Sitting of 6 February 1957

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

    I.T.A. (Money Prizes)
    Mr. Ness Edwardsasked the Postmaster-General what representations he has made to the Independent Television Authority about the large money prizes now being distributed by programme contractors on commercial television.
    The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Kenneth Thompson): None, Sir.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: Do I take it from that reply that the Postmaster-General takes such a poor view of his obligations to this House now that when the Act has been breached in two types of programme he takes no action at all? Is the Minister not aware that undertakings have been given by the Government that no prizes of significant value would be allowed, yet that is happening on at least four programmes and is planned for others? Is he not going to take action to protect this House?
    Mr. Thompson: The remarks of the right hon. Gentleman may be based on misapprehension and misreading of Section 3 (3) of the Act, which requires the Authority to avoid giving substantial or significant prizes to viewers of television programmes, and not to those taking part in them. So far that provision has not been offended against.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that on 20th January one advertisement provided for the giving away of chairs to viewers and that another one is planned for next week, and that that type of prize-giving is entirely different from the one which has been discussed in this House before?
    Mr. Thompson: Yes, Sir, but any programme of that kind which appeared to offend against the provision of the subsection would certainly be drawn to the attention of my right hon. Friend.
    Mr. D. Jones: Is the hon. Gentleman now saying that anybody who appears on television and wins a substantial prize must not thereafter be a viewer?

  POST OFFICE

    Advisory Council
    Mr. Rossasked the Postmaster-General how often the Post Office Advisory Council met in 1956.
    Mr. K. Thompson: Twice.
    Mr. Ross: Was it not the practice of the present Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, when Postmaster-General, of only having meetings of this Council coincident with impending or already decided increases in the tariff?
    Mr. Thompson: Yes, Sir, but I think there is no significance in any such coincidence of meetings. It is the intention of my right hon. Friend to convene an early meeting of the Advisory Council to discuss various matters.
    Mr. W. R. Williams: Will the hon. Gentleman ask the Postmaster-General to give sympathetic consideration to a suggestion which I have made to a number of his predecessors that ways and means should be found of using on that Advisory Council the wide knowledge and experience of the Post Office staffs?
    Mr. Thompson: I will draw my right hon. Friend's special attention again to what the hon. Gentleman says.

    Stamps (Robert Burns Bi-centenary)
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Postmaster-General if he is yet in a position to announce the designs and colours for the various denominations of stamps which he intends to issue to commemorate the 200th anniversary in 1959 of Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns.
    Mr. K. Thompson: I am aware of the strong desire in Scotland to mark the bicentenary of the birth of Robert Burns, but I have nothing to add at present to

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    the information which has already been given to the hon. and learned Member in reply to his earlier Questions and letters on this subject.
    Mr. Hughes: As a matter of policy, would it not be good for the Postmaster-General to begin to pay some honour to our great men instead of leaving it to Russia and other foreign countries who have honoured our great men in this way?
    Mr. Thompson: One of the complications in doing what the hon. and learned Gentleman suggests is that we would have so many great men to pay tribute to that it would be difficult to choose one against another. I will, however, draw my right hon. Friend's attention to any representations that are made by the hon. and learned Friend.

  TELEPHONE SERVICE

    Kiosks, Norfolk
    Sir F. Medlicottasked the Postmaster-General how many new public call telephone boxes were installed in the county of Norfolk during 1955 and 1956; and how many it is anticipated will be provided in 1957 and 1958.
    Mr. K. Thompson: We provided 28 kiosks in Norfolk in 1955 and 47 in 1956; this year we hope to provide about 45 and about the same number during 1958.
    Sir F. Medlicott: Is my hon. Friend aware of the special importance of telephone kiosks in scattered rural areas, especially in cases of illness and other emergencies, and will he do all he can to increase the rate of installation, not only in Norfolk but in all other rural areas?
    Mr. Thompson: Yes, Sir, we are aware of the importance of kiosks in rural and remote areas. We do a lot, often at great cost to the Post Office, to see that this amenity is available.

  ROYAL AIR FORCE

    Beverley Aircraft
    Major Wallasked the Secretary of State for Air how many Beverley aircraft are now in service; and how far these aircraft are suitable for dropping parachute troops as well as for troop and freight transport.
    The Secretary of State for Air (Mr. George Ward): Twelve Beverleys are now in service. All are suitable for dropping parachute troops.
    Major Wall: Can my right hon. Friend say whether in the recent operations in the Eastern Mediterranean these aircraft were used either for the dropping of parachute troops or for transport purposes?
    Mr. Ward: May I have notice of that question?
    Mr. de Freitas: Is the Secretary of State aware that, as long ago as 1953, we were told that in 1952 20 of these aircraft were ordered? What has happened to them? Surely they are needed today? Is not this another indication of the failure of the present Minister of Defence when he was Minister of Supply?
    Mr. Ward: All the aircraft of the second squadron have been delivered and will come into service during next month, or as the crews are trained.

    Personal Case
    Mr. Edelmanasked the Secretary of State for Air in what circumstances Senior Aircraftman J. Williams No. 4084295, of Coventry, returned home on sick leave from the Air Force Hospital at Wroughton; and why his Department will not reimburse the cost of Senior Aircraftman Williams' travel.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Mr. Charles Ian Orr-Ewing): The airman had applied for leave although he was still unfit to travel by ordinary public transport. Leave was granted because he said his parents would fetch him by car. Neither he nor his parents have made any claim towards the cost of the journey, but I have decided that it would be right to allow the cost of the railway warrant he would have been given if he had been fit to travel by rail.
    Mr. Edelman: While appreciating the modification in the Minister's former attitude, when he declined to give any financial reimbursement to this airman, may I ask him whether it is not the case that this young man suffered multiple injuries while on service in Germany, that his parents flew out to him and used up much of their life savings in order to do so, and that, although he was encased in plaster, he was only offered a railway warrant,

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    despite the fact that he was unable to sit in a normal sitting position? In view of these facts, is not the Minister being rather parsimonious in offering him only the equivalent amount of the railway warrant? Will he not extend his sympathy a little further and pay the whole amount of the cost of the car which was necessary in order that he could travel from the hospital to his home and back?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I appreciate the point which the hon. Gentleman has made, but I do not think it would be right to use public funds in this way for an airman to travel back by means of his own choosing and at a time of his own choosing. I think it is fairer and better to use the normal procedure, by which he gets the cost of a railway warrant and can set it off against the petrol for the car which his parents used.
    Mr. Edelman: In view of the very unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Motion for the Adjournment as soon as possible.

    Vulcan Bomber Accident, London Airport (Report)
    Mr. Hunterasked the Secretary of State for Air whether the recommendations in the report of the special investigation by Dr. A. G. Touch into the Vulcan bomber crash at London Airport on 1st October, that military aircraft should not land at civilian airports under bad weather conditions, have yet been considered; and what instructions have been issued to carry out this recommendation.
    Mr. Ward: Dr. Touch's recommendation related only to military aircraft of advanced design. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation and I have agreed that any proposals involving such aircraft will be specially considered by the two Departments in the light of the flight characteristics of the aircraft, the familiarity of the crew with civil procedures, and the suggested weather limits for landing.
    Mr. Hunter: Arising out of that reply, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will have the matter speeded up for early decision? Is he aware that this was a special recommendation by Dr.
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    Touch, and that this is a vital matter for the large civilian populations living round London Airport and near other civilian airports? If the right hon. Gentleman can speed up a decision, I shall be much obliged.
    Mr. Ward: As I have said, agreement has already been reached between my right hon. Friend and myself.

    Royal Auxiliary Air Force
    Sir W. Wakefieldasked the Secretary of State for Air if he will discuss with the civil air operators and representatives of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force squadrons methods whereby co-operation between the Auxiliary squadrons and the civil air operators would enable, at a negligible cost, the flying knowledge, experience and enthusiasm of much needed aircrew, obtained at the cost of many millions of pounds of taxpayers' money, to be retained for use in a national emergency.
    Mr. Ward: I am afraid I cannot justify the additional expenditure which such a scheme would involve in the light of the need for economy and of the various resources already available to supplement Transport Command in emergency.
    Sir W. Wakefield: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his Answer is most unsatisfactory, as until he has had an opportunity of discussing methods it is quite clear that the actual cost cannot be known? If it is only a few hundred pounds, surely it is worth while preserving the experience of trained aircrew on whom many millions of pounds have been spent?
    Mr. Ward: I am not sure whether my hon. Friend is relating all this to the Auxiliary squadrons or not. I do not want to emphasise the practical difficulties in the way of the scheme which he has put forward, because he knows them very well, but the Auxiliary squadrons were an integral part of Fighter Command and, before we decided on their disbandment, we did consider very carefully whether there were alternative schemes in which we could employ them valuably in the face of a nuclear threat. This is one of the things which we went into with great care, but we came to the conclusion that we could not go beyond what we have done.
    Sir W. Wakefield: Does not that answer show the need for further discussion of this matter?
    Mr. Ward: I shall be glad to discuss it with my hon. Friend at any time.

    Directorate of Work Study
    Mr. de Freitasasked the Secretary of State for Air how many officers have been established as a result of the introduction of the Director of Work Study; and what economies in manpower have resulted.
    Mr. C. I. Orr-Ewing: Seventy officer posts are at present established in our work study organisation. The work which is being done follows on from the excellent work done by the Manpower Utilisation Committee and the Manpower Research Unit. The hon. Member will understand that it is not possible to isolate manpower savings due directly to the formation of the Directorate of Work Study.
    Mr. de Freitas: While it is not possible to isolate them in that way, cannot the Under-Secretary give us some indication of the savings due to this scheme? Also, what about the widespread feeling amongst senior officers as a result of the establishment of this unit that they can leave to this unit all questions of manpower economy instead of regarding it as part of the normal day-to-day functions?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I am afraid I am not in a position to give numbers at present, because the Royal Air Force is changing owing to re-equipment and changes in the front line, which makes it impossible for me to compare like with like. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the work of this Directorate is additional to the normal machinery for controlling and examining the establishments of different units throughout the Royal Air Force.

    Fighter Command
    Mr. Allaunasked the Secretary of State for Air, in view of the fact that fighter aircraft are useless against long-range missiles, if he will reduce Fighter Command as a step towards scrapping it; and if he will state the approximate total annual saving in manpower and money which abolition would secure.
    Mr. Ward: Fighter aircraft are effective against manned bombers, which will
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    threaten us for a long time yet. It would not be in the public interest to disclose the proportion of our resources devoted to particular commands of the Royal Air Force.
    Mr. Allaun: Since both America and Russia now possess guided rockets, and since the main rôle of fighters is in interception, is there any need for all this money and manpower going down the grid on defence which is no defence?
    Mr. Ward: I can only repeat what I said—that we still have to defend ourselves, and will have to do so for some years to come, against manned bombers.

  ROADS

    Humber Bridge
    Major Wallasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will now assign a priority in the Government's road building programme to the construction of a bridge over the River Humber.
    The Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Harold Watkinson): I regret I can offer no hope of including a new Humber bridge in the Government's road programme in the foreseeable future. The City of Hull, on behalf of the other local authorities concerned, have been informed of my reasons.
    Major Wall: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a considerable sum of money has been spent in investigating the difficulties in building such a bridge, and that such a bridge would be of great value, not only to Humberside but to all the eastern counties? Will he therefore keep the scheme under review?
    Mr. Watkinson: Yes, I certainly will. It is only fair to the interests involved, however, to make it plain that it has not great priority at the moment.
    Mr. J. Griffiths: What has happened to the priority which was promised by many of the right hon. Gentleman's predecessors for the Severn Bridge? Where does that come in?
    Mr. Watkinson: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would not mind putting that Question down. It is quite a different Question.
    Mr. Gower: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind, in considering the question, that some years ago the Severn Bridge project had a much higher priority than this bridge, or even than the Forth Bridge, which is now placed higher up on the list? Is he also aware that many people in South Wales, the Midlands and the West Country would not like the Severn Bridge to be put at the end of the queue?
    Mr. Watkinson: The House might be surprised to know how many bridges I have on my list, all claiming top priority.
    Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: Has the right hon. Gentleman forgotten the immense importance of the Humber bridge to North Lincolnshire, and will he not give some sort of priority or some indication that he does regard this as a serious project which will be put into operation at some time in the near future?
    Mr. Watkinson: I have given an indication in my Answer that there is no hope of including it in the road programme in the foreseeable future.

    Bromsgrove By-Pass
    Mr. Danceasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, if he will make a statement on the possible date when work will start on the construction of that part of the Bristol-Birmingham motorway which will serve as a by-pass to the west of Bromsgrove.
    Mr. Watkinson: I saw a deputation from Worcestershire County Council about this on 23rd January, and I undertook to consider, and let them know as soon as possible, when I could fit this scheme into my programme. When I am in a position to do this I will also write to my hon. Friend.

    Cross-roads, Pool (Traffic Lights)
    Mr. Haymanasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what are the prospects of traffic lights being installed at the dangerous cross-roads at Pool in the urban district of Camborne-Redruth.
    Mr. Watkinson: On the technical advice before me it does not appear that traffic lights would improve conditions here.
    Mr. Hayman: Is the Minister aware that I am amazed by that statement because, in the last big traffic census—about three years ago—it was shown that about eleven vehicles a minute passed over this cross-road on the A.30 road, which is extremely dangerous for traffic from the northern approach to get into the westerly stream? Will the right hon. Gentleman see whether something cannot be done about this problem?
    Mr. Watkinson: I shall certainly do that. I am sure the hon. Member knows the cross-roads very well and will realise that the physical layout makes it very difficult for traffic lights to be installed there.

    Eastern Avenue Extension
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he has any further statement to make in respect of the projected extension of the Eastern Avenue through the borough of Leyton.
    Mr. Watkinson: A survey of the proposed Eastern Avenue extension has been completed, but the line may have to be altered at the western end where it would join the proposed Lea Valley Road. The Leyton Borough Council has been asked therefore to survey the line of the Lea Valley Road so as to fix the position of this junction.
    Mr. Sorensen: Can the Minister give some idea when all these extra inquiries may be completed, particularly in view of the fact that a number of householders are still very apprehensive about what their position will be when this project is carried through, and it will help them a great deal to have the information available?
    Mr. Watkinson: I will do my best, but much of the information is not yet in my hands.

  SHIPPING

    International Convention (Owners' Liabilities)
    Mr. Knox Cunninghamasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, since no reply has been received from the Belgian Government to the request made in 1956 through Her Majesty's Embassy in Brussels with regard to the date of the international conference to consider the 1955 draft convention relating to the

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    limitation of liability of owners of seagoing vessels, what further representations have been made to the Belgian Government by Her Majesty's Government; and what instructions he has given to prepare for such an international conference in 1957.
    Mr. Watkinson: Although no official reply has been received. I understand through the International Maritime Committee that the Belgian Government are proposing to issue invitations to a conference in October, 1957.
    Mr. Knox Cunningham: Could my right hon. Friend say whether his Ministry is prepared to take part in that conference, and that it has its plans prepared for it?
    Mr. Watkinson: We are looking into that.

  CANALS

    Bowes Committee (Evidence)
    Mr. Grant-Ferrisasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he will now give an assurance that all written evidence is now in the possession of the Bowes Committee on the future of the canal system.
    Mr. Watkinson: Written evidence is still expected from four bodies.
    Mr. Grant-Ferris: Will my right hon. Friend do everything he can to expedite the arrival of this written evidence, because the time is running on far too long? When it is available, will he ask the Committee to come to its conclusions as early as possible, especially in view of the fact that the British Transport Commission is to raise contentious matters in the form of a Private Bill and those matters could best be left until the Committee has reported?
    Mr. Watkinson: I am quite at one with my hon. Friend in wanting to get this Committee its total evidence so that it can complete its work, and I will do my best to get it speeded up.
    Mr. G. R. Strauss: Is it not extraordinary that nine months after the appointment of the Committee it has not yet got the written evidence and, presumably, it will want some oral evidence? Does this not show that our suggestion that the setting up of the Committee would mean one or two years' delay in
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    settling the urgent problem of the canals will prove to be true?
    Mr. Watkinson: Not at all. It is no use having a Committee of this kind unless it takes the widest possible evidence. It is certainly not the fault of the Committee that some important national bodies, in spite of one or two applications, have not been able to give it what it asked for.
    Mr. Strauss: We suggested that the fault was in setting up a Committee when all the facts were well known and the whole problem could have been dealt with a year ago.
    Mr. Watkinson: It was not so. The facts were not known, and that was the purpose of setting up the Bowes Committee.

  CIVIL AVIATION

    Aircraft, Stanstead
    Mr. Beswickasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what has been the average number of aircraft in his Department's fleet at Stanstead; what is the total number of flying hours flown by the unit over the past four years; and in how many accidents of all kinds these aircraft have been involved over the same period of time.
    Mr. Watkinson: The average number of aircraft employed during the last four years has been 17, and the average number of hours flown annually per aircraft has increased from 330 to 490. During that period there has been one accident substantial enough for notification under the Accident Investigation Regulations: in addition, there have been five minor incidents.
    Mr. Beswick: The Minister will know that an accident can be an accident without coming under the purview of the investigating committee. In view of the comparatively few hours these aircraft have flown, would it not appear that there would be quite a number of what the right hon. Gentleman has described as minor accidents? Will he look into that?
    Mr. Watkinson: I shall not bother the House with the list of accidents, although I have it in front of me, but I will give it to the hon. Member, who will see that they are of a minor character.
    Sir W. Wakefield: In view of the low rate of their utilisation, would it not be advisable to dispose of these aircraft?
    Mr. Watkinson: That is not so, because these aircraft are used in calibration and on checking of radio aids near major airports. Therefore, a great deal of time is spent in preparatory work before the aircraft does its actual flight. I have looked into this question most carefully, and I am satisfied that, if we are to maintain our safety standards which I regard as of overriding importance, these aircraft must go on being used.

    Helicopter Air Stations
    Mr. Peytonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what consideration he has given to the provision of adequate helicopter facilities in London and other centres.
    Mr. Watkinson: My Department has investigated a number of possible sites in the London area, but a decision cannot be taken until more is known about the operating characteristics of twin-engined transport helicopters now under development, and the extent of the demand. Outside London the provision of air stations will be primarily the concern of local authorities, but my Department will continue to supply technical data as it becomes available.
    Mr. Peyton: I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reply. In view of the considerable progress and development of helicopters, will he get in touch with producers and make sure that this country does not lag behind or inhibit development by failing to foresee our needs in this respect? Would he not accept that this country with its great density of population is eminently fitted for the use of helicopters on a very wide scale?
    Mr. Watkinson: I quite agree with my hon. Friend. What he has said is most important. We are keeping closely in touch, but the difficulty is that what looks like the first really efficient passenger-carrying helicopter is, I am afraid, still some years away.
    Mr. Lipton: Has the idea of a helicopter landing stage on the River Thames definitely been abandoned? That would
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    provide an opportunity for landing facilities in the heart of London.
    Mr. Watkinson: No, it has not been abandoned.

    Prestwick Airport (Diverted Aircraft)
    Mr. Rankinasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation how many additional movements of civil aircraft there were in and out of Prestwick Airport last December due to London Airport and other airports in the country being fogbound.
    Mr. Watkinson: Forty-nine aircraft were diverted to, and later departed from, Prestwick.
    Mr. Rankin: Does that make the Minister realise the importance of Prestwick Airport to civil aviation? Does he know that if it had not been for Prestwick movement of civil aircraft to and from this country during a period in last December would have been completely stopped? Will he now take steps to ensure that Prestwick is able to receive heavy aircraft in all types of weather, which at present is not the case?
    Mr. Watkinson: The hon. Member will know that the new control tower for Prestwick has been designed and work will be started on it next summer. On the question of runway requirements, particularly for new large jet aircraft, we do not yet know enough about their performance to make decisions for Prestwick or any other airport, but I do regard Prestwick as a most important airport.
    Mr. Rankin: In view of the tribute the right hon. Gentleman has paid to Prestwick, will he promise that the many words which have been spoken in its favour will now be turned into deeds?
    Mr. Watkinson: At least we are building a control tower.

    Select Committee on Estimates (Report)
    Mr. G. R. Straussasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what steps he is taking to meet the recommendations of the Select Committee on Estimates concerning the loss on the running of the airports.
    Mr. Watkinson: My comments on the Select Committee's recommendations will

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    be found in Appendix I to the First Special Report of the Committee. The most important recommendation was that landing fees should be increased. Because British aircraft pay landing fees abroad, unilateral action to increase charges might cause repercussions which would injure our interests and adversely affect our balance of payments. I have therefore preferred to wait for the report of the International Conference on Airport Charges, which I am now studying, before taking any steps to increase these fees. There will certainly have to be increases, but their pattern also needs full consideration so that they may not fall unfairly on any particular section of the air transport industry. I hope to announce a scheme soon.
    Mr. Strauss: I am grateful to the Minister for saying that he has taken steps in this direction, but is he aware that the answers he has given up to now to the Select Committee on Estimates would appear to indicate that he has been treating that Select Committee in an extraordinarily off-hand way? Can he assure us that it is his policy to see that the large and efficient airports, on which a great deal of public money has been spent, will, as soon as possible, be made self-supporting, and not a burden on public funds?
    Mr. Watkinson: I could not agree more with the right hon. Gentleman, but it is my duty to see that the safety of the service is maintained, and that I intend to do.
    Mr. Beswick: Whilst disagreeing with some of the criticisms made by the Select Committee about the running of our airports, and especially with the misplaced criticism of the Permanent Under-Secretary's remark about going out and getting business, may I ask the Minister if he would not at the same time agree that the Select Committee's recommendation that there should be trading accounts should be looked into again very carefully; and would he give an assurance that the note which he proposes to append to his Estimates will be a very full one, and that the full trading accounts will be published as soon as possible?
    Mr. Watkinson: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his words about the Permanent Under-Secretary of my Ministry, whose remarks, I think, were completely and unfairly misconstrued.
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    With regard to trading accounts, I will certainly look into that, as I am most anxious to make this as commercial a transaction as possible.

    North Atlantic Services (Medium-Range Aircraft)
    Mr. Rankinasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what progress has been made in the development of a medium-range aircraft suitable for the North Atlantic services and operable in all weathers from Prestwick.
    Mr. Watkinson: No medium-range aircraft is being developed specifically for the North Atlantic. All versions of the Britannia and the Comet IV will be able to operate from Prestwick in all weathers. Of these, the long-range Britannia will be able to make the crossing non-stop.
    Mr. Rankin: Does the Minister not recollect that during the debate on the Air Corporations Bill in November he said that the D.H.118 would be a machine not only suitable for the North Atlantic trade but one which would fit in with the runway requirements at Prestwick? As the D.H.118 appears now to have vanished, like so many dreams associated with Prestwick, what is the right hon. Gentleman going to put in its place—the Britannia?
    Mr. Watkinson: The D.H.118 is not for the moment being considered, because there do not appear to be overseas sales prospects for it, but some other aircraft will have to be bought in its place. That aircraft will, I hope—indeed, I am sure—be suitable for Prestwick.
    Mr. Beswick: Did we not say in that debate in November that there were no prospects of overseas sales because of the delay following the cancellation of the V.1000? Will the Minister now say what new facts have come to light between that date and the cancellation of the D.H.118?
    Mr. Watkinson: Yes, if the hon. Gentleman will put down a Question.

    Pilots
    Air Commodore Harveyasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what plans he has to ensure the future supply of civil airline pilots.
    Mr. Watkinson: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the reply given to the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Beswick) on 30th January. Since then I have discussed the matter with a deputation led by the Chairman of the Air League of the British Empire, and I am considering their views.
    Air Commodore Harvey: Will my right hon. Friend discuss with the Secretary of State for Air the question of trying to use Royal Auxiliary Air Force pilots who are being thrown on the scrap heap? It would not cost the State anything. Could they not be employed as supernumerary pilots not only in the great Corporations but in private companies? Surely they could make some use of them?
    Mr. Watkinson: I have already discussed that question, and I hope some advantage will be gained from it.
    Mr. Beswick: As this is not a new problem, but one which has been discussed in the House during a period of years, how soon will it be before we may expect the right hon. Gentleman to make up his mind upon it?
    Mr. Watkinson: is the hon. Gentleman referring to recruitment or to the Auxiliary Air Force pilots? To recruitment? The question of recruitment depends very much on the position of the Royal Air Force. That, no doubt, will become clearer in the next few months. We shall keen the position under review.

    Vulcan Bomber Accident, London Airport
    Mr. Skeffingtonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether the recommendations of Dr. A. G. Touch, arising out of his investigations of the Vulcan bomber accident at London Airport, have now been considered; and what instructions have been issued.
    Mr. Watkinson: Dr. Touch's recommendations are being carefully examined. Most of them require a good deal of thought and experiment before decisions can be reached, but instructions will then be promulgated without delay. As regards Dr. Touch's recommendation concerning military aircraft of advanced design, I would refer the hon. Member to my right hon. Friend's reply to the hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Hunter).
    Mr. Skeffington: Is the Minister aware that the most important of the recommendations of Dr. Touch from the point of view of those who live around the airport is the first recommendation, which suggests that aircraft of advanced design ought not to be allowed to land at the airport in bad weather? Would it not be possible to give an instruction on that simple point immediately and thus remove many people's very serious apprehensions?
    Mr. Watkinson: My right hon. Friend said earlier today that both he and I hope to come to an agreement on that point.

  RAILWAYS

    Taxicabs (Station Ranks)
    Mr. Blenkinsopasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will give a general direction to the British Transport Commission instructing them not to use their powers under the Railways Act, 1840, to prosecute taxi drivers plying for hire in station ranks, in view of the recommendations of the Departmental Working Party on Hackney Carriages.
    Mr. Watkinson: No, Sir. This is not an appropriate matter for a general direction.
    Mr. Blenkinsop: Does the Minister not realise that there have been prosecutions in Newcastle which amount to little more than special protection for a particular type of monopoly? In view of the expressed views of the Government, whether real or not, is it not high time that something was done about that, especially in view of the report of the Departmental Working Party?
    Mr. Watkinson: If the hon. Member has a problem in Newcastle, I shall be only too pleased to look at it, but this is not a matter on which I am giving a general direction.
    Mr. Ernest Davies: This is not only a matter concerning Newcastle but many other cities where there are restrictions on taxicabs plying for hire in station approaches. Is this not a matter which the Minister ought to look into more carefully, as it has been raised in this House before?
    Mr. Watkinson: I have looked into it very carefully, and I am advised that there have been very few prosecutions.
    Miss Bacon: Is it not high time that the whole practice of British Railways taking fees from a few taxis at stations was abolished? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in many cities, including Leeds, passengers are kept waiting for taxis in the station approach when there are taxis outside which are not allowed to enter the precincts of the station? Will he see that the whole thing is done away with?
    Mr. Watkinson: Certainly it would not be proper for me to give an assurance that the whole thing will be done away with. If the House wishes me to do so, I will certainly have another look at the matter. The view of the Commission, of which I must take notice, is that primarily this is done for the convenience of passengers.

    Modernisation Plan
    Mr. G. R. Straussasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will make a statement about the co-operation he is getting and expects from the staff of British Railways in carrying out the modernisation plan.
    Mr. Watkinson: I do not think that I need add anything to what I said on the Third Reading of the Transport (Railway Finances) Bill, when I referred to the importance of continuing co-operation between management and men if the modernisation plan is to succeed, and to the very great support which the trade unions have given to the British Railways Productivity Council.
    Mr. Strauss: Will the Minister remember that on that occasion he said that unless there was full co-operation by the staff in working this modernisation plan the railways might have to be sold up and disposed of? Is he aware that that threat has caused considerable resentment in many quarters of the staff? As the threat is nonsense in any case, would he like to withdraw it?
    Mr. Watkinson: No. On 20th November the British Transport Joint Consultative Council, which the right hon. Gentleman knows very well, said that the trade unions, and, indeed, the whole of the staff, pledged the maximum support to see that the affairs of British Transport.
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    and particularly British Railways, are put on a sound footing. I wish them well in that task, but it is my duty as Minister to point out that it has to be carried out if they are to justify the very large sums of public money which are being provided for modernisation.
    Mr. Strauss: Nobody questions that. What I am asking the Minister is whether he will qualify or completely withdraw the ridiculous threat that if a certain standard of co-operation is not forthcoming —and I am sure it will be—then our railway system will have to be, in his own words, sold up and disposed of. Surely that is a ridiculous thing to say. I suggest that he should withdraw it.
    Mr. Watkinson: The right hon. Gentleman is putting a quite improper gloss on what I said. Perhaps I may repeat what I said. It was in answer to an interjection by the hon. Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. D. Jones). Of course the railways need the co-operation and support—and I agree with the right hon. Gentleman; I think it will be forthcoming—of all who work for them, if they are to succeed. If they did not get that co-operation—and that is what the hon. Member said—then the whole thing would go bankrupt, and, indeed, would have to be disposed of in some way or another. I do not withdraw that statement at all.
    Mr. Peyton: Does my right hon. Friend realise that many of us, on this side of the House particularly, support him entirely in his attempt to confront this vital industry with the necessity of facing the facts as they are? Does he not also agree that there is a great failure to exercise efficient and intelligent management? Many loyal servants of the railways, who have served them for years, leave the railways with a feeling that their services have not been adequately recognised.
    Mr. Watkinson: I think this is a job for everybody on the railways, and nobody wants them to succeed more than I do. I do not think the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss) disagrees with that. I only hope that they will be allowed to press on and to get on with the job.
    Mr. S. Silverman: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that for a quarter of a century before the railways were

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    nationalised they conspicuously failed to pay their way and that if the right hon. Gentleman's cure for that had been followed we should have no transport system in this country at all?

  TRANSPORT

    Coal (Road Transport)
    Sir W. Anstruther-Grayasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what further steps he is taking to divert the transport of coal from road to rail in view of the fact that the present figure of 64,000 tons diverted weekly is still below what could be reasonably achieved.
    Mr. Watkinson: In accordance with my instructions, regional transport commissioners are being very strict in issuing supplementary rations of motor fuel for road movement of coal, especially over long distances, unless they are satisfied that the coal cannot reasonably be moved by another form of transport.
    Sir W. Anstruther-Gray: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the figure of 64,000 tons a week is enough?
    Mr. Watkinson: No, I am not. I think the target figure which we ought to try to achieve is much more like 250,000 tons. I am in close touch with the Commission and the Minister of Power to see whether we can get a better figure.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: Is it not true that a great many power stations and opencast coal sites are right out in the country and it would not be very economic to put this coal on a lorry and take it for a short distance to the railway and then have to unload it again at the other end to be taken to country districts?
    Mr. Watkinson: That is so, and it is one of the difficulties.

    Driving Tests (Resumption)
    Sir F. Medlicottasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation how soon he anticipates being able to allow the resumption of driving tests.
    Captain Pilkingtonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he has yet reached a decision as to the resumption of driving tests in view of the hardship caused to the employees of motor-driving schools.
    Mr. Gresham Cookeasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he is aware of the inconvenience caused to many businesses by reason of the fact that they are unable to get new drivers owing to the absence of driving tests; and whether, in view of the fact that large firms are allowed to carry out their own driving tests for their employees, he will either extend this facility to more firms or alternatively reintroduce driving tests for commercial drivers forthwith.
    Mr. Willisasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he is yet in a position to announce when driving tests will be resumed.
    Mr. Watkinson: My examination of the arrangements for fuel rationing gives me reason to hope that it will be possible to resume driving tests on a limited scale in April.
    Sir F. Medlicott: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this statement will give a good deal of satisfaction, especially in relation to the problems of road safety? It is clearly undesirable to postpone for too long the training and testing of those who wish to take their place on the roads.
    Captain Pilkington: Will the Minister's welcome statement about this limited amelioration of the present position mean that employees of the driving schools will be looked after from the employment point of view?
    Mr. Watkinson: The employees of the schools are nothing to do with me. I have been advised—and I think correctly —that the best way I can help the driving schools, as I am most anxious to do, is to announce the resumption of tests at least on a limited scale; and that I have now done.
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: What does the Minister mean by "on a limited scale"? Does he mean limited to areas or limited in number?
    Mr. Watkinson: There are roughly 750 driving examiners and at the moment all of them are being used on the fuel rationing scheme. Because we now have the fuel rationing scheme very well under control, I hope to release at least some of them to start a limited number of tests all over the country; but not to start them in one area and not in another.

    London Transport Omnibuses
    Mr. Collinsasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation the average number of miles travelled per hour by London Transport omnibuses on 1st November, 1956 and 1st January, 1957, respectively, or on the nearest convenient dates thereto.
    Mr. Watkinson: I regret that this information is not available. The British Transport Commission tells me, however, that since there have been restrictions on petrol London Transport buses have been able to maintain their scheduled times.
    Mr. Collins: Is the Minister aware that Sir John Elliott also stated that present conditions in London constitute a busman's dream, with savings in journeys through the West End and the City of from eight to eighteen minutes and with many more passengers on fewer buses? In view of the immense savings which must have been realised as a result, will he not therefore cancel the fares increases, which were imposed only because of the increased cost of petrol?
    Mr. Watkinson: That was not the point which Sir John Elliott made. The point which he made was that if there were far fewer private cars, bus operators would have a happier time. I have no doubt that he is right.
    Mr. Ernest Davies: In view of this great improvement, which is welcomed by all bus passengers, will not the Minister see whether some of the conditions which now prevail cannot be made permanent in order that we can enjoy these better conditions?
    Mr. Watkinson: I quite agree—but not by placing some kind of ban on private cars entering London.

    Road Fund Licences
    Captain Pilkingtonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation for how many cars it is estimated that licences have not been taken out for the first quarter of 1957.
    Mr. Watkinson: I regret that the information available does not permit me to make a reliable estimate.
    Mr. H. Hynd: Is the Minister satisfied that the petrol coupons that have been issued in respect of those cars have been returned?
    Mr. Watkinson: Yes, indeed.

    Motor Scooters
    Mr. J. Hyndasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will suspend the regulations preventing persons who are not holders of driving licences from riding pillion on motor-scooters for so long as such persons are prevented from taking a driving test.
    Mr. Watkinson: The limitation to which the hon. Member refers was imposed in the interests of road safety; I do not think that the present situation affords sufficient justification for suspending it.
    Mr. Hynd: Is not the Minister aware that a number of people have purchased these motor scooters in order to save petrol; that they use them in place of cars and are anxious to be able to use them to the maximum by taking pillion passengers—sometimes their wives—to work with them? Is he aware that they are prevented by the regulations from doing this? For the purpose of the present emergency, will he not look again at this position?
    Mr. Watkinson: I will look at it again, but it is a very difficult balance between the need for road safety and doing what the hon. Member wants me to do.
    Mr. Fernyhough: Can the Minister say why the learner-driver on a scooter should be more dangerous than the learner-driver in a car? At least the learner-driver on a motor scooter is carrying only one passenger whilst a driver in a car may be carrying four, five or six passengers?
    Mr. Watkinson: Yes, but the hon. Gentleman knows that the accidents to those riding motor cycles and motor scooters are much worse, pro rata, than to those driving cars.

    London Traffic Conditions
    Mr. Ernest Daviesasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he will request the London and Home Counties Advisory Committee or other appropriate body to report to him on the improvement in London traffic conditions arising from petrol rationing and to make recommendations as to how such improved conditions can be made permanent.
    Mr. Watkinson: I have asked the Road Research Laboratory, in co-operation with my Department to investigate, and to report to me as soon as possible on the effects of petrol rationing on traffic in London.
    Mr. Davies: While appreciating that the Minister has taken this action, may I ask if he does not realise that public opinion will now be much more favourable to severe restrictions on the parking of private cars in London and the cluttering up of the main arteries, now that they have experienced the improvement that has taken place, and would it not be incredible folly to return to the situation which we had before the inception of petrol rationing?
    Mr. Watkinson: I hope that the hon. Gentleman's statement that motorists will be more ready to accept severe restrictions is true.
    Mr. Davies: But does he not appreciate that motorists are only the minority, and that previously it has been that minority, the car owners and car drivers, that has made conditions worse, at the expense of millions of passengers travelling on public transport services daily?
    Mr. Watkinson: I can see the point and, of course, as the hon. Gentleman knows, under the Road Traffic Act it is now possible for the police to tow away motor cars causing an obstruction, and that is one of the steps that might be taken.

    Licence Operators (Fuel Allocations)
    Mr. Nabarroasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether allocation of fuel to A, B and C licence operators has now reached an average of 75 per cent. overall of normal consumption.
    Mr. Watkinson: Yes, Sir, but some operators will have received above the average and some below.
    Mr. Nabarro: That is a very satisfactory answer, but can my right hon. Friend say where I can find one of these rare birds who has had more than 75 per cent.? Is my right hon. Friend aware that we are all affected by the complaints of very large numbers of operators that they have had much less
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    than 75 per cent., and that I, in all my vast experience, have not found one with more than 75 per cent.?
    Mr. Watkinson: I suggest that my hon. Friend would, perhaps, like to get in touch with one or two people who are on the priority list which was issued by my Ministry. I think he will find they are about average.
    Mr. Langford-Holt: Is my right hon. Friend aware that my personal experience is that the average is more like 30 per cent. than 75 per cent.? Will he bear in mind that although he may have said he aimed at an overall tonnage of 75 per cent. the vast majority of people read that as meaning that each would get 75 per cent.? Will he take steps to correct that impression, which has caused a lot of trouble?
    Mr. Watkinson: I hope that my hon. Friend's supplementary question and my answer will be of some aid towards that end. The facts are that my duty is to reduce the total tonnage of consumption of motor fuel in my sector to 75 per cent.
    Mr. Hayman: Will the Minister study the reply which was given to me by the Postmaster-General on Monday when I asked for the amounts of petrol allocated to Members of Parliament, because I think he will find—
    Mr. Nabarro: On a point of order. This Question, Mr. Speaker, relates to goods vehicles. Can you say whether any Members of Parliament anywhere in this House own a goods vehicle?
    Mr. Speaker: They may, for all I know, but I think that this is a different question. I was coming to the same conclusion myself.

    Furniture Trade (Supplementary Petrol Allowances)
    Mr. Collinsasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he is satisfied that the arrangements he has made for the allocation of supplementary petrol to furniture manufacturers with C licence vehicles are working satisfactorily; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Watkinson: Yes, Sir. If any furniture manufacturer is in difficulty as the

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    result of the decision of a local office he should appeal as quickly as possible to the district transport officer, and if necessary from him to the Regional Transport Commissioner. I am satisfied that the special problems of the furniture manufacturers are well known to Regional Transport Commissioners, and I am sure that they will be as helpful as possible in dealing with applications from them.
    Mr. Collins: Is the Minister aware that, after reconsideration, some firms have received adequate and even generous allowances, under the circumstances, whereas others, with an apparently equal claim, have received nothing or almost nothing? The machinery which he has outlined involves considerable delay. Will he look into that aspect of the matter and see why there is this apparent differentiation?
    Mr. Watkinson: The differentiation which the hon. Member mentioned probably arises between firms which have carried out the full appeal procedure and firms which have not. I do not think that any firm which has a genuine case and goes through the appeal procedure will not get a fair deal. It may not get quite as much as it would like but it will not be left entirely without petrol.
    Mr. Hamilton: Could the Minister give an assurance that the differentiation which existed in allocations between Scottish manufacturers and manufacturers in the South has been eliminated?
    Mr. Watkinson: My general impression is that Scotland has done rather better than England.
    Hon. Members: Why?
    Mr. Watkinson: It always does.
    Dr. Kingasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will make a statement on the supply of supplementary petrol to members of the Association of Retail Furnishers, in view of the urgent representations which he has received from that body.
    Mr. Watkinson: If any retail furnisher is in difficulties over his supplementary ration he should appeal to the district transport officer, setting out his case clearly. My Regional Transport Commissioners are aware of the problems of retail distribution of furniture and will consider sympathetically all such cases.
    Dr. King: While thanking the Minister for what he has done to ease the serious position since the Association asked some of us to take this matter up, may I ask whether he is aware that there is still a wide divergence between district and district in the allocation of supplementary petrol for retail furnishers? Will he see that the various districts carry out what we hope is his general policy of supplying supplementary petrol when the men's employment depends on it?
    Mr. Watkinson: If the hon. Member has any special cases, I hope he will let me have them.

  PEOPLE'S LEAGUE
  Mr. Lewisasked the Prime Minister what proposals for political action by Her Majesty's Government he has received from the People's League with a view to his receiving a deputation; and what was the nature of his reply.
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): I have been asked to reply.
  The People's League have asked my right hon. Friend to receive a deputation to hear their representations on the subjects of taxation, compulsory purchase orders and the trade unions. My right hon. Friend has informed the People's League that he is not able to receive a deputation, and that he thought it better that the points should be put forward in a memorandum.

  ATOMIC ENERGY

    Peaceful Uses
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Paymaster-General, as representing the Lord President of the Council, what action is to be taken to increase the output of power in accordance with the ideas contributed at the United Nations International Conference on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy held at Geneva in 1955.
    The Paymaster-General (Mr. Reginald Maudling): I am informed by the Atomic Energy Authority that, in formulating its programme of research, it has taken into account the ideas contributed at the United Nations International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy

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    held at Geneva in 1955, which are now available to everybody working in the atomic field.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: Can the Minister give an undertaking that super-priority will be given to those engaged on the construction of power houses, especially in regard to steel and petrol?
    Mr. Maudling: I think that that is a very much wider question.
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Paymaster-General, as representing the Lord President of the Council, what further consideration has been given to the contribution by Sir John Cockcroft on page 409 of Volume 1 of the report of the proceedings of the International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva, 1955; and what further action he proposes to take.
    Mr. Maudling: Sir John Cockcroft's paper dealt with the Contribution of Nuclear Power to United Kingdom and World Energy Resources up to 1975. The Government and the Atomic Energy Authority are keeping this question under constant consideration. Chapters 5 and 6 of the Aomic Energy Authority's Second Annual Report reported the technical progress that has been made since the Geneva Conference.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: As some of us are uneasy about recent appointments, will the Minister take steps to see that the noble Lords now in charge of this kind of development will be invited to address the Members of this House in order that we can hear what they have to say and to interrogate them?
    Mr. Maudling: I do not think that that arises from the Question on the Order Paper.
    Mr. Nabarro: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that the Reports referred to in this Question are now two years old, and that, in the interim period, the United Kingdom has made technological advances in this field far outstripping those of our overseas competitors?
    Mr. Ellis Smith: Does not the Paymaster-General agree that these publications have only just arrived in Britain? As right hon. and hon. Members are the elected representatives of the people, and as those who now have the new responsibilities should be answerable to the
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    elected representatives, will he give further consideration to the request I have made?
    Mr. Maudling: I do not know when the Report of the Geneva Conference arrived, but the Report of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, to which I referred, was presented to Parliament in July last year.
    Mr. Shinwell: Do I understand that the Minister rejects my hon. Friend's proposal that hon. Members should have an opportunity of meeting the new Minister of Power, who is in another place and not acceptable to hon. Members in his assembly, so that we might interrogate him and have our minds illuminated on the subject under his control?
    Mr. Maudling: That seems to be quite another point which, I imagine, could not really be discussed arising out of the Question.

  MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

    Armed Forces (Review)
    52 and 53. Mr. Swinglerasked the Minister of Defence (1) what changes in Her Majesty's Government's military commitments are contemplated as a result of recent discussions within the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation;
    (2) if he will make a statement on the results of Her Majesty's Government's review of defence policy.
    Mr. Wiggasked the Minister of Defence whether he will make a statement about the future training and organisation of the Reserve forces of the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force.
    The Minister of Defence (Mr. Duncan Sandys): I am at present reviewing the size and organisation of our Armed Forces. Until my studies are more advanced I would not like to make any statement on these matters.
    Mr. Swingler: Is it not a fact that the review has been going on for some time by the previous Government and by the present Minister? Though I appreciate the present Minister's difficult position, can he not answer Question No. 52, which asks what changes in commitments are contemplated? Is it not possible for the

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    Minister to give an answer to that Question? Are any changes contemplated? If so, in view of the speculation in the Press, what do they refer to?
    Mr. Sandys: That is obviously a very important part of the whole picture.
    Mr. Wigg: Surely the right hon. Gentleman must still depend upon the volunteer, particularly in the Territorial Army, and is not this continued delay of the Government in making known their intentions a direct discouragement to volunteer? [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] On a point of order. If the right hon. Gentleman is not going to answer my supplementary, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.
    Mr. Sandys: There is a Question about recruitment later.

    Recruitment and National Service
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Minister of Defence to what extent Regular recruitment and prolongations of Regular service have been stimulated by the pay increases granted last year; and if he will now review Her Majesty's Government's policy on conscription in the light of these developments.
    Mr. Allaunasked the Minister of Defence if he will state the nature of his reply to the proposal made to him by Sir Vincent Tewson, General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress, urging that National Service be ended as soon as possible, and that, as a step in that direction, there should be a cut of six months in the two years' period.
    Mr. Sandys: The new rates of pay have resulted in increases both in recruitment and prolongations of service. These increases, though substantial, have not yet been sufficient to reduce materially the dependence of the Forces on National Service men. Until I have had a little more time to study this and other related problems I do not wish to add anything to the earlier Government statements made on this subject. I have replied to the Trades Union Congress in this sense.
    Mr. Swingler: Does the answer mean that the pay increases are not having the hoped for effect and that the Government will not be able to reduce or change the call-up because there is still a lack of volunteers? Is that the plain position?
    Mr. Sandys: Perhaps the hon. Member will study my Answer. I did not say they had had no result. They have had a substantial result, but not sufficient to enable us to say, at any rate at this stage, that we can dispense with National Service, but I am examining the whole of this problem, and I should not like anybody to read into my Answer any far-reaching conclusions.
    Mr. Allaun: Is the Minister aware that hundreds of thousands of families are getting fed up with the continual Government hints that they are going to cut the call-up? There have been these hints for a long time and yet nothing has transpired. How much longer have these families to wait?
    Mr. Sandys: That is just the reason why I was trying to give no hints in reply to the hon. Member's Question.
    Mr. Shinwell: In the Minister's review of the manpower situation in the forces will he take note of an article that appears in a daily newspaper this morning by the ex-commander of our forces in Germany, Sir Richard Gale, in which he suggests that we could reduce our forces in Germany by at least 30,000 men?
    Mr. Sandys: I have not yet seen the article but, in view of what the right hon. Gentleman says, I shall most certainly read it.
    Mr. G. Brown: Did the Minister say he would publish the figures on which he bases his Answer? If he did not, would he consider publishing them—the figures of prolongations and recruitment?
    Mr. Sandys: I will certainly consider that.

