Sitting of 26 November 1958

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  EDINBURGH CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION
  Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936, relating to Edinburgh Corporation, presented by Mr. Maclay; read the First time, and ordered (under Section 9 of the Act) to be read a Second time upon Thursday 4th December; and to be printed. [Bill 39.]
  NORTH OF SCOTLAND ELECTRICITY ORDER CONFIRMATION
  Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936, relating to North of Scotland Electricity, presented by Mr. Maclay; and ordered (under Section 7 of the Act) to be considered upon Tuesday 2nd December; and to be printed. [Bill 40.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

  EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS (COMPULSORY JURISDICTION)
  Mr. Brockwayasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government have accepted the compulsory jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights which is now being set up in accordance with the terms of the European Convention on Human Rights.
  The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. D. Ormsby-Gore): No, Sir. As my right hon. and learned Friend said on 29th July last year:
  "The position which Her Majesty's Government have continuously taken up is that they do not recognise the right of individual
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  petition, because they take the view that States are the proper subject of international law and if individuals are given rights under international treaties effect should be given to those rights through the national law of the States concerned. The reason why we do not accept the idea of the compulsory jurisdiction of a European court is because it would mean that British codes of common and statute law would be subject to review by an international court. For many years it has been the position of successive British Governments that we should not accept that status."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th July, 1957; Vol. 574, c. 867–8.]
  Mr. Brockway: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman what in the world is the good of ratifying a Convention theoretically if one does not accept the application of that Convention? Is not it the case that human rights involve personal individual rights and that if we do not recognise that we are giving way to the totalitarian conception?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: As I understand it, if one subscribes to a Convention one then sees that the laws of one's country are in conformity with the Convention, and the individual cases are then tried under the laws of one's own country.
  Mr. S. Silverman: Would the hon. Gentleman explain how he reconciles that view with the action which the British Government took—and in the opinion of most of us rightly took—in regard to the Nuremburg trials? Can one really maintain a view of international law, international rights, on the basis that a man may be individually subject to penalties for infractions of it, but not be able to claim any rights under the same conception?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I quite agree that the procedure in the Nuremburg courts was entirely exceptional and was due to the actions that took place in the war. I agree that it does not square with all the other cases which we have in mind.
  Mr. Brockway: In view of that unsatisfactory reply, I wish to ask your permission, Mr. Speaker. to raise the matter at the first opportunity on the Adjournment.

  UNITED NATIONS

    Political Committee Resolution (South Africa)
    Mr. Brockwayasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how the British delegate voted in the Political

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    Committee of the United Nations on the resolution regretting the apartheid policies of the South African Government; and which delegates voted for and against the resolution and which abstained.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: In the Special Political Committee on 21st October, Australia, Belgium, France, Portugal and the United Kingdom opposed the resolution. The Dominican Republic, Finland, the Netherlands and Spain abstained from voting. Sixty-eight member countries voted in favour of the resolution.
    I would ask the hon. Member to refer to United Nations document A/3962, a copy of which is in the Library of the House, for further details of the roll-call vote.
    Mr. Brockway: I have already done that, and I listened to the debate on the Adjournment on Monday night. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he seriously takes the view, which was urged from the Government Front Bench, that the sixty-eight members who voted in favour of dealing with this matter had not got the welfare and stability of the United Nations in mind and that it was only the British Government and their miserable minority of four which had got that in mind?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I always thought that the main thing was to be right on this issue and not necessarily in a majority. A number of prominent people on both sides of the House have taken the view that this kind of debate is excluded under Article 2 (7) of the Charter.
    Mr. P. Noel-Baker: Will the right hon. Gentleman look at the question again in the light of the Convention on Human Rights adopted by the United Nations and to which we agreed? Does not that evidently make it a matter of international interest how a Government treat the people in that Government's own territory?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Of course, as the right hon. Gentleman knows very well, there have been a lot of very long legal arguments about this point. I do not really think that I have anything to add to them today.

    Good Offices Committee (The Rev. Michael Scott)
    Mr. Brockwayasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on what date the Good Offices Committee of the United Nations, set up to discuss the status of South-West Africa with the Government of the Union of South Africa, gave a hearing to the Rev. Michael Scott.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: As the hon. Member has already been informed, it was the United Nations Committee on South-West Africa, and not the Good Offices Committee, which gave Mr. Scott an oral hearing. The terms of reference of the Good Offices Committee did not cover the hearing of petitioners.
    I am grateful to the hon. Member for this opportunity of correcting the reply to his supplementary question on 3rd November, when my right hon. and learned Friend said that the Good Offices Committee on South-West Africa had given a hearing to the Rev. Michael Scott.
    Mr. Brockway: I appreciate the letter of correction which I received from the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but may I ask him if this is not a very serious case of misleading the House? In the answer to the supplementary question did not the right hon. and learned Gentleman lay considerable emphasis on his statement that the Rev. Michael Scott had been heard by the Good Offices Committee as one reason why he should not be heard by the United Nations, and, in fact, did not the British vote go against that hearing, both in the Political Committee and in the General Assembly?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I pointed out that my right hon. and learned Friend freely admits his mistake. It was the United Nations Committee on South-West Africa which gave a hearing to the Rev. Michael Scott, and I think that it is possible to confuse these two Committees.
    Mr. Wade: Could the right hon. Gentleman say what proposals, if any, Her Majesty's Government have put forward for setting up some United Nations organisation to look after the interests and status of South-West Africa?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: The question I was asked was whether a particular Committee had given a hearing to the Rev. Michael Scott. I am afraid that that supplementary question goes a long way beyond that Question.

    Films
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what assistance is given by his Department in the production, distribution, and exhibition of films prepared by the United Nations Film Board; and if he will give instructions to his Department's information service to promote the exhibition of the film "Blue Vanguard" about the work of the United Nations Force in the Middle East.
    Mr. Warbeyasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what financial contribution was made by the Government towards the cost of the film of the United Nations Emergency Force, produced by the United Nations Film Board under the title "Blue Vanguard"; and when copies of the film will be available for exhibition in this country.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: The production and distribution of films for the United Nations Film Board is the responsibility of the United Nations Office of Public Information. The expenses of this Office are financed from the regular budget of the United Nations, of which the United Kingdom's assessed share for 1958 is 7·62 per cent. The United Nations' share of the cost of the film "Blue Vanguard" was financed in this way. The film has not yet been released; the timing of its release is a matter for the United Nations Secretary-General.
    Mr. Swingler: Has the right hon. Gentleman read an article by Mr. James Cameron in the News Chronicle last week, which implied that the Foreign Office had prevented the exhibition of this United Nations film at the recent Berlin Film Festival on the grounds of its containing criticism of the Government's Suez policy? Is the right hon. Gentleman in a position to deny that allegation, and to say that, because the Government support United Nations forces, they will permit the exhibition of this film.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I can categorically state that Her Majesty's Government were not responsible for the presentation of this film at the Berlin Film Festival,
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    nor did they seek a withdrawal of it. In addition, I can say that the United Kingdom Permanent Representative at the United Nations has informed the Secretary-General that we do not object to its release.
    Mr. Warbey: If the Government do not object to the release of this film, may I ask if any Governments are objecting to its release, and whether the British Government are doing all they can to ensure its release so that it will be exhibited in this and other countries?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: That is quite another question.

    China (Representation)
    Mr. P. Noel-Bakerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what action Her Majesty's Government propose to take to secure the implementation of Article 23 of the Charter of the United Nations, which provides that the Government of China shall have a permanent seat in the Security Council of the United Nations.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Article 23 of the Charter provides that certain States, not Governments, shall be permanent members of the Security Council. These include the "Republic of China". This provision was implemented when the United Nations was established. As the right hon. Member is aware, opinions among members of the United Nations differ as to who now represents China and who should occupy the Chinese seat.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: Since Her Majesty's Government recognise that the Government of Peking are the legitimate Government of China, is not it our duty to ensure that the Charter shall be carried out? Are not we condoning a flagrant violation of the Charter until we do so?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: No, we are not condoning a flagrant violation of the Charter. The reasons why the British Government have not taken the initiative were explained last week at some length by my right hon. and learned Friend.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: If the Charter lays down that the Republic of China shall have representation on the Security Council, and Her Majesty's Government recognise the Government of Peking as

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    the legitimate Government of that country, surely we are in violation of the Charter until we see that that is carried out?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: As has often been pointed out, a number of members of the United Nations will not regard the present Peking Government as the legitimate Government.
    Mr. A. Henderson: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is quite farcical to suggest that the de jure Government of 500 million people as against the de facto Government of 11 million Formosans are not qualified under Article 23 to be represented on the Council?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: As I said earlier, that matter was gone into at some length at Question Time last week.

  GENEVA CONFERENCE (PREVENTION OF SURPRISE ATTACKS)
  Mr. A. Hendersonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make a statement on the progress of the Geneva Conference on safeguards against surprise attack.
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I regret that I cannot go into details, as it has been agreed that the proceedings of this conference shall be confidential.
  Although the conference has already lasted more than two weeks, it has still not embarked on the joint technical study of the problem which it was supposed to make. Unfortunately, the Soviet and other East European experts persist in raising political questions, which the Western. experts are not authorised to discuss.
  Her Majesty's Government sincerely hope that the conference will soon get down to its technical task.
  Mr. Henderson: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it remains the policy of the Government that they would accept, not only aerial inspection, but also the establishment of ground control posts in British territory, provided that the necessary technical details are worked out at this conference?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Yes, Sir; that is our position.

  VIETNAM

    Postal Communications
    Mr. Harold Daviesasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what he has done as a co-Chairman of the International Commission in Vietnam to facilitate the exchange of letters, postcards and telegrams and other postal exchange between North and South Vietnam.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: The co-Chairmen of the Geneva Conference of 1954 continue to perform certain limited functions, principally as a matter of administrative convenience, but have no responsibility in matters of this kind.
    Mr. Davies: While the whole House, and I think the nation, are grateful to the Indian, Canadian and Polish representatives on the International Control Commission for helping to keep the peace in their difficult task there, may I ask if the right hon. Gentleman, as representing a Government which is a member of the Commission of which the Foreign Secretary is co-Chairman, realises that there is no chance of peace and unity unless natural communications can develop? Is not he aware that the Bamboo Curtain between North and South Vietnam is much more rigid than the so-called Iron Curtain in respect of the movement of personnel or letters between families there? Surely, something can be done about this position, instead of letters having to go via Paris or Hong Kong?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I would certainly agree with the hon. Member that we all ought to do what we can to restore normal relations between North and South Vietnam, but I would point out that we are not members of the International Commission. We still have certain responsibilities as one of the original co-Chairmen of the Geneva Conference in 1954, but I repeat that neither as co-Chairman of that Geneva Conference nor if we were, in fact, a member of the Commission, would we have any right to interfere in this particular matter.

    Troops and Arms, South Vietnam
    Mr. Harold Daviesasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) if he is aware of the International Commission's decision to authorise South Vietnam to replace armaments taken

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    away by the French Union troops during their withdrawal from South Vietnam; and to what extent, as co-Chairman of the Commission. his approval was sought arid given;
    (2) what replacement of weapons or troops there has been in South Vietnam since the withdrawal of the French forces after the Geneva Agreement.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I am aware of the International Commission's decision, about which the Chairman made a report on 7th June, 1958. The decision was one which the Commission itself was entirely competent to take, and my right hon. and learned Friend's views were not sought. As far as the replacement of troops and arms is concerned, it is the responsibility of the International Commission in Vietnam to control this under Articles 16 and 17 of the Geneva Agreement. In its eight Interim Reports the Commission has set out very fully what has been done in this sphere. These reports have all been laid before Parliament.
    Mr. Davies: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that informed Members of the House are fully aware of the stereo-typed answer that has been given? Is he also aware that there have been over 1.400 incidents in South Vietnam that have been reported, that the Eighth Report now says that there is a complete—to use the word of the Report—lacuna in the implementation of the Geneva Agreement, and that this part of the world is brought into the deadly activities of the cold war to serve the purposes of Western strategy, rather than the peaceful unity of these delightful people of North and South Indo-China?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: These reports, as the hon. Gentleman says, are there for all to read, and hon. Members can draw their own deductions.
    Mr. Davies: This is a danger area.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I may add that none of the contraventions in South Vietnam has been on a large scale. For example, the only firm contravention recorded in the latest Report of the Commission relates to eleven boxes of field artillery parts and some machine-gun parts.

  YUGOSLAVIA (ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE)
  Mr. Philips Priceasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to what extent, as a result of the visit of the Yugoslav Foreign Minister, it has been possible to arrange some economic assistance to that country.
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I have nothing to add to the reply which my right hon. and learned Friend gave to the hon. Member for East Ham, South (Mr. Oram) on 19th November.
  Mr. Philips Price: In view of the Soviet Union boycott, or virtual boycott, of Yugoslavia, is not it desirable that we should do something to assist that country as far as we can?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I would entirely agree, and as soon as there is any information which I can give to the House, I will certainly give it.
  Mr. P. Noel-Baker: Is not it a fact that loans to Yugoslavia have been both safe and advantageous investments, and will the Government do their best to see that Yugoslavia does get the help which it badly needs at the present time?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Yes, Sir.

  NILE WATERS
  Mr. Philips Priceasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what communication he has received from the Government of the Sudan about the Russian offer to assist in building the Aswan Dam; and whether he will enter into discussion with that Government on the subject, in view of the complications that will result between the upper Nile States and Egypt if the Aswan Dam is built without an amendment to the Nile Waters Agreement of 1929.
  Mr. W. T. Williamsasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to what extent the Nile Waters Agreement of 1929 is still in force; and which of the parties to the agreement still acknowledge obligations under it.
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: My right hon. and learned Friend has received no communication from the Sudan Government on this subject. The direct interest of Her

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  Majesty's Government in the matter is the claim of the British East African territories to a share of the Nile waters. This claim is not safeguarded by the 1929 Agreement nor would it be affected by the construction of the Aswan High Dam. It remains Her Majesty's Government's intention to take part in a conference of all riparian States if this is called by the major users of the Nile waters or by some accepted international authority.
  The 1929 Nile Waters Agreement was signed by two parties: Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and the Government of the Kingdom of Egypt. I understand that the Government of the United Arab Republic recognises its validity. For their part, Her Majesty's Government have continued to observe the Agreement in the territories for which they are responsible. The first Government of independent Sudan declared that they did not regard themselves as bound by the Agreement.
  Mr. Price: While I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that very interesting Answer, might I ask him whether the time is not now propitious, in view of the recent developments which have taken place in Khartoum, for a move of the kind indicated in my Question?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: That may be so, but I do not think that a conference would be fruitful until it was certain that the attitudes of the Sudan and Egypt were considerably closer together than they have been in recent months.
  Mr. Williams: In view of the interest which is taken in the matter by British territories in East Africa and of the importance of the Nile waters to those territories, ought not the Government themselves to make the first move in trying to bring about such a conference as is suggested? Is not this a matter of such importance that if changes are made in the Nile waters affecting British territories, the Government cannot and ought not to sit quietly by while such changes are taking place?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I entirely agree with that. This is a very grave matter. Certainly, Her Majesty's Government would wish to attend such a conference, but I suggest that a unilateral British initiative would not be likely to achieve the desired results.
  Mr. H. Fraser: As the 1949 and 1953 Agreements, following on in the spirit of the 1929 Agreement, make provision for compensation for people in East Africa owing to the proposed raising of the Owen Falls Dam by 3 metres, are negotiations being pursued with the Egyptian Government on this point? Is not it a point on which we can get together with the Egyptian Government, because at least 30,000 acres of land in British East Africa will be flooded, and, although part of the compensation proposed by the 1949 and 1953 Agreements has been met by the Egyptian Government, very large sums of money will be outstanding in the fairly immediate future? Surely it is appropriate that there should be negotiations?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I will certainly look into what my hon. Friend has just suggested.
  Mr. Bevan: As one of the proposals contained in the Arab resolution carried unanimously by the United Nations referred to the necessity for setting up a commission for the development of this area, are Her Majesty's Government taking any initiative through the United Nations to call a conference of this type?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Precisely which would be the best medium for getting a conference under way is under discussion.
  Mr. Bevan: But is there not a quite unreasonable amount of delay in the matter? Cannot we be assured that some definite action is now contemplated by the Government in order to get a move on?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: As I said, I think it is important that the two countries most concerned should have some identity of view before we try to get this conference going, and I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to bear that in mind. It may well be that this will happen before long.

