7, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 8

      DUTY OF LOCAL AUTHORITY TO PROMOTE ROAD SAFETY
      Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
      Mr. Farr: The clause introduces into the Bill the vital rôle of local authorities in road works. It mentions several important aspects that local authorities have to take into account, other than studying accidents. They have also to concentrate on the construction, improving, maintenance and repair of roads and the construction of new roads.
      I regret that the clause does not cover a matter about which I wrote to the Minister only a few weeks ago, namely, the responsibility of a local authority or its agents to make sure that warning signs are removed when road works have been completed for the night or for the weekend. I have met many illustrations of this recently. When men down their tools for the night, they lock up the tools and clear the road, but they leave the warning signs. If motorists see these signs at night and at weekends and find that they are not applicable; they tend to discount them, and the consequences may be fatal.
      I know from the letters that the Minister sent me a week or two ago that

      2017
      he is calling the attention of local authorities to the importance of ensuring that road signs that they or their agents put up are removed when they are no longer applicable. Is it not possible for some mention of this matter to be made in the clause?
      This is not a matter of an isolated instance. One can find successive examples of road works having been temporarily halted with the road signs left fully displayed. I should like the attention of local authorities to be officially called to their responsibilities in this respect.
      Mr. Max Madden: I want to refer to the power for controlling, protecting, or assisting the movement of traffic on the roads mentioned in the clause, for there seems to be a serious omission from these powers, and that is in respect of night car rallies. This is a problem that concerns my constituency.
      Tomorrow night, about 90 rally cars will be travelling through my constituency between midnight and 2 am. This is the latest of what seems to be a never-ending stream of car rallies that are organised in the Calder Valley area of West Yorkshire. We are becoming the Mecca of night car rallies, which present a serious threat for road safety and cause local residents considerable nuisance and disturbance.
      We learned of this latest rally only a few days ago, when one of my constituents was given a letter from the club involved which said that cars would be passing her house and that approval for the rally had been given by the chief constable of West Yorkshire and the RAC. I investigated the situation and found that permission for such rallies comes under the Motor Vehicles (Competitions and Trials) Regulations 1969. It appears that no approval is needed for competitions involving fewer than 12 cars, but when more than 12 are concerned, approval has to be gained from the RAC. Applications are submitted by the individual car clubs to the RAC, which merely asks the police and other immediately interested parties for comments on the proposed route.
      We have been able to obtain some last-minute rerouting of this rally, but the situation is most unsatisfactory. Drastic improvements in the regulations
      2018
      are urgently required. Local authorities should be the bodies giving approval to such events, not the RAC, which must clearly favour motoring organisations and does not have the necessary local knowledge of the proposed routes. It is also inperative that the clubs advertise in the local Press what routes are proposed to be used, so that local residents may have ample and early opportunity to object. I should be grateful if the Minister would consider reviewing the regulations in the sense I have suggested.
      Mr. Tony Newton: May I briefly detain the Committee to ask one simple, straightforward and basic question, which is, who is to pay for all this? I imagine that all of us are in favour of anything that can be done to improve road safety and that we are all in favour of local authorities preparing and implementing a programme of measures. However, one thing that has struck all of us more than anything else in the past few months has been the complaint from district and county councillors that Parliament is endlessly asking them to do all sorts of desirable things, but then not making the money available and leaving them stuck with the problem of finance. I do not have the quotation with me, but I believe that the Secretary of State for the Environment himself, whose Bill this presumably is, was making much the same point the other day.
      I should be grateful for a brief comment on whether the Government will provide any finance, so that the Bill does not mean just another piece of machinery for local authorities and another burden on the rates.
      12.30 p.m.
      Mr. John H. Osborn: Subsection (2) provides that
      "Each local authority shall prepare and carry out a programme of measures designed to promote road safety…."
      That is a powerful and vague provision and appears to have no end to its scope. I would be the first to advocate that local authorities should have strong powers, but to what extent is that subsection a new departure from what local authorities, under another "hat", have been doing in the past?
      The Minister and I know that halfway between our two constituencies a driving and road safety school was set up. I was fully in agreement with that move.

      2019
      It was designed partly as an educational endeavour and partly to promote road safety. It was set up two years ago, and somebody had to pay for it. In fact, the local authorities footed the Bill. Will standards be laid down to enable local authorities to know what is expected of them? If no guidelines are laid down, an enthusiastic local authority may commit ratepayers to a huge burden, whereas a dilatory authority may be thanked by its ratepayers for doing nothing.
      I advocate any measure aimed to promote road safety and to encourage drivers to become more proficient. I was involved in a skid some years ago and I ended up on the verge of the road. I did not know what to do to cope with that skid, but since then I have had the opportunity to practise, under instruction, on a skid pad. That skid pad was set up two or three years ago under the Conservative Goverment. Will the Minister tell the House whether, the powers in the Bill are much greater than the present powers? It would be useful to have some guidance.
      Mr. Goodhart: I am concerned about the fact that trunk roads appear to be excluded from roads on which local authorities have to carry out studies into accidents. Most serious accidents take place on trunk roads or at junctions with local authority roads.
      Some months ago I went to a dangerous area on a trunk road in my constituency and suggested to officials that double white lines should be painted on the road at that point. However, I was told that because of the national regulations it was impossible to have an adequate length of double white line. A few days ago there was a fatal acident at that point. It is close to a crossing where a local road meets the trunk road. I hope that the Minister will make plain that local authorities will not be prevented from undertaking studies into accidents on trunk roads, although they may not have the final authority in respect of those roads.
      Mr. Mulley: A number of different points have been raised on Clause 8—a clause which appeared in the Conservative Government's legislation on road traffic. It was produced following full consultation and discussion with the local
      2020
      authorities, and has been widely welcomed.
      I was asked who would bear the costs of the provision. Expenditure is already incurred under local authorities' permissive powers. The purpose of the clause is to extend those powers. It will attract rate support grant and under the new arrangements, which will take effect from 1st April next year, local authorities will be eligible for transport supplementary grant. The nature and extent of the expenditure is a matter for local authorities.
      I share the concern which has been expressed about the level of rates, but at the same time—and here I take up the point made by the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart)—it is important that local authorities should have powers to carry out studies into accidents and so forth. This is a relevant consideration in their priorities as to how they should spend money on roads, and against this will attract transport supplementary grant. It is logical that they should have the additional powers. However, their discretion and initiative in exercising those powers is a matter for them.
      I appreciate the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden) about the great nuisance and disturbance caused to his constituents by motor rallies being allowed to take place in unsuitable conditions. The point does not arise directly out of Clause 8, but I appreciate that my hon. Friend feels that local authorities should have more power to deal with that situation. I know that he personally has done everything a Member of Parliament can do to try to mitigate the difficulties by approaching local authorities, the police, and the Royal Automobile Club which is responsible for these rallies. If my hon. Friend wishes to have a word with me, or would like to bring some of his constituents to see me, I shall be pleased to see in what way we can help. However, I cannot see how I can help my hon. Friend in this Bill.
      The hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) raised the important question of road signs. I have not his letter with me, although I remember it in general terms. He will understand that I receive a large number of letters on transport matters and that I do not carry all the details in my head. However, he made a valid point. I do not think that at this late

      2021
      stage it would be right to spell out even if it were possible to do so, how local authorities should exercise their responsibilities. This is not the way in which Parliament or central Government should try to do things. We are trying to give them greater powers and, I hope, some resources to go with them. We shall be pleased to look at the matter again, if the hon. Member believes that the situation is not satisfactory, to see whether advice should be given to local authorities. However, I do not want to send round to local authorities too many circulars which in themselves may incur expenditure. I have already been taken to task on that point a little earlier in our discussions.
      Mr. Graham Page: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the point about the trunk roads?
      Mr. Mulley: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for reminding me of that omission. I shall be happy to discuss the question of the transfer of trunks roads and the matter of local authority responsibilities. The big problem is that of expense. Again, this could affect the rates. The reason that local authorities are not anxious to discharge any kind of responsibilities on trunk roads is that because trunk roads are the Secretary of State's responsibility, all expenses connected therewith are met from central rather than from local funds. Any transfer of Function would involve rate contribution.
      Mr. Goodhart: What will happen when local authorities wish to study accident situations on trunk roads in their areas?
      Mr. Mulley: There is no harm in local authorities studying these matters, but studies usually involve expenditure. Normally in the administration of trunk roads the local authorities can be used as the agents of central Government, but in those circumstances the powers lie with the Secretary of State. Local authorities undertake work in this respect, but they are totally reimbursed by central Government so that no cost falls on the ratepayer.
      Mr. Graham Page: I hope that we may have from the Minister a better assurance than he has given. It was at one time the intention to de-trunk all trunk roads. But until that happens there is a division of responsibility involving the
      2022
      organisation which used to be called the DRE but which now falls within the, responsibility of the Regional Controller (Roads), or some similar name. The responsibility is divided between that official and the county highway surveyor—the one dealing with trunk roads and the other with other roads. There is difficulty where there are junctions of the two.
      I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider giving the agency to local authorities to deal with trunk roads when they are carrying out a survey. It is ridiculous that they should carry out the letter of the clause and survey all the roads in their district except trunk roads. They must deal with the roads as a whole.
      I appreciate that the wording has to be as it is in the statute, but the only way in which local authorities can look at roads as a whole is for the Department to give them the agency to look at the trunk roads as part of the survey.
      Mr. Mulley: The right hon. Gentleman spent much longer in the Department of the Environment than I have done so far, and he had particular responsibility for roads. I said that it is our desire, when legislation is possible and the financial aspects can be resolved, to de-trunk roads if the local authorities think that this would be of assistance. But I do not trade on intention. I cannot do it today. We have been in office for just over four and a half months, and it would be a substantial financial and legislative operation to de-trunk roads which are within the purview of local authorities. That does not arise on the road safety clause.
      Mr. John H. Osborn: The Minister has not quite answered my question which concerned the extent to which the rate support grant will be used to encourage road safety. A school has been set up in Sheffield for this purpose. Does the Minister visualise that similar projects in other areas will have the benefit of rate support grant?
      Mr. Mulley: The rate support grant which is available for existing road safety expenditure is spelt out in the Financial Memorandum, and that expenditure will also be an element in the new transport supplementary grant. No one can say how the powers will be exercised by local authorities because unless the Bill

      2023
      is passed they will not have powers. Local authorities must know what they can do before formulating projects. In the present economic climate of stringency they may not be able to do as much as the hon. Gentleman and I would like, but that is why we have left the initiative to the local authorities.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause 8 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
      Clause 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 10

      AMENDMENT RELATING TO NOISE
      Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
      12.45 p.m.
      The Deputy Chairman: It is suggested that the debate should also cover Amendment No. 36, in Schedule 6, page 73, line 26, leave out from beginning to first 'the' in line 27 and insert:
      (1) In section 53 of that Act (testing of condition of vehicles on roads) in subsection (1) (authorised examiners may test motor vehicles to ascertain whether certain requirements are complied with) in paragraph (b) after the word "of" there shall be inserted the word "noise".
      (2) In subsection (2) of that section (persons who may act as authorised examiners)'.
      Mr. Mulley: This clause was inserted in the Bill in another place. Although we all have sympathy with its objective the great difficulty is that noise testing equipment would have to be provided in testing stations and it is at present not technically possible to carry out the kind of checks that are necessary. We are reviewing the whole question of the testing of vehicles, but I am advised that the clause could not be effectively implemented for a considerable time.
      The amendment adds noise to the list of testing requirements for vehicles at testing stations, but we consider that spot checks are likely to be more effective than the method envisaged in the clause.
      No one would wish to turn down a clause which is directed to the reduction of noise, but I have to ask the Committee to vote against it and to substitute the more practical proposal in Amendment No. 36.
      Mr. Bruce George: There is little in the Bill which is related to noise, and the one clause that is about to be forcibly extracted. The clause was introduced in another place by the noble Lord, Lord Elton. I cannot see why it is not technically possible to introduce noise testing at testing stations. If man is capable of projecting his fellow men to other planets, surely our scientists and technologists can devise machinery for testing the noise level of vehicles. The noble Lord said that he was not concerned about the date of implementation and accepted that it might be 1975 or 1976. He was concerned about acceptance of the principle and a Government commitment to the cause of noise abatement.
      We suffer in all our constituencies from noise emitted by mopeds, motor cycles, cars and juggernauts. Legislation gives insufficient recognition to the cause of noise abatement. There must be more stringent testing of motor vehicles which emit excessive noise, and the clause would go a long way towards giving the Department some teeth. The existing regulations are not being observed, the number of prosecutions is derisory and people do not get the protection to which they are entitled from officers of the law.
      Lord Elton's amendment has a great deal of merit. I accept what the Minister has said, but I still think that much more stringent blanket testing should take place, not just spot testing.
      Mr. Goodhart: I found the Minister's remarks disturbing. We are, rightly, spending millions of pounds on the reduction of aircraft noise and I do not grudge one penny of that. But a noisy motor cycle or sports car can create just as much disturbance as a noisy aircraft. One noisy motor cycle can disturb the sleep of hundreds of people.
      It is nonsense to say that the necessary technical equipment does not exist to carry out adequate tests on these vehicles. The Minister is saying in fact that the Government are not prepared to give sufficient priority to obtaining that equipment. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will look at this again and that he will give priority to obtaining equipment and installing it in testing centres. Obviously it is much easier to test a vehicle in a centre than to carry out random checks

      2025
      on the roads. We already have the equipment to do this, and I cannot understand why the Minister says that it is technically not possible to provide the necessary equipment for these centres in the next 18 months.
      Mr. Mulley: I do not want to make party points. However, the present Government have been in office only four and a half months. We have done a great deal, but we cannot do everything at once. I thought that the strictures of the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) were such that I ought to make that point to the Committee.
      It is all very well for people to say that this and that should be done. I remind the Committee that we have been reminded already from the Opposition benches that the money will have to be found for all these purposes. Someone has to pay for all this very expensive equipment. The cost of testing will be involved as well.
      When I advise the Committee that the Government do not feel that we can make satisfactory arrangements for this highly technical testing, I do not mean that it is not theoretically possible. The situation is rather like that of the old lady who, on hearing about the first man landing on the moon, said, "Perhaps with all this advance in science, I shall now be able to get an electricity supply in my cottage."
      We hear a great deal about vehicle testing generally. Everyone knows that a vehicle can be put into a suitable condition to pass the test. But what about the remaining 12 months? I am trying to get round what is a difficult problem by spot testing. I hope, for example, that the additional powers in the first five clauses will mean a saving in police time now taken up trying to enforce fixed parking penalties which can be devoted to other purposes.
      We shall do what we can. I have no doubt that we shall come back to this point in subsequent discussions on road traffic legislation, by which time we hope to have a better answer than we have at the moment.
      We have tried to meet the point. I hope that the Committee will agree to delete the clause and to accept the halfway house solution which is contained in
      2026
      what I shall be proposing when we reach Schedule 6.
      Question put and negatived.
      Clauses 11 and 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 13

      AMENDMENTS RELATING To LICENSING OF DRIVERS OF VEHICLES
      Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
      Mr. Fry: I do not want to allow this clause to pass without commenting on subsection (1)(b) because I have had a number of representations from constituents of mine who are concerned about this matter. They feel strongly that there is a danger that people with worsening eyesight and deteriorating health, because they do not have a constant reminder when they apply for licence renewals, perhaps will not perform their statutory duty to inform the authorities that they are not as fit as they once were.
      I hope that the Minister will be able to advise the Committee of the steps which authorities will take to ensure that abuses of this kind do not occur.
      Mr. Mulley: I know that there was concern when this clause appeared in the Bill introduced by the previous administration. Hon. Members who were here at the time had submissions from opticians and others about these difficulties.
      Since I find it difficult, now that I am the Minister responsible, to change what I said in opposition, I concede that there are great difficulties in making sure that there are no abuses. At present, drivers sign the appropriate form every three years. I wonder how many people actually have their eyes tested before signing the licence renewal form.
      Administratively, no one can guarantee that abuses of this kind will not occur. Successive Governments have tried to provide reasonable safeguards. When the scheme comes in, if there are found to be difficulties or abuses, it will have to be looked at again. But, against the general background of trying to reduce administrative costs and the cost to the individual motorist—because the cost of

      2027
      administration has to be reflected in the cost of the licence—I believe that it is right to proceed in this way. It will save a great deal of expenditure and a great deal of work on the part of the civil servants. It will enable us to give a driving licence up to the age of 70 at a reasonable fee.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause 13 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 14

      WEIGHING OF MOTOR VEHICLES
      Mr. Mulley: I beg to move Amendment No. 13, in page 21, line 35, after 'evidence' insert
      'or, in Scotland, sufficient evidence'.
      This is a technical drafting point to fit the Bill to Scottish law.
      I hope that I shall not be asked to explain Scottish law.
      Amendment agreed to.
      Clause 14, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
      Clause 15 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 16

      REDUCTION OF MINIMUM AGE FOR OBTAIN ING LICENCE TO DRIVE A PUBLIC SER VICE VEHICLE.
      Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
      Mr. Mulley: This is another clause inserted in the other place which we see considerable difficulty in implementing.
      It has been discussed on a number of occasions. Although I am happy with the safeguards about heavy goods vehicles and although an apprentice scheme has been worked out—and provided that the scheme is enforced rigorously by both sides concerned it will work—it is not possible to have an apprentice scheme in respect of public service vehicles so that drivers can graduate from one vehicle to another.
      There have been no real consultations between the operators and the unions, but there is no strong evidence of the operators
      2028
      wanting this change except in one or two rather exceptional circumstances. Having regard to the enormous responsibility attached to driving a public service vehicle with a large number of passengers, the Government do not feel that it would be right to make this change.
      Mr. Fox: I intervene only to point out to my hon. Friends that this was a clause in the Bill introduced by the previous administration. We always felt that Clause 15 was far more important. The industry was under considerable pressure because of the shortage of drivers. But this is not the case with buses. It is clear from our consultations that there is no great demand for the age to be reduced from 21 to 18. For those reasons, I support what the Minister said.
      Question put and negatived.

    Clause 17

      CERTAIN SMALL VEHICLES NOT TO BE PUBLIC SERVICE VEHICLES
      Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
      The Deputy Chairman (Mr. Oscar Murton): It is suggested that at the same time we should debate Clauses 18 and 19 and Amendment No. 24.
      1.0 p.m.
      Mr. Mulley: I think that I am under an obligation to explain to the Committee why Clauses 17, 18 and 19 hang together. They are an attempt—I accept a sincere attempt—to improve the position of rural transport by a series of changes in the licensing system.
      I do not think that there is any dispute on either side about the serious problem of rural transport. Hon. Members privately, as well as in speeches and Questions in the House, have expressed their concern about this matter over a long period. We are all concerned about it.
      In 1968 there was an attempt to help by giving local authorities not only the power to subsidise services but a grant to help in that way. We know that, for business and other reasons, people are obliged to have motor cars and that situation has generally eroded the services about which we are all concerned.

      2029
      There is no dispute about the problem. The dispute is about the best way of tackling it. My advice to the Committee is that these clauses will not help very much and may in certain instances make matters worse.
      Mr. Hawkins indicated dissent.
      Mr. Mulley: The hon. Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Hawkins) shakes his head. This is obviously a matter for argument. I make no political point out of it. Difficulties are involved. The previous administration were extremely concerned about this matter. They had experiments conducted, and so forth. Ultimately, at the end of three and a half years, they brought forward proposals, but they were not acceptable to the operators, the unions or the local authorities.
      The proposals before us now, which were inserted in another place, are different from those which the previous Government had in the final print of their Bill. I make no complaint. It is a difficult problem and it is only right that people should try in this or that way to meet this or that difficulty.
      The argument about minibuses is attractive. People say that they see a bus going along with perhaps only three, six or eight people in it and therefore ask whether it would be more sensible to have a minibus. They seem to think that because a minibus is only a quarter of the size of a large bus it will cost only a quarter of the money to run. But how wrong they are. The biggest factor in transport, both rural and elsewhere, is drivers' wages. It costs as much—or there is very little difference—to have someone drive a minibus as to have someone drive a bigger bus. Therefore, there are no economies in that respect, unless it is suggested—I do not think that anyone would make such a suggestion—that the drivers of minibuses should not be properly paid.
      When we debated this matter before, concern was expressed about people thinking that there might be money to be made in running these services or that they might be motivated by some form of public service to operate such services, that they might take away from some of the existing routes the low level of support that they have, that neither the National Bus Company nor the operators,
      2030
      whoever they are, would be able to run the services any longer, and that the local authority might feel that there was no justification for continuing to support them and withdrawing support. Then, for whatever reason, the people who had introduced the alternative services might find that they were not profitable, or they had gone for contract work, and therefore withdrew the services so that the situation would be even worse than it is now.
      There is a lot of scope for argument and study here. I do not pretend to know all the answers. I think that we may need a more radical approach to try to do something for rural transport.
      The question was whether we should include what were widely accepted to be the unsatisfactory clauses in the previous Bill. I do not criticise the previous Government for those unsatisfactory clauses. I know the difficulties. That is why we have not seen versions of them here.
      In the initial consultations I had to make up my mind about them. It seemed to me that, in the first instance, we needed to get all aspects of the operators' and the unions' views together and then to bring in the local authorities. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State chaired the meetings on that basis. We wanted to bring in the local authorities earlier. However, these additional responsibilities for traffic co-ordination were given to the county authorities only as recently as April. Many were new authorities. Therefore, it was reasonable that they should ask us to defer our meetings with them and the operators and the unions. A number of them have expressed their worry about these provisions and have asked us to defer consultations until the autumn, because they had to get in their transport policies and programmes and so on. That seemed quite reasonable.
      I make no promises. However, I hope that out of these consultations with the parties principally concerned—the operators, the local authorities and the unions—we shall get more broadly acceptable and workable proposals than we have here.
      Frankly, from my point of view at any rate—I do not know what hon. Members opposite may think—when local authorities, operators and others are asked

      2031
      to do a lot of work with a view to trying to arrange something and they are then told, "The basis on which we are working has changed; Parliament has decided such-and-such", it puts me in an untenable position.
      Mr. Farr: The Minister keeps mentioning the great rôle of the unions in this matter. Surely they are not very relevant to these three clauses. Unions in most parts of the country would have no say whether a minibus service was provided by private owner operators who do not employ trade union labour. To find out what the trade unions' wishes are in this respect and apparently to be guided by them alone gives the Minister a false picture of the needs of the countryside.
      Mr. Mulley: I did not say that I had been guided by the trade unions alone. I should like to make my attitude to these matters absolutely clear. On all relevant issues I am prepared to consult and, as a matter of course, do consult the trade unions, employers and everybody concerned. I reject utterly any proposal that I should not consult the trade unions. I hope that there is no suggestion that they are taking an obstructive or difficult attitude to this matter. The unions are concerned. They have members in rural areas who are concerned about transport. They happen to agree with the people operating the current services that this proposal could make matters worse rather than better. There is no assurance that the position will be made better.
      We have our different views. The local authorities have recently been charged under legislation proposed by the last Government to take on this responsibility. Is it suggested that we should write to them saying, "You need not bother, because Parliament has decided what it will do about rural transport"? That is not the right way of going about it.
      With the assurance that we shall report as soon as possible any proposal that we can work out. I ask the Committee to delete these clauses.
      Mr. Fox: I think that if and when HANSARD is published again and the Minister reads the speech that he has just made he will conclude that it is not one of his best contributions to our debates.
      2032
      One would imagine that nothing before had been done in this sphere. I was involved in this industry for some years before I came to the House, and to my knowledge discussions have been going on for 15 years. Indeed, one could go back to when the licensing system as we now have it was introduced in the 1930s. Since then people have been crying out for some relaxation, and for the Minister to talk as though we were proposing something so radical that it would put people out of work and existing bus services out of business is not to tell the truth.
      We shall not be able to get through this debate as quickly as we have done some others. "Forty years on" is a very old song. When we say that the present licensing system is out of date, it must be remembered that it was set up to protect established operators in an industry that was buoyant. Their only problem was that the industry was so attractive to others to set up in business that those in it already had to be protected so that they could stay in business and not have their best routes creamed off.
      If that were the case today, we should not put forward this sort of proposal. As the Minister admitted, it is accepted on both sides of the House that, particularly in rural areas, the changes that have been made have been disastrous. Over the last 20 years, passenger journeys have more than halved in number while the number of cars has increased fivefold. No industry can see this sort of erosion and expect to continue as it was before. We say that we cannot brook any further delay, and we are not prepared to see these clauses deleted from the Bill.
      On Second Reading, my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Howell) instanced—I thought graphically—the problems in his constituency, and in an Adjournment debate on this very issue my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Hawkins) did the same.
      It is not that we are talking about areas with bus routes; we are talking about many areas which have no buses at all. Railways went some time ago. It is wrong for the Minister to suggest that things can go on in this way. There are people who cannot afford a car, yet they must buy one to get to work. They

      2033
      have three choices. They can buy a car and go to work, they can walk—and that is highly unlikely, because of the distances involved—or they can be unemployed and stay at home.
      Is there something terribly wrong in suggesting a few modest relaxations to help those people and the elderly who, in many areas, are isolated? Is it wrong to help the young housewife with a family, or the infirm? We say that this hardship has gone on for too long, and the proposals in these clauses will help to fill certain gaps.
      In 1971, my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) produced a pilot study that was concerned with this problem as it related to West Suffolk and Devon. The conclusions that were drawn were simple. The study concluded that there was limited scope for full-scale bus services, and I shall be surprised if the Under-Secretary of State comes forward from the working party with something to disprove that. Apparently, how ever, we have a friend in court in the hon Gentleman, because one sees in HANSARD—I mentioned this on Second Reading—that he said:
      "I hope that there will not be too many pettifogging regulations about the use of minibuses on existing bus routes."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th January 1974.; Vol. 868, c. 474.]
      I hope that after meetings with the working party the hon. Gentleman will not forget what he said on a previous occasion. He was, of course, relating his comments to Scotland—an area that he knows well. If the hon. Gentleman has a change of heart, we shall think that he has been nobbled, and by the time I conclude my speech I may suggest that one or two people have been got at. There is limited scope for full-scale bus services, even with the subsidies that county councils are prepared to give.
      I am glad that the Under-Secretary of State has returned to the Chamber.
      Mr. Mulley: I have given my hon. Friend a verbatim report of the hon. Gentleman's remarks.
      1.15 p.m.
      Mr. Fox: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I thought that what I said would percolate through.
      The second conclusion drawn from the study to which I referred earlier was that it was necessary to encourage the use of
      2034
      cars to meet irregular needs. The study also said that there was a need to extend the use of minibuses on a much wider basis and, finally, that there was a need for local government to accept a new rôle in co-ordinating transport needs in their areas. This is an important new factor, and local government ought to be given certain new powers to deal with this.
      The Evening News of 20th July said:
      "Rural bus services in Hertfordshire are in need of drastic overhaul, say a county council study team.
      They discovered that villagers are prepared to pay higher fares if the bus services are improved.
      Many are prepared to buy their own village minibus to overcome transport problems.
      The council are investigating several schemes including joint mail—minibus services and using school buses to carry general passengers."
      What is so wrong about that sort of proposal? After all, that is all that we are asking for—that there should be this flexibility.
      These facts have been known for a long time. For too long Vested interests have come before the public interest, so much so—I accept some of the blame for this—that nothing has been done for far too long. I must tell the Minister that if he tries to convince us that we have to continue this charade he will not get his way. This issue should have been tackled in 1968. We know that the problem existed then. It was a scandal then, and it would be an even worse scandal to allow it to continue.
      I know that the House would not wish me to go into the history of our Bill, but had we remained in government there is no question but that these clauses would now be law. However, certain tragic events occurred which brought someone else into government, and to our amazement they withdrew these changes from the Bill and presented the amended measure in another place. I congratulate their Lordships on restoring these proposals.
      Mr. Mulley: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that these causes are in the same form as they were in the previous Government's Bill? They have been substantially modified.
      Mr. Fox: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. In

      2035
      view of what he said, I should have thought that the clauses would be far more acceptable to him than what was proposed originally.
      Perhaps I may draw attention to a rather strange conversion. I am glad that the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) is in the Chamber, because after the Second Reading debate on the previous Government's Bill he tabled certain amendments. I have them here, and I see that they are not very different from what we now have in the Bill. I notice that the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bradley) has his name to the amendments. Neither of those two hon. Members has ever been reluctant to admit his connection with the trade union movement, so I presume that when they tabled their amendments they had union agreement to them. If that is not so, no doubt the hon. Member for Nuneaton will correct me when he addresses the Committee.
      I wonder why there is this sudden hostility to these proposals. I find it difficult to justify the claim that existing services could be damaged. I have looked carefully at the safeguards in these clauses, and it seems to me that there is adequate protection for operators who are or have been worried about their business. The fiercest opposition to our proposals when they were introduced in 1971 came from bus operators and not from the unions. I am sure that the Minister will accept that. It took a considerable time for us to get agreement to what was proposed, and I have to tell the House that my information now—I have been careful to check this—is that the industry is happy to go along with these clauses and would prefer them to remain in the Bill rather than be deleted. There are three small matters which they suggest could be altered, but they do not in any sense affect these clauses.
      Let us consider the protections available for the industry. The traffic commissioners will have considerable powers. We are not for one moment suggesting that minibuses which are operated by commercial undertakings for a profit should be allowed to go into operation without permission. They will still have to apply to the traffic commissioners for a permit. An easing of this law was made in 1968, and all we are saying here
      2036
      is that this should be extended a little further. The traffic commissioners will take into account what services are being operated, and if there is any doubt, even under these clauses, they will advertise the fact that the service is to come into existence and that any objections should be made as soon as possible.
      Thus, the only change in criteria or instructions to the traffic commissioners—it ought to have been done a long time ago—would be that the public interest would be the first priority. The traffic commissioners would be instructed that the public interest came first, instead of being third or fourth. I sometimes think that the public interest does not come first with right hon. and hon. Members on the Government side, and I have to say, with some regret, that in this instance I think that they are being misled in trying to delay these proposals.
      I have referred to the protection in relation to minibuses run commercially. There is talk of concern also about private minibuses and the effect of our proposals in that sector. There will be safeguards here, too. The purpose is to provide a social service, and under Section 203 of the Local Government Act 1972 a local council would be involved if such a scheme were planned. I think it highly unlikely that a local authority would go along with any such scheme—it should not be forgotten that advertisements would not be permitted—if it felt that it would harm a service which it was already committed to helping by means of grant. Therefore, the additional safeguard asked for in this connection is provided under the co-ordinating policy of local government. We can on longer condone the isolation of so many of our people, and a service of that kind would have a great part to play.
      Where do the objections come from? As far as I know, the industry is happy with our proposals. What about the unions? I do not have such close links with the unions as some hon. Members have, but I cannot believe that they are saying that these clauses ought to come out of the Bill in order to protect jobs. If any hon. Member has a constituency in which there is a surplus of bus drivers, will he please let me know? I am certain that many of my hon. Friends would be glad to have their names and addresses, because in their constituencies there is a

