HL Deb 07 March 1966 vol 273 cc929-46

4.10 p.m.

House again in Committee.

Clause 2 [Conditions to he satisfied]:

On Question, Whether Clause 2 shall stand part of the Bill?

LORD SILKIN

I ask the Committee to leave out Clause 2. The original Clause 2 contained two subsections, both of which are now incorporated in Clause 1. Therefore, Clause 2 is no longer necessary.

Clause 2 disagreed to.

Clause 3 [Notification]:

LORD SILKIN

I beg to move this Amendment, which is really a recast of the original provision about notification of abortions. I think everyone agrees that notification in some form or other is desirable, and the new provision contained in Amendment No. 12 provides that the Minister of Health may make regulations setting out in exactly what form this notification should take place, within what time and so on. Originally, it was contemplated that within seven days of every abortion a notification should be given. I think that on consideration that was found to be impracticable, particularly since operations will now be carried out in hospitals. I beg to move.

Amendment moved—

Page 2, line 10, leave out subsection (1) and insert— (" (1) The Minister of Health may by regulations made by statutory instrument make provision —

  1. (a) for requiring any registered medical practitioner who terminates a pregnancy to give notice of the termination, and such other information relating to the termination as may he prescribed by the regulations, to the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health within such period as may he so prescribed; and
  2. (b) with respect to the disposal of certificates given for the purposes of section 1 of this Act.").—(Lord Silkin.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD SILKIN

This Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 2, line 15, leave out (" contained in such notification ") and insert (" furnished in pursuance of regulations under subsection (1) of this section ").—(Lord Silkin.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD SILKIN

This Amendment is also consequential. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 2, line 19, after C' of ") insert (" regulations under ").—(Lord Silkin.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD SILKIN

This Amendment is self-explanatory. I beg to move.

Amendment moved—

Page 2, line 24, at end insert— ( ) In the application of this section to Scotland for any reference to the Minister or Ministry of Health there shall be substituted a reference to the Secretary of State."—(Lord Silkin.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 3 as amended, agreed to.

Clause 4 [Savings]:

On Question, Whether Clause 4 shall stand part of the Bill?

LORD SILKIN

Clause 4 of the Bill relates to the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, and provides that this Bill should not affect it. I do not think it is necessary to say that, because this Bill cannot affect the Infant Life (Preservation) Act unless that Act is specifically repealed or amended. Therefore, this is an unnecessary clause and I propose that it be omitted.

Clause 4 disagreed to.

Clause 5:

Interpretation

5. In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, the following expressions have meanings hereby assigned to them, that is to say— Defective" means in England and Wales a person suffering from severe abnormality within the meaning of section 4 subsection (2) of the Mental Health Act 1959 or in Scotland a person suffering from mental deficiency of the degree specified in section 96 subsection (7) of the Mental Health (Scotland) Act 1960;

4.16 p.m.

LORD MOLSON moved, in the interpretation of "Defective" to leave out all words after the first "from" and insert: subnormality within the meaning of section 4 of the Mental Health Act 1959 or in Scotland a person suffering from mental deficiency within the meaning of section 6 of the Mental Health (Scotland) Act 1960; ". The noble Lord said: The purpose of this Amendment is to widen the definition of a mental defective. As your Lordships will remember, in the Bill as drafted and introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, the reference to a mental defective is confined to "severe subnormality ", which means: a state of arrested or incomplete development of mind which includes subnormality of intelligence and is of such a nature or degree that the patient is incapable of living an independent life or of guarding himself against serious exploitation, or will be so incapable when of an age to do so. It is my submission that it should be lawful to terminate the pregnancy of a defective who does not fall within the definition of "severe subnormality ".

The situation has undergone a change as a result of the Report stage, and here I would refer especially to the speeches of the Joint Parliamentary Under-Secretatary upon this matter. As he pointed out, your Lordships had then decided to retain paragraph (c), which would allow legal abortion where the woman was physically or mentally inadequate to be the mother of the child. The noble Lord said that in those cases it was unnecessary to have this special provision with regard to mental defectives because, clearly, they would come under paragraph (c). Since then your Lordships have deleted paragraph (c) from the Bill, and it is therefore essential, in my submission, that we should make special provision for cases where the mother is a mental defective; and I think it would be proper to take into account also cases where the father is a mental defective.