  GERMANY

    Refugees
    Mr. J. Hyndasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will now re-examine the necessity for German refugees who arrive in Western Berlin and the Federal Republic being subjected to interrogation by the Intelligence Service of the Western Allies before being passed on to the West German authorities.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: The Western Allies screen refugees on their arrival in West Berlin in order to establish their bona fides. This is essential if the Western Powers are to maintain their responsibility for the security of Berlin. The Western Allies do not screen refugees arriving in the Federal Republic.
    Mr. Hynd: If it is not necessary in the Federal Republic, will the right hon. Gentleman make it clear why the situation is different in West Berlin? If it is a matter of security, surely it is clear that anyone who has come over for any underhand purpose would come not through Berlin but over the green frontier where there is no check? Is not it necessary to end this "cloak and dagger" atmosphere in which these unfortunates are received in the free democracy of the West and let the German authorities or the Berlin authorities look after the security side?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: The difference is that the three Powers have certain responsibilities regarding security in Berlin. They do not have those responsibilities for the whole of Federal Germany. It is, therefore, up to the Federal German authorities to make their own check of these refugees who come in over this border. It is still a responsibility of the three Powers to make a check of refugees coming over the border in Berlin.

    Berlin
    Mr. J. Hyndasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been drawn to the public assertion by Mr. Khrushchev that Berlin forms part of the Soviet zone of Germany; and whether he will make a statement on British policy in this regard, in the light of the four-Power agreement on the administration of Berlin.
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what official communication he has received from the Soviet Government since 10th November with regard to the status of Berlin; what reply has been or will be sent by Her Ma jesty's Government either alone or in conjunction with the French, German, and United States Governments; and what evidence he has of attempts to interfere with transport between Berlin and West Germany.
    Mr. Shinwellasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any official communication has yet been received from the Soviet Government regarding the transfer to East Germany of that section of the Berlin area in their occupation; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Grimondasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a further statement on the situation in Berlin and Her Majesty's Government's policy.
    Mr. E. Fletcherasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to what extent, under the treaty agreements for the quadripartite occupation of Berlin, the Soviet Government have the right to transfer or delegate its responsibilities and administrative duties with regard to the troop movements and supplies of the Western Powers in Berlin.
    Mr. Donnellyasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a further statement on the situation in Berlin.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: As my right hon. and learned Friend said on 19th November, no official communication has been received from the Soviet Government. That is still the position. In that Answer he set out the position of Her Majesty's Government which I cannot usefully amplify at present.
    I have no evidence of recent attempts to interfere with transport between Berlin and West Germany.
    The quadripartite agreements relating to Berlin make no provision for the transfer or delegation of the responsibilities or duties of the Soviet Government.
    Mr. Hynd: In view of statements made publicly by American Government representatives, that we are ready to reopen the airlift in the event of the Russians handing over control of Berlin and the zone to the East Germans, is it a fact that if the Russians withdraw their responsibility for Berlin, or the zone, the Western Allies, in the absence of a German peace treaty, will still retain the right of access to Berlin along the corridor at ground level?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I believe that that is correct.
    Mr. Sorensen: In view of the repeated statements about the announcement, have Her Majesty's Government attempted to inquire of the Russian Government the meaning and significance of the statements which they have made? If an official communication comes from the Russian Government, will Her Majesty's Government not merely be content with a negative reply, but take some initiative in the matter?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: That would largely depend on what the message contained. We have not yet had a message. A communication has been sent to the Soviet Government, who can now be in no doubt about our position.
    Mr. Shinwell: Are we to understand that apart from the announcement of Mr. Khrushchev about the Russian intentions towards Berlin, there has been no follow-up at ambassadorial level or in any other fashion? Is that how the matter stands? If it is, are we to regard it as merely flying a kite, and as no more than that?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: We can all put different interpretations on what has happened, but I can state categorically that we have had no official communication from the Soviet Government on the matter.
    Mr. Bevan: Do we not ourselves intend to take any initiative in Central Europe? [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Are we to wait all the time for initiatives to come from the Soviet Union? Have not very important statements been made in Poland which would have a direct bearing on the matter? When will we move ourselves?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I have been answering a series of Questions about the situation in Berlin. The right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question goes very much wider than that and there are other Questions on the Order Paper dealing with the matter he raised.
    Mr. Grimond: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the situation in Berlin will ultimately be solved only in the wider context of a settlement for Eastern Europe? Are not Her Majesty's Government prepared to take any initiative, for instance, to get disengagement in Eastern Europe and the possibility of German reunification?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Of course we agree that the problem of Berlin or of all Germany will be settled only in the context of a settlement of the East European question.
    Mr. Bevan: Do not the Government intend to do something about it? [HON. MEMBERS: "What?"] Do the Government intend to continue with a series of incidents? Would not it be desirable to find out and announce what sort of response we would make to the suggestion of the Polish Foreign Minister? Of course, he has not made it official, because he does not want to make it official in order to have it turned down in one day by the American Government without consultation with anybody.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: The last part of that supplementary question did not seem to be addressed to Her Majesty's Government. I understood that the right hon. Gentleman was talking about the actions of the United States Government, which are not our responsibility. Questions about Mr. Rapacki's Plan are on the Order Paper.
    Mr. E. Fletcher: Since this matter has now been ventilated by Mr. Khrushchev, will not the right hon. Gentleman take the opportunity of suggesting that any modifications of the existing status of Berlin could be dealt with only in the context of a German reunification plan? Will he take the initiative in seeing whether anything can be arranged on those lines?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I will certainly bear that in mind.
    Mr. Russell: Is not it the case that on many occasions the Government have taken the initiative in plans for the reunification of Germany, but that they have always been blocked by the Russians?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: That is perfectly true.

    Reunification
    Mr. Zilliacusasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will now seek to put an end to the dangers and anomalies resulting from the division of Germany and the four-Power occupation of Berlin, exemplified by the present crisis, by calling a Summit Conference to discuss the unification of

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    Germany within an all-European treaty based on the Charter but outside the rival alliances and accompanied by arrangements for the limitation and control of armaments and withdrawal of foreign forces, on the lines of the revised Rapacki Plan.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: No, Sir. I cannot accept the suggestion that, because certain statements have been made on behalf of the Soviet Government about Soviet intentions with regard to Berlin, we should abandon the proposals we have put forward for German reunification and European security, which we consider provide a reasonable basis for negotiation.
    Mr. Zilliacus: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that the policy of asking the Russians to agree to a united Germany being recruited into N.A.T.O. is a dead-end policy and that nothing will ever come of it? Will not the Government try a fresh initiative, a new approach, on the lines suggested in this Question which, in effect, is the policy of the Opposition?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I did not know that the hon. Gentleman had now become the spokesman for the whole of the Opposition. I repeat what I said in the original Answer. I do not think that, simply because Mr. Khrushchev says something, we should abandon a policy which we believe to be right.

    GENEVA CONFERENCE (NUCLEAR TESTS)
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on the progress of the Geneva Conference on the Cessation of Nuclear Tests.
    Mrs. Castleasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on the progress, to date, of the Geneva talks on the discontinuance of nuclear weapon tests.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I have nothing to add to the reply which my right hon. and learned Friend gave to the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) on 24th November.
    Mr. Swingler: That reply did not make clear the principle on which the Government's policy is based. Might I therefore, ask the right hon. Gentleman—we are glad that he is here, since he is in charge of the negotiations—a question to which the House is surely entitled to know the answer? What is the principle of the Government's policy. Is it the Government's policy at these talks to seek international agreement for the complete cessation of nuclear tests subject to the establishment of a satisfactory control apparatus?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: The Government's policy was laid down very clearly in the statement which was made on 22nd August.
    Mrs. Castle: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that on Monday his right hon. and learned Friend gave me a list of the requirements which the Government want the Soviet Government to meet in respect of the control system? Can he tell the House whether if those requirements were met by the Soviet Government Her Majesty's Government would then be willing to accept the Soviet proposal for a permanent cessation of tests?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: All my right hon. and learned Friend set out was certain of the answers which would be required from the Soviet Government if we were to make any progress in the negotiations. We have so far had no answers to those questions.
    Mr. Bevan: As we are now having merely partial answers and partial explanations about what is happening at Geneva, is the right hon. Gentleman yet in a position to confirm the intimation given by his right hon. and learned Friend on Monday that we shall soon have a White Paper setting out the working documents, because we hope to have an early debate on this matter?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I do not think that is quite what my right hon. and learned Friend said. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the conference is proceeding on the assumption that all the discussion takes place in private. There was an unfortunate occurrence in which the Soviet delegation, actually in New York.

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    released the text of its draft agreement, and that became public knowledge. We had to make certain statements to make our position clear on that. We have stated to the Soviet delegation that we would hope that from now on these discussions could be kept private, and during the period when the two other parties to the negotiations wish to keep these matters private—if that is their position—I do not think it will be possible to publish a White Paper.
    Mr. Bevan: Is not that a complete departure from the hope held out by the Foreign Secretary on Monday? As I said, we are hoping to have an early debate on foreign affairs, and especially on this matter. How is it possible for the House to have a really intelligent debate if we have only these partial disclosures? Is not it better that the whole of the documents up to the present stage should now be made available to us in preparation for the debate?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I think it very regrettable that there was any disclosure. I think the thing to do would be to limit it to the one disclosure which has already been made. However, I will certainly examine the matter again. There will, of course, come a moment when it will be perfectly possible to publish these documents. All I say is that I do not know whether the other parties to the conference would agree to the documents being made public now.
    Mr. Bevan: I asked the Foreign Secretary on Monday whether the working documents could be made available and his reply held out the prospect—I am not saying that he promised it definitely, but the House was assured from his statement—of there being no practical difficulties in the way of letting us have the documents up to this stage. If we are to have an intelligent debate, we shall have to have the documents before us.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: My right hon. and learned Friend certainly held out the prospect that they would be published at some time. I do not think that he held out the hope that they would be published in the near future. I have already stated some of the difficulties of publishing documents while the conference is in session.

    THE SAHARA (NATURAL GAS)
    Mr. Jannerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on the Report of the Economic Committee of the Council of Europe that natural gas from the Sahara to Europe might be delivered in London and other European ports at a low cost; and to what extent he is contemplating negotiations for the study and possible realisation of a large scale plan.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: The Report of the Economic Committee was debated by the Consultative Assembly on 15th October, when a Recommendation was adopted calling on the Committee of Ministers to invite the European and African Governments most closely concerned to open negotiations for the study of a possible plan to transport natural gas from the Northern Sahara for distribution in Africa and Europe. The Recommendation has been brought to the attention of the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation, but no substantive discussion has yet taken place. Her Majesty's Government await the outcome of the discussions in O.E.E.C. and in the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
    Mr. Janner: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what steps are being taken with a view to our entering the negotiations speedily, since there is a tremendous difference between the estimated cost of the production of gas in this way, about one-fifth or one-seventh of a penny per therm, as against the present 1s. 3d. or 1s. 4d.? Would not that make a substantial difference to industrial and domestic consumers?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: These are very technical matters and I do not consider myself a great expert on them. This matter is being discussed in O.E.E.C., of which we are a member, and we are taking part in the discussions.
    Mr. Robens: When the right hon. Gentleman is discussing this matter, will he remember that our basic industry, coal, must be preserved?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: That is not a Question for me.

    ICELAND

      British Trawler "Hackness"
      Mr. Wallasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what representations he has received from the Icelandic Government about alleged poaching inside the three-mile limit by the British trawler "Hackness".
      Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Her Majesty's Ambassador at Reykjavik was handed a Note of protest by the Icelandic Minister for Foreign Affairs on 14th November. This did not allege that the "Hackness" was poaching, but only that she was sailing through Icelandic territorial waters with her gear not stowed in accordance with Icelandic regulations.
      A reply is under consideration.
      Mr. Wall: Can my right hon. Friend say whether British vessels have been told not to fish within the legal limits of territorial waters? Can he say whether there was any justification in this case for the firing of live shot alleged to have been carried out by an Icelandic gunboat?
      Mr. Ormsby-Gore: It is quite correct that our ships have instructions not to fish inside Icelandic territorial waters. I prefer not to comment on the details of what happened, because, as often happens in these matters, the cases put forward by the two sides do not entirely square one with the other.
      Mr. G. R. Howard: Am I right in saying that under the last agreement with the Icelandic Government it was decided that gear could remain on deck if a vessel were running for shelter?
      Mr. Ormsby-Gore: That way well be so.

      Fisheries Dispute
      Sir H. Linsteadasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what new developments there have been in the fishing dispute with Iceland; and if he will make a statement.
      Mr. Ormsby-Gore: There have been no new developments since the reply which my right hon. and learned Friend gave to the hon. Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) on 19th November.
      Sir H. Linstead: Although there have been no official developments, may we
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      take it that we are not at arm's length with the Icelandic Government, but that in unofficial ways we are endeavouring to bring into effect an understanding between the two Governments?
      Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Yes; we are continually pressing the Icelandic Government either to come to some interim arrangement or to let the International Court declare certain interim measures which could be taken until such time as a new Conference on the Law of the Sea has had time to pronounce on the matter.

      CENTRAL EUROPE (RAPACKI PLAN)
      Mr. Sorensenasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is yet in a position to make a further statement in respect of the Polish disarmament proposals.
      Mr. Warbeyasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will invite the Polish Foreign Minister to meet him in London or Warsaw in order to clarify the proposals made by Mr. Rapacki on 4th November for a controlled reduction of nuclear and conventional armaments in Central Europe.
      Mr. Ormsby-Gore: No, Sir. Mr. Rapacki has not yet communicated his proposals to us officially. Until he does so it would hardly be appropriate to suggest a special meeting at which to discuss them. This is in any case a matter in which Her Majesty's Government must act in concert with their Allies.
      Mr. Warbey: Why should not the British Government take an independent initiative in this matter? if we are seriously concerned about the situation in Central Europe, and about achieving a solution of the political problems, is not it important to take a decisive step towards a solution of the military problems, in which the political problems are involved? Does not the revised Rapacki Plan offer a real chance for a new start in this matter?
      Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I think that we are likely to get a solution of the political problems if we act in concert with our allies rather than unilaterally.
      Mr. Bevan: But is it not an obvious corollary that our allies should act in

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      concert with us? Is not it a fact that when the first Rapacki Plan was mooted it was immediately turned down by Washington? Was there consultation with the British Government at the time, and did we then act in concert with the Americans?
      Mr. Ormsby-Gore: It is not correct to say that it was immediately turned down by the United States, but I will say that we will, of course, give very serious consideration to any plan which Mr. Rapacki puts forward—and the latest outline plan deserves very careful consideration.
      Mr. Bevan: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer my supplementary question? When the Americans turned down the first Rapacki Plan did they consult the British Government, and was their decision in agreement with that of the British Government?
      Mr. Ormsby-Gore: So far as I know, the United States consulted all their N.A.T.O. allies.
      Mr. Bevan: Really!
      Sir J. Hutchison: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind, on the question of acting in concert, that the first Rapacki Plan was turned down by the whole Council of Europe and the whole of Western European Union?
      Mr. Ormsby-Gore: That is quite correct.
      Mr. P. Noel-Baker: Can the Minister of State say whether the present conference in Geneva on surprise attacks is to consider the technical aspects of the Rapacki Plan, which are extremely important?
      Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I would doubt that, because the indications are that the Polish Government do not wish their plan to be discussed at the conference on surprise attacks.
      Mr. Sorensen: Can we at least have an assurance that in their consideration of this matter with our American associates Her Majesty's Government are not being precluded from analysing and examining these proposals themselves in view of the possibility that they may contain something of real value and offer a distinct contribution to the future possibility of peace?
      Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I can confirm that we are not precluded from giving these proposals very careful consideration on our own.