    British Air Stations, Jordan
    Mr. E. Fletcherasked the Minister of Defence what is the present policy of Her Majesty's Government with regard to the future use of military bases in Jordan.
    Mr. de Freitasasked the Minister of Defence whether he will make a statement on the future of the Royal Air Force units and ancillary forces established in Jordan.
    Mr. Sandys: The British air stations in Jordan are maintained there under the Anglo-Jordan Treaty. We are at present

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    discussing with the Jordanian Government the future of that Treaty. Meanwhile, I cannot make any statement.
    Mr. Fletcher: What are the Government's intentions with regard to all the property, equipment and installations of the British Government in Jordan?
    Mr. Sandys: I think it would be better to wait for the conclusion of the discussions.
    Mr. de Freitas: Will the right hon. Gentleman say something about the conditions of the men in the Royal Air Force serving in these stations?
    Mr. Sandys: Not in reply to this Question.
    Mr. Gaitskell: What are the desires of Her Majesty's Government in this matter? They are going into negotiations with the Jordan Government. What do they expect to achieve by them?
    Mr. Sandys: A clarification of the position.

Defence Policy (Minister's Visit to Washington and Ottawa)
The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:
Mr. SHINWELL: TO ask the Minister of Defence whether he will make a statement on his discussions with the United States and Canadian Governments on defence matters of mutual interest.
Mr. Sandys: I will, with permission, Sir, answer Question No. 61.
The main purpose of my visit to Washington last week was to have a thorough exchange of views with the United States defence authorities on a wide range of military matters. Similarly, my two day visit to Ottawa gave me an opportunity of discussing a number of problems of common concern in the military and international fields with the Prime Minister of Canada, the Minister of Defence and the Canadian Chiefs of Staff.
My discussions in Washington with Mr. Charles Wilson, the United States Secretary of Defence, showed that there is full accord between our two Governments on the broad objectives of the defence policy to be pursued. In particular, we reaffirmed the importance of
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N.A.T.O. and other regional alliances as a vital means of safeguarding peace and stability.
We reviewed the arrangements previously made for collaboration between the United States and Britain in military research and development, with particular reference to guided rockets. It was agreed that both countries had derived considerable benefit from this co-operation and we decided to extend still further our joint work. We discussed a possible scheme for the adoption by Britain of certain American weapons and this is now being examined by the two Governments and their Service staffs.
I explained to the United States Government that, for economic as well as military reasons, we were reviewing the shape and size of our forces and that Her Majesty's Government had decided that a substantial reduction in the demands of defence upon manpower, materials and money must be effected. Although no country welcomes a reduction in the military effort of its allies, I found in Washington a sympathetic understanding of the circumstances which make it necessary for us to lighten our defence burden.
In this connection, it is fully recognised that financial and economic stability is an essential foundation of military strength—
Mr. Harold Davies: Some of us have been saying that for years. The right hon. Gentleman has just discovered it.
Mr. Sandys: —and that due account must be taken of this in considering what contribution each nation can reasonably be expected to make to the common defence effort.
Throughout my meetings with Mr. Wilson and the American defence authorities, as well as in my talks with Mr. Dulles, I found a warm desire, which is fully shared by Her Majesty's Government, to see an immediate resumption of the special and intimate relationship which has so long existed between Britain and the United States, and which is so vitally important for the peace of the world.
Mr. Shinwell: While congratulating the right hon. Gentleman on his efforts to establish more friendly relations between

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the United States and our country—and long may they continue, in the interests of the free world—may I, nevertheless, ask him two short questions, appreciating that the major issues involved will emerge in the course of our forthcoming defence debates?
First, as regards any concession we made to the United States authorities in the sphere of military equipment and operations, were we in any way inhibited so far as our European commitment is concerned in the reduction and withdrawal of any of our forces from the West? Secondly, what is the nature of any concession we made to the United States Government in return for their offer to co-operate in research and development on guided missiles?
Mr. Sandys: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for his friendly remarks at the beginning of his supplementary question, I assure him that no concession was made at all. What we discussed was fruitful avenues of co-operation, and I believe that we found them.
Mr. G. Brown: In general, what the Minister had to say seemed very much the sort of thing that we on these benches were urging a year ago. I recognised one of the paragraphs of his Answer as being word for word my own, I think. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] To that extent, I welcome it. May I, however, ask two short questions?
Any value that the general principle has depends, of course, upon the specific proposals for carrying it out. Can the Minister say when we are likely, either in the Defence White Paper or in any other form, to know what his conclusions are in order to turn general principles into actual events? Secondly, in his discussions about taking over American weapons, has he made, or is he considering making, arrangements to ensure that we do not lose current contact with the developing know-how?
Mr. Sandys: So far as cribbing the right hon. Gentleman's thoughts are concerned, I apologise if that is so, but I have certainly not seen the text to which he referred. I hope that it will be possible to announce the Government's broad conclusions as soon as possible, but I am not going into anything more precise than that today. I am at the moment studying
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the whole matter very intensively and I would not like to try to work to a precise timetable.
On the question of research and development, the arrangements that we have made with the United States will increase rather than reduce our know-how, our knowledge and experience in this field. British and American scientists have been working very closely in this matter and, as a result of our talks in Washington and the arrangements which we made, I think that that close collaboration will be made more intimate still.
Mr. Brown: The Minister says that he cannot tie himself to an exact timetable, and I can understand that. On the other hand, the White Paper is already almost overdue. Does this mean that we are not to have the usual White Paper on Defence this month?
Mr. Sandys: There may be some delay in the publication of the White Paper. If there is, I hope that the House will forgive me.
Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Does my right hon. Friend realise that public opinion is very largely formed by the widespread speculations in the Press and the assumptions that have been made in the Press of the objects of his visit to Washington and the results therefrom? Will he take an opportunity, as soon as possible of being absolutely frank with Parliament as to what he has done and what he has achieved?
Mr. Sandys: I have endeavoured to be as frank as I can within the limits of security. It is not easy to talk absolutely frankly and freely about these things. Rockets, the size of forces, and so on, are not matters that one can bandy around very freely, but I think that I have given the House the broad purport of the discussions that we had and the broad nature of the conclusions reached.
Mr. Usborne: While recognising and admitting that N.A.T.O., being an essential part of the balance-of-power mechanism, ought to have the most modern and most destructive weapons, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman realises that there are a great many people who would be extremely unhappy if this island were to become a massive rocket-launching site?
Mr. Sandys: I think that everybody agrees that this island must be defended. The only question is whether we are to have effective or ineffective weapons to defend it.
Sir J. Hutchison: While welcoming my right hon. Friend's words that the United States also recognises the importance of N.A.T.O. and of other regional pacts, may I ask whether he will bear in mind the anxiety of our member partners in the Western European Union lest we should come to binding agreements, either on commitments in Europe or on the parcelling out of the research and manufacture of guided missiles, without consultation with them in which they can play a part and have a right to a voice?
Mr. Sandys: I have our relations with our partners in the Western European Union very much in mind and I have already received a request for consultations, which I very much welcome, from some of the other member States of the Western European Union.
Mr. E. Fletcher: Would the Minister tell us whether it is correct, as stated in the Press, or not, that America is to supply us with the fullest information and delivery of both inter-continental guided ballistic missiles and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, and, also, whether any conditions have been attached as to the circumstances in which such missiles will be used from American bases in this country?
Mr. Sandys: I do not think that I want to go into that point because, as I explained in my Answer, a tentative proposal for the adoption by Great Britain of certain American weapons was discussed in Washington and is now being further examined by the two Governments. Until firm conclusions are reached, I think that it would be premature for me to make any statement of greater detail upon that to the House.
Air Commodore Harvey: While he was in Washington, did my right hon. Friend discuss the question of widening the spheres of influence of N.A.T.O. and, if so, with what effect?
Mr. Sandys: That did not come within the scope of my talks in Washington.
Mr. Gaitskell: While welcoming the right hon. Gentleman's frank statement
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on Anglo-American relations and the implied rebuke to so many of his hon. Friends, may I ask how far he discussed with either Mr. Wilson or Mr. Dulles the reduction of our commitments in Europe and elsewhere, and whether these discussions are to be carried further in any other discussions between members of the Government and members of the United States Administration?
Mr. Sandys: I hope very much that while I hold this office I can, as far as possible, conduct affairs in a non-party spirit. There will be controversy, naturally, but I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman should have tried to introduce a party-political slant to his supplementary question.
Naturally, I took the opportunity to tell the United States Government in general terms the sort of ideas that we have in mind about the future shape and size of our contribution to N.A.T.O.
Advance warning was already given in general terms to the North Atlantic Treaty Council in December. I shall have an opportunity of discussing this further with the Supreme Commander, who is coming to this country on Monday, and I hope, also, that, shortly after that, an opportunity will arise to discuss it at a meeting with other members of the Western European Union. The right hon. Gentleman can be assured that there will be the fullest possible consultation with all countries and parties concerned before a final conclusion is announced.
Mr. Gaitskell: In view of the right hon. Gentleman's professed desire for a greater degree of unity in these matters, is he proposing to ask his hon. Friends to withdraw the Motion on the Order Paper which severely criticises the United States?
[That this House congratulates the Foreign Secretary on his efforts to secure international control of the Suez Canal, and deplores both the Resolution of the General Assembly calling for immediate and unconditional withdrawal of British and French troops from Egypt, and the attitude of the United States of America which is gravely endangering the Atlantic alliance.]
Hon. Members: Answer.
Mr. J. Griffiths: In view of the Minister's visit to Washington, may I ask the Leader of the House whether he will take steps to have this Motion removed from the Order Paper?
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. There is to be a debate on this matter next week.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS
  American and Canadian Loans (Interest Waiver)
  Mr. Rippon: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 22nd February, I shall call attention to the importance of withdrawing the claims for a waiver of interest due on the American and Canadian Loans, and move a Resolution.
  Motor Car Industry
  Mr. J. Johnson: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 22nd February, I shall call attention to the state of the motor car industry, and move a Resolution.
  Dry Dock, The Clyde
  Dr. Dickson Mabon: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 22nd February, I shall call attention to the urgent need for the construction of a large dry dock on the Clyde, at Greenock, and move a Resolution.
  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Proceedings on the Report of the Committee of Supply of 5th February exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]

NATIONAL ASSISTANCE ACT, 1948 (AMENDMENT)
3.49 p.m.
Mr. Frank McLeavy: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend section thirty-one of the National Assistance Act, 1948, and to empower local authorities to provide meals and domiciliary and other facilities for old people; and for purposes connected therewith.
Section 31 of the National Assistance Act, 1948, empowers local authorities to make contributions to voluntary organisations which provide meals and recreational facilities for old people. A variety of voluntary organisations in various parts of the country are providing meals and other services for old people and receiving grants from the local authorities. Within the limitations of available workers and finance, these bodies are doing a splendid work, but there is nothing like a network of services operating throughout the country. The quality and scope is very limited. The services apply to some areas but not to others, and there is a lack of co-ordination.
The purpose of the Bill which I seek leave to introduce today is to bridge this gap in our social services, to empower local authorities to make a scheme for the purpose of meals, domiciliary services and recreational and other services. This will enable voluntary organisations to be used and their work supplemented by the local authority. In other words, it will coordinate both voluntary and welfare services in such a way as to provide a nation-wide service.
Recently, in another place, there was a most informative debate upon the care of old people. The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, replying to the debate, said:
"I think it is true to say that these voluntary associations know perfectly well that often they are not able to give meals of the standard they would like, but they are doing their best."
Referring to the question of the powers of local authorities, the Minister went on:
"This aspect of the legal powers of local authorities to provide meals directly and the consequent need to rely entirely upon voluntary associations is one to which I think further attention ought to be given, and I will recommend the point which the noble Lord has made to my right hon. Friend."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 22nd January, 1957; Vol. 201, c. 34.]

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This Ministerial statement is at least some justification for the purpose of the Bill. There are other equally good reasons why these provisions should be made. In 1955, there were about 4,500 elderly persons occupying hospital beds. They could have been moved and no longer needed full hospital treatment; but they could not be discharged, because they had nowhere to go. The average cost of a bed in a hospital is £12 to £15 a week. In the big London teaching hospitals the cost is about £25 a week. I wonder how many of these cases would have been saved from requiring hospital treatment if proper facilities had been provided in their homes in good time?
The whole structure of my proposed Bill is based upon the need to keep old persons in their homes, where they should be, by a proper system of providing meals and attention. Indeed, it is cheaper to do so than to provide either hospital beds or residential homes. The local authority will be able to make such charges as it feels right and proper for services rendered. No person will be refused meals or service on the ground that he or she is unable to make a contribution to the cost. I wish to emphasise that need will be the only test. These provisions will be welcomed by local authorities generally.
My proposed Bill is supported by hon. Members from the three political parties and I trust that the Motion will commend itself to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. McLeavy, Mr. R. Williams, Miss Vickers, Mr. Clement Davies, Dr. Stross, Sir F. Markham, Mr. T. Brown, Mr. Tiley, and Mr. George Craddock.

NATIONAL ASSISTANCE ACT, 1948 (AMENDMENT)
Bill to amend section thirty-one of the National Assistance Act, 1948, and to empower local authorities to provide meals and domiciliary and other facilities for old people; and for purposes connected therewith, presented accordingly and read the First time: to be read a Second time upon Friday, 8th March, and to be printed [Bill 53].
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  HOMICIDE BILL
  Order for Third Reading read.
  3.55 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
  Perhaps this subject is not one which would be chosen for one's first speech in the House as Home Secretary, apart from interventions during the Committee stage discussions. But, by a coincidence, my first speech as Leader of the House was made in a debate on capital punishment almost exactly a year ago. In this intervention, which will not be a long one, I must, according to the rules of order, adhere to the contents of the Bill. Therefore, I cannot go over past history. But it is apposite to say that many of the subjects to which I devoted my attention in that speech a year ago are now included in the Measure which is before us.
  The Government have given much thought and time to this Bill, aided by Tight hon. and hon. Members of the House. It attempts to solve the problem in a manner likely to be acceptable to both Houses of Parliament. We have come today to the end of the last stage in our long discussions in this House. I have come into these debates at a late stage and much of the heat and burden of the day has been endured by others. I should like, therefore, to pay tribute particularly to my predecessor, Major Lloyd-George, who devoted a great deal of time and attention to the preparation of the Bill and to its presentation to the House and in Committee.
  I should like also to say a word of thanks to my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General, who took a conspicuous part during the Committee stage discussions; to my hon. and learned Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State, who has been involved, and to the draftsmen, who had a difficult subject to tackle.
  Capital punishment is a subject on which hon. Members on both sides of the House have held very strong opinions in the past and hold them now; some as a matter of conscience, some as a

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  matter of intellectual conviction, and some from a combination of both. We have heard those views expressed strongly, and often movingly. During this controversy we have seen from the leading opponents of this Bill a sustained effort—to use a neutral term—and a display of parliamentary skill and pertinacity to which I, as an old parliamentary hand, cannot but pay tribute.
  To the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) I would say in a Latin tag in the eighteenth century tradition, and which certainly should not be forgotten in the annals of this modern Parliament.
  "Justum et tenacem propositi virum."
  I have chosen that because I think it represents the tenacious and firm manner in which the hon. Gentleman has pursued his own proposition, and also because the Latin tag, when translated, is almost exactly the same as the English, and, therefore, not very difficult to understand. It is, none the less, a sincere tribute to the efforts of the hon. Gentleman as a parliamentarian to pursue the cause in which he believed.
  To the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) I would recommend a period of writing detective fiction. His description, in Committee, of the efforts to murder Mike Malloy was immortal, and I am sorry not to see him in his place today, so that he could hear this tribute.
  Whilst adhering strictly to the rules of order, Sir, a Third Reading debate gives us an opportunity to stand back a little from the Bill, and to consider it as a contribution to the solution of a haunting problem, that is, the appropriate punishment for unlawful killing. The Bill as it finally appears before the House on its Third Reading deals with two questions which lie at the root of the problem: what should constitute murder and how should murder be punished?
  The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne, in his Bill, which he introduced last Session, propounded an answer to one of these questions, namely, that murder should never be punished by the death penalty. His Bill did not provide a complete answer to the first question, namely, what should constitute murder itself? Whatever may be the merits of the past story of this matter—which it is
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  not in order for me to discuss today—I must state simply that Her Majesty's Government considered it their duty, where the basic responsibility of the Executive—namely, the maintenance of law and order—was involved, and where, on such a fundamental matter, opinion in this House, in Parliament and in the country was plainly divided, to put forward a solution of our own. This we have done in this Bill and, looking at the words of the Amendment tabled by the Opposition, I can see no constitutional impropriety in an action of this sort, nor, despite the controversy, has our right been challenged, I believe.
  We believe that this Bill while preserving what we consider essential, will go far to meet those who think that the law as it stands no longer gives the right, or even a tolerable answer to the question: what should be the punishment for homicide? We have sought our solution by tackling both of the questions I have just mentioned. The first question is: what homicides should amount to the supreme crime of murder? The second question is: how should murder be punished? The Bill, therefore, makes two kinds of change. It changes the law as to the ingredients of murder so that some homicides which have hitherto been murder will not be murder in future; it changes the law as to the punishment of murder so that some of the homicides which will still be murder will not be punishable by death. That is the general purpose of the Measure.
  Part I of the Bill drew the attention of some hon. Members, in Committee, to points of drafting and detail but I believe, as appears in the Opposition Amendment, that there is general support for what it set out to do. It will be remembered that the Bill deals with what is known as the doctrine of constructive malice; that is, under this doctrine, a man may be found guilty of murder, although he did not intend to kill or to do grievous bodily harm, merely because the killing was done in the course or furtherance of another offence.
  This doctrine has long been a target for criticism by lawyers and laymen, and distinguished and experienced judges have been amongst the advocates of its abolition. Therefore, in dealing with that matter, I think that we have made progress in this Bill. Similarly, there has

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  been uneasiness, in comment, in the courts and elsewhere, about the refusal of the law to allow provocation by words alone, to reduce murder to manslaughter save in the most extreme and exceptional circumstances. The Bill sweeps away the doctrine of constructive malice and enlarges the defence of provocation.
  Part I of the Bill further reduces the number of people who will in future be convicted of murder by introducing a defence which, south of the Border, is wholly new. We are sometimes a little sceptical when our Scottish colleagues expound the superior merits of their system of law, but in the doctrine of diminished responsibility, at any rate, they have something which the Government believe is valuable, and which we have sought to appropriate with suitable adaptations for use in England and Wales. We think that the new defence provided in Clause 2 will enable the courts to take account of the great strides that have been made in the understanding of the human mind, and to avoid treating as murder killings for which the accused ought not to be held wholly responsible.
  This is all part of the new approach to the problems of the mind which I think will exercise us, both at the Home Office and in this House, in the coming months and years. This unexplored territory of the mind will be perhaps one of the most exciting of the adventures before the human intellect in the years to come, and it is as important in our relationships in the human sphere as nuclear development is in the scientific. I hope that I may have the support of the House in any further moves we may make in this direction in the humanising and understanding of relationships, whether in crime or in the other spheres for which I am responsible.
  Finally, Part I takes out the category of murder another class of case on which the law has fallen behind public opinion, and that is the pathetic case of the survivor of a genuine suicide pact. Such a person will in future be guilty of manslaughter and not of murder. By these means, which, I believe, commend themselves in principle to the majority of hon. Members, Part I of the Bill reduces fairly considerably the scope and range of the crime of murder.
  Part II is necessarily more controvercial. I do not think that any solution
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  put forward by the Government would have satisfied the critics on both sides of the House or the enlightened and singularly interested and moving opinion which one has experienced throughout the country. However, we believe that the Bill, whatever may be said of its imperfections when examined from the point of view of the abolitionist or retentionist, does go a long way to meet the one without sacrificing what appears to be essential to the other. In fact, the Bill accepts abolition, save in relation to certain limited classes of case, that is, those where murder strikes most plainly at the maintenance of law and order.
  Hon. Gentlemen opposite have made some play with the fact that any murder is an offence against law and order, that is, a breach of the Queen's peace. The point is an obvious one and I can concede at once that the proposition is true, but the conclusion which the critics seek to draw from it, namely, that if the maintenance of law and order is the baths of the Bill, no distinction can be drawn between one kind of murder and another, is plainly not true.
  Which is the greater menace to the maintenance of peaceful and ordered society: the criminal who, in following his lawless pursuits is prepared to kill, or the man who, in sudden passion, for example, kills an unfaithful wife and perhaps gives himself up to the police? There is an obvious distinction, which I could elaborate in many another human case. It is on that sort of distinction that Part II of the Bill is based. I do not suggest, and nobody who has followed our debates could possibly suggest it, that it has been easy to draw the line. Some of my hon. Friends, I know, think that the capital cases are too circumscribed, but we have endeavoured to retain capital punishment only where we consider it to be essential as a deterrent against the lawlessness which strikes at the ordinary basis of society and where we consider its deterrent power to be uniquely effective.
  We believe that the Bill demonstrates the proper and necessary concern of Parliament and the Executive to show that offences which strike at the basis of ordered society should meet with a punishment which serves both to mark their gravity and to deter others from committing them. We believe that it gives the protection which society owes to those who, on behalf of the community, deal

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  with reckless and dangerous criminals; that is, prison officers and the police, men whose gallantry in the discharge of their duty is so habitual that we are in danger of taking it too much for granted.
  We believe—I believe this after studying all the debates of 1948 and before that—that the Bill does these things without falling into the pitfalls which lie in the way of any attempt to classify murder by reference to the moral heinousness of particular offences. It has been suggested that, in consequence, the Bill has no moral basis at all, but that is not so. This is not the time or place to embark on a philosophical discussion of the moral justification for punishment, but if society is justified in taking life at all for its own protection, and we believe that it is, then it is justified, and, indeed, meritorious, if it takes a relatively narrow view of what its protection requires and spares murderers whose crimes fall outside that sphere notwithstanding that those who are spared are sometimes morally indistinguishable from those who are not. Hon. Members may say that that is not justice, a point which, had we time, it would be interesting indefinitely to discuss. I merely remark now that I know of no moral law which requires society to pursue justice to the exclusion of mercy, or forbids it to show more mercy than the recipient deserves.
  The Bill does not affect, and could not unless it were expressly so enacted, the exercise of the Royal Prerogative of mercy. I cannot say in advance what the decision is likely to be in any particular case. I can only take this opportunity of saying what my general policy is and will be. My predecessor said in the House after the debate on 16th February last year
  "Each case will be considered on its merits, regard being had to the special considerations relating to that case and all relevant considerations of either a public or private nature."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd February, 1956; Vol. 549, c. 581.]
  I shall continue to follow that policy.
  I cannot say in what form the Bill will come from another place, but I believe that we in this House are entitled to be congratulated on sending to another place a workmanlike Bill which commands a wide measure of support. The House has dealt with the Bill in a manner which has demonstrated the respect which hon.
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  Members on both sides have for the best traditions of the House. Hon. Members have, in fact, dealt with the Bill in such a way that we have been able to avoid those more difficult and acute forms of procedure of which we have already had experience this week and which would be singularly inappropriate in this case. We have, in fact, been able to discuss the Bill freely, and, although it may be said that some of the speeches have been protracted, they have at all times been sincere contributions to our debates.
  I should not like the House to take leave of the Bill without just making one more mention by way of a tribute to the labours of the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment. It is true that we have accepted some of the Royal Commission's recommendations, and some we have not; but the value of its work lies not in the number of recommendations which have been implemented but in the fact that it gave us the material for informed discussion on this great problem. No one who has listened to the debates during the past year could fail to be struck by the constant references which have been made to the Report of the Royal Commission, and no one who has applied his mind to the problem of capital punishment can fail to be grateful to the Royal Commission for assembling in such a masterly manner the mass of material necessary for our proper consideration.
  In asking the House to accept the Bill, I do not suggest that it is a perfect solution of the problem which confronted us. Few problems of government are capable of a perfect solution. The Bill, by its nature, cannot be acceptable to everybody, and that will become apparent even during the course of this debate, but it is an honest attempt on the part of the Government to discharge what we believe to be our duty to Parliament and to the country, and, as such, I commend it to the House.
  Perhaps I might close with some words of Dr. Johnson. He said:
  "Law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public."
  While right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite may differ from us, they will at least I hope realise that in a very difficult task we have tried to make the best contribution that we can.
  4.17 p.m.
  Mr. Anthony Greenwood: The right hon. Gentleman had the advantage, as he put it, of coming late to these discussions. I think I can speak for the whole House in saying that we welcome his addition to the, unfortunately, very small number of us who have been taking part in the discussions on the Bill, and, also, the rather more cheerful atmosphere that he has introduced into our debates. I hope that the Home Secretary will not misunderstand me, or think that I imply any disrespect, when I say that at this stage I doubt very much whether there is anything that any of us can usefully add to the lengthy discussions which we have already had.
  I do not think that any of us are very proud of the Bill. I doubt very much whether the Home Secretary himself is commending to the House today the sort of Bill he would really have liked to bring before us. If he was proud of the Bill, if he was perfectly happy about it, there would not have been any need on the Government side to put on the Whips or any need to commit the unpardonable sin of making hon. Members opposite vote against their conscience on a matter of this kind. If he had wanted to, the right hon. Gentleman could have gone down in history as a good Home Secretary and a great penal reformer, but he has preferred to be immortalised as a great party manager.
  The right hon. Gentleman has spoken very approvingly of the Bill. It has, of course, a number of extremely useful features, which were welcomed from this side of the House on Second Reading. I should like particularly to welcome the reference which the right hon. Gentleman made to what he called "the unexplored territory of the mind". If we can have further discussions in the House on the relationship of mental health and crime, it will be most valuable, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will find an occasion for providing us with an opportunity of that kind.
  The features of the Bill which we all welcome are the acceptance of the doctrine of diminished responsibility; the removal of many homicides from the scope of the death sentence; the amendment of the law relating to provocation; and the reforms in the administration of
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  capital punishment. All those amendments to the law are admirable. That is why we did not oppose the Second Reading of the Bill. At that time we had hoped that it might be possible to amend the Bill in Committee, but from our point of view the Committee stage was a very disappointing experience.
  We tabled many Amendments and many new Clauses, practically all of which sought to apply the recommendations of the Royal Commission—and I would join with the Home Secretary in once again paying tribute to the labours of that distinguished body. Unfortunately, in spite of the fact that we constantly urged upon the Home Secretary the recommendations of the Royal Commission, not one concession was made by the Government in Committee. At one moment right hon. Gentlemen opposite were asking us to reject Amendments because the Report of the Commission upon which they were based was not a unanimous recommendation; the next moment they were urging us to reject Amendments in spite of the fact that they were based upon unanimous recommendations of the Commission. At various stages during the discussions it seemed to us that the Government were prepared to make a mockery of our debates to avoid the necessity for more than a formal Report stage.
  If the Government had been more accommodating and open to argument in Committee I should certainly have tried to use what little influence I have to persuade my colleagues—all of whom, unlike hon. Members opposite, were free agents in this matter—to give the Bill a Third Reading without opposition. But the Home Secretary's Departmental desires overcame his sense of responsibility as Leader of the House. The fact that the Government were so uncompromising in Committee has left no other course open to my hon. Friends than to table the reasoned Amendment which appears on the Order Paper.
  We have now reached the Third Reading of the Bill. It seems to me that, whatever intrinsic merits it may have, there are two considerations which over-ride all others. The first is that the Government must play fair with the House of Commons. When they promised facilities for the passage of the Silverman Bill, that

  463
  promise should have been kept and the freely expressed view of the House respected. But by this Bill, and by the extraordinary display of oratory by the benches opposite last Friday, the Government have clearly sought to circumvent the operation of the Parliament Act.
  With all modesty, I would remind the House of what I said during the Second Reading debate:
  "I should have thought that if the Government really wanted to honour to the full the undertakings which they gave to the House in the last Session, the proper course would have been for them to have adopted the Private Member's Bill themselves, to have introduced it to the House, to have sought to amend it if they really thought it necessary to do so and, if they failed to amend it, send it forward to another place under the Parliament Act. It is a breach of faith with the House that that has not been done. As it is, it is now possible that the House of Commons may not have an opportunity of giving another free and unfettered decision on what is a most important problem."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th November, 1956; Vol. 560, c. 1162.]
  That is the way that things have worked out. The Government disregarded the view we put to them on that occasion, and the overall result has been that what should have been a great Measure of penal reform has become merely part of a party maneouvre by hon. Members opposite in an attempt to extricate the Government from one of their many embarrassments.
  The second consideration that I would urge upon the House is that it is the duty of the Government, and especially of the Home Secretary and the Law Officers, to maintain and foster public respect for the law. In this Bill they are failing badly to discharge that obligation. They are trying to do what has been attempted over and over again, and what has been rejected over and over again, ever since 1864, namely, to classify murders upon one basis or another.
  The Royal Commission recommended against the practicability of classification of that kind. On 16th February last year, Major Lloyd-George told us that the Government agreed that neither the definition of murder nor an attempt to distinguish between different degrees of murder offered a useful line of approach. That was when the Government were trying to stem the rising tide of abolitionist feeling. But when they failed to do so they fell back upon the exact
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  remedy that they had previously rejected, What has happened is that in an endeavour to protect the interests of the Conservative Party the Government have been prepared to make an ass of the law.
  The right hon. Gentleman sought once again to justify the classification of murder that the Government have proposed. In paragraph 498 of its Report the Royal Commission said:
  "There are strong reasons for believing that it must inevitably be found impracticable to define a class of murders in which alone the Infliction of the death penalty is appropriate."
  The Royal Commission was right and the Government, as I believe, are so wrong.
  Under the proposal which the right hon. Gentleman commended to us this afternoon the Government will continue to hang the Ruth Ellises, but they will not hang the Patrick Mahons. If anyone stabs a fireman he will not hang, but if he stabs a policeman he will. If he strangles a night watchman in the course of theft he will hang, but if he strangles an eight-year-old girl in the course of rape he will not hang. If he shoots his wife he will hang but if, on the other hand, he kills her by slow and systematic poisoning, he will not.
  When we discussed Clause 7 I gave many examples of the way in which this extraordinary proposal would work. I do not want to repeat all those examples, but I should like to paraphrase two cases given in Appendix 4 of the Commission's Report. The first relates to a woman who ran a nursing home who persuaded one of the patients to make a will in her favour and then poisoned her with morphia. In the words of the Commission:
  "It was a deliberate murder for the purpose of gain."
  The other case concerned an unemployed labourer who caused the death of a child of eight or nine by asphyxiation due to severe pressure on her chest in the act of raping her, or attempting to rape her. Both those cases would escape under the Government's proposals.
  The public will want to know more about this, and I think that when they have questioned their representatives in this House they will come to the conclusion that they prefer the point of view of those of us who want to get rid of hanging altogether rather than create the inequity caused by this rather unpleasant

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  compromise. Many hon. Members opposite who, a few months ago, were so loud in demanding that hanging must be retained, may be asked by their constituents how they justify the fact that we are to hang people for murdering policemen but not for murdering children or poisoning their wives.
  I hope that many hon. Members opposite who have taken such an active part in blocking the proposal of my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Come (Mr. S. Silverman) will be called upon to answer that question and to tell their constituents how they justify the extraordinary attitude which they are now adopting. Even supposing that there were a logical basis for the proposals contained in the Bill we should still be retaining something which many of us believe to be intrinsically evil.
  The Home Secretary spoke about what he called the moral basis of punishment. I should say that there are three purposes behind punishment. First, there is the purpose of retribution, which is surely wholly alien even to a nominally Christian country like ours. It is certainly something which was rejected by so distinguished a Home Secretary as Lord Waverley, who said:
  "There is no longer in our regard of the criminal law any recognition of such primitive conceptions as atonement and retribution."
  The second purpose surely is the purpose of reform. The reformative effect of capital punishment is non-existent unless one believes in the efficacy of death-bed repentance or in the possibility of reformation in after-life. I think that point was adequately dealt with by the late Archbishop Temple, when he said:
  "It is only on the hypothesis of a future life that the death penalty can be regarded as reformation at all; and it is doubtful whether many of those who incur it have a sufficiently vivid faith in a future life to accept the sentence of death as a temporary discipline."
  The third purpose surely is the purpose of deterrence. We would say that there is no evidence whatever that capital punishment is an effective deterrent for murder. Yet we had the Home Secretary, this afternoon, still referring to it as the unique deterrent. It is not at all clear to many of us in this House why the Government have decided that the fear of hanging deters a man from stabbing a policeman but not from stabbing his wife.
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  If it is a deterrent, which we deny, then it ought to apply to all murderers, regardless of the murder. Unlike the Government, who appear only to want to deter murderers of policemen and prison workers, we want to deter all killing.
  This is something in which one has to have some consistency. I welcome the remarks which the Home Secretary made about the policy which he intends to pursue in advising on the exercise of the Royal Prerogative. I think that that will have made the position a good deal clearer. There is at the moment a widespread view that this Bill is really the Government's method of introducing the abolition of the death penalty by rather back-stage methods. I hope that it means that there will be no more hanging, but I would have preferred us to have abolished hanging, if this is in the Government's mind, by doing it openly and broadly and not in a way which is really calculated to deceive the public. If it means only a reduction in the number of hangings, then we shall still be perpetuating a horror which many of us feel to be intolerable.
  I want hon. Members opposite, when they have to declare their vote in the House tonight, to remember what it is they are voting to retain. I want to remind the House of a description by Mr. Arthur Koestler of the hours preceding an execution. He writes:
  "The horror of the operation remains even if there is no struggle or dementedness in the condemned cell. The preparations on the previous day when executioner and assistant discreetly take the measure and weight of the victim to determine the length of the drop; the dress rehearsal of dropping a stuffed sack of the same weight to make sure that the estimated length of rope will neither strangle the victim too slowly nor tear his head off; the jolly domino game in the condemned cell while the preparations go on and the hour draws nearer; the stratagems to make him sit with his back to the door through which the executioner will enter; the brisk, businesslike opening of that door, the pinioning of the hands behind the back and the walking or dragging him in solemn procession to the execution shed and on to the white chalk mark on the trap; the tying of his legs while two officers stand at his sides on planks thrown across the trap, to hold him up; the fixing of the white cap and the noose with its sliding brass ring—in a few years' time, when Lord Goddard and Mr. Pierrepoint have, with God's help, been defeated, all this will appear as unthinkable as drawing, quartering, and pressing to death appear to us today."

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  The same point of view was put in a much less emotional way by Lord Templewood who, after a great deal of experience, came to this conclusion:
  "However carefully the death penalty is inflicted, a State execution is a repulsive proceeding. Capital punishment is objectionable because, first, contrary to the modern developments of penal reform, it abandons the possibility of reforming the murderer, secondly, being irrevocable, it gives no opportunity for reversing a wrong sentence, thirdly, it places a hateful duty on all who take part in an execution, and, fourthly, it lowers the moral standard of the whole community."
  I believe—and I say this very sadly indeed—that the House has lost a great opportunity in this respect. This is not a penal reform Bill; it is a Tory Party preservation Bill. It has been described in the Press as "A poisoner's charter". It is more than that. It is also a political coward's charter. For purely party ends the Government are prepared to make the law of this country ridiculous.
  The end of capital punishment is bound to come. This House has the record that almost always, in the early stages, it is opposed to reform. At some stage, all the great liberal and humane reforms for which finally it has been responsible have been voted down in the House. Our predecessors voted against the abolition of burning of women, they voted against the freeing of slaves, they voted against the emancipation of the Catholics, and they voted against the extension of the franchise. All these reforms are now numbered among our greatest social achievements.
  Of course, the ending of capital punishment will come. There is not the slightest doubt about that. The credit could have gone to the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary and his colleagues, but in the eyes of history the credit for the abolition of capital punishment will go to my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne and those of his colleagues who, in spite of the fact that they were deserted and betrayed by hon. Members opposite, continued to fight for the things in which they believed.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew): I take it that the hon. Gentleman is not moving the Amendment?
  Mr. Greenwood Mr. Greenwood indicated assent.
  4.37 p.m.
  Sir Fergus Graham: In rising to speak very briefly, may I say that I was expecting to answer a reasoned Amendment. I realised that this was an opportunity at least to express how strongly I have felt throughout all the debates, not only in sympathy for those who regard the death penalty with horror and loathing, but also with a very real understanding of the enormous variety of unsocial elements that exist in the world in which we live—a world, in particular, where the number of people who come to this country, and who enjoy the benefits of our civilisation, increases as the years go by.
  I feel very strongly that it is a presumption to place the conscience of the individual, the outlook of the individual, against the outlook and the conscience of the State—the State to which we bow when we bow to the Mace, as an amalgam of history binding the Church and the law, the Crown and the Government, and which owes to the people the memory that Parliament really exists for defence—defence against aggression from outside and defence against internal disorder. There are those elements which are bound to resent and revolt against internal order sometime, and I feel wholeheartedly—but more than I can express—with a vast number of people in this country a terrible sympathy for the relatives of a victim of murder.
  If it be true that the community needs a Parliament, its first requirement is defence and its second requirement is internal order. Our civilisation has succeeded to such an extent that we have reduced the number of those in our midst who are murderers, the number of those for whom we have not been able to have any hope of curing in any way, yet the necessity of holding justice must surely remain. Mercy is depicted in the Houses of Parliament. Behind the Throne is a statue of the young Queen Victoria, and by her side is the statue of Mercy, armed to the teeth.
  If there is not a gallows, we shall remove the ultimate penalty which, at some point, must be applicable to the ultimate fault. If we are really suggesting that the ultimate penalty is to be removed, then we are suggesting that this country can no longer feel that its responsibility

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  is enough for all the variety of crime which a vast and ever changing population may have to face.
  4.43 p.m.
  Mr. Sydney Silverman: I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  "this House, while welcoming the removal of certain anomalies in the law of murder and the abolition of the death penalty in respect of certain offences, cannot assent to a Bill which is an affront to constitutional propriety, fails to satisfy the public sense of justice and is in defiance of the principle which this House has already approved, namely, that the death penalty for murder no longer accords with the needs or the true interests of a civilised society."
  The hon. Member for Darlington (Sir F. Graham) will not expect me at this time of day to embark upon an elaborate refutation of the thesis which he shortly, but lucidly and eloquently, defended. The thesis was that capital punishment ought as a principle to be retained. It is a view which the hon. Member is quite entitled to hold, quite entitled to express, and which is, no doubt, shared still by a large number of people both inside and outside the House.
  I will not trouble the hon. Member now with any examination of the thesis, or any attempted refutation of it, because the House of Commons long ago decided that it does not agree with him, and the Government themselves, as was plain from the right hon. Gentleman's speech, have also indicated that they do not agree with him. The hon. Member's remedy, his right and, I should have thought, his duty, in view of what he has said, would be to go into the Lobby against the Government's Bill, because the Bill is in complete contradiction to almost everything he said.
  It would, of course, be singularly ungracious if I were not at once to acknowledge the altogether too generous things said about my own part in this controversy, said by both the Home Secretary and by my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood). My hon. Friend said that if capital punishment were ever abolished in this country, it would be due to me. I amend that, with his leave, to saying that now that capital punishment has in fact been abolished in this country, it is an over-generous exaggeration of my own
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  part in it to attribute the change to me. A change has been effected by a whole generation, and even more than a generation, of people who concerned themselves with this matter at times when it was not so prominently in the public mind as it now is.
  One thinks of a number of names, and I do not want to delay the House by reciting any of them except one. If there is one to whom more than another this credit for the change in the law should go—posthumously, unfortunately—it is Roy Calvert, whose book, "Capital Punishment in the Twentieth Century", answered years before they were uttered every argument employed in favour of the retention of capital punishment in the House from 1948 onwards and in the right hon. Gentleman's speech just now.
  It is, of course, perfectly true, and I hope that my Amendment sufficiently acknowledges it, that the Bill effects very important improvements in our law. In addition to the very gracious place in the politics of his party and, indeed, of the country, the right hon. Gentleman has acquired a special reputation for his philosophic acceptance of whatever happens at any moment to be the best available substitute for what he would have preferred. It has, of course, become a part of what one might call modern political folk lore, and the form of expression which the right hon. Gentleman gives to it has almost passed into proverbial acceptance.
  One understands very well why the right hon. Gentleman should wish us to accept the Measure which the Government have placed before us: it is the best abolition of capital punishment that we have got. Why should we not be content with it? It is true, as I said a moment ago, that capital punishment in this country for all practical purposes has already been abolished. Why, then, should we bother not to accept it in the best available form, even though the best available form is not exactly what we would have preferred and not exactly what the House would have preferred? I am old-fashioned enough to think that democracy does not really do itself the best justice by doing one thing while pretending to do another. It is not the way to sustain the authority of a representative, democratic Parliamentary system in a world in which that kind of institution is under such powerful attack.

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  It is much better that the House of Commons should make up its mind what it wants, as indeed the House of Commons has made up its mind, and then honestly, courageously, fairly, without ambiguity, without modification and without qualification of any kind, to do what it believes to be right. I am perfectly certain that the Home Secretary, if he did not regard himself as inhibited by all sorts of party considerations, as my hon. Friend has said, would be advising the House not to give a Third Reading to the Bill, but to give a Third Reading to the Bill which the House accepted last year.
  It may be asked, if one concedes that the Bill makes so many improvements, why seek to defeat them, why not have these amendments in the law which can be achieved only by the passing of this Bill? Undoubtedly the Bill does a great deal. The whole of Parts I and III would have received an enthusiastic acceptance by the House of Commons if they had stood alone.
  At this point I should like to refer to what the right hon. Gentleman said about the draftsmen. I do not want to attack or criticise in any way the Parliamentary draftsmen who are responsible for the drafting of the Bill. They were given by the Government a task which the Government, at the moment when they asked them to do it, said was an impossible task. They asked the draftsmen to do just those things which the Royal Commission had told them could not be done, those things which the Home Secretary of the day had said could not be done, and which the right hon. Gentleman himself had confessed could not be done.
  As to those Parts of the Bill which could really be put into effect, I think the Committee stage showed that there is considerable doubt, difficulty and ambiguity about the way in which they have been drafted. If the Bill is not amended in another place—speaking now of Parts I and III—the courts will have the utmost difficulty in giving any lucid application to the principles of some of the Clauses. I do not know what they will make of the Clause intended to effect the abolition of constructive malice. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) demonstrated to conviction, the Clause as drafted meant
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  absolutely nothing whatever. There is no doubt that time after time during the Committee stage Government spokesmen were conceding that the wording was not clear and might lead to a great deal of doubt and difficulty in the courts, and might even lead to defeating the intentions which the House of Commons unanimously supported. Nevertheless, for other reasons which have nothing whatever to do with the merits of the controversy, they were bound, or felt themselves bound, not to accept any Amendment at all or even promise to review any of the words.
  Even when one comes to Part II one finds, in Clause 7, that the principle of the abolition of the death penalty is conceded and then whittled away by a series of exceptions. It is no part of our responsibility that these two matters, which have nothing whatever to do with one another, are covered by one Act. The abolition of the death penalty has nothing directly to do with any question of alteration or removal of anomalies in the law of murder, and, of course, it ought to have been dealt with quite separately.
  Why was it not? My hon. Friend has, of course, given the reason already. This is the ground of the first reason offered in the Amendment for rejecting the Third Reading. The right hon. Gentleman said that he could find no constitutional impropriety. Here is a Bill that no Member of the House of Commons wants. Those who want to see the death penalty abolished do not want it, for reasons which do not need stating again. Those who think that the death penalty is, in a unique sense, a deterrent against the commission of the crime of murder do not want the Bill because it removes—in the assessment of the last Home Secretary—that deterrent from 80 per cent. of those crimes which up to now have been visited with the death penalty. Those who thought that there might possibly, in some way or other, yet be found some rational ground on which one could classify murders into those which are rightly capital and those which are not, will not be satisfied and will not want the Bill because, as my hon. Friend has so lucidly and unanswerably demonstrated, there is no rational ground upon which the exceptions proposed by the Government can be sustained.

