§ Assistance under this Act shall subsist for the entire period for which the assistance is given notwithstanding the fact that the purchaser sells the house property and applies the proceeds of sale to the acquisition of another property which he makes his only place of residence.'.—[Mr. Rossi.]
§ Brought up, and read the First time.
§ Mr. Hugh Rossi (Hornsey)I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I am sorry to see the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment appearing at the Dispatch Box wearing a sling. I hope that he is not suffering too much discomfort and I shall do my best not to add to it.
The Bill as presented enables a loan of £600 to be made interest-free for five years to first-time buyers who, for a period of two years preceding, have themselves been able to save a sum of £600 of their own. Once they have bought their first house and borrowed that £600, that loan will remain for the life of the mortgage which has been taken out with the assistance of this loan, enabling them to undertake the purchase. It is the first five years that is interest free. For the remainder of he mortgage they will pay interest on the £600.
However, one finds that the Green Paper on housing produced by the Government, in Technical Volume II, shows that 51 per cent. of first-time buyers sell up their house and move within five years of purchase. In other words, there is a fairly rapid turnover of owner-occupiers. That being the case, we feel that it would be undesirable to create a situation in which people might find it difficult to change their homes. They do not do so arbitrarily; they do so because their personal circumstances are such that they have to do so. An increase in the size of family may require them to buy a larger house, or a change of job may require them to move from one part of the country to another.
I hope that it is part of public policy to make it easy to move around freely. Unhappily, as the Bill is drawn, if the house is sold within the five-year period, 1367 the £600 has to be repaid and, moreover, cannot be claimed again on the purchase of the second house because the borrower is no longer a first-time buyer and no longer within the terms of reference of the Bill.
The object of the new clause is to try to overcome that difficulty. It would enable assistance under the Bill—the loan of £600—to subsist notwithstanding that the purchaser sells the house and applies the proceeds of the sale to the acquisition of another property which he makes his only place of residence.
Of course we have had to include that last qualification in the new clause because we agree that it would not be right that help of this kind should be extended to the purchase, for example, of second homes. That is not the object of a scheme of this kind. Nevertheless, we can contemplate a situation in which a young couple, having bought a home with the help of the additional £600 loaned to them interest free, later want to move because they need a larger house or for the other reason I gave, but find that the other house, because of inflation, is marginally more expensive than the one they are leaving. Because, under the Bill as drafted, they will no longer have the benefit of this £600 loan, since it has to be repaid and is not renewable for a second purchase, they may find themselves trapped, as it were, in their first home, unable to buy the larger home that they may need, or unable to accept a new job opportunity.
I see no objection to the principle underlying the new clause. It would be of considerable benefit. I cannot conceive, either, with the qualification that we have written in, that such a proposition could be subject to any kind of abuse. I understand that the only objection that exists is one of administration, because, in the way that building societies operate, they have forgone the use of the clerks who of old could do simple arithmetic in their heads, and today they put everything on a computer. The more we mechanise and progress, the more difficult and complicated life becomes. Therefore, these computers are to be programmed in such a way that, at the end of the five-year period, what is left of the £600 after allocation of repayments is shown up as the final amount that then becomes subject to interest.
1368 If one were to say, as we suggest, that at any point of time there could be a break and a renewal of the loan, it seems that the programming would have to be done for the whole of 1,825 separate points in time—that is, the number of days within the five years. That kind of programming would apparently cause a great deal of administrative difficulty for the building societies, but it would not be insuperable difficulty.
There is another way to approach the problem. We can say that during the five-year period none of the capital repayments should be attributable to the £600 loan and that those repayments should be attributable to the other borrowing of the purchaser of the property. If that approach were suggested, I do not think that it would be difficult to adopt because, in the first five years of a mortgage, a very small proportion of the monthly repayments is attributable to capital, the bulk being comprised of interest payments. Such capital repayments as were made within the five years would relate not to the £600 but to the remainder of the borrowing. In that case, one could overcome the administrative difficulty that appears to be the only obstacle in the way of the new clause.