    SUDAN (RECOGNITION)
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what assurance he requested from the Sudan Government, before according their recognition, that their policy of friendship with this country remains unaltered after their recent political changes.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: My right hon. and learned Friend requested no such assurance. It is not in accordance with our normal practice to make recognition of a Government depend upon assurances of its friendship. The House will, however, like to know that the Prime Minister of the Sudan has told our Ambassador that he looks forward to maintaining the excellent relations which already existed between our two countries.
    Mr. Sorensen: That is extremely gratifying, but may I take it that we, on our side, have equally expressed to the Sudanese Government our wish to continue the friendship that we have enjoyed heretofore?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: That is correct.

    JORDANIAN ARMY (BRITISH PERSONNEL)
    Mr. P. Noel-Bakerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many British officers and men have been attached for training duties to the Royal Jordan Army; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: At the request of the Jordanian Government, a brigadier has been attached to the Jordanian Army for six months as adviser on technical and training matters, and a wing commander has been made available for one year for similar purposes with the Royal Jordanian Air Force.
    As the right hon. Member will be aware, the United States are giving the Jordanian Government twelve Hawker Hunter aircraft, purchased in this country under the offshore procurement procedure. The delivery of these aircraft

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    was completed yesterday. To help train the Jordanians in the flying and maintenance of these aircraft a small Royal Air Force mission, consisting of 8 officers and 21 men, is to be stationed at Amman.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: Have the Government represented to King Hussein and his Ministers that it is more important to have political and economic reforms: o strengthen their régime than to have a further increase in the Army, which has already been taking up far too large a part of the national budget?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman did not hear me. These aircraft are a gift from the United States Government.

    CYPRUS
    Mrs. Castleasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on what date the United Kingdom Permanent Representative on the North Atlantic Council indicated to the Council that Her Majesty's Government were willing to accept the extension of the composition of the proposed conference on Cyprus to include one of the Permanent Representatives on the Council plus a representative of the United States of America.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Her Majesty's Government informed the Secretary General on 25th October that they could accept his proposal to this effect. This acceptance was confirmed at the next meeting of the Council on 29th October.
    Mrs. Castle: Does not the right hon. Gentleman's reply make it clear that the British Government did not notify their willingness to accept the alternative proposal for the composition of this conference, as outlined in the White Paper, until after the Greek Government, in despair at ever getting agreement on this point about the composition, hid already notified their inability to proceed with the conference? Is it a fact that the British Government did not accept the Greek Government's terms until after the Greek Government had turned down the idea of a conference?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: That is not correct. The United Kingdom Permanent Delegate was instructed to inform the Council Secretariat of the Government's decision on the morning of 25th October but,
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    unfortunately, at that point he was in turn informed by the Secretariat of the terms of the Greek Government's decision not to proceed with the conference, as proposed by M. Spaak. I want to make it quite clear—as the hon. Lady knows—that the Greek Government have stated quite categorically that it was not the composition of the conference that they were worried about, and that they would not have come to a conference even with the composition finally agreed by the United Kingdom.

    NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANISATION (CONFERENCES OF PARLIAMENTARIANS)
    Mr. Shinwellasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) what report is received by Her Majesty's Government of the deliberations of the Conferences of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Parliamentarians; to what extent hon. Members representing the United Kingdom at these Conferences are instructed by the Government: how such hon. Members are appointed; and whether he will publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT the names of the hon. Members who have served at such Conferences in 1955, 1956, 1957, and 1958, respectively;
    (2) the total expenditure incurred by Her Majesty's Government in expenses and allowances to hon. Members attending the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation parliamentary meetings in the three years 1956 to 1958.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Parliamentarians' Conference is a private and unofficial body, supported by grants in aid from member Governments, including Her Majesty's Government. I understand that you. Mr. Speaker, and the Lord Chancellor, are responsible for the selection of hon. Members attending the Conference after consulting the Whips. These Members are not instructed by the Government, nor do they have any responsibility to report to Her Majesty's Government. I do, however, receive copies of the debates and resolutions of the Conferences from its Secretariat.
    Expenditure on the annual Conferences of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Parliamentarians in 1956 was £711, and in 1957 it was £920. The figures for this

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    year's Conference, held in Paris last week, are not yet available.
    In addition, in the three years 1956 to 1958 there has been further expenditure of £651 for subsidiary meetings and visits to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation commands.
    I will, with permission, circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT the names of hon. Members who have served on these Conferences.
    Mr. Shinwell: As Her Majesty's Government are responsible for the expenditure incurred on behalf of those who attend the N.A.T.O. Conference of Parliamentarians, will the right hon. Gentleman arrange to place in the Library of the House, or make available to hon. Members, reports of the deliberations at these conferences? Secondly, will he suggest to his right hon. and learned Friend that, on the ground of equity, it would be more desirable to adopt an alternative method of appointing delegates to these conferences, either through a ballot, to which hon. Members could apply, or through a Speakers' committee, in which case the committee would be solely responsible for the selection of Members, presumably on grounds of qualification, without recourse to any instruction from the Whips on either side?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I will certainly bear in mind the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman. I do not think there is any great criticism to be made of the way in which these Members are selected, but if the right hon. Gentleman has a complaint, or feels, perhaps, that he would like to attend these conferences, I should certainly support him.
    Mr. Shinwell: Will the right hon. Gentleman please understand that I am quite sincere, and that I am trying to treat this matter objectively? I have never desired to go to these conferences. I have never approached the Chief Whip on the matter and I do not intend to. All I ask is that, on grounds of equity, every hon. Member should have a fair chance of attending conferences of this kind, and will the right hon. Gentleman please understand that? Will he also please reply to the other part of my supplementary question which was, will he make available a report of the proceedings, because we are responsible for the expenditure incurred?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I will certainly see if that can be done.
    Mr. Bevan: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider this? I am speaking only for myself and not for my party in this matter? Is not it undesirable that there should be in this House any further extension of the powers by which the party machines can confer favours on back-benchers? I think that there has been an extension of those powers to a dangerous extent and, so far as I am concerned, after many years in Parliament, I deplore it.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I do not know whether I am in a position to speak personally, but I agree very much with what the right hon. Gentleman says.
    Mr. Bellenger: May I ask you a question, Mr. Speaker? If names are submitted to you on the recommendation of the Chief Whips, is not it rather undignified for you merely to "rubber stamp" what the Whips say?
    Mr. Speaker: It would be, were that the position. But there are many things about which I ask the Whips for nominations because that is the only way I can deal with them, and past Speakers have done the same. When I get the lists I concern myself to make sure that the hon. Members whose names appear on them are, in my opinion, fit and proper persons to go. I presume that I have a responsibility to the House in that respect. If the name of an hon. Member were suggested to me and I did not think he was a good man, I should ask about him, but I do not think that has ever happened. There are few hon. Members in fact there are none in the present House of Commons—whom I should consider not to be fit and proper persons.
    In the case of the two branches which exist in this House, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association on the one hand, and the Inter-Parliamentary Union on the other, they meet regularly in our House of Commons and are branches of Members of our own House. Delegations which they send abroad are chosen by a committee, over which they ask me to preside. But in this case there is no such organisation and the only way in which I can find Members willing to go is by asking the Whips.
    Mr. Paget: In order to clarify the matter, Mr. Speaker, may I ask whether the object of this exercise is to assist N.A.T.O. or to amuse Members of Parliament?
    Mr. Speaker: I am not concerned with the object of it. I get an invitation. The invitation is sent to me to send so many hon. Members to this conference. I suppose the invitation is sent to me as I am a sort of central point in the organisation. I ask the Whips whom they would like to send, and they send me a list which generally contains the names of more hon. Members than are required, and I make a final selection from that.
    Mr. Bevan: Is the right hon. Gentleman able to tell the House where this curious organisation originated, this Parliamentary conference of the N.A.T.O. Council?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: It was spontaneously agreed to by members of all three parties in this House.
    Mr. Wigg: Is not it unworthy of the Minister of State to sneer at my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) and to suggest that he might want to go to these conferences? Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that if my right hon. Friend did wish to go, there is no Member of this House who has done more to further the work of N.A.T.O. than my right hon. Friend?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Certainly I had no intention of sneering at the right hon. Member for Easington. I said I thought that he would be a most admirable person to be a delegate to these conferences.
    Following is the information:
    The following are the hon. Members of this House who have attended the annual conferences of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Parliamentarians during the past four years:
    1955

    Rt. Hon. Walter Elliot, C.H., M.C. (Leader).

    Mr. Thomas Fraser.

    Mr. Geoffrey de Freitas.

    Mr. J. Grimond.

    Vice-Admiral J. Hughes Hallett, C.B., D.S.O.

    Air Commodore A. V. Harvey, C.B.E.

    Mr. Denis W. Healey, M.B.E.

    Mr. Gilbert Longden, M.B.E.

    Rt. Hon. J. S. Maclay, C.M.G.

    Rt. Hon. Philip Noel-Baker.

    Mr. Thomas C. Pannell.

    Major Richard Sharpies, O.B.E.. M.C.

    1956

    Rt. Hon. Walter Elliot, C.H., M.C. (Leader).

    Rt. Hon. George Brown.

    Rt. Hon. Clement Davies, Q.C.

    Mr. Geoffrey de Freitas.

    Rt. Hon. Hugh Gaitskell, C.B.E.

    Air Commodore A. V. Harvey, C.B.E.

    Vice-Admiral J. Hughes Hallett, C.B., D.S.O.

    Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel Heald, Q.C.

    Mr. Denis Healey, M.B.E.

    Mr. Gilbert Longden, M.B.E.

    Mr. Thomas Pannell.

    Brigadier O. L. Prior-Palmer, D.S.O.

    Mr. Richard Sharples, O.B.E., M.C.

    1957

    Rt. Hon. Walter Elliot, C.H.. M.C. (Leader.

    Rt. Hon. George Brown.

    Rt. Hon. Clement Davies, Q.C.

    Mr. Geoffrey de Freitas.

    Sir James Hutchison, Bt., D.S.O., T.D.. J.P.

    Mr. Roy Jenkins.

    Mr. Martin Maddan.

    Rt. Hon. Philip Noel-Baker.

    Mr. Thomas Pannell.

    Brigadier O. L. Prior-Palmer, D.S.O.

    Mr. Richard Sharples, O.B.E., M.C.

    Rt. Hon. R. H. Turton, M.C.

    1958

    Major the Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas Dugdale, Bt. (Leader).

    Major Sir William Anstruther-Gray. Bt., M.C., D.L.

    Rt. Hon. George Brown.

    Capt. George Chetwynd.

    Rt. Hon. Clement Davies, Q.C.

    Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke, Q.C.

    Mr. Geoffrey de Freitas.

    Rt. Hon. Arthur Henderson, Q.C.

    Sir James Hutchison, Bt., D.S.O.. T.D., J.P.

    Mr. ldwal Jones.

    Mr. Anthony Kershaw, M.C.

    Mr. Robert Mellish.

    Sir Charles Mott-Radclyffe.

    Brigadier O. L. Prior-Palmer. D.S.O.

    SUEZ CANAL (BRITISH SHIPPING)
    Mr. Donnellyasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what representations he made regarding the free passage of British ships through the Suez Canal when he held his discussions with the Foreign Minister of the United Arab Republic.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: None, Sir.
    Mr. Donnelly: If none, why none, because surely, that is what the Suez expedition was about?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: The only reason for making some representation would be if we had been asked by some shipping company to take up the matter, and that has not occurred.

    ALBANIA (DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS)
    Mr. Malcolm MacMillanasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the reasons for Her Majesty's Government's continuing refusal to recognise the Government and State of Albania; and if he will now reconsider the position, with a view to establishing normal relations.
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Her Majesty's Government recognise the Government and State of Albania but have no diplomatic relations with that country. We are not at present contemplating any steps to establish diplomatic relations.
    Mr. MacMillan: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that, as a matter of enlightened self-interest, it would be desirable to take the initiative in trying to enlist the friendship of the Albanians by trade and otherwise? Will the right hon. Gentleman reply to the first part of the Question which asks why we are not doing so?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: The reasons why we do not do so are, first, because Albania has not yet paid any compensation as was requested of them by the International Court; and secondly, because they refused to state that they would give appropriate facilities to the British representative and his staff. So long as that position is maintained, we see no object in sending a British representative. I may add that I believe the total amount of trade with Albania is something like £13.000 a year, and therefore no great British interest is involved.
    Mr. MacMillan: In view of the utterly unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I give notice that I shall endeavour to raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment in the interest of our own country

  EMPLOYMENT

    School Leavers, Lanarkshire
    Mr. Timmonsasked the Minister of Labour, in view of the large numbers of young people who left school in June of this year in Lanarkshire, and are still unemployed, what steps he proposes to take to find employment for them.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour and National Service (Mr. Richard Wood): Only a small proportion of the boys and girls who left school in June in Lanarkshire are at present unemployed. The officers of the Youth Employment Service are making every effort to place them in employment.
    Mr. Timmons: Is the hon. Member aware that 4,382 youngsters left school in June and that more than 50 per cent. of those children are running about, just unemployed, and selling rolls at midnight? Has not a serious social problem been created as a consequence of this state of affairs?
    Mr. Wood: I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman's information is slightly false. Out of the 4,382 boys and girls who left school in June, 1958, there were registered for employment on 14th November last only 130.