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  Does the right hon. Gentleman really see no constitutional impropriety in compelling the House of Commons—for that is what he is doing—in a matter of this kind to pass a Measure which, as he perfectly well knows, not a single right hon. Gentleman or hon. Gentleman in the House really wants? Is there no constitutional impropriety about that? Is there no constitutional impropriety in the Government's behaviour in the matter?
  What did the Government do? The right hon. Gentleman today has made the most persuasive speech for a partial retention of the death penalty that anyone has ever made during my membership of this House. He did it almost as though he believed it. At any rate, he did it lucidly and persuasively, and he advanced it to the House, with all the authority of the Government, on the basis of the argument that it was the Government's duty to find this kind of compromise, if they could, and, with all their authority as a Government, to ask the House to adopt it.
  That might have been all very well in February, 1956, or a year or two before that. If, when the Royal Commission had presented its Report, the Government of the day had said, "This is a matter on which the Government must decide and on which the Government not merely are entitled but have a duty to call upon their supporters to help them," that would, of course, have been a view which would have been clearly maintainable, and no doubt the Government would have had their way. But they did not do that any more than any previous Government did it during the past twenty or twenty-five years. They said, as every other Government said, "This is not a matter on which the Government would seek to dragoon anybody; this is a matter which it is right to leave to the conscientious, independent, uninfluenced judgment of every Member."
  The Government cannot have it both ways. They cannot say at one and the same time that this is and that this is not a matter in which the Government ought to give a lead to the House of Commons, and expect the House to pass the Bill. If it is, they ought to have done it long ago, and if it is not they ought not to be doing it today.
  What the Government, in fact, did was to invite the House to reach its own con-
  474
  clusion, with an undertaking to accept that conclusion, and when the conclusion was different from what they hoped they broke their undertaking. They are now seeking to compel right hon. Gentlemen as well as hon. Gentlemen on the Government side of the House to vote against their consciences in support of a Bill which they have already declared they believe to be wrong. I should have thought that was a constitutional impropriety.
  I have said that the Bill is not wanted by any Member of this House. I believe that to be true. One of the considerations which the Government have always claimed have influenced them in not carrying out their undertaking to accept the clear decision of the House was that total abolition of the death penalty was too far in advance of or too far out of accord with public opinion outside. I do not stop to argue whether they were right or wrong about that, but I assume, for the sake of the argument, that they were right.
  They said, "We ought not to pass the Bill because, rightly or wrongly, the vast majority of the public believe that the death penalty ought to be retained for two reasons, one that it is in a special sense a deterrent to the commission of murder and therefore affords to the public a sense of security which, without it, the public would not have, and, secondly, because the public sense of justice would be outraged if the heaviest penalty which society has power to inflict were not exacted from criminals for whom plainly there is little or nothing to be said." They said further, "If we persist in legislating so far out of accord with popular opinion we shall be running the risk that lynch law will be substituted for the operation of the judicial code."
  Does the right hon. Gentleman really think that public opinion will accept Part II of the Bill as being just? Are members of the public who think that the death penalty ought to be exacted for murder because it is a just retribution going to be satisfied with a Bill that says, "If you poison your wife you are all right, but if you shoot her you shall be hanged," and "If you commit murder in the course of robbing a gas meter you shall be hanged, but if you commit murder in

  475
  the course of rape you shall not be hanged"?
  I do not want to go through the series again because one of my hon. Friends has already done it, other hon. Members have heard it, and the public have read about it. Is it supposed that the members of the public who are not satisfied about abolition of the death penalty because that would not be just are ready to accept discrimination in the infliction of the death penalty on the basis set out in Part II? I do not believe that any rational person can say so, or that the Government believe it. They do not believe it. They cannot. It is not a tenable proposition. Do the Government believe that the public will accept the view that a wife poisoner cannot be deterred by the death penalty, but that a man seeking to avoid arrest after what might be some quite petty crime can be so deterred? It just does not make sense.
  There is the clearest possible demonstration of how right the right hon. Gentleman was in our debates last year when he said that there was no rational basis on which to distinguish between murders which are capital and murders which are not. If this needed further demonstration we should be grateful to the Government for having demonstrated it in Part II beyond further argument.
  No one in the House of Commons wants the Bill. It is clear, if we relate the contents of the Bill to the argument used last year, that the public does not want the Bill and that the Government have made singularly little effort to inform the public of what the Government are doing.
  Can it be supposed that there is somebody in the other place who will find this Measure unacceptable, as it is unacceptable to us and, I think, unacceptable to the public? I have recently reread the debates in the other place of 1948 and of last Session. One reads the speeches of Lord Salisbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Samuel. One goes back to 1948 and reads the speech of the present Lord Chief Justice, who was Lord Chief Justice then about the propriety of hanging murderers of one kind and not hanging murderers of another kind. Is there any evidence that the Lord Chief Justice has changed his mind about that?
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  At this stage it might not be unreasonable to ask the Home Secretary what his attitude to the Bill will be if it comes back to us from another place with Amendments designed to deal with the patent anomalies in logic and in justice which the Bill contains Will he then wish us to enter upon a long-drawn-out exchange with the House of Lords in order to compel them to do what is demonstrably unmaintainable and irrational? Would it not be better for the House of Commons to be allowed to have its way, as it is entitled to under the Parliament Act? If we are to have a conflict with the House of Lords, why go on repeating the conflict? Why drag it out and carry it on from Session to Session?
  The Parliament Act was designed to avoid a constitutional catastrophe of that kind and to ensure, if there was a difference of view between the two Houses, that after an adequate attempt had been made and an adequate delay had occurred in order to make clear and to try to reconcile the points of view of the two Houses, and if the points of view remained irreconcilable, there was to be an end of further constitutional conflict.
  The House of Commons is entitled to have its way, but the Government refused to allow the House of Commons to consider the matter again at all. It may very well be that, if time had been found for the introduction of last year's Bill again, the House of Commons in its wisdom and discretion might have decided not to persist on it, and might have decided to introduce the amendments or exceptions that are contained in Part II. The House would have been perfectly entitled to do so. On the other hand, the House of Commons might have decided that the reasons which persuaded it not to do that last Session were still valid this Session, and there would have been no further possibility of a conflict with the House of Lords because the Parliament Act would have concluded the matter.
  Under this Bill, the Parliament Act does not conclude the matter. We are starting again at the beginning. Let us suppose that it happens, as it may well happen, that the House of Lords introduces exceptions which the right hon. Gentleman is bound, by the bargain that he made, not to accept. What will he then do? Come back in the next Session,

  477
  assuming that the Government are still here, and introduce it again, have another conflict or not have another conflict, force it through under the Parliament Act? Does the right hon. Gentleman begin to see what I mean by this phrase in the reasoned Amendment about constitutional impropriety? For no valid reasons, he is prolonging a constitutional conflict that is entirely unnecessary in order to compel the House of Commons, as well as the Lords of Lords, to do what neither House believes to be right.
  I think there is an explanation of all this. I see some hon. Members opposite whom, for the purpose of this discussion at any rate, I may be entitled to call my hon. Friends, although I know that they are not my hon. Friends on any other political subject in the world. On this matter, I hope I have without presumption paid tribute to their manful courage and consistency against what I believe to be very heavy pressure, not so much in the House as outside, during the course of our discussions here. I cannot believe that they have deserted, not me, as one of my hon. Friends said, but their own ideals and convictions.
  They know, I feel sure, things that the rest of us do not know. I believe that their silence throughout these debates, their absence from the Division Lobbies during the Committee stage, their absence from the Division Lobbies tonight, because I anticipate that they will not be there, is not due at all to any change of mind, to any failure of courage or to any lack of political consistency. They know they have won. Each and every one of them has had private assurances—I am certain of that—assurances that the Government will not allow the House of Lords or anybody else to alter one jot or tittle of the bargain that has been made.
  And more assurances than that—assurances that, in fact, the last execution which took place in this country, the execution in August, 1955, was indeed the last execution for murder that will ever take place in this country. I think that if they had not had such assurances, or if they do not believe in their hearts that that is true, they certainly would not have failed to maintain with the same courage and the same vigour as they did last Session the view which I know they still hold.
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  Is it worth while, I ask the Government, to do this kind of violence to people's consciences? In order to do what? In order, I say, not to have any executions at all, because I do not believe that there will be any more, but in order to retain the façade. What façade? On an average, the annual number of executions in this country for, I think, more than half a century has been twelve. The last Home Secretary, I think in the course of the Second Reading debate, though I am not sure whether it was then or during one of the debates during the Committee stage, estimated that if the Government have their way and this Bill becomes law, and if all the people who could be executed under it are in fact executed, the twelve will be reduced by 70 or 80 per cent.
  So that the Government will retain under the Bill the right to execute, what shall we say, 2·35 people every year? Is it really worth while to do all this violence to our constitutional principles, to do all this damage to Parliamentary representative democracy, in order to retain the right to execute two and a bit people every year, and then not to do it?
  One begins to understand a little the Suez adventure, which was incomprehensible to many of us at the time. But for that, the Government would never have got my hon. Friends on the other side of the House to support them, but they could not have a row about Suez and another about hanging at the same time. The same kind of argument might be applied to the Rent Bill. It would enable the Government to compel their rebellious followers to accept this Bill and all the rest. It is a much more rational reason than any suggested by anybody else. It might make it almost intelligible.
  In fact, we have seen the end of this obscene futility, as I have called it. The condemned cell will be deserted. The morbid, ghoulish death watch for weeks, including three Sundays, is wound up. No more notices outside the prison gates. No more big crowds assembling on execution mornings. No more hammering in the building of the gallows, and no little procession such as one of my hon. Friends described from Arthur Koestler's moving book. It is a pity that the Government did not allow it decent burial. In fact, if one were to adapt to the circumstances with which we are really faced

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  here, the well-known poem of Swinburne and apply what he said about death in that poem to the death penalty, one might say:
  "As a god self-slain on his own strange altar, Death lies dead."
  5.20 p.m.
  Miss Alice Bacon: I beg to second the Amendment.
  As always when my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) speaks, he is so eloquent, so comprehensible and so persuasive that there is little else to say. However, I second the Amendment not only because of the contents of the Bill, but as a protest about the way the Government have treated this House by flouting its freely expressed will. It is now just under a year since the then Home Secretary moved a Motion in this House in the following terms:
  "That this House is of opinion that, while the death penalty should be retained, the law relating to the crime of murder should be amended."
  My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) moved an Amendment which said that we believed:
  "… that the death penalty for murder no longer accords with the needs or the true interests of a civilised society, and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to introduce forthwith legislation for its abolition or for its suspension for an experimental period."
  The Amendment was carried, but the Bill to which we are asked to give a Third Reading today is in accord with the Motion which was defeated, and not with the Amendment which was passed. After that debate the Prime Minister announced that special facilities would be given for a Bill to be introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne. With a free vote of the House, without the Whips on, that Bill went through all stages, Committee stage, Report stage and Third Reading. As we all know, it was rejected in another place, and the Government have not given any opportunity whatever for the House of Commons to reaffirm its opinion.
  The Bill we have before us today is a Bill which has been pushed through with the Government Whips on, on a matter on which there should be a free vote of the House according to individual conscience and not according to party politics. I hope that hon. Members will
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  note that in this Government Bill are all the exceptions which were turned down during the Committee stage of the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne.
  I was moderately fortunate in drawing No. 8 in the Ballot for Private Members' Bills and decided to reintroduce the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend. I decided to reintroduce that Bill, not only because I wholeheartedly believe in its contents, but because I think that this House should have an opportunity of reasserting its will in this matter. Last Friday the House could have considered the matter, but, because of the extraordinary exhibition of hon. Members on the other side of the House, that Bill was not even reached. The Government have a majority of nearly 70 in the House of Commons. One would have thought that if they were so sure of their case they would have allowed my Bill to have been voted upon in order to show that they had a majority in this matter, but they did everything possible to prevent that. I have reason to believe that it was not only back benchers who were concerned but that, as anyone who heard him would realise, the Minister on the Front Bench on Friday was also involved in the tactics which were employed.
  Mr. Ede: My hon. Friend will remember that Mr. Speaker rebuked the hon. Gentleman for the length of his exordium.
  Miss Bacon: Yes. Not only did Mr. Speaker rebuke him, but he did not rise to reply to the debate until after three o'clock, which is a most unusual procedure on a Friday afternoon.
  Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth: The hon. Member will remember that there were only 163 hon. Members in the House at the time.
  Miss Bacon: The hon. Member is quite wrong in assuming that there were only 163 hon. Members in this House at three o'clock, when we moved, "That the Question be now put." Several hon. Members went home and it was at four o'clock—after it was quite certain that my Bill was not to be debated—that 163 hon. Members were present.
  I ask the Government why they were afraid to let my Bill go to a vote. Was it because this was a Private Member's

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  Bill and without the Whips on they were afraid that the House would again assert its opinion on this matter? We have a Bill before us today which, as all the debates on it have shown, is complicated, ambiguous, unfair and in some cases, I suggest, even silly. I wish to reiterate what my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne said about another place. This Bill can go to another place and can be changed there. If my Bill had been read a Second time last Friday the Parliament Act would have been put into operation and that Bill could have been passed whether the other place agreed with it or not.
  During the passage of this Bill we have been told that the effect will be that the number of convictions for murder will be reduced from about 25 to six and the number of executions will be reduced from 13 to four. As my hon. Friend said, it seems rather ludicrous to keep in operation all the paraphernalia of executions for that small number.
  Mr. E. G. Willis: Does my hon. Friend realise that in Scotland the position will be even more ridiculous? The system will have to be kept in operation for one execution in three years. Those are the figures for Scotland.
  Miss Bacon: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that interjection. My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood), has given examples, of the way in which the Bill will work. Someone could be hanged for shooting, but not for poisoning. I am quite certain that as time goes by members of the public will not really understand the motives of the Government in introducing such a Bill. There is a letter from a member of the public in today's Yorkshire Post. That letter says:
  "Is there not likely to be an outcry from the public on every occasion a murderer is convicted of a particularly heinous crime and escapes the gallows, while another murderer (whose crime does not repel the public quite so much) is hanged? This would be a most undesirable state of affairs, but who can doubt it will happen? Can we not hear the arguments already?"
  The letter ends by saying that, rather than have such a Bill, it would have been better not to have had a Bill at all.
  It has been argued time and again by some people who are in favour of the
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  retention of the death penalty that it acts as a deterrent, but we have to take note of the fact that since last August, when the last execution took place—
  Mr. Ede: Last August twelve months.
  Miss Bacon:—August, 1955, when the last execution took place—in fact the opposite has been the case. There have been fewer murders rather than more murders. A great deal has been said about public opinion. It has been said that the Government must keep in line with public opinion. I have had not a great many but a number of letters since I decided to introduce my Private Member's Bill, and I must say that the letters which I have received from the public are not so much on the question of deterrence as on the question of vengeance—a life for a life. I think that if we were to take note of public opinion in this matter we should have to take note of it in that way.
  The Government have rejected this and have based their case on what they call public safety. They have said that we must try to deter the man who attempts to commit a theft and is armed while doing it, but I believe that much the better way than hanging a man who indulges in armed robbery is to impose a much greater penalty on a man who is found in possession of arms. That would be a much better method than hoping that the Bill will be a deterrent.
  I should like to ask right hon. and hon. Members opposite, is hanging to continue or is hanging to be abolished? In talking to some hon. Members opposite who agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne when he introduced his original Bill, I have had the impression that they believe that the last execution has taken place. It almost leads one to believe that the Government have in some way assured them privately that that is so. If it is so, I think we ought to know, because the Government seem either to be deceiving some of their followers in this matter or deceiving the country. The House ought to know the truth.
  There is no need for me to say more, because this subject has been debated time and time again, but I believe that instead of this Bill we should have a new and clear Bill which gives us total abolition. Not only would the House of Commons

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  be reasserting its will in passing such a Bill, but we should be taking a further step towards making this a civilised country.
  5.34 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Kirk: As a number of hon. Members have reminded the House, it is a little under a year since this part of the controversy first started. In the course of that twelve months, the House of Commons has probably spent more time on abolition than on almost any other subject—even more than on Suez; yet, although I have very strong and definite views on this problem, this is the first time I have addressed the House upon it. That is something of an advantage in a controversy where, inevitably, not a few people have had to eat their words. It is pleasant not to have any words to have to eat.
  The hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) pointed out that nothing new could be said on this occasion. He is absolutely right. Indeed. I think that when the debate first started a year ago, nothing new could then be said. All the facts and arguments were known, everybody knew them and nearly everybody's mind was then made up.
  I do not intend to make yet another speech on the rights and wrongs of this very difficult problem, nor shall I try to justify any action which I may have taken or any action which I may have failed to take in the Division Lobbies in the course of this controversy. Qui s'excuse, s'accuse is probably the best motto for a politician, and it is one to which I intend to adhere rigidly on this occasion.
  For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to abolish capital punishment. I should like to see abolition brought about in this country now. I will be frank on the subject: I would much rather that it did not have to be brought about through legislation, for I should have liked to see a wise and humane Home Secretary—there have been many, but none quite as wise and humane as I should have liked—who was prepared to do it through executive action. He would not have been able to say that he was doing it, as the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) pointed out to the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) when the latter was Home Secretary, but it has been
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  done in other countries. Belgium is the prime example of a country where the death penalty has never been officially abolished, and yet there has not been an execution for a hundred years.
  That, however, was not the attitude which the Government took on this occasion, nor was it the attitude which past Governments have taken on past occasions; and we have to take the situation as we find it today. The Government have produced this Bill. In many ways, it is a good Bill. The first part of it, I think, is excellent; it brings in reforms which I have wanted to see, as have many others. A very big step is taken along the road towards total abolition. That is something of which the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) would very much approve; although he would deny it, he is the only begetter of this Bill.
  We have advanced a very long way—75 per cent. of the way, I think it has been calculated, even on the basis that the Home Secretary is to proceed as former Home Secretaries have proceeded in the past, reprieving a certain number and hanging a certain number more. In view of the comment by the hon. Lady the Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon), I should say that I personally have received no assurances that there will be no further executions, although I very much hope that that will be the case.
  We have a Bill which is full of anomalies and of illogicalities and a Bill which quite clearly has not brought and could not bring this controversy to an end. Anyone who imagines that the last word has been said in the House or anywhere else on abolition is fooling himself. Certainly mine has not been said. Nevertheless, it is probably a good thing that after a year's intense debate and discussion there should be a breathing space of some kind to enable us to see exactly where we have reached.
  The argument has been used, and possibly it is a fair argument, that at this stage public opinion is not in line with total abolition. I think that may be true. I also think that if the Government's attitude had been different, that would not have mattered all that much, although there is a danger—one can see it—of the House getting too much out of

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  step with public opinion in matters of this kind.
  The only advantage which I can see in the Bill and the only reason I intend to vote for it is that progressive abolition of this kind gives us a better chance of bringing public opinion with us than does straight-out abolition. I do not say that that is a very strong argument, but I hope that that will be the development of the case. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who comes to his office with a great reputation as a reformer, will take note of the point which was made by the hon. Lady the Member for Leeds, South-East—that in the fifteen months or so since the last execution took place in this country the number of murders known to the police has declined, as indeed, I think it is fair to say, most of us who believe in abolition thought it would. I hope the Government will draw the requisite conclusion from that fact and that no executions will take place under the Bill. I do not know whether that will be the case or not, but I hope so.
  To my mind, it is a considerable step forward that we have reached the Third Reading of a Bill which at least three-quarters abolishes the death penalty. It is not the Bill which I should have liked to see. I shall vote for it with considerable reluctance. But because it is such a great advance, I feel that we can congratulate, not the Government, but the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne on his achievement in the House today.
  5.40 p.m.
  Mr. George Benson: I am afraid that I cannot agree with the hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk), who said that it would have been better to have proceeded by having a wise Home Secretary who would have reprieved everybody. To begin with, one has to have a wise Home Secretary and, after that, a continued series of wise Home Secretaries. I think that that is asking too much of this House on such a serious matter.
  The present Home Secretary—I shall not discuss his wisdom—said that the death penalty had been retained where it was uniquely effective. Such a statement as that is based on faith, not on evidence. There is not a shred of evidence, as every hon. Member who has studied the subject knows, to show that the presence or
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  absence of this penalty has the slightest effect on the homicide rate. It is not a matter of evidence that divides this House now. It is an emotional attitude. That is why we have very little hope of getting agreement at the present time. Argument has very little effect upon deep emotional reactions, except over a very considerable period of time.
  I am by no means satisfied with the Bill, but I am satisfied with the progress that we have made in the last nine years. We failed to abolish capital punishment when we carried an Amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill, very much against the wishes of the then Government. It was not the House of Lords that divided us then; it was the weakness of the Government, the division in the Government over this penalty.
  In 1949, we had the appointment of the Royal Commission, but that Commission, by its terms of reference, was excluded from considering the real crux of the problem—abolition. When we look at the attitude of that Labour Government we realise the difference in the present attitude of this one, as represented by this Bill, and I think we are perfectly entitled to be satisfied with the progress that has been made in the interval.
  This Measure does not give us all that we want. There have been various estimates of how much it does give us. Figures of 70 per cent. and 80 per cent have been mentioned, but the figure depends, to some extent, on the attitude of this Home Secretary and his successors. I do not think that any Home Secretary could cut down the legal hangings by three-quarters without using the Prerogative much more freely than it has been used in the past. It is probable that a reduction by five-sixths or nine-tenths will result.
  The Bill really retains little more than a symbolical gallows, and everyone knows that it is only a matter of time before the death penalty is abolished. Even if the hopes of my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) that the Home Secretary will reprieve everyone in future are not fulfilled, the death penalty will be abolished as soon as there is a political change. Everyone knows that. The position of the Home Secretary is rather an undignified one. He has had forced on him the undignified

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  rôle of Mrs. Partington and, as in the case of Mrs. Partington, inevitably the Atlantic will roll up.
  5.45 p.m.
  Commander Sir Peter Agnew: The Third Reading of this Bill is not the occasion to be tempted, even were it possible, to deploy long arguments in favour of retention or abolition of the death penalty. The House and the country have heard a very great deal about this in the last year, and when we part with this Measure, as we shall do today, and it goes to another place, both the House and the country will be fully aware of the views of hon. Members.
  I cannot help carrying my memory back to 1948–49, when the House of Commons on a free vote did, in fact, vote for complete abolition. I was one of those who then voted for abolition. Neither can I forget what was the sequel to the events of those two years. The Government of the day which, so far as the conduct of the Home Office is concerned, was, of course, in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), did not, so far as I am aware, make any attempt to follow up what the House of Commons had done. There was a temporary suspending of the death penalty, but after that the situation reverted to precisely what it had been before.
  Today the Government, a different Government, are accused by hon. Members opposite of having flouted the will of the House of Commons. I am bound to say that if they have been wrong this time to flout the view of this House on a free vote, the Labour Government previously set a very bad example.
  I am inclined to doubt the wisdom of ever having submitted such a vital point in the administration of law and order to a free vote of the House at all. Looking back over the years, I believe that the question of what shall be the supreme penalty for the most serious crime—except treason—that can be committed is the inescapable responsibility of the Government, and cannot be left to the decision of individual Members of Parliament, irrespective of whether or not they support the party charged with the responsibility of governing the country.
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  I know that it is common practice to say that the retention or abolition of the death penalty involves a matter of conscience. I do not deny that, but what I do deny is that the invoking of conscience is peculiar to the subject of the abolition or retention of the death penalty. Surely, the conscience of every hon. Member of this House is constantly invoked when he is considering his attitude to any Bill or Measure that may be brought forward. It is, therefore, an entirely false presentation of the position to say that the death penalty peculiarly contains the element of conscience.
  What is involved here in no way resembles that respect for conscience with regard to the taking of life which is recognised by the State in the provision that is made for a man to obtain complete exemption from military service if the tribunal set up to deal with such matters believes that he has a real, conscientious objection to the taking of life. That kind of respect for conscience, when considering this question, is quite falsely applied when brought into the arena of our deliberations here.
  I will not weary the House with anything like a personal oration as to what has caused me to change my view in the meantime. I might observe that it has taken a long time and, of course, I was returned as a Member to sit in this House only in 1955, after a fairly substantial interval; and it was indeed some time after it had been decided by the Government that a free vote should be given on a Motion as to whether the House was in favour of the abolition of the death penalty or against it.
  I have no hesitation in saying that I believe the Government got off to a wrong start. They should have considered at the outset what their responsibilities as the Administration were, and they should then have taken what they believed to be the right course, just as they must with regard to any other Bill which they submit for the consideration of the House.
  There is an over-riding question to which there can be only one answer when the evidence is taken into account. When I say that, I am glad to see in his place the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields who, in 1948 and 1949—
  Mr. Ede: I will go out if my presence embarrasses the hon. and gallant Gentleman's freedom of expression in any way.
  Sir P. Agnew: I am always glad to see the right hon. Gentleman in his place, and on this occasion his presence helps me in my argument, so that I have two reasons for being glad to see him here.
  It is not a strange coincidence that whoever is charged with the duties of Home Secretary and the responsibility for maintaining law and order, whatever his views may be before he takes that office, inevitably finds that, when charged with the duties of his office, he feels he cannot discharge his high responsibilities without retaining the supreme penalty for those who commit murder. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields himself has, I understand, since changed his own view now that he is no longer Home Secretary—I do not suggest it is because he is no longer Home Secretary—and he has fallen from that state of grace when he favoured the retention of the supreme penalty.
  The other example I have in mind is that of Major Lloyd-George who, in 1948 and 1949, to the best of my recollection, voted to abolish the death penalty but who, when he became Home Secretary, found that he ought to retain it in the interests of the preservation of law and order.
  If I may, I will for a moment weary the House by explaining what has been the chief factor which has governed my own change of view. It is precisely that consideration for those who have to undertake these weighty responsibilities. I believe, therefore, that the Bill is right in that it re-enacts the death penalty for the most grievous cases of murder, those where the murderer strikes at the very weapons and machinery which the State has for keeping law and order. It is right that the State should then strike back and show its hand in the strongest way possible. That I believe to be the purpose of the Bill.
  As regards the rest of the Bill or, rather, those categories of murder with which the Bill deals and for which it prescribes a lesser and not irrevocable penalty, I am very glad indeed that these reforms are to come about. I do not share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk) who suggests that this is but a quick step forward, which will very shortly be followed by another—the complete abolition of
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  the death penalty. I am glad to be able to support a Measure which is evidence that the Government and, as I believe will be shown, this House of Commons in 1957 believe that the state of our society is such that the death penalty can be swept away for a very large number of cases, and retained only for those most heinous crimes directed against the proper authority of the State itself.
  5.58 p.m.
  Dr. Horace King: The two first back bench speeches from the Government side illustrate the painful position in which the Government have placed their own loyal members if they are or have been abolitionists. The hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk) damned the Bill by the very faint praise he gave it. As for the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir P. Agnew), I gather from him that he has changed his own mind and that he was an abolitionist in 1947. That surely should put him out of court for teasing my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) for changing his opinions.
  I will leave the hon. and gallant Gentleman's criticisms of my right hon. Friend, as former Home Secretary, to my right hon. Friend who will, I hope, be taking part in the debate later on. On the constitutional issue, I would say simply that many of us on this side of the House do not hold the view that two wrongs make a right, that two floutings of the House of Commons by the House of Lords mutually justify each other. I believe that the House of Commons was wrong the first time it gave way to the House of Lords, and I believe that that is so in what is happening today.
  Third Reading debates are the occasion for tributes, and I should like to pay a very sincere tribute to my hon. Friend for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman). I do not see eye to eye with him on some things. I do not even see eye to eye with him in detail on the question of capital punishment. But I believe that the whole House will agree that, in his courage, his skill, his patience and tenacity in fighting this battle year after year, he has lived up to the best traditions of the great back benchers of the British House of Commons. Even the Bill this afternoon contains much for

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  which my hon. Friend can be congratulated and which derives from the fight that he has been putting up over these years. If this afternoon is a defeat, let him remember that Samuel Plimsoll, also a back bencher, was defeated again and again.
  I shall vote against the Bill and for the Amendment with some regret, with regret because the first part of the Bill is excellent. The reform of the law of murder is long overdue, and the reforms that are made in the law by Part I of the Bill have, I imagine, the wholehearted support of almost everybody in this House and of almost everybody in the country. I pay tribute to the legal experts, some of whom are sitting in this Chamber, who have taken part in making this really worthwhile reform in the law of murder that we find in Part I of the Bill.
  Part II of the Bill, however, as the Amendment says, flouts the express will of the House of Commons. We hear a lot of talk nowadays, sometimes on the radio and sometimes even by hon. Members of this House, regretting that most of the votes in this Chamber are tied by the party machines. People say that it is a pity hon. Members are not more free to vote as they like. Most of us agree on the necessity of the party system. We agree on the necessity for imposing party discipline, because Governments could not govern without it and the system of utterly free voting in the House of Commons would weaken the British system of Government, and because we are divided in this House according to two rival political philosophies.
  Capital punishment, however, is not a party question. Some Socialists believe in it, some Conservatives want to abolish it. When the House decided by its vote in the last Session to abolish capital punishment, that decision was, I think, as free and as unfettered as any decision that has ever taken place in the history of the House of Commons. I believe therefore, that the Government are really wrong when they use the machinery of government to dragoon this Bill through the House. If one required any evidence of that, it was to be found in the speech of the hon. Member for Gravesend, who regretfully explained why he would vote for the Bill. The Government must be making many of their supporters vote
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  against their sincerely and firmly held convictions and their expressed opinions, opinions to which they held most courageously on the Government side against all kinds of pressure in the days when we were debating the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne.
  We are told that we are doing this today in the name of compromise, and compromise is not a bad thing. Parliament exists on compromise. In this case, however, the compromise is not between the majority of opinion in the House of Commons and the minority of opinion in the House of Commons, but is, in my opinion, a compromise between the elected representatives of the people, on the one hand, and another place, on the other hand. If another place had not thrown out the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne in the last Session, this Bill today would never have existed and the first one would now be law.
  I do not believe in the second Chamber—at least, as at present constituted—and s a democrat I certainly do not believe in conceding anything to the vestige of power which remains with another place. Therefore, in so far as this Bill is a yielding of the House of Commons to the House of Lords, I am against it. For me, the House of Commons is the supreme authority and the Parliament Acts almost as precious as Magna Carta.
  The second reason for my opposition to the Bill is that it contains Clause 5. If the Bill had retained capital punishment for a group of murders selected on moral grounds, if it had selected, as the hon. and gallant Member for Worcestershire, South imagines that it does, the most heinous and hateful murders, today I think I could have supported it. I am not a fanatical abolitionist. I believe that there is room for compromise in moving to abolition by stages. My hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne may be right when he says that it is so extremely difficult to decide between kinds of murders that abolition is the only logical and satisfactory answer. But if there is a case for compromise, Clause 5 is the most ridiculous attempt imaginable to select a group of murders as the compromise group.
  Murder, according to Clause 5, becomes a capital offence on technical

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  grounds, not on grounds of moral turpitude. During the discussion on Clause 5, some of us tried to make it at least a little more morally defensible and I only wish that the former Attorney-General, the right hon. and learned Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald), had seen fit to press his Amendment on poisoning when we were discussing it, and had not left just four of us to support it.
  I do not believe that any hon. Member will be able to justify to his constituents a Bill which makes murder with a revolver capital, which puts in jeopardy the life of anyone who causes death by an explosion, no matter what the attendant circumstances may be, but which deliberately enacts that the most outrageous, brutal, cruel and vicious murder committed by any other method will not be capital.
  British people respect the law probably more than any other people in the world. I am sure that they will not be able to understand or to defend, and cannot possibly approve of, the Bill, even if there is anything in the theory that capital punishment is a unique deterrent—which I doubt—that will deter people, not from committing murder, but from using certain kinds of instruments when they commit murder. If the unique deterrent theory works, it will deter the murderer from shooting and instruct him to use an axe or a hammer or to poison or to strangle.
  For those two reasons—first, the constitutional reason, the fact that this Bill flouts the declared will of the House, and secondly, because it is a bad compromise in that it chooses for the retention of capital punishment a group of murders merely on technical and not on moral grounds—I shall vote for the Amendment.
  6.8 p.m.
  Mr. Nigel Fisher: Like other hon. Members who have spoken from both sides of the House this afternoon, I should like to pay my sincere tribute to the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), with whom I totally and profoundly disagree; I think I have listened to all his speeches in these debates over the last few years, and nobody in the House would disagree with me when I say that we all recognise his
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  complete sincerity and his very distinguished Parliamentary performance in advocating his beliefs. I should like to say that, because that is what we all feel.
  As, I think, the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) said—and certainly we would all agree on this too—there is absolutely nothing new that anyone can say this afternoon on this subject. We have all said it and listened to it on many occasions. Certainly, I do not want to deal with Part I of the Bill, which is much more suitable territory for a lawyer than for a layman, but I should like to try to answer shortly some of the points made by hon. Members opposite on Part II of the Bill, not on the aspect of the so-called bargain, of which I have no knowledge, but upon the merits of Part II itself.
  Part II, which is much the most controversial part of the Bill, is based, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said, upon the principle that the Government, and particularly, of course, the Home Secretary himself, have an inescapable public duty to maintain law and order in the land. The whole point of Part II of the Bill is to protect the public from violence by professional criminals and to maintain effectively the Queen's peace for her law-abiding subjects.
  It is that responsibility which rests fairly and squarely upon the Government, and it is that which justifies the Government in saying that the Whip should be on and that there should not be a free vote. This is a Government Bill and it enshrines what I believe to be the Government's duty to maintain law and order. It will be generally agreed, I should think, that law and order are threatened more, or, perhaps one should say, mainly, by the activities of the professional criminal, and one of the strongest arguments for the retention of the death penalty is the need to have a deterrent which will prevent such men from committing murder in the course of their other crimes.
  When the professional criminal goes out on a job he knows perfectly well that he risks imprisonment if he is caught. If he risks nothing else he may kill as well, if he is surprised in his act of robbery it seems to me he may think it worth while to kill in order to avoid recognition or capture, provided that in so doing he risks nothing more than a longer prison sentence than that which he would

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  have got in any case for his robbery. If he risks his own neck it becomes another matter. The risk of a prison sentence is an ordinary occupational risk of the burglar, but the risk of hanging is not a normal risk at all. It is a risk which very few criminals in this country think it worth while to take, and it is because of that that they do not carry arms.
  I remember a case—I was going to say a story, but the word "story" has a rather more light-hearted connotation so soon after a speech of one of my right hon. Friends the other night—a quite serious case which actually occurred of a criminal apprehended by the police while he was in the course of his crime. There was some large blunt instrument—I forget what: a jemmy, or something like that—near at hand. The policeman said, "Why did you not use it on me? You might have got away with it." The man replied, "If I had, I might have killed you, and then I should have swung." That was an example of the deterrent value of the death penalty. It certainly had its effect on that man. It had a special and unique deterrent value in that case.
  That, in essence, is the reason and the justification, in my view, for Part II of the Bill. I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House will probably agree that the deterrent effect of the death penalty is likely to be far greater upon the professional criminal than upon what one may describe as the emotional murderer, and the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment supports that view. I shall not quote its Report at length. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Nelson and Come is familiar with it. In paragraph 61 it says that the evidence given by representatives of the police and the prison service was quite unanimous on the point.
  Mr. S. Silverman: It was, of course, completely contradicted by the evidence given by the police and prison officers in every abolitionist country.
  Mr. Fisher: That may be, but the hon. Gentleman has often called in aid the findings of the Royal Commission himself, and the Royal Commission reported that in this country, which, after all, is the country with which we are concerned, the police and prison officers were entirely and unanimously convinced
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  of the deterrent value of capital punishment in its effect upon the professional criminal.
  They thought that that was the reason why criminals do not generally carry firearms and other weapons in this country. They thought that if there were no capital punishment criminals would take to using violence and to carrying weapons, and that the police, who now are unarmed, might be compelled to retaliate. No one wants the police to carry arms, least of all the police themselves. Nevertheless, the Government are under a duty and obligation to protect their own servants and especially, I think, the police, whose work necessarily brings them into contact with the criminal classes.
  There is also the duty upon the Government to protect the public, people like the cashier and the shopkeeper and the night-watchman and the ordinary householder—indeed, the passer-by who may, unwittingly and unwillingly, be involved in violence ensuing upon a smash and grab raid upon a jeweller's shop. Those people are entitled to protection. Some of them by virtue of the sort of jobs they do come into proximity with and special danger from criminals.
  If we abolish the death penalty for murder by professional criminals, then a larger number of them will carry arms and the number of crimes they commit will increase, and the risks to the public will increase also. Surely, if we have to choose between a risk to a criminal and a risk to the public, there should be no doubt which we should choose.
  Some hon. Members—I think the hon. Member for Rossendale is one of them—take the view that this Bill is illogical. I do not agree. If the Bill sought to distinguish between one type of murder and another on grounds of heinousness, which the hon. Member for Itchen (Dr. King), who spoke just before me, rather favoured, then it would have been impossible to draft and impossible to justify, but it does no such thing. It is designed as a deterrent to the professional criminal and as a protection to the public.
  I submit that it succeeds on both counts. It keeps the death penalty for crimes which are pre-eminently crimes against law and order. Crimes involving shooting or explosion, by their very

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  nature, because they are so indiscriminate and can kill other people who have nothing whatever to do with the commission or prevention of the offence, are crimes which obviously fall into that category. It is true that crimes such as murder in the course of rape or murder by poisoning are often much more awful, far more heinous. However, that is not the test we are trying to adopt.
  If we were to include them in the Bill we should import into the Bill a completely new principle, the principle of moral revulsion. There is a great deal to be said for that principle. Many arguments about it have been advanced by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) and my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies). There is a great deal to be said for that principle, but it has nothing to do with this Bill.
  We could not draft a Bill which sought such a line of demarcation, if we were actuated by that principle. If we were to change the basis of the Bill we should find it quite impossible to classify a murder as capital or non-capital, because we really cannot distinguish or even attempt to distinguish by Act of Parliament between murders which are more reprehensible and those which are less reprehensible. Therefore, I take the view that we must either abolish capital punishment altogether, which is the point of view, and the perfectly understandable and reasonable point of view, of most hon. Gentlemen opposite, or follow the only other alternative. I think the basis of this Bill is the only alternative to complete abolition.
  As a retentionist, I believe this Bill is both useful and necessary as a protection to the public and as a deterrent to the professional criminal, and from what I have been able to ascertain from my own constituency I should say the public as a whole would rather have this Bill than complete abolition. I believe they are right in that view.
  6.18 p.m.
  Mr. J. Grimond: The hon. Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher) argued that the Bill makes a distinction between murders which, he says, the Bill regards as offences against law and order and other murders. Personally I find it very difficult to maintain that distinction, but whether it be
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  possible or not it is not the only distinction made in this Bill. One distinction made in this Bill is between murders done with certain weapons and murders done with other weapons, and that has nothing to do with whether they are done in the course of a breach of law and order or not.
  It has been suggested that the Bill is a compromise. It is a compromise, if it is one at all, between two totally incompatible things. Whether one believes in abolition or not, it has been pointed out again and again that such a compromise is impossible. But the Bill is not a compromise at all. It is a Bill for the suppression of the Death Penalty (Abolition) Bill which was introduced by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman). We all know that that is the object. No one is better fitted to defend the Bill than the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, but he will find it very difficult indeed to tell his colleagues on the Bench and at the Bar that this is a perfectly simple Bill and that it is easily defensible on grounds of principle, and a logical compromise on abolition which will present no difficulties in administration. If the Bill is a compromise it is a curious compromise between right and wrong and between totally differing views.
  The main argument put forward today is that a special deterrent is necessary in cases where public order is involved. Like all arguments connected with the death penalty, the argument about deterrence is very difficult. I believe that there is no conclusive evidence one way or another as to whether the death penalty is a supreme deterrent or not.
  The best argument that I know for capital punishment as a deterrent was from a slightly gloomy voice which I heard at a public meeting that I addressed. When I asked whom capital punishment deterred, a voice called out, "It deters one man from doing it twice." That is perfectly true, but apart from that, it is difficult to know whether there is any real evidence of its value as a deterrent or not. I know that many judges have said that it deters criminals from carrying revolvers, but we also know that prison officers and others have said that that is doubtful.
  If capital punishment is a deterrent, then logically we should go further.

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  Torture would be an effective deterrent. The cropping of ears and branding would be effective. We revolted from those things and I believe that we have now reached a stage where most people revolt from this cold-blooded judicial hanging of people in the circumstances read out by the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood). As the question of deterrence is extremely doubtful, we must surely come to the conclusion, even on this narrow point which I admit is the best point that can be put forward for the retention of capital punishment, that on balance the death penalty is not defensible.
  The police deserve all aid and sympathy in their difficult task, but I am not convinced that it is a good thing to put them in a special position. I know that the Bill does not in fact do that, as I believe the Joint Under-Secretary is indicating, but many of the arguments used in defence of the Bill are put forward on the ground that it would put the police in a special position.
  I come then to the view put forward by the Home Secretary, that it is impossible to make a distinction in moral guilt between one murder and another. I agree that it is extremely difficult, and that is one reason why I believe that we must have total abolition. But if we are to attempt to maintain the death penalty in any way, we must sustain it on some feeling on the part of the public that it is justifiable. People must feel that where it is applied there must be some moral justification. But there is no moral justification for hanging a man because he committed a murder with one weapon rather than another. I do not feel passionately about poisoning. I am not sure if I were to be murdered that I would not prefer to be quietly poisoned rather than be battered to death with a blunt instrument. Nevertheless, there is strong public feeling against poisoners, and if poisoners are not to suffer the extreme penalty while those who shoot their victims are to do so, the ordinary public will not understand what we are about and the Home Secretary will find himself in an impossible position.
  Some argue that the death penalty is now in effect being abolished and no one will be hanged again. I hope that that is the case, but if that really is at the back
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  of the minds of those who support the Bill, they had much better abolish capital punishment out and out.
  Passing from the merits of capital punishment to the merits of the Government's handling of the Bill, I must say that that also seems to have been illogical. When the matter was first raised, the Government decided that the House should have a free vote. If they felt so strongly about the maintenance of law and order and the necessity of the death penalty, that was the moment when they should have told the House that we must maintain the penalty because the police require it. On the contrary. the House was allowed a free vote and now that vote is being reversed by the Government. The position now is that the House can have a free vote as long as it votes the way the Government wants it to do. That seems to be a new constitutional doctrine against which some protest should be made.
  I make no complaint of the behaviour of the other place. Indeed, I rely implicitly upon the other place to throw out this Bill as well as the previous one. I look forward to that with some pleasure. I hope many people who are against a Second Chamber will then be converted to the necessity of having one—one with rather eccentric and dogmatic views. But if the other place does not do that, this controversy will rumble on every time a crime is committed in which the penalty might be enforced. The Home Secretary will be put in an unenviable position. There will be all the unpleasant excitement in the public Press. Eventually, I have no doubt whatever, the death penalty will be abolished. But I do not think that history will look back on the handling of these two Bills and say that the Government of the day acquitted themselves with either any courage or any logic.
  6.29 p.m.
  Mr. Alan Green: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk), I have no words to eat on this controversy as far as the House is concerned. I hope that the few which I propose to speak today will not later provide me with a very unpalatable meal. I have some sympahty with the hon. Member for Itchen (Dr. King) because,

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  like him, I have not left myself passionately engaged on either flank of this discussion. My reason has strongly told me that it was high time that the country made a move forward in the matter of the law relating to murder, and I have not been convinced that the death penalty is a unique deterrent. Consequently, I welcome the provision for the removal of the death penalty in certain cases.
  I find that helpful to myself, and I imagine that it matches a growing mood in the country in the consideration of this matter. But, because I have not had passionate convictions one way or another, I have had to take into consideration, as other hon. Members have had to do, one other aspect of the matter. I have found it impossible altogether to separate considerations of public morality from considerations of public security.
  The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) spent some time today considering that very point. I cannot go along with him to his conclusions at all. I believe that the majority of our people still hold strongly to the view that without the retention of the death penalty in some form, even if only for a limited area of crime, they themselves will feel insecure.
  Many may say, and indeed have said, that this is purely a feeling founded on prejudice, on irrational fear, and has nothing to do with the stream of modern thought. It may be claimed that, because such a feeling is mainly prejudice, the Government should disregard it and should govern in spite of unpopularity. That view, too, has been expressed this afternoon. Well, let us take that view, of doing the unpopular thing, a thought that must always command respect in this House, I am sure. If a Government ceases to do the unpopular thing, it quickly ceases to be a Government. I have two observations to make on it. The first is that we must not claim that it is right to do the unpopular thing in one sphere and yet in another sphere we may only take action if we have a mandate. Yet we do have that very contradictory argument coming occasionally from certain hon. Members.
  Mr. S. Silverman: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for interrupting, I am afraid that he has not appreciated the point. What we have said to the Govern-
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  ment is, "You can deal with this question on the basis of what you believe to be right, hoping that you can persuade public opinion to follow, or you can deal with this matter on the basis of what public opinion will stand, hoping that some day it will learn better." What the Government are doing is something for which they have no popular mandate, which the public will never be able to understand, and which is wrong anyhow.
  Mr. Green: I follow the argument of the hon. Gentleman, but it was not quite the argument I was putting. I suggest that the Government, out of a long-continuing and often expressed public opinion on this matter, have acted on a majority opinion. After all, I believe it is still the majority public opinion that the retention of capital punishment should continue, even if it is only just so. Certainly I found that in my own constituency.
  Mr. Silverman: But it is not.
  Mr. Green: Nevertheless it is a view which has not been suddenly produced. It has been held consistently by the public for a very long time, and in a matter of that kind I believe the Government are justified in claiming that, in order to keep the public feeling secure and thereby advance public morality, they must retain capital punishment. It is upon those grounds, and those grounds alone, that I voted for a group of Amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) at an earlier stage when we were discussing the Death Penalty (Abolition) Bill. Because I held those views, I found it much easier than perhaps many other hon. Members do in this House to welcome this Bill more wholeheartedly than they have been able to do.
  I agree with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that we cannot expect this Measure to be rapturously received by passionate believers in either retention or total abolition. However, I believe it will have a much better welcome in the country than has so far been suggested here today. I have not personally had any public comeback in my constituency about the terms and provisions of this Bill as yet. I believe it to be a move forward in the right direction. Incidentally, I also have no knowledge of any special bargain entered into on this