I hope that the Minister will accept this proposal in the spirit that it is made and recognise that what we are trying to do is to make the scheme more effective and of greater help to young people who may find themselves otherwise trapped in their house of first choice because if, they sell and re-buy, they will be £600 short on their borrowing.
§ Mr. David Atkinson (Bournemouth, East)The new clause gives me an opportunity to draw the attention of the House to the consequence that the Bill will have for first-time buyers in my constituency, including those whose jobs necessitate their moving home. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden) wishes to be associated with my remarks.
The Bill refers to the loans available being based on a purchase price with a price limit prescribed by the Secretary of State, and states that different limits may be prescribed for properties in different parts of the country. Under that proposal, Bournemouth is to be categorised as in the South-West Region, and I understand that the price limit to be applied to 1369 that region is about £11,200. Yet the Minister is surely aware that because of the nature of Bournemouth as an urban area, as opposed to the otherwise rural nature of the region, and as an attractive area not only in which to work but to retire to, and as a resort which attracts and encourages an above-average job mobility amongst young people because of the seasonal nature of its trade, the demand for homes there will always be at a premium, and thus so will the price be.
The average price of a house for the first-time buyer in Bournemouth will therefore be considerably higher than the average price of a house elsewhere in the South-West Region. If one is to be entirely fair to Bournemouth, the price must be regarded as in the same sort of bracket as the average price in a place like Southampton, 15 miles away, or, indeed, equated even with London. So instead of a price limit of £11,200, one nearer £14,500 or £15,000 would be more appropriate. It is only because of the local government reorganisation that took Bournemouth out of Hampshire and into Dorset, and into the South-West Region from the South-East Region, in which the price limit for property will be considerably higher, that the first-time buyers in my constituency will be penalised as a result of this provision.
I hope, therefore, that the Minister will take the opportunity to explain to the first-time buyers of Bournemouth, and in particular to those whose jobs will take them there, the justification for placing the borough in the South-West Region, which will have the result of giving them a raw deal in providing them with assistance under the terms of the Bill.
Young people seeking council houses in Bournemouth are already seeing their hopes dashed as a result of the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act because other people are moving into the area and are being shown preference for accommodation as opposed to those who have been living in the area for a number of years.
§ Mr. Stephen Ross (Isle of Wight)Until the last minute or so I had great support for the hon. Gentleman. The Isle of Wight is in the South-East Region, and if Bournemouth goes to the South-West 1370 that is nonsense, because prices in Bournemouth are substantially higher than in my constituency. But it was not the present Government who reorganised the local government of Dorset and Bournemouth, the hon. Gentleman should make his representations elsewhere.
Will the hon. Gentleman give facts and figures for those who he claims have moved into Bournemouth since the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act came into force and have got accommodation over the heads of local residents? If he would like to give the figures I would be pleased to have them for Thursday night.
§ 5.0 p.m.
§ Mr. AtkinsonThe hon. Gentleman will be entirely appreciative of the situation to which I refer, because he was a sponsor of the Bill that I mentioned. The consequences of it are of considerable concern to the council in Bournemouth and to the young people who are waiting for their council house and finding that they remain on the waiting list with very little hope, quite simply because they are overtaken by people coming into the area and taking advantage of the seasonal trade in order to satisfy the six months qualifying period.
§ Mr. AtkinsonFirst-time buyers in Bournemouth will be severely affected because of the provision that I mentioned. I urge the Minister to agree that Bournemouth should be recognised as separate from the rest of the South-Western Region in regard to the price limit for house purchase prices.
§ Mr. Michael Latham (Melton)I should like to make a brief intervention, but before doing so I remind the House that I have an interest in this matter, as I am a director of a building company.
It should be said in support of the new clause—which is a very reasonable and important one, in my view—that the gateways for obtaining the relatively limited assistance under the Bill are extremely difficult. This is something that will not happen for at least two years, once the provisions of the Bill begin to take effect. We are talking of something in 1980–81.