BILL PRESENTED
  MARRIAGE (SECRETARIES OF SYNAGOGUES)
  Bill to amend the definition of "Secretary of a synagogue" in section sixty-seven of the Marriage Act, 1949, presented by Sir K. Joseph; supported by Mr. Wade, Sir E. Errington, Mr. Page, Mr. Albu, and Mr. Hoy; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday and to be printed. [Bill 38.]
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Proceedings on the Motion on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House) for One hour after Ten o'clock.—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]

HOMOSEXUAL OFFENCES AND PROSTITUTION (REPORT)
3.32 p.m.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): I beg to move,
That this House takes note of the Report of the Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (Command Paper No. 247).
It is now a little over a year since we received the Report of the Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution. I do not think, on reflection, that the interval that has elapsed between the publication of the Report and this debate is a matter for regret. In fact, it may have been useful.
One of the most important services rendered by Sir John Wolfenden and his colleagues was to put before us a Report which sets out the issues involved in these subjects clearly, cogently and briefly. It has since been widely read and has stimulated discussion on topics which many people have so far been tempted to ignore. We now have an opportunity of considering the Committee's Report as well as the comments that have been made upon it since that Committee reported to us.
I should like, first, to express my gratitude, and I am sure that of the House of Commons, to the Committee and especially to Sir John Wolfenden. They spent much time, a very considerable time, studying these problems and distilling from the mass of evidence a Report which has provoked much talk and discussion. We now have before us not only the Report, but a considerable degree of evidence of public opinion about it. I realise that it is not altogether easy to consider both parts of this Report in one debate. In fact, I think it can now be said that the two parts of the Report have not very much to do with one another.
The difficulty has been that it is always hard to find Parliamentary time for such a discussion. I suggest that we just make the best use of our time, on the understanding that it is very difficult for me to cover so broad a subject shortly and that it will be just as difficult for every other hon. Member to do so as well. I will attempt to do so as succinctly as I can,
366
borrowing something, if I may, of the style of the Wolfenden Report's authors.
The Committee was asked in its terms of reference to consider the law and offences against the law. It is most important, at the outset, to make it clear, because this eliminates a large sphere from the debate, that questions of theology and morals were outside the Committee's terms of reference. Our main concern in considering the Report will be to decide whether its recommendations as to changes in the law are to be accepted.
Of course, Parliament has a dual function, being partly a deliberative and partly a legislative assembly. As a deliberative assembly we have, alas not frequently enough, an opportunity to consider the general health of the community and what is conducive to the greatest good, but when we do have such an opportunity our discussions should, and, indeed, sometimes do, both represent and influence opinion in the community. In our capacity as a legislative assembly we have to consider more specifically whether the law requires amendment and, if so, in what way.
The subjects considered by the Committee, as I think it fully realised in its Report, raise in the most acute form one of the perennial dilemmas of organised society. That is, how far the law and the compulsion of the law should seek to regulate the behaviour of individuals. I think we all agree that there is a sphere of conduct in which the behaviour of individuals must be controlled by the sanctions of the law, in their own interests, in the interests of others, and in the interests of society at large. I think it would be agreed that there is a sphere which it is proper to leave to the dictates of the individual conscience; I mean the individual and the individual conscience as fortified by the teachings of religion and the generally accepted standards of the society in which we live.
Where dispute arises is in defining the limits of those two spheres. To make the matter more simple, I would remind the House of the three postulates on which the Committee worked. The Committee stated that in its view the function of the law in regard to sexual behaviour was threefold: first, to preserve public order and decency secondly, to protect the

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citizen from what is offensive and injurious; and, thirdly, to provide sufficient safeguards against exploitation and corruption. These seem to me to be well stated and admirable principles, and we should at the outset examine them.
I personally have no difficulty in assenting to the first, which is that the law should be so framed or held, as it is, as to preserve public order and decency. I should have thought—I hope I am not giving a wrong impression—that there is agreement that the law should provide a safeguard against exploitation and corruption. It is when we come to the second function, as defined by the Committee, namely, the protection of the citizen from what is offensive and injurious, that we have the greatest difficulty and have to make up our minds. That is why I am trying to be as clear as I can and to bring that out at the very beginning of my remarks.
That raises but does not answer the fundamental question: what is offensive and what is injurious? What kinds of conduct, the Committee asked, are so contrary to the public good that the law ought to intervene in its function as the guardian of that public good? It is really on the answer to that question, which I took from the Committee's Report, that the discussion on the Committee's recommendations on homosexual conduct has turned. Is such conduct between consenting adults in private injurious to society, or is it a matter entirely for the private consciences of the parties concerned?
To get a proper answer to that question one needs to look back a little at history, but if we do we see that the questions of homosexuality and prostitution have been with us in the world, in every nation, since the beginning of time and that widely different views about homosexual conduct have been taken in different ages and in different societies.
In ancient Greece, for example, at times this practice was accepted and even admired. In some military societies or castes it has been cultivated as a way of life which, it has been alleged, has given cohesion to the group. In other societies, including those permeated by the Christian ethic, it has been abhorred as an unmentionable evil and visited with the severest penalties.
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So, if we look back we get a variety of testimony. If we look at the past of this country we find that the extreme form of homosexual conduct has been condemned by the criminal law for more than 400 years. This derived originally from the ecclesiastical law, but is now our statute law. Lesser forms arise, in particular from the amendment moved by Labouchere, seventy years ago, which now forms Section 13 of the Sexual Offences Act, 1956. Therefore, in considering this matter the House must realise that these are the facts and the point from which we must start is inescapable.
So much for the facts. The Committee, when trying to give us its views, drew a sharp and valid distinction between sin and crime. Applying the definition of the function of the criminal law, which I have already quoted, the Committee felt that while private homosexual conduct between consenting adults might be sin, and was commonly so regarded, it was not, or rather ought not, to be crime. I go on for a moment with the Committee's views. The Committee argued that to carry the criminal law beyond its proper sphere is to undermine the moral responsibility of the individual. The Archbishop of Canterbury in another place, and the Church Assembly by a majority, have emphasised the vital importance of maintaining the fundamental right of a man to decide on his own moral code, even to his own hurt.
No one who has studied the Report and the debate upon it in another place could fail, I think, to be impressed by the force of the argument that if conduct which is morally wrong is not—I say not—injurious to society, then it ought to be left to the operation of the individual conscience. I think that we should all agree that in a free society there are few things more important than to sustain the sense of individual responsibility, whether it be civic responsibility or responsibility for private conduct. But this argument can be accepted as a reason for leaving homosexual conduct to the private conscience only if one is convinced that society will not be harmed by so doing. That is a proposition which many people, after giving full weight to the Committee's arguments and to the views of the Churches, still find great difficulty in accepting.

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Let us examine this further, because the Committee's case was very strongly put and, as we all know from the public Press, it received a wide measure of support among certain sections. Let us look at the other side. Can we be certain that homosexual conduct between consenting adults is not a source of harm to others The following arguments appeal, at this time, to many. The first one which strikes me is this; that a homosexual group—I understand that there are such groups—may tend to draw in and corrupt those who are bisexual by nature and capable of living normal lives, but are led by curiosity, weakness, or, in some cases, purely mercenary motives, into homosexual society.
While it may be argued that escape from such a group is easier if its activities are not illegal, it is equally arguable that resistance to its attraction is stronger in the first place if its activities are illegal as well as immoral. So we are not starting from the very beginning with an absolutely clean start. If we were drawing up a code for the first colonists of the moon, should we make this kind of offence a criminal offence? I am in some doubt whether we might or might not. What we have to decide here and now is: shall we remove the existing prohibitions upon it with all the consequences of so doing?
Here, I think, we come nearest to a correct diagnosis of the present position. I think that we ought to look ahead to the best approach to the future. An impression has undoubtedly gained ground—which I do not think is fair to the Wolfenden Committee—that the Committee desired to legalise homosexual conduct. That gives a sort of impression that it wished to make it easier. In fact, what the members of the Committee wished to do was to alter the law, not expressly to encourage or legalise such practices, but to remove them, like adultery and other sins, from the realm of the law. In my opinion, education and time are needed to bring people along to understand this point of view.
There is no doubt from the inquiries and researches I have made that many hon. Members and many people outside would at present misunderstand the removal of the prohibition as implying, if not approval, at least condonation by the legislature of homosexual conduct. We
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have to reflect that many people who are outside the influence of religion find no other basis for their notions of right and wrong but in the criminal law. Can we be sure that if we removed the support of the criminal law from these people they would find any other support?
At any rate, what is clear, after taking this time to think it over and to receive all the impressions and consider the perplexities of this problem, is that there is at present a very large section of the population who strongly repudiate homosexual conduct and whose moral sense would be offended by an alteration of the law which would seem to imply approval or tolerance of what they regard as a great social evil. Therefore, the considerations I have indicated satisfy the Government that they would not be justified at present, on the basis of opinions expressed so far, in proposing legislation to carry out the recommendations of the Committee.
Having said that, I want also to add that I say it with full knowledge that much human suffering derives from the operation of the present law. It provides scope for the blackmailer, and there are no more convincing portions of the Committee's Report than those which refer to the danger of blackmail and the opportunities given to the blackmailer—and also to the retrospective effect of evidence given by somebody who wishes to blackmail somebody else, and the difficulty of not going back sometimes for years in a case of this sort.
It also so often results in prison sentences which make the victim's last state worse than his first. My own personal experience of visits to prisons which have in them those who have committed this type of what is called crime shows how very unsuitable in many cases a prison sentence is for the redemption of a person of this sort. I need not go into details, but in some circumstances such treatment could hardly be regarded as more unsatisfactory.
Mr. Sydney Silverman: Would the right hon. Gentleman explain why he does not regard that last argument as conclusive?
Mr. Butler: I do not regard it as conclusive because I do not think we have yet with us a general sense of opinion which would regard it as right, for the reasons I have given, to alter the criminal

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law in the sense suggested by the Committee. General opinion feels that it would be doing too much to condone a practice which so many people abhor.
Nevertheless, I should not have wished to make this speech had I not acknowledged that these difficulties are present, and I should like to draw the attention of the hon. Member, who has often taken part in our discussions on matters of this sort, to the fact that I said that I was thinking not only of the present but also of the best approach to the future. One purpose which I want the debate to achieve is the acceptance of a Motion taking note of the Committee's findings which will give the opportunity to state the Government's immediate intention; because I do not exclude the opportunity of hon. Members, quite rightly, expressing their own opinion in this debate and thereby assisting to form public opinion along the best possible path for the future. I honestly do not think that even some members of the Committee would expect us to go any further on this occasion.
I hope that the debate will do something to educate opinion towards the type of reform which may be generally accepted. Of one thing I am sure—that in this field, as in many others, we need more knowledge. We know little of the causes or extent of homosexual conduct, and in the absence of knowledge we cannot adequately judge the consequences of any action we might take.
The Committee examined the problem in the light of information available to it and drew attention to the need for research, and I am hopeful of making arrangements to meet this end. The only reservation I have to make concerns the size of the demand of other forms of research, the fact that we have just started a great variety of research within the Home Office and the capacity for it, both medical and sociological, and the other pressing important problems which arise. I will, however, undertake to follow up the Committee's desire in this respect.
I should like now to turn to the second part of the Wolfenden Committee's remit. That deals with prostitution. Here, also, although the Committee was concerned only with the law, we are bound to consider the social problem behind it and here again a great deal of thought has
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been given to the Committee's findings. I think that we in the House are conscious of the gulf which separates what we wish to do and what we can achieve. Those who practise the art of government are often painfully aware that it is only the art of what is possible.
Discussion on the Committee's recommendations on homosexuality have, I think, disclosed deep disagreement upon what it is desirable to do. On prostitution the position is different. There is probably little disagreement on what is desirable; the question is: what is possible? I think that most of us would agree that prostitution is a trade which we should like our country to be without, but we should also agree with the Committee that
"until education and the moral sense of the community bring about a change of attitude to the fact of prostitution, the law by itself cannot do so."
That does not mean that the law should make no contribution to the redemption of the individual prostitute. We may accept for the time, as other nations and civilisations have done right through history, the fact of prostitution, but each girl who becomes a prostitute, with all that entails of eventual degradation and misery, is a reproach to our society. In my approach to this subject I can never forget the admirable and devoted work done by my own kinswoman, Josephine Butler. Since her time very much has changed. In considering these problems, however, I have been much exercised by reading the account of her life's work and influence.
For example, things are very different from her day, if we take the evidence of the Committee. The Committee was in no doubt that nowadays prostitution is a way of life deliberately chosen because it suits a particular woman's personality and gives her both freedom from irksome routine and the means of earning much more that she would earn in regular employment. It is no longer a way of life which a woman adopts because no other is open to her, and the opportunities for rescuing women from it are consequently limited.
All this is quite different from what happened in the time of Josephine Butler, when the girls she used to save were the poorest creatures of society, very often forced into prostitution to earn sufficient to keep themselves alive. That is an

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entirely different picture from that which we have today. All our reports from the different areas where prostitution is rife show us that that does not apply in respect of the girls who take to prostitution today. I raise this matter because I want to ask this very difficult question: if we are to indulge in legislation, what form shall that legislation take? It may well have to take a form which would not entirely have pleased Josephine Butler, who took such a great part in this matter in the last century.
Nevertheless, the spirit which animated her must be kept alive. I am convinced that we have a duty, particularly with the young, to bring every means of redemption to bear before prostitution becomes a settled habit, and the law should, as far as possible, assist towards this end, although it cannot itself achieve it.
As the Wolfenden Committee said, we should take every legitimate chance of dissuading girls from adopting a life of prostitution by advice and help rather than by involving them in the machinery of the law. If they are warned at an early stage—and we have a lot to learn from the Scottish practice in this respect—and perhaps put in touch with one of the voluntary organisations which do such valuable work, they might turn hack before they have accepted prostitution as a settled way of life. If, despite the warnings and advice—which, as I say, we have discussed with police authorities and with our colleagues from Scotland—a girl continues on this path and has to he brought before the courts, everything possible should be done at that stage to see that she receives all the assistance which can be provided by the probation service and the other social services available. She should be given every encouragement and practical help to abandon the life before she becomes accustomed to it. As a preface, I would say, that we propose to practise every art of redemption which we can practise in dealing with this problem.
I come now to what the law can achieve. The criticism of the Wolfenden Committee which I have heard and which I first felt when I read its Report was that it was so severely practical a document that it hardly introduced morals at all. That is partly due to the terms of reference which the Committee was
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asked to consider. The Committee believed that the function of the law in this field was to clean up the streets and to prevent exploitation. Its principal recommendation was that the law relating to street offences should be reformulated broadly in three ways—first, to eliminate the requirement to establish annoyance.
I see from a leading article in The Times today some feeling that the residents in the streets should still have the opportunity of helping to prove annoyance, but in my view we should accept the findings of the Wolfenden Committee in this respect, for the reason which the Committee set out in paragraph 255:
"In our view both loitering and importuning for the purpose of prostitution are so self-evidently public nuisances that the law ought to deal with them, as it deals with other self-evident public nuisances, without calling on individual citizens to establish the fact that they were annoyed."
Earlier, in paragraph 251, the Committee said:
"Usually the prostitute pleads guilty, but if she does not the courts are usually prepared to accept the evidence of a police officer who witnessed the offence, to the effect that a person or persons accosted appeared to be annoyed."
After studying this matter, it appears to me that the Wolfenden Committee is perfectly right to say that in new legislation we should do away with any provisions requiring the establishment of annoyance. I do not think that they would work from the point of view of the ordinary citizen, and I am quite certain that they will not continue to work from the point of view of the police.
The next proposal that the Committee made was that the maximum penalty should be increased, and a system of progressively higher penalties for repeated offences introduced; and the Committee's third recommendation was that this should culminate in sentences of three months' imprisonment for the third, and for subsequent offences. So much for the Committee's recommendations.
For myself, I have no doubt of the need to clean up our streets. I do not believe that this would, as it is sometimes said, be hypocrisy, or simply keeping up appearances. I have been impressed by the shame that decent people feel at the state of the streets in the West End, in Paddington and in Stepney—to name only

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three areas—and by their fear for the well-being of young people who live in, or pass through, these streets. I do not believe that there is a single member of the House, who keeps his eyes open, who can be in the slightest doubt that this is a reproach to our capital and a danger to our young people.
I have not only my own impressions to go by. Just because my visits to these places have been private—because I have visited them, and they and not reported in the Press—it does not mean that I have not studied them carefully. I do not go only by my own impression or anyone else's, nor do I depend solely on my Under-Secretaries to go there—they usually go in pairs, which makes them understand the situation. What is more important, I have received representations from the authorities in those places—and I am thinking especially of Stepney.
Some people say that it would be possible to clear this up by a drive by the police. Of course, it is possible for the police to do something for a while. The police have been extremely effective in Stepney, and have appeared to clear up the situation there. But what I hear from the police is that a police drive can do no more than move on the trouble, and that—and I have studied this very carefully with the new Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis, and with police authorities elsewhere in the country—it bobs up elsewhere.
Therefore, I do not think that a police drive, however estimable the police may have been in their handling of this very difficult problem, can be depended on alone. In passing, I would like to pay a sincere tribute to the policemen in their handling of this matter. They have shown great tact and efficiency in dealing with it, especially in the West End.
What I think we should do is to attempt to remove this reproach from the streets of our cities, and the question is: if we do that, how far has the law to go?
Mr. Kenneth Younger: I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman is leaving the question of difficulties in certain areas, but before he does can he say whether he has any information to give about the situation outside these well-known areas of London, because there is nothing, or almost nothing, in
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the Committee's Report on whether this is a national problem? What other places are involved?
Mr. Butler: I have myself been asked by deputations of hon. Members, and others about the position in other parts of the country. I do not want to make an accusation that is inaccurate, but I can say quite definitely that it is much more serious in London—in the West End, and in the areas of some of our main railway stations in London—than it is in any other city in the country.
A comparison between London, Edinburgh and Glasgow shows that there is not nearly the same evidence in the streets of the other two cities as there is in London. It is not only due, in Scotland, to the warning system, but to other causes that I have not been able to fathom. However, the fact is that the position in London, at present, is far worse than it is anywhere else. There are certain manifestations of the trouble in other of our big cities, of course, but not to the same extent, publicly, as in London—
Mr. R. T. Paget: May I ask what the right hon. Gentleman has in mind when he refers to the dangers to young people of prostitutes being in the streets, rather than somewhere else?
Mr. Butler: I think that it is really common sense. It is the example that is given to young people of what is going on. I do not believe that the ordinary young person, when starting work or leaving school, would expect to see the things that we do see in the areas to which I have referred. I am sure that that not only has a bad effect on them by bad example but, in some instances, it is possible for a young man, so to speak, to be caught, when it would not be possible if there was not the same manifestation on the streets as is now the case. I think that anybody who thinks about this would prefer the streets to be cleared up.
The Wolfenden Committee has made out a very strong case for its recommendations, and I can see now the lines on which legislation giving effect to them will be framed. This legislation we have been preparing. Before introducing a Bill, however, the Government would wish to be fortified by the opinion of the House and, in particular, in this debate today, I shall welcome the views of hon.