      2037
      serious shortage. It is an incredible idea that these proposals should now be removed in order to protect the jobs of existing bus drivers. There is no surplus whatsoever, and our job now ought to be to find a new way round the problem.
      There is no question of a social contract here. Indeed, if the Government succeed in removing these clauses it will be seen as an unsocial contract by many thousands of people living in rural areas. I ask the Minister to put the public interest first. If he does that, he cannot fail to allow the clauses to remain.
      Mr. Leslie Huckfield rose—
      Mr. Nicholas Edwards rose—
      The Deputy Chairman: Mr. Edwards.
      Mr. Huckfield: On a point of order, Mr. Murton. I know that it is in your discretion, but I was under the impression that it was traditional to call hon. Members alternately from either side.
      The Deputy Chairman: It is within the discretion of the Chair. I apologise to the hon. Gentleman. I did not see him. He will be called next.
      Mr. Edwards: The Minister gave us a miserable little speech. When the matter came before the other place, the set of amendments now the subject of these clauses was accepted by the Government, presumably because the noble Lord then replying for the Government could think of no argument with which to defeat them.
      Mr. Mulley: I take it that the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that the Government did not make clear their opposition to the clause when it was proposed in the other place. There were no Divisions on these matters because it was clear that on these, as on many other matters, the Conservative Party always has a majority in the other place.
      Mr. Edwards: In fact, Lord Garnsworthy said:
      "I sense that the Committee is behind Lord Aberdare and I shall not, therefore, oppose the amendment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 18th June 1974; Vol. 352, c. 817]
      That seems about as clear a statement as anything one could imagine.
      Today, the Minister has given a reason. He said that he could not consult about
      2038
      other proposals in a situation in which the whole basis had been changed. Are we to understand that these modest proposals change the whole basis of rural transport in such a way that the further radical reform about which the Minister has twice spoken—both today and on Second Reading of the Conservative Government's Bill on 30th January—will be prevented? I cannot imagine why that should be so.
      All we are asking is that while we await the further radical proposals which the Minister apparently has in mind we should be allowed to proceed in a modest way to improve what is at present a desperate situation.
      I am especially surprised at the Government's attitude because, over the years, in my constituency of Pembroke one theme has been at the centre of speeches made by the Labour candidate. Indeed, there was a time when I thought him incapable of making any other speech. There seemed to be no other point on which he dwelt apart from the need to improve rural transport and, in particular, the need for relaxation of the kind now proposed in the rules affecting minibuses. When we introduced our Bill, his speeches suddenly came to an end, after he had written an article in a local newspaper confessing that we had gone most of the way to meet the demands which he had made. Presumably, therefore, he will be as disappointed as many others will be at the present Government's attitude.
      I speak for my widely scattered constituency of Pembroke, and I do so from the backbenches, but I am certain that I speak also for all hon. Members representing rural constituencies in Wales. It may well have been the attitude of the Labour Party, now exemplified by the Government, which swept it from rural Wales at the last election.
      As my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Fox) said, opposition to these proposals cannot be based on a threat to the jobs of bus drivers, because there is a great shortage of bus drivers. But, of course, there is a threat of a different kind to jobs. In my constituency people are unable to take jobs because they cannot travel to work. We are told also that there is a threat to existing bus services. In most of my constituency there are no existing bus services. I sometimes think that I provide about the only

      2039
      bus service in my constituency. As I go about visiting constituents, I make hardly a journey on which I do not give someone a lift. Fortunate it is that the owners of private cars are, on the whole, ready to assist people in rural areas in that way—otherwise the life in places such as my constituency would virtually come to a standstill.
      We have here a modest proposal which would enable many small villages and communities in rural areas to breath again, to have some prospect of a modest transport service. All this, apparently, is to be halted while the Minister gives further thought to the radical proposals which he first mentioned on 30th January.
      It is an extraordinary and quite deplorable state of affairs. In the coming months I shall have a great deal to say to my constituents about the Government's attitude on this matter. My constituents will be frankly astonished that any Government could interfere in this way and put on one side a measure for which they have been eagerly waiting. I know that my hon. Friends will press these clauses—I hope that the Liberal Party will, too—and I trust that the Government will be defeated.
      1.30 p.m.
      Mr. Leslie Huckfield: I hope that the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Edwards) will accept that just as he no doubt speaks sincerely on behalf of his constituents, so the same can be said of many of us who oppose his view. In opposing what he said and in supporting the rejection of the clauses I shall give voice to feelings I have developed after a fair number of years, if not exactly working in transport then in lecturing in it and doing research in it. I speak as a member of the Transport and General Workers Union which, in the main, is opposed to these clauses. It is interesting to note that, in spite of what the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Fox) said, so also are the majority of bus operators.
      Mr. Fox indicated dissent.
      Mr. Huckfield: The hon. Member shakes his head but he must realise that the amendments which the scheduled bus operators urged to be made when the Conservative Government introduced their Bill—which, as he quite rightly adjudged, were the amendments I put
      2040
      down when I was on the Opposition Front Bench—were put down because we were convinced that the Conservative Government intended to shove the proposals through with all their might. I can remember that the previous Minister had a sort of messianic glow in speaking about these proposals. He said that they would revolutionise rural transport, and it was because the Conservatives took that attitude that many of us thought that the only way we could make them more acceptable was by tabling the amendments we did.
      From speaking with a number of trade unionists and a large number of bus operators I have found that they still feel that their industry and the needs of our constituents would be far better served if more time were given for a far wider-ranging discussion. To rush into the kind of proposals the hon. Member for Shipley has referred to and to make the alterations to the Bill to bring it into line with what his party was originally proposing would be highly detrimental to rural constituents.
      Mr. Fox: I am intrigued that the hon. Member should speak for the operators with such authority. Is he simply referring to private conversations with individuals? The two major trade associations—one including the National Bus Company—have informed me that they would prefer the clauses to remain in the Bill.
      Mr. Huckfield: I did not question the hon. Member's sources. All I can say is that my information, which I hope is fairly accurate, leads me to conclude that the bulk of the industry believes that rather than rush into this kind of thing we should make a far more serious study, and that they would prefer the kind of amendment we tabled when in Opposition.
      I am even more surprised to hear the hon. Member talking as he does. I respect his sincerity, because he has taken a long-standing interest in transport matters generally. He knows, however, that his party introduced the 1972 Local Government Act which, in Section 203, imposed a statutory duty
      "to develop policies which will promote the provision of a co-ordinated and efficient system of public passenger transport to meet the needs of the county."

      2041
      That duty was placed upon the new metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties. The trouble is that before these authorities have even had time to draw up their public transport maps, before they have even had time to present their transport planning and policy documents to the Department, the hon. Member—who knows that this work has been going on—wants to change the whole basis of the legislation upon which these plans could be based. That is remarkable. He speaks as one who wanted to put the onus of local public transport planning on to the new local authorities, and yet before they have had the chance to complete their planning and submit the documents he wants to change the legislation.
      If the Conservatives are to be logical they should allow the non-metropolitan counties—which includes Pembrokeshire—at least to complete the TPP documents and submit them to the Ministry before changing the legislation.
      Mr. Nicholas Edwards: Would it not be helpful for the local authorities, in drawing up their plans, to be able to include in them the possibility of extended transport arrangements of the kind these clauses might permit?
      Mr. Huckfield: I am amazed at the hon. Gentleman, because I know that he takes a deep interest in the travelling needs of his constituents. Most of the non-metropolitan counties—I pick them out particularly because they have never had transport experience—and the metropolitan counties have not yet had time to draw up their TPP documents. Why on earth, therefore, does the hon. Member not want to give his local authority enough time before changing the legislation?
      I question the arguments of the hon. Member for Shipley for another reason. The evidence which led the Conservative Government to conclude that the licensing rules needed relaxing was based primarily on two studies of rural transport. One, perhaps purely coincidentally, was carried out in the constituency of the then Under-Secretary of the Environment. The other, perhaps again coincidentally, was carried out in the constituency of the then Minister for Transport Industries. Presumably, that led to the conclusion that the needs or the supposed needs of
      2042
      these two constituencies were precisely the needs of all rural areas. Surely the transport needs of Pembrokeshire are totally different from the transport needs of Yorkshire—which, again, are different from those of Bury St. Edmunds and Yeovil. That is why I support the Minister when he says that we should not only give local authorities more time to develop their plans and policies but should allow the Minister more time to complete his consultations.
      There is an economic argument, to which the hon. Member for Shipley did not refer in detail. It is that the labour costs of a minibus, a 30-seater, a 42-seater, or a 70-seater, are all about 70 per cent. of the cost of the operation. In areas where minibus services have been operating for five years following the changes in the 1968 Act, the operators have been asking for exactly the same kind of subsidies as the National Bus Company.
      Hon. Members have spoken on television about the "great minibus solution", and have touted it around their constituencies as the saviour of public transport in the areas they represent, but it has been found from hard practical experience that in most cases the minibus operators are now asking for exactly the same kind of subsidies. For that plain economic reason, I do not think that the minibus solution will work.
      We must realise that under the 1930 Road Traffic Act the traffic commissioners have to take account of public need. They have to bear in mind the three Ps of the Act—priority, protection and public need.
      Mr. Fox: I know that the hon. Gentleman would not wish to give the House the wrong impression. I never suggested that public interest was not within the consideration of the traffic commissioners. I said that we were now going to give it a fresh emphasis and make it the first priority.
      Mr. Huckfield: The hon. Gentleman turns his back quite conveniently on some 40 years' experience of the operation of the 1930 Act. If the hon. Gentleman reads the 1951 report of the Thesiger Committee, which examined the workings of the Act, if he looks at the analysis conducted by the Jack Committee, the analysis in the mid-Wales study in 1961, and some of the Dartington Hall studies

      2043
      —in fact, pretty well every study apart from the two to which I have just referred he will see that they all recommend a continuation of the 1930 system augmented by bigger subsidies, administered either by the traffic commissioners or by the county council.
      That is why I believe that the hon. Gentleman is not merely interfering at the edges. What he will do is to undermine the whole basis of cross-subsidisation as outlined in the 1930 Act. Instead of just one or two minibus operators and one or two larger operators asking the traffic commissioners and local authorities for bigger subsidies, we shall see even more operators asking for even more subsidies, and we shall return to the 1930 situation of people coming along on the other operator's timetable. All this will be permissible under some of the suggestions being made. I do not believe that that would be a step forward in serving the needs of the travelling public. It would decidedly be a step backwards.
      What is suggested by the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends appears to be innocuous, but certainly the Transport and General Workers Union—
      Mr. David Waddington: Here we go again.
      Mr. Huckfield: If hon. Members take the trouble to consult the National Bus Company, as I have done as the chairman of my party's transport group, and if they take the trouble to consult some of the private bus operators, they will find that it is not only the union that is concerned about these proposals. Most of all, it is the existing operators of scheduled services, because they can see that it is not only the so-called unprofitable routes but also some of the more profitable ones that the minibus operators will then wish to eat into.
      Evidence already available to hon. Members shows that the minibus is not the answer. In the counties where we have a proliferation of minibus services, they have simply resulted in even more operators asking for even more subsidies. For that reason I hope that the request that the clauses should be withdrawn will be heeded by the Opposition, on the basis of experience, so that we can at least wait until my right hon. Friend has completed his consultations with the operators
      2044
      and the unions and until the local authorities have had the chance, which the Opposition wanted to give them, first to draw up their own transport plans.
      1.45 p.m.
      Mr. Hawkins: I have taken a great interest in this matter for many years. The situation is getting worse in my constituency and the whole of East Anglia.
      The Minister and his hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) both come from town constituencies, and I do not think that they have grasped the problems of a rural constituency. The hon. Gentleman knows far more about transport matters than I do, but I do not believe that he has lived and worked in the sort of constituency that I represent.
      Mr. Leslie Huckfield: I spent the most formative years of my life in South Worcestershire.
      Mr. Hawkins: The Minister talks of subsidies. Except for main runs, they are no use to a rural area such as mine. I cannot believe that the local authorities are objecting, although I think the Minister talked of their being one of the parties who were objecting. I was a member of my county council. It never objected through me to our Government when we introduced our clauses in the last Parliament.
      The Government do not appreciate the immense, intractable problem in the countryside. In an Adjournment debate on 10th April I urged the Government to put back in a short Bill the clauses that we had had in our Bill, so as to relieve the anxieties of my constituents. The Minister then said that consultations were taking place on the matter. It seems to me that consultations have been going on for 10 to 15 years. Something should have been settled by now. If it is not settled, we must put the clauses into effect to give relief to our constituents.
      There is a desperate need for a flexible system of rural transport. It will be realised that in a constituency such as mine, which is not unique, 45 miles long by 35 miles wide and has 120 polling stations, we need something that can be used flexibly.
      We have seen a large influx of retired people of modest means from urban areas into my constituency from North London,

      2045
      Essex and elsewhere. The constituency has a large population of cars, but those people do not possess cars, and when they retire it is unlikely that they will have the money to buy them. It is also unlikely that all know how to drive them.
      The need for transport to get to hospital to go shopping and even to see the countryside is obvious. The social needs are even greater. The social life of the average village is being destroyed because so many people cannot get out in the evenings. Women's Institutes and Mother's Unions, whatever organisations are a focal point in the village, cannot meet their neighbouring clubs and cannot go on organised shopping. The young people cannot go to pop dances in the local town in the evenings.
      In 45 miles' length of constituency, I have only three small market towns. Any activity for youth takes place in the towns. It is far safer for a bus proprietor to run an evening service for the youngsters and to run them into town for a pop concert or a dance than for one of their number to drive an overcrowded car into the town. Such a service would make a real difference to the quality of life of thousands of people. This matter is of the most pressing concern for hundreds of people in isolated villages. Many people have come to Norfolk to settle in a county which they have come to like, but they rarely get the opportunity to see the countryside unless a friend, a son or a daughter comes from London, Northampton, Leicester or Nottingham to see them and to take them for a drive. Otherwise, they are confined to their village, their house or their garden.
      The difficulty is that most bus companies and bus operators run their services into market towns only on Saturdays, when places such as the employment exchange and the social services centre are shut. We talk about minibuses but it is clear that other vehicles can be used in their place. I understand that large cars carrying a certain number of people can be used for this purpose. I have always found country bus drivers and conductors to be the most helpful sort of people. I am convinced that they would not wish to prevent this improvement taking place. If it is not allowed to take place it will be seen as yet another blow against the rural dweller, and from
      2046
      this Government they have received blow after blow.
      We have only to consider the way in which agriculture has been hit and the way in which rates have been increased for rural dwellers under this Government—it is true that after four or five months of great dislocation the rating position has been reconsidered—to appreciate the care which they have for rural constituents. I do not believe that the Ministers understand the problems that face people living in isolated areas who want to go to their local town, who want to join with their neighbours in the activities of the next village and who want to go to various function once or twice a week. I urge the Ministers to think again.
      In London I pay only 3p to go from the House to my digs, yet in Norfolk I would be paying 10 times as much to travel almost the same distance. I believe that the town dweller is well looked after by public transport compared with the country dweller. I urge Ministers to consider this matter closely. We have thought about it and considered it time and time again, until we are all fed up with it. Many of the people for whom I am concerned will die before there is any improvement in the life of the country dweller.
      Mr. Jim Spicer: In his opening remarks the Minister made it clear that he had an understanding of the needs of the rural areas but that he was not prepared to put into effect the necessary measures to help them. I do not think that his understanding of the present position weighs very much against the picture over the past 10 years of those of us who have lived in rural areas. For over 10 years we have seen not only a tremendous contraction of the road and rail services that are available in the rural constituencies, but—as my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Hawkins) has said—an enormous increase in the cost of travel, which is becoming insupportable for many people.
      In the countryside we have split ourselves into two distinct groups—namely, the "haves" and the "have-nots". The "haves" are those people who are lucky enough to be able to afford a motor car for getting to work and for other

      2047
      purposes at the weekends. The tragedy of the present situation is that increasingly many people come into the category of the "have-nots". The position has been made much worse by the increased cost of motoring. The number of people who now come into the category of the "have-nots" and who cannot afford to use a motor car is very large, and is increasing. There is a clear understanding in both district councils and county councils that authorities cannot continue to increase the subsidy from the rates. The chairman of my local district council told me yesterday that he intends to consider carefully the rate subsidy that is now being provided for rural transport services. He felt certain that that attitude would be shared by county councillors.
      There is also the problem of people who have a long way to go to work. In places like West Dorset the work is concentrated in the larger industrial towns. They are very often outside the constituency. Many people in my constituency and in the next-door constituency of South Dorset work in Yeovil, at Westlands. Yeovil is nearly 30 miles from Lyme Regis, and the same distance from Weymouth. The people at West-lands have been engaged in that work for many years and for them no alternative work is available. They find that the cost of travelling to their work in their own private cars or by an erratic public service will be impossible to support very much longer.
      These clauses make sense to those who live in rural communities and who have to use public transport to get around very large areas. Above all, they provide flexibility. We need flexibility and not dogma.
      Mr. Farr: I support the remarks that have been made by my hon. Friends. I cannot help feeling that the Minister has paid little attention to the points that matter for those who live in remote areas. I like the right hon. Gentleman and say in his absence that I find him a pleasant person. In his short speech he made so few points and repeated so often that his prime consideration was to ascertain the views of the unions concerned that I could not help feeling that he was obeying the dictates of some former direction.
      2048
      The right hon. Gentleman said that he was concerned with the plight of those living in remote areas. We went on to say that the clauses were not acceptable to the unions and to local authorities. He referred to them in that order. It may be that time has not allowed the new local authorities to form a view of the clauses. They are similar clauses to those in a previous Bill which the old local authorities thoroughly endorsed in principle and in detail. Before the right hon. Gentleman sat down he said that the unions had been consulted and that they had said that they did not approve.
      2.0 p.m.
      We feel that the Minister has completely and utterly failed to appreciate the position in remote rural areas. Trade unions are not concerned about this. The people we are anxious to get on the road, the people who ought to have legitimate use of the road, are those individual proprietors of garages and perhaps one or two minibus owners who have one or two vehicles which can each carry 12 or 13 people, who do a little bit of school contracting, who have a taxi service, and are able to provide in their own time, at different times of the week, a service enabling those living in remote areas to get into the towns.
      The buses are there. The operators are there. They are not paid at union rates because they fit this in far more efficiently with their taxi-ing and funeral services. All we ask is for the right to release this potential which exists in the countryside to improve the lot of those who are cut off from the towns. This clause is similar to a clause tabled in the previous Bill introduced by the last Government. My right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State for the Environment tabled such a clause because he had received a considerable number of representations from hon. Members, mainly my hon. Friends, on this point. The Bill does not provide all that is needed, but what this clause and one or two others do provide goes some way to improving the situation of those in remote areas.
      Some of us regarded these provisions as the mimimum acceptable when they were first introduced. That was 18 months to two years ago. In that time we have suffered and are still suffering

      2049
      from an international fuel crisis which has greatly increased the cost of running a car—even supposing that people can afford to buy one. The hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) suggested a week or two ago that the price of petrol could possibly rise to as high as 80p a gallon.
      The least the Committee can do is to maintain these vital clauses because they give country dwellers some chance of some forms of local bus service. Local buses are needed for a variety of reasons in the countryside today. My hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Hawkins) mentioned some of the reasons, such as the school children who have to travel long distances, or the pensioners who have to go to the next village to pick up their pensions.
      An other example is related to the network of health centres which the previous Government strove to introduce throughout the country. These are centred on one of a group of five or six villages which means that other villagers may have to travel five or six miles to get to them. A large bus is not available to take such people to the health centre and back to their homes. The ideal vehicle is the minibus. In Leicestershire, 18 months ago a survey revealed that over 50 communities, some with a population of 3,000 people, had no form of public transport by train or coach.
      In my own constituency in the last two years 29 out of 30 passenger railway stations have been closed.
      The bus services which were provided in their place were generally supplied by large buses running at a hopelessly uneconomic rate. Eventually, due to lack of patronage, or because they ran at inconvenient times or along the wrong routes, they were mostly withdrawn.
      I hope that this clause will remain in the Bill. There is no doubt that the hand of the TUC is behind the attempt to reject it. This is true of so many of the Government's actions today. The TUC has no interest in the countryside or those who live there.
      If the huge National Bus Company, which is the only large bus company operating in many parts of the country, cannot carry these country dwellers profitably, then it seems that they are ex-welcome the easing of the restrictions on petted to stay at home. I particularly
      2050
      rural transport licensing which Clause 19 begins to provide. I should like to see that made more comprehensive.
      Mr. Waddington: The message that comes through loud and clear from the Conservative side of the Committee is that we are concerned not so much with the interests of the unions or of the operators as with the interests of the public. I remember the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) speaking during the Second Reading of the Bill introduced by the previous Government in January. The hon. Member talked about pirate buses. I have never come across a pirate bus. No doubt they were a great menace at the end of the 1920s and no doubt they were one of the reasons for the introduction of the 1930 Act. But the world has moved on. The case for a relaxation of the restrictions imposed in 1930 has been made out for years.
      I do not represent a rural constituency but I am absolutely convinced of the need to make relaxations which would permit the running of minibus services in the rural areas. My division is fortunate enough to be surrounded by beautiful countryside. People travel out to visit that countryside and many people who live four or five miles from my constituency travel into it to shop, to visit the doctor's and such like. The public bus service now operating outside my division is nothing less than atrocious. People suffer as a result of the decline in the service.
      I wish to make one point which has so far not been mentioned. I refer to Clause 17(2) which deals not with minibuses but with ordinary cars. For years, because of some of the more absurd restrictions in the 1930 Act, we have been turning perfectly law-abiding taxi-drivers into criminals. The law says that if a taxi-driver takes, say, four people to work every day and accepts separate fares from them, the taxi-driver is committing a criminal offence, and each of the people travelling in the taxi is committing a criminal offence, namely, aiding and abetting the tax i-driver to contravene the 1930 Act.
      The taxi-driver is committing an offence every time he carries people on a regular route for a separate fare. For years and years all over the countryside taxi-drivers have been doing that—thank

      2051
      goodness they have. Many people I know in the area in which I live would not be able to get their children to school, or would not themselves be able to get to work, unless they and the taxi-drivers contravened the law.
      I am extremely cross at the Government's attitude in this matter. I was proud in January of this year to be able to tell numerous taxi-drivers whom I know in my constituency that Parliament was to see sense and that the law would be put right. But now this pusillanimous Government apparently do only what the TUC tells them to do. They obey the TUC's dictates when the TUC is saying something which I do not believe any other people in this country would accept, namely, that the clock should remain stopped as it has been since 1930, so that taxi-drivers who carry people to work for separate fares will continue to commit offences.
      I support Clause 17, particularly subsection (2), and I would have thought that every reasonable person would support it.
      Mr. John MacGregor: I represent a constituency with similar problems to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Hawkins).
      It is a large constituency, the rapidly growing population of which is evenly scattered over a large number of small villages, and a few large towns.
      Two groups of people are particularly suffering because of the present situation. Many people who have come from London, Essex and elsewhere to retire in my constituency are finding that because of the rising costs of maintaining a car they are unable, as they had originally hoped, to motor from the villages in which they have settled into Norwich or other main centres to shop.
      There are also young one-car families in which the husbands commute by car to Norwich, leaving the wives behind in expanding yet still small villages to face difficulties in trying to do shopping.
      I have been struck by the number of letters containing queries and complaints that I have received, since being elected to Parliament, from both these groups of people. The problems they face are get-
      2052
      ting worse each year, because of the rising costs of maintaining a car and because many services which used to be provided in the villages are now falling away. Small sub-post offices are closing in some areas and it is impossible to replace them, partly because of the costs involved. Many people who would otherwise use sub-post offices are able to go into major centres such as Norwich, but pensioners and others, such as young single-parent families are dependent on sub-post offices and are concerned that some of them are closing. The solution of a mobile post office, which so far has been rejected, partly on grounds of cost, must be looked at again.
      The owners of village shops are now wondering whether they can continue in business, not least because of the high increases in rates. Rate increases and rising petrol costs are changing the pattern of life in rural areas, and we must look again at solutions previously rejected.
      I recognise the difficulties of costs in providing minibuses. I also appreciate that the labour costs involved are, proportionately, as high as for larger buses. But we ask that opportunities be given for people who wish to undertake local transport services to do so. They can provide flexibility for the small villages which larger bus companies cannot. In my constituency the larger bus companies serve mainly the major routes and provide few services in the country areas.
      During the past four months a post bus has been introduced in my constituency. There were difficulties at first, and the service was losing money, but I am now told that it is improving and that another post bus is being considered.
      The proposals we are considering are at least worthy of trial, to enable those who wish to operate rural transport services to do so. I am told that there are people in my constituency who would be willing to do so, if given the opportunity. No doubt they recognise that the problems facing rural areas are becoming worse every year.
      2.15 p.m.
      Mr. Newton: I support the argument that has been developed by my hon. Friends. It is worth restating the issue. These are modest clauses designed to provide people in rural areas with some

      2053
      hope of improvements to their transport services. There is every sign that the Labour Government are fighting this proposal tooth and nail. I do not know whether Members of the Liberal Party intend to appear during the debate. It is a scandal that not a single Member of that party has been present so far. I trust that if the Liberals are not present if and when we vote on the matter, the fact will not be missed in rural areas, bearing in mind the fuss made from the Liberal benches about issues such as this in the past few months.
      I have rarely heard a more shamefaced speech than that from the Minister. My guess is that he knows perfectly well that these are reasonable clauses, and I sense that for himself he would be quite happy if they were in the Bill. My hon. Friend said that this had nothing to do with the social contract, but my suspicion is that it has everything to do with the social contract, that the Minister has been told that the Transport and General Workers' Union wants these clauses out of the Bill and that, for a whole variety of reasons connected with the posture of the present Government, what the Transport and General Workers' Union wants is what the Labour Government will do. That is why they are now trying to take these clauses out of the Bill.
      The response of the Minister, who has been very urbane and good humoured throughout the day, was rather aggressive on this particular point and seemed clear evidence of a guilty conscience on the matter.
      Mr. Mulley: If my remarks appeared to be aggressive, let me withdraw, but I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's proposition that trade unions should not be consulted, along with every other relevant interest in a particular matter. That was the only point that I wanted to make clear.
      Mr. Newton: Of course I accept that from the Minister. What we suspect, however, is that this is not a process of consultation but a process of veto.
      I am glad to see that the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) has now returned to the Chamber. I was out of the Chamber for a while and I heard only the last part of his speech, but I got the drift of the argument. I was deeply unimpressed by his argument. We
      2054
      heard from him a great deal of talk about subsidies and the disadvantages thereof, which comes oddly from the Labour Party, especially as the Secretary of State for the Environment was all too happy to make changes in the rate support grant which in effect increased the problems for the rural areas while helping the urban. So I am not prepared to listen to a long argument from the Government side about the disadvantages of paying subsidies in the rural areas to deal with this problem.
      Of course we accept the need for consultation, but I am equally unimpressed by his suggestion that the National Bus Company may not like some of these proposals. I do not know what the National Bus Company's views are, but I am no more prepared to have public policy in these matters settled by the National Bus Company than I am prepared to have it settled by the Transport and General Workers' Union. Both bodies have a vested interest in these matters. Many of my constituents believe that the National Bus Company is taking advantage of what amounts to a monopoly position in many existing services to charge them more than they should be charged and to restrict competition that might otherwise exist, even under the present law.
      I say that simply because it is not good enough for hon. Members opposite to say that the unions and the National Bus Company do not like these proposals. Our purpose as the House of Commons is to decide what we think is in the interests of the people of this country, and to do what we think is right after such bodies have been consulted.
      Mr. Molloy: About decisions from Brussels?
      Mr. Newton: If the hon. Gentleman wants me to make a speech about the Common Market, I will do that on another occasion, but I am sure, Mr Gurden, that in this debate you would prefer me to deal with rural transport.
      I should like to support what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. MacGregor) about the concentration of services. Rightly or wrongly—I do not mean to argue the merits at the moment—we have just carried through a major reform of local

      2055
      government and in my area that has meant putting four or five authorities together, with the concentration of many services in one centre instead of dispersing them over five.
      The local authority in question—Braintree District Council—has made great efforts to make sure that there are proper information offices, but some additional concentration has been inevitable. Similarly, it is public policy to try to concentrate social security offices and to make the existing offices better and rather more attractive. These policies may be right and they certainly have advantages, but they become intolerable for people in rural areas and especially for those most in need of the public services if at the same time they cannot get to the concentrated offices.
      The hospital problem needs very little elaboration from me. It has been the policy, aspects of which I have done my best to oppose and limit, to run down our local hospitals and concentrate on large district general hospitals. Again I do not mean to argue the merits of the case at the moment—I have made my view clear locally—but it is essential to make sure that people can attend these hospitals and that relatives may visit, and that is all too difficult in many cases.
      Not everyone has a car, and that fact has important implications for Members of Parliament, too. In my constituency I am trying to hold surgeries as frequently as I can at 16 or 18 places throughout the constituency and not simply in the two main towns. I think that that is right, because many of the people who want to see me are precisely those who do not have their own cars and who cannot go dashing about the constituency to see their MP.
      But even when people have cars—this has not been sufficiently emphasised in the debate—many families in rural areas need two cars, because the husband may have to drive a long distance to work or to the station in order to commute to London, and unless there are two cars his wife is stranded. There are many families with one car, but not yet many with two. This situation is a growing problem in constituencies such as mine, and in recent months the difficulty has
      2056
      grown in both suburban and rural areas. Mothers with young families have found it difficult to get to a chemist with prescriptions for their children, for instance, and old people have found it difficult to visit a doctor.
      I hope that the Government will recognise these problems and will not continue their resistance to these clauses. Of course there will be problems and these clauses will not solve them all, but they can make a contribution to improving services where such improvement is badly needed. I hope that my hon. Friends will press their views to a Division if the Government maintain their opposition to the clauses.
      Mr. Fry: I make a swift intervention. I regard these as the most important clauses in the Bill. Those of us who represent large rural areas know only too well that the closing down of post offices and the almost total ending of any form of organised public transport have meant tremendous hardship for many people.
      I give one example. Many pensioners are having problems because of the failure to issue pension books. They are told that in case of difficulty they should apply to the local social security office. That is all very well for people living in cities or towns, but for those who live 20 miles from the nearest office, who do not have a car and who do not have a friendly neighbour, it presents considerable problems if there is no bus. The Minister has excluded a way of solving a major human problem.
      My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington) has mentioned people who give lifts in private cars in order to get people to work. Not only taxi drivers but hundreds of thousands of workmen give lifts to colleagues to get them to work every day. If they accept payment, without exception they contravene the terms of the insurance certificate and policy of insurance. If there is an accident, the insurance company is strictly entitled to repudiate any liability for damage, and there may be considerable difficulty about obtaining adequate compensation for those who are injured. One strong reason for retaining the clause is that it would legalise an existing situation.