Let us remember what a person has to do in order to qualify at all. It is clearly set out in Clause 1(3). First, he has to 1371 have been saving for two years—and two years continuously, at that. Secondly, within the 12 months before the two years he has to have maintained an account of at least £300. Thirdly, by the end of the two years he has to have £600 in an account with a recognised savings institution. If he has done all those things, he is eligible for the £600 loan free of interest and of any obligation to repay the principal for up to five years.
As I said on Second Reading, many people will not bother with that sort of exercise. Although, on the new clause, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it would be out of order for me to talk much about the position of house prices at the moment—perhaps it would be in order to do so at a later stage—we all know that there is some danger, at any time, of house prices outstripping incomes. If that happens, as I said on Second Reading and in Committee, a person going into the scheme would be better advised to put his money together as quickly as possible and to buy a house rather than go for the £600 loan, which at the end of the two-year period might well have been overtaken by the house price increase. He would therefore be even worse off than if he had put his money together as best he could at the beginning of the two-year period.
But let us suppose that those bad conditions do not occur, and that the rise in house prices, as the Government would wish, is in accordance with the rise in the cost of living and the rise in people's incomes, so that it is not detrimental to go into the scheme. Even so, the five-year period will then begin to take effect, and if the house is sold during that time the repayment must be made. I emphasise very strongly—as did my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi)—that that would have a bad effect on the chain of housing.
I believe that in Committee the Minister said that he expected 40,000 people to be brought into the new home ownership net who would not otherwise have been brought in. I note that the Minister nods his head. There is no doubt at all in my mind that of those 40,000 people a not unsubstantial number will wish to move within the five-year period, so that the benefit will have to be repaid. That will have an adverse effect on the chain of housing.
1372 All of us who take a particular interest in housing policy—in other words, those of us who are here in the Chamber—know very well that the problem—
§ Mr. DurantSome of us.
§ Mr. LathamNo, all of us. My hon. Friend should not be so ungenerous.
§ Mr. DurantIt would be nice if we were to see some new people taking part in the debate. We always seem to see the same faces.
§ Mr. LathamThere are other hon. Members who come in periodically, and no doubt we shall see them during the course of the debate.
With regard to the five-year principle and the chain of purchase in particular, many experts have suggested that the 1980s may be a period during which houses will be difficult to sell. It has been suggested that the relationship between population and housing stock will be such that the housing stock may stick, and that in certain areas there will be a surplus. I entirely accept that in many areas there will be no building surplus; nevertheless, anything which adversely affects the chain is to be deplored, because it will have a bad effect on housing policy.
I find it quite impossible to understand why the Minister should resist the new clause. It is drafted in the most moderate terms, it is perfectly sensible and it has a minimal effect. I cannot believe that the administrative problems for building societies would be insuperable. We are talking of only 40,000 people among the 4.8 million who have mortgages. I am sure that any problems can be overcome, given good will and a proper programming of the computer. I hope that the Minister does not have the word "Resist" at the top of his brief, and that he will accept the new clause.
§ Mr. DurantI support the new clause because I feel that one of the detrimental effects of the Bill will be to cause more immobility in housing, and I am concerned because we have too little mobility already. It is a deterrent in regard to people taking new jobs and moving around the country, and will only be another nail in the coffin of those who want to move regularly and often. I think that the new clause is reasonable and is one that we should support.
1373 We must face the fact that if we are to have new industries in different parts of the country, people will want to move to those parts of the country in order to take up those new opportunities. But if we continually make it more and more difficult for people to move, the country's economic problems will get steadily worse.
I believe that we should take this opportunity to show that we believe in mobility. I am sorry that my new clause concerning mobile homes was not accepted. I believe that it would encourage people to move towards new areas, to new jobs and to new opportunities, instead of feeling that, having gone into the scheme, however small it is, they are stuck for a minimum of five years. That would be a great pity in relation to what is, after all, a worthwhile small piece of legislation.
§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Ernest Armstrong)I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi) for his kind words at the beginning of the debate, and particularly his assurance of co-operation. I almost rushed across to get him to sign my plaster. I am most grateful to him.