Quite unwittingly, I am sure, the Parliamentary Secretary misrepresented what I said on a previous occasion. He thought I had said that the great majority of people who were mental defectives were so by heredity. What I in fact said was that a very large proportion of the children of mental defectives are themselves mentally defective. I am going to produce some figures to establish that that is in fact the case. I was surprised that the Parliamentary Secretary should have said he was advised by the Ministry of Health to oppose an Amendment of this kind, on the ground that mental defectives frequently have perfectly normal children.

It is true that on occasions they do, but the number of children who are either retarded or mentally defective is so high a proportion—so much higher than the proportion of mental defectives born to other sections of the community—that I urge upon your Lordships that we should make special provision to authorise abortion in suitable cases, in order to prevent the risk of another mentally defective child being born.

I want to give some figures relating to this matter. I understand that, although they were presented in evidence to the Brock Committee on Sterilisation, they are still, broadly speaking, regarded by the medical profession as a fair indication. First, however, may I quote from the Report of the Board of Control for the year 1928: It can hardly be denied that the 200,000 defectives who must remain in the community are wholly unfitted for parentage. Though it does not necessarily follow that the children of defective parents will themselves be defective, they are liable to be exposed to the miseries and hardship of being brought up by a mother or father incapable of self-control who will almost certainly neglect them and may, by reason of mental instability and ungovernable temper, aggravate by cruelty the results of ignorance and neglect.

I go on to give one example. I am admittedly choosing a striking case, but I think one is justified in so doing in order to establish the desirability of legalising abortion in cases of this kind. This is the case of a family where there was a strong taint of mental deficiency, insanity and epilepsy. The mother had seventeen children. The first two, who were illegitimate, died of convulsions in infancy. The third, a daughter, was mentally deficient and is now in an institution. The fourth, a son, was certified as an imbecile and died at the age of 11. The fifth, a son, was certified as a mental defective and is now in an institution. The sixth was a daughter, an imbecile. The seventh was a daughter who died at the age of eleven months. The eighth was a son certified as an imbecile. It is only at the ninth child that we find the child living and in service. The tenth child died in infancy. The eleventh is of low mentality. The twelfth is of average intelligence. The thirteenth is now in an institution. The fourteenth is in an institution. The fifteenth was recently admitted to an institution. The sixteenth and seventeenth children are so small that it is not yet known whether or not they are normal.

The Brock Committee made as careful an analysis as they could of a large number of cases in order to try to establish what percentage or proportion of the children would be likely to be defective. Of defective mothers, they studied 3,247; of defective fathers, 48; making a total of 3,733 defective parents. The number of children was 8,841. Of the living children, between the ages of 7 and 13, 40.4 per cent. were mentally subnormal. That includes those retarded, which is not as striking a condition. Of those over 13, the proportion was 45.4 per cent. Those percentages, be it remembered, were taken from amongst the survivors; 22.5 per cent. were already dead.

I have already referred to the definition of "defective" which is now in the Bill. It is quite clear, it seems to me, that if the Bill is restricted to severe subnormality, which says that the patient is incapable of living an independent life, that must rule out the great majority of married mental defectives; and, clearly, it is desirable that we should include within the compass of this Bill the mental defectives who are married. It seems to me that the best way of dealing with this is as I have drafted the Amendment, but I have not the slightest doubt that, if your Lordships were disposed to accept this principle, as I hope you will, we should be advised that it was necessary for the definition to be redrafted by Parliamentary counsel. I am proposing that, in England and Wales, "defective" should mean a person suffering from subnormality within the meaning of section 4 of the Mental Health Act…".