      2057
      If the clauses are not retained and something is not done for rural transport, county councils will continue the kind of subsidies that they are already paying. It is interesting to examine the routes that have to be subsidised in many areas. In Northamptonshire, and especially in my constituency, it is not the rural but the urban routes that are most heavily subsidised, funnily enough. The rural routes are not so heavily subsidised because they virtually do not exist. The trouble comes with the regular routes to and from the medium and small towns. The cost of running those services is proving to be very expensive.
      Without these clauses, the ratepayers and taxpayers will be paying even more subsidies to urban dwellers, while people who live in the rural areas will get poorer and poorer services. That is why it is essential to press these clauses, and I hope that we shall be victorious in the Lobby this afternoon.
      Mr. Daniel Awdry: On Second Reading I warned the Minister that we should wish to have a major debate on this subject. I am sure that he must have been impressed by the strong feeling expressed by Opposition Members throughout the debate.
      Any hon. Member representing a rural constituency must know that rural transport is a sensitive subject. I have represented a rural constituency in Wiltshire for the past 12 years and I claim to know what I am talking about. The people who are suffering most are the worst-off members of the community. Many people today have their own cars and they can manage, but the poorest—and that, of course, includes old-age pensioners—suffer from the totally inadequate bus services of the rural areas. These clauses, which the Minister seeks to exclude would be of enormous help to such people. We intend, therefore, to do all in our power to keep these clauses in the Bill.
      I cannot see how the industry can possibly object. We recognise that the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huck-field) knows a great deal about transport matters, but the safeguards are clear. Minibuses will be exempt only if three conditions are satisfied—first, when they are not operated in the course of a commercial business; secondly, when the passengers make special arrangements for
      2058
      that particular journey; thirdly, if there is no advertising to the general public.
      The hon. Member for Nuneaton said that we should not rush into these proposals. That is a misuse of the English language. Ever since I have been in the House we have been discussing rural transport and the time has now come to take action.
      2.30 p.m.
      Several powerful speeches have been made by Opposition Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Pembroke (Mr. Edwards) said that in his constituency people simply could not get to work unless they were given lifts. My hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Hawkins) said that local authorities in his area supported us. I am sure that local authorities in all rural areas support us in our efforts today.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Spicer) emphasised that we were seeking to give greater flexibility in transport matters. Surely we all agree that it is badly needed in the present circumstances. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Fan) said that we should release resources to deal with the problem. Again, surely we all agree with that point of view. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington) raised an important point arising from the absurdity of the laws on taxis. It is time that we tidied up the situation. Many other hon. Members made speeches of which I am sure the Minister will take due note.
      We are convinced that the time for talking is over and that now is the time for action. The House of Commons has the opportunity to improve the quality of life of thousands of people in the countryside. I regret the fact that no Liberal Party representative is present for this debate to speak and vote on this important topic. We advocate only a modest advance, but it will be welcomed throughout the land. I hope that my hon. Friends will join me in voting to allow the clauses to remain in the Bill.
      Mr. Carmichael: We have had an interesting debate—a debate which many of us have heard many times before. There has been a change in the situation on road traffic matters since the Labour Government took office—although we have been in office for only a short time

      2059
      and have had a great deal of work to do. Therefore, I hope that I shall be able to say a few words about what we as a Government have been trying to do.
      The point has been made that on previous legislation I intervened to say that I hoped that the advances which we should like to see in rural transport would not be held up by pettifogging regulations. That is still my view. I hope that when, ultimately, we are able to present our proposals on rural transport, they will be bold and general proposals and will not seek to solve only a particular problem, which is always easy. I think I would be able to solve any one of them individually. However, it is when we are seeking to deal with the entire country and to consider all the varying points of view that things become slightly more difficult.
      It has been suggested that we on the Labour benches are completely dominated by the actions of the TUC. I have never been able to understand that argument. Some Conservatives constantly see members of the TUC or the Transport and General Workers' Union under the bed and would be extremely disappointed if, instead, they found Liberal Party members there. I am not sure at the moment who constitutes the bête noire of the Conservatives—the Liberal Party or the Trades Union Congress.
      I repudiate the idea that we are merely concerned with the TUC, the trade unions bus operators or local authorities, but we cannot make important decisions in a vacuum. We must consult those involved—the unions, the local authorities, and the operators—since they have important interests to be considered.
      Mr. Waddington: Is the Minister seriously suggesting that when the Labour Party was in opposition it did not then consult the trade unions and operators? Surely at that time it had ample time to decide its attitude to a relaxation of the restrictions imposed in 1930. Why on earth does it need more time now?
      Mr. Carmichael: Of course we had talks with various people, but only since March have we had the power to introduce legislation. That is why my right hon. Friend asked me to become involved and to chair a committee representing all
      2060
      interests on rural transport. We have set up that committee and so far have had preliminary discussions. It is not easy to get all the people together on a certain date. We have had some meetings with the operators and trade unions, we are hoping to have meetings with the local authority associations. This is not an easy problem but, in combination with other people, we ultimately hope to find a workable solution.
      Hon. Members have mentioned fares for regular journeys. Operators find this point difficult and object to the idea that it should be possible to charge fares for regular journeys, although they would not be stage journeys.
      On the matter of public interest, I agree that Conservative Members represent rural communities, but that is not to say that the Labour Party has no connection with rural communities. I have very close connections with rural areas and frequently visit such communities in Scotland. I am well aware of the problems of people who have only one bus per week to enable them to reach the market town—or indeed, sometimes no bus at all. We are concerned about this problem, as are the local authorities. Therefore in rural matters the Conservatives do not have a monopoly of interest.
      Local authorities have asked for more time. One association expressed doubts about the Lords amendments and thought that there should be more time for consideration. This is what we are trying to do. I believe that my right hon. Friend needs more time to complete consultations and that it would be wrong to present the House with a fait accompli We need more time for study, but such studies will be carried out urgently. We must try to solve some of the hardship in rural areas in transport matters and local authorities are coming forward for consultation.
      I am strongly advised that the clauses contain many technical defects. I appreciate that the Conservatives are intent on voting on this matter and I can only attempt to argue that we are acting in good faith. My right hon. Friend and I have met the people concerned. We believe that it is not possible out of thin air to bring in a series of clauses seeking to solve difficult problems which

      2061
      Conservatives agree are complicated and intractable. I hope that the method we propose, involving consultation with all the interests and putting forward suggestions, is a bold and effective process. Therefore, I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote against the inclusion of the clauses in the Bill.
      Question accordingly negatived.
      Mr. Waddington: I should like to put on record that in the other place no suggestion was made that there were any technical defects in our proposals.
      Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—
      The House divided: Ayes 63 Noes 114.

      Division No. 101.]

      AYES

      [2.39 p.m.

      Atkins, Rt.Hn. Humphrey (Spelthorne)

      Hannam, John

      Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey

      Awdry, Daniel

      Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

      Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

      Bell, Ronald

      Heseltine, Michael

      St. John-Stevas, Norman

      Berry, Hon. Anthony

      Hooson, Emlyn

      Shelton, Willam (L'mb'th, Streath'm)

      Boyson, Dr. Rhodes (Brent, N.)

      Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Surrey, E.)

      Sims, Roger

      Channon, Paul

      Hutchison, Michael Clark

      Sinclair, Sir George

      Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

      Jenkin, Rt. Hn. P. (R'dge W'std & W'fd)

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

      Clark, A. K. M. (Plymouth, Sutton)

      Langford-Holt, Sir John

      Spicer, Jim (Dorset, W.)

      Cockcroft, John

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Steel, David

      Cope, John

      Lawson, Nigel (Blaby)

      Townsend, C. D.

      Dixon, Piers

      Lester, Jim (Beeston)

      Waddington, David

      Dodsworth, Geoffrey

      Macfarlane, Neil

      Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)

      Durant, Tony

      MacGregor, John

      Weatherill, Bernard

      Dykes, Hugh

      Miller, Hal (B'grove & R'ditch)

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

      Moate, Roger

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Finsberg, Geoffrey

      Moore, J. E. M (Croydon, C.)

      Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      Neubert, Michael

      Young, Sir George (Ealing, Acton)

      Fox, Marcus

      Newton, Tony (Braintree)

      Fry, Peter

      Osborn, John

      TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

      Gardiner, George (Reigate & Banstead)

      Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)

      Mr. Paul Hawkins and

      Goodhart, Philip

      Pattie, Geoffrey

      Mr. Michael Roberts

      Grieve, Percy

      Prior, Rt. Hn. James

      Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

      Rathbone, Tim

      NOES

      Archer, Peter

      Gilbert, Dr. John

      Park, George (Coventry, N.E.)

      Armstrong, Ernest

      Graham, Ted

      Parker, John (Dagenham)

      Atkinson, Norman

      Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

      Pavitt, Laurie

      Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

      Hamilton, William (Fife, C.)

      Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

      Bates, Alf

      Harper, Joseph

      Pendry, Tom

      Bennett, Andrew F. (Stockport, N.)

      Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

      Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg

      Bishop, E. S.

      Hattersley, Roy

      Price, Christopher (Lewisham, W.)

      Booth, Albert

      Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

      Price, William (Rugby)

      Bottomley, Rt. Hon. Arthur

      Hooson, Emlyn

      Radice, Giles

      Brown, Ronald (H'kney, S. & Sh'ditch)

      Horam, John

      Rees, Rt. Hn. Merlyn (Leads, S.)

      Carmichael, Neil

      Huckfield, Leslie

      Richardson, Miss Jo

      Carter, Ray

      Hughes, Roy (Newport)

      Rodgers, William (Teesside, St'ckton)

      Clemitson, Ivor

      Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir A. (L'p'l, EdgeHI)

      Rooker, J. W.

      Cocks, Michael

      Janner, Greville

      Shaw, Arnold (Redbridge, Ilford, S.)

      Cox, Thomas

      Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

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

      Cryer, G. R.

      Jeger, Mrs. Lena

      Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (L'sham, D'ford)

      Cunningham, G.(Isl'ngt'n, S & F'sb'ry)

      Kelley, Richard

      Skinner, Dennis

      Davies, Bryan (Enfield, N.)

      Lamborn, Harry

      Snape, Peter

      Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)

      Latham, Arthur (City of W'minster P'ton)

      Stallard, A. W.

      Deakins, Eric

      Lawson, Nigel (Blaby)

      Steel, David

      Delargy, Hugh

      Lipton, Marcus

      Stoddart, David (Swindon)

      Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

      Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

      Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

      Dormand, J. D.

      Mackenzie, Gregor

      Spearing, Nigel

      Douglas-Mann, Bruce

      Madden, M. O. F.

      Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy

      Dunn, James A.

      Magee, Bryan

      Tomlinson, John

      Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth

      Mallalieu, J. P. W.

      Urwin, T. W.

      Eadie, Alex

      Marquand, David

      Varley, Rt. Hn. Eric G.

      Edelman, Maurice

      Marshall, Dr. Edmund (Goole)

      Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

      Edge, Geoff

      Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

      Watkins, David

      Edwards, Robert (W'hampton, S.E.)

      Meacher, Michael

      Weitzman, David

      Ellis, John (Brigg & Scunthorpe)

      Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

      Whitehead, Phillip

      English, Michael

      Mikardo, Ian

      Williams, Alan Lee (Hvrng, Hchurch)

      Ennals, David

      Molloy, William

      Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

      Faulds, Andrew

      Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

      Wise, Mrs. Audrey

      Flannery, Martin

      Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)

      Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

      Moyle, Roland

      TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

      Foot, Rt. Hn. Michael

      Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Mr. John Golding and

      Fowler, Gerry (The Wrekin)

      Orbach, Maurice

      Mr. Walter Johnson.

      Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

      Ovenden, John

      George, Bruce

      Palmer, Arthur

      Mr. Waddington: On a point of order, Mr. Gurden. Is the fact that the Liberal Party voted in both Lobbies further evidence that the party wants it both ways?
      The Temporary Chairman (Mr. Harold Gurden): That is not a point of order for the Chair.
      Mr. Jerry Wiggin: Further to that point of order, Mr. Gurden. On a Friday afternoon when the House is occasionally a little thin, is it permissible for hon. Gentlemen to go into both Lobbies and lead you to think that more hon. Members are present than in fact there are?
      The Temporary Chairman: That is not a point of order for the Chair.

    Clause 18
      MODIFICATIONS OF PROVISIONS RELATING TO PERMITS FOR CERTAIN BUS SERVICES
      Motion made and Question, That the clause stand part of the Bill, put and negatived.
    Clause 19

      MODIFICATIONS OF CRITERIA FOR GRANT OF AND ATTACHMENT OF CONDITIONS TO ROAD SERVICE LICENCES
      Motion made and Question, That the clause stand part of the Bill, put and negatived.
      Clause 20 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 21

      EXEMPTION FROM REQUIREMENTS AS TO WRITTEN RECORDS FOR VEHICLES FITTED WITH RECORDING EQUIPMENT
      Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
      The Temporary Chairman: We are taking in this debate Amendment No. 38, in Title, line 2, leave out 'operators' licences and drivers 'hours' and insert 'and operators' licences'.
      Mr. Mulley: I ask the Committee to leave out this clause because it was included in a previous Bill in the context of the European situation and I cannot
      2064
      predict how that is likely to develop. There is no great demand by operators or trade unionists to have tachographs fitted, and I cannot in present circumstances advise the industry to incur that cost.
      Amendment No. 38 is consequential. The Short Title was amended in the other place so as to include the clause, but that amendment will not be required if the Committee accepts my advice to delete the clause.
      Question put and negatived.

    Clause 22

      EXPERIMENTAL INTRODUCTION OF ROAD HUMPS FOR CONTROLLING VEHICLE SPEEDS
      Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: I beg to move Amendment No. 19, in page 29, line 42, after 'dimensions', insert 'duration'.
      The Temporary Chairman: With this Amendment we are to consider Government Amendments Nos. 20 and 21, and Amendment No. 22, in page 31, line 14, at end insert—
      '(c) no experimental road hump shall remain in situ for more than 15 months'.
      Mr. Finsberg: I wish to insert the word "duration" in the clause because I am not certain that we want the "sleeping policeman" as a permanent feature. I said on Second Reading that I had some experience of them in different places when I was on Commonwealth Parliamentary Association visits and that in my view they were not completely safe for both cars and cycles. There is a case for experiment, but the experiment needs to be carefully designed, which is why I suggested to the Minister that the legislation should lay down the duration and say that no experimental road hump or "sleeping policeman" should remain in situ for more than 15 months.
      In his generous way, the Minister said that he would consider between Second Reading and the Committee stage what I had said. I observe that he has gone somewhat further than I suggested, and is now talking of a period of one year. For that reason, I need say no more.
      I hope that the Committee will decide to accept Amendment No. 19, which is technically necessary. I do not think that the Ministry draftsmen can say that it is

      2065
      not technically correct. In the event of the Minister being able to satisfy us that Amendment No. 20 is technically in order, at the appropriate moment I shall seek leave to withdraw my amendment in order to enable the Government amendment to be accepted.
      Mr. Awdry: The Minister will remember that, when we debated this matter on Second Reading, the Opposition expressed reservations about this experiment of "sleeping policemen" or road humps.
      There is considerable anxiety about this matter in the motor cycle industry. It is clear that warning will be given when these artificial obstructions are placed in the road. There will be warnings for motor cyclists. However, when the weather is bad, especially in snow, the warnings may not be seen, with the result that a motor cyclist travelling at a fairly fast speed may be unaware of these artificial humps in the road.
      On Second Reading, the Minister said that he would be meeting representatives of the motor cycle industry. I gather that he did so yesterday. Will he tell us about those consultations and whether he gave assurances to enable motor cyclists to accept the concept of road humps? This is a very important matter, and there are many motor cyclists who will be listening to what the Minister has to tell the Committee.
      Sir George Young: I believe that I am one of the few hon. Members who regularly ride motor cycles—a form of transport which I recommend to the Committee.
      Anyone going over a road hump or "sleeping policeman" in a car finds it uncomfortable. For a motor cyclist, however, it is painful and dangerous, especially if it is placed anywhere near a corner where a cylist or motor cylist is already at an interesting angle. I hope that humps will not be placed near to corners or underneath trees. In the autumn when there are wet leaves on roads, it is dangerous enough, anyway. If there is also a road hump, it is yet another threat to negotiate.
      In my view, the clause has been drafted with the car and not the motor cycle in mind, especially the dimensions of this hump. I hope that the Minister will ensure that there is no danger of the footrest of a motor cycle, or the pedal of
      2066
      a cycle, catching on a hump. I hope that he will assure the Committee that a hump goes across the whole width of the road. If it does not, there is a danger of a motor cycle or cycle being tilted where the hump becomes flush again with the road. It is essential to have adequate warnings where these hazards are.
      If the Minister would like me to test these humps personally, I should be happy to do so. Perhaps I might invite him to sit on the pillion. I guarantee him a very interesting experience.
      On behalf of the motor cycling fraternity, may I press the right hon. Gentleman for these specific assurances?
      Mr. Goodhart: I have a double interest in this matter in that there are a number of humps on a private road near my home which have been there for some time and in that there is also a proposal to install a number of these humps on roads in my constituency. I have some reservations about them, quite apart from the valid arguments advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing and Acton (Sir G. Young), the motor cyclist.
      There is a problem about foreign visitors to this country. Nowadays, a substantial number of people use our roads who do not have a command of English and who could well approach these humps, however carefully marked they were, without realising what they were about to hit. I wonder what study has been made of the alternative suggestion that, instead of installing a hump where it is wished to slow down motorists and motor cyclists, a patch of road perhaps a yard or two wide should be left unmade. A driver who did not see the sign saying that there was a hump ahead would then be aware that he was approaching something a little rough and would slow down without being thrown into the air.
      Mr. Fry: I think that there is room for experiment with these humps, particularly because on many private housing estates where the roads are adopted there is a tendency for all kinds of vehicles to use them as short cuts. I am satisfied that many purely residential areas have road safety problems of that kind. However, we should proceed cautiously with this experiment.

      2067
      I should not like it to be thought that it is only the motor cyclist who is concerned about this matter. There is considerable dissension among other people. The Road Transport Association, the Road Haulage Association and the RAC have strict reservations. They would prefer that the clause were left out of the Bill and that experiments should take place at the Road Research Laboratory. I agree with them that the clause is somewhat premature.
      3.0 p.m.
      Many firms, which have constructed and used humps on their own property, not on the public highway, have discovered various difficulties. There have been problems with damage to transmission and steering mechanism. There is also the potential danger to drivers and passengers, which we have all experienced when we have gone over hump-backed bridges which we did not anticipate. In some cases the existence of humps has considerably increased vehicle repair costs. Therefore, I believe that the clause should not go through lightly.
      Furthermore, I believe that there is potential danger or loss of right to the road user. I tabled an amendment, which has not been called, about this matter. I am concerned that if the humps are put into operation the highway authority cannot get out of its statutory obligation to maintain the highway in a safe condition and to warn road users that the highway is in a dangerous condition. If we are to experiment—I think it is a useful idea—we must lean over backwards to see that road users are not injured.
      Mr. Ronald Bell: I, too, have some doubts about this provision. There are many occasions when a driver's attention is distracted when driving. There are occasions of poor visibility when the signs may not be seen. There are times when snow, especially when it has been blowing in a wind, covers one side of a notice. These humps in the road can be dangerous. I do not know whether I was fortunate enough to have the Minister's attention on the last point. I was referring to occasions of snow being blown in the wind and obscuring one side of a notice, according to which way the wind is blowing. It is easy for notices to be obscured in that way. If a driver is not warned
      2068
      about the humps and goes over them at a fairish speed he can cause damage either to the vehicle or to himself.
      This matter has to be approached with great circumspection. It is all very well to carry out experiments on private drivers and small private roads where we may be dealing only with delivery vehicles, but on the public highway different considerations apply.
      I am not happy about this matter relating either to motor cars or, much more important, to two-wheeled vehicles. I think that some nasty accidents may occur. I am not suggesting that we should vote against the amendment, but I hope that the Minister will keep an eye on the situation. I believe that we should be prepared in our minds to reverse this decision and to stop the experiment if we do not like the results.
      Mr. Mulley: There is a little misunderstanding here. In this country one rather expects that when anything new is contemplated everybody is against it.
      Of course, we are quite properly urged by all quarters to do something about road safety and the prevention of accidents. Unfortunately, there are road users who do not slow down, however many notices may be put up, and so on. But notices are one way of helping to give warning of dangers.
      We are asked whether we might introduce measures to stop heavy lorries taking short cuts through residential areas, and so on. This might be one way of preventing that nuisance. We have a completely open mind, because this is entirely experimental. It is right that we should have to come to the House before embarking on such an experiment. In any event, we have no powers unless they are granted by legislation, which is the proper way of going about the job. There are no powers to do other than conduct experiments on the authority of the Secretary of State. Therefore, they are open to Parliamentary Questions, and so on. There is a whole list of safeguards. The highway authority has to be consulted, objections can be heard, and so on.
      It is necessary to know whether these humps will be acceptable to road users and will serve a useful purpose and that cannot be known if the experiment is conducted only on private establishments.

      2069
      It is necessary to know the reaction of the public in all conditions.
      That this is entirely experimental is shown by the fact that, in response to questions on Second Reading, I immediately put down an amendment to require the hump in any particular location to be taken up at the end of a year, because that should be a reasonable time in which to assess its value. These humps must be tested in all weathers, and I hope that nobody driving a vehicle will travel at such a speed in a snow storm as to be a danger to others.
      I think that there is some misunderstanding here. We do not claim that we have the perfect answer, but we have in mind something that is different from what one finds in other countries and on some private estates and campuses. The Transport and Road Research Laboratory is trying to find a hump that will lead to some discomfort but avoid damage to the load or vehicle or risk of loss of control. Numerous tests show promise for a hump 12 ft long and 4 in high. The length of this hump in relation to the wheel base and the flattened, gentle profile means that it affects the vehicle itself rather than the suspension and avoids the risk of damage to tyres, exhaust systems, and so on. Discomfort to drivers is progressive beyond a speed of about 15 to 20 mph for a car, and 10 mph for lorries. This lower threshold for heavy vehicles raises the possibility of using the device to deter heavy vehicle drivers from using residential roads as short cuts.
      At the other extreme, the effect on two-wheeled vehicles is negligible. Thus the claim that is made cannot be substantiated, and I should be happy to make arrangements for the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) to visit the Transport and Road Research Laboratory and test this device for himself. I cannot guarantee to be his pillion passenger unless we can fix a mutually convenient date, but if I were able to arrange that I should be happy to do so.
      The intention is to carry out only a certain number of these experiments. Each one will be authorised by the Secretary of State, and everyone knows that Ministers are answerable to the House for things that go wrong. We want to give this experiment a reasonable run, and if
      2070
      it gives rise to great difficulties I am sure that the Minister concerned will be among the first to ask that the experiment should be brought to an end.
      There are no powers to carry out these experiments generally on highways, even if everybody says that they are marvellous. It will still be necessary to come back to the House to consider the matter, and we would do that the moment it was thought that the understandable fears of motorcyclists and others were being realised.
      Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: The right hon. Gentleman talks about the experiment lasting for one year beginning with the day on which the construction of the hump begins. Does the right hon. Gentleman regard that as satisfactory? Has he thought this through? Let us suppose that the Minister authorises the construction of an experimental road hump and that two days after construction starts there is an industrial dispute which drags on for three or four months during which no work is done on the hump. The right hon. Gentleman will then have only a short period for his experiment, and he will not have the benefit of a full 12 months in which to test public reaction. My amendment suggests 15 months from the date on which the experiment starts. Does the Minister think that 12 months will give him what he wants?
      Mr. Mulley: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I was trying to bend over backwards to give assurances in response to the genuine and understandable fears of motor cyclists, motorists and others. These will just be experiments, and there will be very few of them. It is possible that one might be held up by an industrial dispute or something of that kind, but in that event it would not be an experiment at that point in time.
      I can see some advantage in accepting the hon. Gentleman's amendment rather than my own, but I am advised—I make no complaint about it—that mine are in the correct form, having been drafted by parliamentary counsel. If the Committee wished, I suppose I could consider a manuscript amendment to make the period a year and a quarter. I should not complain about that, but I think that for practical purposes the period of one year will be sufficient.

      2071
      It must be understood that these will be experiments. I do not want anybody to think that we are about to build the things all over the place.
      I am advised that there is a serious technical defect in Amendment No. 19 in that a hump cannot have a duration. The point of this amendment would have been more apt, I think, even if the wording itself were technically defective, if we had left out any reference to a date. But now we have a definite date, and everyone knows that these experimental devices cannot be there for more than a year, it is not so important to make the reference to duration which the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) had in mind. I hope that he will agree that his point has been met or, indeed, even over-provided for by my two amendments which together do what he rightly had in mind. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing my attention to the matter because, if he had not done so, my amendments might not have been put down in this way.
      Mr. Finsberg: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
      Amendments made: No. 20, in page 30, line 10, at end insert—
      '(4A) A road hump constructed in a highway in accordance with this section shall be removed not later than the expiry of the period of one year beginning with the day on which its construction began'.
      No. 21, in page 31, line 5, leave out 'Where a road hump is constructed' and insert
      'If and so long as a road hump is constructed and maintained'.—[Mr. Mulley.]
      Question proposed. That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
      Mr. Awdry: Did the Minister have his meetings yesterday with representatives of the motor cycle industry, and was he able to satisfy their worries on the whole question of the proposed humps?
      Mr. Mulley: I did not meet them myself. I arranged, at their request, for them to meet experts in the department. They had several points to raise, and further meetings will be held. I should like to meet everyone who wishes to see me, but in the past few months I have found a great restriction in that there are
      2072
      only 24 hours in a day. The demands of the House in recent weeks have been fairly considerable, too.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause 22, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
      Clauses 23 to 25 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 26

      VARIATION OF PENALTIES FOR CERTAIN OFFENCES
      Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
      The Deputy Chairman: With this Question we may discuss Schedule 5 and the following amendments:
      No. 27, in Schedule 5, page 51, line 16, column 4, leave out '£50' and insert '£20'.
      No. 28, in page 51, line 18, column 5, leave out '£50' and insert '£20'.
      No. 29, in page 52, line 4, column 4, leave out '£100' and insert '£50'.
      No. 30, in page 52, line 6, column 5, leave out '£100' and insert '£50'.
      No. 31, in page 55, line 20, column 4, after '£50', insert:
      'or, on a second or subsequent conviction £200'.
      No. 32, in page 58, line 20, column 4, after '£100', insert or three months' imprisonment'.
      No. 33, in page 66, line 20, column 4, leave out '£200' and insert:
      £400 or three months' imprisonment'.
      No. 43, in page 70, line 16, leave out paragraph 4.
      No. 34, in page 70, line 20, at end, add 'or 4 months' imprisonment'.
      No. 52, in Clause 7, page 13, line 4, leave out '£100' and insert:
      '£10 for a first offence, £20 for a second offence and £50 for subsequent offences'.
      3.15 p.m.
      Mr. Finsberg: May I speak to amendment No. 31, which deals with a matter which I raised in Committee but on which I failed to get a satisfactory reply? The Minister pointed out that it was a Home Office matter but at that time the appropriate Minister was engaged a few Committee Rooms away on other business.

      2073
      I do not understand the purpose of the alteration in page 59. I would have thought that in London, particularly, this problem was affecting a large number of local authorities who are finding fake coins in their meters and people tampering with the meters. I would have preferred the Government to deter people by a more substantial fine. At the moment, anyone tampering with a parking meter or using a false coin is liable to a maximum fine of £50 or three months imprisonment, or both. The Government are proposing simply to make the maximum punishment a £50 fine.
      I appreciate that that means £50 per coin and that anyone putting four fake coins in a meter would be liable to a maximum fine of £200. But if that person two weeks later does the same thing again I am advised that he would start again at the maximum fine of £50. It is wrong for a subsequent conviction to be subject to the same maximum as a first offence. The court should be told that on a subsequent occasion the maximum fine per offence should be £200.
      I do not necessarily argue with the decision to delete the provision for imprisonment, but to retain the £50 maximum is wrong and does not meet thy, needs of some London boroughs, particularly my own borough of Camden, where people have been tampering with meters and where the borough has offered rewards to people who report such offences. I hope that the Minister will think again.
      Unless he can convince me, whatever my hon. and right hon. Friends will wish to do, I should like to press the amendment. I feel most strongly that on subsequent conviction the fine should be more than £50.
      Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: On a point of order, Mr. Murton. Before you call the next speaker, may I suggest that since the amendment referred to by the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) is out of keeping with the other amendments in the group I could reply to the hon. Member and any other hon. Member who wishes to speak to it. Hon. Members could then raise points on the other amendments in the group and I could reply to them subsequently.
      Mr. Bell: I am not sure where I stand after that, Mr. Murton, but I wish briefly to intervene on the amendment my hon.
      2074
      Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) referred to. Since I have agreed with him on other occasions today, perhaps he will not mind if I disagree with him now. Fines imposed for this sort of offence rarely, if ever, reach the maximum, and therefore the matter is somewhat theoretical. My hon. Friend is concerned simply with the offence of tampering with, or putting a foreign coin in, a parking meter. Of course, if there is any question of someone stealing money from the meter or damaging it different and far more serious offences are involved. They are offences of theft or malicious damage of property and they carry much higher penalties.
      Therefore, we are dealing solely with some form of tampering with the meter, which does not amount to abstracting money from it which would be theft, or damaging it, which would be malicious damage to property. It comes to nothing much more than putting in an Irish coin instead of a British coin, for example which I am sure is wicked, but a fine of £50 would adequately represent at any rate my sense of horror at that dreadful thing, and I should not want it to be £200.
      Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Perhaps I may reply on this point now, and wait to listen to the discussion on the magistrates' powers.
      I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell). It is clear that however much of a nuisance tampering with meters is to boroughs in London, the difficulty is to catch people doing it. When they are caught and brought before the courts, the penalties that get anywhere near £50 must be very few. I should think that only oil sheiks getting into their Rolls-Royces are likely to be fined anything like that sum. Therefore, it seemed to us that when we were removing the power of imprisonment for good penological reasons it was not appropriate to increase the maximum fine.
      Although there could be an argument for putting it up to £100 or so, the amendment adds a figure of £200 for subsequent offences, and in principle we take the view that it is wrong to have accelerated fines for subsequent convictions, that it is better to have a large

      2075
      maximum fine and to leave the matter to the discretion of the bench, because it will know the appropriate amount to tine in any case.
      Even on a second conviction of this comparatively minor offence, it seems unlikely that any bench would fine anywhere near £50. The hon. and learned Gentleman is right. If the offence amounts to something much more serious, there are criminal provisions which can deal with the matter, and even a sentence of imprisonment and trial by a higher court are open to the authorities. I am sure that the situation should be left like that.
      Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: This is one of the few offences for which the penalty has been reduced, because it was £50 or three months' imprisonment, or both, and the Minister is now making it merely £50. At least from what he said there seemed to be a case for raising the maximum to £100, if not £200. Will the hon. Gentleman see whether, in the light of the figures that are at his disposal and not at my disposal, that is warranted? If he feels that it is, he might like to move a manuscript amendment to make the fine £100. Will he consider that?
      Mr. Alexander W. Lyon indicated assent.
      Mr. Fry: I do not wish to press my amendments, because I understand that, with the exception of Amendment No. 52, they are covered by those of some of my hon. Friends. But we have this interest in common: we are very concerned about the rights of drivers to apply for trial by jury under some of the provisions of the Bill.
      Considerable attention was paid in the other place to the dissatisfaction of magistrates about the removal of their powers, but there has not been sufficient attention so far to the existing rights of drivers to elect trial by jury, nor, I understand, has there been widespread discussion with the motoring organisations on what is a quite far-ranging change in the law. I very much hope that the Minister will accept the amendments of my hon. Friends, so that this important right will remain. The right to trial by jury is one of the most important safeguards that we have. I do not believe that anyone would
      2076
      say that that right is particularly abused in motoring offences.
      It may be said that the conviction rate is somewhat lower when people take the opportunity to elect trial by jury. The answer must be that only those people who believe that they are right will go to the Crown courts. They do so knowing that if they are found guilty the penalty will probably be higher. On that basis only those who believe that they are innocent will avail themselves of the choice. Of course, it is likely that some of those people will be found not guilty. I hope that the Minister will take the matter very much to heart and that he will be able to make some concessions.
      Mr. Alan Clark: I speak to Amendments Nos. 32, 33 and 34. The Committee will be aware that the Bill, in addition to its provisions relating to safety, the convenience of administration and the highly important topic on which we divided earlier, has the effect of drastically curtailing the powers of the magistrates' courts. It is to that subject that I shall address myself.
      In Standing Committee I addressed my remarks to the Minister for Transport and he listened with characteristic sympathy, but this afternoon it would be more appropriate if I addressed my remarks to the Minister of State, Home Office. Clause 26 and Schedule 5 have the effect of removing completely from magistrates' courts the power to impose imprisonment for any offence other than driving whilst disqualified. I suggest that the power of imprisonment should be retained for serious offences of dangerous or reckless driving and for drink cases.
      As the Committee knows, drunken driving convictions are rising steadily. That was brought out on Third Reading in another place in January of this year. If the possibility of imprisonment is removed that must inevitably lead to the downgrading of offences which are already becoming equated with minor driving infringements, whereas quite often they entail widespread danger to the public. With great diffidence I suggest that we turn to current judicial opinion. In the case of the Queen v. Tupa before the Court of Appeal the judgment read:
      "It has been suggested to us in argument that it would in any event have been wrong in this case, where the blood alcohol content exceeded by some three times the permitted