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Members on some of the practical issues involved. Therefore, I now propose to go into some of the details, with a view to being helped by the House in making farther recommendations.
I have looked at the recommendations of the Wolfenden Committee in the hope of finding a way of improving on them, but, so far, I have not succeeded in doing so. It seems to me that the essential thing in legislation is to find some means of reconciling the ethical, or moral, and the practical approach to the problem. For example, if we accept the findings of the Committee, many people will feel that it is inequitable that the woman should be punished and that the man should not.
That is a point of view with which I was, and still am, predisposed to sympathise. Many people feel that both the substance and the language of the present law relating to street offences is archaic, harsh, and unjust to the woman. This is a view that has been put most eloquently to me by a deputation from the women's organisations. Again, I have a natural sympathy with that point of view, but I now want to put the real difficulties to the House, and the travail of thought through which I have passed in approaching the subject.
If our object is to improve the present state of the streets, we cannot blind ourselves to the practical considerations. It is useless to create new offences, the law on which could not be enforced. It would be useless, and worse than useless, to redefine the law about soliciting in terms that would increase the difficulties of the police. In fact, if the law were not adequately defined the police simply could not administer it—and this is a point that they have put most graphically to me. We would thereby find ourselves much further away from clearing the streets than we are now.
At the same time, it is most important that the law should not be framed in terms that would expose an innocent woman to any danger of arrest for alleged loitering or soliciting. This is a very great danger. Therefore, when we come to frame a Bill—if I find the House in support of such an idea—any new definition of the offences must satisfy two main points. First, it must not expose an innocent woman, who behaves indiscreetly, to arrest, and, secondly, it must
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not impose on the police an impossible burden of proof. Those are the two criteria upon which any ultimate drafting must be based—
Mr. S. Silverman Mr. S. Silverman rose—
Mr. Butler: Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to finish this part of my speech and then, if he cares to, he may intervene.
For example, to protect the innocent woman it must be an ingredient of the offence either that the woman is a known prostitute, or that she has solicited with a degree of persistence indicating a habit, or a way of life. If that provision is not made, it is not lighthearted to say that it would be quite possible for an ordinary, innocent woman making a rendezvous with a man—particularly in one of these areas—to be caught by the very law that we are designing to clear our streets, and deal with prostitution.
I only say this to show to the House that if we do have to indulge in strict drafting it will be for these two purposes; to protect the ordinary, innocent woman who may, inadvertently, be careless, and to protect the police themselves in operating the law. Therefore, in any definition in a Bill, the woman must be so described that the police and the courts can perform their duty—their duty of identification and, finally, if necessary, of prosecution—without any shadow of doubt. I say that now because, otherwise, I think that at a later date there may be some misunderstanding if we come to consider this matter as a legislative assembly.
Mr. S. Silverman: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I should like to raise two short points. First, does not the defence which he advances involve the certainty that in any disputed case the record of the defendant is part of the evidence on which the prosecution relies for a conviction? Is that not wrong in principle? Secondly, how can we morally justify treating as a crime the sale of a thing without, at the same time, treating the buying of that thing also as a crime?
Mr. Butler: I am coming to the second point.
On the first point relating to a record, if we were considering a Bill, that would, I think, raise a point which the hon. Gentleman should then ventilate on the Bill, because it raises a very serious point

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of the application of the law. He could reserve his position on that. It does not arise from the first conviction, because under the present law the police go on the habits, knowledge, and so forth, of the woman concerned. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to reserve his position on the second point he would be wise to do so, because it concerns our liberties, and would have to be raised in the House.
I will come to the hon. Member's query about the guilty man in a moment. It will thus be said that if we have a harsh definition in a Bill—and I have not attempted to define it here today, because I would rather not; I would like to hear what people have to say about it—this would presuppose no equality between men and women and would be grossly unfair to the women. By a strange coincidence, I am forestalling the interest of the hon. Gentleman in the man.
How, then, can the demand for equality between men and women be satisfied? Of what offence, in fact, is the man to be guilty? I have read all this Report and I have done my best to study the subject, and, with the possible exception of the kerb-crawler—a gentleman who is described in these pages who evidently drives about in a motor car for the purpose, who raises problems of his own—the man does not normally loiter, because he has no need to. He appears once on the scene and is gone. In the rare cases where it is the man who persistently importunes women, he can be prosecuted under the existing law, namely Section 32 of the Sexual Offences Act, 1956, a copy of which I have here.
If we examine the facts of this case we find usually that it is not the man's persistent presence that is offensive or injurious. It is that of the woman. If the criminal law takes account of that, it is not, I think, imputing greater moral guilt to the woman or punishing one party and failing to punish another equally amenable to punishment. It is merely taking account of the facts of the situation as they are found.
To put this matter simply—and we should certainly have to revert to this if legislation were introduced—it is a fact that it is almost impossible for the authorities to identify the man, whereas it is comparatively easy for the authorities to identify the woman.
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In facing the problem of clearing our streets, it is very important for me, in making this speech, to draw the attention of the House to the undoubted facts of the situation which must be clearly understood by all if we are to get to the right end of this matter. I have discussed this matter and have wondered whether there was adequate equality between man and woman.
I now come to a very important section of the Report of the Wolfenden Committee dealing with living on immoral earnings, starting at paragraph 298 and proceeding from page 98 onwards. There is no doubt in my mind that the man who exploits a prostitute by living on her immoral earnings presents a different and, in some respects, an easier problem than the problem of what is known as the customer. The majority of the Wolfenden Committee consider that the existing maximum penalty of two years' imprisonment is adequate and they concluded their remarks on living on immoral earnings with these words, referring to all the evils of immoral earnings and those who exploit the girls:
"With most of these evils the law attempts to deal so far as it can without unduly trespassing on the liberty of the individual; and, as in the case of prostitution itself, it is to educative measures rather than to amendment of the law that society must look for a remedy."
My own feeling is that if it is decided, as it may well be, to take action on these matters, the conclusions of the Wolfenden Committee majority on this question are not firm enough, and I have no doubt myself that we should accept the reservation by Mrs. Cohen, Mrs. Lovibond and Lady Stopford, who say:
"We accordingly recommend that the maximum penalty for the offence of living on the earnings of prostitution be increased to five years' imprisonment."
I have no doubt that after studying carefully the findings of the Committee, dealing with the law to which they refer, namely, the Sexual Offences Act, 1956, Section 30, which relates to living on immoral earnings, we should be right to raise the penalty to five years. I hope that in some respects that would be a consolation and balance for some other things that we may have to do. Of course, that in itself would necessitate a good deal of attention before we came to a conclusion.

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There is one last aspect of the Wolfenden Committee's findings upon which I should like the advice of the House. That is the question of premises used for prostitution. This was examined in some detail in the latter part of the Report, and the Committee recommended that a magistrates' court should be empowered, on convicting a tenant or occupier for certain offences, to make an order determining the tenancy or requiring the tenant to assign the tenancy to a person approved by the landlord.
The Committee was obviously aware that this problem was one of peculiar difficulty, but I must say that I do not think that it has been able to solve it. The Committee based its recommendation on the existing provision for a "summary order for possession" made by the convicting court. But on most careful examination of all the legal advice at the disposal of the Government, we have come to the conclusion that this existing procedure is defective because it overrides the rights of innocent sub-tenants other than those protected by the Rent Restrictions Acts, and is rarely used.
We have come to the conclusion that to devise new procedure will involve the most awkward and, I believe, almost impossible dovetailing of the criminal law and the complicated civil law of real property. I must warn the House that I do not at present see a way in which we could provide a reasonably speedy and effective remedy and yet not do harm to innocent sub-tenants. I think that it would be a tragedy if any legislation which we envisage to deal with prostitutes were to fall upon an innocent sub-tenant who happened to occupy a building which is alleged to be solely under the care of somebody who had prostitutes as subtenants in the building. If hon. Members can give me any help in that matter I shall be ready to consider it, but I do not think at the moment we can accept the findings of the Wolfenden Committee's Report on that part of its very able conclusions.
I have in the shortest compass possible, in view of the difficulties of this matter, mentioned the variety of practical problems raised by the recommendations. I do not think they present insuperable obstacles to legislation, but I should like to stimulate discussion on them this afternoon. It will be the Government's respon-
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sibility, after hearing what the House has to say, to decide what is the best course to take in the interests of the country and how best the practical difficulties can be overcome. The fuller and franker the debate and the more Members who can give their views, the better.
I have purposely said that although I am inspired by a desire to obtain equality of treatment as between men and women, there would be, in definition in such a Bill, grave difficulty in achieving that object. It is most important to ensure that we do not endamage the innocent woman, that we make the operation of the law by the police possible and that we do not endamage the innocent subtenant in an ordinary flat in an ordinary building who might otherwise be caught by our legislation.
There are great difficulties in our path. The final one is the great moral difficulty to which I referred earlier. When a Committee like this reports, its Report is set out in severely practical language. Nothing could be clearer, nothing could be straighter, and nothing could be more straightforward than this Report.
However, it leaves the great moral question of whether if we take action to clear our streets we are doing anything in the end to do away with the evils, difficulties, sorrows and tragedies of prostitution. We have to decide these things and I want to put them fairly before the House. In my own view, there is a great deal to be said for legislating upon Part Three of the Report. It would be better in the long run and I think that the arguments on the whole stand up.
However, the Wolfenden Committee and the Government would be very glad to hear what the House of Commons has to say about it, and I am thankful that today we can have a discussion on a great social problem and the allied social problem of homosexuality as between consenting adults. I hope that the House of Commons will rise to the occasion and give the Government the benefit of its advice.
4.21 p.m.
Mr. Anthony Greenwood: The Daily Mirror this morning took both the Government and the Opposition to task for what it called our timorousness because neither the Government nor the Opposition had at

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that time declared a policy on the Wolfenden Report. I make no complaint about the delay in having this debate. The Government may well have been right to give a reasonable amount of time for opinion to crystallise, both inside and outside the House.
Nor do I apologise because the Opposition have not stated an official policy. Indeed, we do not propose to do so. We think that it would be wrong for a political party to lay down a line on a matter which involves so many grave considerations of public morality and private conscience. What I say today, therefore, is said on my own responsibility. It in no way commits the Labour Party, or any of my right hon. or hon. Friends. I hope, however, that during the debate, we shall all extend tolerance to each other and compassion to those minorities in our midst who are denied the happiness and fulfilment which is the lot of most of us.
This is a highly controversial subject, and it is, therefore, pleasant to open on a note of agreement. I associate the Opposition with what the Home Secretary said in thanks and tribute to Sir John Wolfenden and his colleagues, especially to those who are hon. Members, the hon. Member for Putney (Sir H. Linstead) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. W. Wells).
I hope that the House will forgive me if I reverse the order of dealing with the subjects and deal, first, with Part Three of the Report, that relating to prostitution. I confess that I do so because I find it more difficult to make up my mind about that than about Part Two, which deals with homosexuality.
The Home Secretary told us that he had been embarrassed by what he called the shame of our streets. I think that all of us are embarrassed by it. All of us regret the difficulty and embarrassment which is caused to the female members of our families. However, I hope that we shall preserve a sense of proportion in this matter. We do not know how many prostitutes there are in London. All we know is that there are far too many.
But that always has been the case. It is more than 110 years since Nash's Colonnades, in Regent Street, were pulled
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down because they were providing a sheltered walk for prostitutes. The right hon. Gentleman will detect a familiar ring in the plea that was made in 1858 to his predecessor, Sir George Grey, by the clergy of Westminster and St. Marylebone, who sought from the then Home Secretary what they called
"effective measures to put down the open exhibition of street prostitution…carried on with a disregard of public decency and to an extent tolerated in no other capital city of the civilised world."
Those words are very reminiscent of many of the comments which we have heard on the present state of London.
At least we can say that there are far fewer prostitutes in London than there were one hundred years ago. The Wolfenden Committee was perfectly frank in telling us that there was no reason to suppose that the number was increasing. The Report said:
"We have…no reliable evidence whether the number of prostitutes…has changed significantly in recent years."
I have no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman was right in saying that what has happened has been that the women have changed their scene of operations to more residential areas like Stepney and Notting Hill, to the annoyance of the inhabitants and the embarrassment of the women and girls of the neighbourhood.
In those areas, and in the West End, the parade of prostitutes is sufficiently blatant to constitute a problem. Nevertheless, it would be a pity if we embarked on panic legislation without a very great deal of preliminary consideration. And I am not convinced in respect of prostitution that we should go quite as far in some respects as the Wolfenden Committee suggested.
When the Report first appeared, I was in favour of much heavier fines and even imprisonment for persistent offenders. Since then, I have changed my mind to some extent. I am still in favour of much heavier fines, but I am now opposed to the idea of imprisonment. If I had my way, I would reserve imprisonment for those who organise and profit from prostitution, rather than extend it to those who practise it.
At this stage, I must say how much I welcome the right hon. Gentleman's reference to the reservation to the Report which was put in by the three women members. Like the