I do not follow the objection that was raised by the Parliamentary Secretary that some of those people might be undergoing treatment and might be capable of being cured. Be it remembered that in this matter doctors are empowered to terminate a pregnancy only if they think it proper to do so, and it might well be that they would not think it proper in the case of a mental defective, or some one suffering from some kind of insanity, who was likely to be cured and the condition was not likely to be transmitted. In the case of the Scottish Act, it seems to me that the definition is even better, because it says: In this Act mental disorder' means mental illness or mental deficiency however caused or manifested. I hope that, on consideration of this matter, and having regard to your Lordships' decision to leave out paragraph (c), which dealt with the inadequacy of a mother, your Lordships will see fit to adopt my Amendment in order that the beneficial scope of this Bill may be wider than it otherwise would be. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 2, line 31, leave out from (" from ") to end of line 35 and insert the said new words. —(Lord Molson.)

LORD STONHAM

The noble Lord, Lord Molson, has quite fairly referred to remarks which I made at an earlier stage of the Bill when I said that, if we retained the then paragraph (c) to the then Clause 1, which made it a legal ground for the termination of pregnancy if a mother was considered inadequate, then obviously there was no need for the inclusion of a specific provision for a defective, because it would seem obvious that a defective would be considered inadequate. The noble Lord is quite right now to draw attention to the fact that that paragraph has been deleted from the Bill, and that it is therefore necessary to have in the word "defective". which indeed we have. The only difference which the noble Lord would make is that he would seek to enlarge the definition of "defective" to cover not only severe subnormality as it is now defined in the Bill, but also those who are merely subnormal and those whose subnormality is susceptible to treatment; those who, in other words, can be made more or less normal people. That is the whole issue between us.

In support of his case the noble Lord expressed surprise that I had quoted the Ministry of Health in saying that defectives do have perfectly normal children. I will go even further than that, and say in the majority of cases the children born to defectives are perfectly normal. The noble Lord said that a very large proportion of the children of mental defectives are themselves mentally defective, and he quoted the figures of the 1934 Committee on Sterilisation. With respect, I thought he quoted them less justly than I should have expected him to do. He quoted a total of 40.4 per cent. of children between the ages of 7 and 13 whom he described as mentally deficient—

LORD MOLSON

No, I did not say that. I said "mentally subnormal" and I said that that figure included the retarded as well as the mentally deficient.

LORD STONHAM

I will withdraw the word "deficient". I took a note of it; I did not mean to misrepresent the noble Lord. I will accept the expression he used. But what the noble Lord did not give were the actual figures for the proportion of retarded children—and these are important. The 1934 Departmental Committee on Sterilisation on these defective parents produced figures showing that 16.9 per cent., one in six, of the children were defective—not 40.4 per cent.: the remainder, 23.5 per cent., were retarded.

I will not go into a great argument about this point. Many retarded children are not deficient; they are what we call educationally subnormal; and for these we have special schools. I consider that this makes a big difference because when we talk about the "educationally subnormal" or, as the noble Lord said, the "retarded", we mean people with an I.Q. of between 70 and 85. Until eighteen months ago I was chairman of a national organisation which deals mainly with mentally handicapped children with, usually, an I.Q. of less than 50. At Slough there is an industrial training centre to which boys and girls aged between 16 and 20 are sent by the local authorities, to be trained in industry. We did not then take anyone with an I.Q. above 35. You cannot call those children retarded or educationally subnormal: they are severely subnormal.

Those children—and anyone can go and see them—have first of all to be taught ordinary social graces. They can be, and will be, taught a trade to enable them to learn their own living. They are taught to do things like catching buses and using the telephone. Some of them go out to jobs such as paint-spraying, and the like, in ordinary industry. I have seen them; I have talked to them; I have been photographed with them; and no one on earth could say that they were not happy or that they were not trained to be useful. The point with those children is not so much that they are not fitted for normal education but that successive Governments have completely failed to provide the education from which they can benefit. I am talking now not merely about the educationally retarded but about the severely subnormal people with an I.Q. of under 35. These are those who are covered by the definition in the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Molson wants to go further than that. He wants to make it legal for a doctor to perform an abortion if it is thought that the child, if born, may be educationally subnormal. We are not considering only children born of severely subnormal parents but those who would be covered by the noble Lord's Amendment, the children born of subnormal parents. It is, of course beyond dispute that if two severely subnormal people have a child then the proportion of defective children may be somewhat higher; but even then it will certainly be below 50 per cent. The noble Lord cited a case from (I think) the 1928 Board of Control, when he quoted their opinion on 200,000 defectives, and he mentioned the case of the mother with 20 children; but I believe he said that she was suffering not merely from mental deficiency but also from insanity and epilepsy.