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  matter. Then why should I? I voted for Amendments to the previous Bill. Because it is a step forward I welcome this Bill, and I believe that the public generally, retaining its feeling of security, will be the more ready to consider in an equable frame of mind any further reforms that we may wish to propose.
  6.35 p.m.
  Mr. A. Fenner Brockway: I apologise to the hon. Member for Preston, South (Mr. Green) if I do not follow his argument. I do so the more readily because I want to apologise to all the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who have preceded me for not following their arguments either.
  During the discussions on this Measure and the preceding one we have debated ad nauseam questions of retribution, reform, deterrence, different types of murder, whether the Government have the duty to act according to current popular opinion or to stand out against it. I feel impelled on the Third Reading of this Bill to make a short contribution to the debate, not on those theoretical points, not on the points which matter in individual cases, but from a personal experience I have undergone. I suppose that I am the only Member of Parliament who has been serving sentences in British jails when men have been hanged. It is from that experience I want to speak on the Third Reading of this Measure before it is adopted.
  I have been in English prisons when three men have been hanged. I was in one on the eve of the execution of another prisoner. The first of those prisoners was Sir Roger Casement. Whatever may be said about him now, he contributed during the period of his public service greatly to the humanitarian advance of the territories over which he had administration. I believe that even the sentence which brought him to death resulted from deep and sincere conviction. Whether the subsequent charges brought against Sir Roger Casement were true or not, I gathered from a glimpse of him which I had in Pentonville Prison on the eve of his execution that he was not an evil man.
  I was in my cell and I heard steps outside. I stood on my stool and looked from the window. There was Sir Roger Casement, in the only place of loveliness
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  in that prison, a little garden of hollyhocks and other flowers, looking at the sunset for the last time. As he did it, one could see that his spirit and his personality became united with the infinite beauty of that scene. In my view, when this country executed Sir Roger Casement the next morning it was committing a crime against the very deepest things of the spirit, whatever his reputation may have been.
  But it is not of one individual that I wish to speak. I was among those prisoners in the days before Sir Roger Casement was executed. It is universally accepted now that the purpose of sending men to prison is not merely retribution and not merely deterrence, but reform. I know nothing which can be more dehumanising to men in prison than the expectation of an execution in their midst. During those days before the execution of Sir Roger Casement there was only one subject among the prisoners in Pentonville Prison—would Sir Roger be hanged? Indeed, in the currency of prison, there was betting in terms not of money but of tobacco as to whether he would be hanged or not. The report came to us that prisoners had been sent to clean the scaffold, and immediately the odds went up.
  What I am saying is that if our purpose is to reform and to humanise people who break our law, there could be no more de-humanising atmosphere in which they can be imprisoned than in the circumstances which precede an execution.
  I was in prison on three other occasions when men were executed, and I want to speak for a moment or two of the effects upon not only the prisoners but the staff. First, the prisoners. It is not merely the effect which I have described in Pentonville Prison. In the case of the ordinary public when an execution takes place there is a morbid, nervous excitement. In some there is a rather vicious looking towards the event. I ask hon. Members to try to visualise what it is like in the circumstances of a prison cell when normal interests and normal life are far away, and where one may spend hours —eighteen hours in normal conditions in the days when I was in prison—shut in a cell. At the centre of the prison, where the halls converge like the radii of a circle, one has a consciousness that a man

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  is to die in a week —in three days—in one day.
  In those circumstances, it is inevitable that there should he a nervous tension, a neurosis. One has only to ask any prison officer. The effort to control a prison population before an execution is inevitably far more difficult than in normal periods. In our own experience of normal life outside prison, we know the deterioration of moral opinion which precedes an execution. The deterioration is far greater in prison circumstances where the man to be executed is near at hand.
  I want now to speak more particularly from the point of view of the staff. It has been urged more than once during these discussions that prison officers are opposed to the abolition of the death penalty. I can only say that that is far from my own experience, and I have served hard labour sentences in seven English prisons.
  I remember one occasion when I was in hospital. It was in one of the larger cells where one had a bed. The hours of solitary confinement had come. To my astonishment, the key turned in the door and the chief warder entered. He said, "Are you all right, Brockway?" I said, "Yes, Sir." Then, to my astonishment, that elderly man, with long experience in the prison service, broke down and cried.
  I said to him, "What is the matter?" He replied, "Tomorrow I have to accompany a man"—he gave me the name of the man —"when he goes to the scaffold. I have been in charge of him for three weeks. He has revealed his very inner soul to me. I feel that he is now almost my son; but tomorrow on the scaffold I shall have to undo his shirt so that the doctor can judge whether he is dead or alive. Because that man has told me all that is in his mind and all the reasons that led to his crime, I feel as if he were my son; and yet that is my duty tomorrow morning."
  I think of two chaplains in prison, an Anglican chaplain and a Roman Catholic chaplain, intensely sincere and sensitive, so following the Master of their religion that they made the sins of others their own and carried them in their bearing and in their life. When those two men were to be called to an execution the
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  following day they were ill, and they were ill for days after the execution.
  I would say to hon. Members tonight that we have no right to give a vote in the House for the continuation of the death penalty unless we ourselves are prepared to carry out the duties which the death penalty involves. Are we prepared to set the scaffold in order? Are we prepared, within a few days of his execution, to be looking after a man sentenced to death. No one who has been in prison preceding or during an execution can forget the experience or can really believe that in civilised times the death penalty should be maintained.
  6.50 p.m.
  Mr. Nigel Nicolson: The attention with which the House listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) showed how deeply he moved us with his personal experiences of prison and his closeness to the death cell. I do not think that anybody would resent the fact that he has put his personal dramatic style of oratory to this use, because we all feel somewhere in us that hanging is wrong. We feel it in different degrees, and according to our feeling we have decided that this is the time, or that this is not the time, to do away with capital punishment. But we all share something of what the hon. Member has put to us so passionately.
  I share it particularly strongly myself. Ever since I have been in the House, throughout these debates I have raised my voice in favour of total abolition. Up to this moment I have voted consistently with the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman). I could agree without any hesitation whatever to the last part of the last sentence of his Amendment, that
  …the death penalty for murder no longer accords with the needs or the true interests of a civilised society."
  Yet I shall not vote for the Amendment, and I shall vote for the Bill.
  Why is that? In the closing passages of the speech with which he opened the debate from the other side of the House. the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) reproached some hon. Members on this side of the House who, he seemed to suggest, were in some way guilty of betraying the cause and

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  selling the pass to the retentionists. In my contribution to the debate I wish to repel that charge and to give my personal reason why I may appear to have come round half-way towards meeting the retentionist case, in the same way as the retentionists have come half-way towards meeting the abolitionist case. I can give my reason in one sentence. I believe that it is better to approach abolition in two steps with public approval than in one step without it.
  Mr. S. Silverman: Does the hon. Member really believe that the Government have a mandate for the Bill, or that the public would support it if it knew what was in it?
  Mr. Nicolson: I agree with the hon. Member that the public is not particularly interested in the Bill, and that it was very interested in his Bill. In a later part of my speech I shall say that I do not believe that the Bill can be defended on grounds of logic.
  Mr. Silverman: I would not have ventured to interrupt the hon. Member but for the sentence which immediately preceded my interruption. He then said that it was better to go halfway with public opinion. I ask him whether he thinks that the Bill goes half way, and whether he thinks that public opinion is behind it.
  Mr. Nicolson: I think that it has been the experience of us all—it certainly has been mine—that there has been no public outcry against the Bill. I have not received one letter protesting against it. Is it not true that the results of our yearlong debate has been a movement towards abolition? This is part of the hon. Member's personal triumph; do not let him belittle what he has achieved. The public has become increasingly abolitionist—but it is not yet wholly abolitionist. Therefore, I believe that it is better, at this moment, to bring forward a Bill which partly meets the case of the abolitionists and partly that of the retentionists.
  We should have some regard for public feeling on this subject. I do not think it would be right for the House to take decisions which were completely divorced from feelings in the country. Naturally, we must have the courage to maintain a point of view in which we sincerely
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  believe, but in the ultimate resort it is right that what we do here should have the support of public opinion, otherwise I do not know what is the meaning of democracy.
  I want to try to draw a constitutional distinction in regard to the proper attitude of a Member of Parliament towards his constituents, which is a matter upon which I have been thinking a great deal in recent days. If I advance the view that a Member of Parliament should be guided to some extent by what his constituents think, I am sure that the House will not attribute it to cowardice—because in another regard and upon another occasion. quite recently, I have given proof of my conviction that in certain circumstances a Member of Parliament should follow the course that he believes to be right, even in defiance of the wishes of a -large number of his closest supporters.
  In the case of a sudden decision, such as we all had to take in connection with the Suez incident, it is not possible to consult those who sent us here to represent them; indeed, they sent us here to make up our own minds upon the basis of our own judgment and in the light of the information which is in many cases available to us alone in virtue of our membership of Parliament. They would not wish us, on such occasions, to be guided solely by the opinions, however strong, which they happen to hold themselves. But in a question like capital punishment, which has been argued endlessly, upon which facts have been available to every man and woman in the country for years, where there is no urgency, and which has been the subject of debate after debate inside and outside Parliament, I believe that it is the wish of the public that what the House does should bear a fairly close relationship to what the public feels.
  Until the last moment I felt that it was right to advance my own view, which was passionately abolitionist, because I was simply pressing an argument. I was saying to my colleagues in the House, and, indirectly, to those who sent me here, that I thought that abolition was right in their interests. I was attempting to persuade them. I was changing nothing, because we had not come to the final decision. We came to that final decision after the hon. Member's Bill had gone to the House of Lords and had been

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  rejected by that Chamber. If we had passed the same Bill again, after it had once been to the Lords, the Lords would have had no chance to repeat their rejection. In other words, what we did in this House on that final occasion would have been something which no other power in the land could reverse. It was a final act; it was no longer pure argument.
  Mr. Silverman: Does the hon. Member really say that he was yielding to the House of Lords what he was denying to his constituents?
  Mr. Nicolson: No. that is not my argument. My argument is that after the hon. Member's Bill had been rejected by the House of Lords and had come back to this House, our decision at that moment was an utterly final one. It was at that moment that we should have ceased to think of ourselves as putting forward a ease. and begun to think of ourselves as the legislators whose decision at that moment was irrevocable.
  But should we have ignored what went on in another place? Some hon. Members have spoken of the debate in the House of Lords as if it were a hammer dropped by some careless stage hand behind the scenes; a noise which had no relevance whatever to the main debate and drama enacted in this Chamber. That is not the function of the House of Lords. The House of Lords' debate fulfilled two very essential purposes. One was to indicate to the world that there was still strong feeling among many men of mature judgment that total abolition was wrong. The other was to indicate that there was a very strong movement towards abolition. In my opinion. the House of Lords fairly summed up the stage which public opinion had reached at that moment in regard to this question, and I think that it is right that we should have listened to it. The Government listened to it—
  Mr. Frederick Willey: Would the hon. Gentleman allow me to interrupt, because I have considerable difficulty in following his argument and should like to appreciate it. Surely we knew the views of the House of Lords, because they had expressed their views in 1948. What we learned when they expressed themselves that second time was that, within the House of Lords, there was
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  a move, as the hon. Gentleman has said. towards abolition. Why should that factor induce the hon. Member to change his mind on the question of capital punishment?
  Mr. Nicolson: I have not changed my mind on capital punishment. I started my speech by saying that I am still passionately an abolitionist. What I have done is to decide that at the moment when my decision became irrevocable. namely, when the House of Lords could have no further say on the subject, it would be right to be guided by public opinion. The Government made exactly the same decision. They did not apply the three-line Whip on retention and forbid us to vote as our conscience dictated. They, too, took note of public opinion and they produced a Bill which, when I first saw it. I thought would be rejected by the retentionists. I had far less difficulty in accepting it myself, because it admitted a principle, and it seemed to me that it admitted the probability that, sooner or later, we should have total abolition in this country. I hope that when we have it it will be brought about by a Conservative Government.
  Why was it—and this is the final question that I wish to investigate—that public opinion was so strongly opposed to abolition? I think that it is because people were frightened by the innumerable speeches which had been made in both Houses by those who knew the facts warning the country that if we were to abolish the death sentence there would be a great increase in murders.
  There is no doubt at all that when the Home Secretary and spokesmen for the police and for the prison warders said that, in their opinion, there would be a great leap forward in the murder rate if the death penalty were abolished, simple people, old and young, who perhaps had no access to facts on which to base a personal judgment, believed those authoritative spokesmen.
  Mr. Cyril Osborne: Only simple people?
  Mr. Nicolson: Of course not only simple people. but particularly simple people. So we had this surge of fear in the constituencies that people would be in imminent danger if capital punishment were abolished, and we were right to

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  listen to that view. Perhaps with the passage of this Bill the fear will be allayed because, for the first time, we shall have some proof that it was unjustified. We shall have proved that if, when we abolish the death sentence for poisoners and for those who commit rape with murder, those two particularly horrible crimes do not increase. We may even have proof—and I hope we will—to the opposite effect, that they will decrease. Once there is tangible evidence of that sort which can be laid before the public in regard to this country and not merely to other countries which have been through exactly the same process of trial, I think we shall be able to move with safety and confidence, and with the approval of the entire nation, towards the final stage of total abolition, which I hope to see while I am still a Member of this House.
  7.5 p.m.
  Dr. Barnett Stross: It gives me very great pleasure in being able to follow the hon. Member for Bournemouth. East and Christchurch (Mr. N. Nicolson). He should have no fears as to what hon. Members on both sides of the House think about him with reference to his attitude. We understand his feelings, and no one could ever accuse him of cowardice. I am perfectly sure.
  At the same time, somewhat lightheartedly, I must commiserate with him that he represents a division where such feeling was brought against him and compare it with a division like my own where, indeed, it was not manifest, and, still lightheartedly, I wonder why that should be, because my constituents are, in the main, poor people and his are not.
  I have often compared my own constituency with the hon. Member's, because his is so fortunately placed. It has no subsidence problem; it does not live on a field of coal; its people are often very well educated, very happy, and have had many opportunities in life; and yet they attacked him so viciously in pursuit of what, I think, he was doing quite rightly as a Member of this House. I admire very much the stand which he put up, and so, I think, does every Member of the House.
  Some very remarkable speeches have been made this evening, and I do not intend to keep the House long. As my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and
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  Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) is not in his place at the moment, it gives me an opportunity to say that I also would like to pay tribute and offer my admiration for the way in which he has pursued his views and for his remarkable skill as a Parliamentarian.
  The Home Secretary's speech was, I think, one of the most dignified and remarkable speeches that I have ever heard, in the way in which it was phrased and how it revealed in one way and disguised in another the Home Secretary's thoughts. It was quite apparent that he was showing, as' clearly as could be, yet hiding his thoughts in words, that he is himself an abolitionist—as strong an abolitionist as the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch, and perhaps almost as strong an abolitionist as I am myself. It was a remarkable performance, and I am not decrying it in the least.
  I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) will agree that the Home Secretary did manifest to us that, if he could have had his way, in all sincerity he would have said, "I too am an abolitionist, but I am also the Home Secretary."
  Mr. Anthony Greenwood: I am not quite sure.
  Dr. Stross: My hon. Friend is not quite sure because, perhaps, he thinks that he was giving way to the clamour of a certain party when he was, as it were, in the Chair. That may well be. All the arguments which have been adduced so far—and I am sure they have all been adduced—have been debated throughout the country for a long time. The convictions and opinions which we have expressed from this side of the House leave me to have no hesitation whatever in supporting the Amendment.
  There is only one other reason that affects my mind and which is perhaps not often put forward, and in this I may be absolutely wrong, because I cannot prove that it is true. I remember that when I first read a phrase of Goethe's I wondered what he meant. He declared that all guilt had to be expiated on earth, and he meant in this world here on this earth. As I grew older I began to have a little better understanding, although it is quite impossible fully to understand it. I have come to the conclusion that, like many other

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  thinkers, poets and great religious teachers, he thought that there is a real reason why we should live on earth, that it is not fortuitous or accidental, and it is a very important thing to be attached to a human body, this animal thing with which we clothe ourselves for a time, and that the experience we come to gain, whether we come once or many times, is utterly valid and utterly necessary to us.
  If that be the case, when we judicially kill a man, because he has himself been a killer, we rob him of his opportunity of repentance, for it is doubtful whether a man can repent in the grave. However horribly a man as an individual has sinned against a fellow man, to take from him his chance to repent, his opportunity in tears and in prayer to expiate his guilt, is something which I strongly believe to be wrong. I sincerely hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne is correct and that we shall never again, as collective society, in cold blood take a man's life.
  I am quite satisfied that the act of hanging is not a painful or cruel business in itself as an act, although the attendant circumstances are rather horrible. A few weeks ago, a colleague of ours was bludgeoned in the streets. This afternoon he told me that he felt no pain whatsoever and was not even in pain when he found himself conscious again and lying in the gutter. I myself was once left for dead, and the blow which struck and almost killed me was not at all a painful matter—a flash of slight surprise and annoyance, and then darkness and apparent sleep.
  I am not worried about the Act as such but that we do not give a man a chance to feel bitterly, sadly, and for a long time what a dreadful thing he has done. If we never have another hanging, that will make me and many millions of people in this country very much happier.
  7.13 p.m.
  Dr. Reginald Bennett: I have listened with great interest and respect to those hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross), whose speeches have displayed the deep and conscientious repugnance felt by so many hon. Members towards the capital penalty. Those of us who in various ways have contact with death are bound
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  to be appalled by it in whatever circumstances it happens.
  I myself have taken no part in any of the debates in the last year on this subject. I last spoke on it when we debated the Report of the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment. I think that Sir Basil Nield and I made the only two back bench speeches which were on the Report and not on abolition as such. At that time I said, and I say again, that whatever one's qualms and feelings, one cannot agree with the complete abolitionist point of view.
  I do not have strong feelings on the subject. I am not ferociously antagonistic towards the abolitionists, neither am I upset by some of the manifestations of the other extreme. In fact, it would ill become anybody who practises mental medicine to have violent feelings of that sort. However, I must say that whatever one's squeamishness and whatever one's feelings about death, especially death which is imposed, they must be subordinated to the need to preserve the community, as the community understands that need at any given time.
  Therefore, I hope that I am a moderate, although I am a retentionist and I am not ashamed to say so. The Bill meets with remarkable success the beliefs and strongly, sincerely held opinions of Members and those they represent from either flank of opinion, as well as those like myself who are very much in the middle. The Government deserve credit, which they will no doubt receive, for having steered such a tricky path to such a compromise between violently held opinions.
  It has been said that the country does not welcome the Bill nor feel antagonistic towards it. The Bill has been passing through the House in circumstances of remarkable calm, especially when the manifestations of earlier debates are remembered. It was then most deplorable that people should have given rein to their emotions on a matter where, more than any other under the sun, we needed dispassionate judgment.
  We have here a Bill which very much meets points on which it was absolutely necessary that we should bring our attitudes up to date. I have no doubt that everybody will agree that the existing practices of our capital punishment and trials for murder are hopelessly out

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  of date. A wealth of expression has been delivered in the House about the macabre ceremonial meted out to everybody who has inflicted death—meted out in the sure knowledge that nothing is to come of it, or nothing very much. That is so out of date that we must welcome the change which removes that anomaly and keeps the death sentence for certain forms of murder for which we had to retain it.
  I do not need to repeat arguments and to say how impossible would be the position of policemen and other guardians of the peace—and prison officers—if there were no further penalty for one convicted of murder should he wish to murder one of his guards, or those temporarily in charge of him. That would be an absurdity and it is a difficulty upon which the abolitionists have failed to convince me that their views are sound.
  The provisions in the Bill which come closest to my own earlier professional interests are those for diminished responsibility. I think that has been one of the most difficult things, and I suspect that it will remain one of the most difficult things, which the courts of law have to face. Here I have to say that I have considerable unease in mind about Clause 2, an unease which was set forth clearly in The Times yesterday by a learned colleague who has great experience in forensic psychiatry. He pointed out that if we have a reduced verdict to manslaughter automatically on proof of diminished responsibility, then we are having a new code on which the courts will have to decide these matters which is simultaneously in existence and in conflict with the code which has not been abolished in the M'Naghten Rules. We have, in fact, a double mechanism for deciding the same thing. We have the M'Naghten Rules and Clause 2 about diminished responsibility.
  What puzzles me, and what I feel that the courts in future will be extremely baffled by, unless clarification is provided, is which of these mechanisms is to be invoked in murder trials. I am not saying this in any mischievous sense; I honestly do not see this to be applicable. If there is a prima facie—as I think the legal gentlemen say—abnormality of mind, does a charge of murder still stand? Or if it is evident from unopposed medical evidence before a trial comes to
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  pass that the prisoner's mental condition was in other ways deranged, does the indictment drop to that of manslaughter or is it maintained? If there is a charge of murder, am I right in understanding that the outcome of the charge must be either that the prisoner was unfit to plead on arraignment—that he was guilty or not guilty or that he was guilty but insane—or is there the further alternative, when the charge is murder, that he is guilty of manslaughter? Or does he really go for trial on a charge of manslaughter to which he could be guilty or not guilty? I do not think that is clear.
  The difficulty that is really much greater is the one of deciding on what basis and to what degree there is irresponsibility. The provision in Clause 2, as is known, is whether the accused
  … was suffering from such abnormality of mind (whether arising from a condition of arrested Or retarded development of mind or any inherent causes or induced by disease or injury) as substantially impaired his mental responsibility for his acts and omissions.…"
  Against that we have the M'Naghten Rules, which, as I remember them, are whether the accused was suffering at the time from such a defect of mind as to be unable to appreciate the nature of his act or the fact that it was wrong.
  What I want to put to my hon. and learned Friend is this: which of these two standards comes first? Is there a priority, that one of them is to be applied first and then the other, and if so, which? Does one supersede the other? May I assume, may we all assume, that in future in cases of homicide there will be no consideration of the M'Naghten Rules which we all know are an incredibly awkward Procrustean bed on which these things have to be judged? Can the Secretary of State explain in debate, or can there be perhaps a change in drafting in another place which will make clear what is to be the criterion by which these cases have to be judged in respect of defect of mind or diminished responsibility? I do not think it is clear as it is. I feel that it will have to be made more clear for the sake of the people who will have to act on this Bill when it becomes law.
  Mr. Montgomery Hyde: Does not my hon. Friend appreciate that there is nothing in the Bill which abrogates the M'Naghten Rules, and that, in practice, if a man or

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  a woman is found guilty but insane, he or she would be sent to Broadmoor? If they were found guilty of manslaughter, presumably, they would go to the psychopathic institution which is being built.
  Dr. Bennett: With respect, I think that my hon. Friend has put his finger on the great difficulty which is that of disposal. If I am not mistaken, if a person is found guilty of manslaughter. there could be little purpose in sending the offender to a psychopathic institution, as is the practice in Denmark. Psychopathic institutions of this sort are not likely to prove effective if the term for which the offender is sentenced is a finite one, so that he knows, whatever he does in the hospital or institution, that he will get out on the same date irrespective of his behaviour. I do not believe that the East Herbert Institution now being built is likely to be effective or give anything like the results that the Herstedvester Institution in Denmark is giving, unless we are prepared to agree that for curative purposes the mentally afflicted offender must be sent to such an institution for an indefinite sentence with the varying degrees of probation that will follow it as his rehabilitation becomes more complete.
  That is the problem. I would not bother about this matter, were it just a matter of the letter of the law, and the disposal of the offender were the same no matter which of these two codes apply. But it makes a difference, because, as my hon. Friend says, if the M'Naghten Rules apply, a man found to be suffering from a defect of reason will go to Broadmoor which is automatically an indefinite sentence. If, however, his defect of mind—for all I know it may be the same defect —is found to be one which justifies a sentence for manslaughter, he will go down for, I think, seven years; and there will be no consideration of any treatment for his mental state except such as is incidental to an ordinary term of imprisonment.
  That is the dilemma which struck my psychiatric friend when he wrote that letter in The Times, and it is a dilemma which struck me all of a heap when I read the letter yesterday. It is one which I think we need to have explained for the good of the offenders who will be sentenced in the future and, of course, for the guidance of people who work in trying to rehabilitate criminals, even those who have committed murder.
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  Apart from that dilemma which I see there. I welcome the Bill. I hope it will received a speedy passage and be translated into law very quickly, because I know that after that has been done the country will be greatly relieved to find that such a constructive effort and one requiring so much thought has at last been made.
  7.28 p.m.
  Mr. Frederick Willey: May I follow the good precedent of the hon. Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) and speak with moderation and also give him the satisfaction of knowing that I thoroughly agree with him when he says that in this Bill the Government have followed a tricky path. Were I not speaking under this self-imposed restraint. I should be tempted to say that they have followed a very slippery path.
  I wish to take the opportunity, while speaking with moderation, to say that I respect and have always respected—I have taken part in innumerable debates on this subject—the sincerity of those who believe in the retention of capital punishment. In fact, this is one of the difficulties. If these principles had not been held with such stubborn sincerity, we might have made more rapid progress. Sincerity alone is not always a good guide. It sometimes leads to a too-conservative outlook on many things. Nevertheless, I recognise at once that hon. Members opposite, particularly those who passionately support capital punishment, speak with real sincerity.
  I join with my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) in paying tribute to the Home Secretary, who I thought spoke today with an attractive, philosophic approach to the problem. This is indeed essentially a philosophic matter. Capital punishment itself is a squalid, sordid thing. One has to resort to realms of philosophy to justify it. I do not at all complain about the Home Secretary taking this philosophic approach, for I am amongst those who hope that he will have time, and will encourage the Joint Under-Secretary of State, for whom I also have hope, to devote his attention to the general question of penal reform. It is time that we looked again at the high hopes we had at the time of the Criminal Justice Act.

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  Speaking in this conciliatory way, I also concede that the Bill is doing many good, constructive things about the law of murder. I do not take quite the critical view of it which my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) took. Many of the points raised by the hon. Member for Gosport and Fareham are Committee points, but I will give him this consolation: it would not have helped him at all if he had raised them in Committee, because unfortunately the Government refused to listen to anything in Committee. It is believed by those who are best informed that the Government had good reason to have deaf ears to all the entreaties made to them. Nevertheless, it is unfortunate that on a non-party matter, such as the law of murder, the Government were not more amenable to the different points of view expressed. I can only hope that the hon. Member for Gosport and Fareham has friends in another place where the atmosphere may be more conducive to the acceptance of Amendments and that the points which he has raised will be considered there more constructively.
  I must oppose the Third Reading. The reason, frankly, is that the Bill retains capital punishment. I concede that it limits the sphere of capital punishment and of capital murders, but the complaint which has been made, and which is justified, is that it does so on very technical grounds; and if we are considering the question of capital punishment, it is offensive to consider its infliction being determined on technical grounds.
  I will take one simple illustration— the question of shooting as a manner of murder. It is ridiculous to try to distinguish murders by such a test. I challenge the Under-Secretary of State to produce the figures. There is a false impression that a large proportion of the murders by shooting are murders of police officers, but that is not so at all. A large number of such murders are of husband or wife. I suspect a class bias here, and I am surprised that no one has spoken for the poor harassed squirearchy. The fact that a murder has been committed by shooting does not indicate that it is premeditated. A gun has very often been the nearest available lethal
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  weapon, just as in other circumstances a hammer has been the nearest weapon. It will be impossible when the Bill becomes law to differentiate between murders in this way because there will be contemporaneous murders, one perhaps by shooting and one by hitting somebody on the head with a hammer. In both cases the lethal weapon used will have been the nearest available weapon at the time of the murder.
  Dr. Bennett: We all greatly appreciate the rare constraint which the hon. Member is employing today. It is greatly to be welcomed. But apart from the rare occasions when an old shooting gun is handled, is not the whole point about the provisions concerning shooting that of eliminating the carrying of pistols, guns and other pocket firearms, which are the weapons, far more than any other. with which murders are committed?
  Mr. Willey: I appreciate that point of view, and it is the point which the Government have in mind. I could have understood it if we had had a definition in the Bill limiting murder by shooting in that way.
  The other category of murder by shooting to which I would refer in passing is that by members of the Forces. It so happens that they have the means of killing by shooting, but this does not mean that it is a ground for differentiating such a murder from murders which are committed by other methods.
  My principal objection to the tricky course, to accept the hon. Member's description, which the Government are taking is that this is an offensive disregard of the House of Commons. I do not want to make an unfair point about Party Whips. for I appreciate that the party in office is in a different position from the party in Opposition. But this is an important matter to the House of Commons. This was an occasion on which the House of Commons expressed its point of view. Most hon. Members have felt at one time or another that the party machines are carrying us too far. We all get instructions and directions about voting, on each side of the House, which carry party loyalty to ridiculous lengths. We vote by party loyalty about matters on which it is ridiculous to imagine that there are any party points of view. I believe we have

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  reached the stage in Committee where the party machines have been making nonsense of free and constructive debate. It is a myth and an undesirable fiction that all the pervading political wisdom is somewhere in the inner realms of the party machine.
  Here was something which we could not avoid noticing. We could not avoid the obligation of standing up for the House of Commons. Here was an occasion on which the Government expressly allowed the House of Commons to determine what our point of view should be. I appreciate at once that hon. Members on the Government side of the House are in a more difficult position than we on this side of the House, but this is a very important point in Parliamentary history. It is no good any of us talking outside about how we believe that Members of Parliament should assert the rights of the House against the rights of the Government of the day, or even the Opposition, if we then allow those rights to go by default. I have no high hopes of what may happen in the Division, but I ask those who, for perhaps very good reasons, feel that they cannot be consistent in the expression of view which they made previously, to realise that it is unfortunate that this damages the House of Commons itself.
  I think this was important constitutionally, because the House on this occasion expressed a point of view for the people we represent. I have never taken the view, perhaps arrogantly, that a Member is only a delegate. If we took that point of view, I think, if I may say so without offence, that we could make progress only very slowly indeed. I think that the House of Commons, particularly in matters such as this, should be in advance of public opinion.
  It is part of our job as politicians to have a feeling for what is in advance of public opinion. It is true that if we go too far in advance we shall probably prejudice our own position here, but it is unreal to think that all we have to do is to reflect outside opinion. However, whether or not that be so, it was understood that, when we took our decision on capital punishment, we were endeavouring to express the view of the country as a whole. Once more, I say that it is derogatory now to go back on that decision, having once taken it.
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  Therefore, on these broad grounds, I feel that we are taking not only a tricky, but an unfortunate course tonight.
  Coming more directly to the question of limited retention, I do not know on what authority or information my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne alleges that there is an understanding that in any case capital punishment will not be inflicted. All I can say is that I have no such information.
  For the second time, and for quite a considerable period, we have, in effect, had abolition. I do not know whether, when the Home Secretary and his predecessor have repeatedly stated that they have decided each case on its merits, we can infer that, in fact, capital punishment is abolished for all practical purposes. I can see that being so, and I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will assure us on it.
  I want to emphasise this point because we recently had a judge, whom we all knew and respected as a Member of this House, calling attention to a particular murder. He did that. I assume, with the express purpose of calling the attention of the Home Secretary and of the public to this case—because the Home Secretary, very properly, has repeatedly stated that he is expressing the views of the public on this subject. This is one of the reasons that we have this Bill before us now. In that case we have had a reprieve, so I think that we are entitled to some assurance from the Under-Secretary about the present exercise of the prerogative.
  Quite apart from the argument, or the allegation, of my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne, we have to follow precedent if we re-establish liability to capital punishment. However, allowing for that, what we in this House are now doing is, for all practical purposes, to re-introduce capital punishment. Disregarding the free decision of the House, I should have thought that there was a very heavy burden on the Government before they took such a step. but no evidence at all has been produced.
  For what it was worth, I held a meeting in my constituency on this problem, although I would not for one moment say that that necessarily represented the view of my constituency as a whole. But what steps have the Government taken to satisfy themselves that there is this desire to bring to an end the present

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  suspension of capital punishment or, if we look at it in another way, to bring to an end the experiment of an abolition of capital punishment? It was for that reason that I, mentioned this recent case.
  As far as I am aware, the decision in that case met with no response from the less responsible, sensational newspapers, which have a very good way of knowing what improves the sales of their newspapers. It has not been regarded as a matter in which there is any very real, "live" public interest. I should have thought that the first burden on the Government was to say that there had been this pressure. If they rely on the second ground, that there had been pressure on them from within the Parliamentary wing of the Conservative Party. I would say that we were up against the argument that I was previously deploying; that it would be wrong, for that reason, to use the party machine to upset a majority view of this House.
  Furthermore, there is this very heavy responsibility on the Government. I feel that the major, the cardinal objection to capital punishment today is that it marks the approbation of violence. When the State invokes capital punishment it is patently resorting to violence, and this is aggravated by the attendant publicity. This is something which is contrary to the whole development and growth of western civilisation.
  What we have so far succeeded in doing is progressively to limit the scope of violence, and I should have thought that the Government would have been most reluctant to have approbated violence, to have put their seal on it, and that they would have been somewhat discomforted that, in this regard, we are out of step with two European countries which have come back into the comity of Western European civilisation, countries which have had a very marked experience of violence in recent years.
  Both Western Germany and Italy have been able to abolish the death penalty. That is why I emphasise this point of approbation of violence. Again, unless there had been a clamour, unless the Government had produced overwhelming evidence to show that public order would deteriorate, I think that they were obliged to continue the suspension, or to have
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  said, "We have continued the suspension sufficiently long to decide that capital punishment may now go."
  There is a second, broad, general factor which arises and it is, again, an essential part of our progress and development as a civilised community in the Western world. That factor is the position of the individual. If one wished, one could argue philosophically that it is difficult to regard the death penalty as a punishment. I do not want to go into such philosophic fields, but certainly it is a very decisive way of dealing with an individual. Just as in Western Europe we have developed by limiting the field of violence, just as those countries which lapsed recently into violence have now abolished capital punishment, so in the Western world we have developed by placing greater and greater emphasis on the individual. This is as essential to democracy as majority rule: in fact. without the two, majority rule itself can be a pretty rough way of dealing with people.
  Again, our consideration of the individual is inherent in the issue on capital punishment. One can argue—as I say, I accept the sincerity of those who argue for capital punishment—that capital punishment is such a great deterrent that, deciding the matter in individual terms, because it deters others from committing murders, the overriding interest of the individual is served by its retention. But I cannot see how one can argue that with any force when we reduce the scope of capital crimes to such narrow limits, and without showing that during the period of suspension there has been an increase in murders. We all know that the contrary is the case, although we do not argue anything positive from it; we can at least say that the evidence is neutral. On those two broad grounds, the Government are ill advised. They have not thought sufficiently philosophically in restoring capital punishment.
  I wish to say a few words now about another matter which I have discussed before in Committee, about which I feel very strongly and about which I am repeatedly surprised that I do not get the support of more lawyers. I do not like and have never liked the wide exercise of the Royal Prerogative. I regard it as most offensive that the question of life or death should be decided by executive

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  action, that the decision of a court about capital punishment should be upset or altered by executive action.
  Mr. S. Silverman: Is not the real difficulty that in practice the exercise of the Royal Prerogative has become a method of preventing the law from operating in cases where the Home Secretary advises the Crown that it would be unjust for it to operate? But if the law were so constructed as to make all proper distinctions itself, there would, would there not, still be room for the exercise of the Prerogative of Mercy on the basis that mercy starts where justice leaves off?
  Mr. Willey: I thoroughly agree. I am much obliged to my hon. Friend. I think it is implicit in what he has said and I was going on to add that if we have to concede that we must rely upon the Prerogative of Mercy, then we must say that the stage has been reached where capital punishment ought to be abolished.
  Mr. Silverman: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Willey: What is the position which would obtain when the Bill becomes law, when one out of forty-eight murderers will be liable to capital punishment? What an extraordinarily difficult thing, is it not, to say that out of forty-eight murderers one is liable to be executed? What are the criteria? They cannot be the criteria laid down in the Bill. Obviously, it would be quite offensive to suggest that these criteria should decide that one murderer out of forty-eight should be executed.
  As has already been pointed out, we may, as a result of the Bill, have four executions a year. Is it really worth while to retain capital punishment to secure this end? What an invidious position the Home Secretary will be in in determining this issue of life and death. As against the one case which is brought before him, we shall know that there have been forty-seven other murderers in other varying circumstances.
  I would say quite directly to the Under-Secretary, Why on earth do the Government want to start hanging people? What purpose will it serve? Why can we not continue the suspension which has operated without embarrassment to the right hon. Gentleman or his predecessor? Why should the House of Commons and Parliament not express its view now, when we all know—it has
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  been made quite clear during the debate today—that within a short time, at any rate, the question of capital punishment will be settled once and for all by its abolition? What a dreadful responsibility meanwhile to place upon the Home Secretary to ask him to decide, in four cases a year at most, whether capital punishment should be inflicted.
  I hope that we shall have, from the Home Secretary or from the Under-Secretary, a reply that the action of the Home Secretary during the past eighteen months means that it is inconceivable that any circumstances will arise in the future which will lead to the infliction of capital punishment again.
  7.56 p.m.
  Mr. Cyril Osborne: It would be only fair that at least the voice of one retentionist should be heard. I claim the same sincerity as is claimed by hon. Gentlemen opposite who take exactly the opposite view. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Sunderland. North (Mr. Willey) has just said that he calculates there will be about four executions a year under the present proposed Bill.
  Mr. S. Silverman: Much less.
  Mr. Osborne: Let us take his figure as an example. If I believe and if, as I think, the vast majority of people outside this House believe—[Interruption.] I am merely stating my case, and I am just as entitled to state it and just as likely to be wrong as hon. Gentlemen opposite.
  Believing, with the vast majority of people outside this House, that capital punishment does act as a deterrent, I believe, therefore, that if those four executions referred to will save four innocent persons' lives they will be abundantly justified.
  Sir Frederick Messer: Just because the hon. Gentleman believes it.
  Mr. Osborne: No one can say one way or another. That has been accepted on both sides of the House. I am as entitled to take my view as is the hon. Gentleman the Member for Tottenham (Sir F. Messer). If I may be allowed to say so, the point of view of hon. Gentlemen opposite has been put at great length, and someone should be allowed to put my point of view.
  Mr. S. Silverman: I am sure that the whole House will support the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) in what is a very modest and reasonable claim. I will not detain him very long, but I should like him to make clear that he proposes to vote against the Bill. He says that he believes in retaining capital punishment, and if the Bill gives him four, that is all very well; but I would remind him that if the Bill is defeated he will get twelve executions a year. Why, then, does he want to vote for such a Bill?
  Mr. Osborne: As I said to the hon Gentleman the Member for Nelson and Colne the other day, if life were a matter of sheer logic and we were ruled by logic—
  Mr. Silverman: The hon. Member for Louth would not be here.
  Mr. Osborne: —the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne would not speak again for twenty years. If there were fair shares of voice in this House, he would be effectively gagged for the rest of his life.
  I make no apology for putting my point of view. I hold my opinion and other hon. Members have theirs. In the coming years, the very opposite of what hon. Gentlemen expect to happen will, in the event, happen. I believe that we shall have to reintroduce more punishments. I believe that men who do wrong should be punished in varying degrees; and this tendency—
  Mr. Leslie Hale Mr. Leslie Hale (Oldham, West) rose—
  Mr. Osborne: Will the hon. Gentleman please allow me to make my statement? This tendency to say that we should send these criminals to psychiatrists or do this, that or the other in varying kinds of crime is being carried much too far. Therefore, I support the Bill because I think it is a compromise. It is a half-way house. It is better than the Silverman Bill, because I believe that that went far too far. I believe that we who favour retention have sacrificed a good deal in this Bill, as much as hon. Members who are abolitionists feel that they too have sacrificed a good deal in which they believe.
  No one could have heard the speech of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) without being deeply moved by his personal experiences and the beautiful language in which he put
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  his point of view, especially on the case of Sir Roger Casement. It could not leave any of us unmoved when lie talked about the spirit of that man being, as it were, merged with the beauty of the garden and the loveliness of the sunset; and on that he pleaded for all murderers.
  But all men who are subject to capital punishment are not similar men to Sir Roger Casement; they are not similar characters and do not have similar backgrounds. For some of the foulest of foul murders which have been committed, capital punishment is, I think, amply justified. Therefore, to compare all murderers. however vile they may have been, with Casement is not an equal comparison. Neither do I accept that because it may have been that Casement was not properly treated the same justice should therefore be done to others.
  Mr. W. R. Williams: The hon. Member referred very feelingly to the fine speech delivered by my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway). Would the hon. Member like to face up to the challenge of my hon. Friend in asking who in this House would take on the duties of executioner? Would the hon. Member take them on?
  Mr. Osborne: I am prepared to answer that, if the hon. Member will allow me to make my speech.
  The hon. Member for Eton and Slough was himself a prisoner. I was never that, but for a number of years I was a regular prison visitor. There is a difference, I know, between the two—I could come out when I had done my work—but there is this much in common. I remember that the first time I went into a prison as a visitor to do my voluntary work, I wondered as the doors were locked behind me as I went in whether I would come out, and I was very relieved and grateful when they were opened for me as I came out.
  This is what hon. Members opposite have to face over the challenge of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough. They say that they would abolish capital punishment and put in its place a life sentence —a real life sentence, not a phoney one but one that is for life. Would the hon. Member himself like to have a young man who has committed the crime of murder and himself have to inflict on that young

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  man, life imprisonment, remembering the moving terms used by the hon. Member for Eton and Slough about the staff officer who came and sobbed in his cell because after only three weeks the prisoner had revealed to that officer his very soul and he felt that he was his own son? How would the hon. Member feel if he had to look after a man, not for three weeks or three years, but for thirty years or sixty years? Would he like that job?
  Mr. W. R. Williams: It seems to me to be an old-fashioned trick, when one cannot answer the question, to ask a series of other questions. Before I attempt to answer the hon. Member, will he answer my very simple question to him on the challenge by my hon. Friend to every Member of the House? Would hon. Members accept the responsibility of being executioners at any of these executions'? Will the hon. Member answer that?
  Mr. Osborne: Of course I would not, and I say it frankly—but there are many jobs I would not care to accept. The hon. Member and his colleagues must face their alternative, the one they want to impose, for I have heard it said in this House time after time by hon. Members on both sides that the alternative to hanging was life imprisonment; and by "life" they have said not ten or fifteen years but for ever and ever.
  Hon. Members: Who said it?
  Sir F. Messer: We do not all say that.
  Mr. Osborne: I have heard one hon. Member say that he would allow them to rot and rot and rot. [HON. MEMBERS: "Who?"] An abolitionist. If hon. Members ask those of us who are retentionists whether we are prepared to carry out the policy we advocate, I ask them to look at the alternative and to answer that question for themselves.
  There is no proof as to whether capital punishment acts as a deterrent, but I think that it does. Therefore, I am speaking for those who believe as I do and for the innocent people outside who have said to me, many times, that the abolitionists are much too bothered about the people who do wrong rather than about those who do right and get murdered. I find that a very difficult point to answer.
  People have many times said to me, "Nobody seems to bother about us and
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  the risks that we run. You let these men come out loose and they may commit a second crime and I may be the victim. What protection do you give me? "And so it is because this is a half-way Measure, a compromise, a typical English compromise, that I support the Bill.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. N. Nicolson) made, I thought, a good speech in a difficult position in stating his case. He said—I want to put this to hon. Members opposite who take a different view from myself—that this was half-way to total abolition and he hoped that there would be another Bill later which would complete abolition. He spoke about the poisoner and the murderer after rape being excluded and said that experience would show that that type of murder would decrease in number and, therefore, justify the fact that capital punishment was not being applied in those two cases.
  What I wanted to put to my hon. Friend had he still been present is this. Supposing experience shows, after the Bill has been passed, that those two awful types of murder increase, will he and the abolitionists agree to bring back capital punishment for those two cases? Are they prepared to do that? They ought to be, because my hon. Friend will claim the support of subsequent figures if they suit his case and it is fair for those of us who are retentionists to ask that hon. Members should face the possibility that they may be wrong. If experience proves that murder by poison and murder with rape increase, then in logic—and it was logic to which the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) appealed—hon. Members should agree that capital punishment should be restored for those two cases.
  Mr. Arthur Moyle: If the murder rate falls following the operation of the Bill when it becomes law, would the hon. Member be prepared to support abolition?
  Mr. Osborne: If over a period it fell to such an extent that I thought it was conclusive, of course I would. Is that fair enough?
  Mr. Moyle: That is fair enough.
  Mr. Osborne: Now, may I have the same from the leaders of the abolitionists? Will the hon. Member get up and give the same undertaking now?
  Mr. Moyle: I say at once that, basing myself upon the evidence that is before me, provided by those appointed to examine it, the evidence is definitely in favour of abolition. My own personal experience of a murder trial strengthens my unqualified conviction that the sooner we get rid of the death penalty the better for us and for civilisation generally.
  Mr. Osborne: The hon. Gentleman knows that I have a great regard for his character and his honesty. He has not answered my question. He has funked it. Will he please give me the same sort of straightforward answer as I gave to him? If the evidence in the next ten years is that there are more murders of the kind which are to be no longer punished by the death penalty, will he then vote for the reimposition of capital punishment?
  Mr. Moyle: My reply is very definite, that I would not in any way depart from my conviction that it is morally wrong to inflict death upon another individual.
  Mr. Osborne: Then the abolitionists want it both ways. If the evidence suits them they will accept it and will bind me to accept it, but if the evidence subsequent to the passage of this Bill into law, if the evidence which is the result of this Bill's becoming law, does not prove their theories, they will close their minds to the evidence. That makes me all the more a retentionist. I am rather surprised at the hon. Member for Oldbury and Halesowen (Mr. Moyle). I thought he had more courage.
  Mr. Hale: The hon. Member refused a few moments ago to give way to me, and yet he has frequently since then invited other people to interrupt him. Perhaps he will allow me to do so now. I hope to have the good fortune to catch the eye of the Chair later, and if I do I should like to deal with these remarks, and, therefore, I should like to understand them. I remember the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) as a highly respected local preacher. How are all those principles of the local preacher applied to this question, the principle of the doctrine of forgiveness, for instance? How does the hon. Member relate the concept of the Fatherhood of God to his talk about the lowest of the low and scum who have no hope of redemption? How does all that talk conform to the hon. Member's principles?
  Mr. Osborne: HANSARD will record that I did not speak of the "lowest of the low" or that I used the expression "scum."
  Mr. Hale: "Foulest of the foul" then.
  Mr. Charles Royle: The hon. Member certainly used words like those.
  Mr. Osborne: I am saying that punishment must be imposed in certain circumstances for certain crimes: There can be no justice without ultimate punishment. That is perfectly true. I believe that deeply. I understand that hon. Gentlemen opposite feel just as deeply the other way and would like to abolish capital punishment.
  Mr. Royle: Is the hon. Member taking upon himself to be the person to decide what the punishment should be and who should be punished?
  Mr. Osborne: No. As a good democrat I am prepared to allow the majority of the people of the country to decide. In my opinion, the majority of the people of this country would retain capital punishment, and that is a fair justification in a free Parliament of my view.
  Since I know that there are other hon. Members wishing to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I shall finish by saying that this Bill does not retain as much capital punishment as I should like, but that since it is a compromise and since both sides of the House will accept it, I shall support it tonight.
  8.13 p.m.
  Mr. Charles Royle: I am glad to have the opportunity to follow the hon. Gentleman the Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne), and I hope that I shall be able to deal with the arguments he has submitted. and show how diametrically we are opposed to each other on this issue. I rise to support the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman): a reasoned Amendment we call it. and I am quite sure that "reasoned" is the right description of it.
  I am a completely unrepentant, fanatical abolitionist, and that is where the hon. Gentleman the Member for Louth and I are completely at difference. It has been written, I think by Mr. Christopher Hollis, who was a Member