      2077
      limit, to have passed a custodial sentence. If that view is in any way prevalent at the present time, the Court wishes to make it as clear as can be that in many cases of this kind where the amount of alcohol imbibed … is anything like the quantity in this present case, whether the conviction is at a Crown Court or in a Magistrates' court, a custodial sentence is entirely proper and ought not to be interfered with on appeal."
      Then there is an administrative matter. It is contended that if the magistrates' courts are no longer allowed to imprison offenders the load on the Crown courts may be diminished. In fact, the reverse is more likely to be the case. There would always be the possibility, in all cases in which the accused had a right to trial by jury, that the defence would insist that the case should go to the Crown court. That would lead to a serious overloading of the Crown courts. A committee is currently examining the congestion in the Crown courts. If this measure were passed it would impinge on or pre-empt the decisions of the committee. If the defence were to remit all cases to the Crown courts because on account of the amount of alcohol imbibed, there was the possibility of imprisonment, that would lead to an extra 15,000 cases a year being sent to the Crown courts.
      3.30 p.m.
      I draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that under the Criminal Justice Act 1972 the reference of an accused person by a magistrates' court to borstal or an attendance centre, or even to community service, is restricted only to those cases where the court has power to impose a custodial sentence. Clearly, if this power is removed from the magistrates there will go with it the power to sentence an accused to a custodial sentence of less than three months.
      The Committee will recognise that this power is particularly important with persons up to the age of 21, who constitute an increasingly large proportion of traffic offenders. Consequently, I ask the Committee to view these amendments favourably, on administrative grounds in that they will be helpful in relieving the load on Crown courts, on grounds of pure administrative protocol in that if they were rejected they would pre-empt certain commissions currently sitting, and on grounds of humanity in that they would preclude justices passing custodial sen-
      2078
      tences other than imprisonment upon juveniles and those up to the age of 21, when this would clearly be appropriate.
      Mr. Waddington: In this case both the previous Government and this Government have got things entirely right. I cannot accept the argument advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Welling-borough (Mr. Fry). The only reason why motorists have this right to trial by jury in the cases to which he has referred is that they are liable to imprisonment for more than three months. If the law is changed, as is proposed in the amendments, so that they are no longer liable to such periods of imprisonment, it is difficult to understand why the motorists or motoring organisations should complain.
      As to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Clark) I cannot see any point in retaining imprisonment as a possible penalty if it is never imposed. I am sure my hon. Friend would agree that whatever may be the views of the Magistrates Association it is the rarest thing in the world for a person to be sent to prison for these offences. It does not do any good.
      Mr. Alan Clark: The number of persons sent to prison for these offences in the last year for which figures are available was 307.
      Mr. Waddington: I shall not detain the Committee now, but at some time I should like to hear the breakdown of those figures as between various offences, because we are dealing with a group of amendments. In the last two or three years I have never heard of a person who has been sent to prison by the magistrates for a first offence arising out of a breathalyser case. Obviously, it happens on rare occasions, but it is certainly not the course adopted by the vast majority of magistrates. If it is not used as a normal penalty for these offences it does not do much good to leave it on the statute book as a possible penalty.
      If we believe that the imprisonment ought to be for more than three months—if magistrates think that to be right—and we thus give the offender the right to trial by jury, we are adding to the burdens already placed on the Crown courts, and if we are saying that the law should

      2079
      remain so that the man is liable to imprisonment for three months or less, the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough are valid, and we are saying that a motorist is to be exposed to the penalty of imprisonment without any right to trial by jury. The sensible way to approach it is to look at the practice. The truth is that what deters the motorist from committing these offences is the fear of disqualification. Provided the courts have the power to impose heavy fines and disqualify I cannot see that it is of any advantage to the community to leave powers of imprisonment with the magistrates.
      I cannot agree with the point made by my hon. Friend about the prosecuting solicitor being able to ask for the matter to be dealt with on indictment. Again, drawing on my experience, I cannot think of a single case when a man has been charged with driving with excess alcohol in his blood and the prosecuting solicitor has said that he wishes the matter to be dealt with on indictment. It does not happen. One should not get into a panic about these changes in the law and imagine that magistrates will be deprived of a useful power, when that power is never exercised.
      Mr. Roger Sims: The effect of the changes in the clause are twofold. One effect is to increase fines imposed under existing legislation and the other is to remove powers of imprisonment by magistrates' courts for a large number of offences. I raise no objection to the proposal about fines—we must accept the change in the value of money—but I take exception to the proposal to remove the power of imprisonment by magistrates' courts for such a wide range of offences as it proposed. As a magistrate I hasten to add that I have no vested interest in imposing prison sentences. No magistrate imposes such sentences lightly, but there are circumstances where they are appropriate.
      I accept that there are many cases in which imprisonment is inappropriate, but there are some offences for which the power of imprisonment should be retained, such as those covered in the amendments put down by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Clark) and myself. We believe that there
      2080
      are certain offences for which imprisonment should be retained not only because, if the clause goes through as it stands it would diminish the powers of magistrates' courts, but because it would reduce the seriousness of the offences in the eyes of the public. The public look upon an offence according to the sentence applied, and therefore the lesser the sentence the lesser will be considered the seriousness of the offence.
      The clause would also preclude the courts from making various orders, particularly those affecting young offenders—for instance, attendance centre orders, detention centre orders, probation orders. Community service orders have intersting possibilities. Initial experiments with these orders have held out hope of success. It would be unfortunate if courts were precluded from making such orders, or if their powers to make such orders were lessened.
      As has been pointed out, the right to trial by jury would also be removed. If imprisonment is no longer attached to these offences, courts will no longer have the power to require the attendance of the offenders. The courts are normally required to impose fines in accordance with an offenders' means, but it may not be possible to do this because the power to issue a warrant for attendance applies only to offences where imprisonment is involved.
      My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington) suggested that the power of imprisonment is used relatively little, but criminal statistics for 1973, which have just been issued, indicate that for motoring offences other than reckless and dangerous driving and those involving drink and drugs, magistrates sent 680 people to prison and imposed a similar number of suspended prison sentences. and orders of one form or another were made in 3,410 cases. It is not possible to say what all those offences were, but I suggest that some of them were offences covered by the amendments put down by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and myself. I accept that those figures are relatively small in proportion to all the other offences in the statistics. Nevertheless, they related to cases in which magistrates' courts felt that imprisonment was appropriate.

      2081
      If the clause goes through in its present form magistrates' courts will no longer have power to impose prison sentences for a wide number of offences.
      The first of our amendments refers to the offence of failing to stop after an accident and to give particulars, or to report an accident, the sort of offence commonly known as hit-and-run. That is a particularly mean and despicable offence. I am referring not to the chap who scrapes another fellow's car and drives off, but the serious case that sometimes involves serious injury and even death. Recently, a motorist struck a cyclist' as he passed, the cyclist was knocked into a ditch and the cycle went on top' of him. He was injured so seriously that when he was eventually found, he was dead. That indicates how serious the offence can be. Failing to stop is a serious offence that should be treated as such, and imprisonment should be kept for it.
      Another amendment refers to not having insurance. The consequences of someone not being insured are well known to all Members. Any of us or any member of our families could be knocked down by a car driven by someone who is not insured. We could go to court and get, perhaps, tens of thousands of pounds worth of damages and yet have the utmost difficulty in getting the money, because the person concerned was not insured. I know that the Motor Insurers' Bureau goes some way to meet the problem, but that does not lessen the seriousness of the offence.
      Finally, I refer to the amendment dealing with reckless and careless driving, and driving under the influence of drugs or drink. Here, exactly the same arguments apply, but even more strongly. In 1973, 368 people were sent to prison by magistrates' courts for offences in that category. A similar number were given suspended prison sentences and 242 orders for probation, detention centres, and so on, were made. That suggests that although the figures were not large, there were cases when the courts felt that imprisonment was appropriate.
      I refer particularly to the recent Younger Report. Among other things, it mentions attendance centres. I was disappointed to find that despite the persuasive evidence that I was able to give to that committee, it decided against ex-
      2082
      tending attendance centres as such. When the House has an opportunity to discuss that report I may be able to dilate a little more on that subject. In paragraph 298 of its report the Younger Committee said:
      "…we maintain the view expressed in our report on Non-Custodial Penalties … that attendance centres designed for the training of traffic offenders and suitably equipped and staffed for the purpose should be introduced on an experimental basis."
      If such centres were introduced the courts would no longer have power to make orders sending people to them. I do not know whether that has occurred to the Minister, but I hope that he will give further consideration to the amendments and accept that there is a strong feeling that imprisonment should be retained for certain offences.
      Mr. Awdry: We do not seek to divide the Committee on this clause, but I should like the Minister of State to explain the thinking behind the proposal to abolish sentences of imprisonment for all driving offences except driving while disqualified.
      We have had some discussion about drunken driving. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Nelson and Collie (Mr. Waddington) seems to suggest that no one was ever sent to prison by a magistrate for this offence. However, in 1972 there were 43,836 offenders of whom 307 were given prison sentences by magistrates. That is a small proportion, but it is nevertheless a significant figure and the offence is serious.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) spoke of failing to stop or to report an accident. He confessed to being a magistrate, and I must declare that I have been a solicitor before magistrates for a number of years. I entirely agree that although this type of offence may be technical, it may also be rather sinister. One thinks of the hit-and-run type of case, the man who knocks someone down and then drives off. Such a man may well leave someone dying. There is also the offence of forgery, of tampering with documents or falsely presenting documents in order to get insurance, and that can be serious.
      There is a risk that these offences may tend to be downgraded in public estimation if magistrates are no longer able to deal with them by sending offenders to prison. We accept that it is

      2083
      rare to find magistrates sending people to prison for driving offences, but there are certain cases in which this form of punishment may well be appropriate. Therefore, I would ask the Minister to give the reasons for this step. I appreciate that when the Conservatives were in office there was some thinking in the Home Office on this matter, and perhaps that is the reason why we shall not seek to divide the Committee. Nevertheless, many of my hon. Friends have misgivings and we are worried about this topic, as are other people who are concerned with justice. I hope we shall have from the Minister a clear explanation of this situation.
      3.45 p.m.
      Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: The hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Awdry) asked me to explain the thinking behind this proposal, but he agreed in a moment of candour that the proposal originated in the Home Office under a Conservative Government. It was contained in the Bill as first introduced before the last election. There is at least a degree of all-party support on the proposal. Therefore, if he asks me what was the thinking that originated the proposition, I shall in turn ask him to tell me what it was. At least I can tell him the thinking that supported it thereafter.
      I support the provision because I feel it to be a further move towards getting away from imprisonment or the custodial sentence as a way of dealing with offenders—although that view may sometimes be held by those who criticise penal reform as being "soft on criminals". The fact is that if we examine the situation in other European countries, we discover that the great majority find it possible to deal with their criminals in a way that does not bring about the degree of custodial sentencing which we adopt in Great Britain. I recently attended a conference of European Ministers on the subject of justice and I was struck by the comparison between their figures per thousand in respect of people sent to custodial sentences for crimes and our figures. We are markedly higher than anywhere else in Europe.
      I accept that there are difficulties. I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington)
      2084
      that magistrates do not use their power of imprisonment for these offences to any great extent. In 1973, there were 1,200,000 traffic offences, and in only 2,000 of those cases—one-sixth of 1 per cent.—were any custodial sentences applied. Therefore, in most cases it cannot be said that we are removing a real power. In some cases involving hybrid offences there will be powers for the prosecurtor to ask the court to allow the matter to go to the Crown Court which will have much wider powers to deal with the matter, including the power of custodial sentencing. Therefore, in the worst cases the power will exist for the case to go to a higher court.
      None the less, I am impressed by arguments which have been put forward against the clause here and in the other place, and particularly by the Magistrates' Association which came to see me about the matter. There were two matters which seemed to have weight. The first was that, because the power to have the defendant present before the court existed only where the person was liable to receive a prison sentence, it would not be possible to ensure that the defendant in a motoring case came before the court unless the court, having heard all the circumstances, decided to apply a sentence of disqualification, when it could have the defendant brought.
      That could lead to a real change of public attitude towards these offences. I do not accept the argument which has been used today that the mere fact that the maximum penalty is reduced from imprisonment will cause a change in public attitude if the punishment of imprisonment is only rarely applied. What would make a difference would be if people thought that they could write a plea of guilty on the back of the statement of facts and get away with it in that way. Where they are charged with these offences it is right that they should be brought before the court so that they have the benefit of the full panoply of three magistrates in Lower Muddlecombe magistrates' court. I am impressed by that argument.
      For that reason, we initially tried to find a way of ensuring that this power existed, although we have taken away the power of imprisonment. In the end we thought that it would be impossible to do that until we had done the review of

      2085
      magistrates' powers and sentencing and considered the whole matter comprehensively. It cannot be done simply in relation to motoring offences.
      The second thing which we think of importance about the representations of the Magistrates' Association is that the power of imprisonment carries with it subsidiary powers of sentencing which cannot be applied in relation to offences which do not carry the penalty of imprisonment—for instance, community service orders. In the move away from custodial sentences I am anxious that we should move much more freely towards community service orders, particularly in motoring cases. It has been found in Sweden to be a more salutary way of dealing with driving offences than almost any other, particularly drunken driving cases. But I am not yet in a position to tell the Committee that community service orders apply nationally, still less, even if they did, that if we made the changes proposed in the Bill the magistrates would have the power to order community service orders. That would depend upon the power to order imprisonment as an alternative.
      I am, therefore, prepared to make a concession and to accept Amendment No. 34 which relates to paragraph 4(1) of Schedule 5. It concerns offences of dangerous and reckless driving, driving under the influence of drink and driving over the limit prescribed. The rest of the paragraph relates to "in charge" and to failing to give a specimen.
      The amendment would mean that for driving offences there would still be a power of imprisonment available to the magistrates. As those are the most serious offences in the public mind, I am prepared to concede, by accepting the amendment, that those powers should exist. I do so on the understanding that when community service orders and other alternatives to imprisonment are available to the magistrates much more widely than they are at present, and when we have completed our review of the powers and proceedings of magistrates generally, we may need to remove the power of imprisonment even in those cases. But then there will be an alternative available and it will be possible to mark the seriousness of the offences.
      2086
      I make that concession now, and I hope on that basis that these amendments will not be pressed.
      Mr. Alan Clark: I am grateful to the Minister for his concession with regard to the most serious offences. I take his point, although he has admitted that if the clause is to be in this form we shall have a situation where magistrates' courts can neither call for the appearance of a defendant or make the various order. The Minister has said that he will think about these matters. I hope that it will be possible to restore these powers before long.
      Mr. Fox: I am grateful to the Minister for his understanding of these problems, and I am sure that it will be welcomed by the two associations to which he has referred.
      The Deputy Chairman: Order. Before putting the Question, I should explain that Amendment No. 34 relates to Schedule, and will be incorporated when we reach the appropriate provision.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause 26 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
      Clause 27 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 28

      INTERPRETATION
      Amendment made: No. 24, in page 33, line 27, leave out subsection (2).—[Mr. Mulley.]
      Clause 28, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 29

      SHORT TITLE, AMENDMENTS, REPEALS, COMMENCEMENT AND EXTENT.
      Mr. Mulley: I beg to move Amend ment No. 25, in page 34, line 14, leave out subsection (6).
      This is a formal amendment to withdraw the privilege inserted in another place which, of course, no longer applies.
      Amendment agreed to.
      Clause 29, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    New Clause 1

      FITTING AND SALE OF DEFECTIVE OR UNSUITABLE VEHICLE PARTS
      '(1) After section 60 of the 1972 Act there shall be inserted the following section—
      "Fitting and sale of defective or unsuitable vehicle parts.
      60A.—(1) If any person—

      (a) fits a vehicle part to a vehicle, or

      (b) causes or permits a vehicle part to be fitted to a vehicle, in such circumstances that, by reason of that part being fitted to the vehicle, the use of the vehicle on a road would constitute a contravention of or failure to comply with any of the construction and use requirements, he shall be guilty of an offence.

      (2) A person shall not be convicted of an offence under subsection (1) above if he proves—

      (a) that the vehicle to which the part was to be exported from Great Britain; or

      (b) that he had reasonable cause to believe that that vehicle would not be used on a road in Great Britain or would not be so used until it had been put into a condition in which its use would not constitute a contravention of or failure to comply with any of the construction and use requirements.

      (3) If any person who—

      (a) sells or supplies or offers to sell or supply a vehicle part, or

      (b) causes or permits a vehicle part to be sold, supplied, or offered for sale or supply, has reasonable cause to believe that the part is to be fitted to a motor vehicle, or to a vehicle of a particular class, or to a particular vehicle, he shall be guilty of an offence if that part could not be fitted to a motor vehicle or, as the case may require, to a vehicle of that class or of a class to which the particular vehicle belongs except in such circumstances as are mentioned in subsection (1) above.

      (4) A person shall not be convicted of an offence under subsection (3) above in respect of the sale, supply or offer of a vehicle part if he proves—

      (a) that the part was sold, supplied or offered, as the case may be, for export from Great Britain or

      (b) that he had reasonable cause to believe that it would not be fitted to a vehicle used on a road in Great Britain or would
      2088
      not be so fitted until it had beer put into such a condition that it could be fitted otherwise than in such circumstances as are mentioned in subsection (1) above.

      (5) An authorised examiner may at any reasonable hour enter premises where, in the course of a business, vehicle parts are fitted to vehicles or are sold, supplied or offered for sale and test and inspect any vehicle or vehicle part found on those premises for the purpose of ascertaining whether—

      (a) a vehicle part has been to the vehicle in such circumstances as are mentioned in subsection (1) above, or

      (b) the vehicle part could not be sold or supplied for fitting to a vehicle used on roads in Great Britain without the commission of an offence under subsection (3) above, and for the purpose of testing a motor vehicle and any trailer drawn by it the authorised examiner may drive it and for the purpose of testing a trailer may draw it with a motor vehicle.

      (6) Any person whole obstructs an authorised examiner acting under subsection (5) above shall be guilty of an offence.
      (7) In subsections (5) and (6) above authorised examiner' means a person who may act as an authorised examiner for the purposes of section 53 of this Act; and any such person, other than a constable in uniform, shall produce his authority to act for the purpose of subsection (5) above if required to do so.
      (8) Nothing in this section shall affect the validity of a contract or of any rights arising under a contract"
      (2) In Part 1 of Schedule 4 to the 1972 Act (prosecution and punishment of offences) after the entry relating to section 60(3) there shall be inserted the following entries:

      "60A(1) Fitting of defective or unsuitable vehicle parts

      Summarily £200

      60A(3) Selling defective or unsuitable vehicle parts

      Summarily £200

      60A(6) Obstructing examiner testing vehicles to ascertain whether defective or unsuitable part has been fitted, etc—[Mr. Carmichael.]

      Summarily £ 100"'

      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Carmichael: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

      2089
      It is, at present, an offence to sell or supply—or to offer for sale or supply—a vehicle in a condition, or to alter a vehicle, so that its use on the road would be illegal. This leaves a loophole in the law in that it is not an offence to fit, or to sell or supply, or offer for sale or supply, vehicle parts the presence of which would make the use of the vehicle illegal.
      This loophole came to light when it was found that "killer" tyres designed for use on slow-moving agricultural vehicles were being imported into this country and sold for fitting to motor cars.
      It being Four o'clock, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
      Committee report Progress.

      FITTING AND SALE OF DEFECTIVE OR UNSUITABLE VEHICLE PARTS

        BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
        Ordered,
        That the Road Traffic Bill [Lords], the Education (Awards and Grants) Bill, the Solicitors Bill [Lords], the Friendly Societies Bill [Lords] and the Insurance Companies Bill [Lords] may be proceeded with at this day's Sitting, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Golding.]

    ROAD TRAFFIC BILL [Lords]
    Again considered in Committee.
    Question, That the clause be read a Second time, put and agreed to.
    Clause added to the Bill.

    ROAD TRAFFIC BILL [Lords]
      New Clause 2

        RECKLESS DRIVING
        (1) The driving of a motor vehicle on a road as set out in paragraphs (a) to (f) below shall constitute a specific offence of driving recklessly, or at a speed or in a manner which is dangerous to the public, under section 2 of the Road Traffic Act 1972—

        (a) driving at a dangerous speech and, thereby, causing an accident; or

        (b) overtaking another vehicle dangerously and, thereby causing an accident; or

        (c) following too closely, or not driving within the limits of vision and braking power, and thereby, causing an accident; or

        (d) ignoring a halt sign, and, thereby, causing an accident; or

        2090

        (e) turning right dangerously and, thereby, causing an accident; or

        (f) failing to give precedence to a pedestrian, who is on an uncontrolled "Zebra" crossing, or on a "Pelican" press-button crossing, where an Amber light is flashing, and thereby, causing personal injuries to any such pedestrian.

        (2) Where a person is convicted of any offence as set out in subsection (1) of this section, the Court shall order that person to be disqualified from driving a motor vehicle for a period of not less than three months and such an order for the said offence shall be in addition to any order or penalty which the Court may impose under Section 2 of the Road Traffic Act, 1972.
        (3) The driver of a motor vehicle who is convicted of exceeding a speed limit imposed by enactment of Parliament of—

        (a) 30 miles per hour by driving at over 45 miles per hour; or

        (b) 40 miles per hour by driving at over 60 miles per hour; or

        (c) 50 miles per hour by driving at over 65 miles per hour; or

        (d) 60 miles per hour by driving at over 75 miles per hour; or

        (e) 70 miles per hour by driving at over 90 miles per hour; shall be disqualified for three months from driving a motor vehicle but such penalty shall not affect any existing penalties for exceeding speed limits imposed by any enactment of Par] iament.—[Mr. Finsberg.]

        Brought up, and read the First time.
        Mr. Finsberg: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
        The Deputy Chairman: With this it is proposed that we should take new Clause 6—Drivers of motor vehicles turning right dangerously at cross roads.
        Mr. Finsberg: May I seek your guidance, Mr. Murton? Will it be in order to have separate divisions on these clauses?
        The Deputy Chairman: Yes, it that is the hon. Member's wish.
        Mr. Finsberg: I cannot be quite as brief on this clause as the Minister was on new Clause 1, because there is some history into which I want to go in some detail. I regard the clause as an opportunity for the Committee to do something constructive to cut down road deaths and accidents.
        The clause is based upon a plan produced by Mr. Edward Terrell, OBE. QC, former recorder of Newbury, recorder of the Crown court and author of Terrell on

        2091
        Running Down Cases which has gone into more than three editions.
        In May 1965, Mr. Terrell, at the request of the Minister of Transport, met his officials and an agreed proposal was sent to the Minister. In August 1965, the Minister and Mr. Terrell met at the House and discussed his ideas at some length.
        Mr. Terrell's previous contacts with the Ministry were mainly in the years 1951 and 1952, when he had taken the leading part in putting forward a plan for producing a new Highway Code and for giving certain of its provisions the force of law—in other words, putting some teeth into the Highway Code.
        A White Paper was produced by the Department. As a result, a new Highway Code was prepared, but, although there was strong support for giving some parts of it the force of law, there has been no change in the law as originally set out in Section 45 of the Road Traffic Act 1930. So there has been no advance for over 40 years.
        The 1930 Act created a Highway Code and Section 45 is repeated in the Road Traffic Act 1972. However, there is no force of law in the Highway Code or any of its rules.
        The proposals contained in the clause do not propose any major amendment to the Highway Code, though they involve the creation of certain new statutory offences based upon rules which are at present contained in the code. The sole purpose is to reduce the number of deaths and injuries on the roads by highlighting certain dangerous acts of negligence.
        Fundamentally, the principle is the deterrent effect of disqualification, which Mr. Terrell and, I think, the Ministry—and most sensible people—regard as most likely to affect the behaviour of drivers. It should be heightened by making it automatic for a short period of three months on drivers convicted in a court of justice of causing an accident by breaking any one of seven carefully selected rules. We all know that the deterrent effect of the drink-and-drive laws has had a considerable impact upon the behaviour of drivers.
        The proposals in the clause are chosen as the ones whose breaches are the most
        2092
        frequent causes of serious accidents. The existing generalised offences of dangerous and careless driving would remain alongside the more specific offences suggested in the clause, and these special rules would have to be most carefully drafted and be clear and simple. I hope that the wording in the clause is satisfactory, even to the purists of parliamentary draftsmen, but we shall see later.
        The clause lays down "rules", whose breach would be made a statutory offence and for which the automatic penalty would be disqualification for three months, irrespective of the penalties for careless or dangerous driving under the Road Traffic Act 1960.
        The rules are as follows: first, causing or mainly contributing to an accident by negligent overtaking. Secondly causing or mainly contributing to an accident by negligently following too closely or not driving within the limits of vision and braking power; thirdly causing or mainly contributing to an accident by negligently ignoring a give-way or halt sign; fourthly, causing or mainly contributing to an accident by negligently failing to give way at a pedestrian crossing; fifthly, exceeding the speed limit by more than a certain percentage—our proposal is for about 50 per cent.; the existing penalties for exceeding speed limits under normal conditions would remain—and, finally, causing or mainly contributing to an accident by negligently turning right.
        It is stressed—this is an essential part of these proposals—that in every case of a breach, except the speed limit one, an accident should have been caused and the motorist been found guilty of such negligence by a court of justice. This feature of the clause—namely, that there should have been an accident due to negligence is important, because without the physical indications of the accident it would be difficult for a court of justice to assess the negligence and the degree of damage caused thereby.
        Speaking as one who sat on the Bench for 10 years before coming to this place. I know only too well the difficulties of trying to work out the exact relationship between one stationary vehicle and another stationary vehicle into which it has run. We can all think of that kind of thing. The proposal in the clause would make it easier to obtain the sort

        2093
        of legislation for which it asks, which re- quires an automatic disqualification, on conviction, without any let-out of the kind provided in the 1962 Act for special reasons or mitigating circumstances. We all know the wide, varied and special reasons that are put forward, and we have all read the frequent correspondence in the Magistrates Journal showing how often these are posed. The rules propose that the consequences of them should be given the widest publicity. If the clause is accepted, it will be necessary to run the same sort of campaign as was run on the drink-and-driving rules.
        The plan, if it is put into force by the Bill, ought to have a much greater impact on the behaviour of drivers by singling out particularly dangerous manoeuvres for punishment and disqualification across a wide range of road traffic offences or for the general offences of dangerous and careless driving.
        I am not sure that I am automatically in support of the principle of automatic disqualification on a wide front as it would not succeed in its objectives, and probably would not receive public support, but to have it for a narrow range of items that are clearly set out would be acceptable.
        Let me remind the Committee of the sort of figures about which we are talking. In 1968, the number of deaths on the road was 6,810, and in 1972 the figure was 7,763. In 1968, the figure for serious injuries was 88,563, and in 1972 it was 91,338. The figures are rising all the time, in spite of magnificent efforts by road safety committees, by the Ministry—in altering dangerous road junctions—and so on.
        If this plan were adopted, and it was then widely advertised by the Ministry, there would, I believe, be fewer prosecutions for dangerous driving, because the seven rules set out in the clause would be better observed by drivers. We know that there is better observance of the need not to go over the limit since the drink- and-driving law was introduced. There would, I believe, be a reduction in acts of dangerous driving and a reduction in death and mutilation on the road.
        On the other hand, the plan would in no way affect the legitimate use of our public roads, while at the same time it would strike an effective blow for road
        2094
        safety—perhaps more effective than any measure we have had since Belisha beacons were introduced. As I said on Second Reading, Ministers of Transport are often unsung heroes. They are used to bring in small measures which have little or no effect. But Hore-Belisha will be remembered for ever. I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he might well go down in history as one of the first Ministers of Transport to strike a real blow for road safety by directly acting upon certain well-defined items of driving behaviour about which every motorist should know. Every motorist has taken the driving test and undergone an examination, so he ought to know what the Highway Code requires.
        If these items were enshrined in the Bill and given teeth by the force of law, there would, I am sure, be a reduction in deaths and accidents on our roads. I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic towards this proposal.
        Dr. Edmund Marshall: In contrast to the compendious new Clause 2 which the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) has just moved, my new Clause 6 deals with one specific driving manuoevre. It may well be that the hon. Gentleman has this also in mind, and I think that his subsection (1)(e) probably describes the situation about which I am concerned.
        I find that there is considerable confusion about what is required in the situation when two motor vehicles face each other, the driver of one of them wishing to turn right at a crossroads, and the other wishing to turn to his right at the same crossroads. There is no legal provision at the moment giving any guidance about the correct way of carrying out that manoeuvre. There is no reference to it in the present Highway Code, which I find a startling omission because the manoeuvre is undoubtedly difficult.
        The only official information winch I have been able to obtain appears in the Department of the Environment manual entitled "Driving". There is a Figure 25 on page 82, and on page 84 some direction is given as to the correct manner of turning right at crossroads in the situation I have outlined:
        "Fig. 25 shows vehicles passing behind each other at a crossroads—or offside to offside. There are some junctions where the layout

        2095
        makes it more convenient for them to pass nearside to nearside, but this is less safe because each driver has his view of the oncoming traffic hidden by the other vehicle. The usual rule is offside to offside—but watch out for junctions where police control or road markings mean that you are intended to turn nearside to nearside."
        My experience as a motorist indicates that the general public are ignorant of that official direction and that there is widespread confusion over what is the correct way to turn right at crossroads. The confusions makes it difficult for the driver who is attempting to carry out the manoeuvre correctly when the driver coming the other way is not prepared to cooperate. In order for the manoeuvre to take place correctly, with the drivers offside to offside, both must be fully aware of how it should be done. Because there is such a widespread lack of information on this I am sure that there must be many occasions when accidents arise when the manoeuvre is not carried out correctly.
        4.15 p.m.
        I have tried to find out how many accidents have taken place in this situation. However, when I put down a Question for Written Answer on 8th February this year the then Minister for Transport Industries told me that the information was not available. I hope that by my raising this matter this afternoon it will prompt some research to see how great is the problem.
        It is true, as the quotation which I read describes, that there are exceptional crossroads where for one reason or another it is more convenient to turn other than offside to offside. There is one in my constituency at Hilltop, Knottingley. That situation has been made clear to motorists by markings on the road and there is no reason why that practice could not be extended.
        The new clause attempts to give some legislative force to the recommendations in the departmental manual. It should be made obligatory that drivers turning right at crossroads where there are no signs or road markings should do so offside to offside, and that failure to comply should be a motoring offence.
        Mr. Graham Page: I want to support my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) in his comments. For many years we have had in the road safety laws details of certain conduct which is
        2096
        forbidden as an offence without necessarily saying that that conduct is likely to cause an accident. I refer to things such as the speed limit, the drink limit and so on. That conduct is potentially so dangerous that it is made an offence regardless of whether on the particular occasion it has caused any danger.
        The items listed in the clause could have been listed without the addition of the words saying that an accident had been caused by that conduct. It would be extremely valuable at this stage to lift some of those items out of the Highway Code and to draw attention to them by creating them as specific offences so that the public would realise the danger of that conduct. Each of the items listed in the clause is more than likely to cause an accident, and to make them an offence will drum home into the minds of motorists the behaviour they should observe. I do not think the Highway Code is good enough on these points, that it has enough teeth to meet the dangers.
        There is nothing very new in the introduction of the clause to the Committee. I have a feeling that I have floated it, or at least parts of it, if not all of it in separate parts. As the years have gone by, it has become more and more necessary to detail conduct on the road which should be an offence and not to rely on the vague statements of reckless driving. It would certainly ease the administration of the safety laws if they were specified. They are specified in the clause, and I hope that the Committee will receive it favourably.
        Mr. Mulley: I shall deal first with the interesting new Clause 6 of my hon. Friend the Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall). As he fairly pointed out, it is not always possible to generalise on whether it is right to turn from the offside or the nearside. I have had the privilege of being driven by my hon. Friend on a number of occasions, and I would give him a certificate saying that he is a most careful, considerate driver, and I respect his views.
        The matter may be one that we should consider in a subsequent edition of the Highway Code, but it is a problem. It is hard to legislate on matters that are driving practice when it is so difficult to indicate precisely what is involved.
        My hon. Friend, who is both a most considerate and reasonable driver and a

        2097
        most considerate and reasonable person, immediately saw that the clause of the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Fins-berg) could cover his point, but the point is not even in the Highway Code. Are such words as "dangerously", "too closely", and "ignoring", the kind of specific references that the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) had in mind? He may well have voted for many of these items in successive Bill over many years, but I do not recall his making any utterances along those lines when he had some responsibility for roads.
        Mr. Graham Page: I was never responsible for road safety as a Minister.
        Mr. Mulley: The right hon. Gentleman had responsibility for roads. He was a most influential Minister in the Department of the Environment, and I am sure that his views would have carried great weight in every section of it if he had sought to lend that weight to this proposition.
        It is about 20 years since Mr. Edward Terrell approached successive Ministers of Transport. There have been many Ministers of Transport. The Committee will not wish me to say which were bad and which were good. There have been some of each in that 20 years. All have turned down the proposition which is the core of the clause, that we can give to the Highway Code—which is meant to guide, and to lay down general circumstances—the force of law and that it would be right to give it the force of law only where there is an accident. The word "accident" covers a tiny bump at a traffic light or an incident involving loss of life or serious injury.
        There has been little time to consider these matters. I make no complaint about that. I have already said that I are grateful for the co-operation that has been given by everyone. That is why it has been possible to deal with the Bill at this stage today. I believe that the general proposition needs to be much more carefully considered before we can legislate along the serious lines of arbitrary disqualification. We have already heard real concern expressed about the powers of magistrates being diminished. The judicial world is always anxious about the House introducing automatic disqualification regardless of
        2098
        the circumstances. I know that these are matters of judgment.
        Of course, I pay public testimony to Mr. Edward Terrell. He has been a sincere and most helpful advocate for all kinds of road safety. He took a prominent part in the development of the Highway Code. If I may say so, he has found a most persistent and persuasive advocate in the person of the hon. Member for Hampstead. I would not in any way discourage this kind of development and this kind of public discussion.
        However, I ask people to realise that they may be wrong and that this idea will not have a dramatic effect. It is a form of shock treatment—namely, the idea that if we bump a lorry because we are a bit too close we shall lose our licence for three months. I accept that disqualification could make everybody drive in a way that would not produce any accidents. Before the House considered new principles involving a draconian method of dealing with certain offences we would want to discuss the matter with all the organisations that are always consulted before we make such a change. It is the practice of successive Governments to allow those organisations to express an opinion.
        It could be argued that the Government should say "Yes, it is all right if you drive over 70 miles per hour as long as you do not drive over 90 miles per hour. You will lose your licence automatically only if you are caught going faster than 90 miles per hour." There are many who feel that the totting-up procedure—three breaches of the speed limit no matter what speed is involved—should not operate automatically. It is said that the magistrates should have some discretion. I believe that to impose what is now suggested would give rise to the most enormous outcry.
        The hon. Member for Hampstead prefaced his remarks by asking whether he could have a Division. I think that he knows that there can be a Division on any proposition. By immediately asking for a Division the hon. Gentleman did not adopt his usual persuasive style of argument. I hope that he will not divide the Committee. I am happy to consider the matter further with him and with Mr. Terrell if the hon. Gentleman wishes to bring him along.