LORD MOLSON

I said there were those taints in the family. That was all that was said in the evidence given.

LORD STONHAM

There were those three conditions I mentioned. I noted what the noble Lord said. I think he will agree that that was an extreme case.

This is the whole crux of the matter. The noble Lord said, fairly, that the doctor is not obliged to carry out an abortion. We already have in the Bill a provision for pregnancy to be terminated if one or both of the parents is severely subnormal. In the case of union between two subnormal people it is known that five out of six of the offspring are going to be healthy and that the one in six can almost certainly be treated so as to have a happy life; and almost certainly the parents will love and cherish it. The question is whether we should be right to alter this definition and so write into the Bill a much wider provision. If you feel, as I know some do, that the mother has the right to have the pregnancy terminated by request, this would be moving towards it. But if we want to deal merely with the problem of defectives—meaning those who do not have a reasonable prospect of enjoyment of life (or whatever the words are that we are using in the Bill)—then it would seem that if this Amendment were accepted we should be putting this too wide. I feel that this new examination which I made of the same figures as those which the noble Lord has quoted (he may not himself have noticed the difference) leads to the view that your Lordships may like to look at the matter again or the noble Lord may feel that he does not wish to press his Amendment.

4.40 p.m.

LORD SILKIN

I feel very sympathetic towards the Amendment. On the other hand, I cannot ignore the statement which my noble friend Lord Stonham has just made. I should not press the Amendment on the likelihood that a child of defective parents would be born mentally defective, because on the figures, one could not justify the termination of a pregnancy on that ground. If I were to attempt to justify this Amendment at all it would be on the ground which I originally put forward, namely, that the parents, or one parent, was so unsatisfactory as to be incapable of bringing up a child in the normal way. Although the figures may show that these children, or the majority of them, are born normal, there are no figures to show how eventually they turn out. I would accept the fact that children of mentally defective parents, whatever their intelligence—and that is what is tested—do turn out much worse and have a worse chance in life than other children. Therefore, I should look at it from that point of view.

There is a definition of a psychopathic disorder in the section of the Mental Health Act to which the noble Lord, Lord Molson, referred. It relates to a person who has a persistent disorder or disability of mind, whether or not including subnormality of intelligence, which results in abnormally aggressive or seriously irresponsible conduct. I find it difficult to accept that a person of that kind would make a satisfactory parent. In the debate on paragraph (c) we had two discussions on the question of what makes a satisfactory parent and the kind of upbringing which a child is likely to have. On the first occasion the Committee approved the paragraph and on the second they rejected it. I have still to make up my mind about what this Committee really wants. Noble Lords rejected it by the same number of votes as they had originally approved it. Had that been carried, it would have covered all types of mental deficiency. 'There would have been no need for a definition. It would have been possible for a registered medical practitioner to arrange an abortion on the grounds that a parent was unfit or inadequate to be a mother. I suggest that this inadequacy would certainly include even the lowest grade of mental deficiency—that is, the psychopath, the person suffering from a psychopathic disorder.

The question is what we should do with this Amendment. This is not necessarily the Bill which I am going to present at a later date. I should like to accept the Amendment if the Committee would agree with the proviso that I look at the matter again in the light of what my noble friend has said and, possibly, arrange some compromise. I am satisfied that there ought to be the possibility of an abortion in the case of a severe subnormality. There is the subnormality which is the next highest grade to severe subnormality and finally there is the pyschopathic disorder which is the highest grade of all. It may be that the answer is to allow abortion in the case of severe subnormality, and subnormality, and perhaps leave out the psychopath who may be susceptible to treatment. I take it that all these people are under some kind of control, that they are not free agents, and that the problem is not a very large one. If the Committee would allow me (I am almost thinking aloud about this, because I find myself in a dilemma between the noble Lord, Lord Molson, who moved the Amendment, and my noble friend who has so strongly resisted it) I should like to accept the Amendment on the understanding that I think again about how far it would be wise to go in a later Bill.