The aim of the new clause is to allow freedom from interest on capital repayments to continue for five years, even if the first-time purchaser sells his house and a new one is bought during that period.
I shall take note of what the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) said. With regard to homelessness, I suggest that he should attend the Adjournment debate later this week when that subject will be dealt with in detail. I do not think that his comments in that respect are really relevant to the new clause. I understand his representations concerning regional price limits. He will probably hear me say something about that aspect in reply to the next group of amendments.
The points that were made in Committee—and reinforced today, quite properly and reasonably, by the Opposition—persuaded my right hon. Friend to say that he would have another look at them and give consideration to them. That is what we have done. We have also consulted the lending institutions, which will 1374 have the main job of operating the scheme. But, quite frankly, I have to say to the House that we have been reinforced in the view that our original judgment was correct.
The new clause would complicate the proposed arrangements. We are anxious that the arrangements shall be as simple as posible. The point was quite properly made that the Bill will affect only a limited number of folk. We find that the take-up of most benefits that are available is somewhat disappointing, and we are anxious that this scheme will be as simple and straightforward as it is possible to make it.
The fundamental purpose of the Bill is to assist first-time purchasers, not those who sell and buy again. The one argument that concerns me a great deal is the mobility argument. The hon. Member for Hornsey mentioned it, as, indeed, did the hon. Member for Reading, North (Mr. Durant). We are very anxious indeed not to impede mobility. As the hon. Member for Hornsey will clearly recognise, the evidence is that those who have a house are much more mobile in society than those in other housing sectors. It is true—we have given careful consideration to this—that where people move for employment reasons they are very often assisted by the employer in finding, and even buying, a home. Once a first-time purchaser has been helped into home ownership, he possesses an asset. That is surely an important consideration. He owns an appreciating asset. At most times it is an asset that rises in value. Indeed, very often it would outweigh the value of the Government loan. That was freely acknowledged.
I can give an example. Let us consider a house which costs £12,000 and which the first-timer buys with a deposit of £2,000 and a loan, including Government assistance, of £10,000. Let us suppose that the purchaser moves after three years, during which time house prices rise at, say 10 per cent. a year. He therefore sells at £16,000. After paying off the loan, including the Government loan, he has £6,000 available. Therefore, he could buy a better house—say, £18,000—take a smaller percentage loan, pay the costs of transfer and have some cash left over. Therefore, in the real world we are dealing with very few folk, although we looked very carefully at the matter 1375 because of the strength of the arguments used in Committee.
In addition, compared with the advantage of the bonus and loan assistance which enables a person to become a home owner, the risk of having to move and repay the loan before the five years are up is not, in our view, an overburdening consideration. This would be one of very many matters that would obviously be considered by anyone contemplating moving or having to move for employment reasons.
There is a second reason for resisting the new clause. As the hon. Member for Hornsey suggested, it has to do with administration. We discussed the schemes very fully with the representatives of the institutions before we presented the Bill. Our combined intention, which I am sure has the approval of the House, was to find as simple a scheme as possible which would be to the benefit of both first-time buyers and the institutions. I place on record today the helpful co-operation that we have had from the institutions. They are taking on what will be quite an administrative chore and operating it free of charge. They believe, and we share this belief after talking to them, that the proposal in the new clause would add a genuine complicating factor involving a disproportionately expensive extra burden compared with any benefits which the few people involved may receive.
5.15 p.m.
Under present proposals, the Government loan is contained within the main loan from the lending institutions. When that loan is paid off before the end of five years, so also is the Government loan. It is a straightforward, sensible arrangement which is easily understood. If the £600 loan were continued, we have to consider whether it would be by the lender of the first mortgage loan. If so, there would need to be a new security, because the house would have been sold. There could be difficulty about arrangements for repayments. There could well be disproportionate administrative complications, especially if the Government were to take responsibility for administering the continuing assistance. Frankly, I foresee numerous difficulties concerning security of the loan and collection of payments.