        2099
        It is time for the Highway Code to be revised. I have already in hand the preparation of a Green Paper so that the House will have an opportunity of discussing the proposed changes in the Highway Code. That will mean that the House will not be confronted with a fait accompli—namely, a statutory instrument which it can only accept or reject. It would be right for these matters to be further considered and I shall be happy to discuss them further with the hon. Gentleman and Mr. Terrell if it is thought that we could make progress. We may also consider it helpful to consult the organisations that are involved. The hon. Gentleman will note that I am trying to arrange an opportunity for the House to discuss the Highway Code before a new code is introduced later this year. In that context we can explore the whole matter rather than take a hurried decision today.
        If the hon. Gentleman persists and presses the new clause I must ask the Committee to reject it.
        4.30 p.m.
        Mr. Berry: Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that he is hoping to introduce a Green Paper in advance of a new Highway Code later this year?
        Mr. Mulley: That was my intention. I am glad to have the hon. Member's assurance that he is hoping that I shall be here later this year.
        Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: I have listened carefully to what the right hon. Gentleman has said. I am not prepared to withdraw the new Clause but if the Committee wishes to negative it, that is a different matter.
        Question put and negatived.

      New Clause 3

        VEHICLE EXCISE DUTY
        Where a vehicle is displaying an excise duty disc which is more than two months out of date it shall be permissible for the vehicle to be removed forthwith to a police pound and if reclaimed, all charges shall first be paid by the owner '.—[Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg.]
        Brought up, and read the First time.
        Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
        2100
        The clause deals with excise licences. This is an important matter and I pay tribute here to the work done in this respect by the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis). I have not given him warning that I intended to mention him in a complimentary way. I have been looking at various Questions and Answers given in the past 18 months or so. I notice that in 1972 in the Metropolitan Police area 38,000 cases of persons not having an excise licence were reported. From other sources there is a figure of 405,000 such offences. There were 31,000 prosecutions, resulting in fines totalling £436,000, while 32,000 cases were settled out of court involving mitigated penalties of £223,000.
        An interesting figure is that for the number of people who took out road fund licences during the weeks when petrol coupons were allocated. It will be remembered that it was necessary to produce a current road fund licence to obtain the coupons. The Greater London Council issued 136,000 vehicle licences between 26th November and 14th December 1973. A little more information on this subject was obtained at that time by the present Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who discovered that Lancashire County Council issued 210,000 licences for the whole of 1973 and 177,000 in the period November December.
        We all know that vehicles are left on the streets or are being used without current excise discs. This is not merely defrauding the Revenue, it is defrauding law-abiding motorists who tax their vehicles and contribute to general Road Fund taxation. Apart from anything else it is an anti-social practice. I realise that the right hon. Gentleman will say that the clause is technically badly drafted or that this is not the right Bill. He will give at least half a dozen reasons why we should not accept the clause.
        Mr. Mulley: The hon. Member is doing very well. Perhaps he will continue on those lines.
        Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: I recall that the same points were made about amendments that I tabled to the Housing Bill. However, they were finally accepted, badly drafted as they were, so that the Government could get the Bill. I am sure that there are many such reasons that could be put against this clause and I am

        2101
        willing to withdraw it if the Minister will assure me that he will make an effort to try to toughen up vehicle excise licensing enforcement. No Minister of any Government has made such an effort for the past 20 years.
        I am not prepared to continue to see a growing number of people flout the law and act in this anti-social way, just because they know that the chance of getting away with it is pretty good. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to make some helpful noises.
        Mr. Hugh Dykes: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) on his initiative in putting forward this new clause. He put the arguments for it very well, and they are sufficiently familiar to us all. Statistics on unpaid vehicle excise duty are now reaching not discomfiting but positively alarming proportions. I do not intend to go into detail on the arguments, but I wholeheartedly support the clause.
        Incidentally, I greatly admired the anticipatory prejudgment by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead on what the Minister might say in reply. I do not know whether my hon. Friend was suggesting that he was hoping to introduce the clause if not in this Bill then in a housing Bill; that would be remarkable.
        We must accept that the wording of the clause may be deficient and defective, for understandable reasons, but that does not detract from its logic and urgency. There is an increasing feeling of anger amongst many motorists on this matter. Earlier, in relation to another matter, the Minister said that the hump did not have a duration. On this subject people now have a hump which is of considerable duration.
        Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: Does my hon. Friend agree that in this context the term "sleeping policeman" might be applicable, even if it is not the fault of the police?
        Mr. Dykes: I take my hon. Friend's point. I hope that the Government will respond to the sentiment and spirit of the clause. If no action is taken by the judicial authorities, local authorities and the Government Departments involved, in due course this already alarming abuse will grow to proportions which may raise
        2102
        considerable feeling among motorists who are already increasingly confronted with high costs which may, incidentally, tempt some of them to try to avoid paying excise duty.
        If the Minister and his advisers have an opportunity to consider this matter and take account of experience in other countries, they will find that the number of cases of unpaid excise duty in countries such as France, for instance, is much lower than in this country. Other countries also have more efficient methods for enforcing payment of excise duty and arranging vehicle licensing. I hope that the Minister will respond favourably to what my hon. Friend has said.
        Mr. Berry: My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) complimented the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis)—rightly so—for his work in connection with this matter. As the hon. Member for Newham, North-West, is absent, and bearing in mind that he is a constituent of mine, perhaps I may accept the compliment on his behalf.
        This is an important clause and I hope that the Minister will accept it, or at least the spirit of it. The police are having to spend a lot of time, which could be better used in maintaining the law in more important aspects, in checking cars to see whether excise duty has been paid.
        Unfortunately, many people leave cars without licences in parking bays, including residential parking bays, and in meter bays, and under the existing law there is considerable time lapse before the police have the right to tow the cars away. Many of us know of instances of this in the areas where we live, or in our constituencies. If the clause became law the police would have the right to remove cars not displaying excise duty discs much sooner than at present, and this would be helpful to the community at large.
        Mr. Durant: There are advantages in the new clause. One of the current problems is that a vehicle may be left on the roadside for a long time before the police are able to take any action, and by the time they have power to act the vehicle may be in a dangerous condition. For instance, children may climb in and

        2103
        the wheels may be taken off, so that the whole vehicle begins to disintegrate.
        Allowing a time of two months only would give a safety valve to the police to take early action, and that would help them to find the owner. One of their great difficulties after a car has been left for between six and nine months is finding the owner.
        Mr. Roger Moate: The arguments advanced by my hon. Friends are persuasive. I am sure that there are serious problems connected with the removal of abandoned vehicles, but I am not sure that the argument should be pursued under this new clause. Certainly if these powers existed they could be used by the authorities to deal with the problem, but that is very different from using these powers for the collection of an excise duty.
        Certainly there is an abuse and certainly there should be some means for dealing with the problem more rapidly and effectively, but I am a little worried about the idea of increasing the number of policemen involved in the removal of vehicles. It is one of the least attractive activities of the police in the London area. I am sure that they would not welcome spending their day removing cars to a car pound, particularly when, almost by definition, many of the vehicles are not causing an obstruction, because they are just overstaying their time at a meter.
        The police services are under a great strain and have great manpower problems. If we use the police to collect cars for which the excise duty has not been paid, we shall be putting an intolerable strain on them.
        Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: The new clause was carefully worded, so that it did not provide that the police would have to take the car away. They could contract out the work to firms to do it on their behalf.
        Mr. Moate: I find that even less attractive. We should have private companies going around London collecting cars because the car licence had not been paid by the owners. That is not an attractive proposition.
        Although I agree in principle that we need to find some means of dealing with
        2104
        a serious problem—I am sure that my hon. Friend is to be congratulated on having initiated a debate on the subject—I hope that the new clause will not be pursued, for it has implications and dangers that the House ought not to accept.
        Mr. Ronald Bell: I shall be brief, for I think that I can rely on the Minister to turn down the new clause. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) on bringing it forward, but I hope that that is as far as it goes.
        This is a revenue matter. This temptation to make everything a very serious offence takes me back to my wartime days, standing beside the commanding officer on the ship and taking defaulters, when everything, even the most minor infringement of regulations, was a very serious offence. It is difficult to think of an offence more minor than not paying one's excise licence on time.
        We talk about the police being undermanned. The rate of burglaries is rising almost like a rocket. How are the police to cope with serious crime if they have to mess around dealing with the obsession of the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis), who has been battering on the subject of excise licences for years? We should give our attention to something more important and let the police get on with their job.
        The idea that they would be saving time and manpower by towing cars away I find difficult to understand. It would take more of their time. Do not let us forget that most people who are a bit late in paying their excise licences are law-abiding, ordinary people who are a bit neglectful and a bit forgetful, and the police very much need their cooperation in the general enforcement of the law. That co-operation will not be helped if the police tow away cars. We should not seek to add to the acerbity between police and public by including a clause of this kind.
        4.45 p.m.
        Mr. Graham Page: My hon. Friend said that not to pay the tax was a minor offence. Does he appreciate that driving an unlicensed car nullifies one's third-party insurance, which is an extremely serious offence?
        Mr. Bell: I see no reason whatever why failing to pay the excise licence should have any effect on third-party insurance.
        Mr. Mulley: This has been interesting debate. The problem for most Ministers is that whatever they try to do they cannot succeed in pleasing all their friends all the time. I am delighted to have the support of the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell). The hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) would have had a powerful supporter in my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis) had he been present for this debate. That would be a formidable coalition.
        I am bound to take the clause seriously. It is not technically deficient so far as I can see, but it has an odd ring about it. It would make it permissible for the forgetful, absent-minded person who did not renew the tax to have his car towed away and be caught by the provision, whereas the smart lad who did not want to pay duty would only have to remove the disc and the clause would not bite at all. I appreciate that by doing that he would be guilty of not displaying a road fund licence, but that would be a different matter. I am making the point that the clause would be directed against the less serious offenders.
        I take a serious view of people who do not pay the excise duty, because they are not making a contribution which all other motorists are expected to do. All Governments and Ministers are anxious to collect for the nation as much money as possible. I do not differ from my predecessors in that respect.
        Perhaps unwittingly, today, the House has taken a remarkable step in dealing with these offences. Clauses 1 to 5 of the Bill provide for fixed penalties. If we can avoid a good deal of abortive police effort in trying to chase up owners, it must have a good effect on police resources. I give the assurance that we shall do all we can to reduce the number—and it is a serious matter—of people who do not pay duty. This is unfair to the community and in these hard times all the extra money would be helpful.
        Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: My hon. Friends have not quite followed what was saying. Certainly, my hon. Friend
        2106
        the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) has not taken my point. There is nothing in the clause to involve the police in these activities. In the Greater London area the licensing authority is technically the Greater London Council. This work could be done by street inspectors delegated by the GLC to the London boroughs. It could be done by a wide variety of people—by traffic wardens, or by contract firms, once the report has been made by the street inspector. There is no need to use police manpower.
        I accept that a person displaying a disc would be worse off than a person displaying no disc. That is a technical defect. I hoped that the Minister would accept the clause and on Report move an amendment to insert the words "no disc". There is already one month's grace, and people are being offered two months more. In the majority of cases where the licence is three months out of date, the omission is deliberate. I do not believe that people are so forgetful as that.
        Even if I press the amendment, I can see that I am unlikely to overcome the payroll vote. I do not wish to prevent the payroll from disappearing to do other work that might be more remunerative than sitting here—
        Mr. Mulley: I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman would carry most of his hon. Friends if he pressed the clause.
        Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: I am not certain about that. The Minister has replied genuinely, and I willingly accept that he and his colleagues will give emphasis to the drive to make people pay. On that understanding, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
        Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

      New Clause 4

        COMPULSORY WEARING OF SEAT BELTS
        '(1) After section 33 of the 1972 Act (protective helmets for motor cyclists) there shall be inserted the following section:—
        "Wearing of seat belts.
        33A.—(1) The Secretary of State may make regulations requiring, subject to such exceptions as may be prescribed, persons driving or riding in motor vehicles to wear seat belts of such description as may be so specified.

        2107
        (2) Regulations under this section—

        (a) may make different provision in relation to different classes of vehicles, different descriptions of persons and different circumstances; and

        (b) may make any prescribed exceptions subject to such conditions as may be prescribed.

        (3) Any person who drives or rides in a motor vehicle in contravention of regulations under this section shall be guilty of an offence."
        (2) In Part I of Schedule 4 to the 1972 Act (prosecution and punishment of offences) after the entry relating to section 33 there shall be inserted the following entry:
        "33A. Driving or riding in a motor vehicle in contravention of regulations requiring wearing of seat belts Summarily £50." '—[Mr. Wiggin.]
        Brought up, and read the First time.
        Mr. Jerry Wiggin: I beg to move, That the clause be read a second time.
        Unlike some of my hon. Friends I have no drafting problems because the drafting has already had Government approval and is the work of Government draftsmen. The clause was inserted into the original Bill by the Government, and the other place, on Report, threw it out. I seek merely to restore what the Government should be restoring.
        When the Bill made its first appearance under the previous Government the other place inserted a clause to permit the Minister to make an order for the compulsory wearing of seat belts. The clause was given a Second Reading by the House of Commons in the last Parliament. Consequently, the present Government redrafted the clause, included it in the Bill and introduced it into the other place. The other place gave a Second Reading to it in Committee but, for some reason which I cannot discover—because I am unable to get the appropriate HANSARD from our Vote Office or from the Printed Paper Office in another place—threw it out on Report by a narrow majority. I hope that the Government will be sympathetic to restoring the clause. I am also unable to obtain the HANSARD for the Second Reading Committee debate but I was present in the Gallery for part of it and I heard from my hon. Friends what was said.
        2108
        The Minister may argue that this matter is of too great importance to deal with today because time is limited. There has been a good deal of agreement between the two Front Benches—which is always a good reason for a back bencher to query what is going on. The Bill was not introduced into the other place until 15th May—two and a half months later—so it is unfair to plead time reasons.
        I shall not delay the Committee with a lengthy argument because the facts are well known. I made a fairly lengthy speech on the subject in the Second Reading debate on the original Bill.
        Perhaps I may deal with some of the objections to the compulsory wearing of seat belts. It is said by some people that the wearing of a seat belt in a motor car is restrictive and claustrophobic and causes discomfort to may people. Those countries which have introduced such legislation seem successful in getting over these difficulties, and, of course, there would be medical exemptions in any regulations which had to be made. As for being trapped in a fire or in water only about one-half of 1 per cent. of all accidents resulting in physical casualty involve fire or water, and the chances of a trapped occupant of a car remaining conscious and thereby enabling rescue to be effected or self-release to be carried out are greater if he is strapped in.
        Many people say that they do not want to wear seat belts during short journeys in town. One-third of the accidents which occur happen in built-up areas, and more than half of them happen within 10 miles of the drivers' homes. It is possible to have a fatal accident at a speed of only 12 mph.
        There are those who say that it would be better to be thrown out of a car involved in a collision. I have heard it said "I was thrown out, and I can prove that otherwise I would have been dead". No one can prove that, and experiments show that it is more than twice as dangerous to be thrown out than to remain in the shell of a car.
        In Australia, where there is legislation providing for the compulsory wearing of seat belts, enforcement is no problem. Many people here ask how the police could enforce legislation. It can be done just as it is done for lighting, for bald tyres, and for the thousand and one other

        2109
        regulations concerning motor vehicles. The wearing rate in Australia is now more than 70 per cent.
        I come, then, to the basic point about the freedom of choice. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) will oppose me about this. He has been consistent in his opposition. He is the only hon. Member to be so consisted. He even opposed the drugs legislation. If we are prepared to authorise legislation against the taking of drugs, on the basis that it protects the individual, if we are prepared to authorise legislation for the wearing of crash helmets on motor cycles, as we did in the last Parliament, all I can say is that both breach the objection of my hon. and learned Friend. What is more, if the time ever came when we found that each week 20 people hurled themselves off Westminster Bridge there would very soon be an outcry to erect a safety fence.
        I have to remind the Committee that 1,000 deaths and 14,000 serious casualties are caused each year because people will not wear safety belts which are already fitted in their cars. Advertising has cost the Government nearly £2 million. That sum has been virtually thrown away because it has increased the wearing rate only from about 15 per cent. to 20 per cent. In a few areas is has gone up to 30 per cent., but it has been found to be only a temporary increase. It has dropped off again when the advertising campaign has ended. Persuasion does not work.
        Australia and New Zealand have legislation governing the compulsory wearing of seat belts for all journeys. France and Czechoslovakia have it for all journeys outside built up areas, somewhat illogically; but it is a start. Austria, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands and a number of States in America are considering legislation.
        The only responsible organisation in this country which still opposes compulsion is the Royal Automobile Club. I cannot understand why. The AA is heavily in favour. The police are in favour. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and a host of other organisations which have been consulted feel that legislation should be introduced.
        The clause is mild and permissive. It says that the Minister "may". It does
        2110
        not say what all the regulations shall be. I understand that, if the clause were passed and the Minister brought in orders, they would be subject to the negative procedure and we should be able to debate them in due course. If the Minister accepts the clause. it will merely give him power to bring in legislation.
        5.0 p.m.
        I sincerely hope that the Minister will recognise the substantial percentage of people in this country who believe that this ought to happen. The AA conducted a public opinion poll, which was published in Drive, which showed that well over half the people in this country approve the measure and that nearly three-quarters believe that the Government will do it anyhow.
        Mr. Berry: Is my hon. Friend sure that the majority of seat belts fitted to cars in this country would have the beneficial effect that he is describing?
        Mr. Wiggin: It is true that about 90 per cent. of cars and light vans are now fitted with belts and that there are some slightly substandard belts which were probably fitted some years ago; but nothing in this world is perfect. Presumably, if the order were introduced, there would be a period in which people would be encouraged to check whether their belts were of the correct standard. I take my hon. Friend's point, but I do think that it is a substantial objection to accepting the clause. The noble Lord, Lord Mowbray, Segrave and Stourton, speaking for the Opposition in the other place, said that the proposal was accepted in principle. I am not sure about my hon. Friend. It is for him to say, not me. I merely point out that we have already accepted the necessity for the wearing of crash helmets by motor cyclists.
        I think that the matter must be tested. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that the clause should be in the Bill. If not, and if I can find someone to act as a Teller with me at this late hour on a Friday, I feel that we should take the matter to a Division.
        There will be those who, cynically perhaps, with the prospect of a General Election looming and on the basis of objections to impingement on the rights of the individual, will say that we may lose a few votes because we are bringing

        2111
        in this absolutely necessary clause. That we should even think of putting votes before lives is inconceivable. I hope that the Minister will ask his Whips to ensure that his hon. Friends support the clause for humanitarian if for no other grounds. I only hope that votes may be seen by some as being of less importance than lives.
        Mr. Mulley: I hope that it will be for the convenience of the Committee if I indicate my views now. It may—one can never be sure, least of all on a Friday—shorten the proceedings.
        I am sure that the Committee has been impressed by the passionate and eloquent argument put forward by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr.Wiggin). Certainly if I had had the opportunity to move the clause, as it would have been my wish in different circumstances, I doubt whether I could have done it nearly as well as the hon. Gentleman.
        On the merits of the clause there is nothing between us. It was in my Bill. If it had still been in the Bill I should have sought to retain it. But there are difficulties.
        The hon. Gentleman said that he was unable to extract from the House of Lords proceedings—because they do not exist—the reasons for their attitude towards this proposal. I am not so sure that he would be clear if those proceedings were available.
        There was no provision for this matter in the previous Government's Bill. It was inserted in another place with, at best, lukewarm support from the then Government. But, to be fair, my predecessor accepted that the House of Commons should be given an opportunity to debate and determine the matter.
        Naturally, when it was my responsibility to reintroduce the Bill, I introduced it and amended it somewhat, because the original clause, having been inserted in another place as a back bench proposal, was not technically proficient. That is why it is in this form rather than in its original form.
        I believe that this is the most dramatic way of reducing road casualties. If people urge that something should be done they must find it difficult not to
        2112
        support a measure of this kind, although there are problems about individuals' rights. We have had similar arguments in other directions on road safety and road traffic.
        I think that we are in a difficulty today. I do not see it so much as a matter of what the public outside will say, although that is not unimportant because we want people to feel that this issue has been properly considered. I see this more as a House of Commons matter. My predecessor said it, and I have said that this is a matter on which the House of Commons ought to have a proper discussion and come to a view.
        We all know the problem. No one is more disappointed than I am that this debate is taking place at five minutes past Five o'clock on a Friday. Although some of our constituents do not always appreciate us, they often want us in our constituencies on a Friday, but there is a big issue before the House and if there is a Division here and we do not vote they will want to know where their representatives were. That applies as much to my hon. Friends as it does to Opposition Members.
        This is an important matter, but it is not without controversy, and I do not think that the hon. Gentleman will do this cause or the House a service by pressing his clause to a vote at 5.5 p.m. or later today. I respect the hon. Gentleman's conviction and passion. I hope that he will continue to urge the case on every possible occasion. I shall use all the influence that I have to bring this matter back to the House at the earliest opportunity in the next Session so that the debate on this issue should be held on the Floor of the House when every hon. Member has an opportunity conveniently to be here and cast his vote.
        I ask the hon. Gentleman to consider whether he would not do his cause and the House a greater service by being a little more patient—I understand how he feels—than he was when he spoke about finding Tellers.
        Mr. Ronald Bell: I rise partly to give my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) time to consider what has been said by the Minister, and partly in the hope that he will accede

        2113
        to it. I must tell him that I shall not speak for long, because I want to vote against his clause as soon as possible.
        This is an important matter for some of us. It has nothing to do with votes outside. It is a question of putting principles before the other considerations that my hon. Friend outlined. He will know—indeed, he was generous enough to acknowledge it—that over the years I have opposed every proposal of this kind that has come before the House, and I think that I have been shown to be justified in doing so because each one is used as an argument and a precedent for yet a further encroachment upon individual liberty. It is said "You did it for crash helmets, why not for seat belts? You did it for crash helmets and seat belts, why not for the next thing?" That is the way in which personal liberty is eroded, bit by bit, precedent by precedent, and gradually the tangible consideration leaves the intangible almost eaten away.
        If this matter were being considered seriously, I should want to make a long speech, though not exaggeratedly long. I regard the matter as of such importance that I should want to address the Committee for 20 minutes. There are hon. Members on both sides of the Committee who hold strong views about this and who, apart from the question of principle, would want to analyse the statistics which my hon. Friend mentioned in passing but which repay careful consideration.
        I put it to my hon. Friend that it would be almost fraudulent if this important issue were to be decided this afternoon, when we have suspended the rule on a Friday and when most Members on both sides have gone away in the belief that we were merely passing through by agreement between the parties a broadly agreed measure on principles that are well understood. We all know what is happening. The business of this Parliament is being wound up, by agreement, on an accelerated timetable. We have even suspended the rule on a Friday. There have been understandings about Report and Third Reading, and very few hon. Members are here.
        If this matter were decided in the House on that basis, on a back-bench new clause, many people outside would feel outraged. They would not feel that Parliament had done its job if this highly
        2114
        controversial proposal, which will, I suppose, affect half the population and raise feelings of great resentment in some who feel strongly about it, were just brushed through by some hairsbreadth majority of a tiny fraction of the House of Commons, the House being taken by surprise on a Friday.
        I appeal to my hon. Friend, therefore. Let us put this argument back to another time, when both he and I can develop our cases and when hon. Members on both sides can argue their attitude towards it. Let us not scandalise the public by an almost flippant treatment of it in these circumstances.
        Mr. Moate: Of course, this is a matter of great importance involving serious principles, but the arguments advanced by the Minister and by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell), though ingenious, are unconvincing. This is not the first time that the House has debated the issue. The case is well known, and the arguments have been well rehearsed in the House. It is not that we are unfamiliar with the principles involved or that we are incapable of coming to a fairly quick decision.
        Moreover, we should not be taking the decision itself. The clause provides—apparently, the Government supported it before it was taken out of the Bill in the other place—that the Government shall have power to introduce an order at the appropriate time. That order may then be debated in full. My hon. and learned Friend will recall the debate on the wearing of crash helmets, in which he took part. That arose on just such an order.
        Mr. Ronald Bell: My hon. Friend will remember that on those occasions one of the arguments strongly urged was that the House had already approved the principle when it voted for the clause.
        Mr. Moate: My hon. and learned Friend will forgive me if I do not recall every detail, but I recall that it was a thorough and useful debate, in which he deployed his arguments with great skill. It was a full debate with a vote at the end expressing the view of the House. Acceptance of this clause today would not prevent the House coming to a decision on a future date at, shall I say, a more civilised hour—though I can well imagine

        2115
        the possible situation then, with arguments deployed that we should not do it at midnight, that it was too late, that the House was not full, and so on. If the Government choose, for one reason or another, or are forced to choose, to take an important measure such as this on a Friday, it is no convincing argument to say that we must not come to a decision because it is too important a matter for this time.
        There is a further point to be made, and on this I am sure that I have the Minister's sympathy because I take it from what he said that he is with us on the matter.
        Mr. Mulley: I say the same when in Government as I do when in opposition. I went on record declaring my position when the matter was first discussed, but we have never had a debate in the House on seat belts. That was part of a Bill with many provisions.
        Mr. Moate: I accept that, but this is the opportunity for just such a debate. It is a reasonable opportunity. I am not at all sure that the country fully understands why hon. Members must leave at 4 o'clock on a Friday, and I believe that this would be recognised as a reasonable debate.
        What is more, knowing the way that the business of the House goes, I do not know when there will be another opportunity to discuss the matter, especially with elections intervening and the well-known pressure on Government time. Ministers have great difficulty in introducing legislation, and it could be several years before there is another Road Traffic Bill of this kind before us.
        Mr. Berry: I take it that my hon. Friend means that this will be our last opportunity to discuss it from the Opposition benches.
        Mr. Moate: I am sure that, when my hon. Friend has his early opportunity to take an active part on the Government benches in considering legislation on the environment, he will be very ready to do so. But I suspect that the Chief Whip would say that he was sorry, but that there had been a Road Traffic Act the previous year and there would not be time for it. We are talking about lives, not about saving time or money. I will not
        2116
        go into the fundamental arguments about the freedom of the individual to choose. I say only that if we lay down the conditions of the road and the safety standards of motor cars we are right as a Parliament to say that we can lay down conditions under which people should drive and how they should protect their passengers and themselves.
        5.15 p.m.
        I was in some doubt about this principle, and whether we should infringe the freedom of the individual to this extent, but the Australian statistics convinced me where our duty lies, and that if we care about road safety and wish to try to reduce the appalling level of road casualties we should take this step. Statistics can be questioned and may not be precise, but on the basis of the Australian statistics, if applied to this country, 1,000 fewer people might be killed each year and 10,000 or 14,000—the statistics vary—serious injuries might be averted.
        The provisions could make a major impact on road casualties in this country. If we do not vote tonight, I do not believe that there will be another opportunity in the near future to take this step to improve road safety. This is the opportunity for the House to vote. There will be a further chance later to discuss the actual detail of the order, but let us tonight make this decision. I hope that if we do force it to a decision no hon. Member who supports the principle of the clause win vote against it.
        Mr. Fox: I must say to my two hon. Friends the Members for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) and Faversham (Mr. Moate) that I cannot take them seriously when they say that we must press this to a Division. During the debate we have been criticised for the amount of legislation we have put through today, and it would be incredible if our colleagues read that we had taken a decision of this importance at this hour on a Friday—
        Mr. Moate: They should be here.
        Mr. Fox: One could always use that argument but this matter is far too important to be taken at this time and I cannot ask my hon. Friends to go into the Lobby on that basis if there is a Division.
        Mr. Mulley: I should be in breach of faith if I were to urge the House tonight—although it is my clause that the hon.

        2117
        Member has been good enough to put down—to take a decision of this sort at this hour. It will be my endeavour in whatever capacity I serve in a new Parliament or a new parliamentary Session to get a debate on this issue. Nevertheless, I ask the hon. Members for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) and Faversham (Mr. Moate)—and some of us have been in this House a lot longer than they have—to consider these matters, because I shall ask every member of the Committee to vote against them if they press it, and ask themselves whether they will be doing their cause, in which I also believe, the best service by adopting an obstinate attitude at this time.
        Mr. Wiggin: I am afraid I do not accept the Minister's argument. Twenty people a week are dying because they are not wearing seat belts. I have been trying to get my party to introduce this legislation ever since I have been in the House. I have pressed my hon. and right hon. Friends for an assurance that when they get back into Government they will pass legislation of this nature. I have had no such assurance, and even if it were given it would be valueless in present circumstances.
        It is always the wrong time for discussing this matter. The reason we are discussing the Bill today is that the Government did not introduce it early enough. They waited 10 weeks to introduce a Bill in which there was basically nothing controversial. They delayed and delayed, and simply because hon. Members want to go on their holidays next week is no reason for not voting on this vitally important issue. I do not think any more words will change matters, unless the Minister gives me the clause.
        Mr. Mulley: The hon. Member talks about saving lives, but we are all concerned about that. By passing the clause today he will make no impact on the issue because the provision cannot come into effect unless a Minister makes regulations. The hon. Member should bear that in mind.
        Mr. Wiggin: That makes it all the more reason why the Minister should quietly acknowledge that the clause is a good one, and accept it. I cannot understand his objection.
        2118
        No doubt when the precise regulations are debated my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) and others will come in great numbers. I believe that there were 16 of them against the compulsory wearing of crash helmets. They can argue the detailed case then. The clause gives the Minister the permissive powers that I believe he needs.
        We have heard talk about scandalising the British public. What is more likely to scandalise them is the reluctance of the House to grasp this nettle firmly and to deal with the problem once and for all, and thus do more to reduce road casualties in a single order than by all the other regulations under the rest of the Bill and the last Road Traffic Act.
        Mr. Ronald Bell: My hon. Friend is asking a handful of Members, who are here for the mechanical passing of an agreed measure, to take a highly controversial decision.
        Mr. David Stoddart: I support the principle of the clause, but I shall be put in great difficulty if it is pressed. For reasons other than the principle of the amendment, I may well be forced into a different Lobby from that which I want to enter. I believe that that would do the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) a lot of harm.
        I have long been in favour of the proposal. I spoke in favour of it when we debated the hon. Gentleman's own Government's Road Traffic Bill. I am committed, but I trust the word of my right hon. Friend the Minister that if he is given time in the next Session he will introduce or support the introduction of a measure to bring in the compulsory wearing of seatbelts. My right hon. Friend is well known for his honesty.
        I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has a great deal of influence on his own colleagues on the Front Bench, and that he will have such influence with a possible, although highly improbable, future Conservative Government. If he presses his clause, he will be putting in difficulty many of us who support his cause and who will continue to support it in the next session of Parliament.
        Mr. Moate: Can the hon. Gentleman explain his difficulty? He has not given

        2119
        a single reason why he faces any problems. Has there been any guarantee from anyone that such a Bill will be introduced? Is the Minister in a position to say what will happen in the next Parliament?
        Mr. Stoddart: The hon. Gentleman understands very well the procedures of the House, and I believe that he will understand the difficulties. If he does not, I shall explain them to him afterwards.