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  of this House, that only nine people at present members of this House have consistently, on every occasion when the opportunity has presented itself, recorded their votes for abolition. We have done so certainly ever since 1948, when the Labour Government allowed a free vote in the House upon this question. This House then decided to abolish the death penalty. That decision was written into a Bill which went to another place and came back without that provision in it. Everybody was worried by the multitude of Amendments. There were so many that it was difficult to know what we were doing. The Government of the day—I say it to their shame, and to my own. since it was a Labour Government—employed the party vote again. In spite of that, some of us held on to our conviction that the death penalty should go, and we held on to it in every one of those Divisions.
  We have held on to it ever since, throughout the debates and Divisions upon the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne to abolish the death penalty. We have held on to it until this moment. I think there are three of us who are sitting on this side of the House at the moment—certainly my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) and I, and, I think, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale).—[Interruption.] Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West was not one of us? There are only two of us in the House now of that honoured nine. I have no regret at standing here upon this issue at this moment. We nine loyalists have something to be proud of.
  I see the hon. Member for Louth is looking at his watch. I know he wants his dinner very much—and I want mine. He need not stay to hear my reply to him. I shall not take it amiss if he goes away to dinner. I should not like him to starve.
  I have been much concerned today by the speeches of the hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk) and the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. N. Nicolson). I do hope that when the hon. Gentleman the Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Hyde) catches your eye, Sir, as I hope he will, he will not take the line of his two hon. Friends. With the deepest possible
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  respect and gratitude for the line those two hon. Members took during the passage of the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne to abolish the death penalty, with thirty or forty other hon. Members on their side of the House, also, I must say that I think they are letting us down a little tonight. I feel they might have stood by the abolitionists in spite of the party Whips. 'They might have done so on an occasion like this. I could not help but feel that those two hon. Gentlemen trimmed their speeches tonight to support the Third Reading of the Bill.
  It has been said, even amongst my hon. Friends, as it was by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Louth and those two other hon. Gentlemen opposite to whom I have referred, that the Bill is a corn-promise, that it is half a loaf, and that half a loaf is better than no bread. I do not agree at all. Let us consider some of the things the Bill will do when it becomes an Act, if it becomes an Act. After another place has finished with it I do not know what will become of it.
  I wonder if the general public realise that the worst of the cold, calculating poisoners will not suffer the death penalty but that a woman like Ruth Ellis, who, in an impassioned moment, shot her lover, will suffer the death penalty. If we could go all the way to abolition for poisoners, why on earth could we not go all the way to abolition in such cases as the Ruth Ellis case?
  In thinking about this half-loaf of a Bill I have grave fears. I feel, with many other hon. Members who have spoken today, that without this Bill and without the Death Penalty (Abolition) Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Come the death penalty would have gone completely. I feel even now that there is a real chance that the last execution has taken place in this country. The last one was in August, 1955, and I feel that never again will the executioner be brought in. That certainly would be the position if the Bill did not become an Act of Parliament, even allowing for the fact that my hon. Friend's Bill did become an Act.
  The danger that I see is that with the Bill as it stands, with the retention of capital punishment for certain murders, some day some Home Secretary—I do not think the present one—might see a case

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  of a murder which has been committed by one whom the hon. Member for Louth would call one of the "foulest of the foul." The Home Secretary might say, "This is a real bad lot. Let us show the people that the death penalty has not gone, and in the blessed name of deterrence hang him, I do not think that it would be the present Home Secretary who would do that, but goodness knows who one of his successors might be, and that line might be adopted. If it is, it will not be deterrence, it will be reprisal and retribution.
  What of the half-loaf? In the course of the Amendment we on this side of the House refer to an affront to constitutional propriety. There has been a real affront The House in 1948 and again last Session carried through all its stages and through a Third Reading a Bill for complete abolition of the death penalty. I suggest that we are not using too strong words in the Amendment when we speak of an affront to constitutional propriety, particularly when we remember what the present Home Secretary said at the commencement of the debates on my hon. Friend's Bill and the assurances that he gave the House at that time.
  Thus, it happens that the Government have ratted on the House, and again that is not too strong a word. They have taken much more notice of another place than of a free vote in the House of Commons. This House has been badly let down and what was a splendid thoroughbred, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne, has turned out to be a shocking mongrel in the hands of the Government.
  I am perturbed particularly about one aspect. The Bill makes it permissible to impose and carry out the death sentence on people aged 21. I was a member of the Standing Committee which discussed the Criminal Justice Act, 1938, at great length. We decided then that we would not even imprison people under 21, except in special circumstances which were laid down. It is a fact that, throughout the work of the courts, people of 21 and under, except for a few cases, are not sent to prison. Yet, by passing this Bill, we are now deciding that a boy can be hanged for the horrible crime that he has committed.
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  I wonder what the view of the House is on the whole question of redemption. The word has been used once or twice today by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey). I am very concerned about that word. It is regarded in a different light by different Members. Some of us have very deep religious feelings. Others have a moral attitude to life that does not contain religious feelings. But there is just as much strength in that moral attitude as in the attitude of those of us who have deep religious feelings and, surely, in the minds of those people the word "redemption" is very important. It applies in particular to young people.
  In effect, we are saying by passing the Bill that there is no hope for a boy of 19 because he has committed a heinous crime and that we hang him or give ourselves the power to hang him. It is shocking that in this civilised age the House can lend itself to that kind of thing. We still profess to be a Christian country. I would have said to the hon. Member for Louth, had he still been in the Chamber, that if he has strong religious views, as I know he has, he must believe that there is an opportunity and a hope even in the case of the "foulest of the foul." I say with the deepest respect that if the hon. Member were to read his New Testament more carefully I am quite sure that he would come down on our side.
  During the very early stages of the debates last Session on the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne, a letter appeared in the Manchester Guardian in support of abolition. There appeared at the end of the letter one or two short sentences which to my mind are the very essence of the case. The writer said,
  "A man kills. It is a sin to kill. Therefore, the State kills."
  It is as simple as that to me. It is because I believe it as deeply as I can believe anything that I am a abolitionist. Because of that, and because I believe that by passing the Bill we shall at all events leave the opportunity for carrying out the death penalty, I support the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne.
  8.28 p.m.
  Sir Lionel Heald: In many continental countries they have a system of what is called the explanation of vote. Fortunately we do not have it in this country, because it means that after the Division has taken place a large number of people make the speeches they would have made if they had caught your opposite number's eye, Sir, and they explain why they took the line they did. In spite of that, it has been interesting today to hear from a number of hon. Members why they have taken the line they have taken or why they are changing the line they had taken. In my case, as I have taken a great interest in this matter but not, I hope, spoken too much, and certainly having heard most of what has been said over the last two years, perhaps I may be allowed to say a word or two about how I see the matter.
  I started with this conviction, which I have held always, that the State must retain to itself the ultimate power, the ultimate sanction of life and death. As I have said in this House previously, I feel that applies just as much to the law of murder as it does to war and peace. That is where I find myself differing fundamentally from the hon. Gentleman the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway). No one could help being deeply moved by his speech today and his account of his personal experience in connection with executions in prisons. We know, perfectly well, and it is a matter of great honour to the hon. Gentleman, why he has suffered in the way that he has.
  The argument of the hon. Gentleman against the death penalty is exactly the same as it is in the case of war. Without the least disrespect to him, one must have a sense of proportion in these matters. Everyone in this country is allowed to hold pacifist views, and to have certain privileges if he holds them, but let us think for a moment what that implies. I served in the Royal Engineers in the First World War and I was in the front line. I heard the argument, "What a terrible thing. There is a fine young man, although he is a German, standing 200 yards away with the sun shining on his bare hair. What a terrible thing that anyone should be asked to shoot him."
  That is perfectly true, but if everyone in the country took that view, where
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  would we be? Therefore, that is not a good argument. We are not a pacifist country. I do not believe that the country is prepared today—I see the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Royle) laughing. I do not know why he thinks it is funny.
  Mr. Royle: No.
  Sir L. Heald: The curious thing is that when some earnest people hear a contrary argument they think it can be treated with ridicule.
  Mr. Royle: I am very sorry that the right hon. and learned Gentleman thinks I was laughing at him. It would be the last thing I would think of doing. He has asked us the question, what would be the position if everybody had taken the line of not shooting? Obviously there would be no wars. Is that not a sensible answer?
  Sir L. Heald: It would be a nice thing if all the people in one country took it and not in another.
  Mr. Royle: All people.
  Sir L. Heald: I intend to proceed with my argument, as other hon. Members have had ample opportunity to put theirs. I was saying that an argument according to the religious, sentimental or moral point of view it is called many things— is really not an argument that should be considered in the present context, since we are proceeding upon the basis that we will retain the death penalty. The argument we are concerned with is in what circumstances it should be retained, and it is not right that our attention should be diverted from that argument by one which submits that there should be nothing of the kind in any circumstances.
  We started this controversy a long time ago now, as I have said, and I have maintained the view from the beginning that there must be retention. Yet I want to make it plain that I and a number of my hon. and learned Friends, friends outside the House as well as inside, and not in any way proceeding on party lines, approach the matter from this point of view—I should like hon. Members to realise it—from the point of view of reducing the number of cases in which the death penalty ought to be applied.

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  We said, rightly or wrongly, we thought we ought, so far as possible, to reduce the cases in which the death penalty was exacted to those in which there was a crime of the worst character. That is putting it in perfectly general language. It may be said that that creates a problem, but I mention it merely for the reason that we approach the matter not from the point of view of retention at all costs but from the point of view of reforming the law.
  As the result of that, a pamphlet called "Murder" was brought forward with the idea of improving the law. It is a great satisfaction to know—I speak modestly because I was merely the Chairman—that the recommendations of that Committee are substantially Part I of the Bill. Our feeling was, and my feeling still is, that that was the right way to approach the matter.
  Then the great controversies arose, and that aspect of the matter was submerged. Some hon. Members will remember that on the first occasion when we debated this matter that document, which very few people had read, was denounced in this House as being some sort of subterfuge to draw a red herring across the trail. Now that Part I of the Bill has been unanimously accepted, I hope we need not trouble ourselves with that any more.
  Then the Government found themselves in great difficulty. I took the view—I take it again tonight, and that is why shall vote as I intend to—that it was the duty of the Government to make a decision as to what should be done.—I always took the view—I never concealed it—that it was wrong to have a free vote on the matter. I have taken the view, and I continue to take it, that in a matter of this kind it is the duty of the Government to decide what should be the law and what should be the penalty under the criminal law. That is a responsibility which should be abdicated to no one; it is the Government's duty to decide that. Indeed, the Government have now returned to that position and have proceeded to do so. That is a matter upon which I never changed my view.
  That is equally the reason why, now that the Government have arrived at that decision, I consider that it is my duty, as a supporter of the Government, to accept the decision of the Government
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  which I have already stated it is their duty to make. However, that does not alter the fact that I believe that the Government have made a mistake about the point at which they drew the line. If one is to have anything other than complete retention or complete abolition, one must draw the line somewhere. Even if we have only Part I of the Bill, we are drawing the line at a point different from that at which it was previously drawn.
  I think everyone will agree that there is nothing in logic which makes one introduce a provision with regard to provocation or with regard to constructive malice. It is not a question of logic; it is a question of decision. Any penalty, as to where it starts, where it stops and what it covers, must be a matter for the decision of the Government. The Government have made their decision, but it is a matter of opinion as to exactly where the line should be drawn.
  I have taken the view—I take it again tonight, and I think it is my duty to say so—that drawing the line at such a point that murder by poisoning is excluded from capital murder, assuming that one is going to have capital murder, is wrong and indefensible. I still say that the Government should reconsider their position there. We heard the Home Secretary speak of a certain kind of lawlessness which aims at the very basis of civilisation or, as we call it, civilised life. I cannot accept the argument that the line of demarcation drawn in the Bill complies with that principle. I cannot see how it can be said to do so.
  Tonight, however, we are not discussing whether or not poisoning should be included; we are discussing whether the Bill should be given a Third Reading. My belief is that, as it stood before the Bill was brought in, the area covered by capital punishment was too wide, and that it should be reduced. The Bill reduces it; it reduces it further than I think it should be reduced. I believe that a great deal of concern exists about the matter in the public mind, and it may be that there will be more. It takes time for public opinion to work up. My own experience is that the position is causing considerable concern.
  It is a surprising fact that many people simply cannot believe it. In my own constituency I have had to assure people

  541
  at meetings that it really is true that under the Bill the death penalty is not being retained for poisoning. People have come up to me after meetings and said, "Are you quite sure that you are right?" The surprising thing is that it is the truth. I did my best to persuade the Government to see what I considered to be the light in this matter, but I failed. Some people have said, "Why did not you vote accordingly?" What would have been the good, in those circumstances? Some of us have to be realistic in this House. It was quite clear that, although many Members might not like it, the House as a whole had come to the conclusion that some line had to be drawn and that a compromise had to be arrived at. That is the way we must do our business in this House and in this country.
  Those who have perfectly legitimate and honest conscientious scruples will naturally oppose any form of capital punishment, and rightly so. I cannot share the views of either my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) or the hon. Member for Salford, West, who were both described as fanatics—certainly the hon. Member for Salford, West so described himself. I am sorry that I was a little annoyed with the hon. Member for Salford, West earlier, but I am sure that he will appreciate that, although we have quite opposite views on this matter, if one has a serious point of view one wants to have an opportunity of developing it. I never mind the interruptions of the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) because they always give me an opportunity of thinking of points which I might not have thought of otherwise.
  This evening the Government have come to the point of deciding where the line should be drawn. They have drawn the line at the point provided in the Bill. I do not agree with that line, but that is no reason why I should vote against the Bill. 'What would be the position if I obeyed the exhortations made to me by certain hon. Members opposite to vote against the Bill? We should find ourselves back where we were, without even my recommendations in Part 1. Does anybody really suggest that I should vote against the Bill in those circumstances? I know that some hon. Members sometimes stand on their
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  heads, but I do not think that anybody need go so far as that in this case.
  We must recognise that the Government have undertaken a terribly difficult task. I believe that the mistake they made was in not taking charge of this matter from the very beginning; deciding what their policy was, and saying that there must be no question of any free vote; that it was literally a matter of life and death and that in a matter of that kind the Government must take the decision. Unfortunately, it did not work out in that way.
  It is the duty of Members to express their views and to do all they can to make the Government see sense, but if they cannot achieve this object they must do what they have very often had to do before, and will have to do on many occasions again, namely, to consider whether or not they are supporters of the Government and, if they are, to agree that they have no option but to support the Government. That is the practical approach to the matter.
  I venture to think that an endeavour to resolve this question this evening on the basis of a general objection to capital punishment along the broader lines of the argument of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough will not provide a solution of our difficulties. We have to have a line drawn somewhere. This is the point where the Government have drawn it. Whether they will be able to maintain that decision remains to be seen; but at any rate, so far as we are concerned tonight, I cannot see how anyone is going to change his view or adopt any line other than that which I have tried to indicate to the House.
  8.46 p.m.
  Sir Frederick Messer: I have taken no part in any of the debates on this subject in this House on Second Reading or in Committee, but I feel that it would be wrong of me to vote tonight without explaining my position. I have not taken part in the debates because, during the 24 years that I have been a Member of this House, I have always made it part of my policy not to speak when others have said what I would have said and probably said it much better.
  My position is one which is uncompromising. I cannot find any logic or reason or benefit in deciding that murder by one method justifies the death penalty

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  when murder by another method does not justify it. Indeed, the right hon. and learned Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) has himself proved how difficult it is to decide that there are certain types of murder which justify capital punishment and others which do not. His own Government say that there are certain types of murder which merit execution. The right hon. and learned Gentleman does not agree. He says that poisoning is such a terrible murder that it justifies execution. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is a distinguished lawyer, but frankly I cannot see how there is any reason or logic in an argument of that description.
  There has been the question of execution being a deterrent, and there is one argument that I have waited to hear and have not yet heard. Are we sure that the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who has had some experience of criminal cases, realises that there is what may be termed a criminal psychology? That criminal psychology is an attitude of mind which is not deterred by fear of punishment. The calculating mind which proceeds on its life of crime is not deterred by the knowledge that if he is caught he will be punished. The outlook of such people is very largely that they will benefit by the experience they have had and that this time they will not be caught.
  One does not need to go into the more serious phases of crime. Any magistrate at petty sessions who has had many years on the bench and has seen the same people coming before him time after time realises that the sentence that such prisoners have already undergone has not deterred them, and the reason it has not is the conceit, the confidence and the belief of each individual that this time he will "get away with it." That is as true of murder as of anything else—including the poisoner who in calm and calculated study of the methods to be applied believes that he is so clever that this time it will be the type of crime which is not discovered.
  I know that there are others in the House who are better equipped than I to deal with this problem—and it is a problem—and I shall not detain the House for long. However, there is another point which I should like remembered. There are those who claim that
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  what we have to do is to mete out justice, a life has been taken and a life must be sacrificed for it. That is not justice and, even if it were, surely we are not living in a period when we must apply justice. There have been religious arguments. The religion followed by the majority in this country has as its central theme not justice, but mercy. In this dispensation of grace, it is not an eye for an eye. It is the doctrine of the second time, "If thy neighbour offend thee, turn the other cheek".
  Those who claim to be practising Christians should remember that if we did depend on justice many of us would suffer far greater sufferings than we do for what we have done.
  "But mercy is above this sceptred sway."
  Mercy may be an ideal, but whether it is possible for us to dispense it or not, mercy rather than justice should be in our minds and in our hearts, for there are others who suffer.
  It is not merely the one who has to pay the final penalty who alone suffers. I have been in court and seen a young man who has committed an offence against society standing in the dock, hearing the evidence against him. He has confessed. He has said, "Yes, I have done wrong and I must pay". He believes that in his willingness to suffer the penalty of the crime which he has committed he has expiated that crime. But I have seen in the back of the court the white-haired old mother whose heart is breaking because he is going to prison.
  There are others who suffer. There are those who argue that because someone is the victim of a brutal crime they must think of the victim and not of the one who is guilty. But is the victim helped by taking life from the one responsible? If we hang the murderer we do not bring the victim back to life. What we do is add to the sum total of human misery and spread wider the circle of grief of those who are now additionally bereaved. It is because of these things—sentimental may be, others may consider them humanitarian—that I object to capital punishment.
  Finally, even under this Bill there is the possibility of a mistake, of the taking of an irrevocable step, the taking of a life by society, that is, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, by you and me, a life surrendered which may not be guilty. If the

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  mistake is made and discovered, what then? We cannot do anything to correct that mistake. That is the one irrevocable step, and if for no other reason, that would induce me to vote for the Amendment. If killing is wrong, hanging for killing is equally wrong.
  8.55 p.m.
  Mrs. Patricia McLaughlin: I shall not detain the House long, but I have listened to and read the report of every discussion which has taken place throughout the lengthy stages of this Bill, and tonight, when we hope it will receive a Third Reading, I feel that in sincerity I must make my position clear. Like one right hon. Gentleman who spoke recently. I feel very strongly that poisoners should have been included in the capital murder Clause. On the other hand, if they are not to he included, because of many obvious difficulties which have been fully discussed, then at least some measure of protection is to be given to members of our society who are entitled to it—I refer particularly to our police and prison officials.
  I spoke to a wife of a prison officer of many years' service, who told me that if she had to live those years over again she would prefer that her husband swept the streets all the days of his life rather than undertake that job. If it be so difficult to look after men serving a comparatively short sentence for the commission of a lesser crime than murder, how much more difficult is it for those officials who have to look after men who have committed the ultimate in crime and have been sentenced to be locked up, if not for life, at least for a long term of years? It is difficult at present to staff our prisons properly. I believe it will become increasingly difficult if we are to have more long-term prisoners serving sentences for murder, which is what will happen if this Bill in its present form goes through; or what would be even worse, if it did not go through and we were then committed to start again on the Abolition Bill. Then, without doubt, we should find the difficulties greatly increased.
  Everything has been said which can be said by hon. and learned Gentlemen on both sides of the House, and now we have come practically to the end of this stage of the Bill's progress. It cannot be emphasised too clearly that we have allowed
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  a certain amount of moderation to creep into this Measure, which goes beyond what I should like to see. This Bill contains provisions relating to people who commit murder to be known as capital murder which are too lengthy to enumerate in detail. It will give a measure of security to those people who protect the public and who, to our great pleasure and satisfaction, go about the country unarmed. I hope that they will continue to do so. There will continue to be some protection for them against those who are wicked and determined, and anxious to commit crime, and, if necessary, to kill in order to ensure that they are not punished. We must make certain that the protectors of the public continue to have what many of us believe to be the only measure of protection which we can give to them.
  When this Bill, and the Amendment to it, is voted on, I hope that the Amendment will be defeated and that the Bill will receive a Third Reading. I hope that in due course the Bill will be placed on the Statute Book and help to bring up to date the law on murder which, without doubt, needs amending and modernising.
  9.0 p.m.
  Mr. Leslie Hale: I was very glad when the hon. Lady the Member for Belfast, West (Mrs. McLaughlin) stated so clearly in her speech her desire that the Bill should go through, because it enabled me to see at long last which side she was on, as the whole of her speech up to then had been against the Bill, against moderation and about the retention of capital punishment.
  Some very able speeches have been made in the course of the afternoon, I understand, and I should like most sincerely to apologise for being absent part of the time. As hon. Members know, people complain more of my presence than of my absence and, therefore, I advance that as a mitigating circumstance for my absence.
  In the course of the last few hours we have had a series of philosophical dispositions of some importance, all of which I should have liked, if I were competent and had the time to do so, humbly to have tried to examine. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. N. Nicolson) took us back to Burke with his discussions about the duties of

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  Members of Parliament in relation to their constituents. He did not say anything with which I disagreed, and he did not say anything about which I have any desire to make any very strong comment. But for a man of great ability and sincerity whom we like and admire, I do not think, perhaps, he tackled the subject with the enthusiasm which I should have wished to see. Therefore, I will put my point of view.
  It is the duty of a Member of Parliament to say what he believes. Under the present system of party Whips it is a duty which it is sometimes very difficult to carry out, but, none the less, it is the duty of a Member of Parliament. It is my duty to acquaint myself with public opinion, to try to listen to and understand the views of abler people than myself in my constituency who have a point of view; but, in the end, the decision is mine. This House is a weaker place so long as there are so many restrictions on the expression of opinion.
  That brings me to the right hon. and learned Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) who. I thought, was just nodding his head with approval, and yet who, only a few moments ago, was saying that, on the whole, he regretted free votes on an issue of this kind. I say that in 90 per cent. of its debates the House ought to vote freely. I think that we vote ten times as many times as we need to and that the House wishes that one day we shall reach the stage when every vote, except on a special reason of the Government, might be subject to a free decision. People come to this House with firm opinions on many subjects, and this attempt to control from little rooms without is the sort of system which we hope gradually to see weaken and disappear.
  The hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) introduced some further philosophical reflections, and in case he returns to the Chamber, and as I prefer to make my observations when he is present, I will, with the leave of the House, postpone them for a moment.
  1 thought that the right hon. and learned Member for Chertsey was a little less felicitous than he usually is in his speeches, to which we often listen with sympathy and admiration. He talked about the last war as a curious example of the theory of homicide. I was a lad
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  when the last war started—[HON. MEMBERS: "The First World War."]—I mean the 1914–1918 war. I was still said to be a bit of a lad when the second war started. I was a lad in 1914, and many of my older friends perished, and I should be the last to say anything that reflected on what they did. But when the right hon. and learned Gentleman, in the light of what is now happening to a defeated Germany, asked what would have happened if these great battles had not taken place, the plain answer is that 10 million decent people who died would still be alive and Income Tax would be 1s. in the £.
  Sir L. Heald: The hon. Member knows that that is not the argument at all, but he is always entitled to his little bit of fun.
  Mr. Hale: I have no desire to misrepresent the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but the argument which we could draw from that war—and an important argument—is that a lot of young lads were taken behind the scenes and quietly shot because they were suffering from neurasthenia. In the Second World War, we called it neurasthenia and they were sent home for treatment. These were decent chaps who broke down under an intolerable strain. Those who took part in the First World War—and the right hon. and learned Gentleman was there and I was not, and it is not for me to correct him—know that it was an intolerable strain which broke down very fine people, often quite temporarily.
  That brings me, if I may, to the remarks made by the Home Secretary. I do not want to say even one critical word about the conduct of the Home Secretary and the Joint Under-Secretary of State. They took over this extremely difficult Measure half-way through. They took it over in an exceedingly unhappy situation. They took it over when a great deal of oratorical water had passed under the bridge and when, for good or ill, it would undoubtedly continue much in one direction. The right hon. Gentleman brought at least a note of clarity to the proceedings, for he explained what the Bill meant and why the Government had introduced it in a way that I myself had not heard before. The Under-Secretary, whom we congratulate sincerely on his appointment, because of his interest in these matters—it is a very good thing that one who has

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  taken such an interest should be in his office—has endeavoured to explain the inexplicable with industry and courtesy and he has endeavoured to do it, as far as can be, to the satisfaction of the House.
  Sometimes, on a more difficult Clause, we have seen them both on their feet together, perhaps just a little flurried. I observed with pleasure the right hon. Gentleman's name on the introduction to a catalogue of pictures to be in the Tate Gallery next week. I am referring to what I am told is a very great picture indeed when I say that they looked, when they were on their feet together, so defenceless and unprotected, rather like Picasso's famous picture of the two nudes.
  It is a curiosity of our situation that the attitude of hon. Members on both sides has been a little ambivalent. Hon. Member after hon. Member has risen on the other side of the House and said, "I am a retentionist. I do not want to see any reduction in the penalty. But I will vote for the Bill because it is halfway." Hon. Members on this side of the House have risen and said, "We are in favour of abolition and we admit that the Bill takes us a step or two forward, but we are contemplating the possibility, if we do not get a satisfactory reply from the Under-Secretary of State tonight, of voting on a reasoned Amendment for the rejection of the Bill".
  I do not find that situation very conflicting or very difficult. I believe that the Bill contains some very good things, and we hesitated before we took the step of putting down the Amendment. There are, however, two or three reasons for it which perhaps I might be allowed to call to the attention of the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Royle) made what I thought was a slightly ungenerous reference to the con-consistency of hon. Members. I should like to recall to the attention of the House what happened. When this matter was raised in 1948, it was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), by some ingenuity on his part, in a new Clause to a Bill on penal reform—the Criminal Justice Bill. The Bill went to another place and came back with our new Clause, which had been carried here on a free vote, mutilated. It was returned to another place and then returned again to us.
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  We were confronted by the powers-that-be with this argument: "We shall lose a vital measure of penal reform." In many of its provisions I personally had had a very long interest. "If we submit to the action of another place, we shall forfeit the whole Bill. Let us therefore emasculate this Measure and send it back to another place without the offending Clause which abolishes the death penalty. We will appoint a Royal Commission which will consider the whole question of capital punishment." On that argument, after much controversy, and with deep distaste and some reluctance, some of us agreed to accept that course.
  There was an argument with my hon. Friend, whose courage and sincerity I admire, as to what was the right course. I would not now say what was the right course. I would even say that we did not get the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment that we were promised. I told the then Prime Minister on the Floor of this House at the time that it was a betrayal of the undertakings which we have been given. I still say that. But even though that Royal Commission was not even empowered to deal with abolition, we all got what was virtually a verdict in favour of it in a brilliant book written afterwards by the Chairman of the Commission, in which he expounded the views which he had acquired in considering the evidence given.
  Therefore, we have a right to feel bitter, when promised facilities for my hon. Friend's Private Member's Bill, when it was mutilated again in another place. As my hon. Friend said this afternoon, the issue now raises a question, and postulates it in quite clear form. In 1948, the whole of the proposals that are now going to another place were desiccated there, were attacked, reviled and criticised by no less a person than the Lord Chief Justice in forcible, able, and almost embittered terms.
  What now is the position? Is this Bill to go there, and is there to be a little private flash—I think that is now the word for these dramatic announcements is there to be a little private flash from the Front Bench to the Front Bench there, giving it the all-clear? If that be so, then, anxious though I am to speak of one of the three estates of the realm with every possible respect and in Parliamentary language, it is really a public

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  declaration that another place has constituted itself a small branch of the Conservative Party. It really is. [An HON. MEMBER: "A large branch."] It would be a large branch if it ever met. Last week there were present only 48 out of 1,100.
  That is one difficulty. The second difficulty that I would put to the House is this. There are times when one approaches the legislative crossroads; when one comes to what O'Henry called the roads of destiny. Ahead is one course going straight to the future—straight ahead; one course which one might wish to follow. But that road is, apparently, permanently blocked. There are other roads leading into the distance—some over the hills, some into the morass, some into the fens; wandering in various directions. Is it wiser to seek the unknown? Is it wiser to take the uncharted paths in the hope that they will lead in the right direction? Or is it wiser to wait a little, when there is a fair certitude that the obstructions on the straight road will be cleared in a comparatively limited period?
  That is the other part of the dilemma confronting us and, on the whole, we have come to the conclusion that, in circumstances in which the Government, after seven days of discussion, have refused to alter a word or a comma of a Clause in response to a great deal of constructive criticism, we are bound to put down this reasoned Amendment and consider the possibility of implementing it by vote.
  The right hon. Gentleman in his observations this afternoon referred to the unexplored recesses of the mind. I was glad to hear that. I hope that he, with his great ability, is to give attention to this frightfully difficult matter, because I believe that we are on the verge of experiments in this direction of real significance. None of us, I think, would be tempted at this moment to regard the infant science of psychiatry as approaching the bounds of an exact science. But some things we can say. Some things we do know.
  In recent years very great progress has been made in this exploration of the recesses of the mind. If hon. Members promise not to get up and accuse me of breach of Privilege I will say that there is no more fertile place for the study of
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  the mind than here and no field in which the conditioned reflex makes itself from time to time more clearly apparent. We are making progress. We know now of some of the things which are being done, and publicity was given to some of it last week. We hear of some of the great experiments which are being conducted. I believe, under the joint auspices of the Home Office and the Ministry of Labour at Belmont. Some of the experiments which are taking place in Her Majesty's prisons are great experiments which may very well bring us substantially along the road.
  I myself have no illusions about criminals. I spent my life among them, until I came here.—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—It was only an afterthought that made it obviously incumbent upon me to add those necessary words. On the whole, I used to like them. There were some who came there through misfortune. There were some who came quite deliberately because they thought the jam was worth the powder. There were some criminals who had become so quite deliberately because. on the whole, the life appealed to them, the old possibilities of adventure appealed to them, giving a sense of freedom from industrial towns.
  There are other criminals, and they are the problem. My hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Sir F. Messer) has reminded us of them tonight. I wish my hon. Friend would speak more often; he always rises diffidently, but one always listens to him with pleasure. He mentioned the lad who had committed a sin against society. We ought to remember the lads against whom society has committed a sin, and very often they are the same lads. When we talk about crime, let us remember that there are conditions which bring about crime. Let us remember, when we are talking about the possibility of hanging lads of twenty or so, that we are talking about the lads who were running wild on empty bombed sites while their mothers were in the factory and their fathers were in the Army during the years of war. These are the things which bring about that possible state of mind which, for want of a better term, we call an inherent hatred against society.
  If I say one serious word tonight, I would with all the sincerity I can command say to the right hon. Gentleman

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  that when he conies to the exploration of the innermost recesses of the mind, when he tries to consider, as I hope and, indeed, I know he will—we shall watch all these things with hope and sympathy—let him not forget that perhaps the most important factor in our penal system today is that it is in the very exercise of punishment and in the method by which it is imposed that we so often bruise the mind and turn a man to crime.
  I do not believe that anyone who has made a study of our penal system would talk of it as reformatory. It never has been. It may be that the fear of punishment prevents some people from committing crime. We must endeavour to eliminate from our present system those elements which involve human degradation. We must try and have a system in which, if we are treating people, we treat them as individuals, complex, difficult, mentally sickly, retarded, diverse individuals. As I say, I am happy to know that some of the investigations and experiments now taking place are giving a little hope that these things will come. If the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends embark upon them with the sincerity and ability we know that they possess, they will do a great service to the community.
  We have heard them speak about the curative effect of long sentences. Long sentences are very expensive things to inflict. It is a fact at this moment that our prisons are full because of long sentences. It is a fact that the very long sentences that were given meant overcrowded prisons, unhealthy prisons, people living far too many in a cell, in prisons unfit to accommodate them, and people living for very long periods at the public expense. The disposition of Her Majesty's judges over recent years to "hot up" the sentences has certainly "hotted up" the cost to the community without, so far as I have been able to see, any compensating advantage.
  In my references to previous speakers, I said that I hoped the hon. Member for Louth would return because I wanted, in humility and in sincerity, to say one or two words in reply to what he said. I have never thought myself competent to talk very much about morals. I said that I had lived my life amongst criminals. No one can say more readily than I that, "There, but for the grace of
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  God—and a good deal of luck—go and I," have never really seen a man whom I considered to be worse than myself.
  I raise these observations by the hon. Member only because I have known him personally as a man of high reputation and I know, therefore, that any question I raise will not be interpreted as an attack upon him. But I do not understand his theory and I beg him to explain it. The first thing that one always gets in these arguments is the talk about taking a realistic attitude. But the founder of Christianity never talked about realism. He did not attack emotion. Christianity is emotion. Christianity consists in a belief in forgiveness, in love, in kindness and, above all, in tolerance. The hon. Lady the Member for Belfast, West talked about moderation creeping in and I felt that the expression came very well from across the Irish Sea.
  Surely, one of the great virtues nowadays is that whereas we used to regard tolerance as a vice, we now regard it as a virtue. Why do we decry emotion in this House? Why should we not preach the doctrine of love? Why should we not talk about understanding'? If we believe in the Fatherhood of God, why should we not believe in the Brotherhood of Man? Why should we not say of a man, not that he is the foulest of the foul, but "You have fallen from grace. Perhaps it is my fault, and it is my duty to try to help you on your way"?
  I am sorry to talk like this, because I know I am very much of a sinner. I know I am the last person to put forward any doctrines. I do it only because I do not understand what the hon. Member for Louth said and, respecting him as I do, I should like to know why he preaches so much from the Old Testament and not from the New Testament. A great lawyer, Sir Eardley Wilmot, was once asked to advise and his client said, "This was a serious injury. Would it not be manly to resent it?" "Yes", said Sir Eardley, "of course it would be manly to resent it, but it would be divine to forgive it." Surely, there is some truth in that.
  On this theory of redemption, a great divine once said, "This man is not fit to live," and a still greater divine said, "If he is not fit to live, he is not fit to die." Is that not true'? Should it not be our

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  duty as Christians at least to afford an opportunity for redemption?
  I was moved by my hon. Friend when he talked about redemption. I was moved by the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) when he recalled the famous case of an execution that took place in time of war, which, perhaps, many of us recollect. I do not know whether Roger Casement was guilty of treason. There was a good deal of legal argument. I do not know whether a separatist Irishman can be guilty of treason against a Government in England and I certainly do not know, or care, whether he was a homosexual. I should like to know whether faked diaries were used to assist the execution.
  Thinking of Roger Casement. I hope hon. Members will recall that great man who explored the Congo, who exposed the atrocities in the Putumayo, who preached there the doctrine of tolerance and consideration and did more than most men to abolish cruelty from the world. That is how we should remember him. That is how we should try to remember so many of our brothers when they are in difficulty, because this is part of our fundamental and basic approach.
  I have never tried to decry people who disagree with us about this matter. I have never thought their disagreement a sign of a reactionary mind. Indeed, I can, I hope, understand and tolerate reaction rather more than I understand and tolerate compromise. In our debate in 1948 upon the abolition of capital punishment I told to the House a story with which I should like to conclude, because we have been talking about Roger Casement, and in talking about him we are talking about the possibility of political assassination, and the minds of most of us are ambivalent on the question of political assassination. Most of us would argue that the end can never justify the means, but few of us can read the stories of the historic and tragic events in Russia without a reluctant admiration and without a little sympathy for Sofia Petrovskaya, and without feeling that this was, on the whole, a great and noble woman.
  I would here interpose a brief remark upon one curious and controversial
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  example and proof of this ambivalent attitude to which we are subject. We have just appointed a new commander of our forces in Germany. I do not wish to criticise him on the ground of anything recalling the horrors of the past, and I can only believe that the justification of the appointment is the hope that it will achieve something for the future, but what I find difficult to understand in the mouths of hon. Members who support the Bill, and in the papers which defend this attitude, is the curious argument that we can rely on his future loyalty because he attempted to murder his previous boss. That seems to me to indicate that there might be a little reconsideration before we state our views as being completely final.
  I said I would recall a story I told in 1948. It is the story of a crime that shocked London, shocked England, and probably shocked most of the civilised world, the story of the Phoenix Park murders, the murders of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Burke, murdered by Irishmen, who, presumably, felt that they might be serving their country by this method, but who did more harm to the cause of Anglo-Trish understanding than almost any action which has taken place. It was an unreasonable action because they were attacking pretty good friends.
  A number of the attackers paid the penalty on the scaffold. The story which I told is still little known. It is that the men who were hanged were ministered to in prison by a nun, who was the sister of one of the murdered men sister, too, in the theological sense to the condemned, one of whom took to the scaffold with him an ivory crucifix sent to him by Lady Frederick Cavendish, the widow of the murdered man.
  If we are to hope to bring about in a world tortured by antagonisms and hatreds some hope of regeneration, some hope of a new approach, some hope of a world in which tolerance will make itself felt and understanding can be found and brotherhood may have its play, let us start in simple ways like this. Let us start by saying this is our approach. And let the hon. Member for Louth chuck the Old Testament out of the window and sit down and read the New. Perhaps he and I, with our divergent approaches, may find a clearer understanding of some of these fundamentals in that process.
  9.29 p.m.
  The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. J. E. S. Simon): We have reached tonight a late stage of this protracted controversy which has aroused deep and sincere passion on both sides. It may be true, as many hon. Members have said today, that every argument has been exhausted, but that is certainly not true of the hon. Members who have intervened in the debate. Perhaps it would be invidious to single out any particular hon. Member when so many have made contributions, but I hope that it will not be thought lacking in respect if I say that nobody who has attended these debates throughout would not desire to pay a special tribute to the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) and the hon. Member for Oldham. West (Mr. Hale) on their eloquence, their Parliamentary skill and their unfailing fertility of argument.
  The Amendment refers to constitutional propriety. I do not want to go over the old history of this matter. The House will recollect the considered view of the Government from the beginning—the constitutional organ charged with the maintenance of public order, a duty of which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher) said, they cannot divest themselves. Their view was that the death penalty was necessary for the maintenance of public order.
  I need not recall the proceedings in the Chamber last Session, and we should not forget that it is by the will of a modern Parliament, dominated by the party of hon. Members opposite, that the other place retains a constitutional right to reject a Bill of this sort—and that involves a duty on its part to do so when conscience so directs. But where constitutional propriety is in question, there is another matter, besides the views of the two Houses of Parliament, which should be considered. It is the right of the public to be heard on a matter which has been freely canvassed before them and on which there has been ample time to form a view.
  I know that subjective judgment in these matters should be treated with caution, and I certainly do not place any undue confidence in my own on matters where I feel strongly. But I have done my best to test public opinion fairly in all sections of my own indus-
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  trial constituency, and I must say that I found almost unanimous support for the retention of the death penalty, not least strongly among the political supporters of the party opposite. But that is a subjective judgment. There are more objective tests and one can examine what they show.
  The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) said that most people revolt from the death penalty. That was not the result that was obtained from the public opinion test, the Gallup Poll conducted by the newspaper which supports his party. At the end of last year, the News Chronicle held a Gallup Poll on this very matter. It showed that 57 per cent. of all voters wished to keep hanging for certain cases, including a majority of Labour and Liberal voters tested. No less than a quarter wished to keep the law as it then was in all its rigour. Only 13 per cent. wished to see hanging completely abolished. Incidentally, over twice as many approved as disapproved of this very Bill, and the proportion was much the same in all parties.
  This is a sphere where public opinion is particularly entitled to be weighed. It is, after all, for the protection of the community that a penal code is enacted, and I do not think any hon. Gentleman will deny that there must be a reasonable relationship between the penal code and public opinion in the community. I think it was an hon. Gentleman opposite who said today that the State is in danger where the law becomes considerably out of touch with public sympathy. That is equally so where the law is too harsh or where it is too lenient.
  That is not to say that it is not often the duty of Parliament and the House of Commons to lead public opinion. Of course it is. Where, however, over a considerable period of time an issue has been debated before the people of this country, and where it is a matter on which they are particularly entitled to have their wishes consulted, and where the wishes of the overwhelming mass have been made plain, then it is in the fullest accord with constitutional propriety that the Government and the House of Commons should frame their Measures to take reasonable cognisance of that opinion. It is in that spirit that this Bill has been framed.