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right hon. Gentleman, I felt that the Wolfenden Committee did not pay due heed to that reservation, and I was glad to hear him tell the House that he proposed to accept the reservation and to introduce legislation which would cover its recommendations.
I am opposed to imprisonment for the prostitutes themselves for three reasons. First, there is the severely practical reason that if imprisonment were possible far more of these women would plead not guilty and our already overworked courts would, in many cases, be made quite unworkable. Secondly, if imprisonment were imposed, our prisons could not absorb any substantial increase in their population. Thirdly, I am opposed to it because crime is contagious and I am not anxious to make our prostitutes into thieves, or our thieves into prostitutes.
If there is to be detention, I hope that that detention will take place in special institutions directed to the redemption rather than the punishment of these women. I very much welcome what the right hon. Gentleman said about redemption.
Mr. Walter Edwards: To follow up my hon. Friend's analysis of the effects of a possible prison sentence for these offences, would he then say that because prisons may be overcrowded we should abolish prison sentences for other offences?
Mr. Greenwood: I fear that my hon. Friend's preoccupation with his immediate problems in Stepney has not allowed him to follow the tenor of my argument. The point I was trying to make was that I did not want to add to the number of prison sentences when our prisons were already seriously overcrowded.
I realise, of course, that (me of the motives in the right hon. Gentleman's mind is the idea that the threat of imprisonment would induce at least some women to accept probation. If that is so, it might be worth trying. I have not a completely closed mind on this subject, but I have a great deal of sympathy with the view of Mr. Dawtry, who, perhaps, has more experience of probation than anybody in the country, and who has observed that no one would regard this as a good basis for probation. My present inclination, therefore, is to reject arty resort to imprisonment.
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I was disappointed with the right hon. Gentleman's apparent acceptance of the Wolfenden Committee's suggestion that the need to prove annoyance should be dropped. As I see it, that need at present is really a legal fiction, part of the sordid charade played in our courts between the police and the women. If that fiction were abandoned, it seems to me that there would he a danger of innocent women being charged. There might be a grave threat to personal freedom. If the House relinquished the need for the police to establish annoyance in cases of this kind, we should be putting the clock back seventy-three years, to the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, 1885.
On that occasion, the Government made exactly the same suggestion. It was turned down by the House on the advice of Mr. C. H. Hopwood, M.P., who said:
"You are going to give additional power to the police.'
He went on to say:
"The London Magistrates make it an invariable rule that the person solicited should appear as complainant. I think they are quite right in that."
Unfortunately, of course, since that time, the practice has changed and all to often the evidence of just the police is accepted.
There always is, however, the safeguard that if an innocent woman is arrested on this charge she can put on the police the onus of proving that she has solicited to the annoyance of a person. I would hesitate a long time before accepting the suggestion that we should abandon the need to establish annoyance in cases of this kind. But if the House, in its wisdom, should decide to drop this requirement, then I think that the Home Secretary must go a good deal further in ensuring that men and women are put on the same footing.
I would not have thought it impossible to devise a form of words which would ensure that if a woman solicits a man and the man accepts her solicitation, he should be made an accessory to the act for which she has been found responsible.
Commander J. W. Maitland: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that indictment of a sexual offence or an attempt to commit one carries with it great agony of mind to those accused? If that principle were

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introduced with regard to men, has the hon. Gentleman considered that that agony of mind would be spread probably to many other innocent people? Are not the wives and families of a man so accused a point to consider?
Mr. Greenwood: I have a great deal of sympathy with the hon. and gallant Gentleman's point of view, but I hope that he will extend the same sympathy to the women who must be going through a good deal of agony of mind at the same time.
To conclude on that aspect of the matter, I believe in stiffer fines, but not in imprisonment; I believe that we should retain the need to prove annoyance; I believe that we should step up the campaign against the commercial interests which profit from vice; and, perhaps most important of all, I welcome the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion that more has to be done in the way of research.
I want to be as frank with the House as the right hon. Gentleman. Hon. Members must appreciate that the effects of these proposals would be very mixed indeed. They would not cure the disease; they would merely conceal the symptoms. I think that the result would be bad in that it would facilitate the work of the vice rings and might well produce a new crop of touts battening on prostitution.
Mr. William Shepherd: Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that the removal of these women from the streets would not result in a diminution in the effective demand for prostitutes?
Mr. Greenwood: I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman wants to get into the debate and feels that he must put his number up. I am, however, coming to the point which he has mentioned.
I was about to say that I believe the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. The effect of the proposals would be that many prostitutes would give up their activities, and others would retire from the public view. I think that there would be less temptation to women to join the profession and less temptation to men to patronise it. I believe, too, that there would be a great deal less annoyance to pedestrians and residents. Like
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the right hon. Gentleman I must refer to the article in The Times and agree that it is surprising how few residents avail themselves of the remedies which are available to them at present.
I now come to the second part of the Report, which deals with homosexuality. I want to emphasise that neither the Wolfenden Committee nor, so far as I know, anybody else has suggested relaxing the law on homosexual offences involving males under 21 years of age, nor the law with regard to such practices as offend against public decency. I do not think that anybody would press for a relaxation of the law in that direction.
What we have to decide today however is whether men who, for a reason we do not understand—and the right hon. Gentleman was very frank on this matter; the reason may be hereditary. environmental or physical—practise homosexuality should live their lives under the shadow of the law and at the mercy, as the right hon. Gentleman said, of the blackmailer. The late Lord Jowitt once reported that when he was Attorney-General 95 per cent. of all blackmail cases had a homosexual origin.
I cannot find it in my heart to believe that that state of affairs can be seriously justified. Life is harsh enough for these people without society adding to their burden. The fact that the law is largely unenforced, and, indeed, largely unenforceable, is certainly no reason for retaining it.
I am fortified in my view by the fact that it is shared by many of the great religious leaders of the country. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the variety of testimony given in the past, but there is a remarkable measure of agreement at the present time. So far as I can tell, none of our religious leaders believes that homosexual indulgence is anything but a sin; but many of them take the view that it should not be a crime. In the admirable words of the right hon. Gentleman, it is a matter which should be left to the dictates of the individual conscience.
Like the right hon. Gentleman, I was impressed by the arguments advanced in another place by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Archbishop of York has taken the same view and both of

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them have pronounced in favour of the Wolfenden Report. The Archbishop of York wrote a most courageous letter to The Times earlier this week. The Church of England Moral Welfare Council, as well as the Church Assembly, have supported the Report. The views of the Methodist Conference were made unmistakably clear when, on the advice of its Department of Christian Citizenship, it passed a resolution endorsing the Wolfenden recommendation on homosexuality.
Before I leave this part of my speech, I should like to quote from the report of tie Roman Catholic Advisory Committee on Prostitution and Homosexual Offences, which gave evidence to the Wolfenden Committee. In its report, these words appear:
"It should accordingly be clearly stated that penal sanctions are not justified for the purpose of attempting to restrain sins against sexual morality committed in private by responsible adults. They are, as later appears, at present employed for this purpose in this country and should be discontinued because:

(a) they are ineffectual;

(b) they are inequitable in their incidence;

(c) they involved severities disproportionate to the offence committed;

(d) they undoubtedly give scope for blackmail and other forms of corruption.

It is accordingly recommended that the Criminal Law should be amended in order to restrict penal sanctions for homosexual offences as follows, namely, to prevent:

(a) the corruption of youth;

(b) offences against public decency;

(c) the exploitation of vice for the purpose of gain."

At this point it is right to add that the Archbishop of Westminster—whom we would all congratulate on recently being made a cardinal—left the decision to his flock as to whether any amendment of the law would seem to be condonation of a sin. I believe that it would not. I thought that one weakness in the part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech which referred to that possibility was that all the arguments he used in respect of homosexuality could also apply to adultery and other sexual offences of that kind.
With this weight of theological opinion behind me, I cannot feel that my acceptance of the Wolfenden Report is wrong. But I should be more prepared to retain the status quo if I felt that
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the present law made any effective contribution to preventing homosexual practices or deterring those who indulge in them. I have not, however, discovered any evidence whatsoever that the sanctions of the law are an effective deterrent. I was impressed, as I think we all were, when the right hon. Gentleman said that when these men are sent to prison, in the last stage they are worse than at the first. It seems to me that one is as likely to cure a homosexual of his perversion by sending him to an all-male prison as one is likely to cure a drunkard by incarcerating him in a brewery.
The truth is that a serious attempt has not been made to deal with these people. Dr. Eustace Chesser tells us that of 1,065 men imprisoned in 1955 for homosexual offences only 15 per cent. were considered possible subjects for treatment, and only 6 per cent. were actually accepted for treatment. Mr. Peter Wildeblood, in "Against the Law", which I thought a most sensitive work, had this to say on the same subject:
"Out of 1,000 prisoners at the Scrubs, only 11 were receiving psychiatric treatment, at the time I was there, and only a small proportion of those were homosexuals…Once I was in prison…was not only not encouraged to take psychological treatment, but actively discouraged."
There is, therefore, quite clearly great scope for penal reform in this respect, and I welcome the right hon. Gentleman's promise to do what he can to direct research towards discovering the causes and the cure of homosexuality.
Those are my own personal views on a matter which is not an easy one to decide. I take the same view as many religious leaders, and newspapers like the Sunday Times, the Observer, The Times and the Manchester Guardian, but I do not set my judgment up against that of any other hon. Member. If the majority of hon. Members are against me I readily accept their decision. But I believe that, ultimately, this reform will come. I am only saddened by the fact that it should come only after a still greater toll of human misery has been exacted by society.
4.44 p.m.
Mr. Montgomery Hyde: I am very glad to have caught your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, because when I tried to raise this question last Session, by way of a private Member's

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Motion, I succeeded in speaking for only the last minute of the day. I am glad that I have a little longer this afternoon.
At the outset, I would like to join my right hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) in paying a warm tribute to Sir John Wolfenden and the other members of his Committee—including two Members of this House—for the frank, outspoken, carefully considered and humanitarian document which they have produced. It is a courageous document, which would have been impossible to write not so long ago. We should also remember that this document was motivated by the action of the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Donnelly), who originally raised the question of homosexuality in an Adjournment debate in April, 1954, and was supported by the then hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East, the present Lord Boothby.
The Report is concerned with possible changes in the criminal law. It is not concerned with causes, biological or otherwise, of manifestations of sexual behaviour; it is concerned merely with the criminal law as it affects them today. It is worth while remembering that the Report took three years to produce and, incidentally, cost over £8,000. Nearly 200 witnesses gave evidence, either orally or in writing, including such members of the community as the police, schoolmasters, social workers, magistrates, doctors, psychiatrists, lawyers and others, including homosexuals, but—and this is an interesting point—not one prostitute. The Report was signed in August of last year and was published in the following month, so that the public have had over a year to think about it before it has come here for discussion.
The most controversial proposal in the Report, and the one which has understandably provoked the most discussion, is that embodied in paragraph 62, which recommends that homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence. To some extent this proposal has tended to obscure the other proposals, set out on pages 115 to 117. I would mention particularly the proposal that, except for indecent assaults, all prosecutions for any homosexual offence more than twelve months old should be barred by Statute. In the field of prostitution, too, I see that
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there is the proposal, about which we have heard something this afternoon, that it should no longer be necessary to establish annoyance in prosecutions for solicitation.
Whether or not one agrees with these proposals it will be generally conceded by everyone who has read the Report that it is a social document of the highest importance. There are 30 main recommendations in the Report. I do not propose to go through them, but I want to draw attention to the basic philosophy which underlies the Report and which has clearly influenced all these recommendations. It is expressed in paragraphs 13 and 14, where the function of the criminal law is indicated to the extent that it concerns the Committee's inquiry. It is one of the few quotations that I should like to make this afternoon.
Towards the end of paragraph 13 the Committee says, with regard to the function of the criminal law:
"In this field, its function, as we see it is to preserve public order and decency, to protect the citizen from what is offensive or injurious, and to provide sufficient safeguards against exploitation and corruption of others, particularly those who are specially vulnerable because they are young, weak in body or mind, inexperienced, or in a state of special physical, official or economic dependence.
14. It is not, in our view, the function of the law to intervene in the private lives of citizens, or to seek to enforce any particular pattern or behaviour, further than is necessary to carry out the purposes we have outlined. It follows that we do not believe it to be a function of the law to attempt to cover all the fields of sexual behaviour. Certain forms of sexual behaviour are regarded by many as sinful, morally wrong, or objectionable for reasons of conscience, or of religious or cultural tradition; and such actions may be reprobated on these grounds. But the criminal law does not cover all such actions at the present time; for instance, adultery and fornication are not offences for which a person can be punished by the criminal law. Nor indeed is prostitution as such."
Nor, I may add, is lesbianism or homosexual conduct between females, and here, indeed, is an anomaly. If homosexual conduct between consenting adults in private is to continue to be an offence, is homosexual conduct between consenting female adults in private also to continue not to be an offence?
Coming back to the basic philosophy expressed in these two paragraphs, a clear distinction is drawn between crime and

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sin. In other words, it is argued that the acts of two people committed together should not come within the purview of the criminal law unless it can be shown these acts are harmful to a third party.
There are two further conceptions brought out in the Report, and I think that they are of the highest importance, namely, that minors must be protected and public decency must not be affronted. If we can accept those propositions—and I for one think that we can—then the way is open to accepting most if not all of the Committee's recommendations or a; least approaching them in a spirit of sympathy.
I think that we must consider, too, how far the State is justified in punishing the sinful but not necessarily socially harmful acts of two private individuals and whether the result of interference with private life and human liberty does not bring about mare evils than it sets out to prevent.
In the matter of homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private the evidence is almost invariably obtained by one or other of the parties turning what is called Queen's evidence and in consideration for not being himself prosecuted giving evidence against his partner. It may be considered as somewhat objectionable that in these circumstances a conviction should depend upon the evidence of an accomplice.
We have also heard something this afternoon about blackmail. I would only support what has already been said particularly by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rossendale. In this connection, I should like to quote a letter which I received two or three days ago from a homosexual when he heard that this subject was being debated in the House this afternoon.
This is a man who was a consenting adult. He was convicted some years ago on the evidence of his accomplice for an act committed in private and he received and underwent a sentence of imprisonment. On his release from prison he got a job as a clerk in a solicitor's office. He held that job for two or three years and then someone wrote to his employers, sending a cutting of the trial at which he was convicted, and the result was that he lost his job. This is what he wrote to me:
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"I don't wish to pretend I'm good—but I am like many of the homosexuals, cursed with the thing from the beginning. God in heaven only knows the fights I have put up against it—and I'm sure I'm one of many—and have lost each time. It seems so utterly ridiculous for two men, who wish to live together in their own home, to be classed as criminals and 'sex maniacs.' I know men and women who have committed far, far worse acts than homosexuals look upon us as worse than if we were murderers.
I do so want to try and make you people look upon this coming debate with kindness and sympathetic consideration and think 'There but for the grace of God go I.' It is all right for people to condemn us so much, but they have no idea of the life of fear and dread we live all the time, in case our friends find out or we are caught. I know I did, and I know the hell I lived in when the police came to me, and I'm still living in hell now! You seem to be 'cut off' from everything, and can get no employment. Just because I was cursed with the homosexual trait, I was no more able to get rid of it than a man could get rid of cancer. It's in you from birth—I feel sure of that. I have studied so many cases and men I have met. When you understand, you feel terribly sorry."
I do not think, having read a letter of that kind, that there is anyone who cannot feel the same spirit of sympathy.
I confess to a little disappointment that no specific course has been taken, except purely negative, in regard to paragraph 62 of the Report. We have heard and it was said in another place by the noble Lord the Lord Chancellor, when the subject was debated there, that Her Majesty's Government did not think that the time was opportune for legislation now and there could be no prospect of early legislation on the subject.
Of course, it can be argued that if there is a need to appoint a committee, the whole point of such a committee is that, common opinions on the subject, commonly expressed and canvassed, are often ill-informed and heavily biased by natural repugnance and preconceived moral judgments, and proposals for any change in the law should be based not on popular prejudices, but on accurate information and unbiased consideration of the views of those persons and bodies whose work has brought them into touch with the moral and social issues concerned—in other words, of people who knew what they were talking about. This is what, I think, we have in the Report.
One argument used by the Home Secretary this afternoon which impressed me was that, if there were no change in the law regarding consenting adults, it