BARONESS GAITSKELL

I should like to support the Amendment, with which I have great sympathy. There was recently a very tragic case—I am sure that noble Lords will have noted it—of a woman with three subnormal children who asked her doctor whether she could have an abortion when she became pregnant again. The doctor sent her to a military psychiatrist who, I believe, rejected her request. When finally she was allowed to have an abortion she died, because it had been left too late. I think we can dispute the figures about whether extreme subnormality or whether just retardation comes into this question. All assumptions that the life of the mentally handicapped or subnormal child is a happy one are, to me, completely presumptive, and so I should like to support the Amendment.

VISCOUNT BARRINGTON

I shall not keep your Lordships for more than a minute, as I have spoken a great deal too much on this matter and I think that my views, or some of them, are known. I strongly support what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, that the time to discuss this again fully will be when he introduces another Bill. If I may say so, the noble Lord has listened with enormous patience to a great many things said in these debates, some sensible and some not sensible. I should certainly not oppose this Amendment now, as I might oppose it if it were moved later. I think that is all I can usefully say.

LORD RAGLAN

I think we ought to go carefully about this Amendment. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Molson, and I think here we are on rather dangerous ground. I know of a case when a girl had a baby by either her father or her brother, both of whom were subnormal, though not certifiable. The baby was taken into a Dr. Barnardo's Home and, as is the custom, was kept for a year. The child was found to be perfectly normal and was adopted. I do not believe that we know enough about genetics or what such children, when born, will be like, to adopt an Amendment such as this.

LORD MOLSON

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, for what he has said. I am perfectly willing for the matter to be looked at again during the drafting of a Bill for the new Parliament. I could not possibly withdraw this Amendment, now that the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has agreed to accept it, but both in letter and in spirit I agree that there should be discussion with a view to considering the difficulties raised by the Parliamentary Secretary.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD SILKIN

I beg to move this Amendment, which merely corrects a typist's error.

Amendment moved— Page 2, line 31, leave out (" abnormality ") and insert (" subnormality ").—(Lord Silkin.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD SILKIN

I beg to move the last Amendment on the Paper.

Amendment moved—

Page 2, line 35, at end insert— (" Hospital Board ' means a Board constituted under the National Health Service Acts as a Hospital Board or as the Board of Governors of a teaching hospital: 'the National Health Service Acts ' means the National Health Service Acts 1946 to 1964 or the National Health Service (Scotland) Acts 1947 to 1961; and ").—(Lord Silkin.)

On Question Amendment agreed to.

Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.

Remaining clause agreed to.

House resumed: Bill reported, with Amendments.

Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of March 2), the Report received.

4.51 p.m.

LORD SILKIN

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. I should like to say a few words on this auspicious occasion—it is rather an auspicious occasion, because I have got this Bill through. It is a Bill which has undoubtedly aroused a tremendous amount of interest, not only in your Lordships' House, but also in the country as a whole. So far as this House is concerned, I believe that we have had a greater attendance in the course of the proceedings on this Bill than on almost any other Bill I can remember. The only competitor was the Bill on capital punishment—not the last one, but the one of some years ago. This Bill has aroused not only a great deal of interest, but a good deal of controversy.

We were in a difficulty in discussing this Bill, because there had been no previous discussion on the subject—at any rate not within living memory. There was no White Paper or any document of that kind, on which we could focus discussion. The first discussion was on the Second Reading of a Bill prepared by me in a very amateurish way, which received, I think, rather cruel treatment from a number of noble Lords and also from a number of right reverend Prelates. I promised that I would reconsider what had been said and, in the light of the criticisms of the Bill, introduce Amendments, or a new Bill, at a later stage. Eventually, I decided to introduce a number of Amendments to the Bill and these have been discussed.