        Division No. 102.]

        AYES

        [5.25 p.m.

        Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)

        Sinclair, Sir George

        Waddington, David

        TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

        Mr. Jerry Wiggin and

        Mr. Roger Moate.

        NOES

        Archer, Peter

        English, Michael

        Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

        Ashton, Joe

        Ennals, David

        Ovenden, John

        Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

        Faulds, Andrew

        Palmer, Arthur

        Bates, Alf

        Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

        Parker, John (Dagenham)

        Bell, Ronald

        Fowler, Gerry (The Wrekin)

        Pavitt, Laurie

        Bishop, E. S.

        Golding, John

        Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

        Body, Richard

        Graham, Ted

        Pendry, Tom

        Bottomley, Rt. Hon. Arthur

        Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

        Price, Christopher (Lewisham, W.)

        Brown, Ronald (H'kney, S. & Sh'ditch)

        Hamilton, William (Fife, C.)

        Radice, Giles

        Carmichael, Neil

        Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

        Richardson, Miss Jo

        Carter, Ray

        Huckfield, Leslie

        Rooker, J. W.

        Clemitson, Ivor

        Hughes, Roy (Newport)

        Sandelson, Neville

        Cocks, Michael

        Janner, Greville

        Shaw, Arnold (Redbridge, Ilford, S.)

        Cox, Thomas

        Jeger, Mrs. Lena

        Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (L'sham, D'ford)

        Davies, Bryan (Enfield, N.)

        Latham, Arthur (City of W'minster P'ton)

        Snape, Peter

        Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)

        Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

        Stoddart, David (Swindon)

        Deakins, Eric

        Mackenzie, Gregor

        Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy

        Delargy, Hugh

        Madden, M. O. F.

        Urwin, T. W.

        Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

        Magee, Bryan

        Weitzman, David

        Dormand, J. D.

        Mallalieu, J. P. W.

        Wise, Mrs. Audrey

        Eadie, Alex

        Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

        TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

        Edge, Geoff

        Mikardo, Ian

        Mr. Joseph Harper and

        Edwards, Robert (W'hampton, S.E.)

        Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

        Mr. James A. Dunn.

        Question accordingly negatived

      Clause 5

        PROHIBITION ON STOPPING OF VEHICLES AT URBAN JUNCTIONS
        (1) The Secretary of State may by regulations make such provision as he thinks fit for prohibiting the stopping of vehicles on any part of a highway—

        (a) which lies within such distance of an urban junction as may be specified in the regulations, being a distance of not more than 30 and not less than 5 yards measured from such point as may be determined in accordance with the regulations; and

        (b) which is marked by means of a traffic sign in accordance with subsection (3) below.

        (2) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) above, regulations under this section—
        I urge the hon. Member for Weston, super-Mare to withdraw the clause. He will be helping me and other hon. Members on the Government Benches who support him but who will be in a similar difficulty.
        Question put, That the clause be read a second time:—
        The Committee divided: Ayes 3, Noes 65.
        (a) may make different provision in relation to different classes of urban junctions and may define any such class by reference to any characteristics of the junction or to any other circumstances whatsoever;
        (b) may exclude from the application of the regulations any part of a highway which is marked in accordance with, and is subject to any provision of, regulations made under section 23 of the 1967 Act (pedestrian crossings) and, where it is necessary in consequence of any such exclusion, may reduce the minimum distance specified in subsection (1)(a) above accordingly;
        (c) may provide that, in relation to vehicles of such classes as may be specified in the regulations, such provisions of the regulations as may be so specified shall not apply, or shall apply subject to such modifications as may be so specified;
        (d) may provide that, subject to such conditions, and in relation to an urban

        2121
        junction of such class, as may be so specified, the appropriate authority for any highway, in relation to the whole or any part of which the regulations apply, may in such manner and to such extent as may be provided in the regulations exclude the application of any provision of the regulations in relation to that highway;
        (e) may provide that, subject to such conditions as may be so specified, in any case where—

        (i) apart from any provision made by virtue of this paragraph, the part of any highway in relation to which the regulations apply does not extend for the maximum distance referred to in subsection (1)(a) above, and

        (ii) the appropriate authority for that highway determine that, having regard to the characteristics of the urban junction in question, it is desirable in the interests of road safety to extend the part of that highway to which the regulations apply by substituting for the distance specified in relation to that highway under subsection (1)(a) above such greater distance, not exceeding 30 yards, as may be specified by the authority.

        the regulations shall apply in relation to that highway as if the distance specified by the appropriate authority were the distance specified in the regulations; and
        (f) may extend to any vehicle which is stopped in such circumstances that part only of the vehicle is on or projects over a part of a highway falling within paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (1) above.
        (3) Regulations under this section shall make provision for identifying any part of a highway to which any provision of the regulations is for the time being to apply by means of a traffic sign of a type or character specified in the regulations (being a type prescribed or character authorised under section 54 of the 1967 Act) and for the time being lawfully in place; and for the purposes of any such regulations any such traffic sign placed on or near a highway shall be deemed to be lawfully in place unless the contrary is proved.
        (4) Nothing in regulations under this section shall prohibit the stopping of a vehicle if and so long as it is stopped in accordance with—

        (a) the indication given by a traffic sign, or

        (b) any direction or permission given by a constable in uniform, or

        (c) any direction or permission given by any other person exercising a power conferred by or under any enactment to control, stop or otherwise regulate traffic, or

        (d) any requirement imposed by regulations under section 23 of the 1967 Act, or

        (e) any requirement arising under section 25 of the 1967 Act (stopping at school crossings),

        or for the purpose of making a left or right turn, or in any other case where the driver is prevented from proceeding by circumstances
        2122
        beyond his control or it is either necessary for him to stop in order to avoid an accident or reasonable for him to do so in order to give way to other persons using the road.
        (5) A person who causes or permits a vehicle to stop in contravention of regulations under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £100; and at the end of paragraph (g) of subsection (4) of section 69 of the Transport Act 1968 (conviction on numerous occasions of certain offences to be a ground for revoking, suspending or curtailing an operator's licence) there shall be added the words "or in regulations made under section 6 of the Road Traffic Act 1974".
        (6) In so far as regulations under this section prohibit the stopping of a vehicle on any part of a highway,—

        (a) the prohibition shall have effect notwithstanding any provision made under any enactment, other than section 23 of the 1967 Act, before the coming into operation of the regulations, being a provision designating as a parking place, or prohibiting or restricting the waiting or stopping of vehicles on, any portion of that part of the highway, and

        (b) to the extent that it conflicts with regulation under this section any such provision as is referred to in paragraph (a) above shall cease to have effect (but without prejudice to its continued operation with respect to things done or omitted to be done before the regulations came into force), and the highway authority shall, as soon as practicable, take such steps as are requisite for removing any traffic sign indicating that any such provision is in force with respect to the portion of the highway concerned.

        (7) For the purposes of this section "urban junction" means a junction of two or more roads, at least one of which is a highway which—

        (a) is a restricted road for the purposes of section 71 of the 1967 Act (30 m.p.h. speed limit); or

        (b) is subject to an order under section 74 of that Act imposing a speed limit not exceeding 40 m.p.h.; or

        (c) is subject to a speed limit not exceeding 40 m.p.h. which is imposed by or under any local Act.

        (8) In this section—
        "appropriate authority", in relation to any highway, means the authority having power, otherwise than by virtue of section 84A (reserve powers) of the 1967 Act, to make an order under secetion 1 or section 6 of that Act, in relation to that highway,
        "road" means any length of road,
        and subsections (1) and (2) of section 104 of the 1967 Act (interpretation) and section 107 of that Act (exercise of regulation-making powers and parliamentary control thereover) shall apply as if this section were included in that Act.—[Mr. Graham Page.]
        Brought up, and read the First time.
        5.30 p.m.
        Mr. Graham Page: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
        This clause deals with the prohibition of parking near road junctions in towns. Those familiar with the ancestry of the Bill will know that this clause was in the Bill introduced by the last Government. Many of those who have been dealing with the Bill throughout will therefore be familiar with the clause. The principle is the same as that with which we are familiar in road safety law. It has for many years been recognised in the prohibition of parking at the approaches to pedestrian crossings. In such instances the prohibition has worked well. It has been accepted willingly by the public and has saved lives.
        Figures for 1972 show that parking near to urban road junctions caused 6,000 serious accidents, including fatalities. I do not think that we can ignore such figures. I am sure that the Committee ought to take note of them and endeavour to legislate to prevent such accidents. When people are seeking to obtain the provision of a pedestrian crossing or a speed limit, they frequently ask, "Do we have to wait until someone is killed on this road before we obtain protection?" In this case we have the figures for those killed and seriously injured. Here is the evidence.
        The clause tries to prevent these sorts of accidents. I say at once that it is permissive for the Secretary of State to make regulations prohibiting parking near urban junctions. Such junctions are defined at the end of the clause, in subsection (7), as junctions where at least one of the roads is a highway which is restricted as to a speed limit of either 30 mph or 40 mph.
        The length of road which would be restricted is limited under the clause to a distance of not less than five yards and not more than 30 yards from a junction. The specification of not less than five yards is dependent upon the point at which the junction is measured and, where appropriate, allowance would have to be made for this. The specification of 30 yards is the extreme limit.
        There is flexibility in the proposed regulations, including flexibility relating to action which local authorities may take. The clause gives specific guidance
        2124
        by way of such figures as I have mentioned, but in other respects it is flexible. For example, not every council estate would be subject to the regulations. The regulations would be made with commonsense to ensure that they were applied in appropriate circumstances, that is, where accidents were likely. There is what I might described as an escape clause in subsection (4).
        The regulations would mean some inconvenience to some motorists in regard to parking, but almost every road safety provision is an inconvenience to drivers. However, if these provisions are responsibly administered serious disturbance to people's way of life can be avoided, and any inconvenience caused would not be unbearable when weighed against the safety which could result.
        If the proposed regulations made street parking more difficult, thereby forcing those who are responsible for provision of off-street parking to take more action than they do at present, I would be among many people who would be very happy. We need much more off-street parking. Without it roads will become clogged with parked cars. The more that roads are cluttered with parked cars, particularly at or near junctions, the more danger there is both for drivers and those crossing the roads.
        The clause was included in the Bill introduced by the previous Government and I have always regarded it as beneficial towards road safety. Many accidents have been caused by cars parked near road junctions in towns and I believe that there is a complete justification for the clause.
        I hope that the Minister will accept the clause. It is not like new Clause 4, on which we were debating a matter of major policy. This clause was considered fully before its introduction into the previous Bill and it was also considered when that Bill was presented to the House. It is not a matter of great policy. It is a permissive clause, allowing the Secretary of State to make regulations.
        If the Minister accepts it, even at this stage, he need have no fear about drafting. I do not claim authorship of the clause. I have stolen it from the previous Bill and it was drafted by Parliamentary draftsmen. The Minister need have no fear about having to act on the clause

        2125
        immediately. He will have time to consider the regulations, and so will the House itself when the regulations are put before it.
        Mr. Mulley: In his usual persuasive way the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) has made a strong case for serious consideration of restricting or preventing parking near junctions. I do not quarrel with his general proposition, because we all know that, in the nature of things, there are more accidents at junctions than on other parts of roads. It is a matter of concern that, although it cannot always be proved, there is evidence to suggest that some accidents are due to the vision of drivers being affected by parked vehicles.
        However, it is one thing to realise that there is a problem at junctions and that parking at junctions may be part of that problem and quite another to apply a universal ban on parking at every junction of every road in the United Kingdom. I am trying to be consistent with what I said in Opposition when we discussed this matter. What is necessary is to apply the restrictions where there is evidence to suggest that in fact there have been accidents, not to apply it to many roads and back streets in residential areas where, because of the application of the 30-yard to five-yard rule, it would be practically impossible to park, because the roads are too short. That would prevent people from parking in areas where they now park, perhaps because they have no garage, and where they do no harm to anybody and where there is no evidence to suggest that there has been an accident in the locality for 10 years or more. That is the objection to using a universal ban.
        I know that the clause was seriously considered and would not have appeared in the previous administration's Bill if it had not been, but in Clause 8 we are giving an additional power to local authorities to deal with road safety.
        The new clause begins by saying that the Secretary of State may make regulations. Is it a Government's function to determine these matters at every junction in the country? Is not that a matter to be dealt with by the local authority concerned?
        I accept that the consequence of that is that local authorities must have the
        2126
        necessary powers. As the right hon. Gentleman probably knows, there are powers under Section 1 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967 to impose bans at junctions. On the other hand, there are constraints in those powers in that the consent of the Secretary of State is required in every case and there is the possibility, therefore, of a public inquiry and so on. What is reasonable is to give local authorities larger and easier powers to designate no-parking areas where there is clearly the evidence or possibility of an accident and to let them get on with it. We accept that there should be a distinctive form of road marking so that people may know their rights because of the possibility of uncertainty in some areas about whether it is 30 yards or five yards.
        The clause in the previous administration's Bill was widely criticised on a number of grounds by a number of bodies. An attempt was made to reintroduce it in another place where the noble Lords were very kind to the previous administration. Indeed, some noble Lords tried to change my Bill into an exact version of the previous administration's Bill. As a result of the arguments there, the clause was withdrawn.
        It is right to say that without going for a universal blanket ban, we should see whether we can achieve the very proper objectives which the right hon. Gentleman and others had in mind to reduce the number of road accidents. Let us see whether we can cover the matter by subordinate legislation, but if accidents continue we shall have to take a hard look at the matter. We are as concerned as the right hon. Gentleman to do something about these accidents, and I hope that, in view of what I have said, he will withdraw the clause.
        5.45 p.m.
        Mr. Graham Page: The Minister knows how to win an argument against me. He has only to allege that I am depriving local authorities of powers. He knows that that is the last thing I wish to do.
        The Minister drew our attention to a statute whereby the local authorities may be able to deal with the problem. I hope he is right and I should like to look further into the matter. If he agrees to discuss the subject with me at some time to

        2127
        see whether we can provide for this matter within the regulations in respect of local authorities, I am sure that that is the best way to proceed. We shall then be dealing with specifically difficult roads rather than seeking to achieve our ends by means of blanket provisions. I am grateful to the Minister for accepting the principle that we must deal with the question of parking too close to corners, and I hope that we shall be able to look into Section 1 of the Road Traffic Act.
        Mr. Mulley: I give the right hon. Gentleman that assurance. I shall be delighted to discuss the matter with him, and I shall welcome his assistance on this difficult matter.
        Mr. Page: Having had the Minister's assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
        Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.
        Schedules 1 and 2 agreed to.

      Schedule 3

        AMENDMENTS OF PART III OF ROAD TRAFFIC ACT 1972
        Mr. Mulley: I beg to move Amendment No. 26, in page 47, line 5, at end insert—
        '(4) At the end of the said section 101 there shall be added the following subsection—
        "(8) Nothing in the provisions of sections 15(5) and 31(1) of the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act 1954 (complaint and previous complaint and previous convictions) shall affect the power of the court under subsection (4A) of this section to take into consideration a previous conviction or disqualification endorsed on the licence of the accused."'.
        The Temporary Chairman (Mr. Harold Gurden): With this amendment, I understand, it is convenient to take Government Amendments Nos. 27 to 30.
        Mr. Mulley: Amendment No. 26 is a technical matter. It seeks to bring the Scottish law into line with that of the rest of the United Kingdom. Amendments Nos. 27 to 30 bring about a change in the penalties proposed in respect of offences by conductors on buses and also offences committed by passengers. Happily, I understand, there are few inci
        2128
        dents of this sort, but, looking at the figures, it appeared to me that the increase from £5 to £50 was out of proportion with the increases in the schedule. I hope the House will agree that by making the figure £20 in the first case and £50 in the others, it will provide a proper balance.
        Amendment agreed to.
        Schedule 3, as amended, agreed to.
        Schedule 4 agreed to.

      Schedule 5

        VARIATION OF PENALTIES FOR CERTAIN OFFENCES
        Amendments made: No. 27, in page 51, line 16, column 4, leave out '£50' and insert '£20'.
        No. 28, in page 51, line 18, column 5, leave out '£50 ' and insert '£20 '.
        No. 29, in page 52, line 4, column 4, leave out '£100 ' and insert '£50'.
        No. 30, in page 52, line 6, column 5, leave out '£100 ' and insert £50 '.[Mr. Mulley.]
        No. 34, in page 70, line 20, at end, add 'or four months' imprisonment '.—[Mr. Fox.]
        Schedule 5, as amended, agreed to.

      Schedule 6

        MINOR AND CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS
        Mr. Mulley: I beg to move Amendment No. 39, in page 72, line 4, at end insert:
        ' The Airports Authority Act 1965
        2A. In section 12 of the Airports Authority Act 1965 (control of road traffic within British Airports Authority aerodromes) in subsection (3) (order may exempt particular roads from application of road traffic enactments) for the words from "particular roads" to the end of the subsection there shall be substituted the words "such roads or lengths of roads to which the public does not have access as the Authority may for the time being identify as being so exempted by means of a sign of a type or character specified in the order".'.
        This is a drafting amendment to bring the wording of the Bill within the Airports Authority Act 1965. It is not a matter of substance.
        Amendment agreed to.
        Amendments made: No. 35, in page 73, line 25, at end insert:
        11A. In section 36A of that Act the following subsections shall be inserted after subsection (3):—
        " (3A) The Secretary of State may by regulations provide that, in relation to vehicles of such classes as may be specified in the regulations, subsection (1) above shall not apply or shall apply subject to such conditions as may be so specified.
        (3B) In England and Wales a local authority may institute proceedings for an offence under this section committed with respect to the verge of a road, land or a footway in their area; and in this section "local authority" means the council of a county, district or London borough, the Greater London Council or the Common Council of the City of London."'.
        No. 36, in page 73, line 26, leave out from beginning to first ' the' in line 27 and insert:
        (1) In section 53 of that Act (testing of condition of vehicles on roads) in subsection (1) (authorised examiners may test motor vehicles to ascertain whether certain requirements are complied with) in paragraph (b) after the word "of" there shall be inserted the word "noise".
        (2) In subsection (2) of that section (persons who may act as authorised examiners)'.
        No. 37, in page 74, line 24, at end insert:
        '18A. In section 168(2) of that Act (information to be given as to identity of driver etc.) in paragraph (a) after the word "police" there shall be inserted the words "or, in the case of an offence under section 36A or section 36B of this Act, by or on behalf of a local authority within the meaning of the said section 36A".'.—[Mr. Mulley.]
        Schedule 6, as amended, agreed to.
        Schedule 7 agreed to.

        Title
        Amendment made: No. 38, in line 2, leave out ' operators ' licences and drivers' hours ' and insert ' and operators' licences '.—[Mr. Mulley.]
        Bill reported, with amendments as amended, considered.

      Clause 6

        TRAFFIC SURVEYS
        5.56 p.m.
        Mr. Mulley: I beg to move a manuscript amendment, in page 11, line 7, leave out subsection (4) and insert:
        2130
        '(4) The power to give a traffic direction for the purposes of a traffic survey shall be so exercised as not to cause any unreasonable delay to a person who indicates that he is unwilling to furnish any information for the purposes of the survey.'
        Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): I have it in the authority of Mr. Speaker to say that he has selected the amendment which has been moved.
        Mr. Mulley: When we were discussing Clause 6 in Committee I gave an undertaking which was accepted by both sides to seek the advice of parliamentary draftsmen on the point which we discussed and also to discuss it with officials and police authorities. This I have done.
        I have also had the benefit of discussing the matter with the hon. Members for Shipley (Mr. Fox), for Welling borough (Mr. Fry), who has been unable to stay, and for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg). They all very graciously said that they thought that this amendment would meet the point which they had in mind. I hesitate to say so, but it is in fact a better piece of parliamentary drafting than the home-made draft which we considered in Committee.
        As this is probably the last occasion today on which I shall be on my feet, perhaps I might say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, how much I appreciate the great consideration shown by you and your colleagues, the Officers of the House and all hon. Members in allowing us to deal with this important and useful legislation today. I wish to pay tribute to the very hard work that everyone has done to meet what has been a rather strict timetable, not least the officials of my Department.
        Mr. Berry: Since most of my hon. Friends have departed, perhaps I may, without any unreasonable delay, thank the Minister for his help in this matter. When the Bill is published properly, we may all find it useful to cut out the subsection and have it conveniently in our cars to show, if and when the occasion arises.
        We support the amendment.
        Amendment agreed to.
        Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading), and agreed to.
        Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, with amendments.

    ELECTRICITY (BORROWING POWERS)
    5.57 p.m.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Alex Eadie): I beg to move,
    That the Electricity (Borrowing Powers) Order 1974, a draft of which was laid before this House on 4th July, be approved.
    The draft order now before the House would raise the limit on the borrowing powers of the Electricity Council and the electricity boards in England and Wales from its present level of £5,200 million to the maximum of £6,500 million provided for in Section 15(5) of the Electricity Act 1957, as amended. Provision to raise the limit to this amount by such an order was made by Section 1 of the Electricity Act 1972.
    With minor exceptions, the statutory limit applies to the industry's total outstanding borrowings at any one time, including any borrowings from abroad and any temporary borrowings. The present limit of £5,200 million was itself established by the Electricity Act 1972. In moving the Second Reading of the Bill on 1st February 1972, the then Minister for Industry—the right hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden)—indicated that on estimates at that time it was expected that the House might be asked to approve a further increase above the present limit in about two years or so.
    It was recognised in 1972 that inevitably a number of uncertainties affect forecasts of borrowing requirements in any large industry, and this element of unavoidable uncertainty has continued. Thus, there have been differences between the 1972 estimates and the actual results on the detailed components of the earlier forecast, but overall judgment and expectation then that the House would have to be asked to raise the limits at about this time have proved accurate. Although borrowing has in fact hitherto been somewhat lower than had previously been expected, mainly because capital spending in the last three years to 1973–74 inclusive proved to be lower than had been anticipated, the industry's capital expenditure has been rising from its low point of £400 million in 1970–71 and will continue to do so.
    2132
    It is also necessary, as the limits also govern temporary borrowing requirements, to have regard, in addition to rising capital expenditure, to short-time movements in the industry's cash flows. Bearing in mind also this question of the industry's day-to-day financing requirements, it is now reasonably clear that the industry could well be within £25 million or so of its total borrowing limit of £5,200 million by mid-October. This industry has current annual revenues around £2,000 million, whilst its annual outgoings on revenue and capital account together are currently some £2,400 million. I think that the House, knowing the unavoidable imprecisions attaching to any estimates of cash flows, will agree that an estimated margin of only £25 million below the overall borrowing limit cannot prudently be regarded as adequate against the possibility of the industry finding itself in a position where it cannot finance its day-to-day activities. That is the reason why the Government consider it essential to have this debate now and to raise the limit on borrowings before the House rises. We cannot take any risk of a situation arising where this great industry, which plays such a central and essential rôle in the nation's economic activities, would find itself unable to conduct its ongoing commercial activities and finance its continued development.
    It has been the practice of the House to use occasions such as this to take stock of the industry's progress and prospects. It may be helpful, therefore, if I now sketch out some of the main changes in the picture since we last discussed the borrowing limit early in 1972.
    At the end of March 1974 the industry in England and Wales served 19·1 million consumers. Between 1970–71 and 1973–74 the industry's income from sales of electricity alone rose from around £1,400 million to nearly £1,800 million, giving it a total revenue in 1973–74 of almost £2,000 million after including other revenues, mainly £188 million from sales of appliances and its contracting activities. Over the same period since 1970–71, and despite the overall fall in unit sales last year due to the power emergency, the total number of units of electricity sold rose by nearly 9 per cent. whilst the number of employees was reduced similarly by about 9 per cent.—from just

    2133
    over 188,000 until, as it is now, just over 171,000.
    The number of power stations has continued to be reduced as old, small stations have been taken out of service to be replaced by smaller numbers of larger stations. At March 1974, there were 169 stations in service. Out of the 47 500-megawatt sets ordered between 1961 and 1965, 45 are now commissioned at full or interim rating, and the remaining two sets are expected to be synchronised in 1974. In addition to the original 47, two more 500-megawatt sets have been ordered for Ince B power station. And at Drax—Yorkshire—the board's first two 660-megawatt units were synchronised in November and December 1973.
    But the industry now faces new problems and new opportunities.
    A few days ago, the Government's decision was announced to go ahead as rapidly as circumstances permit with the development of nuclear power generation. All the implications of that decision will have to be examined in continuing detailed discussions between the Government and the industry. But, in the time scale of the next two or three years, I do not expect the decision about the SGHWR programme to make much difference to the estimates of capital expenditure which the industry submitted to the Government in its 1974 capital investment programme and which is now being examined in the usual way as part of the annual review of public expenditure. The industry's latest estimates are that capital expenditure in the three years 1974–75 to 1976–77, inclusive, should amount to about £2,400 million.
    Of course, there are many uncertainties in estimating the actual costs of the capital programme. There are also uncertainties in estimating the future level of electricity demand which governs a large part of the capital programme—though differences of judgment on this point should not have much impact on capital expenditure until after 1976–77 due to the long lead-time involved in the provision of new power stations—but on the whole we accept the industry's estimate of its likely capital requirements over the next three years as broadly of the right order of magnitude.
    On this basis, and having regard also to the major uncertainties attaching to all
    2134
    the industry's costs and its own prices, the industry estimates that the proposed new borrowing limit of £6,500 million could be reached in 1976–77. Bearing in mind that its revenue receipts are traditionally low in the autumn it could well be that this limit would be reached as early as October 1976—and if, nearer the time, that looks likely, it could be that a new Bill will have to be introduced in the first half of 1976 to authorise a further increase in the borrowing power.
    In all the circumstances, the Government regard the industry's projections as not unreasonable, and as demonstrating the need now to raise the borrowing limit to its permitted maximum. This will then provide the necessary framework for flexibility—giving both the industry and the Government the necessary room for manoeuvre in meeting the industry's legitimate ongoing requirements for finance.
    There is, of course, no question now of committing further capital expenditure by the industry—just as there is no question of the Government's seeking to commit themselves or the House now to the future level of electricity prices and the precise degree of financing which should be met from that source rather than from borrowing. All these questions must continue to be decided in the usual way—on the best judgment we can make in balancing the many different considerations as they appear from time to time, but it is clear that the industry must have the means to finance its operations, and I consider it right, now, to make appropriate provision to ensure that it can do so for the next two years or so.
    I therefore ask the House to approve the draft order.
    6.10 p.m.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: I estimate that the Under-Secretary of State spoke for about 13 minutes. The order is to authorise borrowing by the Central Electricity Generating Board and the area boards of £1,300 million, so I reckon that his speech has cost the taxpayer about £100 million a minute.
    When I suggested that an order of this magnitude should not be taken in Standing Committee but should he debated on the Floor of the House I little imagined that we should be discussing it after

    2135
    6 o'clock on a Friday afternoon, and, as I look about the Chamber, I realise that hon. Members' constituents are more important to them than these large sums of money. I shall, therefore, make a short speech, but, in view of the importance of the order and the size of the sums involved, I hope that it will be thought right if I make a few points of substance about the electricity generating industry.
    I shall raise my questions under two broad headings: first, the ordering programme of the CEGB; and second, some of the implications for the future development of nuclear policy of the Secretary of State's announcement earlier this month. However, before coming to those matters. I put one short question. Can the Under-Secretary tell us when his right hon. Friend will make the promised statement about off-peak electricity charges? The whole country—or certainly a large body of consumers—wants to know the outcome of the discussions with the Electricity Council.
    First, the future ordering programme. This must depend crucially on the energy demand forecasts made by the industry. These are notoriously difficult to make, and they have often been wrong in the past for reasons which one well understands. They must now be more difficult than ever, if only because we are in a wholly new situation when it is exceedingly hard to estimate the effect on the rate of growth of consumption of the higher prices now being paid by both industry and the domestic consumer.
    However. I understand that the Electricity Council has now estimated the average cold-spell conditions off-take in 1979–80 at 56 gigawatts, which, if one assumes a continuation of the 20 per cent. margin, gives one a requirement of installed capacity at 67 to 68 gigawatts in 1979–80. That implies a smaller ordering programme than was previously estimated, but it still leaves open the question of what is to be the mix of new power stations ordered as between fossil fuel and nuclear fuel, and within the fossil fuels as between oil and coal.
    The central factor here is that nuclear power is now a little over half the cost of fossil fuel power—between 40 and 50 per cent. cheaper. It is worth giving the
    2136
    figures. Taking the cost per kilowatt smut out, a coal-fired power station now costs 0·95p per kilowatt. An oil-fired power station now costs 0·93p per kilowatt. Nuclear power, on the other hand—this is the figure for modern nuclear stations—is estimated at between 0·46p and 0·51p per kilowatt. Nuclear power is now significantly cheaper than power based on coal or oil.
    Apart from the AGR stations still in the course of construction—and with their unhappy history one must hope that they will indeed be completed—there are no nuclear stations that can now be ordered and can be on stream before 1981–82. I noted what the Minister said about the £1.300 million not being spent—or at least very little of it—on the SGHWR programme.
    For supplies into the 1980s two things are now self-evident. First, it must now be right to order as much nuclear capacity as the British nuclear industry is capable of building. This has been the decision of the United States, France, Germany, Japan and of almost every developed country. To build fossil fuel stations now as a deliberate preference to nuclear stations is simply to saddle consumers in the 1980s with much bigger electricity bills than they would otherwise have. The second self-evident fact is that the smaller the total of the new programme the less scope there is for changing the balance between fossil fuel and nuclear stations, and therefore the more important it is to have all the new nuclear orders that are possible.
    It cannot be right at this time deliberately to order fossil fuel stations instead of nuclear. There will have to be some, and we would all concede that, simply because of the difficulties of timing in getting the nuclear programme under way, but deliberate', to hold back on nuclear power in order to boost the consumption of coal or oil is perverse. Is it or is it not the Government's policy deliberately to hold back nuclear ordering in order to protect the coal industry?
    This brings me to the announcement of the Secretary of State that he is proposing to authorise 4,000 megawatts of nuclear power for the next four year. Many people welcomed the decision to go for United Kingdom technology, but,

    2137
    nevertheless, there was widespread disappointment at the small size of the nuclear programme. Of course we realise that caution is necessary in scaling up from the single prototype model at Winfrith Heath—the only one of its kind in the world and a relatively small plant.
    The second question, therefore, is whether this 4,000 megawatt programme is what the Government believe to be the optimum size of nuclear ordering, or whether that size is dictated by the need to go cautiously with SGHWR. In other words, would the Government have preferred a larger nuclear ordering programme had they dared to do so with the new technology?
    I have spoken to a large number of supporters of SGHWR, and to a man they all seem convinced that there is little risk of a repetition of the problems the board has experienced with the AGR, and that the Secretary of State could safely go for a significantly bigger programme now.
    However, this is obviously a highly technical matter and one in which the generating board might have strong views. If it is not the case, however, that it would be safe to go for more than 4,000 megawatts, and if the choice of technology has dictated a much smaller ordering programme than the Government would have wanted, they owe it to the country to say what is the cost of that decision in terms of higher electricity charges in the 1980s.
    For instance, the CEGB's estimate, as given in Mr. Hawkins's evidence to the Select Committee a few days ago, was that this would give rise to cumulative additional costs for consumers between 1981 and 1990 of between £3,000 million and £5,000 million at 1973 prices. If the Government do not accept that estimate, perhaps they will tell us their own estimate. That is a large burden, which could add 20 per cent. or 30 per cent. to electricity bills in the next decade. We are entitled to look at these figures with some alarm.
    I turn to the second part of the question. If there is now to be a bigger fossil fuel programme than would otherwise have been needed, is the fuel to be coal or oil? That is a difficult question. The figures I quoted earlier show that there is little to choose between them now. Coal and oil are fully competitive at existing prices, but
    2138
    when we have the oil from the Continental Shelf there will be a huge difference in resource costs, although the value may be the same. It is now clear that Continental Shelf oil will flow on to world markets at the world price. The price will be little different, but the resource cost will be very different. The margin of value over costs for that oil will be enormous. That is why we are all agreed on substantial taxation of the oil profits.
    Therefore, it may be that in the short term, perhaps during the 1980s, there is a strong case for letting the future fossil fuel power stations be based on oil. Those stations will last 30 to 40 years. What will be the position towards the end of that period? We have oil that will last us for some decades, but we have coal that will last for centuries. Even now the CEGB cannot get all the coal it wants—the difference is about 15 million tons a year—and it is talking of having to import. Perhaps the Under-Secretary will tell us something about the Government's thinking on this.
    These two questions, the problem of how much nuclear, and the division between coal and oil for electricity generation, go to the heart of the energy problem confronting the country. The House is entitled to clear answers.
    In speaking about my second point, concerning nuclear technology, I should like to say something that I hope the whole House will support. A decision has been made in favour of SGHWR. Whether or not one agrees with that decision, it seems to me that all the resources of the manufacturing industry, construction industry and the generating industry should throw themselves behind the project to make it a success. If any one part of the industry is not wholly committed, heart and soul, to making it a success, I fear that it will not be successful. That would be the worst disaster of all. A decision has been made. We must all get behind it to see that it works.
    I should like to look a little further and say something about future reactors—the high-temperature reactors and the breeder reactors. I am still convinced that high-temperature reactors have great potential, that the European nuclear industry must have a strong position and that the United Kingdom should be very much part of that.