§ Mr. Michael LathamI can quite understand that administrative problems cause the Government concern, but surely the building societies cannot seriously be suggesting that these 40,000 people, out of a total of 4.8 million mortgages, would cause an immense administrative problem. The building societies are continually transferring mortgages from one house to another as people sell and buy a new one.
§ Mr. ArmstrongWe must bear in mind the purpose of the Bill, which is to assist a limited number who would otherwise be prevented from becoming home owners. We must consider the administrative complications in relation to the assistance that is being given and what we are asking the lending institutions to do. Let us suppose that an institution making a second loan was then responsible. The problems would then include the transfer of £600, notification to the Government and the reduction of payments for only part of the five years. Indeed, a modified mortgage deed would be required. Last but not least, we must consider the institution's decision whether to make a loan at all, given the requirement to make the £600 additional to its loan, especially if that £600 loan had only a year or so to run.
We are not against the principle of the new clause. We want the scheme to be simple. It is a limited and modest scheme. We want to assist the first-time buyer and avoid any extra administrative burden. I therefore ask the House to reject the new clause.
§ Mr. Tim Sainsbury (Hove)This short debate on an important new clause has raised a point which too often comes before this House. It is an issue which all sides of the House are agreed is worth while. The Minister has recognised the importance of the mobility of labour and the fact that there should be no discouragement of it, yet for administrative reasons nothing can be done to overcome this problem.
I suggest that this is worth having another look at. There is a recognition of the scale of the problem. As I am sure the Minister and his right hon. Friend are aware, many house purchasers, particularly first-time purchasers, do move within the first five years. Indeed, I draw 1377 the Minister's attention to the figures quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi), which show that the biggest incidence of movement is in the second or third year after purchase. That is understandable, because there may be changes in the size of family and a first-time purchaser is likely to be at that stage of his career when job movement becomes more likely.
The Minister said that administrative complexity rules out this additional help. I urge him to have another talk with the building societies. The complexity argument seems to be advanced because of the difficulty of transferring what is an interest-free loan for five years from one property to another. If I understand the intention of the Bill correctly, the £600 loan is interest free for five years. Therefore, there will be no repayment and no interest on that loan for the duration of five years. It is secured against a property during that period. At the end of five years repayment and interest become payable on the loan.
If that is the intention—that is certainly how it was set out on Second Reading—there does not seem to be any real complexity in the transfer. After all, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Mr. Latham), normally if somebody is selling his house the transaction for the purchase of alternative accommodation are carried out at the same time. It would be more likely than not that the same building society would be involved. Although I appreciate the Building Societies Association's generosity in operating the scheme without charging for it, if it were discussed with the serious intention of getting it accepted, ways could be found which would not become administratively too complex or expensive.
§ Mr. ArmstrongI hope that I have not given the impression that the problem is merely administrative. There are two other main considerations. The Bill is related to first-time purchasers and not to those who buy and sell again. In the real world, unless there is a dramatic change in what has happened in most of my lifetime, anybody who buys a home possesses an appreciating asset which in most cases far outweighs the benefit over one or two years—the longer, the bigger 1378 the benefit—of any loan from the Government.
§ Mr. SainsburyI suspect that the Minister is confusing inflation with changes in real value. The value of the house that the first-time purchaser was moving to would equally have increased. The Minister, in a curious way, devalues his Government's own scheme. He seems to be suggesting that the help that is being given is so small the loss of it on moving home would not be regarded as a discouragement. I fear that he may be right in respect of the scale of the help that we are looking for. He is saying that, since it is nothing much to worry about, if after two or three years one wishes to move and as a result one loses an interest-free loan of £600, one should not worry about the administrative complexity of avoiding that loss. I find that surprising.
§ Mr. Michael LathamIf somebody sells a house for £10,000 and buys a new one, having geared up for £13,000, there are stamp duties, removal costs, and so on, and £600 as well.
§ Mr. SainsburyWe are all unpleasantly aware of the costs of moving. We hope that stamp duty will be avoided at that level. It depends upon the level of the exchange. Most of the people benefiting from the proposals in the Bill would be free of stamp duty.