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would make the weak or weaker-minded individual less likely than if there were a change to be drawn into the homosexual group because the sanction of the criminal law remains. I would have thought—it is purely my own personal opinion—that, in fact, the continuance of this outmoded piece of legislation makes it more likely for such an individual to be drawn into such a group. When Oscar Wilde was sitting in Reading gaol and meditating on the trouble that brought him there, he wrote in "De Profundis", in regard to his conduct, that it was like "feasting with panthers—the danger was half the excitement."
I believe that when this reform comes, as undoubtedly it will come, the removal of the sanction of the criminal law will make the possibility of corruption less likely than more likely. So far as public opinion is concerned, it seems to be fairly evenly divided. When the Report was published, 14 months ago, public reactions were less violent than they would have been not so very many years ago. In the Press there were seven national newspapers, with a total combined readership estimated at about 61 per cent. of the population above the age of 16, which gave on the whole a favourable verdict. There were two exceptions, with a combined readership of just under 30 per cent. of the population, which were loud in their condemnation.
Perhaps a better clue can be provided by the public opinion polls. While a clear majority of those polls were for driving the prostitutes off the streets, rather more than half gave an opinion against the recommendations on homosexuality as they affected consenting adults; but it was not a great majority, only a little more than 50 per cent. What is remarkable is that so many people should have declared themselves in favour of the main change proposed, and the opponents would not appear to be anything like so considerable in numbers as may have been supposed from reading the two newspapers to which I have referred.
The comparative amount of favourable opinion has undoubtedly been guided, as has been brought out today already, to some extent by the outspoken views of the leading Churches, by the Church of England and the Roman
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Catholic Church. I think that that is important. Specifically, these views have been expressed by the two Archbishops, the Church Assembly, the Church of England Moral Welfare Council, and by a Roman Catholic committee, as well as many leading spokesmen of the Free Churches. The Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church have united to say this:
"It is not the business of the State to interfere in the purely private sphere but to act as the defender of the common good."
To conclude what I have to say on this part of the Report I should like to emphasise the fact that three popular fallacies have been exposed by the Report. The first one is that male homosexuality always involves sodomy. In fact, that is far from being so, and the misconception which has arisen is largely due to over-reliance on court cases. Homosexuals who come up in court are not typical, as, indeed, the Report points out. On the contrary, the evidence shows that the great majority of homosexuals merely indulge in an affectionate relationship, conduct which was not criminal in this country before 1885 and which is not criminal in most Continental countries today.
The second fallacy is that homosexuals are necessarily effeminate in appearance and behaviour and can easily be picked out. This, of course, has been disproved over and over again, particularly by the records of some of them in the last war.
The third fallacy is that most cases which come before the courts are of practising male homosexuals in private. The evidence again disproves this. There are two instructive tables in the Report, Tables II and VI. Table II makes it clear that the average number of persons against whom proceedings were taken in respect of homosexual offences in the past three years is between 2,400 and 2,500, and Table VI makes it clear that those who were convicted of offences committed in private with consenting adults numbered only 300 over the last three years. So that, in fact, only about one in eight of those prosecuted for homosexual offences come within this latter category. In other words, the considerable majority now penalised for homosexual offences would continue to be so

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penalised if the main proposal of the Committee became law.
I come back to the importance of appreciating this point since the Report places great emphasis, as it rightly should, on the protection of minors, and, indeed, in one instance, which I do not think has been mentioned today, it actually proposes to increase the penalty for this type of sexual offence, in paragraph 91, where it is proposed that for an offence between an adult and a juvenile aged from 16 to 21, in circumstances not amounting to indecent assault, the maximum penalty should be raised from two years' imprisonment to five years'.
When Oscar Wilde came out of prison arid published "The Ballad of Reading Gaol", George Ives, the criminologist and historian of our criminal law, wrote congratulating him on his poem and expressing the view that the law on homosexual offences should be amended. Wilde replied in these words:
"Yes. I have no doubt we shall win. But the road is long, and red with monstrous martyrdoms. Nothing but the repeal of the Criminal Law Amendment Act would do any goad. That is essential. It is not so much public opinion, as public official, that need educating."
I venture to think that those words are as true today as they were when they were written sixty years ago.
Now I want to say just a word or two on Part Three of the Report. Like the homosexual, the prostitute is an outcast in modern society, but with this important difference: she is not a criminal. What the Wolfenden Committee has done is, first, to acknowledge that prostitution is as old as civilisation, and, secondly, to advise that its conduct should be confined to strict privacy. In other words, the Committee accepts the fact that no change in the law, however severe, is likely to abolish prostitution. What can, however, be abolished, or at least mitigated, is the nuisance of public soliciting.
I quoted a letter from a homosexual. Let me quote a letter from a prostitute. It reads as follows:
"Why do you trouble yourself with long letters'? I want 50 gold pieces but no letters. If, therefore, you love me, pay up; but if you love your money more, then you needn't bother me any more. Goodbye."
That was not written yesterday, but 2,500 years ago. It is one of the more interest-
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ing but less edifying fragments of Greek literature of that period which has come down to us.
The Report makes two recommendations that the requirement of annoyance be eliminated, and an increased range of penalties for soliciting. Personally, I agree with the hon. Member for Rossendale. I feel very uneasy about the annoyance proposal. As he has very rightly pointed out, it was proposed to drop this requirement at the time of the debates in this House on the Criminal Law Amendment Act in 1885, and it was not proceeded with for the reasons which have been adduced by the hon. Gentleman.
To drop this requirement would, in my opinion, put great powers in the hands of the police, which could be abused, and if it is incorporated in new legislation it could mean that any woman walking up and down Bond Street and looking into the shop windows could be picked up at the whim of a police officer and charged with soliciting. I do not suggest that that is likely to happen very often, but the possibility would be there, and the tendency also to encourage corruption among the police.
I think that we should remember the words of John Stuart Mill when giving evidence before the Royal Commission on the Contagious Diseases Acts, which regulated the activities of prostitutes for a time in the third quarter of the last century and which were later shown to have been abused and were repealed. He said:
"When power is given which may easily be abused, we ought always to assume that it will he abused, and although it is possible that great precautions will he taken at first, those precautions are likely to be relaxed in time."
We should think very carefully before this requirement is allowed to go.
As for new penalties or range of penalties, I think that to increase the fines is reasonable having regard to the changed value of money since the penalties were originally introduced, but again I am very doubtful of the wisdom of giving magistrates powers to pass up to three months' imprisonment for third and subsequent offences. I am doubtful of the efficacy of imprisonment as a remedy for prostitution.
There is also the proposed power that magistrates should be able to remand in custody for a maximum of three weeks a

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prostitute for social and medical reports. I think that that must be watched very carefully as well. If that proposal is to be put into effect, a prostitute should certainly not be remanded to a prison at all, but to a properly constituted remand centre.
I have spoken long enough already, and I shall say nothing about the other proposals, the very impressive proposals, about premises and living on immoral earnings, which I support. We should remember that in our understandable anxiety to clean up the streets there is a danger that when prostitutes are driven off the streets the process may lead to vice being organised on a more alarming scale. I need not remind the House of the "call-girl" racket, which has developed to such an extent in New York and other North American cities. Nevertheless, I think that the Wolfenden Committee has tried to grapple with this problem of prostitution, which I think we all recognise, especially since some of the streets in our own capital city and some of our provincial cities really are a national disgrace and, to my knowledge, deeply shock foreign visitors who come to our shores.
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary spoke, as I was very pleased to hear him speak, about his distinguished great aunt, Josephine Butler, who did so much to reclaim women from the streets, and who said:
"The law shall be equal for all whether it protect or punish."
If the Wolfenden Report has done nothing else, it has at least shown that in respect of two members of the community, namely, the male homosexual and the female prostitute, Josephine Butler's dictum still leaves much to be desired.
There is a plain duty cast upon Her Majesty's Government and upon the House by the Wolfenden Report to make an honest attempt to put these grave matters right.
5.12 p.m.
Mr. Walter Edwards: I am very grateful for the opportunity to take part in the debate, particularly in view of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary referred to my own constituency in connection with Part Three of the Wolfenden Report. I want
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to thank the Home Secretary and his two colleagues for the interest which they have shown in this vice problem as far as it affects Stepney.
When the Home Secretary speaks of prostitution being rife in Stepney, I want it clearly understood that it is not Stepney women who are connected with prostitution. These women are what we call imported people from other parts of the country who probably export themselves somewhere else after a time.
I believe that we should have had two separate debates on these two problems. The debate today is likely to become somewhat mixed up, much to the disadvantage of the Home Secretary, because some speakers will be mixing up prostitution with homosexuality and vice versa. In order to help the Home Secretary, and possibly the House, I propose to deal with only one of these subjects. I am sure that the subject of homosexuality will be thoroughly thrashed out in the debate, and therefore I shall deal with prostitution.
It can be said, and I think that it would be agreed by all sides of the House, that the Wolfenden Report is a great piece of social work. It certainly must have taken up a tremendous amount of time. Although I was one of those who wanted the Report debated much sooner than has been the case, I think that the time which has elapsed between publication of the Report and today's debate has served a useful purpose.
The reason for setting up the Wolfenden Committee was the national concern about homosexuality and prostitution in the country. Evidently people were disturbed about the situation four years ago when the Committee was set up, and I would say that the situation today is even worse, in both respects, than it was at that time. Part Three of the Report deals with prostitution and with the women who take part in it. Confining attention for the moment to London, I would say that anybody who lives or stays in the city knows that there is a number of different types of prostitutes in London. The type in the West End hotels differs from the type on the West End streets, and there is a different type of prostitute again on the East End streets. The fact that one cannot generalise about prostitution and those who take part in it makes a solution of the problem much more difficult.

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I say without the slightest fear of contradiction that it is the worst type of woman who comes to the East End. Some hon. Members would not be so sympathetic towards what they call these poor prostitutes who are being chased about if they saw something of what goes on in the East End of London. If they saw not only the bad actions of this type of person in public but saw how after these people have had a good drink in a public house they threatened all sorts of people, including women and children, hon. Members would not be so sympathetic towards them. Frankly, I have no sympathy whatever for the type of prostitute that has been using the streets in my area.
The question is whether we can do anything to clean up the streets, whether of Stepney, Paddington, Westminster, Poplar, or anywhere else. Surely we have an obligation as hon. Members to see that the streets not only of London but of every big city should be kept clean from this type of offence if it is at all possible. How are we to attempt to clean them up? This offence was prevalent years ago. There is no provision in legislation other than the imposition of a fine of £2 for solicitation.
Obviously this offence has been going on for over 100 years, and yet the fine has remained the same during the whole of that period. I imagine that the original reason for fixing the fine at £2 was in order that it should be a deterrent, so that these offences should stop altogether. Obviously, the fine has not been a deterrent. In many cases our streets are more filthy today as a result of this type of offence than they have ever been.
When people who are sympathetic to prostitutes say that we should give them more education, it makes me wonder what' we have been doing about education in the last 100 years, because in spite of all the money spent on it during that time, the problem is worse today than it has ever been. In my view, there is only one way to tackle the problem, and that is to accept the recommendations of the Wolfenden Committee.
The maximum fine of £2 was imposed over 100 years ago. If there is to be a deterrent, today £2 is nothing to people who are obviously making a great deal of money, and without paying Income
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Tax on it. So the least we can do is to accept the recommendation about increased fines. Only recently the House passed the Litter Act and, as a result, if I drop a piece of paper when walking along a street I can be fined £10. The Commercial Road can be full of prostitutes, yet the maximum fine for each is only £2. So there seems to be some measure of favour shown to the prostitute these days as against the person who drops litter.
I am glad to know that my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) does not dissent from increased penalties, but I do not share his view, nor the view of the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Hyde), on imprisonment. As I have said already, if we see this evil getting worse and worse we must do all we can to prevent it. It is the case that in Scotland there has been imprisonment for this offence for many years, and I do not believe that Scottish prisons are overcrowded as a result; at any rate, that has never been made an excuse—
Mrs. Jean Mann: May I intervene to say that its effect has been to make the girls find out that it is much more profitable to do an honest day's work?
Mr. Edwards: I am glad of that intervention from my hon. Friend. It was a point I had intended to make. We must deter people from doing this as much as we can. Anybody who knows of the sums of money being handed over these days in the course of prostitution realises that a fine of £10 is nothing. The women will walk out of court after paying their £10 in the same way as they walk out today after a fine of £2, just laughing at the law. They would still laugh at the law after paying a fine of £45 for committing a second offence.
Neither education nor anything else will change some of these people who are motivated by the lure of gold to sell their bodies. After it has been proved by their actions and by several convictions that they are determined not to change their way of life, the only thing which will help is imprisonment, whether that fills our prisons or not. I am afraid that the law will come into disrepute if we reject prison treatment because of the lack of prison staff. As regards

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people living on the immoral earnings of such women, I was glad to hear the Home Secretary say that he was in favour of a sentence of five years' imprisonment. I would make it ten years, because they are the dirtiest, filthiest lot in creation. This is the one weak point I have found in the Wolfenden Report.
I do not intend to take up much of the time of the House, because I know there are many hon. Members who wish to speak, but I would like to refer to three other points. I have looked through the Report and I can find no reference to deportation of people holding British passports.
Mr. John Arbuthnot: Is the hon. Gentleman referring to people who do not hold British passports?
Mr. Edwards: No, people who do not hold British passports can be deported, though this is not always done. I was referring to people who do hold British passports, in the main not born in this country. Everyone who has had to study this problem knows that a fair percentage of people brought before the courts for living on the immoral earnings of women, sometimes three or four times in two years, serve one sentence, come out, and start the same trick again. I read in one newspaper that in one case this happened three times in two years. One of the biggest deterrents to the man who uses this country for that obnoxious purpose is to throw him out of the country as soon as we can. I believe that magistrates are crying out for this, because in the courts they see more of it than we do, and they know that this type of individual is useless to the country and a menace to women.
My next point applies particularly to the Metropolitan area, where, as far as I understand, vice is concentrated. When it comes to registering a club, even for the sale of intoxicating liquor, all that has to happen is for a person to take a number of signatures to the magistrates' court, and a book of rules which can be bought for sixpence from a stationer's, and I believe the magistrate automatically has to give the club a licence. In my opinion we should be much more careful. I do not want to encroach on the working men's clubs—that is the last thing I want to do—but there is a case for looking at
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this practice in London where such a procedure applies. It is giving a haven to people who prosecute a nefarious way of life. In East London cafés remain open all night, and there is no real need for that. From the time of the closing of the public houses until they themselves close some time the next morning they are occupied solely by such women and by the men who are living on them.
I suggest to the Home Secretary that he might, perhaps, look at the question of these cafés in the London area from the angle of giving power to the local authorities with regard to their times of opening and closing. It occurs to me that in none of these cases is it absolutely necessary for cafés to be open longer than, say, up to 11 o'clock at night. To shut them at that hour would at least have the effect of taking another haven away from this type of person.
The Home Secretary referred to that part of the Report dealing with brothel keepers or landlords who keep disorderly houses and with the possibility of terminating their tenancies. One has to be careful about that, because in many cases sub-tenants are living in houses of which only parts are being used for immoral purposes. It would be very bad indeed in these difficult housing days if sub-tenants were to be thrown on the street as a result of such action being taken.
In conclusion, I wish to say that I agree completely with the changed penalties regarding brothel keepers and landlords as proposed by the Committee. I wish the Home Secretary every success in any attempt that he makes in the direction of the recommendations contained in Part Three of the Report. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that he will receive the gratitude of the people of East London if he can find ways and means, without affecting individual liberty and making it difficult for genuine women not to be arrested, of solving that problem. If the right hon. Gentleman can do that he will have done the greatest service to East London by cleaning up the streets as has never been done before.
5.32 p.m.
Sir Hugh Linstead: I am sure the House will have listened with considerable sympathy to the hon. Member for Stepney (Mr. W. Edwards), because