    2139
    Will it be possible to establish a consortium of the National Nuclear Corporation, the French CEA and perhaps the Germans, through Brown Boveri, to make arrangements with General Atomic to establish a capacity to make high-temperature reactors in Europe, to do development work on the GA process and perhaps place a demonstration order for a commercial plant in Europe? What the Secretary of State said in his statement suggested that was not now of a high priority for the United Kingdom. That would be a great pity. There is enormous potential. I hope that we can hear a little more about the matter.
    I turn to breeder reactors. Here I can give an unreserved welcome to what the Secretary of State said about international collaboration. I have long believed it possible. I made the point in the debate on 2nd May. It seems to me absolutely essential. Breeder reactors have a 50 times greater efficiency in fuel usage than thermal reactors and must be the basis in the long term of power generation till the more distant possibilities become a reality.
    I had the privilege recently of visiting France. I saw the Rapsodie and the Phénix reactors. They are experimental reactors which have been built by the French. Next Wednesday I am visiting Dounreay to see our own PFR. France and Britain are now five years ahead of Germany and seven years ahead of the United States. That is a tremendous lead. It gives us tremendous opportunities for Anglo-French collaboration on what must be the main reactor technology of the future.
    I am aware that talks have been proceeding for some months, somewhat inconclusively, on the possibility of collaboration on breeder technology. What is now needed is an agreement on the joint design of a commercial fast reactor and on the joint testing of components, which is an extremely expensive business. The value of sharing costs in that technology would be very great. Equally important is a decision on the sequence ordering of demonstration models.
    France is ready to go ahead with its commercial fast reactor within the next year or so. That is Super Phénix. France
    2140
    has established what seems to be a useful kind of agreement between the utilities which will order them and the construction consortium which will build them. Cannot the British electricity industry come to a similar arrangement for the British commercial fast reactor?
    It is now essential to get ahead. Europe has a chance to be in the van of reactor development in the future and to establish for the United Kingdom and for France the same kind of pre-eminence in breeder technology which the United States has established to its great advantage in light water technology. But this will require drive, imagination and courage, and the generating boards must play their part. I have heard encouraging rumours that the CEGB now recognises that it has a major part to play in this development. I hope that that is true.
    If we as a nation fluff the chance that is offered to us by fast breeder reactors, it would be a confession that there is no branch of advanced technology in which we can hope to compete with the Americans. That I do not believe. This is an area in which we must develop our preeminence. We must not allow the United States to overtake us in this technology.
    The energy crisis is bringing great agonies to the world, both to industrial and to developing countries. We have the scientific and engineering resources that for the next few years will help to steer us out of the crisis and lead us on to a brighter future. It is a matter of the highest priority that we should grasp firmly the opportunities which our pre-eminence in breeder technology has given us. I hope that in the course of passing this order—I do not dispute its need—we may give those concerned a valuable shove. This is a matter on which the whole House should unite.
    6.28 p.m.
    Mr. Arthur Palmer: I begin by making a personal declaration of interest. I think that the House understands my fairly close connections with the electricity supply industry through my union, the Electrical Power Engineers' Association. I agree with the right hon. Member for Wan-stead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) that the order gives the House an opportunity to debate the affairs of the electricity

    2141
    supply industry, an industry which is fundamental not only to our industrial life but to the whole life of the nation in every way.
    As the right hon. Member said, it is right that, even under these unusual Friday circumstances, we should examine the affairs of the industry closely because of the great sums of money which the House has to vote for the industry to borrow—£13,000 million. Even if we speak of it as £13 million it is still a great deal of money. It is a pity that we cannot give time to discuss the distribution side of the industry, but many of the biggest problems are on the generation side and I shall confine my remarks to that.
    There has been a reference to the figures for advance load growth. We should, I think, try to get some kind of explanation from the remarkable divergence which appears to exist between the estimates of the Central Electricity Generating Board and the Department. The Select Committee on Science and Technology at its public hearing last week did its best to probe into this divergence and made a little progress.
    It is no light matter. If we do not get the estimates roughly right, on the one hand there may be too little capacity, with much load shedding, or, on the other hand, there may be too much capacity, which is financially wasteful in interest charges, apart from labour and materials. The total sums involved are enormous.
    On 2nd May the Secretary of State in the House said that the figure could be taken between 3 per cent. and 6 per cent. but he seemed to come down on an average at 3·6 per cent. which was later supported by a declaration from the Ministry outside the House. Mr. Arthur Hawkins, Chairman of the CEGB, in his evidence to the Select Committee said that it would prefer to work on an average figure for the comparable period of 5·1 per cent. per annum. That is not a difference of estimating which can be shrugged off as something which time will put right. It has not been our experience in the past.
    Surely a much greater effort could be made by the Department and the industry to reconcile their figures. This would give more confidence all round. The Select Committee is bothered about it, and all being well, if electrical events
    2142
    do not inconveniently take place in the country, a few of us will be visiting the United States fairly soon with the money nowadays provided by the Treasury for Select Committees to examine American forecasting techniques. We intend to talk not only to public authorities but to one or two private authorities concerned with this, such as the Ford Foundation. In due course the information which we obtain will be available to the House and to my hon. Friend's Department.
    I wish to refer now to a point stressed in the report recently made by the Central Policy Review Staff—the so-called "think tank"—headed until a few days ago by Lord Rothschild. I have already said in the House, and it seemed to cause a little flutter of surprise that I thought the report was a little eccentric in some directions. Nevertheless there are one or two important and interesting parts, particularly that referring to the amount of new plant, nearly all 500 megawatt generating sets, constructed but not yet in normal commercial use because of the faults which have come to light when the plant was tried out. According to the report, about 8,000 megawatts of new plant is non-available because of delayed commissioning and running delays since formal commissioning took place. That in itself represents a capacity of about twice the proposed new nuclear programme.
    If this backlog could be eliminated, in my judgment and that of any fair critic, the termal efficiency of the industry would rise by about 3 per cent., which according to the report by Lord Rothschild's investigating team would amount to a saving of 10 million tons of coal equivalent per annum. I calculate that that would wipe out entirely any deficit that the industry is likely to experience this year, and it would probably make any further Government subsidisation unnecessary. I ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to have this matter examined closely. It is a serious point, which the industry and the Department should take seriously.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Before the hon. Gentleman, who knows a great deal about these matters, leaves that point, does he draw any conclusions from this about the

    2143
    dangers of the concentration of technology in a single organisation as large and as powerful as the CEGB?
    Mr. Palmer: I have been reading the right hon. Gentleman's recent remarks in one of the industry's papers, the Electrical Times. There are some dangers, I agree, but there is not much time now to go into detail. I shall be referring again to his remarks in a few moments.
    We are concerned here with an issue which should be looked at closely to see what efforts are being made to ensure that in future there is much greater reliability from and availability of these large machines. I appreciate the problems involved. The Select Committee went into the matter some years ago. We were then promised progress but unfortunately it has not taken place to the extent hoped for.
    I turn to another point which has some bearing on the divergence in estimates of load growth between the Department and the CEGB. The CEGB is apparently preparing for the future a margin of installed capacity over anticipated demand of 20 per cent. In the past the CEGB has worked on 17 per cent. We must ask whether it is necessary with an inter-connected system, the largest in the world, to work towards such a large margin. Mr. Hawkins, the Chairman of the CEGB, gave the explanation to the Select Committee that it was not possible to be certain of these new machines, and that they were bound to be somewhat unreliable. He also seemed to think that the weather was certain to be had in future, because it had been good in the past.
    I appreciate the problems of the CEGB, bearing in mind that it has a statutory responsibility for maintaining continuity of supply. But in the end this country may have to come to the position that other advanced industrial countries have come to, that is, to balance the advantages of absolute 24-hour 365 day availability of supply against the vast capital expenditure which this can involve. Occasionally, it is necessary to take a risk of reducing voltage or even to load-shed to get through difficult periods of bad weather. That is a controversial issue, hut it should be seriously looked at.
    2144
    The right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford spoke about the balance of primary fuel use. My views on this are fairly close to his. Until well into the 1980s the bulk of electricity will cone from fossil fuel stations. That is inevitable. But there is a temptation to the CEGB to over-use the oil that the North Sea will provide. It is a temptation that the CEGB ought to resist it might be better to use that oil in order to help our balance of payments and in other economic directions.
    What is certain, and here I think that the right hon. Gentleman was perfectly correct, is that the nuclear component in our generating capacity should be much larger for the future. I believe, as I think the House as a whole believes, that the decision to use the heavy water reactor and not the American light water reactor as suggested by the CEGB, /vas correct. The safety risks of a large light water reactor are far too great in an overcrowded island such as Britain, and the construction times are not good, as American experience has shown. It is a great pity that the CEGB did not bring the British heavy water reactor into commercial use before.
    The decision is now made and I was glad to have the assurance of the hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford that he now approves of that decision—I must confess that at one time I was not too certain that he approved. Continuity in these matters between Governments is absolutely essential, I suggest.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: I want to make it absolutely clear that I have not expressed a view. We have not seen the report of the Nuclear Power Advisory Board. It is exceedingly difficult when seeking to balance these arguments to approve or disapprove a particular choice—I have always found it extremely difficult—but one has to come to a firm conclusion. What I said was that, the Secretary of State having had that report and having made that decision, it was now up to everyone to make a success of it.
    Mr. Palmer: But the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me that it would be a great pity if the CEGB thought that it could await the result of the next General Election, when there might be a different or a new decision. That was the point I was anxious to make and I was very

    2145
    glad to hear what the right hon. Gentleman said.
    The question of the size of the programme should be separated from that of reactor choice. The CEGB programme for nuclear construction originally was fantastically much too large. Equally, the present proposals by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State are too small. The heavy water steam generating reactor is such in design that we could as well construct five new stations as construct three. It is a valid point—and the right hon. Gentleman made it—that the British nuclear programme should not be significantly smaller than that of France, West Germany or Japan, because they are comparable industrial countries in size of economy.
    I come to pricing policy. I said at the time, and I repeat, that one of the biggest of the many blunders made by the Conservative Party in office was the decision to subsidise energy prices two or three years ago, because that resulted in a great distortion in pricing from which it will take the electricity supply industry and the country a long time to recover. In any case, I do not think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the right man to decide energy policy. If the Treasury has too much to say in these matters for social or political reasons, there is created a distortion that is not acceptable in the long run if we want energy efficiency.
    There are two possible energy policies. One is to revert to the so-called market pricing, or as near as one can get, and the other is to have conscious priority pricing, operated by the Ministry of Energy, to encourage one fuel or discourage another. This is one of the matters that we shall look at, as I say, when the Select Committee on Science and Technology goes to the United States. But an energy policy operated by the Treasury is the worst of all energy policies, I am sure.
    Finally, I turn to a matter which interests me and which I know certainly interests the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford since he gave an interview on this topic to the Electrical Times. I refer to the structure of the industry. That structure needs to be rethought and a fresh look should be taken at the situation in the light of experience. What is sometimes over-
    2146
    looked is that we have had two nationalisation Acts in respect of electricity supply. The first was in 1947 and the second in 1958. That further legislation brought in major reorganisation of the nationalised industry's original structure. It is no good the Conservative Party saying that the CEGB is far too remote from the consumer, because that party was responsible 16 years ago for the structure that brought that remoteness about.
    I noted the right hon. Gentleman's remarks in the Electrical Times about separate power boards for combined generating, transmission and distribution. There can be, separate administrative bodies of that kind, whether nationalised or otherwise. One can adopt that system and at the same time retain central daily planning of the running of power stations, load flows, and so on—in other words, one can operate a grid without having one centralised administrative organisation. That I agree. On the other hand, when one has set up an organisation such as the CEGB and where there is a good staff used to working together, we should not talk too lightly about breaking it up.
    I am anxious to help the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford in one respect. In the interview to which I referred he said that one sound reason for breaking up the large generating concentration would be to avoid centralisation in labour negotiations. That is an old-fashioned argument and is inapplicable in any case to the electricity supply industry. There has been for 50 years centralisation of wage and salary negotiation—in fact it existed long before nationalisation and goes back to the 1920s. This applies not only to the Electricity Council's boards but also involves the North of Scotland Board, the South of Scotland Board and to a great extent the Northern Ireland electricity organisation. It is beyond belief that the trade unions in the electricity supply industry would agree to throw away an advantage which they gained as far back as 1920. Therefore that is a poor argument and the right hon. Gentleman should not use it as a man of perception.
    Indeed, I would not go any further with him than to agree that it would be sensible to have a moderate charge. I believe that the CEGB should act as a

    2147
    service board or enterprise for the distribution part of the industry. In other words, the area electricity boards should decide the policy of their own generating enterprise. If that were done it would retain many of the historical technological advances made by the CEGB. We should retain the advantages of the grid and at the same time enable the industry to embark on commercial policies over which the area boards could decide. At present the CEGB can decide what price it charges to area boards for electricity, yet the area boards are tied customers, they cannot escape. These were faults that some of us saw in 1958. The way forward now is to bring the CEGB more to commercial reality, but not to break it up ruthlessly.
    Finally, the House should perhaps pay tribute to those who work in this industry, those who lead it and all employees at every level. From time to time the industry is criticised by hon. Members—it is necessary to have much criticism in a democratic society. But on the whole—and I say this with pride, having spent a lifetime close to the industry—the British electricity supply industry is still one of the finest and efficient in the world and renders great service to the people of this country, in every way, great and small.
    6.50 p.m.
    Mr. Eadie: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall deal with some of the comments which have been made in this interesting and important debate.
    One of the most important and difficult problems is forecasting electricity demand for some years ahead so that sensible decisions can be made at the right time. The industry and the Department have given this a lot of thought.
    Projections take account of many factors, including availability of fossil fuels and the introduction of new nuclear reactors. The current range of forecasts indicates that to meet peak electricity demand in the mid-1980s will require a total ordering programme for the CEGB of between 7 gigawatts and 15 gigawatts of new power stations by the end of 1977. These projections mean that a substantial programme of power-station ordering must be maintained in the coming years to meet expected public demand. This will require a major investment pro-
    2148
    gramme to provide the capacity essential to fulfil the economic goals of the country.
    Decisions on individual power stations will in the future, as in the past, be taken progressively as the requirement for new capacity indicates that they are needed. The choice of fuel will be made in the light of estimates of future fossil fuel price and availability prevailing at that time. But, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has stated on a number of occasions, the second part of Drax has a firm place in the programme.
    As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the industry continues to replace old, small stations by larger ones. I shall not deny that delays in bringing new generating plant into service are a cause for concern. The CEGB has been going through a difficult period because of problems with the AGRs and the introduction of the large 500-megawatt generating sets. We expect, as does the board, to see these delays reduced significantly in the next few years. We intend, however, to keep a close watch on the position and see what more can reasonably be done, following the recommendations of the Wilson Committee which have largely been put into effect, to reduce delays to a minimum.
    The problems associated with the construction and commissioning of the AGR power station have been, and continue to be, the source of major concern and have resulted in serious cost overruns. The current cost of each monthly delay is estimated to be about £25 million. It is expected, however, that the first reactor to be completed at Hinckley Point B—and I have been there—will come on power this year, and that in due course the AGR power stations will more than double the nuclear electricity generating capacity of the country.
    Despite such problems—to the solution of which the industry continues to devote much skill and effort—the overall picture remains one of technical advance. The thermal efficiency of plant in the CEGB has shown a steady rise in recent years, moving from 28·3 per cent. in 1968–69 to 29·8 per cent. in 1973–74.
    The right hon. Gentleman referred to off-peak electricity charges and the proposed adjustment to them. My right hon. Friend has been having discussions with

    2149
    the electricity industry. Inevitably it takes time to sort out all the implications of such a complex matter, and I cannot go into the details now. But my right hon. Friend promised to make a further statement before the House rose, and lie hopes to do so early next week.
    Despite current difficulties, the restoration of the industry's financial viability, when circumstances allow, remains our aim. For the present, we have to continue to make the best judgment we can in striking the balance between the industry's need for further tariff increases and the need to contain inflation, as well as the social implications of energy prices and the need to keep the burden on the Exchequer within acceptable limits. These are matters which will be dealt with in the review of policy for energy prices announced by my right hon. Friend in the debate on 20th June.
    I now deal with the costs for electricity production of the nuclear reactor choice. The potential cost for electricity production of the Government's decision to adopt the steam generating heavy water reactor for the next series of nuclear power station orders has recently received considerable publicity. The right hon. Gentleman referred to this and said that it deserved a reply. I must tell him that such estimates of the additional costs of the SGHWR programme are based on hypothetical assumptions of an alternative rapid build-up of a pressurised water reactor programme and, in consequence, a relatively lower future use of fossil fuels. The Government cannot accept that forecasts of this type are valid because they assume an immediate go-ahead with PWRs, which is unacceptable, and because they take inadequate account of future options which will become available to us. In three or four years, when we have gained some experience of constructing SGHWRs, we shall be able to consider stepping up the SGHWR programme.
    We have taken a responsible decision which we believe to be in the best interests of the country and which is publicly acceptable. More important than the discussion of hypothetical costs is the fact that all concerned in implementing the decision are eager to make it a success. I appreciated greatly what the right hon. Gentleman said about this. It is best
    2150
    that we should all concentrate in doing that.
    As I said in my opening remarks, I do not accept this decision about the nuclear programme to make much difference to the likely total level of the industry's capital expenditure over the next two years.
    The right hon. Gentleman spoke about the coal industry. I want to refute entirely what he said. I was glad that he raised the issue, however. I could reply in greater detail, but, in view of the time factor, I shall reply, so to speak, in shorthand. The future policy on coal was outlined in the interim report, which the nation can see. We hope to publish the full report some time in September or October so that the House can read and examine it. Therefore, I take this opportunity of refuting the point that was made on that aspect.
    I think that I have already dealt with the size of the SGHWR programme. I welcome what the right hon. Gentleman said about the HTR breeder reactor programme. The tenor of his remarks was that it was time we stopped knocking this country and British technology.
    I was pleased to hear that the right hon. Gentleman was proposing to visit Dounreay. I think that he is aware that I took an early opportunity of visiting Dounreay and of seeing the prototype breeder reactor. He was accurate, when describing this technology, when he said that we are as advanced as, if not more advanced than, any other country in the world. I hope that when he visits Dounreay he will see the breeder reactor and note the dedication of the staff on the site, where over 2,000 people are employed. Standing on that site he will see the necessary transmission lines constructed by the hydro-electric board which will bring back £400 million in revenue from the electricity that this breeder reactor station will generate, starting some time this year.
    The right hon. Gentleman said that there should be collaboration between us and other countries. The only country that appears to be anything like us is France. We know that the Americans and the Russians are well behind us. The right hon. Gentleman said that an opportunity for collaboration is available to

    2151
    us. I do not think that the Government would disagree with that. My right hon. Friend, when outlining his choice of reactor, mentioned collaboration in his statement. There are aspects for collaboration over the HTR. I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will accept that the almost rushed way in which I have made these points does not mean that they are not important. Indeed, they are, and they should be brought out in the debate.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer), as usual, made a worthwhile contribution. I have noted four points that he made to which I want to reply quickly.
    The first concerned electricity prices. The restoration of the industry's financial viability, when circumstances allow, remains our aim. For the present we must continue to make the best judgment that we can in striking the balance between the industry's need for further tariff increases, the need to contain inflation, the social implications of energy prices, and the need to keep the burden on the Exchequer within acceptable limits.
    My hon. Friend mentioned the criticism that has been made of the organisation and structure of the electricity industry. The Department and my right hon. Friend are well aware of the criticisms which have been levelled against the present structure of the industry. Such issues include achieving a balance between central control—with the advantages this brings in the form, for example, of economies of scale in generation—and decentralisation, with its benefits in terms of fostering local initiative and an awareness of local circumstances. Moreover, any fundamental reorganisation will determine the shape of the industry for a long time to come. The timing and the form of any reorganisation will require the most careful consideration.
    I think that my hon. Friend was entitled to seek information about demand forecasts, because this has been the subject of some debate and controversy. The Electricity Council recently agreed an estimate of demand in 1979–80 of 56·5 gigawatts. This is within the range of the Department's estimates of 55·1 gigawatts to 58·3 gigawatts. The council
    2152
    does not attempt to forecast beyond that.
    The CEGB has produced forecasts for the 1980s, and these are consistently higher than those produced by my Department. The Department would regard as a reasonable estimate at the upper end of the range a figure of 60·2 giga watts in 1980–81 to 73·1 gigawatts in 1985–86, followed by 93·8 gigawatts in 1990–91. At the lower end of the range the figures are as follows: in 1980–81, 56·7; in 1985–86, 67·3; and in 1990–91, 84·1. Those figures are equivalent to an annual rate of growth of maximum demand for the period 1974–75 to 1990–91 of 4·3 per cent. in the high case and 3·6 per cent. in the lower case. I apologise to my hon. Friend for rushing this.
    After all that has been said, we are left with the fact that the increase in the borrowing limit for the industry in England and Wales is necessary now. We recognise the many uncertainties affecting estimates of the future, but one thing that is clear is that this essential industry must have adequate room for manoeuvre to meet its on-going requirement, both for its day-to-day operations and for its continuing development.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Resolved,
    That the Electricity (Borrowing Powers) Order 1974, a draft of which was laid before this House on 4th July, be approved.

    EDUCATION (AWARDS AND GRANTS) BILL
    Order for Second Reading read.
    7.7 p.m.
    The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. Gerry Fowler): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
    The purpose of the Bill is to extend the scope of mandatory awards under Section 1 of the Education Act 1962 to courses for the new Diploma of Higher Education and the higher national diploma and to bring within this section of the Act awards for students following initial teacher training courses. It also provides that the requirement which makes eligibility for an award dependent upon educational qualifications prescribed by the Secretary of State shall be restricted to

    2153
    courses designated as comparable to first degree courses. The Bill is intended to come into effect from 1st September 1975, when it is planned that new regulations to be made under it will come into operation.
    Perhaps I may say a few words about the present position so that the House can understand the changes that are proposed. Section 1 of the 1962 Act imposes upon local education authorities a duty to make awards to those students taking full-time courses leading to a first degree or courses designated by the Secretary of State as comparable to first degree courses, who satisfy a residential requirement and possess educational qualifications that are laid down in regulations made under the Act. These qualifications are two A level passes or their equivalent.
    At present, students following courses of initial teacher training—other than post-graduate courses at university departments of education—are eligible for awards from their local education authorities under arrangements approved by the Secretary of State under Section 2 of the 1962 Act. These awards are, in practice but not in form, mandatory. Students following post-graduate courses of teaching training at university departments of education receive awards under Section 3 of the 1962 Act, and the cost is met by my Department.
    Awards for students taking courses of further education are made under Section 2 of the Act and are entirely at the discretion of local education authorities.
    The need for the Bill arises in the first place from the introduction of the new two-year diploma of higher education courses. It was the previous Government who proposed in their White Paper "Education: A Framework for Expansion" in December 1972 the introduction of new two-year courses with a normal entry qualification of two A levels leading to the Dip. HE. They proposed also that students following such courses should be eligible for mandatory awards.
    These proposals are being put into effect by the present Government. Schemes for the introduction of the new two-year courses leading to the Dip. HE are already in preparation in a number of colleges. Most colleges will not he ready to start their courses until September 1975, but I know of two such
    2154
    courses which are likely to start this September. I understand that, in the light of this Bill, local education authorities are willing to treat those courses as though they attracted mandatory award, although at present the award would be discretionary.
    The Dip. HE is intended to serve both as a qualification in its own right and as a stepping-stone to a degree or other qualification. I sometimes think of it as a stepping-off and a stepping-on point, because I hope that some people will be able to break their higher education and then come back into the system at a later point. I hope that it will prove attractive to students who are unwilling to commit themselves from the outset to a teacher training—B.Ed.—-or other degree course.
    I regard it as essential to the success of the new Dip. HE courses that students following them should be eligible for mandatory awards, as the White Paper proposed. The present Bill will provide for this.
    My right hon. Friend and I have received strong representations from outside bodies, including the student organisations, that the HND should receive parity of treatment with the Dip. HE in respect of awards. I have every sympathy with those representations. The HND is similar in level of the Dip. HE, and although it has a lower minimum entry qualification—broadly, one A level or the equivalent, though many students entering in fact have two A levels—its terminal standard is roughly comparable to that which we expect of the Dip. HE.
    Our estimate is that at present there are about 17,000 students in England and Wales on HND courses, excluding overseas students, and of them about 14,000 are in receipt of awards from their LEAs, although not all of those 14,000 receive the level of grant which they would have if their awards were mandatory.
    I have always regarded the HND as an essential component of our further education system. It is vocationally oriented, it is concerned with applied rather than with pure studies, and it is highly valued by industry and other employers. I do not consider that support for it can any longer be left entirely to the discretion of local education authorities. All students who gain admission to HND courses and who fulfil residential requirements should

    2155
    be guaranteed an award, as, indeed, they have long been in Scotland, under rather different arrangements. This can be done only by bringing them into the mandatory system.
    Another reason for bringing HNDs into the mandatory system is the serious risk, in my view, that demand for HND courses would fall off if they were not to attract mandatory awards once Dip.HE courses existed and did so. This could have the effect of seriously reducing the supply to industry of manpower suitably qualified at this level, a risk which seems to me quite unacceptable.
    I should emphasise that the HND has characteristics which clearly distinguish it from all other courses with one A level entry requirements. It is closely geared to the needs of industry and is validated under national arrangements by joint committees on which the Secretary of State is represented, thus enjoying a status and prestige which other qualifications such as college diplomas do not share. I hope that the extension of mandatory awards covering all Dip HE and HND courses will bear witness to the seriousness with which this Government have taken the Labour Party's commitment to the extension of the mandatory award system.
    Now, a word about teacher training awards. Hon. Members may well ask why it is necessary to provide for students following initial teacher training courses to be entitled to mandatory awards when they already receive awards which are mandatory in practice. The necessity arises as a consequence of the introduction of the new Dip.HE courses.
    The development of unit-based, or modular, courses which may lead to any one or more of a degree, a Dip.HE or a teacher qualification means that it will no longer be administratively practicable to maintain for awards purposes a distinction between studies leading to the teacher training qualification and others. The Bill accordingly provides that awards for students following teacher training courses should be brought within Section 1 of the Education Act 1962 and thus made mandatory in form as they are already in practice.
    At present Section 1 of the 1962 Act makes eligibility for a mandatory award
    2156
    dependent on educational qualifications prescribed by the Secretary of State. The Bill removes this requirement except for courses designated as comparable to first degree courses. That is to say, acceptance for a first degree course, a Dip HE course, an HND course or an initial teacher training course will be regarded as sufficient evidence of educational suitability. One reason for this change is that it would be anomalous and unacceptable for a student with one A level to qualify for a mandatory award on gaining entry to an HND course but not to do so if he exceptionally gained entry to a degree course.
    More generally, the change will benefit those students, mainly mature students, who are accepted to study for a first degree although they have not got the formal educational qualifications required for a mandatory award. The great majority of them, I must add, do in practice get discretionary awards of equal value from their local education authority, but the Government consider that this ought to be made a matter of entitlement.
    I should like to emphasise that the abolition of prescribed educational qualifications is intended to remedy the anomalous position of students exceptionally admitted without the prescribed qualifications and that the Government will expect institutions to be vigilant in maintaining the existing high standards of degree courses. I hope that no one will suggest that the removal of this requirement will in any way lead to a decline in standards. That is not the intention, and we have enough faith in the universities and the CNAA to know that standards will be maintained throughout higher education.
    Rather different considerations apply to courses designated as comparable to first degree courses. These are courses where there is not the safeguard of university or CNAA validation to ensure that entry standards are maintained. For students wishing to take these courses, therefore, eligibility for a mandatory award will continue to be dependent on educational qualifications prescribed by the Secretary of State. These will continue to be two A levels or their equivalent.
    Clause 1(1) extends the scope of local education authority mandatory awards

    2157
    under Section 1 of the Education Act 1962 to include full-time courses for the Dip HE and HND and courses—whether full-time or part-time—for the initial training of teachers.
    Clause 1(2) restricts to courses designated as comparable to first degree courses the requirement which makes eligibility for an award dependent on educational qualifications prescribed by the Secretary of State. The other provisions are supplementary or formal.
    I do not envisage that any significant increase in public expenditure will arise from most of the provisions of the Bill.
    The cost of extending mandatory awards to students taking FIND courses depends mainly on the number of students now supported from sources other than their local education authorities, who might decide to take advantage of a mandatory award. It is estimated that there are about 3,000 such students in England and Wales. If, say, about half of them received local education authority grants under the new arrangements, the additional cost might be about £700,000 in the academic year 1975–76.
    That is the purport of the Bill, and I have pleasure in commending it to the House.
    7.20 p.m.
    Mr. William Shelton: We welcome the Bill, as far as it goes. It makes good sense to make the Dip.HE a mandatory award and to add the higher national diploma. We also welcome the teacher training awards. Anything that helps improve the status and standing of teachers and removes the difficulties of teachers and those training to become teachers is welcomed by all hon. Members.
    Naturally, one always has a slight reservation about the withdrawal of any type of qualification to proceed along any course. However, I think we agree with the Minister that the institutions are perfectly capable of maintaining their own standards. No doubt the matter will be watched, and should there be any difficulties perhaps something can be done later. However, I do not foresee any problem in that area. I understand that the numbers involved are not great.
    We have here a Bill about discretionary and mandatory awards and grants. In
    2158
    general, there are several rather untidy and difficult areas where these are involved. It is a pity that some of these areas were not taken into account in the Bill. First, there is the unsatisfactory situation in which many young married women training to become teachers find themselves. It is anomalous that married women aged 20 or less receive an award based on their father's income. If the father does not wish to disclose his income, perhaps because he does not wish his daughter to become a teacher, she can receive no award. This happens in probably only a few isolated cases, but the situation is rather nonsense. For a married woman of 21 or over, the award is dependent on her husband's income. This creates difficulties, though not perhaps in many cases. It is a pity that that difficulty and injustice was not taken into account in the Bill.
    I believe that there is fairly widespread dissatisfaction about the working of the discretionary grants system. We must accept that any discretionary system will have variations. That is the very nature of something that is discretionary, but I understand that the original discretion given to local education authorities was not so much on the size of the award or grant but on whether the grant should be made. That is not how the system is working. There are wide and disturbing differences in the grants given to the same sort of students attending the same institutions, studying the same course, who happen to come from different parts of the country. Therefore, one does much better than another, which is an injustice.
    Some interesting evidence was given to the Sub-Committee on Education and Science of the Select Committee which reports on further and higher education in the 1972–73 Session. The Association of Art Institutions said:
    "The exercise of discretion given to local authorities results in the infinitely variable treatment of the student from one area to another."
    The National Union of Students gave a specific example of two students who were studying for the HND course in catering at South Devon Technical College. One student came from Ulster and was receiving £380 a year and the other came from the north and was receiving £280. One can imagine the feelings of the student from the north when