§ Mr. Stephen RossI very much agree with the point that is being made, and I hesitate to interrupt when I see quite a number of lawyers present. If I remember rightly, it is not easy when one is transferring mortgages, whether or not one has an extra £600. When I moved house, I thought that I could simply transfer my £12,000 building society mortgage, which was with the same building society. The building society made me pay it off and take the mortgage out again, and I had to pay the survey fee. It is not a simple exercise. I hope that if the Minister can persuade the Government to discuss the matter with the building societies, they will discuss the simplification of the whole process and not just its effect on those people who happen to have taken advantage of the Bill.
§ Mr. SainsburyI am grateful to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. 1379 Ross). Like him. I am not a lawyer. However, I have the advantage of expert advice from my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi). The point that the hon. Member for Isle of Wight makes about there being a relatively complicated transaction on a change of house is valid, since one has to go through the procedure of repaying the first mortgage and taking out a new one attached to the new property. I do not think that there is considerable additional complexity in transferring the unexpended balance of five years of interest-free loan to the second property. The Minister
§ recognises the importance of mobility of labour. He surely also believes the scheme to be of real value and the loss of that loan to be a deterrent. If so, will he consider the matter again with the Building Societies Association to see whether it is administratively as complex as has been made out? If it is not, perhaps the matter could be considered in another place.
§ Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
§ The House divided: Ayes 68, Noes 167.
1381| Division No. 223] | AYES | [5.25 p.m. |
| Aitken, Jonathan | Haselhurst, Alan | Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal) |
| Alison, Michael | Hodgson, Robin | Rees-Davies, W. R. |
| Bendall, Vivian (Ilford North) | Holland, Philip | Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts) |
| Bennett, Dr Reginald (Fareham) | Hordern, Peter | Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex) |
| Benyon, W. | Hunt, David (Wirral) | Rifkind, Malcolm |
| Biffen, John | Irving, Charles (Cheltenham) | Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks) |
| Brooke, Peter | Jessel, Toby | Ross, William (Londonderry) |
| Brotherton, Michael | Kilfedder, James | Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey) |
| Buck, Antony | Kitson, Sir Timothy | Sainsbury, Tim |
| Budgen, Nick | Latham, Michael (Melton) | Silvester, Fred |
| Carlisle, Mark | Luce, Richard | Sims, Roger |
| Channon, Paul | Mates, Michael | Smith, Timothy John (Ashfield) |
| Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton) | Mawby, Ray | Spence, John |
| Clark, William (Croydon S) | Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin | Stanbrook, Ivor |
| Cooke, Robert (Bristol W) | Miscampbell, Norman | Stanley, John |
| Dodswofth, Geoffrey | Molyneaux, James | Stewart, Ian (Hitchin) |
| Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke) | Montgomery, Fergus | Viggers, Peter |
| Fairbairn, Nicholas | Morris, Michael (Northampton S) | Wakeham, John |
| Farr, John | Nelson, Anthony | Walder, David (Clitheroe) |
| Fox, Marcus | Newton, Tony | Walters, Dennis |
| Gow, Ian (Eastbourne) | Onslow, Cranley | |
| Hamilton, Archibald (Epsom & Ewell) | Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES: |
| Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury) | Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch | Mr. Tony Durant and |
| Hannam, John | Prentice, Rt Hon Reg | Mr. David Atkinson. |
| NOES | ||
| Armstrong, Ernest | Davies, Bryan (Enfield N) | Henderson, Douglas |
| Ashiey, Jack | Davies, Rt Hon Denzil | Hooson, Emlyn |
| Atkinson, Norman | Dewar, Donald | Horam, John |
| Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood) | Doig, Peter | Howells, Geraint (Cardigan) |