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  The main purpose of Part I of the Bill has received, I think, the unanimous assent of this House. So far as constructive malice and suicide pacts are concerned, the Bill goes further in mitigation of the severity of the existing law than the Royal Commission itself recommended. It is Clause 2 which makes what will probably, in the result, be the greatest change in the law, because it introduces into the law of England the defence of diminished responsibility which has been found to work so satisfactorily in Scotland.
  Now the Royal Commission did not recommend that reform, but in this House —at any rate on this Bill—it has received universal approbation. I feel that a tribute is due in particular to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) and to my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) as being mainly instrumental in bringing about this reform.
  It removes from liability to the supreme penal sanction a number of people who, in the past, would have been reprieved but who would have had to endure the ordeal of conviction of murder and sentence of death. And, as such, it goes a long way to meet what the members of the Royal Commission made their first ground of criticism of the law—the first recommendation they made—namely, its rigidity, the fact that it provides a single punishment for a crime widely varying in culpability. Secondly, by that reform we have removed from liability to the death penalty a great group of those on whom the deterrent effect was more likely to be, in the words of the Royal Commission, "limited and often negligible".
  Thirdly, we have provided a criterion which takes cognisance of the fact that there are, humanly speaking, many degrees of mental responsibility for crime. Up till now the only legal criterion of mental responsibility for crime was provided by the M'Naghten Rules, and unless that rigorous test was satisfied, the death sentence was passed. The Home Secretary, in deciding whether to recommend that the sentence should stand, applied a different test and one not prescribed by the law. In going far to reconcile that divergence, it seems to me that this Bill is again in the highest degree in accord with constitutional propriety.
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  My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) asked a number of interesting questions arising out of the relationship between the defence of insanity and the defence of diminished responsibility. The hon. Member for Oldham, West took up the phrase—it has frequently been commented on—of my right hon. Friend relating to the unexplored recesses of the mind. The hon. Member for Oldham, West went as far as to suggest that all of us in this Chamber were psychopaths. I do not think he specified which of us were aggressive psychopaths and which inadequate psychopaths. Undoubtedly, there is great public interest in the impact of the new science of psychiatry on penal problems. That is a matter in which my right hon. Friend had already taken great interest before he assumed his present office.
  Arising out of what my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham asked me, as I understand it, the relationship between the two defences is this. The accused man may, on the face of it, be unfit to plead. That is generally a matter which is initially determined by the prosecution, although it may be raised by the defence, and a jury is then empanelled to decide whether the man is fit or unfit to plead. It is only if the man is fit to plead that any question of these defences arises, and then it is a matter for the man. The prosecution cannot raise any question at that stage as to his mental responsibility for the crime. It is for him to say whether he will raise a defence which will lead to a verdict of "Guilty but insane" —a sort of verbal shorthand—or whether he will raise the sort of defence which will lead to a verdict of "Manslaughter" by raising a question of diminished responsibility. The one is under the M'Naghten Rules. It is a complete defence, and the verdict is "Guilty but insane", which is equivalent to "Not guilty." The diminished responsibility defence will lead to a verdict of "Guilty" but "Guilty of manslaughter".
  My hon. Friend then asked how the man will be treated. He asked whether he will be sentenced to a fixed term. That does not necessarily follow at all. It is entirely a matter for the judge's discretion, on the evidence that is then given to him after the verdict, as to whether he passes

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  a sentence for life if he cannot determine the time necessary successfully to treat the prisoner. He can sentence the convicted man to a term of years. Equally, he can, if he wishes, put him on probation for the crime of manslaughter, and he can make a condition of the probation in a proper case that the man should submit himself to psychiatric treatment, or, indeed, any other medical treatment for a suitable time.
  So much for Part I of the Bill. I need not say very much about Part III, because that, again, has, I think, received universal assent. It makes a number of very useful reforms in the mode of execution of the capital sentence where that is to be carried out.
  I turn now to the Part II of the Bill, to which criticism has been mainly directed. I would emphasise that the main effect of this part of the Bill is the same as that of Part which is to exclude from liability to the death penalty many homicides which are at present liable. Naturally, attention from the retentionist side has been mainly directed to Clauses 5 and 6, but the main purpose of Part II of the Bill is Clause 7, which excludes from liability many homicides which are at present liable to the death penalty.
  The criticism has come from two quarters—those who hold that the Bill should not retain the death penalty for the classes of murder set out in Clauses 5 and 6 and, on the other hand, those who hold that there are other classes which should be included. In framing this part of the Bill, as in the case of the rest of it, the Government have sought to reconcile and give proper weight, first, to the views of the general public; secondly, to the feeling in the House of Commons and, thirdly, to their own conviction—as the constitutional organ charged with the maintenance of law and order—as to what was necessary for that purpose. The Government have sought to reconcile those three matters in Part II.
  The principle underlying this part of the Bill is that the death penalty should be retained, first, for those murders which impinge particularly upon the maintenance of public order and, secondly—and this to some extent overlaps the first consideration—where the deterrent effect of the death penalty is likely to be particularly effective. I will deal with the first consideration—the maintenance of
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  public order. Of course, in a sense every crime is a breach of public order, but it is obvious that some crimes strike with particular force against the Queen's Peace, and are especially and violently subversive of the ordered government of this realm. Treason is an example.
  The hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) mentioned the Casement execution. That was for treason; not murder. Even if the Bill presented in the last Session by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) had been passed that crime would still have attracted the death penalty. I imagine that the reason why the hon. Member made that exception was that the overwhelming view of the House was that treason should continue to attract the capital penalty.
  Mr. S. Silverman Mr. S. Silverman indicated dissent.
  Mr. Simon: I know that the hon. Member does not hold that view himself, and that there are many other hon. Members who share his view, but I think that it would be fair to say that the overwhelming view of the House is that treason should continue to be a capital offence.
  Mr. Silverman: The reason why I confined my Bill to murder—as the Government's Bill is confined to murder—was that that is a recognised department of penology. Treason is a department of politics.
  Mr. Simon: The Government's Bill is limited to murder because it is called the Homicide Bill, but the hon. Member's Bill was not so limited; it was called the Death Penalty (Abolition) Bill.
  The death penalty is preserved under the Bill not only for treason but for those murders which trench particularly upon the maintenance of public order and menace those whom society has constituted the guardians of its security, and who are therefore specially vulnerable to assault and savagery on the part of those who set their hands against the law. The types of murder which are preserved for the death penalty, therefore, are those which particularly affect the maintenance of public order and the safety of those whom we have established to maintain the security of the community.
  But there is also the question of deterrents. That is a matter which we have

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  discussed many times in these debates and I do not propose to weary the House by going over the arguments again. I should like to remind the House, however, of what the Royal Commission said about this matter. It did not say—as has sometimes been claimed in our debates—that the death penalty was no deterrent, or no unique deterrent. What it did say was, first, that the statistical evidence was inconclusive and, secondly, that the deterrent effect did not operate universally or uniformly; that there are many offenders upon whom the effect is limited and often negligible. As for that latter class, we believe that this Bill has eliminated most of them by Clause 2. It was that factor which led to the exclusion from Clause 5 of those who commit murder in the course of rape where, in the nature of things, the deterrent element is not likely to be pronounced. But the conclusion of the Royal Commission was this:
  "Prima facie the penalty of death is likely to have a stronger effect as a deterrent to normal human beings than any other form of punishment. There is evidence … that this is in fact so."
  Earlier the Royal Commission said:
  "It seems to us inherently probable that if capital punishment has any unique effect as a deterrent, it is here"—
  and when it said "here" it was dealing with the effect of capital punishment on professional criminals—
  "that its effect would be chiefly felt and here that its value to the community would be greatest."
  The hon. Lady the Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon) said that the argument against the capital sentence as a deterrent was disproved by the fact that the number of murders had diminished since the House debated this last February, and that was echoed by two other hon. Members. In point of fact, that is not so. Statistical evidence in these matters is inconclusive, so I do not want to put too much weight on this, but in fact the numbers have not gone down; they have gone up. The figures for the ten months from February last year, when the hon. Gentleman's Motion was carried or, rather, when the Government's Motion was defeated, and for the twelve months of the year, showed an increase in the number of murders known to the police over any year since 1952. That does not prove—and I should emphasise this—
  564
  that the abolition or rather absence of the death penalty has led to an increase in the number of murders.
  In the first place, there are many factors which affect homicide rates, and it is impossible to isolate any one of them. The Royal Commission itself pointed that out in paragraph 23 on page 340. Secondly, in any event, the period is too short for any proper test to be made and, thirdly, we cannot know at what point potential murderers concluded, if they have concluded, that they no longer risked hanging. At any rate, it is quite wrong to say that we can prove that capital punishment is no deterrent because the number of murders has diminished since last February; on the contrary, for what it is worth, they have increased.
  Mr. S. Silverman: The only figures that the Home Office have so far given are the figures for the first three months of that period, and the Home Office figures show a very substantial reduction below the average over the past five years.
  Mr. Benson: The question of the number of murders is not really relevant. What is relevant is the number of murderers. We get the case where a man wipes out his whole family. The number of murders is always very much greater than the number of murderers. That is the important point.
  Mr. Simon: I will answer the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson) first. It is quite true that what we must do is to compare like with like, and what I have done is to compare the number of murders known to the police this year with previous years. In other words, I am comparing like with like.
  With regard to the point made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Nelson and Colne, he is perfectly right, and I am not blaming in any way the hon. Lady, but I took the precaution of getting out the latest figures, which I can give her afterwards, and they bear out what I have said. The statistics are inconclusive, and we should not place too much reliance on them.
  That is the justification of Clauses 5 and 6, firstly, that this is the field of public order in which we are operating, secondly, that the penalty of death is likely to have a stronger effect here than any other form of punishment, and,

  565
  thirdly, it is here, as the Royal Commission said, that its effect would be chiefly felt and its value to the community would be greatest.
  Mr. Anthony Greenwood: Can the hon. and learned Member tell us why in the Government's view the fear of hanging is more likely to deter a man from shooting his wife than from strangling her?
  Mr. Simon: I do not think that that is so. The crime of shooting particularly impinges on public order more than some other forms and is dangerous not only to the person who is shot at but to bystanders. That happens very frequently. In the Ruth Ellis case, a perfectly innocent bystander was wounded and might well have been killed. It is really aimed
  at discouraging the professional criminal from carrying arms.
  I ask the House not to concentrate entirely on Clauses 5 and 6 but to look at the Measure as a whole. If it is looked at as a whole, I unhesitatingly commend it to the House as an important Measure of penal reform, a solution which is in accord with public opinion in the country, a provision which preserves capital punishment only where is is particularly likely to act as a deterrent and a necessary deterrent, and, finally, a Measure which can properly bring this painful and protracted controversy to an end.
  Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 217, Noes 131.

  Division No. 55.]

  AYES

  [9.58 p.m.

  Agnew, Sir Peter

  Dance, J. C. G.

  Jones, Rt. Hon. Aubrey (Hall Green)

  Aitken, W. T.

  Davidson, Viscountess

  Keegan, D.

  Alport, C. J. M.

  D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Kerby, Capt. H. B.

  Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)

  Doughty, C. J. A.

  Kerr, H. W.

  Amory, Rt. Hn. Heathcoat (Tiverton)

  du Cann, E. D. L.

  Kimball, M.

  Anstruther-Gray, Major Sir William

  Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.

  Kirk, P. M.

  Arbuthnot, John

  Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  Lambert, Hon. G.

  Armstrong, C. W.

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Ashton, H.

  Fell, A.

  Leather, E. H. C.

  Astor, Hon. J. J.

  Finlay, Graeme

  Leavey, J. A.

  Atkins, H. E.

  Fisher, Nigel

  Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.

  Baldock, Lt. -Cmdr. J. M.

  Fletcher-Cooke, C.

  Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)

  Baldwin, A. E.

  Fraser, Sir Ian (M'cmbe & Lonsdale)

  Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)

  Barber, Anthony

  Freeth, D. K.

  Linstead, Sir H. N.

  Barlow, Sir John

  Calbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)

  Barter, John

  Carner-Evans, E. H.

  Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Beamish, Maj, Tufton

  George, J. C. (Pollok)

  Longden, Gilbert

  Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)

  Gibson-Watt, D.

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)

  Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)

  Glover, D.

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

  Godber, J. B.

  Macdonald, Sir Peter

  Bennett, Dr, Reginald

  Gomme-Duncan, Col, Sir Alan

  Mackeson, Brig, Sir Harry

  Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)

  Gower, H. R.

  McLaughlin, Mrs. P.

  Bidgood, J. C.

  Graham, Sir Fergus

  Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

  Biggs-Davison, J. A.

  Grant, W. (Woodside)

  Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)

  Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich)

  Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Harold(Bromley)

  Bishop, F. P.

  Green, A.

  Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)

  Body, R. F.

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

  Bossom, Sir Alfred

  Gurden, Harold

  Maddan, Martin

  Boyd, T. C.

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)

  Maitland, Hon. Patrick (Lanark)

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)

  Markham, Major Sir Frank

  Braine, B. R.

  Harrison, Col, J, H. (Eye)

  Marlowe, A. A. H.

  Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)

  Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Maoolesfd)

  Marshall, Douglas

  Bromley-Davenport, Lt. -Col. W. H.

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Mathew, R.

  Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Llonel

  Maude, Angus

  Brooman-White, R. C.

  Heath, Rt. Hon. E. R. G.

  Mawby, R. L.

  Browne, J. Nixon (Craigton)

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Maydon, Lt. -Comdr. S. L. C.

  Bryan, P.

  Hesketh, R. F.

  Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.

  Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.

  Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.

  Molson, Rt. Hon. Hugh

  Burden, F. F. A.

  Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

  Morrison, John (Salisbury)

  Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Walden)

  Hill, John (S. Norfolk)

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Carr, Robert

  Holland-Martin, C. J.

  Nabarro, G. D. N.

  Channon, Sir Henry

  Hornby, R. P.

  Nairn, D. L. S.

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.

  Neave, Airey

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

  Horobin, Sir Ian

  Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)

  Conant, Maj. Sir Roger

  Hughes-Young, M. H. C.

  Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. & Chr'ch)

  Cooper, A. E.

  Hurd, A. R.

  Nugent, G. R. H.

  Cooper-Key, E. M.

  Hylton-Foster, sir H. B. H.

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Cordeaux, Lt. -Col. J. K.

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)

  Corfield, Capt. F. V.

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Osborne, C.

  Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

  Page, R. G.

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale)

  Crouch, R. F.

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Partridge, E.

  Pickthorn, K. W. M.

  Shepherd, William

  Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Pitt, Miss E. M.

  Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)

  Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.

  Pott, H. P.

  Speir, R. M.

  Vosper, Rt. Hon. D. F.

  Powell, J. Enoch

  Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

  Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Steward, Sir William (Woolwich, W.)

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. D. C.

  Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)

  Stoddart-Soott, Col. M.

  Wall, Major Patrick

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.

  Storey, S.

  Ward, Rt. Hon. G. R. (Worcester)

  Raikes, Sir Victor

  Studholme, Sir Henry

  Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)

  Ramsden, J. E.

  Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington)

  Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.

  Rawlinson, Peter

  Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)

  Webbe, Sir H.

  Redmayne, M.

  Temple, J. M.

  Wells, Percy (Faversham)

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

  Whitelaw, W. S. I. (Penrith & Border)

  Renton, D. L. M.

  Thompson, Lt. -Cdr. R. (Croydon, S.)

  Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)

  Ridsdale, J. E.

  Thorneyoroft, Rt. Hon. P.

  Wills, G. (Bridgwater)

  Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)

  Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Roper, Sir Harold

  Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)

  Woollam, John Victor

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Tilney, John (Wavertree)

  Yates, William (The Wrekin)

  Schofield, Lt.-Col. W.

  Turner, H. F. L.

  Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.

  Turner-Samuels, M.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Mr. Oakshott and Mr. Wakefield.

  NOES

  Awbery, S. S.

  Hannan, W.

  Parker, J.

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.)

  Parkin, B. T.

  Balfour, A.

  Holmes, Horace

  Pearson, A.

  Benn, Hn. Wedgwood (Bristol, S. E.)

  Holt, A. F.

  Pentland, N.

  Beswick, Frank

  Houghton, Douglas

  Popplewell, E.

  Blenkinsop, A.

  Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

  Hubbard, T. F.

  Rankin, John

  Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S. W.)

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Redhead, E. C.

  Bowles, F. C.

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Brockway, A. F.

  Hunter, A. E.

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Ross, William

  Burke, W. A.

  Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

  Short, E. W.

  Burton, Miss F. E.

  Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Callaghan, L. J.

  Jeger, Mrs. Lena(Holbn &St. Pncs, S.)

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Champion, A. J.

  Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

  Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)

  Coldrick, W.

  Johnson, James (Rugby)

  Skeffington, A. M.

  Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead)

  Jones, Rt. Hon. A. Creech(Wakefield)

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Jones, David (The Hartlepools)

  Steele, T.

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Cullen, Mrs. A.

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.

  Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Stross, Dr. Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent, C.)

  Davies, Rt. Hon. Clement (Montgomery)

  King, Dr. H. M.

  Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.

  Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)

  Lawson, G. M.

  Sylvester, G. O.

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Lee, Frederick (Newton)

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Thomas, George (Cardiff)

  Deer, G.

  Lever, Harold (Cheetham)

  Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)

  de Freitas, Geoffrey

  Lewis, Arthur

  Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

  Delargy, H. J.

  Lindgren, G. S.

  Viant, S. P.

  Dodds, N. N.

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Wade, D. W.

  Donnelly, D. L.

  Molnnes, J.

  Warbey, W. N.

  Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Weitzman, D.

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  McLeavy, Frank

  Wheeldon, W. E.

  Fernyhough, E.

  Mahon, Simon

  White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)

  Finch, H. J.

  Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Forman, J. C.

  Mason, Roy

  Willey, Frederick

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Messer, Sir F.

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Willis, Eustace (Edinburgh, E.)

  Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

  Monslow, W.

  Woof, R. E.

  Greenwood, Anthony

  Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)

  Yates, V. (Ladywood)

  Crenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.

  Moyle, A.

  Younger, Rt. Hon. K.

  Grey, C. F.

  Oram, A. E.

  Zilliacus, K.

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  Orbach, M.

  Griffiths, William (Exchange)

  Oswald, T.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Grimond, J.

  Palmer, A. M. F.

  Mr. Kenneth Robinson and

  Hale, Leslie

  Panned, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  Mr. Royle.

  Bill read the Third time and passed.

  SUPPLY [5th February]

    ARMY SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1956–57
    Resolution reported,
    That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £39,000,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1957, for expenditure beyond the sum already provided in the grants for Army Services for the year, including a grant in aid to the Council of Voluntary Welfare Work.
    Resolution agreed to.
    [For details of Resolution, see OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th February, 1957; col. 253.]

    WAYS AND MEANS [5th February]
    Resolution reported,
    That, towards making good the Supply granted to Her Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1957, the sum of £39,000,000 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.
    Resolution agreed to.
    Bill ordered to be brought in upon the said Resolution by the Chairman of Ways and Means, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Powell.

    CONSOLIDATED FUND
    Bill to apply a sum out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the year ending on the thirty-first day of March, one thousand nine hundred and fifty-seven, presented accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time Tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 51.]

  MOTOR FUEL RATIONING
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. R. Thompson.]
  10.9 p.m.
  Mr. Nigel Nicolson: I wish to raise the question of petrol rationing in respect of commercial vehicles and, in particular, the position of commercial travellers. To begin with, I should like to pay a well-deserved tribute to the Ministry of Transport and, indirectly, to the Ministry of Power for the way in which they have got over the early difficulties of petrol rationing.
  The cries of "Chaos" which were heard during the opening days have now faded into almost universal praise of the way in which this difficult operation was carried out—almost universal, because there are still a few anomalies and grievances. I have asked for this Adjournment debate in order that I may call attention to them. In doing so, I should not like it to be thought that there was any general complaint in the road haulage industry about the method of operation of the rationing system.
  In the early days, before we got over the hump of incoming applications for supplementary fuel, there were, naturally, many hard cases, but everybody has co-operated—the road hauliers themselves, Ministry officials and also the public, who have seen that they had their part to play in helping us over the difficult situation caused by the lack of fuel.
  There is one category of persons which is not quite so happy—the commercial traveller. I know that on Friday attention was called to his plight by my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden), to whom the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power replied on the Adjournment. I return to this subject, although I have other topics to touch upon, because it also affects the Ministry of Transport in respect of C licensees, among whom are to be found so many commercial travellers.
  As my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport knows, the commercial traveller is in a very special position. The car is a tool of his trade. If he is

  571
  deprived of it he is unable to earn his livelihood. His job is based upon the car. He is located, geographically, in the position which is perhaps most inconvenient for access by rail but most convenient for access by car. He cannot change overnight or even in a year his habits of travel and work. He is bound to his car. He cannot carry heavy samples about with him in public transport nor, when he arrives at his destination, perhaps some large and partly unfamiliar town, can he hump his bags around the streets. He must go by car if he is to fulfil the essential task which he has in the retail distribution of goods.
  He does not feel that he has had the same fair deal from either of the two Ministries as have all others who rely very largely upon petrol. He believes that he has been unfairly cut to an average of 50 per cent., and in many cases much more, of his normal fuel consumption, and without a more generous allotment, which I know has been promised, but which at least in some cases has not yet been given, he feels that his standard of living will quickly and disastrously decline.
  I should like to put to my hon. Friend that there seems to be some unfairness between the procedure adopted by the Ministry of Transport and the procedure adopted by the Ministry of Power in allotting supplementary petrol rations to commercial travellers. My hon. Friend's method is infinitely the more generous, and the last thing I should like to see is the Ministry of Power's system of allocation to these travellers become the universal system. On the contrary.
  I should like my hon. Friend, if he has not already done so, to inaugurate discussions with the other Ministry to see whether the rationing for all commercial travellers could not be brought up to the scales which he himself already allows as a minimum. Having established that minimum, could he not then consider how far he could meet the claim of the organisation which speaks in the name of the commercial travellers, for two gallons a working day, which would amount to about 1,000 miles per month? That is a scale which is by no means up to normal; indeed, the probability is that a traveller will do almost one-third as much again in normal working times.
  572
  I pass from the problem of the commercial travellers to the more general question of the C licensees. Is it a fact that my hon. Friend's officers have been instructed to take into account the danger to the continuity of a small business in allotting the supplementary fuel ration? By that I mean, does he consider solely the desirability of that particular trade in terms of national welfare, or does he also take into account the individual human problem of the man, probably a small man with a single lorry who, without the fuel to make it go will very soon find himself in a desperate position?
  In my talks with those affected by the scheme, I have found that they complain very frequently of the diversity, or the lack of uniformity, in the allocation system as between different areas. It seams that some regional transport commissioners are more generous than others, and while those who do attract the larger supply naturally have no complaints, those who happen to live in an area which is patronised by a less generous commissioner and who have conversations with friends from other areas, naturally feel a sense of grievance.
  Is it the case that instructions are sent out from the Ministry of Transport to the regional commissioners laying down in broad terms, but terms which will result in a fairly equitable distribution of the available fuel all over the country, conditions which will satisfy those who can claim that they are being unfairly treated as compared with their colleagues elsewhere? If not, could it not be done?
  Thirdly, a complaint which I have heard about the existing system is that the railways have been using more liquid fuel than they need. Is it true, as I have heard, that since rationing became necessary, British Railways has inaugurated at least three new diesel trains: one between Euston and Glasgow, a second between Edinburgh and Glasgow, and a third between Newcastle and Carlisle? If this is not so, I should be glad if my hon. Friend would deny it, since obviously it causes a certain amount of distress among those who are very hard up for fuel if they feel that the railways have initiated new services which could so easily have been postponed until after this emergency.
  Those are all the existing grievances that I have to present, but I should like to add one or two words about other

  573
  problems which I think that it would be right to consider now; the problems that will arise if another rationing period is necessary. Obviously, my hon. Friend is not in a position tonight to say whether or not a further rationing period will be necessary, but the first point that I should like to put to him is an obvious one. Can as long notice as possible be given to the transport industry when it becomes clear beyond reasonable doubt that a new rationing period will be essential? Naturally, we all hope that it will not be necessary but, if and when it is decided that the four-month period is to be extended by another, will my hon. Friend bear in mind these points when making the allocation for the new period?
  Will he remember, first, that there is always a great seasonal increase in transport activity on the roads in springtime? One of the reasons why we have been able to overcome the difficulties of the initial period fairly simply is that there is, in any year, a natural seasonal decline in transport on the roads at this time of year. This will not apply in the next period, and I would ask him, in making allocations of supplementary fuel, to base his allocations not on the demands made in the first place but on the reasonable demands for the new time of year.
  Secondly, will he bear in mind the fact that, at the outset of the first rationing period, nearly every firm had been wise enough to fill up its storage tanks with fuel? Those tanks are now empty. They tided us over a difficult period around Christmas, but there will not be the same advantage at the beginning of the second four-month period. It would, I think, be unfair if the regional commissioners were to examine what a firm had had in the first place and base the second allocation only upon that figure, forgetting the fact that there was a large reserve which will no longer he available.
  Would he bear in mind that many vehicles have been laid up. It would not be fair simply to ration firms upon the vehicles which they have upon the roads. It should surely be borne in mind that there are many vehicles which have been, quite properly and sensibly, taken off the roads but which, when put in mobile condition, form part of the general
  574
  fleet of particular firms. Allowance should he made for that also.
  Finally, I come to a rather technical point which has been put to me. I understand that it is the intention of the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Power that the coupons for petrol will not be valid in the succeeding period, if there has to be one. It has been suggested to me that that is a mistake and that there ought to be a period of overlap of at least a week or so during which the coupons for both periods are equally valid. The reason for that is that many lorries will be far away from their home bases at the time and firms may not be able to send out the new coupons in time for the lorry drivers to make use of them. It would be an absurd situation, and one which would not be desired by the Ministry, if lorries were to be found stranded in remote parts of the country, the drivers having coupons which were no longer valid.
  Those are the points which I had in mind to make to my hon. Friend. I should like to end as I began, by congratulating him and his staff all over the country upon the great service which they have done in this difficult time to this great industry.
  10.24 p.m.
  Dr. Horace King: I should like to add my congratulations to those offered by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. N. Nicolson), and to reinforce the appeal he made especially for the commercial traveller. His case has been conceded by the Government, both the general case of the man employed by a large firm and the particular case of the self-employed commercial traveller. The grievance still remains that the amount of supplementary allowance they receive bears no real relation to the amounts they used prior to petrol rationing.
  If the country is working on a 75 per cent. basis, then it ought to be possible for commercial travellers to get something like 75 per cent. of what they were getting before. Any move which the Minister can make towards that would, I think, be of real service to commercial travellers in general and especially to self-employed men.
  10.25 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. G. R. H. Nugent): I must congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. N. Nicolson) on his success in securing the Adjournment debate tonight to raise this very important subject of fuel rationing for commercial vehicles. Before answering my hon. Friend's various questions, I think I should give a brief outline of the general background to our policy.
  The general intention of our policy is to save 25 per cent. of the petrol and diesel oil used by commercial vehicles. We have given to the regional transport commissioners in each region allocations which together will achieve that saving. We have made the allocations to the regional transport commissioners rather than deal with it ourselves because there are altogether some 1¼ million commercial vehicles and some 500,000 operators. It would clearly be impossible for us to deal with this very large number, spread all over the country, through a central organisation. We have, therefore, used a regional organisation to deal with the distribution. Indeed, we had one virtually ready-made.
  The regional transport commissioners are also the traffic commissioners and the licensing authorities. Therefore, they combine an intimate knowledge of local conditions throughout their region with a knowledge of the circumstances of individual operators. At the same time, their work and training fits them to act in a semi-judicial capacity and, therefore, very well qualifies them for dealing with difficult individual cases.
  The commissioners started by issuing approximately half a million basic rations based on the unladen weight of the commercial vehicles. Up to date, they have received applications altogether for 226,000 supplementary rations. Of these, they have refused 12,000, they have made an issue on account for 1,000, they have finally assessed 204,000 and are in course of dealing with the remaining 9,000. The rest of the operators, however—that is, more than 50 per cent.—are managing on their original basic ration. I make that point because it is often said that the original basic ration was far too small to be of any use to anybody. Quite
  576
  evidently, in the event it is being enough for more than half the commercial operators. I think this is evidence that our Scheme had the right basis.
  I come now to the principle of allocation. My right hon. Friend sent out a directive to the regional transport commissioners initially indicating what were the priority services which must be kept going at all costs. We set them out in a Press notice issued on 4th December. They cover such essential matters as food distribution, coal distribution, medical services, newspapers, and the like. Obviously, in many cases, those services require more than 75 per cent. of their normal use if they are to be kept going at the essential level, although all of them have accepted some cut and have been most co-operative.
  It inevitably follows, therefore, as my right hon. Friend said at Question 'Time today, that if we are to achieve an average saving of 25 per cent., others who are not in the priority class will get less than 75 per cent. and some of them quite significantly less. I am certain that the House would agree that where we have to accept a cut, clearly it is the duty of the Government to maintain those services which are absolutely essential for the national life and then do the best it can to keep others going with what remains. That is what the commissioners have done. They have done it according to the freight and, of course, according to local conditions, according to the extent to which rail can replace road transport, and so on, and with their expert local knowledge they have been very well able to do it.
  On the matter of personal hardship, to which my hon. Friend referred, the commissioners have been given discretion specifically by my right hon. Friend to help the small operator on two grounds —first of all, if his livelihood is in danger from the reduced allocation, and secondly —on the point made by my hon. Friend —the question of the continuity of his business. Thus in dealing with individual applications, the commissioners can take into account not only the priority needs of the country but also these special personal circumstances of the small man.
  My hon. Friend mentioned the need for uniformity of standards between the different commissioners. We have done what we can to achieve it, and indeed

  577
  they have too. My right hon. Friend had a conference of commissioners on 8th and 9th January to discuss the general administration of the scheme and to see what could be done to achieve a uniformity of standards. The commissioners agreed between themselves the broad lines on which their work should operate, but they found that it was quite impossible to define precisely what the standard should be for each class of haulier throughout the country because the conditions varied so much in different circumstances. They did, however, agree the broad lines,
  In addition to that very valuable conference, we have a senior official from our Department travelling round from one region to another to make sure that each one is working roughly on the same lines, and my right hon. Friend and I have managed to make some visits. Last week my right hon. Friend visited Birmingham; I visited Manchester, and we are intending to visit one or two more regions. Certainly my impression from visiting Manchester, which is the next biggest region to London, was that the work was going extremely well, despite all the difficulties.
  I should like here to pay a special tribute to the driving test examiners who have been turned on to this work, and who, after all, never expected to have to undertake it when they were originally engaged. They have turned to it with great willingness and they are working overtime and weekends in order to deal with the work. I am sure the House would wish me to put on record our thanks to them for the way in which they have helped us out. I am sure that they will be very glad indeed to hear my right hon. Friend say that we hope to resume tests on a limited scale in April.
  I turn now to the question of commercial travellers with C licence vans and to the comments made by the hon. Member for Itchen (Dr. King). I am afraid that they cannot expect to average 75 per cent. of what they were using before. Inevitably they are not as a rule in a priority class, and therefore in terms of the national interest their demands do not rank high. They have rather to rely on what the commissioners can do for them to help them to maintain their livelihod and the continuity of their business. I think that our commissioners are meeting that need in a sympathetic and understanding way. Commercial travellers
  578
  cannot expect to get 75 per cent. of what they were getting before, but I believe that they are getting enough to keep them going, although naturally with difficulty.
  I assure my hon. Friend that there is no difference in principle between the administration in our Department and in the Ministry of Power. I am glad to record that when the meeting took place last week between the Department and the commercial travellers' associations the associations expressed general satisfaction at the way in which the administration on the Ministry of Transport side was working.
  On the question of the conversion to diesel engines on the railways, some services have already been introduced and others have been planned, and they are generally so far committed that it would be impossible to stop them now. My right hon. Friend is at present reviewing with the Commission the programme for further conversions. It must be remembered, however, that the nation is short of coal as well as of oil, and one must see this matter in perspective. As I say, my right hon. Friend is now reviewing the situation with the Commission.
  With regard to my hon. Friend's question about a second rationing period, as he rightly recognises, tonight I cannot possibly say—indeed, the Government are not ready to assess the various physical and political factors which will determine it—whether a second rationing period is necessary. However, I can give the assurance that the Government will make this assessment at the right time and will give hauliers the best notice that they can of whether or not a further scheme will be necessary.
  We will certainly take into account the various points which my hon. Friend has mentioned. Seasonal variations, if we have to deal with them, will certainly be taken into account, particularly in the passenger transport business. We shall also take account of initial stocks. Most hauliers have most candidly told us what their stocks were, and it would be quite wrong if they were penalised for that. Allocations will not normally be reduced if vehicles have been laid up. On my hon. Friend's final point of whether first period coupons will be allowed to be carried over, no decision has been taken but we are considering that point.

  579
  I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this subject tonight. It gives me a chance to report to the House on how it is going. It has also been most valuable in having these various points drawn to the attention of the Government if we do have to have a further period. I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising these points in the interests of trade and industry generally. Particularly, I am sure that what he has said will be welcomed by his constituents, for I recognise that Bournemouth is a very important centre of communications in the South of England for both commerce and holidays. I am sure that his constituents will recognise that my hon. Friend, in calling attention to these matters, has shown his customary interest in their welfare.
  My reply shows that the system of allocation for commercial vehicles is working well, but the last thing I wish to do is to leave an impression with the House that we feel complacent about it, for we certainly do not. We are doing our best to make it work, and we are succeeding. This is partly, I believe, through the hard work and skill of our officials, and particularly the regional transport commissioners and their staffs, but—I stress this—certainly not less, and perhaps more, it is due to the admirable co-operation that we have received and the adaptability of hundreds of thousands of operators in the country who have been determined to keep their businesses going despite the difficulties they encounter. I believe that, between the two,
  580
  we have managed to work the system successfully to the benefit of all.
  10.37 p.m.
  Mr. W. A. Wilkins: Before the hon. Gentleman sits down, I wonder whether I might mention one other point with which he has not dealt. He mentioned the priority classes and the services which have to be maintained, with which we all agree, but he did not refer to the small business men—I really mean small business men—who find themselves in very considerable difficulty.
  Perhaps in the minute left I might explain it in this way. I know a man who manufactures fireplaces in a small way. His goods go throughout the southwest of England and South Wales as well. If he puts the goods on rail, he has, in order to comply with railway requirements, to crate every single item, no matter what it is, and the estimated additional cost of this is £5. If 100 of these crates are going out in a week, one can appreciate what an enormous expense it represents to the man. In addition, there are three lots of handling whereas the article is handled only once if it is put on the one lorry that he owns. Perhaps the Minister will consider that—
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at twenty-one minutes to Eleven o'clock.

POST OFFICE
  Benfleet (Improved Service)
  Benfleet (Improved Service)
  Parcels (Delayed Delivery)
  Parcels (Delayed Delivery)
  New Submarine Cables
  New Submarine Cables
  Telephone Kiosks, Berkshire
  Telephone Kiosks, Berkshire
ROYAL AIR FORCE
  Cadets, Cranwell (Boxing Instruction)
  Cadets, Cranwell (Boxing Instruction)
  Flying Training (Civilians)
  Flying Training (Civilians)
TRANSPORT
  Motor Fuel Rationing
  Motor Fuel Rationing
ROADS
  Dartford—Purfleet Tunnel
  Dartford—Purfleet Tunnel
  New Trunk Roads (Non-Traditional Construction)
  New Trunk Roads (Non-Traditional Construction)
DEFENCE
  British Army (Helicopter Squadrons)
  British Army (Helicopter Squadrons)
  HUNGARY (TRIALS OF BRITISH SUBJECTS)
  HUNGARY (TRIALS OF BRITISH SUBJECTS)
  BRITISH CONSULATES
  BRITISH CONSULATES
NIGERIA
  Constitution (Conference)
  Constitution (Conference)
  African Continental Bank (Inquiry)
  African Continental Bank (Inquiry)
  National Economic Council
  National Economic Council
  Eastern Region Finance Corporation
  Eastern Region Finance Corporation
FIJI
  Land Reservation
  Land Reservation
CYPRUS
  Premises (Search)
  Premises (Search)
  Emergency Regulations
  Emergency Regulations
  Constitution
  Constitution
WEST INDIES
  Oil (Exploration and Prospecting Licences)
  Oil (Exploration and Prospecting Licences)
MALAYA AND SINGAPORE
  Constitution (Discussions)
  Constitution (Discussions)
CENTRAL AFRICA
  Secretary of State's Visit
  Secretary of State's Visit
  Northern Rhodesia (Trade Union Officials)
  Northern Rhodesia (Trade Union Officials)
GOLD COAST
  Constitution (White Paper)
  Constitution (White Paper)
EAST AFRICA
  Pangani River, Tanganyika
  Pangani River, Tanganyika
  Indirect Taxation
  Indirect Taxation
KENYA
  Detainees
  Detainees
  Financial Arrangements
  Financial Arrangements
SEYCHELLES
  Cost of Living
  Cost of Living
ST. HELENA
  Bahrain Deportees
  Bahrain Deportees
  Prisoners (Number and Origin)
  Prisoners (Number and Origin)
COLONIAL TERRITORIES
  Hospital Beds
  Hospital Beds
ROYAL NAVY
  Navy Days, Chatham and Portsmouth (Cancellation)
  Navy Days, Chatham and Portsmouth (Cancellation)
EMPLOYMENT
  City of Lincoln
  City of Lincoln
  Cost of Living
  Cost of Living
  B.O.A.C. Engineers (Dispute)
  B.O.A.C. Engineers (Dispute)
MINISTRY OF POWER
  Atomic Energy
  Atomic Energy
  Motor Transport (Alternative Fuels)
  Motor Transport (Alternative Fuels)
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Entertainments Duty (Cinemas)
  Entertainments Duty (Cinemas)
  Members' Salaries (Purchasing Power)
  Members' Salaries (Purchasing Power)
MINISTRY OF HEALTH
  Dental Treatments (Prior Approval)
  Dental Treatments (Prior Approval)
  New Hospitals (Construction)
  New Hospitals (Construction)
  CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (DUTIES)
  CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (DUTIES)
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Motor Vehicles (Smoke Emission Prosecutions)
  Motor Vehicles (Smoke Emission Prosecutions)
HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT
  Advertisement Regulations (Appeals)
  Advertisement Regulations (Appeals)
PENSIONS AND NATIONAL INSURANCE
  National Assistance
  National Assistance
  Retirement Pensions (Purchasing Value)
  Retirement Pensions (Purchasing Value)

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers

ROAD SIGNS
2.35 p.m.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether any alterations are being contemplated in road signs; if so, whether they would conform to the road signs abroad and to the international code in such matters; and what cost would be involved.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF DEFENCE (LORD MANCROFT): My Lords, new traffic signs regulations will be laid before Parliament on Friday this week. They will not alter the general character of the present system, but they introduce a number of new and improved signs; they will bring out-of-date regulations into line with current practice and will save a great deal of administrative work. Some of the changes incorporate ideas derived from Continental practice, as contained in what is known as the European Protocol, but efforts to secure an international code of universal application have been unsuccessful. I can give my noble friend no precise estimate of what it would cost to adopt the European Protocol system in this country, but it would certainly amount to several million pounds.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his Answer to my Question, though I am afraid I could not hear quite all of it. Is it not of considerable importance that the resolution en road signs which was adopted at Geneva a good many years ago should be adhered to as closely as possible and that we should try to conform so far as we can to the road signs in constant use abroad? Otherwise it may produce considerable danger, especially for the large
534
number of foreign tourists who, we hope, will be cruising round in this country.
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I agree with the noble Earl's view. We have attempted to stick as closely as possible to Continental practice, but there is also in existence a possible international code, which also has certain claims. I think that, so far as we have gone, we have come to an effective compromise, though I fully appreciate that others, like the noble Earl, would probably have wished us to go further in copying Continental practice.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, could the noble Lord say whether the proposals he is going to lay before the House on Friday will entail considerable expense?
LORD MANCROFT: Some expense, my Lords; not "considerable."

ATOMIC-POWERED SHIPS
LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCIITER: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order
Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the declared intention of the United States of America to construct atomic-powered merchant ships and tankers and, in view of the possibility of such vessels calling at British ports and of the potential dangers involved, whether they are in a position to make any statement in regard to the safeguards that will require to be applied.]
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, my noble friend has asked mc to reply. It will probably be some years before merchant vessels propelled by atomic energy are in operation. I can assure the noble Lord that Her Majesty's Government are keeping in close touch with developments and that they are fully alive to the necessity of considering, when the time is ripe, whether any special safety regulations, or other measures, will need to be introduced as regards entry into British ports.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether there is not a

535
certain amount of waste from any atomically-propelled ship or device, and is not this waste radioactive? If it is, how is it proposed to dispose of the waste when the ship is in harbour or at sea? Is this not a case where there should be international regulations governing the whole matter?
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, we shall be in close touch with the Americans on this question of how they propose to dispose of waste in such ships as they build. It would seem that it is necessary to have some international code covering this new invention.
LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for his Answer, may I say, with your Lordships' permission, that since I put down my Question it has been reported in the Press that British shipping interests are planning to build atomic-engined ships which will be in commission within three years from now? May I ask the noble Earl if he could inform us whether any fracture of an atomic engine casing or rupture of the shieldings used with such engines, say, as a result of a collision, would result in the release of radioactivity, which would be highly dangerous to life, especially in populous areas like the Thames and the Mersey?
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, we all hope that we are going to have ships propelled by atomic power as soon as possible. The Atomic Energy Authority are studying the technical aspects of the problem, of which there are a great many—some of them have been mentioned by the noble Lord opposite. I can only say that the Government are watching this carefully so that they will be able to act in time to prevent any of the damage that is anticipated by the noble Lord.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, is it not the fact that we have reached that stage of progress in naval investigation in which atomic apparatus is almost ready, if not ready, to be put into submarines for trial? We should therefore be having some immediate experiments available tom which to obtain knowledge. I was rather disappointed at one phrase in the noble Earl's reply. He said: "when
536
the time is ripe." I should have thought that the time is ripe now for the fullest investigation of all these problems. I gathered from his supplementary answer that certain investigations are going on, and I hope that no delay will take place in investigating the whole question, both by research and by pursuing the suggestion of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for the development of international regulations.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, in regard to matters on the naval side, on which I am not informed, perhaps noble Lords interested would consider putting down Questions to the noble Earl the First Lord of the Admiralty, which he would be in a position to answer. But, in general, I am right in saying that we are alive to these problems, which must be dealt with if ever atomic ships are going to be able to sail the seas.

BRITISH SUBSCRIPTION TO U.N.O.
LORD JEFFREYS: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what cost to the public is involved on account of this country's membership of U.N.O.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF GOSFORD): My Lords, the United Kingdom subscription to the budget of the United Nations in 1956 amounted to £1,261,000.
LORD JEFFREYS: My Lords, can Her Majesty's Government say whether our country is getting full value for this large sum contributed to this organisation?
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, what is the value to this country of the main tenance of world peace?
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, I think those are hypothetical questions which each noble Lord will have to answer in his own conscience.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, are we not important members of this organisation?

537
Do we wish it to be maintained? We have always said that we do. Do we not have a responsibility to make that organisation as fruitful as possible?
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, in answer to the noble Viscount, I can only say that I think we should wait for the debate on this subject which I believe is down on the Order Paper for some future date.
LORD JEFFREYS: My Lords, I would repeat the supplementary question that I asked the noble Earl. Are we getting full value for this large sum of money that we pay for membership of the United Nations? Surely, the Government have some views on the subject.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, your Lordships will realise from various happenings in the past that this organisation is far from perfect; but we must obviously all work together to see that it is made as perfect as possible for the future peace of the world.

MR. SANDYS' AMERICAN VISIT
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I beg to ask Her Majesty's Government the following Private Notice Question: Whether they will make a statement on the discussions between the Minister of Defence and the United States and Canadian Governments on defence of mutual interest?
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I will, with your Lordships' permission, seek leave to intervene in the debate this afternoon, probably at about a quarter to four, to make a statement similar to that being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Minister of Defence.