We have had a very long discussion. The Committee stage has lasted something like twenty hours altogether. Every possible aspect of the Bill has been fully covered. I was at a discussion the other day with a number of gynæcologists, who raised a very large number of questions on this Bill. I was glad to be able to tell them that every one of the questions they raised had been dealt with in the course of discussion, either in Committee or on Report, which is a very great tribute to this House. In indicates that, even on unfamiliar matters of this kind, a Bill receives the fullest possible consideration.

The Bill, on the whole, has come out unscathed. There is paragraph (c) of Clause 1, which, on a first Division, was carried, but rejected on a later Division. We also rejected the provision for the termination of pregnancy on the ground of rape. But, subject to these, I think that the Bill has come out unscathed. We are providing for two medical practitioners instead of one, which I think is right, and we are providing that termination should take place in a hospital or another approved institution, which again I think is an improvement. Apart from these points, differences have turned largely on a matter of language.

I think that the improvement is due to all those who have taken part in the discussions on the Bill, and I should like to pay my tribute to all of them—first of all, to the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne. I am sorry that he is not here to see the end, but he apologised to me that he would not be able to be present this afternoon. Although he has been a very difficult and formidable opponent, I feel that he has helped to improve the Bill. It was right that he should put forward every point of criticism he could and enable us to discuss them and come to conclusions on them.

I would also pay tribute to all other speakers, from all Parties, who have helped to mould this Bill into what I believe is a workable measure. If I single out individuals, I hope that they will not feel embarrassed or feel that I am being invidious, but I should like particularly to thank the noble Lord, Lord Molson, for his efforts. He has been a great friend and has taken a very great interest in this Bill. Also, on my side of the House, I should like to thank my noble friend Lady Summerskill, who, generally speaking, has been a tower of strength, and also my noble friend Lady Gaitskell. I wish that more women had taken part in the discussion of this Bill.

My Lords, we have come to the end of the road, hut, unfortunately, we have also come to the end of this Parliament, and this Bill cannot go any further. There are some who think that time has been wasted on this measure. I assure them that it has not. I hope that many of the things we have been groping for in the passage of this Bill we shall now accept as being fully threshed out, and that the next time a measure of this kind is introduced, apart from those who have steadfastly opposed it—and I see one or two here—the remainder of us, who on the whole accept the principle of the Bill, will be able to approve a second measure without the need for a long and elaborate Committee stage.

I am hopeful, if my noble friend's usual channels will allow me, of introducing a Bill early in the new Parliament, and that it will get the same measure of support from all Parties that this one has had. I will introduce it whichever Government happens to be elected. Finally, I should like once more to thank all those who have taken part in the discussions on the Bill. It is, indeed, a great satisfaction to me to be able to move the Third Reading, and in due course to move that the Bill do now pass.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 3b.—(Lord Silkin.)

5.1 p.m.

BARONESS SUMMERSKILL

My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend for having successfully piloted through a Bill which deals with a subject which only a few years ago could only be mentioned in a whisper. None the less, we have debated this matter in your Lordships' House, and I believe that we have thereby made history. I must confess that during the Second Reading debate I felt it a little unreal, because I felt that the fate of women was for the most part being determined by men. I thought it was as though the hazards of the pit were being discussed in the absence of miners. But I have changed my attitude entirely, despite an article which appeared in the Guardian last week, saying: There is a strong case for banning all public discussion of abortion save by people of the female sex and preferably of childbearing age, says a writer in the Lancet to-day. Dr. Richard Fox, a psychiatrist, says that one reason for the ' inadequacy' of the debate might be that it had been conducted almost exclusively by men. If women had framed the current moral code, would it have been quite the same? Too much of our morality had been handed down by elderly clerics, and comprehensive family planning—the obvious answer—had been ' consistently blocked ', although there was some hope that attitudes were changing. I could have echoed that on the Second Reading debate of this Bill, but I have to confess that I have changed my mind entirely.

I have found that, with the exception of paragraph (c)—and I will not go into the details of how the mind of the House was changed—your Lordships have shown a sympathy, understanding and a support for this Bill which indicates that most of you recognise what a woman has to endure if she is carrying an unwanted baby. After all, she could not have been pregnant without the help of some man. Indeed, I believe that these human problems are understood by the two sexes equally. I think that in the course of this Bill it has been proved that this House has men in it who have sympathy which is equal to that of any woman who has spoken in the debate.