    2159
    he met his colleague from Ulster and found that he was receiving £100 a year less. Fortunately that is one of the awards that will become mandatory under the Bill. We welcome that. Nevertheless, that is an example of what is happening in a good many instances in various parts of the country.
    The same criticism was echoed by the Society of Education Officers, which considered the number of hardships to be excessive. Sir James Matthews, the distinguished Chairman of the Standing Conference of Regional Advisory Councils for Further Education, considered that the difference between what one student received because of his location compared with another was far too great and that something should be done about it.
    It has been argued that these differences in grants merely represent the differences in local costs. That is an argument that does not hold water, because the student often goes away to a college that is remote from the county which is giving him his grant. Anyway, that does not apply to mandatory awards which are the same throughout the country as are teachers' salaries except those receiving London weighting. I do not think that there is any argument that can justify these differences. It is clear that students have a ground for complaint.
    A solution offered by the National Union of Students was to make all grants mandatory. I do not think that I can accept that. There is such a variety and wealth of different types of courses that we must leave discretion with the LEAs. Nevertheless, I regret that some way could not have been found in the Bill—perhaps the Minister could find a way, perhaps by a circular, of drawing the attention of local education authorities to the qualifications and to the various standards—to give much more detailed guidelines for the application of discretionary grants.
    Secondly, there is a move, that is supported by influential people, that mandatory awards should be taken away from local councils and that they should be administered by central Government. The prime reason for that move is the substantial expansion of the number of university places that has taken place over the past five or 10 years and the impact
    2160
    that mandatory awards have had. The increased number of mandatory awards has placed a very great financial burden on LEAs and for such grants they have no discretion.
    The result of mandatory awards—and today we are rightly making more awards mandatory—is that the LEAs economise on discretionary awards. It is true that a local education authority should plan ahead and that it should have enough money to meet its obligation to provide for mandatory awards and to do what it wishes in fairness and in justice in providing discretionary awards. But life so often is not like that. When the LEAs find that they have an obligation to provide an increased number of mandatory awards they cut back on the discretionary awards or provide the same number of awards but of a reduced amount. That is precisely the problem that I was talking about earlier.
    We must agree that, in general, it is bad practice to separate administrative responsibility from financial responsibility, but a local authority is merely providing a service in terms precisely defined by central Government in providing mandatory awards. There is no room for local discretion. Further, Government determine the financial level of the award and the number of educational places. Therefore, it is Government who should have financial responsibility.
    I draw the Minister's attention to the recommendations of the sub-committee I mentioned earlier and the evidence it took. One of those who gave evidence was Sir William Alexander, of the Association of Education Committees, whom we all esteem highly. He regarded this as a necessary change. The Association of Municipal Corporations also follow this line of argument and was generally in support of changing the mandatory grant from local government to central Government.
    We welcome the Bill as far as it goes. We are sorry that it does not go a bit further and cover some of the other points I have raised.
    7.31 p.m.
    Mr. Bryan Davies: I want to concentrate on two basic points regarding this Bill, on which I congratulate the Minister. It will be widely welcomed in the education community. In

    2161
    some ways I feel that by introducing it at this stage in the parliamentary Session, and at this time of the year, the Minister is unavoidably hiding his light beneath a bushel.
    He will get limited gratitude from the chief beneficiaries, in that we recognise that 99 per cent. of the staff at this stage are deeply immersed in their researches, form which they will emerge in due course to be savagely critical of politicians, while perhaps I per cent. may even be enjoying the advantages of the sun-kissed parts of Europe's beaches.
    Similarly, we recognise that at this time of the year a substantial proportion of students are supplementing their grants by hard labour and it is unlikely that they will concentrate with their usual ability on the political scene and the issues that interest them. The Minister may suffer from the fact that even The Times Higher Educational Supplement—that gimlet-eyed guardian of all developments educational, in its slimmer, summer version—may not extend to the Minister that paragraph of praise to which he is entitled. I am not prepared to let my hon. Friend hide his light beneath a bushel on this occasion, because this is a very good measure.
    I should declare an interest, as an individual who, prior to entering the House, spent many years in polytechnic teaching. I still do a small amount of part-time teaching. Those of us with experience of higher educational developments in recent years have long been critical of the fact that Governments which preached diversity of educational opportunity in higher education have done less than we would have liked to translate such words into action.
    Nothing was more offensive to us than the situation in which courses like the higher national diploma, which was fulfilling an essential need for students, business and industry—and which seemed to be such an important part of the philosophy which launched polytechnics, in terms of their diversity from a purely academic base—received rather less support than they ought have done. In particular, we feel that a course like this suffered, in terms of its student position, in that their grants were subject to the discretions, very varied at times, of the local authorities.
    2162
    I welcome the Bill as remedying what was not only recognised to be a grievance among students but was recognised by staff to be a barrier to the development of polytechnics along the lines of the 1966 White Paper and the philosophy which informed that development. This is particularly emphasised with the HND, because so often we were aware that the students who entered such a course had often fought their way along a rather more rigorous road to higher education than the straightforward O level A level, sixth-form career. In particular, this caused us to feel that such people merited rather better treatment than the discretionary awards often seemed to allow them.
    Turning to the new diploma of higher education, I am not a root-and-branch critic of that proposal but I do have a severe reservation about it. I take this opportunity of bringing it before the Minister. I am in favour of students being able to enter perfectly sound educational courses which last for less than three years.
    Indeed, many of us have recognised that the three-year degree course, as a foundation stone of higher education, has some limitations. In particular, we recognise the fact that students have often stayed on for a particularly advanced stage when they needed to secure a qualification which often had no relevance to the studies involved in the final year of the degree course. Therefore, the rationale, in educational terms, of the diploma of higher education is fairly well established.
    There have been many exciting developments already regarding the Diploma in Higher Education, but the problem is that while the Minister has argued quite correctly for uniformity of provision between the higher national diploma and the diploma in higher education and initial training teacher awards, he has not argued for uniformity along another tack which I wish to commend to him.
    One aspect of the higher national diploma—and it is true of initial teacher training—is that many courses in colleges of education are not subject to the rigours of two A levels entry. Many of us feel that there are many weaknesses in drawing that sharp line of two A levels entry as a basis for entry into higher

    2163
    education. One would have hoped that in the context of the Bill, in which the argument has been presented about the comparability of the DipHE and the HND in terms of financial provision, attention would have been given to the educational arguments for seeking to expand higher education in terms of greater diversity of entry.
    Higher education is under a rather unfortunate cloud, in that the 1972 education statistics, published in the White Paper of that year, seemed to indicate a rather lower level of student places than many of us would have wished. The DipHE seems to incorporate the concept of cost cutting and reduction of opportunity rather than its expansion. Had it been introduced in circumstances in which it was a genuine advance of educational opportunity for those who did not qualify under the two A levels entry, it would have been launched successfully from such a base. I hope that we shall be able to put forward a forceful argument in due course for suitable amending legislation.
    The diploma in higher education has an important rôle to develop colleges of education. The colleges will need to develop courses which provide a broad based education for the student rather than the narrower teaching qualification which was identified as their rôle in the past.
    This measure is introduced at a time which, in both educational and parliamentary terms, can be described as the fag end of term, but it is a meritorious and highly enlightened measure, which will be welcomed in educational circles as its provisions are recognised. I congratulate the Minister on introducing it.
    7.38 p.m.
    Mr. Gerry Fowler: With the permission of the House I shall reply briefly to some of the points raised.
    The hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Shelton) raised points about the system of administering grants. He spoke of the effect of the parental contribution, not least on married women, and the position of married women when not subject to the parental contribution. I am certainly prepared to look at these questions, although they have little to do with the provisions under the Bill or under the
    2164
    Education Act 1962. The points he raised in this respect have more to do with the awards regulations made under the Education Act 1962, and we can change those year by year without the formality of introducing a Bill.
    The hon. Gentleman also spoke about the effect of mandatory awards upon local education authorities' provision of discretionary awards. Local education authorities would not need to cut back because of increases in mandatory awards as proposed in the Bill for the simple reason that mandatory awards now attract 90 per cent. grant to local education authorities from my Department and LEAs have to find only 10 per cent. Therefore by expanding the area of mandatory awards, as we do in the Bill, we should not be providing any disincentives to the LEAs to continue with their present provision of discretionary awards, or even perhaps to extend them.
    I noted what the hon. Member said about the variation in the level of discretionary awards by LEAs. He will remember that the right hon. Lady the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) issued a circular in 1971 urging LEAs to award discretionary grants at the mandatory level unless there were good reason for doing otherwise. It would be a nonsense to have a discretionary system from which we removed the discretion, because it would then cease to be a discretionary system. But that circular is still in force and I hope that LEAs will take heed of its content.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Davies) made a statement, with which I had much sympathy, about the desirability of diverse provision for higher and further education. However, he saw the DipHE as a blocking rather than a broadening of opportunity I do not know what was the intention of the previous Government in 1972 and I can speak only of the intentions of the present Government, but we see the DipHE as a broadening of opportunity by allowing students a wider choice of stepping off points and stepping on points within the higher education system.
    It does not follow that if someone is admitted to higher education he must take it all at one go. Nor does it follow that if he finds that he is temperamentally unsuited to higher education, or that he

    2165
    has lost interest, he should have to leave, after two years, with no qualification. In that sense, I see the DipHE as a broadening of opportunity, not a blocking. I hope that the Bill will make a substantial contribution to ensuring that the new course gets off to a good start.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Bill accordingly read a Second time.
    Bill committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

    EDUCATION (AWARDS AND GRANTS) BILL

      EDUCATION (AWARDS AND GRANTS) [MONEY]
      Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
      Resolved,
      That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make further provision with respect to awards and grants by local education authorities, it is expedient to authorise any increase in the sums payable out of moneys provided by Parliament under the Local Government Act 1974 which is attributable to provisions of the said Act of the present Session—

      (a) applying section 1 of the Education Act 1962 to courses for the diploma of higher education and the higher national diploma and courses for the initial training of teachers;

      (b) confining the requirements of that section with respect to the possession of the requisite educational qualifications to courses comparable to first degree courses;

      (c) applying section 2(1) of the said Act of 1962 to courses for the training of teachers, other than courses to which section 1 of that Act applies.—[Mr. Gerry Fowler.]

    SOLICITORS BILL [LORDS]
    Order for Second Reading read.
    7.43 p.m.
    The Solicitor-General (Mr. Peter Archer): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
    This is a Bill to consolidate enactments relating to the solicitor's profession. It includes the provisions of the Solicitors (Amendment) Act, which has just reached the statute book. For the avoidance of doubt, I confirm that it includes them in their final form as they reached the statute book, so the amendments on which some of my hon. Friends have lavished such care are reflected in two statutes within a few days.
    2166
    Unless the House wishes, I do not pro pose to elaborate further, except to add that this is one more example of our debt to the Law Commission, the Scottish Law Commission, and the Joint Committee on Consolidation.
    7.44 p.m.
    Mr. David Waddington: I am privileged to be a member of the Joint Committee on Consolidation of Bills and I am therefore well aware of the superb work done by the present chairman and his predecessors.
    The House will have been interested to hear the Solicitor-General's observations on the somewhat surprising career of the Solicitors (Amendment) Act. Having had a rather stormy career in this House, it eventually received the Royal Assent and will have remained on the statute book for a shorter time than almost any other enactment, because it is included in this consolidation measure and therefore repealed in the schedule.
    I should like to express the Opposition's appreciation of the work done by the Law Commission in this connection, and of course to give the Bill a warm welcome.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Bill accordingly read a Second time.
    Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Pavitt.]
    Bill immediately considered in Committee: reported, without amendment.
    Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading), and agreed to.
    Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, without amendment.

    FRIENDLY SOCIETIES BILL [LORDS]
    Order for Second Reading read.
    7.46 p.m.
    The Solicitor-General (Mr. Peter Archer): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
    The Bill seeks to consolidate the Friendly Societies Acts of 1896 to 1971 and certain other enactments relating to friendly societies. If the House has any

    2167
    questions on which I may be able to shed light, I shall be happy to assist.
    7.47 p.m.
    Mr. David Waddington: I should like to mention one or two matters. Perhaps we should not be too conceited at our skill in dealing with these consolidation measures. I know that there have been no fewer than four consolidation measures on this topic—so that in respect of friendly societies there have been many Bills over the years and a number of consolidation enactments. We welcome the Bill.
    It might be appropriate if I remind the House that it was a Conservative Solicitor-General in the previous Government who initiated the practice of taking all stages of consolidation Bills on one day. Perhaps it is right to mention that this is what is now happening because some people may have been surprised to see the procedures which were followed a few moments ago. They might be rash enough to imagine that time was being wasted, when in fact a great deal of time has been saved by adopting this procedure.
    The Solicitor-General: I would remind the hon. and learned Gentleman that the new arrangement, which appears to be eminently sensible, originated from discussions between the two sides, and everybody agrees that it is a marked improvement.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Bill accordingly read a Second Time.
    Bill committed to a Committe of the whole House.—[Mr. Pavitt.]
    Bill immediately considered in Committee; reported, without amendment.
    Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading) and agreed to.
    Bill accordingly read the Third Time and passed, without amendment.

  INSURANCE COMPANIES BILL [Lords]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  7.50 p.m.
  The Solicitor-General (Mr. Peter Archer): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  The Bill consolidates enactments relating to insurance companies. By way of a change, the House will not be invited to consider today any stages beyond Second Reading, because there are two technical amendments to be moved to incorporate provisions of another Bill which is now before Parliament if that Bill reaches the Statute Book as at present expected. The concluding stages have been announced in the business for next week.
  Mr. David Waddington: I rise only to thank the Solicitor-General for his courtesy in giving us forewarning of the way in which it was proposed to deal with the Bill. The Opposition understand that the two new clauses are purely formal and that the Committee stage will not take up a great deal of the time of the House on Tuesday next.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Pavitt.]
  Committee upon Monday next.

  INSURANCE COMPANIES BILL [Lords]
    ADJOURNMENT
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Pavitt.]

  BATTERED WIVES AND CHILDREN
  7.53 p.m.
  Mr. William Hamilton: I begin this short debate by paying tribute to my good friend the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) who, on becoming Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Department of Health and Social Security, asked me to take his place in championing the cause of battered wives and the connected problem of battered babies. I cannot pretend adequately to play the part which my

  2169
  hon. Friend played. He is an extremely popular and kindly man, determined in the protection of minority groups, and I gladly offered to do what I could in this cause.
  As the Under-Secretary knows, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South initiated an Adjournment debate in the early hours of the morning of 16th July last year, almost exactly a year ago. As one would expect, he made a passionate speech brimming over with imagination, indignation and humanity. In the course of that speech he quoted several cases of battered wives and children from all classes of the community, and I stress that this is not a class problem in that sense.
  I propose to quote just one or two cases which have been provided to me by the Chiswick Aid Centre, which is pioneering in this field and which is run by quite remarkable women literally on a shoestring. First I quote an extract from the book which Mrs. Erin Pizzey is about to produce. She cites one or two cases to indicate the problem, with which my hon. Friend is well acquainted.
  Mrs. Pizzey writes:
  "People who are being ill-treated don't usually talk about it. Some are scared about what might happen to them if they speak. They know well that if they tell how they are treated they will again be threatened and most probably beaten. Many of the women who write to us ask for the reply to be sent care of friends or at their parents', because they are afraid they'll get another beating if their husbands find out that they've contacted us, … One woman just telephoned when her husband was out of the house and cried and sobbed. She was physically handicapped. Her husband, an alcoholic and a gambler, had put padlocks on the wheels of her chair. He would go off sometimes for several days at a time leaving her lying on the floor helpless. She never told us who she was. We would spend hours trying to convince her we could help but she was too frightened of him."
  Another case comes from Scotland and it is because of that, since I am the Member for a Scottish constituency, that I wish to quote it. This letter followed a radio programme:
  "Dear Madam, having listened to the last two minutes of your interview on Radio 2, and having read the article in the Daily Mail, I felt compelled to write to you. I am an ex-"battered" wife and have finally left my husband with my daughter who is nine months old. She was born with a congenital dislocation of the hip. She was being treated in "—
  2170
  —then there is a blank because of her fear of indicating who she was—
  "where I come from and the decision to interrupt her treatment was a very difficult one to make, despite my desire to leave the horrors of being married to a nightly wife-beater and an alcoholic. I will not go into the details of the terrible cruelty that I have suffered although I would be more than willing if they would be of any use to you. My husband"
  —this may be of interest to my hon. Friend—
  "is a general practitioner and whilst at medical school was an amateur boxer so he had plenty of brawn as well as brain plus enough money to keep him well supplied with as much whisky as he wanted. I have left him four times previously but always ended up going back to him because he would find out where I was—usually with my elderly parents—and harass and threaten them at all hours of the day and night, at the same time promising to mend his ways and pleading with me to go back because he loved me. He is an excellent doctor and much respected public citizen. He was, however, on his own insistence my own doctor and treated me with utter contempt even when I threatened to miscarry at twelve weeks of pregnancy and also during and after my baby's delivery. (I gave birth to her at home without a midwife present.)"
  I shall not quote any further from that case.
  They are just two indications of the tip of the iceberg which we are now discussing. The size of the problem is unknown. The estimate made by the Chiswick Women's Aid Centre of 25,000 women or 100,000 women and children a year is probably a gross under-estimate. That is mainly because the wife, for one reason or another, is unwilling or afraid to disclose what is going on. I do not want to be too harsh, but that, coupled with what appears to be the failure, indifference, ignorance and apathy of the multiplicity of organisations concerned with these problems, from the social worker to the police and the law courts, seems to be the problem and it is not getting the publicity, still less the Government action, that is demanded.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South put forward a 15-point plan. The Minister of State, Home Office, then the hon. and learned Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle), made the appropriately sympathetic departmental reply about the difficulties facing the police of women unwilling to bring criminal proceedings, and some of them even willing to accept battering as part of the price of marriage, I suppose. He

  2171
  said that there was often a lack of witnesses and the difficulty of finding alternative accommodation, but he promised consultation between the Home Office and chief police officers and consideration of the points put forward by my hon. Friend.
  What progress has been made with the implementation of those promises and what use has been made of the £25 legal aid scheme by these people in the last year? It seems to me and to those who are most intimately concerned with the problem that very little progress has been made, except via the voluntary organisations and varying degrees of practical help from some local authorities.
  Last Tuesday, 16th July, exactly a year after what I might call the Ashley debate, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services made a statement in answer to a question about battered babies. She announced that there was to be a grant of £112,000 to the NSPCC over three years for specific research proposals. I should like my hon. Friend to tell me precisely what they are. Some of them were mentioned in an article in The Times on 19th July written by Clare Hyman, the consultant research psychologist to the National Advisory Centre on the Battered Child.
  My right hon. Friend last week talked about progress with area review teams set up by local authority social services departments. In reply to a supplementary question by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Moonman) there was a bit of disturbing evidence of ignorance and naivety on the part of the Minister when she indicated a lack of appreciation of the undoubted link between the problems of battered children and battered wives.
  I am glad that the Prime Minister, in answer to a question of mine last Tuesday, indicated that the terms of reference of the proposed Select Committee which is to be set up in the autumn to look into this problem would be sufficiently wide to cover the linked problems of battered wives and battered children. But, however welcome such a Select Committee may be, it will deal with the problem in the long term and at leisure. A Select Committee, by its nature, will take a long time to report. I should add, in parentheses, that the Secretary of State
  2172
  has never been to the Chiswick Women's Aid Centre. She sent the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Brown). I suggest that she should go personally with the Prime Minister and with TV cameras to see how the other half live.
  I visited the place on 2nd April last and I was appalled and at the same time uplifted by what I saw. I was appalled by the magnitude of the problem. I was appalled by the physical problems with which they are faced in providing education for the children, dealing with questions of accommodation and, above all, in dealing with questions of finance. But I was uplifted by seeing and talking to so many dedicated and articulate women who were struggling on a shoestring to try to deal with the problem that has been neglected by successive Governments.
  These people were living—if living is the right word—in a house kindly provided by the Bovis Building Company. The Chiswick Women's Aid is extremely grateful to the company for providing the house, however inadequate, and there are now about 40 such places scattered all over the country. I say this more in sorrow than in anger. If that house at Chiswick had been full of maltreated dogs and cats, this House of Commons would have been full today and there would have been a protest meeting in Trafalgar Square on Sunday, because we seem to have more love for animals than for human beings.
  My hon. Friend may not have seen the report produced by the Royal Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, entitled Battered Wives' Survey. The research was for the period mid-September to mid-December 1973 and covered the whole of Scotland. The report dealt with 74 cases, but I do not propose to go into those in detail. I shall send the document to my hon. Friend, but I think that I should quote one or two examples of the effects on the children, and such children can be seen at Chiswick at any time that my hon. Friend cares to go there.
  These children were either described by the mother or observed by a woman visitor. The report says:
  "Children in hysterics, schooling affected, inability to concentrate because of emotional

  2173
  upset. Lack of respect shown towards father. When the mother was about to leave the home, the children began sobbing bitterly and screaming for the mother to remain."
  It goes on to say:
  "The elder child (aged four) has had tablets prescribed by the GP due to her nervous condition. Both children appear to be of a nervous disposition."
  One then reads:
  "Terrified—sat and stared from one to the other. Mother stated her eldest child always ran to protect her and ended up being thrashed with a buckled belt. This child is very disturbed and has been seen several times by a psychiatrist."
  I want to make two or three suggestions to my hon. Friend, the acceptance of which would throw an immediate lifeline to the women and children at Chiswick and at the other centres.
  The first and most obvious one is an immediate grant of about £55,000 to buy the empty premises next door at Chiswick. It was, I believe a school, and it could be used as such. The educational problem is not the least important of the difficulties that are being faced. This afternoon I heard my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Energy, in 13 minutes flat, ask the House to grant £1,300 million to the electricity industry. This industry is undoubtedly important, but human beings are just as important as the provision of electricity, and if this movement at Chiswick cannot get £55,000 from a country which talks in terms of supplying electricity at a cost of £1,300 million spread over a given period, there is something vastly wrong with our priorities.
  Secondly, there should be an immediate and speedy examination of the feasibility of providing rapid legal aid by phone when a parent with a known history of violence is left with a child. Mrs. Pizzey can give examples showing the value of this in a magazine which, I am sure, my hon. Friend has seen. She shows how the life, or certainly the health, of particular children and wives might have been saved if this facility had been available.
  My third proposition is that, in conjunction with the police, there should be a change in policy to ensure that any court injunction is immediately enforced by the police. It is not much use a court issuing an injunction if the police have not the power to enforce it.
  Fourth—these points have been put to me by Chiswick Women's Aid; they are
  2174
  not my original thoughts on the matter—where divorce cases on grounds of persistent cruelty and/or violence are heard they should automatically result in denial of access by the husband to his wife and children. At present, the right of access can simply be a licence to harrass the wife and children.
  Fifth, where a divorce is granted on grounds of persistent cruelty, at present the matrimonial home is available only during the dependence of the children. Immediately the children cease to be dependent, the husband may sell the house. Admittedly, half the proceeds go to the wife, but that is little consolation to her because she will probably be at an age when she cannot get a mortgage, and certainly she cannot buy a house in the area to which she has been accustomed with half the proceeds. Therefore, such cases of divorce through cruelty should deprive the offender of any financial rights to the matrimonial home.
  That is my case in brief. I know that my hon. Friend's Department, like other spending Departments, is faced with all kinds of demands for all kinds of cases, but I feel that a gesture might be made by the Government in this instance. Will they please give these women some encouragement in the enormously valuable work which they are doing?
  8.12 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr. David Owen): My hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) brings to this subject, as he does to so many, a deep compassion and considerable understanding and commitment. He has done the House a service in bringing this matter before us so late on a Friday. He paid a generous tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley), who is currently the Secretary of State's parliamentary private secretary. All I can say is that my hon. Friend ensures that no Minister in the Department of Health and Social Security—certainly not the Secretary of State—is unaware of the problems of battered wives or, indeed, of many other troubling aspects of our society. Therefore, although his voice cannot be raised on this subject in the House, it is certainly raised in the Department, which is, perhaps, of even more importance.
  We are dealing here with a complex and extremely distressing problem. It

  2175
  generates hatred, and it is associated with a deep sense of fear. It raises very subjective emotions in those who come into contact with violence in marriage, and may make them less confident about their ability to help. It is an extremely serious matter for society, and one of the issues is the regularity with which a history of violence in the home appears in the childhood histories of those husbands who use violence on their wives, and sometimes also of the wives themselves.
  It is difficult, sometimes, to apportion blame. It is difficult also for the violent husband to understand or control his own feelings. But the responsibility of society is clear—to do everything possible to try to prevent this pattern of violence from replicating itself from generation to generation. In the interests of the wives and children, and of the husbands themselves, we must find ways of bringing help and support to those caught up in this crippling cycle of violence.
  One problem is that there is still relatively little known about the extent, about the patterns of causation and about the social pathology of violence between the partners to a marriage, or about the deeper needs to which it gives rise. In this subject we need to know a great deal more about the damage caused to personality as well as the best way to relieve practical and pressing needs of the wife who decides to escape with her children from a situation of violence.
  I have taken a special interest in problems of non-accidental injury to children—more commonly called battered babies, I suppose—and I am struck by the difference in the situation in that field, where some years of research have given us a body of well-established facts. We do not know everything in this area by any means, but it has given us a tested hypothesis as a basis for action. We know from these studies that there is a degree of overlap—perhaps 25 per cent.—between the families where there is non-accidental injury to children and those where there is intermarital violence. A factor in common may also be alcoholism, or psycopathy. But just as there is a whole variety of patterns which may give rise to non-accidental injury to children, so here there seems to be a variety of causations.
  2176
  It is becoming clear from reports from citizens advice bureaux and elsewhere that serious violence in marriage is considerably more widespread than is usually supposed. I wish we had detailed figures. There are many case histories illustrating the variety of backgrounds and forms in which marital violence may be found, behind the facades of some apparently successful marriages—and it occurs in all classes of society; a point we perhaps too easily forget.
  In some areas there may be a link with cultural deprivation and local or sub-cultural traditions, perhaps now beginning to break down, about the rôles of man and wife in the home. There are certainly some signs now that the battered wife may be more ready to seek help in her problem when in the past she might have concealed it from the outside world. I believe that the publicity given to this subject has been a tremendous help in making it more readily discussed and people find it easier to discuss their problems with others and to go to places where they can receive some form of help.
  Changing patterns within marriage, and woman's changing rôle in society certainly play a part in this. We know little about the extent to which the strains of living under pressure, of raising children in poor overcrowded housing, unemployment or financial worries all contribute to the problem and what lies behind the violence due to pathological jealousy, or what is the rôle of sexual incompatibility or provocation.
  The House will have seen the interesting NSPCC report "Yoyo Children" which was recently published, which is an account of a pilot study of children in families where violent matrimonial conflict was present.
  Much can be done, and here may I deal with the question of ministerial involvement. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Brown) was the first Minister to visit one of the refuges which had been set up. Shortly afterwards my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, in the midst of the extremely crowded programme of the last few months, found time to receive a deputation from the Women's Aid group at Chiswick and was able to hear first hand about the problems of these unfortunate women and

  2177
  their children. So, in terms of ministerial involvement my hon. Friend can expect more, and it will continue.
  The Government Departments involved include the Home Office, concerned with the rôle of the police, the work of the probation service, civil remedies through magistrates' courts and the law of assault. The Lord Chancellor's Department is involved in procedure in the High Court, civil legal aid, ways in which the law might be changed to give the wife easier means of injunction restraining her husband, and rights over the matrimonial home. The Department of Health and Social Security deals with temporary accommodation, psychiatric disturbance and the effects of violence in the home on the children. The Supplementary Benefits Commission deals with the financial needs of an emergency situation and the Department of the Environment with housing.
  It is because of this multi-departmental involvement that it was felt that a wide-ranging look would help in this subject and that is why the Leader of the House was able to announce that the Government intend, in the autumn, to set up a Select Committee. I have long believed that we do not use the experience and wisdom of this House anywhere near enough and the Select Committee procedure has been invaluable in many delicate areas of human relations in bringing together the experience of a legislative body and a body with knowledge of constituency problems. I hope that the Select Committee will be able to make recommendations which can be acted upon speedily. My hon. Friend rightly said that he wanted results immediately.
  With regard to the problem of Chiswick, the situation is that an application for financial aid has been made to the Department by Women's Aid. It has already been in receipt of urban aid. The Department has started discussions with it, asking for further financial information—information which it has readily agreed to make available. I think that it will take only a few weeks. As soon as it is available, the Department will consider the issue.
  I know that my hon. Friend, who visited the home, will take a strong personal interest. We shall make a decision as soon as we can. There will be no
  2178
  delay, because Women's Aid needs to know the possibilities of some assistance.
  Research is an extremely important area. The Scottish Home and Health Department is supporting an explanatory study into violence within the family setting by researchers from Stirling University. On 1st April this year two doctors from Severall's Hospital, Colchester, began a study of wives' attitudes. The study is to last six months and we are looking forward to the results. Another doctor from Warlingham Park is concentrating on Women's Aid and has interviewed women in Chiswick, Liverpool and Dublin. The Department has granted him access to the replies received to the inquiries made to a number of professional and voluntary organisations last year. We are prepared to consider any serious request for research into this difficult subject.
  I shall try to deal with my hon. Friend's specific questions. First, legal advice and assistance is very important. Women who are subjeted to violence and forced to leave the matrimonial home are entitled to relief from the civil courts. In certain urgent cases this may be obtained at very short notice—a matter of days, or even hours in cases of extreme urgency. It is a matte of importance to us in this House t at availability of advice should be realistic and that advice should be seen to be available throughout the country.
  In his speech in another place on 21st March this year, my noble and learned Friend Lord Chancellor outlined his plans for extending the legal services available to poorer sections of the community by setting up, as soon as funds permit, a network of law centres, encouraging greater expertise in the legal profession in welfare and social law, and by taking further steps to increase the public's knowledge of the legal services available to them.
  There is already close co-operation between the Lord Chancellor's Office and Citizens' Advice Bureaux for the provision of information about the new legal aid scheme set up under the Legal Advice and Assistance Act 1972. More needs to be done. Poorer sections of the community are a high priority in trying to improve our legal assistance. I know that my hon. Friend shares that view.

  2179
  I turn to the question of assault. The law does not discriminate between assaults by a husband on his wife and other assaults. If the assault is not serious, it amounts to the common law offence of common assault in respect of which prosecutions are not normally brought by the police. If the assault causes real injury, it is an offence under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. The police have power to enter private property to
  2180
  arrest anyone whom they see involved in any activity likely to cause a breach of the peace—
  The Question having been proposed after Four o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at twenty-three minutes past Eight o'clock.