B.B.C.'S EXTERNAL SERVICES
2.45 p.m.
LORD STRANG LORD STRANG rose to draw attention to the inadequacy of the provision made for the external broadcasting services of the B.B.C.; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: When, a short time ago, a Motion was put down by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, about the sound and television services of the British Broadcasting
538
Corporation and the Independent Television Authority, with special reference to the domestic services, it seemed to one or two noble Lords and to myself that it might be useful if the external broadcasting services of the B.B.C. could also be brought up for discussion. The time seems to be ripe for this, because it is now over two years since the question of the overseas information services as a whole, including, of course, the external services of the B.B.C., were the subject of a Motion introduced by the noble Lord. Lord Birdwood. That is the excuse for the Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper to-day.
I should perhaps explain that though, together with forty-four other persons, drawn from many walks of life, I am a member of the General Advisory Council of the B.B.C., I am speaking to-day on my own behalf, and not in any sense on behalf either of the General Advisory Council or of the Corporation. The General Advisory Council, as your Lordships will know, is appointed by the Corporation under their Charter to advise them on the business and affairs of the Corporation. The Council can advise, question, criticise or commend the Corporation, but it has no responsibility for their acts.
Anyone who wishes to speak with knowledge about the external services of the B.B.C, is in some difficulty. These programmes are broadcast from London in over forty foreign languages, as well as in English, and they are transmitted for a total of about eighty hours each day. There is therefore no easy way to test the quality of all these broadcasts, or to assess their impact upon the minds of listeners overseas. All too often, we are apt to rely upon the isolated report, generally adverse, by some chance listener to some individual programme, and from this we are all too ready to judge the output of these broadcast services as a whole. But, fortunately, in addition to the copious information published by the B.B.C. themselves, there is one source of information and one independent judgment on the value of these services on which the greatest reliance can be placed: I refer to the Report of the Independent Committee of Inquiry into the Overseas Information Services, most ably presided over by the noble Earl, Lord Drogheda, who, I am glad to say, is to intervene in

539
this debate after me. That Report was presented to the Government in July, 1953, and a summary of it was published in April, 1954. The Report of the Committee of Inquiry covers the departmental information services and the British Council, as well as the B.B.C. external services, though it is only about the last—that is to say, the B.B.C. external services—that I am venturing to address your Lordships to-day.
The members of the Committee of Inquiry approached their task in a healthily sceptical state of mind, and they treated the claims of the broadcasting services in a cool and discriminating spirit. This hard-headed approach on their part adds weight to the favourable judgment which the Committee pass on these broadcasts and to the recommendations for their extension to which they commit themselves in their conclusions.
There is one matter on which some preliminary remarks may be permitted, and that is the system—I think it is a unique system—under which the B.B.C. external services are conducted. The essential point to notice here is that broadcasts from London addressed to foreign countries, to Commonwealth countries and to British overseas territories, whether in the General Overseas Service, in English, or in the various special services, in foreign languages, are not prepared or passed by the Government. The Government find the money for them by way of annual grant-in-aid, which runs at the moment at somewhat over £5 million a year. The Government also lay down from time to time the languages in which the external broadcasts are to be made, and the number of hours which are to be devoted to broadcasts in each language. But that is as far as precise Government direction goes. The actual content of the broadcasts remains the entire responsibility of the B.B.C.
This independent rôle of the B.B.C. has been emphasised by the Government themselves. In the White Paper on Broadcasting Policy, issued in 1946, it is stated:
"The Government intend that the Corporation should remain independent in the preparation of programmes for overseas audiences."
The White Paper then goes on to add a balancing reference to the national interest:
540
"The Corporation should obtain from the Government Departments concerned such information about conditions in these countries and the policies of His Majesty's Government towards them as will permit it to plan the programmes in the national interest."
But the B.B.C. has not only to be independent; it has also to be objective. The White Paper of 1946 is emphatic on this point. It says:
"Great care should be taken to ensure the complete objectivity of the news bulletins.…The Corporation's reputation for telling the truth must be maintained, and the treatment of an item in an overseas bulletin must not differ in any material respect from its treatment in current news bulletins for domestic listeners."
But there is more than this. In addition to observing complete objectivity in the broadcasting of news, the B.B.C., with the formally stated approval of the Government, uses complete impartiality in the treatment of controversial issues—that is to say, objectivity in the broadcasting of news, and impartiality in the treatment of controversial issues.
The B.B.C. have been under heavy fire from some quarters for the handling of their news during the Suez crisis. The profound division in domestic opinion at that time faced the B.B.C. with a problem the like of which they had never had to meet before in their overseas programmes, and the like of which we hope they will never have to meet again. It has been suggested that they should have concentrated on the Government's case, and should have played down all contrary views and suppressed inconvenient facts. But the duty of objectivity which is expressly laid upon the B.B.C. by the Government, and the policy of impartiality which the B.B.C. have adopted for themselves, do, it seems to me, carry with them the consequence that, if public opinion is deeply divided on any issue of foreign policy, this fact must needs be reflected in the overseas broadcasts. In point of fact, it would have been fruitless to try to conceal it. But it can, I think, fairly be required of the B.B.C. that, in the national interest, the Government's case should, as a matter of priority, always be put as vigorously, as cogently and as persuasively as possible, and that opposing views should be reported on their merits with a due sense of responsibility.
I have just been reading what is certainly a voluminous, and what I believe to be a widely representative, selection of

541
the news bulletins, news reviews and news commentaries put out from London to a variety of countries by the B.B.C.'s external services at the height of the Suez crisis. Having read them, I am glad to be able to record my opinion, to the best of my own judgment, that, with one possible exception, the temper and content of all these broadcasts were in complete accord with the principles laid down in the White Paper of 1946. I go further. I would say that, as I read, I could have wished that the Government could always have made as good a case for themselves as the B.B.C. commentators sometimes made for them. Your Lordships may have noticed the tribute paid to these broadcasts by Sir Richard Boyer, Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, in a letter to The Times of January 25. Sir Richard said that he was in the East at the time, and that the honesty of these programmes made an immense impression on Arab-Asian opinion. Even hostile critics were moved to admit that in the long term there could be little fundamentally wrong with the heart of a nation which could show such practical liberalism at such a time. Those were the opinions expressed and the views reported by the Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Commission.
There is also a striking reference in the Drogheda Report to this duty of objectivity. The Drogheda Committee say that they believe the B.B.C.'s high reputation for objective and honest news reporting to be "a priceless asset"—that is the phrase they use. And they add that this high reputation "must be maintained at all costs", and that they "would deplore any attempt to use the B.B.C. for anything in the way of direct propaganda of the more obvious kind." These seem to me to be wise and weighty words, and I would ask the noble Earl who is to reply whether Her Majesty's Government still adhere to the views about independence and objectivity expressed by their predecessors in the White Paper of 1946. That is my first main question.
What are the main objects of these broadcasts? They have two separate purposes. One is to provide links with the Commonwealth and with British communities abroad by direct contact with the individual listener. This is done chiefly through the General Overseas
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Service in English, which is a kind of world-wide 21-hours a day Home Service. The second purpose is to present British views and policies to individual foreign listeners, both in English and in their own languages. This is done as a part of the great struggle for men's minds in which the free world is now engaged. It also serves as a support to our diplomacy in the promotion of our own political and economic interests throughout the world.
If it is a mistake, as I think it is, to underestimate what these broadcasting services can do, it is no less a mistake, it seems to me, to overestimate their capabilities. There are some things that the B.B.C. external services cannot do. For one thing, they cannot in normal times attract great nation-wide audiences like our own more popular Home Services. You can put out programmes but you cannot compel people to listen. You must attract and hold your listeners. In fact, quite a good number of people do listen, and listen regularly. For example, in certain cities in Pakistan, about 30 per cent. of licence holders listen to the B.B.C. English programmes, and about 20 per cent. listen to the B.B.C. programmes in Urdu. In France, there is an audience of about 3½ million, or about 11 per cent. of the adult population; and of these abort 300,000 listen daily. There are not many national French newspapers with a circulation greater than that.
There is another thing which the B.B.C. services cannot do. They cannot, it seems to me, meet untruth with untruth, and hate with hate. Lies can be more exciting and more interesting than the truth. Hatred can be more exhilarating than cool reason. Men, alas !, seem to like having their evil passions roused, and there are broadcasting services, whether from Moscow or from Cairo, which play on these passions. It is hopeless to expect the B.B.C. to sway the mob in Cairo, in Damascus or in Amman, as is done by the "Voice of the Arabs", but even behind the Iron Curtain, even in mob-ridden Middle Eastern capitals, they can reach a minority, the minority who are anxious to know what is going on outside the Iron Curtain, the minority who still think soberly and critically about world affairs.
If examples are required, I would quote the Moscow taxi-driers who told their

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clients the story of Warsaw, as heard over the radio from London, or the Moscow University students who posted up transcripts of the B.B.C. Russian news bulletins about Hungary. I would also recall the moving message of appreciation received by the B.B.C. on November 3 from the Free Hungarian Radio in Budapest during its very brief existence. And I would not omit the remark by the Sheikh in the Aden Protectorate:
"I listen to the 'Voice of the Arabs' and I like these broadcasts because they come from an Arab country and I am an Arab, but afterwards I tune in to the B.B.C. in order to find out if what they say is true."
So the B.B.C. believe, and the Drogheda Committee confirm, that these broadcasts will make their best impact if they are good, if they are regular and if they are honest. There is hardly a part of the world where it may not quite suddenly become important that the British view should be driven home to the man in the street. That is why it is essential that the B.B.C. should be able to maintain a stable world-wide service which can maintain a steady body of listeners at all times and which can attract a wider audience when times of crisis create a wider interest.
External broadcasting is a long-term operation. Programmes cannot be turned on like water out of a tap. That is a truth which other Governments have learnt. Whereas in 1947 the B.B.C.'s external services from London ran at about 700 hours a week, they have since 1952 been running at no more than 560 hours a week. This means that the B.B.C.'s services have been overtaken and surpassed, not only by the United States, with 930 hours, and the Soviet Union with 668 hours, but also by the Eastern European Communist countries, with 730 hours. The Drogheda Committee, for all the scepticism of their original approach, confessed that they could not in the end avoid the conclusion that
"a modern Government has to concern itself with public opinion abroad and be properly equipped to deal with it."
But they also said that it would be better not to do the work at all than to skimp it.
In the light of all the facts, my Lords, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this is just what the Government have done. They have skimped the external broadcasting services. On grounds of economy,
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year after year for the past eight years, cuts have been made in these services. Your Lordships will note that I have said "cuts in the services" and not "cuts in the grants-in-aid". The figures of the grants have, indeed, usually been slightly increased from year to year, but costs have risen faster than the grant. Costs have risen by about 60 per cent., while grants have been increased by only about 30 per cent.—only half the figure required to maintain the programmes at a level.
The net result of all this is that the grant-in-aid for 1955–56 represents a net loss of £1 million worth of broadcast services, as compared with the position in 1947: that is to say, a loss of £1 million worth of services on a budget of a little over £5 million. By delving into the B.B.C.'s Annual Reports, as I have done, it is possible to gather details of what these progressive cuts have meant in practice. I do not propose to weary your Lordships with a catalogue. The main figures are to be found—and they are very depressing figures indeed—in a Written Reply given in another place on February 1. I would only say that the effect of the cuts has been world-wide, but that they have fallen with special severity on the Latin American and Western European services. They have not merely reduced hours of broadcasting from London: they have also caused very heavy reductions in local re-broadcasts and transcription services; and they have seriously adversely affected the quality of the programmes.
Let us not overlook that this whittling down of this great and indispensable service has taken place during the years when the beat of Communist propaganda throughout the world has grown more pervasive, when the opportunities to exploit the widening chinks in the Communist armour have become more promising, and when Cairo Radio has attacked our positions throughout the length and breadth of the Middle East, and in Africa. This process has been described, unkindly, as "death by a thousand cuts"; but, so far as I know, there has been no intention to kill the B.B.C. external services. I sincerely hope not. But they have certainly been effectively hobbled. The art of hobbling on organisation without entirely crippling it is one which, as I know to my cost, is well

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understood and is practised in Whitehall. But, the external broadcast services having been effectively hobbled, Government Departments, with each new crisis that arises in the world, call upon the B.B.C. at short notice and expect them to make a sudden sprint or spurt in one direction or another.
The Government cannot say that they have not been warned. The Drogheda Committee said that these broadcasts were virtually the only form of propaganda capable of penetrating the Iron Curtain. They accepted the view that they were the main information weapon in the Middle East. They expressed the opinion that the Far Eastern and Latin American services were inadequate for their respective purposes. They made three main recommendations. First, they made proposals for the expansion of certain of the services, involving additional annual revenue expenditure of £620,000, set off by projected savings in Western Europe of £135.000—that is, a net increase of £485,000. Secondly, they estimated the requirements of capital development at about half a million pounds a year over a period of from five to ten years. Thirdly, they recommended that all overseas information work, including, of course, the B.B.C. external services, should be based on a long-term plan, not subject to short-term financial fluctuation. There was the position in 1953—inadequate programmes for many important parts of the world; and a growing inadequacy and obsolescence of transmitting equipment, particularly for relay purposes in South East Asia and the Middle East. This had left the B.B.C. a long way behind the United States and the Soviet Union; so much so that the Drogheda Committee said that
"the first priority for broadcasting must be a large scale programme of capital development designed to put the external services on a proper technical footing."
And finally, a continual annual pruning of the services instead of an element of financial stability.
Is the position any better to-day than it was when the Drogheda Committee reported? My Lords, it is not; it is even worse. Year after year, rising costs have eaten into programmes and technical equipment. Though the Government of the day stated that they accepted the broad principles of the Drogheda Report,
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practically nothing has been done to carry out its recommendations so far as the B.B.C. broadcast services are concerned. Except in one particular, the Committee's recommendations have remained a dead letter. A slight extension was, indeed, made in the B.B.C.'s Arabic service, giving four and a half hours a day instead of four hours as before. But this was made possible only by making reductions in B.B.C. services elsewhere. The principle of robbing Peter to pay Paul was the only way the B.B.C. could meet the new demands made on them. And what is more, the B.B.C. were still unable to supply themselves with the relay equipment necessary to allow their Arabic programmes to compete technically with the "Voice of the Arabs" put out from Cairo.
This is what the B.B.C. said about that in their Annual Report for 1955–56:
"An important need in the Middle East is the provision of a medium-wave transmitter in the Eastern Mediterranean to relay the B.B.C.'s Arabic service and other related services for the Middle East. The case for the necessary capital expenditure was put to Her Majesty's Government sixteen years ago and has been pressed upon them on many occasions since then, but no funds have yet been made available for this purpose."
I hope the noble Earl who is to reply will be able to tell your Lordships that this situation is to be improved. Of course, I am aware that Her Majesty's Government have recently requisitioned the facilities of the Near East Arab Broadcasting Station in Cyprus, and that they themselves are putting out programmes from that station. I hope the noble Earl will be able to tell your Lordships what the intentions of Her Majesty's Government are as regards the future use of the facilities of that station.
To sum up this part of the argument, apart from partial reconstruction out of revenue of a transmitting station at Tebrau, in Johore, in 1949, for relays to the Far East and Australia, no appreciable capital funds have been made available at any stage for the modernisation of the B.B.C.'s transmission equipment since 1943—thirteen years ago. In the light of all this, I beg to ask the noble Earl whether he can state the present position of the Government on the three main points raised by the Drogheda Report—namely, first, the expansion of inadequate services; secondly, the provision of long-needed equipment; and

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thirdly, the need for financial stability. That is my second main question.
Among the recommendations of the Drogheda Report was a recommendation that the French, Italian, Danish, Norwegian, Portuguese and Swedish services should be terminated. That recommendation, I am glad to say, has not been carried out either. I do not know whether the Drogheda Committee would have reached the same conclusion if they had been sitting to-day. However that may be, I wish to put in a strong plea for the retention of these Western European services. The Suez crisis showed that Western European opinion is not so firmly on our side or so well informed through other channels that we need not cultivate it. In fact, even in the friendliest countries, the internal broadcasting systems were so biased that the British case almost went by default. For example, I believe it to be the case—I do not know whether the noble Earl can confirm this—that in Norway the content of the Prime Minister's broadcast of November 3 would not have come to the knowledge of the Norwegian public at all had it not been carried in the B.B.C.'s Norwegian service. One Norwegian listener wrote:
"Even if we did not all agree with Eden's action, through the sober presentation of the facts behind it in the B.B.C's programme, one has come to realise that it was the right thing to do."
But there is another point. If N.A.T.O. means anything, if Western European Union and the Council of Europe mean anything, if the European Free Trade Area is to mean anything, surely we must neglect no means of building up the community and developing the intimacy of our relationship with our European partners. The B.B.C. services can contribute to this. So long as they continue, they stand as a symbol of our desire for a closer relationship. To discontinue them would cast a chill over that relationship. It would also leave the field more open to the constant and increasing attacks upon the cohesion of the Western European Community put out from Moscow. There are trends of opinion in all Western European countries to which these Moscow broadcasts can make an appeal. There is good evidence to show that in Norway, for example, the reduction of the B.B.C.'s service some years ago was
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followed by a considerable increase in the number of listeners to Moscow broadcasts. In my view, it would be a grave mistake to shut down the Western European service.
My general plea, therefore, is, that Her Majesty's Government should look upon this external broadcasting question in a large way. The external services are, as Sir Richard Boyer said in his letter to The Times from which I have already quoted:
"one of the strongest arms of British diplomacy."
I would add that, as such, they are also one of the arms of our defence, and one of the means of promoting our vital economic interests overseas. In the world as it is to-day, we need these supplementary arms more than ever before. In our present position in the world, we need them more perhaps than does any other Power. We have been told in the plainest terms and on the best authority that the services are inadequate and that the equipment is deficient.
It is not as though vast sums of money were required. Our expenditure on the external services is at present running at about one-third of 1 per cent. of our defence budget. I am not competent to say what additional annual sum would be needed to put these services on a sound and secure basis; but I gather that if the grant-in-aid could be raised by about £1 million a year (that is, to about £6¼ million a year), with adequate provision for any further rise in costs, the work could be done more nearly in the way it ought to be done. Of the increase, £500,000 would be for the modernisation of equipment and £500,000 for the restoration and development of services; and that, in fact, is not far off what the Drogheda Committee themselves proposed nearly four years ago.
Are we really to say that we cannot afford £6 million or so for these essential services? We have been told that they are a "priceless asset." Let us treat them as such and get the most we can out of them. No vast programme of expansion is called for. There is no need to try to shout down our rivals in the field. What is required is that the British voice should be heard everywhere in the world to be speaking day by day. There will always be listeners. In the less critical times, their number may not everywhere be

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large, but in times of crisis they will multiply overnight. The continuous maintenance of services throughout the world is the only means of ensuring a hearing for the British case wherever it may be urgently needed. I beg Her Majesty's Government, in their own interests and in the interests of all of us, to make this possible. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.22 p.m.
THE EARL OF DROGHEDA: My Lords I should like first of all to thank the noble Lord, Lord Strang, for the kind things he has said about our Report, and I am, of course, very grateful to him for having taken it out of its pigeon-hole and given it another dusting. I should like also to say how much we owe the admirable secretary whose services were lent to us by the Foreign Office. I could wish that the noble Lord's Motion had referred to all the information services, because, although the British Broadcasting Corporation services are probably the most important of the information services, that is not true in all countries or in all circumstances. Anyone who has had the stamina to read through the summary of our Report will know that there are many other services—the information offices which are maintained abroad by the Foreign Office, by the Commonwealth Relations Office and by the Colonial Office; the much-criticised British Council, whose main work is. I think, largely misunderstood and underrated; the Central Office of Information, which provides written and other material to be used abroad; the News Department of the Foreign Office, to which foreign journalists go for information, and the many other agencies that are maintained in this country by Government Departments. So I hope your Lordships will bear with me if I say a word on the picture as a whole, and not only on the B.B.C.
The noble Lord, Lord Strang, is quite right in saying that we approached our inquiry in a spirit of some scepticism. I believe that most, or at any rate many, people in this country have a kind of mistrust and dislike of propaganda. It is a fairly expensive form of activity and one which can never be proved to have any practical result. I believe that, to a certain extent, we shared in the bias which many of us have felt towards an activity which is somewhat alien to the
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British character. But we had not proceeded very far in our inquiry when we were driven to the conclusion that our services really were vital to this country; and the further one got away from this country during the inquiry, the more strongly did the need for the information services present itself. I believe that one is more likely to think rightly on these subjects when one is Thousands of miles away than when one has returned home, when the sense of urgency has been dulled.
Having decided that the services as a whole were vitally essential, we then had to look at the means that were available to carry them out. We found that, although the need for the services had been increasing since the war, the means for carrying them out had been steadily diminishing. Taking into account rising costs, on the one hand, and the reduction in the money available, on the other, we found that between 1947 and 1953 the effective effort deployed had been approximately halved; and I imagine that costs have risen a great deal since 1953. So we recommended that Her Majesty's Government had no option, but to choose between a considerable strengthening and expansion of our services or a considerable curtailment of some of the activities, in order that what remained might at least be effective.
We did not advise considerable curtailment. What is necessary, above all, is that there should be a long-term plan, with proper pay and security for the men employed in these services, and that there should be an end of the recurrent and haphazard cuts that have gone on every year. It seemed to us that what had happened was that somewhere towards Budget time each year the services were told: "There has got to be a reduction. Only this amount will be available, and you can tight it out between yourselves who is to have what." I can think of nothing more discouraging or inefficient than such a system and I hope that one day it may be done away with. I can well understand that the Treasury, faced as it has been with one financial crisis after another, must look with a jealous eye on all expenditure, and perhaps particularly on expenditure on such an imponderable as the information services. But we must consider not only what we can afford, but also what we cannot afford to be

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without; and I feel that the information services are something that we must have and must keep efficient.
There is this to be said for the information services: they constitute, in this seemingly never-ending cold war, the only weapon that does not become obsolete or obsolescent the moment it is forged, and almost as soon as it is off the drawing board. In broadcasting, at the end of the war we were the most efficient nation, with the largest programme of hours. But that is not so now. Not only has there been, on the one side, financial stringency in this country, but, on the other side, there has been a vast increase in external broadcasting by other countries—I think that by 1953 it was ten times what it had been at the end of the war. The powerful and efficient B.B.C. transmitters could no longer be relied upon to be heard all over the world. The "Voice of America" and Moscow Radio have met their problems by setting up stations near the "target areas." I think I remember that, even by 1953, the strongest signals heard in Delhi came from a Russian station at Tashkent. By and large, that is probably the sort of thing which obtains all over the world. We have not been able to afford to do that, and it makes it very difficult for us. But, at any rate, I think we ought to see that what we have got is as efficient as it can be made.
The noble Lord, Lord Strang, has referred to what our Committee said about the unique reputation for honest reporting that the B.B.C. acquired during the war. I certainly think that we should still feel that this is a precious asset which must be kept, whatever happens. We did make a few suggestions of economy, but they were not, of course, very well received by anyone—except possibly the Treasury. I am not sure now that we should have suggested cuts in the Western European services to which the noble Lord has referred. I do not think that we should have done so at the time, had it not been one of those times of financial crisis which are now endemic. We thought that the greatest need was to strengthen the Far Eastern services and also, for commercial and other reasons, the Southern America Services. We felt that there was then less need for the European services, because the countries of Western Europe are pressed much
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more together and they have other means of keeping in contact with British public opinion.
I wish to end by saying once more how vital it is to have a long-term plan, and to stick to it. What I am about to say is probably most Utopian, but I could wish that the scale of our information services could be decided by an all-Party body, so that continuity could be assured over a long term of years.
3.34 p.m.
LORD KILLEARN: My Lords, I rise strongly to support the Motion standing in the name of Lord Strang—
THE EARL OF SWINTON: Are we going to keep to the order of the list of speakers?
LORD KILLEARN: I have already arranged that, if I may be allowed to say so. I asked subsequent speakers if they would mind my intervening for a few minutes now, as I have an important engagement at four o'clock. With the greatest readiness and courtesy they both agreed.
Now, if I may begin again, after that personal explanation, I rise strongly to support the Motion standing in the name of Lord Strang. My justification for doing so is very simple, and it will not take long for me to put it to the House. I served for twelve and a half years in the Far East, for twelve and a half years in the Middle East, and for two years in South-East Asia; and I can only say, as someone who has been at the receiving end, that I do not think we can exaggerate the importance of the external broadcasting services of the B.B.C. To cut them down I should deplore. I am absolutely convinced that it would not be in the best public interest. I think that Lord Strang made an admirable case—and I feel sure that the House will think so also—for increasing the efficiency of the services. The noble Earl, Lord Drogheda (if I may express another personal opinion), made an irrefutable case for the maintenance of the other information services.
My Lords, I have risen specifically to support the Motion standing in the name of Lord Strang. I have done so because of personal experience at the receiving end over a period of twenty-five years,

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as I thought that that might perhaps interest your Lordships and appeal to you as testimony of some value.
3.36 p.m.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I am sure we are all delighted that Lord Strang, from whom we have become accustomed to hearing classical expositions of foreign policy, has added another item to his Parliamentary repertoire—the subject of overseas broadcasting. Of course, the two subjects are closely connected, and no one is better qualified than Lord Strang to show the importance of overseas broadcasting for foreign policy. I am also sure that your Lordships were extremely pleased that the noble Earl, Lord Drogheda, spoke to us from a different quarter of the House. I do not imagine that there is any Member of either House who has greater knowledge of our overseas information services than the noble Earl, who was, of course, chairman of the Committee of Inquiry. He conducted a peripatetic party to explore these services in different parts of the world over a long period of time. I think we all realise that, while we gain from having the noble Earl as Chairman of Committees, we lose because he cannot speak more often as an independent Member of the House.
I think we ought to start, as Lord Strang did, from the general position, and I feel that we all agree about the vital importance of external broadcasting to the position of this country in the outside world. I myself believe (I do not know whether Lord Strang shares my belief; I hope he does; I am sure he will tell me later on whether he does or not) that the security of our country will depend at least as much on the good will we can earn from familiarising people in the outside world with our policies and with our way of life at home as it will on the military strength and the defensive arrangements we can make with other countries. That is the justification for our plea for the strengthening of all overseas broadcasting, because overseas broadcasting is an essential adjunct to national policy, foreign policy, defence policy, and the maintenance of peace in the world.
That is the approach which I think all of us who are making this plea to the Government have in common. We regret, as the noble Lord, Lord Strang, has regretted, that the B.B.C. external services
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have been allowed by successive Governments to decline—I do not allocate more blame to one Government than to another—over a long period of time. The main reason for this decline has been a false assessment of economy, an assessment resulting from a failure to appreciate the essential value of external broadcasting, overseas broadcasting, front the point of view of national policy. No Government have been willing to spend enough in the shape of their annual grants to the B.B.C. for services to the Commonwealth and foreign countries to cover the steady rise in the cost to the Corporation of these services. And the B.B.C., like any business organisation in the country, have had to face this steady rise in the cost of the services they have established over a long period of time.
The result has been that, in spite of small increases in the amount of annual grants, the B.B.C. have had to prune away their external services every year for the past eight years. That fundamental fact was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Strang, but I feel that it is so important that it can bear repetition. Two years ago, the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, speaking on behalf of the Government, in reply to the debate we had on the Drogheda Committee Report, said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 190, col. 305] that it was the policy of the Government,
"… to maintain approximately the existing level of broadcasting."
But, as the noble Lord, Lord Strang, said, this level has not been maintained, and the position is worse now than it was. There were further cuts in 1955 and 1956. The amount of grant for 1957–58 has not yet been settled, but it will soon be decided, and I very much hope that the views that have been expressed, and will be expressed, by noble Lords this afternoon may have some influence with the Government in making their decision.
This gradual erosion of overseas broadcasting is very striking when we compare the amount of broadcasting to foreign and Commonwealth countries six years ago, in 1950, with the amount done last year. I do not want to weary your Lordships with a catalogue of figures, any more than did the noble Lord, Lord Strang, but I think that a few figures are essential if we are to have a basis on which to form a judgment of the change

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in the quantity of our overseas broadcasting. Looking at the broadcasting to foreign countries, we find that the weekly hours of broadcasting to Latin America in the Spanish language have been roughly halved; they are now 21, instead of 40¼, in 1950. Broadcasts in Portuguese have been reduced to one-third; 8¾ hours, instead of 24½. In 1947, B.B.C. programmes were relayed in South America from 183 stations, as compared with only 11 in 1956. So the "Voice of Britain" is really almost inaudible now in South America. This is a lamentable state of affairs. It has happened at a time when trade with South America has never been more important for British exports which we need to balance our payments.
The hours of broadcasting to our neighbours in Western Europe have also been reduced, and this again—I will not go into details—at a time when we ought to strengthen our economic and political ties with all these countries, as the noble Lord, Lord Strang, has said. Even the broadcasting to the Commonwealth has been heavily cut. Personally, I regret that more than anything else. The general overseas service in English has fallen from 168 hours to 147 hours a week and the Commonwealth services from 12 hours to 10¾ hours. Taking our general service to the Commonwealth, we find that the South African service in Afrikaans has been reduced proportionately more than the service in English to other parts of the Commonwealth by falling from 4½ hours to 1¾ hours a week. I mention this because it seems to me that this is an absolutely vital Commonwealth service. Our relations with the Union of South Africa are particularly—what shall I say?—touchy, difficult—
LORD MATHERS: Delicate.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I am grateful to my noble friend behind me—delicate, I think, is the right word for a diplomat to use. There is no country in the Commonwealth with which our relations are more delicate than they are with the Union of South Africa, and it is clearly to Afrikaans-speaking people in the Union that our case should be addressed. We should say to them: "You ought to understand our point of view and know what is going on in this
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country." So I hope that reconsideration will be given to the service to South Africa in Afrikaans.
When all these cuts are added up, it is not surprising to hear that the B.B.C. have already lost something like 400 of the expert staff they employed in 1949. These reductions in hours and staff give some idea of the absolute decline of overseas broadcasting in relation to the 1950 level, but the collapse of British broadcasting in relation to that of other great Powers is no less striking. The noble Lord, Lord Strang, gave us some figures. He quoted the Soviet Union as giving 668 hours a week last year, as compared with our 564, and even the satellite countries are doing more hours per week than we are. Surely, from the point of view of policy, this is vitally important. We know that the Soviet Union's policy of peaceful co-existence is based on economic penetration and propaganda instead of the use of force, and this is the new method of undermining the capitalist countries. Well, we have to answer in the same medium. We certainly do not want to answer with any form of unjustifiable force, but we do want to answer, I am sure, with the impact we can make on people's minds.
Even if the "Voice of America" does much more than the Soviet Union, we cannot leave the "Voice of America" to take the place of the "Voice of Britain." I believe that our standard of broadcasting, certainly in my experience not only of America but also of many other countries, is higher than that of any other part of the world. I do not believe that there is any other broadcasting system that can take its place. I am not saying that, with our limited resources, we can rival either the Soviet Union or the United States of America—of course we cannot—but I do think that we could compare more favourably with these Powers than we do at the present time. What we should like to know from the Government at the end of this debate is whether they are going to allow this decline to continue, or whether they have already in mind ways and means of stopping this gradual falling off in staff and equipment before the damage has become irreparable.
I should like to allude to one or two hopeful steps which the Government appear to be taking. The first of these

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is the appointment of a Cabinet Minister without a Department
"to co-ordinate Government information especially en the overseas side."
There was a parallel for that in the 1945 Government when the Lord President of the Council was responsible for information policy, and it is in line, I think the noble Earl, Lord Drogheda, would agree, with the recommendation of this Committee, to put
"… a senior Minister without portfolio"
in charge of information. Of course, we cannot tell whether this step is right or not until we know the duties and functions the Chancellor of the Duchy will discharge and how these duties will be carried cut. Perhaps the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, will be able to give us a little more information on the duties and functions of the Chancellor of the Duchy.
We shall all agree that he should co-ordinate the different channels of Government publicity, but a certain amount of anxiety has been expressed already lest he might interfere in some measure with the independence of the B.B.C. and the British Council and use them rather more as organs of Government publicity. That is a danger which we should all wish to avoid. I think that nobody in your Lordships' House would want a Minister of Information in peace time. Perhaps we may have an assurance from the noble Earl. Though I do not think that these doubts have crossed the minds of noble Lords, they certainly have crossed the minds of people outside, and this matter of authority and interference is no part at all of the assignment of the Chancellor of the Duchy.
We have also heard officially that Dr. Hill will examine the Overseas Information Services, presumably—although this is implied—only to report to the Government on how they can be improved. This, in itself, is a welcome step. Perhaps we might have more information of exactly what the Government have in mind. How long is this investigation likely to take? It is clear that we should like it to be as short as possible. The Drogheda Committee made a long inquiry into the same subject, and their views are, I suppose, the last word on the matter. So I do not imagine it ought to be necessary to spend a long time on
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making an inquiry and producing recommendations on which the Government can act and which would be the basis for a new information policy.
I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government whether, when the new Cabinet Minister in charge of information has disharged this task of examining the Overseas Information Services and recommending improvements that can be made, they will be willing to publish a White Paper, which will give the views of the Chancellor of the Duchy, and tell us what action they can take on those views. After all, this is a matter of great interest to Parliament and the public. Therefore, I hope the Government will be willing to publish a White Paper. It is, I suppose, the first occasion on which a Cabinet Minister has been given the sole duty of dealing with information. If I recollect rightly, the Ministers of Information during the war were not members of the Cabinet. When a Cabinet Minister has been given this responsibility, he has also had, as a rule, a Department. When the Lord President of the Council of the 1945 Government, with whom I worked closely (because I was at the Post Office at the time, and there is always. by virtue of the Charter of the B.B.C., a special relationship between the Postmaster General and the B.B.C.), was in charge of information he was also Leader of the House of Commons. So that this is a unique departure, and one which gives a Cabinet Minister the opportunity of thinking more about information policy than any of his predecessors. For that reason, there is all the more reason to hope that the result will be fruitful.
I should like to ask the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, also, whether he can say something about the administrative set-up that has been provided for the Chancellor of the Duchy in his capacity as Minister for Information. I noticed in the Press this morning that Mr. Evans is to be the new Public Relations Officer to the Prime Minister and that he will also advise Dr. Hill. Mr. William Clark, who was Mr. Evans' predecessor, found his work at "No. 10" a whole-time job. How much time will Mr. Evans be able to give to Dr. Hill? I think that either job would be a whole-time job for any average person like myself, and even for a more than average civil servant. Perhaps

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the noble Earl can say whether Dr. Hill will have any staff of his own or whether he will be given a substantial slice of the time of Mr. Evans. I apologise to the noble Earl for not giving him notice of this question. The only thing I can suggest (I imagine that he has thought of it already) is that he might be able to consult his advisers in the Box before the end of the debate. However, I shall quite understand if he cannot reply to these questions now.
I hope that the reference in the Government's account of the duties assigned to Dr. Hill, to the examination of
"ways in which the balance of effort might be adjusted in different areas of the world"
is not a hint that Ministers are now considering the termination of British broadcasting to seven friendly countries in Western Europe. This is the one recommendation of the Drogheda Committee with which most of us disagree, and it was interesting to hear the explanation of the noble Earl, Lord Drogheda: that the reason for this recommendation was not that his Committee thought this service was not a useful one, but because at the time there was need for economy in public expenditure. I am not going to say anything more about the service to Western Europe, except that the Suez crisis has shown that there are still moments when the British case needs to be put most urgently, even to our best friends. We cannot ignore our friends just because they are our friends. If it had not been for the B.B.C., the Government's policy in these countries would have gone largely by default. Another reason, I think, for maintaining the service to Western Europe is that we are entering into a new form of economic relationship with Western Europe—we all hope that we shall join the Free Trade Area—and it is more than ever essential that our point of view and our special position in relation to the Commonwealth should be appreciated in those countries.
I am not going to weary your Lordships by dealing with the content of B.B.C. broadcasting, but I hope that noble Lords who take part in the debate will support the vital principle referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Strang: that at all costs the B.B.C. must maintain their objectivity and their absolute truthfulness, because it is on this that their reputation in the outside world has been
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based. We are all, I think—including the Government, because this is a matter of fact and not one of opinion—agreed that the external broadcasting services of the B.B.C. have been running down steadily for a number of years. Those of us who have spoken in the debate so far would like this process not only stopped but reversed. We hope that the Government will now begin to improve and expand these services.
We should like particularly to see improvement in broadcasting to three areas of the globe, and in this order. First of all, the British Commonwealth and its dependencies. Round-the-clock broadcasts in English should be regarded as one of the essential and indispensable ties between the members of our Commonwealth family. The cut of three hours in the General Overseas Service should be restored at the earliest possible opportunity. The service to the Far East and Southern Asia, to which the noble Lord, Lord Killearn, bore such eloquent testimony, should be strengthened by making full use of our own broadcasting station in Malaya. The importance of preventing the uncommitted quarter of mankind from being turned against us by hostile propaganda cannot be exaggerated. The third part of the world in which I think our services must be improved is South America, because our trade and good relations with them will suffer even more if we do not make a substantial improvement in the Latin-American service.
As the noble Lord, Lord Strang, has said, however, there can be no improvement or expansion of these broadcasting services until the Government are prepared to spend more money. The crux of the whole problem is finance. The Drogheda Committee recommended an increase which, clearly, would not be appropriate now. I should not like to hazard a guess, but the figure needed to-day to obtain the same result would no doubt have to be larger. Two things are clearly necessary. First, the annual amount for external broadcasting should be increased; and secondly, it should be divided into two parts, a capital grant covering a period of years, and a grant for recurrent expenditure, which is the way that any reputable local authority runs its affairs. It is only in this way, instead of including all these items, as is done at the moment, in a lump sum,

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that the B.B.C. can possibly plan their external broadcasting over a period of time. This is a matter of urgent national importance. If this opportunity is lost, it may mean that the services of the B.B.C. will run down, in depletion of staff and obsolescence of equipment, to the point at which recovery is impossible. So I beg the Government to act in this matter, as soon as they have the information and the considered thoughts of the Chancellor of the Duchy, in an effective way, and to produce what is really required, a new, revised policy for our overseas information services.

MR. SANDYS' VISIT TO AMERICA.
4.0 p.m.
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, with the leave of the House I should like to intervene to make a short statement upon the recent visit of my right honourable friend the Minister of Defence to Washington and Ottawa.
The main purpose of my right honourable friend's visit to Washington last week was to have a thorough exchange of views with the United States defence authorities on a wide range of military matters. Similarly, his two-day visit to Ottawa gave him an opportunity of discussing a number of problems of common concern in the military and international fields with the Prime Minister of Canada, the Minister of Defence and the Canadian Chiefs of Staff.
His discussions with Mr. Charles Wilson, the United States Secretary of Defence, showed that there is full accord between our two Governments on the broad objectives of the defence policy to be pursued. En particular, my right honourable friend and the United States Secretary of Defence reaffirmed the importance of N.A.T.O. and other regional alliances as a vital means of safeguarding peace and stability.
They reviewed the arrangements previously made for collaboration between the United States and Britain in military research and development, with particular reference to guided rockets. It was agreed that both countries had derived considerable benefit from co-operation, and they decided to extend still further this joint work. A possible scheme for the adoption by Britain of certain American
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weapons was discussed, and this is now being examined by the two Governments and their Service staffs.
My right honourable friend explained to the United States Government that, for economic as well as for military reasons, we were reviewing the shape and size of our forces and that Her Majesty's Government had decided that a substantial reduction in the demands of defence upon manpower, materials and money must be effected. Although no country welcomes a reduction in military effort by its allies, he found in Washington a sympathetic understanding of the circumstances which make it necessary for us to lighten our defence burden. In this connection, it is fully recognised that financial and economic stability is an essential foundation of military strength and that due account must be taken of this in considering what contribution each nation can reasonably be expected to make to the common defence effort.
Throughout his meetings with Mr. Wilson and the American defence authorities, as well as in his talks with Mr. John Foster Dulles, my right honourable friend found a warm desire, which is fully shared by Her Majesty's Government, to see an immediate resumption of the special and intimate relationship which has so long existed between Britain and the United States and which is so important for the peace of the world.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for making in this House the statement which has been made by the Minister in another place. I welcome it for three or four specific reasons. The first is that I am glad to note, in the last paragraph of his statement, a return to a better understanding between ourselves and the United States, which I hope—and I am sure all your Lordships hope—will be very much progressed. It is over seven, years since I signed in Washington the military agreement on the first real wide basis of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. Those of us who had connection with it then were seriously concerned about the events of the last few months, which led to a feeling of strain, and possible deterioration in the relationships that had led to that Treaty. I welcome the statement, too, because it shows that the Government have been having an inquiry, at least of their own,

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into our defences in relation to our present economic position and into the modern trend of events in arms generally.
The House may recall that for, I think, almost every year since March, 1952, I have been asking the Government to have a comprehensive inquiry into this matter. I am glad to notice, in what the noble Lord said, that the basic argument I used on those occasions is now put into this statement. That is, that
"it is fully recognised that financial and economic stability is an essential foundation of military strength and that due account must be taken of this in considering what contribution each nation can reasonably be expected to make to the common defence effort."
I welcome the statement, therefore, from the point of view that some inquiry has taken place, and that one of the basic reasons we have advanced has been accepted.
The third reason why I welcome the statement is that at last something is being done, and apparently the serious difficulty in which we have been placed by the constant changing in the office of the Minister of Defence is to be overcome. There have been seven Ministers of Defence since I left office in that Department in March, 1950, six of them in the last five and a quarter years. That is quite an amazing sequence of events in such a vastly important Department, one which will be increasingly important in the future. I hope that now that a start has been made on doing something, we shall find something done. I am sure that we are all in favour of having our defences, in agreement with our allies, brought into proper relationship with what we can afford, and having regard also to what contribution certain other countries in the N.A.T.O. organisation can make. But obviously this will mean a considerable upset in our own economic internal affairs for some time to come, and I hope the Government will be able to say that they are already studying and making plans to try to deal with that situation in the best possible manner; otherwise we may be in for rather a serious period of dislocation in industry and employment.
LORD REA: My Lords, we on these Benches should also like to thank the noble Lord for his statement, and to couple with our thanks our congratulations to the Minister of Defence not only
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on the success of his Mission but also on developing the atmosphere which he found on the other side of the Atlantic. The noble Viscount who leads the Opposition has indulged in a little of, "I told you so." Perhaps I may be forgiven if I say the same in noting that Her Majesty's Government have decided that a substantial reduction in the expenditure on defence, on manpower, materials and money must be effected. One or two lone voices were crying in the wilderness a year or two ago saying this, and I claim to be one of them. That view is growing, and it gives us great satisfaction that Her Majesty's Government are coming round to the fact that one cannot spend without limit on defence, irrespective of the economic situation. That particular position seems to me to tic up with the debate which we are in the midst of this afternoon, and perhaps I may be allowed to say a few words about that later,
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords who have spoken for their kind reference to the success of my right honourable friend's mission to Washington and Ottawa. I am glad that the statement I made meets with their approval—mainly, so far as I can see, because it is what they themselves have been saying in the years gone by. I am glad to say that much of the statement was also included in a maiden speech which I made in your Lordships' House more than seven years ago.

B.B.C.'S EXTERNAL SERVICES
4.10 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD REA: My Lords, I take it that we now resume the debate on the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Strang, and I rise to support him most strongly, as others have done, and to thank him for having brought this matter again before your Lordships' House. I am a little surprised that the list of noble Lords who intend to speak on this Motion is not far longer than it is, because this matter seems to me, as it always has seemed, a matter of prime importance—possibly the most important with which the Government have to deal. As your Lordships know, it is over two years since we discussed it in detail on the Motion of my noble friend Lord Birdwood; but,

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apart from that major debate, this subject has in various forms cropped up and, if I may say so, surfaced at various times and in various guises. There has been no occasion on which I or one of those who think like me have failed to take the opportunity to ask the Government what they are going to do to increase overseas information and all that it implies. We have, I am afraid, not made very much progress. We have had little success; we have had blunt negatives time after time, in terms varying from the evasive to almost the abusive.
I am not going to cover the ground which has been gone over to-day but I cannot refrain from again underlining the extreme disparity between the expenditure of £1,500 million on instruments of war, death and destruction, and the expenditure of a quarter of 1 per cent. of the national expenditure on overseas propaganda. "Propaganda", as a word, has an unfortunate aroma about it, presumably because we were subjected to most unpleasant propaganda during the last war. I do nor believe that any of your Lordships, in principle, and particularly those who are concerned with the composition of your Lordships' House, object to the word "propagate", but this version of the word "propaganda" seems to have something less attractive about it.
I beg Her Majesty's Government' to make a reassessment of the balance which we hold between physical and psychological warfare. Psychological warfare is rather a term of war, but it may be adopted and adapted to many good uses in peace time. I think the time has really come when no country, rot even Russia or the United States of America, can fill the place which this country used to hold 150 or 200 years ago in a world based on physical power. Military power is no longer, I suggest, any criterion, either of success or of prosperity; and, as we have just heard from the statement read by the Minister a few minutes ago, it has been recognised that we cannot compete with the biggest nations of the world. We cannot continue to be the supreme military power or anything like it. But I suggest that there are things more worth being than that of being the supreme military power.
We must somehow re-establish ourselves in the front rank of the world as we used to be. It is obvious that we are
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not going to do it by the old methods. But I suggest that we can do it by presenting truth, giving enlightenment (if I may refer to propaganda as enlightenment, because that is what I truly mean) where calumny and falsehood are undermining all that civilisation holds dear. This country is dragging its feet. We have had comparative figures given us to-day. We are not doing very well. We are getting into a dangerous state. Not only that, but we are appearing to take a course which seems to smack of the irresponsible, if not of criminality. It is vital that those outside this Kingdom and Commonwealth should know of our good intentions, of our constructive, co-operative ideals for world prosperity and world happiness; that we are not colonialists it the worst sense; that we are not out to exploit those who cannot save themselves from being exploited.
I beg Her Majesty's Government to review this matter in a spirit of foresight, not of just squeezing the odd million here and there. I would go much further than do the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Strang, in what I would ask for on the financial side. By taking money which we are able to save on the Defence programme, because we cannot any longer usefully spend it on that, we should launch out on an inspired new programme of great dimensions to harness the forces of peace and good will throughout the whole world by revealing truth and counteracting the devilish machinations of distortion and falsehood.
4.16 p.m.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, we are all greatly indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Strang, for initiating this debate and for putting as effectively as he did the case for more broadcasting. If I may say so, I profoundly agree with my noble friend Lord Drogheda that we cannot look at this simply as a broadcasting proposition; that, if we are to find a right solution, and, indeed, if we are to appreciate what it is that we are discussing to-day, we must see the situation in all its aspects. In the last war, of course, the position was really very simple: the whole country and Commonwealth were united in a life and death struggle. Every agency, including the B.B.C., had one single common objective, and followed the broad directives which were given by the Government of the day.