5.4 p.m.

THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH

My Lords, I feel it would be right that from these Benches there should be a word of warm appreciation of Lord Silkin's initiative and perseverance in bringing forward and in pressing on with this Bill, which is inspired by obvious humanity, and whose object is to relieve some of the most acute instances of human distress. Your Lordships have spent many hours on this Bill. The subject is, naturally enough, one which has been of particular concern for those who sit on these Benches, and I know that His Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury would have been present this afternoon had it not been for a previous engagement in Coventry.

Sometimes the views put forward on a particular point have differed, but we have been anxious that there should be a Bill on this grave matter, and I believe that, with the Bill as it now stands, there are few who would not welcome Clause 1(a), which bases justification for abortion on the welfare of the mother expressed in very wide terms. As your' Lordships know, there have been reservations expressed on paragraphs (b) and (c) of Clause 1, and on these it would not be fitting at this juncture to say more. But one thing I should wish to say is how warmly I welcome the news that the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, in the next Parliament, will introduce a further Bill on this grave and important subject.

LORD MOLSON

My Lords, I should like in a few words to pay tribute to the courage, the wisdom and the courtesy of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin. It was a courageous thing to introduce this Bill; it was a wise thing to do. The noble Lord showed a greater understanding and knowledge of public opinion than most people in the country possessed. No one at that time would have expected this Bill in its general outline to obtain the wide support that it has. I think, therefore, that we owe a great debt of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin. It may be that now that he no longer sits on one of the Front Benches, and is perhaps no longer quite so concerned with the controversies of politics, he has rendered a greater service to your Lordships' House than he ever rendered when he was in a more prominent and conspicuous position. Finally, I should like to say with how much pleasure I heard the words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, when he said that he hoped a Bill on these lines would be introduced in the next Parliament, and that the Church for which he speaks would welcome it.

5.8 p.m.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, I would join with other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Silkin for his courage in introducing this Bill, and still more for his persistence, which, quite apart from his Parliamentary skill, has ensured that it is, as I am sure, going to get a Third Reading. I heard it suggested at one time that it was useless to carry on to this stage, because the Bill had no chance of getting on to the Statute Book. I thoroughly disagree with that, because in the outcome we have a Bill on which I think there is a large measure of agreement, not only in this House, but in the country. Of course, it will not satisfy the two extremes. It will not satisfy those who firmly believe that any pregnancy ought to be terminated at the request of the pregnant woman, and it will not satisfy those who, on conscientious grounds, think that there should be no arbitrary termination of pregnancies. I believe, however, that it will meet the views of the great majority. Although the rôle of the Government in this matter has perforce had to be a neutral one, nevertheless I am glad that we have had the opportunity of assisting with drafting, so ensuring that the wishes of the House were not aborted by any defective Amendments.

To-day a lot of figures have been quoted, but, whatever the true figures are —and I do not know them—it is the case that a great many abortions can be bought at a high price. Wealthy women can pay a lot of money for safety. Poor women, who pay a small amount of money, may pay a very high price in ill-health and agony, and may pay even with their lives. I hope my noble friend Lord Silkin will bring in another Bill in the new Parliament, perhaps considering some of the matters on which further thought is necessary. I then hope that it will have the same kind of favourable treatment that it has had from your Lordships, and we can then pass it on to another place as yet another radical measure in which your Lordships' House has taken the lead.

LORD SILKIN

My Lords, may I thank all noble Lords for the very kind things that they have said about me? I am not used to this generosity, and I do not know quite how to reply. I certainly did not get it on previous occasions when I tried my hand at legislation. I remember one piece of legislation for which I was responsible when I was known merely as the only person who understood the Bill. It would be ironic if, after New Towns, National Parks and so on, I were to be remembered as the person who carried through the Abortion Bill. I hope, anyway, that I shall not be remembered only in that way. This Bill possibly will be a greater service to the community than the other measures for which I have been responsible, and at any rate I look forward to its being so in the near future.

On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

House adjourned at twelve minutes past five o'clock.