| Bates, Alf | Dormand, J. D. | Hoyle, Doug (Nelson) |
| Bean, R. E. | Douglas-Mann, Bruce | Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey) |
| Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N) | Duffy, A. E. P. | Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N) |
| Bidwell, Sydney | Dunnett, Jack | Hunter, Adam |
| Blenkinsop, Arthur | Eadie, Alex | Janner, Greville |
| Boardman, H. | Edge, Geoff | Jay, Rt Hon Douglas |
| Boothroyd, Miss Betty | Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun) | Jeger, Mrs Lena |
| Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur | English, Michael | Jenkins, Hugh (Putney) |
| Boyden, James (Bish Auck) | Evans, Fred (Caerphilly) | Jones, Barry (East Flint) |
| Brown, Hugh D. (Provan) | Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen) | Judd, Frank |
| Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W) | Evans, Ioan (Aberdare) | Kerr, Russell |
| Buchan, Norman | Evans, John (Newton) | Kilroy-Silk, Robert |
| Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P) | Faulds, Andrew | Lambie, David |
| Canavan, Dennis | Fernyhough, Rt Hon E. | Lamborn, Harry |
| Cant, R. B. | Flannery, Martin | Lamond, James |
| Carter, Ray | Fletcher, Ted (Darlington) | Latham, Arthur (Paddington) |
| Carter-Jones, Lewis | Foot, Rt Hon Michael | Litterick, Tom |
| Cartwright, John | Ford, Ben | Loyden, Eddie |
| Clemitson, Ivor | Forrester, John | Lyons, Edward (Bradford W) |
| Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S) | Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald | Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson |
| Cohen, Stanley | Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John | McDonald, Dr Oonagh |
| Coleman, Donald | Golding, John | Maclennen, Robert |
| Conlan, Bernard | Gourlay, Harry | Madden, Max |
| Cook, Robin F. (Edin C) | Graham, Ted | Mallalleu, J. P. W. |
| Cowans, Harry | Grant, John (Islington C) | Marks, Kenneth |
| Cox, Thomas (Tooting) | Grocott, Bruce | Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole) |
| Craigen, Jim (Maryhill) | Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife) | Marshall, Jim (Leicester S) |
| Crawshaw, Richard | Hardy, Peter | Maynard, Miss Joan |
| Cryer, Bob | Harrison, Rt Hon Walter | Mikardo, Ian |
| Dalyell, Tam | Hart, Rt Hon Judith | Millan, Rt Hon Bruce |
| Davidson. Arthur | Heffer, Eric S. | Mitchell, Austin |
| Molloy, William | Rooker, J. W. | Tierney, Sydney |
| Moonman, Eric | Roper, John | Tilley, John (Lambeth, Central) |
| Morris, Rt Hon Charles R. | Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight) | Tinn, James |
| Moyle, Roland | Rowlands, Ted | Tomney, Frank |
| Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King | Ryman, John | Torney, Tom |
| Newens, Stanley | Sandelson, Neville | Urwin, T. W. |
| Noble, Mike | Sedgemore, Brian | Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V) |
| O'Halloran, Michael | Sever, John | Watkins, David |
| Palmer, Arthur | Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South) | Whitehead, Phillip |
| Pardoe, John | Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert | Whitlock, William |
| Park, George | Shore, Rt Hon Peter | Willey, Rt Hon Frederick |
| Parker, John | Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich) | Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch) |
| Pavitt, Laurie | Silverman, Julius | Wilson, Rt Hon Sir Harold (Huyton) |
| Phipps, Dr Colin | Skinner, Dennis | Wilson, William (Coventry SE) |
| Price, C. (Lewisham W) | Snape, Peter | Wise, Mrs Audrey |
| Radice, Giles | Spearing, Nigel | Woodall, Alec |
| Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S) | Spriggs, Leslie | Woof, Robert |
| Richardson, Miss Jo | Stallard, A. W. | Wrigglesworth, Ian |
| Roberts, Albert (Normanton) | Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham) | |
| Robinson, Geoffrey | Stoddart, David | TELLERS FOR THE NOES: |
| Rodgers, George (Chorley) | Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley | Mr. Joseph Harper and |
| Rodgers, Rt Hon William (Stockton) | Thomas, Ron (Bristoll NW) | Mr. Frank R. White. |
§ Question accordingly negatived.