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In all that, the B.B.C. played a signal and a noble part. "Ici Londres" was a voice of inspiration to millions of people who heard no other voice of encouragement at all. But to-day the situation is much more difficult and much more complex in many ways.
As the noble Lord who has just spoken has said, the cold war is intensified; it has "hotted up", and there is an infinite variety of propaganda which is put out against the United Kingdom and our Allies all over the world. It takes every shape and form. Sometimes it is false news—not only an inaccurate presentation of news but a pure invention: broadcasts like those from Cairo, that the Russians were bombing London and Paris. I need not go on elaborating. We all know that these broadcasts have been prevalent. Through the use of high-powered transmitters, they are heard all over the world. Every kind of lie is manufactured and put out. There is, of course, complete misrepresentation of policy and intention. Subversive propaganda is sown broadcast, stimulating unrest and discord anywhere and everywhere; internal discord in any country and discord between the Allies. Every medium is used. All this is an integral part of a co-ordinated cold offensive. It is extremely effective, especially among uneducated or uninformed people. This offensive, as I see it, has to be counteracted, and counteracted promptly and effectively. To do that there must be action, positive and negative.
On the negative side, of course, it is necessary to refute the lies that are told; but it is much more important to act positively. In merely denying lies or trying to catch them up, very often you do not catch them up; and, anyway, when you deny a lie you also give currency to the lie as well as to the denial. What is much more important is positive action, the exposition of policy and intention, and of the true facts. It is not at all enough to be on the defensive. We have to take the offensive and we have to keep it. It is nothing less than cold war. It is just as easy—indeed, it is probably a good deal easier—to lose a cold war intensively waged, as it is to lose a hot war. This cold war is being waged by unscrupulous enemies, with no holds barred—a sort of unarmed combat in which
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really it is not possible to "turn the other cheek." I suppose that there is hardly any noble Lord in the House who would disagree with that diagnosis.
What is the cure for that? What has to be done to make the great, aggressive plan and policy which the noble Lord, Lord Rea, has advocated? I am sure that the B.B.C. can play a useful part—certainly, for instance, in South America—in all trade propaganda. But they cannot do it all. Even if we were all united in policy and action, as we were in the war, it would still need an overall direction. Unhappily, we are not united; we certainly have been disunited. I most sincerely hope that we can come closer together in a bipartisan foreign policy at home and in full Allied agreement abroad. The nearer we get to this the easier will be the task. I hope that in this debate the House will not beg this question and deal merely in generalities—a sort of lowest common denominator on which we can all agree. We all agree that we must have good information; we all agree that the B.B.C. do some good work. But we have to face up to the difficult sector where the B.B.C. just cannot cover the situation.
What, then, are the Government of the day to do, and what is to be the policy? I would put this proposition to the House. I would submit that any Government, whether Conservative or Socialist, is entitled, and, indeed, bound, to try to make its policy effective. And, to be effective, that policy must be understood all over the world. But where there is a strong Party difference, the B.B.C. cannot act to put that policy across. By their constitution the B.B.C. have to be impartial. I entirely agree with Lord Strang, and others who have spoken, that it would be quite wrong to interfere with the impartiality of the B.B.C. I should be sorry to see the B.B.C. dictated to, or receiving directions from any Government, whatever its complexion, as to what they were to put out—except in war, of course, when the Government must take complete control. It has to be impartial. That means that where there are differences of opinion, the B.B.C. have to put both sides of the case.
I do not share a condemnation which I have, quite frequently, heard and read against the B.B.C. for putting two sides of a case. I honestly do not think that

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they can do anything else. That is all right in this country. When we here have domestic differences, it is perfectly all right that the B.B.C. should put out, quite objectively, what are the two points of view, or the three, or more, points of view. Intelligent people listen and look, and talk about it afterwards, and make up their minds, just as they do at election time. It works quite well in an intelligent and a reasonably unprejudiced democracy. But it does not work at all that way when you are dealing with completely uneducated people in places where anti-British propaganda is rampant. Let me put forward this example. Suppose the B.B.C. present a nicely balanced, two-column parallel of Sir Edwin Herbert's report and Dr. Edith Summerskill's report. People here can make up their own minds about it—I think they have done so. But what do your Lordships think is going to be the effect of that kind of thing if it is presented in the Middle East?
I read in The Times, as Lord Strang did, an interesting letter by Sir Robert Boyer on the valuable effect of B.B.C. broadcasts among some Arabs in the Middle East. I do not think that he claimed that it was among more than a minority—what Lord Strang himself called, that very small minority which one hopes still exists in countries, however violent the mob may be. Certainly, it can only have been among a small number. About the same time, or a little before, I read a letter in the Daily Telegraph from a man, who, I imagine, is an equally impartial observer—a man whose business it is to travel every year in the Middle East and in Africa—on what he found to be the effect of the B.B.C.'s balanced, objective broadcasts in Africa. I will quote a sentence or two. He says:
"Atrocity stories and highly coloured protests from Egypt, as broadcast over Cairo radio, were put out again by the B.B.C. as statements of fact without comment. At no time in the news broadcasts for West Africa during the crisis was there any British comment as such beyond broadcasts of statements of the Prime Minister and the diametrically opposed statements of Mr. Gaitskell.
"From the point of view of traditional British fair play, this was no doubt excellent, provided the listeners were equipped and qualified to farm their own conclusions. The effect, however, on intelligent Africans, and on the unintelligent ones who are becoming…politically conscious, as well as on British
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listeners without the benefit of the background, was deplorable.
"Only about 15 to 20 per cent, of the B.B.C. broadcasts appeared, in fact, to be pro-British, and 80 per cent, were anti-British in effect. The result was complete bewilderment and despair"—
He goes on:
"The effect in the Moslem Northern Region of Nigeria, where…there is good reception of Cairo radio's incessant anti-British propaganda, was disastrous."
I am sure that that letter is objective reporting of what an intelligent observer found. But it surely shows that the kind of objective, balanced presentation which may be admirable in this country may, from the point of view of petting across the case of any Government, be absolutely disastrous in these countries where one is meeting the full blast of the attack of the cold war.
If I may take a parallel, there was a very good rule (which I hope still exists) which I am sure all of us who have been in public life, on any side, have most scrupulously adhered to; that is, that, wherever we travel abroad, however much opposed we are to the Government of the day at home, we never attack that Government when we are in a foreign country. Noble Lords opposite have been just as scrupulous to observe that rule as I hope we on this side of the House have been. It is a very important rule. Yet when one gets these objective, balanced broadcasts all over the Middle East, over Africa and India, it is exactly as if we went out there and made these speeches against one another, attacking one another.
Such speeches are perfectly all right and proper when they are made here. As a matter of fact, when we make a speech in the United States or India, or elsewhere, we probably have—even the best of us—a limited audience, and perhaps get on to the local radio station but one of the excellent things about the B.B.C. is that it has such a wide circulation. When such speeches, made by noble Lords or Members in another place are put out in that way, impartially, they have exactly the same effect as if they were being addressed to an incomparably larger audience. It is indeed a worldwide audience. Therefore, what I would put to the House, and I hope it can be endorsed to-day—it is no reflection on the B.B.C.—is that any Government of the

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day should accept the responsibility of taking a vigorous counter-offensive over the whole propaganda field in the cold war, and that all of us, to whatever Party we belong, should accept that, whether or not we agree with Government policy, this is an essential duty of any Government and we should expect them to undertake it.
4.33 p.m.
LORD GLYN: My Lords. I rise to support my noble friend Lord Strang in the Motion he has moved. I think it is very suitable that it should come before your Lordships at a time when the Chancellor of the Duchy is considering what action he shall take; and presumably Parliament will have an opportunity of knowing what decision the Chancellor of the Duchy has reached. It seems to me, therefore, that at this moment those of us who are interested in this matter can best hope that this debate will be drawn to the attention of Dr. Hill and that some of the remarks made by your Lordships may bear fruit.
The noble Earl touched on one point which I think is of the utmost importance—the fact that a short time ago, during the Suez crisis, a station that had operated normally was taken away and given the title of the "Voice of Britain". Surely that was an astonishing action, because up till now the whole world has always looked on the B.B.C. as the voice of Britain. That was so during the war. That has been one of its great, strong points. Then suddenly there came this "Voice of Britain", which I believe was broadcasting from Cyprus. The broadcasts were 100 per cent. propaganda, and if they are read now, coldly and dispassionately, a good many of the statements they made certainly do not come up to the standard mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Strang, which was recommended by the Drogheda Report. They were amateur attempts at propaganda which were absolutely laughable and brought this country into contempt. I hope that no station will ever again be taken by our Government for propaganda purposes and given the title of the "Voice of Britain", because that action did irreparable damage and it will take a long time to get over that.
The noble Lords, Lord Strang and Lord Drogheda, have mentioned what
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must be the basis of any form of broadcasting which this House and this country supports: that no matter what may be the crisis here, it is essential that it shall be impartial, factual and true; and I believe that that is the strength lying behind British broadcasting. It is for that reason that people listen to it. There is one other matter which ought to be mentioned now. If we are going to recover lost ground in the Middle East, we have to concentrate on the forms of broadcast that were so effective in the past, and on no account whatsoever cut down a single service, because that would be a fatal thing to do at the present time.
There are certain members of Her Majesty's Government who believe that broadcasting can be switched on and off like electric light, but it cannot be, because the people who have to carry out the broadcasting are hand-picked people who have to be carefully trained, and, as noble Lords will remember happened during the war, their voices became well known. People recognised the voices of particular broadcasters, both British and enemy. Less educated people in a foreign country get to know the voices of those who they believe are speaking the truth, and look forward to hearing them again. Therefore, when we are talking about the finances of the B.B.C., do not let us neglect the fact that the staff must be carefully selected and must be absolutely first-class people; and if they are going to be that, then they have to carry a good salary.
Another point that arises in this matter is that the broadcasts that come from Moscow are not the only ones that decry this country. There are other countries also which, under the guise of presenting their own goods and services, tend to cry down the credit of this country. That has been happening lately, especially in the Persian Gulf, where there are other oil interests besides British. There have been broadcasts and also television broadcasts from places where television transmitters have been installed. Naturally television, which people can see as well as hear, gets more attention paid to it by the less educated people than purely sound broadcasts.
I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government three questions to which I attach considerable importance. First, what additions or subtractions have been

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made to the transmitting resources of the external services since 1947, first, at home, and secondly, abroad? The second question: is enough money being made available to ensure that the resources that do exist can be used to the full? Third: what is being done to provide effective services to British overseas territories, especially those in Africa? All that turns on the point of the actual material that is employed by the B.B.C.
I sometimes think that we ought to have a sense of proportion. Noble Lords have probably been reading in the papers lately of the scrapping of three or four battleships. each of which cost a good many millions of pounds. Every day ships have to be scrapped. If a fraction of the money spent on those ships had been set aside for broadcasting we should have been in a very different position now from that in which we actually are. I think that in these days, with a sort of mad diarchy in the United Nations, it is more important than ever that we should use every means we can to impress British points of view on other nations, to ensure that what we are aiming at is known by people in different parts of the world. And the process must be continuous. It is no use carrying it out for a short time and then cutting off.
Some years ago, when I was Chairman of the Estimates Committee in another place, we reviewed the whole question of the broadcasting services and we made the strongest possible recommendation to the effect that it was uneconomic and bad policy to have an annual grant. It was impossible, in our view, for the B.B.C. to frame a continuity policy, and, as some noble Lords have already said, it led to waste of money. There is no doubt that until the annual grant-in-aid system is changed, at least to a quinquennial one, we are not going to get the results which this country expects from the expenditure. I only hope that noble Lords may find time to read the recommendations in the Report of that Committee. They were accepted, but nothing was done: they remained just pious hopes. But it will make a great difference to the future of broadcasting if the grant-in-aid on an annual basis is changed.
In addition, there must be an immediate review of the expenditure on obsolescent material. It is no use trying to carry on a world broadcasting system
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with obsolescent material; it gives a bad impression and it is a frightful waste of money. It is necessary, therefore, to replace some of the transmitters. It would not cost more than £500,000 a year completely to re-equip all the broadcasting stations that are available. Furthermore, I think it must be remembered that if we are going to succeed—as I hope we shall—in having a transmission station powerful enough to reach every part of the world, it takes from eighteen months to two years to construct the machinery necessary for the transmitting station from the time of giving authority for it to the time when it is erected and in service, to say nothing of the time it takes to train people in the local languages and all the rest of it—people you must have if you are going to make full use of your transmitting station.
Finally, there is one other matter which I should like to mention because it came up in the inquiry which we made. It relates to the future of television, and have already touched on it once. Do not let any of us forget that we stand on the threshhold of a new method of communication—especially to backward peoples. I am sure that in the whole sphere of external information it is of the utmost importance, especially in British possessions in Africa and elsewhere, that we should sec how far it is possible to make a start, at any rate, with a television system and local transmitters. I am not talking now of colour transmission but only of black and white and the ordinary way in which we may put over authentic news. There is a very real danger that other people will step in and start upon that before we get a chance of doing it. Lot us remember that most of the broadcasts that are directed against this country are broadcasts which foster enmity, hatred and malice in every direction; and having television and sound broadcasting made more effective, made more powerful, under the control of the B.B.C. will make a greater contribution to the hope of peace in the world and do more to improve relations between this and other countries than almost anything else. I think it is criminal to neglect it.
4.46 p.m.
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, I should like to add my thanks to those which have already been expressed to the noble Lord. Lord Strang, for bringing this

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Motion before your Lordships' House today. Before dealing with it, perhaps I might say to the noble Lord, Lord Rea, and the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, with regard to their references to the B.B.C. during the war and the work of transmitting which was done during the war, that I am sure they would also wish to give especial credit to the people who received the messages. It was relatively easy, even in the heat of the battle, to transmit from London, but if one has read some of the spy stories which are current just now, one realises that the job of receiving them was a very different matter. I am sure that both the noble Lord and the noble Earl have that in mind.
To-day there is a radio war in progress. We have heard it referred to as a "cold war." I beg to differ. In my view, it is a very hot war on the radio air waves. In proof of that, it is only necessary to consider the 7,000 Yemeni tribesmen who for the first time have been mobilised to think, act and work together, in order to fight against our troops in the Aden Protectorate. That is one very small example of the success achieved in the Middle East against our country, and against free democracy, in this radio war. A term which has become well known now is "radio barrage", and the success which the B.B.C. have achieved in penetrating radio barrages, and indeed in creating a radio barrage of their own, can be judged from the words of the noble Lord, Lord Strang, when he mentioned that B.B.C. broadcasts did penetrate to Budapest. It is not often that messages can get through the Iron Curtain radio barrage. When it is said that the B.B.C. equipment is out of date, I think that is not entirely accurate, for it is up to date in this country for transmitting to the world. It is just a question of how that equipment can be used. I shall, I am afraid, differ somewhat, in what I am going to say, from some of the things which have been said by the noble Lord, Lord Strang, and other noble Lords.
I am delighted, as I am sure other noble Lords are, that Dr. Charles Hill is to be the representative of Her Majesty's Government for broadcasting. I hope that we shall hear that he will have one special responsibility, because I believe that lack of this responsibility
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is the reason we have had so little success in this radio war. There is no Department that is responsible, whether in the B.B.C. or in Her Majesty's Government, for the reception of messages, which are transmitted from this country or from any other broadcasting station in the world, originating in this country. The B.B.C. may put out most excellent material (I will call it information rather than propaganda), but after that information has been put out, there is no one to make quite certain that it does, in fact, come out of the wireless set, perhaps inside an Arab tent, or in a school or in a factory in one of our own Dominions or Colonies. I can well remember how, during the war, when I was in Canada, there would often be a rush of English boys to hear the B.B.C. news; but they were always defeated because the Canadian boys wished to hear their own news, sent out from their own small local station, which no doubt would be preceded by some attractive programme which they wished to hear. It is useless to send out the finest material unless there is also a department concerned with reception.
The economies that have been made, and are being made, in our overseas broadcasting are equivalent to a reduction in our Defence Estimates; but not only do they reduce the amount we pay for such defence, they also increase the effectiveness of our enemies' defence mechanism in the radio war. In the Middle East the medium frequencies are the only frequencies which can be obtained on the small sets of the sort the Arabs have, and our stations are almost always overpowered by foreign stations, operating at frequencies very near to those of the B.B.C. I have been told by people who have come back from the Middle East that they have complaints with regard to the difficulty of hearing the B.B.C. out there, and I was amazed to hear this afternoon from the noble Lords, Lord Swinton and Lord Glyn, how effective were the broadcasts of the differing opinions which existed in another place. Somehow, it seems an accident that that message should have had such a great hearing in the Middle East at that time.
I think that one of the basic reasons why the B.B.C. cannot get their message across is that they have to try to stick to the objective truth, as the noble Lord.

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Lord Strang, has mentioned. Every other competitive broadcasting station has a particular message to sell, and they put their message over by every possible means. The B.B.C. are tied by strict rules of procedure and have to observe strictly the international conventions on radio broadcasting. I have notified the noble Earl who is to reply that I would ask him whether the Government are satisfied that the Middle East foreign stations are broadcasting according to the rules laid down in the Atlantic City Convention of 1947. That Convention deals with the frequencies and strengths of broadcasting stations. There are all sorts of ways of increasing the power of a radio station, and in the near future there will be ways of increasing the range and power of television stations. Whether the Government and the B.B.C. like it or not, the time will come when a commercial television station, equivalent to Radio Luxembourg, will be broadcasting on a range available on all our television sets, putting across the message of foreign advertisers. That has already happened in the United States, where the competition for air speaking time is the strongest and fiercest that has ever been.
I suspect that another reason why the B.B.C. are not able to have their message broadcast more widely is that not enough money is spent upon sponsoring their programmes on foreign stations. May I also suggest that very likely the sort of material which is put forward by the B.B.C. is not the sort of material that listeners, say, in South America, would choose of their own free will to listen to; and that is of vital importance. I am certain that the noble Lord, Lord Strang, will be the first to agree with me when I say that anybody can broadcast to people who wish to listen; but it is far different to send your message to people who do not wish to listen, or, worse still, who have an alternative programme to which they cart listen. I hope that Dr. Charles Hill, in his new capacity, will be able to become responsible for the reception of B.B.C. material. I believe that it is vital to get our message over if we are to get anywhere near to winning the radio war, which is on in all severity. I hope that we shall hear from the noble Earl whether he thinks that the B.B.C. are the right vehicle for putting over information to other countries. Somehow I rather doubt that a body which is owned by the
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country, and whose responsibility under their Charter is to put forward unbiased and fair information from all sides, is really the vehicle that can push forward the hard truths that have to be pushed through the radio barrage coming from other countries.
4.58 p.m.
THE EARL OF HALIFAX: My Lords, before the debate closes, I should like to intervene for one moment, not for the purpose of taking part in the broader issues so admirably introduced by my noble friend Lord Strang, but for one purpose, and for one purpose only—that is, with the desire of supporting in such humble way as I may the point made by my noble friend Lord Swinton at the conclusion of his speech, in regard to the difficulty that arises about the presentation of the "Voice of Britain" in foreign countries, I am fully alive to the sentiment that was so forcibly expressed both by my noble friend Lord, Strang and by the noble Earl who followed him, as to the importance of scrupulous adherence to truth, and to the extreme importance of avoiding any prejudice to the impartial position of the B.B.C. I share entirely that sentiment. On the other hand, I should have supposed that everybody must agree upon the importance of this country's speaking with one voice to foreign countries. It is really impossible for those who speak on behalf of this country to speak with many voices.
What does that mean? It means, as my noble friend has said, that the responsible Government of the day must be supported by the B.B.C. in putting the Government view abroad as the view of this country. The arguments, the differences and the different points of view are properly incorporated in the Party broadcasts within this country. That is right. Where people have to make up their winds, where public opinion has to be formed, and people need to have the arguments in order to choose and decide, they must have the arguments. But it seems to me suicidal, when we have this cold war, which is every hit as important for our future as any other kind of war, that we should deliberately, under a mistaken sense of what is incumbent upon us, set out to weaken the impact and the power that this country should have in the world by presenting ourselves as a people with

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no unity, torn by discord, and utterly ineffective and leaderless. That must be disastrous. I therefore suggest that, whatever Government are in power (and I should feel exactly the same if the Party of noble Lords opposite were the responsible Government), they must be the responsible people to speak for England abroad. And, as my noble friend Lord Swinton said, we must apply the same principles to broadcasting as we apply to ourselves in speeches when we travel abroad.
5.1 p.m.
LORD BIRDWOOD: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Strang, reminded us, it is just over two years since I raised the whole broad question of the overseas information services. On that occasion our debate centred round the effect of the Report of the Committee under the noble Earl, Lord Drogheda, and it is interesting to find that some, at least, of the important matters that we discussed then were apparently put away into cold storage to be given an airing again only to-day. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Strang, for giving us a second opportunity to review some of these matters; and I should also like to say how glad I am that the noble Earl, Lord Drogheda, was able to help us on this occasion, because on the last occasion he could not partake in the debate due to illness.
I suppose that increasingly we are all aware that up and down the country a discriminating public is recognising the great gap in the whole complicated setup of information, and that is reflected in the appointment of Dr. Charles Hill. Noble Lords this afternoon have covered the whole field of information, and I shall confine my remarks to one branch of the information tree—namely, the external services of the B.B.C. All I shall hope to do is to try and define the principles on which I believe the external services should function in the future, and to apply those principles to the immediate situation in the Middle East, and perhaps discover where we have gone wrong.
The aims and purposes of the B.B.C. external services are defined in their handbook, and the noble Lord, Lord Strang, has stressed them. I believe one could reduce them all to just three words:
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disseminating objective information. When one speaks of information, I think one has to make a clear distinction between two quite different conceptions—one might almost say two problems. First, there is this straightforward projection of British life, British method. British policy, the selling of British goods abroad, the exporting of British culture, and so on: very important indeed for the long term, but innocuous and innocent. We all recognise that the B.B.C. do this excellently. Secondly, there is to-day an extension of that first normal obligation, but an extension with this difference: that there is nothing innocuous or innocent about it. I can only define it—and I gather from what your Lordships have said that you would agree—as "to wage and win the war of co-existence." I think that "Minister of Co-existence" might be an alternative title for the Minister of Co-ordination.
In other words, if the Governors of the B.B.C. were to take another look at their aims and purposes to-day, as defined, I think they would perhaps have to consider adding another paragraph. I should not be so bold as to suggest the phraseology of that paragraph, but all I would urge is that it should be placed on record that there is a function now far more dynamic and vital than the mere considering of objective information, however efficiently that may be undertaken. If that extra vitality is to be applied to waging a cold war, in turn one asks: against whom is it to be directed? I suggest that for that we have not only to take within our purview the Communist, whom we can all recognise, but all those countries which, by reason of certain possessions, so easily lend themselves to Communist influence. There, then, for our purpose is the enemy; and it would be misleading and we should be deceiving ourselves if we regarded him as anything less. I suggest that the text for this kind of work might be found perhaps in that verse of the National Anthem, too frequently discarded these days:
"Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks."
I would make one qualification, and it is that it is usually leadership we are attacking rather than the poor sheep who are led. That leads us to the conclusion that great sublety is required in

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this kind of work, and a high sense of psychology.
As to these normal functions of the B.B.C., we all agree that they perform their services in competition with other national services in the world as successfully as we could possibly imagine. After all, they are, as the noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, suggested, usually talking to people who, on the whole, want to hear them. In those circumstances, you can adopt the technique of commercial advertising. We all want to drink tea, and, on the whole, we will drink the tea which is most frequently and most attractively presented to us, whether it is a matter of gazing into a small space from a seat in an underground train, or of looking at a great disfiguring hoarding in the middle of a green field. It is, however, a different matter from dealing with friends, who, on the whole, want to hear what you have to say, when you turn to foes, who do not. But it is a matter of life and death, if not for us, certainly for our children.
I fully endorse most of the recommendations of the Drogheda Report, but there was one paragraph which seems to me to be not quite within the terms of realism the light of the present-day situation. Paragraph 7 says:
"Winning the cold war is but one of a number of current aims of our information work."
I would put it this way: that if we lose that war, it will not matter very much if we win one hundred petty campaigns, political or economic, sprinkled about in different parts of the world. We are not dealing with the loss of a British contract abroad, or considering the exhibition of a British picture in a foreign capital, but are considering the whole substance of democracy, its existence and its defence.
To pass to the application of some of these thoughts to the Middle East, the Drogheda Report, in my view very rightly, says:
"No amount of propaganda is a substitute for policy"
Recently that was applied in criticism in the Middle East, where it was said that the Government had no policy, the inference being that it did not matter very much what we broadcast. It is true that that is an attractive proposition, but it has this danger. I suggest that no lack of a policy nor even a bad policy, absolves
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any Government from the simple duty of refuting, immediately and forcibly, the direct lie, and, as some noble Lords have said, in the Middle East it is the technique of the complete lie which is directed against us. Certainly much more than mere scrupulous objectivity is needed. It must need those two views which have been presented to us this afternoon: one the view of Sir Richard Boyer, quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Strang, and the other the view of Mr. Courtenay in the Daily Telegraph, quoted by the noble Earl, Lord Swinton. To my mind, the lesson from those two conflicting views is that we have yet a lot to learn and apply about discrimination between one audience and another.
"According to the needs of the many audiences," is the direct injunction in the aims and purposes defined by the B.B.C. What goes down in Cairo will not go down in Paris; and what goes down with one audience in Paris will not go down with another audience in the same town. Apply that to the Middle East and you might find to-day that a family in Damascus would turn on their set after dinner and listen in to the B.B.C., with a view to checking up on the veracity of their own local station. But how many people in Damascus have their sets and turn them on after dinner? I think we could say quite safely that 80 per cent. of the listeners in such a town are what one might term the "coffee-house listeners"; and for them, objectivity is most certainly meaningless.
The conclusion I come to is that, somehow or other, we have to cater for two audiences with two separate programmes. I do not claim to prescribe a remedy; I only give the diagnosis. I would stress that the B.B.C. at this moment have absolutely nothing on the ground in the Middle East. In fact, when we talk about the external services we are, of course, referring to the Arabic service broadcast from London. Some may wonder exactly what we have in the Middle East. I would remind your Lordships that until October 30 there was a private company operating in Cyprus called Sharq al Adna, a private company selling time in exactly the same way as Radio Luxembourg. It had a few Arabist experts from this country, and it had a large Arabic staff. I will not go into the story of the requisitioning of that company on October 30, because.

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as the noble Lord, Lord Glyn, has told us, it is a strange and depressing kind of story, and I do not believe that any purpose would be served in going into it. But I would stress that it does raise the whole question of the future. That company was taken over by the "Voice of Britain," operated directly from this country under the Foreign Office.
I suggest that Cyprus is the only possible site for such a station. Aden is remote, and it is impossible to put down a British station on foreign soil. It seems to me that there are three possible courses. First of all, we could have a British Government station, operating under the Foreign Office—what might be termed a Foreign Office station; secondly, we could have a British station operating under private enterprise, with Government encouragement in the background; or, thirdly, we could have the B.B.C., operating under an increased grant-in-aid for the purpose. Of those three courses, I come to the conclusion that the B.B.C. is the most practical.
My reasons are these. I doubt whether any Foreign Office station would ever be able to shake off the accusation that its one and only purpose was to project British policy, which would always be interpreted as directed to destroy either Arab unity or Israel—one or the other: it is an official programme that must always suffer the stigma of officialdom. It is true that the "Voice of Britain" tries to mix up music and entertainment into its programme, but I cannot help thinking that it has great difficulties in doing that. After all, one does not turn to the London Symphony Orchestra if one wants to engage a dance band. Paradoxically, I believe that a station operating under private enterprise would suffer from the same kind of disability, only this time it would not be a matter so much of British policy being under attack, but of the machinations of "wicked Western capitalist interests." There are far too many loopholes for accusation and too many political fences for such a company to avoid—even if we could find private enterprise, in the form of oil companies or something of that sort, to support it.
Therefore, I return to the B.B.C., and I would stress that the B.B.C. start off with one great advantage, which is that
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they have a ready-made public already on the ground. In 1955, the B.B.C. Overseas Service in London received no fewer than 11,000 letters written in Arabic. So there is a ready-made reputation, a ready-made audience, for that technique in which we, the British, are surely experts—the development of a corporation, a semi-independent body. I think that, over the years, the B.B.C. have built up that reputation, and that it is recognised in the Middle East, and I can see no reason why, if a B.B.C. station were let in on the ground, with time to recruit its Arabic staff and to acclimatise itself, it should not be able to restore that stability and friendship which is so necessary to us in the Middle East.
The Drogheda Report has rightly said that no station is a substitute for a policy —or words to that effect. If the B.B.C. is to make its mark, then it most certainly must have something to sell. I do not know whether it is a matter of putting our faith in the Baghdad Pact, or the economic clauses of that Pact, suggesting how this country could build up its economic aid to the area covered by the Pact. All I would say is that there is a theme, something on which a broadcasting station can bite; and that I regard as essential to the success of trying to put across the British message in the Middle East. The B.B.C. tell me that they are satisfied with their relations with the Foreign Office. Some of your Lordships may have seen a leader in The Times some time ago in which exception was taken to the fact that a liaison officer, appointed at the time of the Suez crisis between the Foreign Office and the B.B.C., had not been removed. I do not know whether that represents fair criticism or not. All I can say is that the B.B.C. would say they find no difficulty, in undertaking that obligation, to inform themselves of Her Majesty's Government's policy, and it is only when that policy is in doubt, or when information about it is withheld, that a broadcasting system gets into danger.
To sum up, I would ask Her Majesty's Government three points. I ask them, first for a declaration of intention, if they can give it, as to the establishment of a medium-wave station in the Middle East. Secondly, I would ask them if they are satisfied that the relationship between the B.B.C. and the Foreign Office is such as

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enables the B.B.C. to discharge their obligations. Thirdly, remembering always that the Government formulate policy, I would ask them if they are prepared to recognise a task of wider scope than mere information—a duty to wage the psychological war of co-existence; and, if so, can we see that that obligation is written into the B.B.C.'s terms of reference as an imperative function that should be undertaken.
5.20 p.m.
THE EARL OF WOOLTON: My Lords, I intervene for only one moment in the debate, and that is to urge that the Government and the B.B.C., in considering this problem, should not be inclined to confine themselves to the spoken word. As one looks to the future, surely it is true that it is the world of pictures that will be the most effective. I wonder whether they are taking any steps in what I agree is a most difficult task, the task of considering how they can deal with the subject of this debate in future years in the form of pictures that will be so much more widely noted in foreign countries than we could possibly hope for in the spoken word. I realise that there are, at the moment, technical difficulties, though I believe that they will be overcome; but there are no technical difficulties in the Government's sponsoring programmes on television in other countries and using that as a means of their propaganda. I intervene just to raise that issue, because vie must look to the future and not try to fight the battles of the future with the weapons of the past. In a few years' time I believe that television will be much more important, popular and widely used than the "Voice of Britain" could be.
5.22 p.m.
VISCOUNT ASTOR: My Lords, I venture to address your Lordships for only one moment as I spent part of the Christmas Recess in Austria in very close contact with Hungarian refugees immediately after they crossed the border, and with many people who dealt with them. The supreme fact is that, in the battle for the minds of the younger generation East of the Iron Curtain, we appear to have won; but when it comes to guiding action on that side, there is greater need than ever for the "Voice of Britain", for the American- sponsored "Voice of Free Europe" has been under certain criticism
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—I do not say whether it is fair or unfair. Perhaps they have raised too high hopes of American intervention and action, and have sometimes led people, one must say, a "little up the garden path".
British credit is unimpaired, and it is essential for the 98 per cent. of the Hungarian people who remain behind the Iron Curtain that they should be kept in constant touch, not only with the facts of what happens in Western Europe but with the facts of what is happening on the other side of the Iron Curtain; that they should be in contact with the actions and words of leaders who have escaped, like the Mayor of Budapest, Dr. Kovago, and the Socialist leader, Dr. Anna Kethly; and that they should be given some way of assessing what the right action should be. We do not want to see either false hopes leading to a useless sacrifice of lives or, on the other hand, despair; but, by a constant stream of informed opinion which helps to model the action, we can have a great effect. Until I had seen the Iron Curtain countries very closely I had no idea how critical, how shaky, how insecure and, indeed, how fluid is the situation in those Communist countries—not only in the satellites but in Russia itself. This is a moment not for reducing the "Voice of Britain" to Eastern Europe, but for increasing it.
5.24 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I am moved to intervene in this debate for a few minutes in order to express my profound disagreement with the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Swinton. I could not disagree more with anything. I was shocked to find that he had the support of the noble Earl, Lord Halifax, with whom I so often find myself in agreement on questions of moral principle. It seems to me that this suggestion— that, when a nation is as profoundly divided as this nation was last autumn over the action of the Government in Egypt, we should try to go out to the world as being a united nation under the leadership of a Government with which half of us bitterly disagree—is morally and completely wrong. Why I am so shocked is that the noble Earl, Lord Halifax, should have supported that view, because that he should wish in effect to have two moral standards, a moral standard for our people at home and another moral standard when we are making the "Voice of Britain"

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known to the world, seems to me a very shocking thing. What the noble Earl, Lord Swinton is, in effect, advocating is that we should speak with this sort of "Voice of Britain" which spoke from Cyprus and which personally, I felt, brought degradation on the people of this country.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, the noble Lord is remaking my speech for me, which is very kind of him. The thesis I put to the House and which, I think, commanded a good deal of support was simply this: that when you are dealing with the outside world, the Government of the day, whether it is the noble Lord's Government or this Government, have not only a right but a duty to put across their policy.
LORD CHORLEY: By all means let the policy of the Government be put across. It was put across perfectly fairly by the British Broadcasting Corporation. But what is wrong is that it should be put across as the "Voice of Britain" when it is not the voice of Britain. I was very glad indeed to find that the noble Lord, Lord Glyn, denounced so effectively what had been done in respect of this Cyprus broadcast. It was a shameful thing. It seems to me that it is not only morally wrong but shameful that we should behave in that way. It does not pay either, because, as the noble Viscount who has just resumed his seat made perfectly clear, it is ridiculous nonsense to suppose that people all over the world think that there is unity in this country over matters of this kind. After all, these things appear in the newspapers and the newspapers go abroad. Whether it happens in twenty-four hours or whether it happens in forty-eight hours, sooner or later what is happening in this country is known all over the world.
No doubt some of these people are stupid, silly people—the "lumpen proletariat," as they are called—but they are not the people who make opinions in the world. The people who make opinions and whose opinion is important are people such as students, the professional people, who attempted to secure freedom for Hungary during the last autumn. Surely the reason why we won the ideological battle there, as the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, said, was because they knew perfectly well that the British Broadcast-
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ing Corporation came over straight on matters of that sort. It is very significant. After all, these Hungarians are intelligent people, and so are the Poles; so, indeed, are the Russians. The Russians know perfectly well that in no country is everybody 100 per cent. behind the Government, and they themselves feel the same sort of degradation as I felt when they hear their own broadcasts put across in Moscow in the stupid way in which they are put across—and I have heard them say so.
A friend of mine who was in Moscow at the time when the Hungarian crisis was at its height saw in the University of Moscow the official bulletin of what was happening there. There were students who had put alongside it: "This is what the B.B.C. says about what is going, on in Budapest." There was an enormous throng of students round the notice-board reading what the B.B.C. said. It is because the B.B.C. has a reputation which is so valuable that I suggest that this suggestion about putting a united "Voice" out all over the world which is not the voice of the nation, ought not to be accepted.
I have spent most of my life in the university world, where our great objective is the search for truth. Even the B.B.C. has not got the whole of the truth. What it puts out is only the truth as far as it knows it. You can get the truth only by finding out what the other man is saying too, and comparing his view about things with your own. That is why I like to know not only what is said by the B.B.C. here but also what is said in New York by the New York Herald Tribune which the American Government is good enough to send me every morning and which I study to the best of my ability. And not only in what is put out in New York, but also in what is put out in Moscow, there is a glimpse of truth; and by putting these things together, one is able to build up for oneself what seems to be the truth, and, so to speak, to get the picture into conspectus. This seems to me most important, and it is the job which the B.B.C. is doing. I entirely support Lord Strang and Lord Drogheda, and I hope that your Lordships will not accept this insidious proposal put forward by the noble Earl, Lord Swinton.
5.30 p.m.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, I consider that this has been a most interesting debate, and your Lordships have made criticisms and suggestions that will be of enormous value. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Strang, for having given us the opportunity to discuss this subject, and to hear both his view and the views of other noble Lords who have spoken. As your Lordships have already been made aware by the Answer which I gave to the noble Lord, Lord Barnby, in your Lordships' House on January 31, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Dr. Charles Hill, has been entrusted with the rôle of co-ordinating Government information services, both abroad and at home; and as part of his rôle he is conducting, in collaboration with the responsible Ministers, a review of overseas services with a view to recommending whether it is necessary to alter the balance of effort between different areas in the world or between different forms of information. I can answer the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is not likely to become a Minister of Propaganda.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: May I ask the noble Earl (because I rather thought this was the case, though I may be wrong) whether the terms of reference of the Chancellor of the Duchy include the responsibility of snaking recommendations about improvements in these services? I do not think the noble Earl mentioned that in the statement he has just made.
THE EARL OE GOSFORD: I regret that I have not given the full quotation from the terms of reference.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: That is a most important thing.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: I apologise to the noble Earl. Perhaps I should not have mentioned it at all, merely referring the noble Earl to the Charter and to the answers given by the Prime Minister in another place. While on this subject, I should like to answer the two questions of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. I have already answered one question, and have referred him to the Prime Minister's statement in another place. The other question dealt with the staff which the Chancellor of the Duchy will have. He has private, secretaries; the question of
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the rest of his staff is still under consideration and has not yet been fixed.
A question has been asked by Lord Strang, and by other noble Lords who have taken part in the debate, about the Government's attitude to the 1946 White Paper on Broadcasting Policy, stressing the importance of the Corporation's maintaining its reputation for telling the truth. I can assure the House that there has been no change here. We welcome the complete objectivity of news broadcasts given by the B.B.C. This has never been in question, and I hope it never will be. We in this country have always believed in telling the truth in our broadcasts. We believe in it now, and I hope that we always shall.
The other question is the independence of the B.B.C. in the preparation of programmes for overseas audiences. This is closely followed in the 1952 licence and agreement between the Postmaster General and the B.B.C.; but too, should like to quote clause 15 (5) which reads as follows:—
"The Corporation shall consult and collaborate with the departments so specified (i.e. the three overseas departments prescribing services) and shall obtain and accept from them such information regarding conditions in, and the policies of Her Majesty's Government towards, the countries so prescribed and other countries, as will enable the Corporation to plan and prepare its programmes in the external services in the national interest"
Several of your Lordships have made criticisms of the B.B.C.'s external services. May I offer some reflections? In countries where democracy is not fully developed, I agree that people do not always understand our tradition of airing our difficulties in public. They tend to regard the B.B.C. as the official mouthpiece, and they are bewildered when the B.B.C. broadcasts the cacophony of public argument. Secondly, it is not enough to transmit good programmes from here without being sure that they are listened to at the other end. There have been great strides in international technique. Locally transmitted programmes on medium wave, and more particularly on V.H.F., are received so much better that, in a crowded ether, short-wave programmes from abroad stand less and less chance of being listened to in any foreign country. Again, in many countries, as here, television is winning the battle against sound. These factors lead to the conclusion that, in

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some circumstances, sound recordings or transcriptions and television films are better ways of spending money, except where short-wave transmissions are picked up and locally relayed. We must move with the technical changes and deploy our resources to the best advantage. By and large, this redeployment might mean less for the West and certainly more for the East.
Thirdly, it might well be that the B.B.C.'s Services to the Middle East should be augmented by broadcasting addressed to a wider and less intelligent audience, to those who would listen only to a programme of a type and level which the B.B.C. were constitutionally unable to produce. This does not necessarily mean a propaganda programme. Such a programme might do an important job by attracting to itself listeners who might otherwise listen to less entertaining programmes charged with abuse and misrepresentation.
Several noble Lords have asked questions about the "Voice of Britain" service. This programme was introduced in order to meet the special needs of the occasion. The B.B.C. Arabic Services amounted to no more than 4½ hours a day. Her Majesty's Government felt it essential to provide a much longer service in order to counter the hostile broadcasts coming from the high-powered Egyptian transmitters. The Near East Broadcasting station in Cyprus was requisitioned on October 31 last year. This was a private British company, the senior staff being, mostly British, but the station relied on Arabs for preparation and delivery of its programmes. The Government decided on requisition because a privately owned station, largely staffed by Arab personnel, could obviously not be left to broadcast uncontrolled during military operations. The result has been a composite service relayed from Cyprus for 15 hours a day in Arabic, of which the B.B.C. service forms about one-third and the "Voice of Britain" service the remainder.
The Government have now asked the B.B.C. to step up these Arabic services to at least 9 hours per day. The Government have also decided on the provision on a permanent basis of relay facilities for the Arabic service of the B.B.C. by using transmitters at Sharq al Adna, which the Government will purchase from
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the Near East Arab Broadcasting Station. I should like to say, in passing, that the "Voice of Britain" has proved an effective method of putting out material as a counter to Cairo Radio and other hostile stations in the area. I do not agree with noble Lords who have said that it has harmed the high reputation built up by the B.B.C., since it has not indulged, and does not indulge, in the venomous and slanderous methods of Cairo Radio, but concentrates in fighting lies with facts.
I will now turn to the Drogheda Committee. Here, I should like once more to thank the noble Earl who has spoken to-day for the important and useful work which he has carried out. Although the period between 1947 and the publication of the Drogheda Committee's report in 1953 has been referred to, I will not go into this matter in detail, since, although economy was a determining factor in leading the Government of the day to reduce external broadcasting from some 240 hours a week, in 1947, to 223 hours a week, in 1952, in the European Services, and from 480 hours to 317 hours a week in the remaining overseas services, the period must, I think, be regarded as one of transition from the war-time to a reasonable peace-time level. I prefer, therefore, to take the year of the Drogheda Report as my starting point.
So far as weekly hours broadcast are concerned, there has not been much change in the period from 1953 to the present day. The European services have, in fact, risen from 223 hours to 242 hours. The rise is mainly due to increase in the services to countries behind the Iron Curtain, the other services remaining virtually unchanged. The overseas services were reduced in the corresponding period from 316¾ hours to 315½ hours, the pattern of these services remaining more or less the same throughout the period. The question at once arises whether the pattern of these services now corresponds adequately with changes in the world political situation since 1953.
The Drogheda Committee made a number of recommendations for improving the services, which noble Lords have mentioned. They were: that the General Overseas Service in English should be increased from 21 hours a day to 24; that the Arabic service should be expanded by half an hour to bridge a gap in the programme and to institute our

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Arabic transcription service; certain improvements to the Far Eastern programmes; additional revenue expenditure resulting from expansion of the relay facilities at Tebrau; expansion of the services in Spanish and Portuguese to Latin America, including transcription services; improvement of transmitter coverage and leasing of relay facilities in Europe. There were other recommendations, including transcription in English. The total cost of this was estimated at £620,000 per annum.
On the other hand, the Committee recommended abolition of the services to Western Europe in French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. A figure was quoted to the Committee by the B.B.C. of £135,000 per annum as the saving likely to result, but this assumed the retention in operation of certain transmitters now being used for these services. If the transmitters were put out of action, and resulting savings on overheads were taken into account, the total saving from these seven services would be much higher and would go a long way towards meeting the additional revenue expenditure involved in carrying out the recommendations for expansion of services already mentioned. However, in deference to representations made by Parliament and by the B.B.C., no decision has, up to now, been taken to terminate these seven Western European language services, though I can tell your Lordships that this is one of the points being urgently considered by Dr. Hill. Apart from the extra half-hour on the Arabic Service, it has not been possible so far, for reasons which I shall explain, to carry out these expansions.
On the capital side, the Committee recommended installation of two additional high-power short-wave transmitters in the existing relay station at Tebrau, thereby completing the original plan for four such transmitters. I can assure noble Lords that this is one of the points already being considered. The total estimated cost of all these projects amounted in 1953 to £4,650,000. The Committee suggested that if they were found to be necessary the cost should be spread over a period of, say, ten years, thus involving an investment of about £500,000 a year.
To sum up, therefore, the Drogheda Committee's recommendations would
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have involved extra continuing revenue expenditure of over £500,000 a year and a capital sum of nearly £5 million over ten years, with some offsetting reduction from the abolition of the seven Western European services. The Committee did not, however, take into account the question of rising costs, and it is these, more than any other single factor, that have made it impossible, against the general financial and economic background, to make headway with these recommendations. The pattern of the external services has remained broadly unchanged since the Committee's Report was issued, but their cost has risen continuously, and the rate at which it has risen is increasing.
Excluding the Government's contribution to the B.B.C.'s monitoring services, which has remained fairly constant, the grant-in-aid has risen from £4,296,000, in 1952–53 to £5,193.000 in 1956–57. These figures are from original estimates, and do not include supplementaries taken out in the course of each year. Already the original provision for the current year has had to be increased by a supplementary. That is to say, these costs are now rising at a rate of between £250,000 and £300,000 a year. The need both to provide better relay facilities overseas and to renew much of the B.B.C.'s equipment at home is recognised by the Government. But until these revenue costs can be brought under control it is difficult to see how money can be provided for them, given the general need for economy in all forms of Government expenditure. As it is, although additional money was made available for the information services as a whole in 1955–56 and 1956–57, much of this has been swallowed up in rising costs. Last year, for example, although an additional £1·3 million was given to the information services, over £400,000 went to meet rising costs of the B.B.C. I agree that the winning over of men's minds is of paramount importance. But this costs money, and that is something we shall have to face when the results of the review are put before us. l repeat that the purpose of the review is to enable broadcasting to make its full contribution to our information services and for a full understanding abroad of the British point of view.
Now, with your Lordships' permission, I will turn to one or two questions which have been asked of me. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, asked me whether a White

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Paper would be issued due course embodying the recommendations of Dr. Hill's investigation. It may well be that the issue of such a White Paper will be advisable, but it is too soon for me to give any undertaking with regard to it However, Her Majesty's Government do not rule out such a possibility. The noble Lord, Lord Glyn, asked what new additions or subtractions had been made in respect of the transmitter resources of the external Services of the B.B.C. Two high-power, short-wave transmitters, each of 100 kilowatts, were brought into use for relay purposes at Tebrau, near Singapore, in August, 1950; and Her Majesty's Government now propose to acquire, from the Near East Association Limited, the Near East Arab broadcasting station in Cyprus, comprising a 100 kilowatt medium-wave transmitter and five short-wave transmitters of varying power.
The noble Lord also asked me whether sufficient money is available for making full use of such resources as we have. The answer to this will come out in the review, and I should prefer not to answer this question further to-day. The noble Lord then asked me about British overseas territories in Africa. Broadcasting to colonial audiences is primarily the responsibility of the Colonial Governments of these Colonies, but the B.B.C. include in their external services programmes in English and vernaculars transmitted from this country to the Colonies, some of which are then relayed by local stations. About the middle of 1956, at the request of the Colonial Office and with the support of Her Majesty's Government, the B.B.C. made arrangements to include East Africa in the coverage of their Arabic services.
The noble Lord, Lord Glyn, also asked about a closed circuit television system installed by United States interests in the Persian Gulf. We know of no such system in the Persian Gulf, although there is a programme broadcast from the American Air Force Station at Dhahran which can be viewed in Bahrein. We are investigating reports that material hostile to the United Kingdom has been broadcast over this station. The United Kingdom has taken the initiative in developing television in the Middle East and a station installed by a British firm
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—Pye, Limited—is now operating in Baghdad. I understand that the further development of equipment and programmes in this area is under active consideration by British companies.
The noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, asked whether Her Majesty's Government are satisfied that foreign stations in the Middle East are broadcasting according to the rules on frequency allocation laid down at the Atlantic City Convention. I can only say that Her Majesty's Government are not satisfied that all such stations are observing these rules; but the Middle East is not the only part of the world where such non-observance is continuing. The noble Lord, Lord Bird-wood, asked me, among other questions, about the relationships between the B.B.C. and the Foreign Office. I can tell him that these relationships are very satisfactory, and I should like to commend the fine work done by the B.B.C. in broadcasting at home and overseas.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, before the noble Earl finishes, may I ask him to reply to one more question? I am most grateful to him for the full and careful reply that he has given so far. The question to which I should like him to reply, if he can, is: can he give a rough idea of how long Dr. Hill's inquiry into the Overseas Information Services is likely to take? Will it be a matter of months, or a year, or longer?
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, I regret that I cannot answer the noble Earl's question except to say that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has started his inquiry and is carrying it on with the greatest speed he can. He will produce his review at the earliest possible moment.
I think we have had an excellent debate. Many interesting viewpoints have been expressed which will be of use to Dr. Hill in his deliberations on the Overseas Information Services. I think your Lordships will agree that any decision as to whether or not extra provision must be made for the external services of the B.B.C. must await the result of the review now being undertaken. The fact that Dr. Hill has been given this task is an earnest of the Government's intention to improve our information services. I can assure noble Lords that the important points which have been made this

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afternoon by Lord Strang and other noble Lords who have taken part in the debate will be taken fully into account by Dr. Hill in arriving at his conclusions.
5.52 p.m.
LORD STRANG: My Lords, before begging leave to withdraw the Motion standing in my name, I should like to offer my warmest thanks to those noble Lords who have spoken in this debate—not only those who have spoken in support of my Motion, but those also who have taken a somewhat different line. I thank them all impartially. I would also take the opportunity, if I may, of tendering congratulations to the noble Earl who replied to this debate. It is, I think, the first time that he has answered in a debate on behalf of the Foreign Secretary, since his appointment. Therefore, our congratulations are due to him. I should, further, like to thank him for the great care with which he has answered many of the questions put to him by noble Lords during the debate. That is not to say, though, that I find his reply, as a whole, satisfactory. Far from it, But it is not my intention to reopen the debate now; no doubt there will be a later occasion.
Nor is it my intention, at the moment, to comment on the views expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, and the noble Earl, Lord Halifax. Both noble Earls speak with great authority, and what they say deserves most careful study. I am sure they would not expect me to express agreement with them. One thing, I think, is clear: the Lime has come when there ought to be a new and comprehensive statement of Government policy about external information services as a whole—not simply broadcasting services, but Government Departmental information services and the British Council. The time is due for that. As regards broadcasting policy, I think there has been nothing authoritative since the
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White Paper of 1946. I would strongly urge. therefore, that when the review now being made by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is completed—and we hope that it will be completed soon—there should be a comprehensive statement of Government policy which will cover the important points raised by the noble Ear], Lord Swinton, and the noble Earl, Lord Halifax. That is why I wish to support the plea made by the noble Earl. Lord Listowel, for a White Paper, when the Government are in a position to state their views. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
BLYTH HARBOUR BILL [H.L.]
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
PORT OF LONDON BILL [H.L.]
WAKEFIELD CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
LIVERPOOL HYDRAULIC POWER BILL [H.L.]
Referred to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
DURHAM COUNTY COUNCIL (BARMSTON—COXGREEN FOOT-BRIDGE) BILL [H.L.]
NEWPORT CORPORATION (WATER) BILL [H.L.]
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL [H.L.]
EAST HAM CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
B P TRADING BILL [H.L.]
Referred to a Select Committee: the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
House adjourned at six minutes before six o'clock.