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he represents a constituency which, in recent months at any rate, has been faced with a very real problem. If I may be permitted one comment on what the hon. Gentleman said, it would be to say that I do not believe that the facts bear out his statement that prostitution today is worse than it was in earlier periods of history. If the hon. Gentleman looks at paragraph 232 of the Wolfenden Report he will find the contrary clearly shown.
As one of those who had the honour of being a member of the Wolfenden Committee, I wish to thank my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for the sympathetic way in which he has, in general, received our Report. In particular, I wish to thank him for not having shut the door completely and finally on some implementation of our recommendation about consenting male homosexuals who act in private. I gather from my right hon. Friend's approach to this problem that if public opinion can be shown to be further in favour of our recommendation than appears at the moment it might be possible for this subject to be reopened with him and with the House.
I should like personally and on behalf of my colleagues on the Committee to add a word of appreciation to our Chairman, Sir John Wolfenden, who did a most able piece of work in bringing us together as a team and in guiding us not only in our deliberations but in drafting the Report itself. With regard to the Committee, I hope that the House will allow me to say that it consisted of a very experienced group of men and women—I suppose that I must, to some extent, exclude myself from what I say—drawn from all sections of the community. I need hardly assure the House that we did not lightly come to our conclusions.
I think I ought to say that all through our deliberations we tried to keep in two separate compartments, firstly, our reaction as human beings to other human beings in distress, and, secondly, the duty of law givers to the community as a whole. Realising that there are very often these two separate approaches, our approach has always been the approach of public order and decency. If in safeguarding those things we can at the same time help the individual so much the better.
I would emphasise, too—and I was very glad that my right hon. Friend did
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so the need for research both in the field of prostitution and in the field of homosexuality. We received a good deal of evidence, for example, on the causes of homosexuality, but no one would pretend that the final word has been said on that matter. In particular, no one would pretend that we yet know, if I may put it crudely, how to dispose of the homosexual, using the legal sense of the word "dispose", after conviction and what is the best way of giving him the chance of making a fresh start when, if he has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment, he comes out of prison.
I do not think that this afternoon it is possible for me or for most of us to discuss both sections of the Report adequately. As my right hon. Friend is disposed towards legislation dealing with prostitution, I think I might most usefully deal mainly with the homosexual part of the Report. I wish to make three very brief comments on three points which have emerged in the debate in regard to that part of the Report dealing with prostitution.
First, our recommendation that as a last resort it should be possible for a magistrate to send a prostitute to prison. We came quite reluctantly to that conclusion and only did so after hearing evidence from magistrates of the difficulties in which occasionally they find themselves. One has to realise that there is a hard core of confirmed prostitutes who come up before the magistrates time after time, pay their fines, and, ultimately, reach a stage virtually of contempt of court, that is to say, they no longer have any respect for the law. We felt that the only way of dealing with those people was to have the possibility of a prison sentence in the background. Whether the sentence is ever imposed will depend on its deterrent effect. The evidence which we had was to the effect that it might prove such a deterrent that it might never have to be used.
With regard to the removal of annoyance as an ingredient in the offence, that was urged upon us by the police authorities who said that they doubted very much whether police officers should be required to go into the witness-box and say on oath that they saw a woman speak to men and that the men "appeared to be annoyed". That type of evidence becomes very glib, and we felt that so

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long as we retained the words "common prostitute" as an ingredient in the offence we could without any danger at all to an ordinary member of the public do without "annoyance" and so dispense with the rather casual evidence which the police have to adduce in order to support it.
Finally, a word about the inclusion of the man in the offence. None of our witnesses proposed at any stage in our inquiry that prostitution as such should be made a criminal offence. I do not believe that anyone in the House would want to make such a proposition.
Mr. Sydney Silverman: Why not?
Sir H. Linstead: The lesson of history surely is that were we to attempt to do that we should soon find that particular law in complete contempt. If that be so, it follows that if we are to prosecute the man and woman who go off together we are virtually reaching a stage where, at any rate for that group of men and women, we are trying to make prostitution illegal.
Mr. Silverman: I really have a genuine difficulty about this, and I should be very grateful if the hon. Gentleman could explain it to me in view of the argument he is putting forward. I asked the Home Secretary, who did his best to answer the point, but I am afraid that I was not satisfied. Would the hon. Gentleman explain how, if we do not want and feel we ought not to make prostitution itself a crime, we can possibly justify on moral grounds treating the sale of goods as a crime if we do not treat the purchase of goods as a crime?
Sir H. Linstead: I almost entirely agree with the hon. Member, and I am going to say that I do not believe that there is a moral or logical justification for this differentiation.
Mr. Silverman: Then why have it?
Sir H. Linstead: All I can say is that we came to that conclusion reluctantly, and we came to it simply because of the conduct of prostitutes in the streets at the present time, in certain parts of our cities, by their sheer numbers, by their unruly behaviour, by their staying in the streets
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with their clients. On these grounds—crude and simple grounds of public order and decency—without, I agree, being able to satisfy the moral question which the hon. Member has raised, reluctantly we must use such crude methods as we have and as are open to us to persuade and encourage the prostitute to mend her ways, at least in public.
With regard to the section of the Report dealing with homosexual acts, I want to emphasise what emerged clearly from the evidence that came to us, how necessary it is clearly to differentiate homosexuality from homosexual acts. Homosexuality is not an activity, and one can be a homosexual without actively performing homosexual acts. I think equally it is important to indicate that it is not a disease. It is so easy, as Baroness Wootton put it in one of her writings, nowadays to extend the scope of disease at the expense of the scope of personal responsibility. I do not think that any of us on the Committee would want to defend what we propose in regard to homosexuals on the basis that it is a disease. I would say almost categorically it has none of the indices of a disease.
Again, it is important to remember that homosexuals are not a special class of the community. They are a cross-section, containing very brilliant men and the dullest oafs. They do not contain any particular proportion of very gifted or particularly dull people. It may be useful to the House to have as a useful working definition that homosexuality is a condition in which sexual affection is attracted to persons of the same sex and if they separate it entirely from the question of homosexual acts.
We did try to discover the quantitative size of the problem, and there are very many estimates available of the number of homosexuals here in Great Britain. The lowest one which I have been able to find is 4 per cent. of the community, and another very reliable estimate is 5 per cent. The highest we had, when Dr. Kinsey came to speak to some of us, was as high as 20 per cent. If we take the lowest estimate which came our way, that of 4 per cent., we have to realise that we are dealing in this country with a homosexual community which is not less than 2 million people. That is on the lowest of any estimate which I have

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seen. Of this number, we can say roughly that half are men and half women, and that half are practising and half are chaste. That gives us some estimate of the magnitude of the problem.
Mr. Henry Usborne: The hon. Gentleman has mentioned Dr. Kinsey's own evidence. Will he explain to us how it comes about that, in Dr. Kinsey's report on the American male, he says there that 37 per cent. of young American men have had homosexual contacts? Why is there such a large discrepancy, and can the hon Gentleman explain it?
Sir H. Linstead: If I may answer in one sentence, I would say it is because in Dr. Kinsey's estimate he includes the adolescents, but as we all know the adolescent passes through a homosexual phase and normally grows out of it and so can be excluded from consideration of the numbers of the adult homosexual community.
Mentioning that figure of half-a-million practising male homosexuals, may I at once contrast it with the number of people who are involved in our recommendation? There are 100 who are convicted annually, and that is the balance which one must keep in mind in looking at the problem with which we are faced. As we all know, at present homosexual acts of all kinds between males are illegal, and until 1861 the maximum penalty was death. Today it is life imprisonment. Our proposals are that what consenting male adults do between themselves in private should no longer be a criminal offence, and that, as I have said, affects directly 100 convicted people annually. What we are proposing is that the same law shall be applied to consenting males as is applied today to consenting females, and as is applied to men and women who commit what may be, regarded as anti-social sexual acts in private.
There are three difficulties which have been raised—on the words "consent," "private" and "adult". So far as "consent" and "private" are concerned, I believe that the objections can be disposed of quite briefly by saying that we regard the same criteria as applicable in regard to "consent" and "private" as apply to heterosexual acts; where consent is necessary to be proved in the case of a woman over 16, and where
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indecent acts in public already introduce the word "public" into the law. We are sure, therefore, that there will be no difficulty in finding the necessary criteria in order to administer these two items in the offence.
As to "adult", that, of course, is more difficult. We have to put some figure into any Act of Parliament, as we all know. But each person becomes adult at a different age. There is no special virtue in the figure of 21 which we have chosen. Some of our witnesses recommended a figure as low as 16, and others one as high as 25. All we say is that 21 seems to us to be about the right age for most people for this purpose.
I do not believe that these three are serious objections, but I must say that there are serious objections to be raised, and I must mention three of them, which must command substantial support. First of all, it is said that if we recognise what consenting male adults do in private as no longer illegal, we will be encouraging the spread of homosexuality. Then, it is said that we have no right to alter a law that has existed for many centuries, and has supported, by its existence, a certain moral outlook and standard. Thirdly, it is said that by this recognition we are contributing still further to a current laxity in public morality of which we must all be conscious.
If I may take each one of those in turn, at the risk, perhaps, of boring the House, I would say this about the danger of extending homosexuality. On the basis of homosexuality as we understand it, there can, flatly, be no danger of extension because homosexuality arises out of causes quite apart from the criminal law. It may be hereditary. We do not know. It is certainly fixed in people at a very early age in their life, and whether or not the law says this or that will make no difference in whether or not a man's desires—
Mr. Leslie Hale: Why not?
Sir H. Linstead: I have not yet got to homosexual activities. I am dealing now with homosexuality.
Mr. Hale: Believe me, I am with the hon. Member, but I think it is most important not to permit false reasoning to pass if it be false. If the hon. Gentleman says that, why has he eliminated entirely

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the pedophiliac from any sort of recommendation in his favour? Why does the Committee say that we should send this poor man for five years, then for ten years and then for life with a judicial homily and a statement that he will be cured if he goes to one of these institutions, where he will, of course, be made worse? If it really is congenital, what is the excuse for doing nothing?
Sir H. Linstead: One of the duties of the criminal law is to protect the young. It may be in the case of the pedophiliac that he suffers. It may be that if one regards him from the point of view of a priest or a doctor one may say that he suffers unjustly, but from the point of view of the lawgiver, from the point of view of the community, there is a millstone round his neck and he has to suffer in the interests of the young who require protection.
Mr. E. Shinwell: Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale), I am against the hon. Gentleman, and I want to make that quite clear. Is he giving us a summary of his arguments relating to this section? What he appears to be saying to homosexual activists is, "You must not do it in public because you may be penalised for so doing, but go and do it in private and you escape." Is that what the hon. Gentleman is saying?
Sir H. Linstead: I would rather choose my own words, and I would rather put it in this way, that what consenting adults do in private can morally be regarded as their own affair, a matter for their own conscience.
Mr. Hale: What about a suicide pact?
Sir H. Linstead: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to continue my argument, when what they do in public offends against public decency, then the intervention of the law can be justified.
I want to emphasise with regard to the dangers of extending homosexuality that by putting the age limit at 21 we are providing protection for the young. We are saying that what adults do may escape the law but that if any attempt is made to perform an act with a child that should invoke the fullest rigours of the criminal law.
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The second point that has been urged against our proposal is that we are altering a law many years old and that by doing that we are weakening the moral support which the law gives to public decency and public morality. Anyone who has read our Report must, I think, be struck by the fact that of all the laws this one is probably more capriciously enforced than any other. Many of us who served on the Committee had the opportunity of going through sixty or more police files dealing with some of these cases. Two things emerged quite clearly.
One is that some chief constables prefer to put the telescope to the blind eye unless some specific complaint is put firmly in front of them. Other chief constables take the view that here is an offence with a maximum penalty of imprisonment for life and, therefore, that they must show the same zeal in following up possible offences as they would in a case of manslaughter or even a murder.
The second thing we found from those files is the curious and, I think, most regrettable tendency to prosecute extremely stale offences. Some of the examples which we give are shocking, of offences disclosed by accident three, four and five years after they were committed being followed by a criminal prosecution. So we would say that this law cannot be justified on the ground of its enforcement alone.
Also, we received evidence from a very substantial cross-section of the judiciary—magistrates, chairmen of quarter sessions and recorders, and High Court judges. It was clear that throughout the judiciary there is a wide divergence of opinion as to how seriously these offences are to be taken.
If there is a justification for any criminal law, it is that its sanction of punishment can be justified on at least one of four grounds, that it is preventive, reformative, retributive or a deterrent. If one applies any one of those four criteria to what consenting male adults do together in private one does not find that it is preventive. Homosexuality is increasing in this country for reasons quite unconnected with the law. Homosexual acts are increasing. It is not reformative because, by the very nature of homosexuality, one cannot in the vast majority of cases change the direction of an adult's affection.
Mr. Scholefield Allen: What is the basis of the hon. Gentleman's statement that homosexuality is increasing? No doubt there is more of it, but we are five or six times more in population than we were 200 years ago.
Sir H. Linstead: I am not talking in terms of 200 years ago. If the hon. and learned Gentleman will look at the table of offences known to the police he will see a spectacular increase in the number of those offences, which can be explained only on the basis of a considerable increase in the condition of homosexuality in the community. I do not think any competent observer would deny that.
The third criterion is the retributive effect. The object of a retributive punishment is to revenge an offended or injured person, but when one has two consenting adults one cannot say that retribution must he exacted, because neither of them has suffered.
Finally, there is the deterrent effect. It is clear that the law at present has no deterrent effect, because there are 100 people convicted each year, and there are at least half a million who practise and the chances of anyone being caught are so small that one can say with some assurance that there is no deterrent effect at all.
Finally, the criticism is made that the Committee's recommendation contributes to lax moral standards. I hope and believe that that is answered by our conclusion that the place where one must judge what male adults in private do is the field of morals and not the field of law, and when people say, as they do, about homosexual acts that they are disgusting, beastly or grossly immoral, they import exactly that element into the argument, that this is a moral and not a legal question.
It can be said that it is very easy to talk about transferring this to the moral field, but where are the moral assizes at which this can be judged and the man dealt with? There is a moral assize, which I do not think the House ought to under-estimate, and that is the force of public opinion. I claim that, by and large, the British community is a moral community. By and large, it still approves the good and rejects the bad. We may feel that it is more lax than it should be, but the disapproval of society,
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in my judgment, remains a very potent moral weapon indeed.
I believe that it will be more, not less, potent if it no longer has to justify itself for propping up an unworkable and unjust law. On the legal side, to change the law may give licence. In morals, it seems to me that to change the law has no similar effect upon public opinion, Overnight, there will be no sudden change of public opinion if the law is amended. I believe that the British people can be trusted to deal harshly or humanely with the homosexual according to its own judgment in each individual case.
From the point of view of those forming what I may call the homosexual community itself, to change the law can put a new social and moral responsibiilty upon them. If we no longer impose on them a legal code of sexual behaviour which we do not exact from anyone else, we can surely expect homosexuals to accept the same responsibility as the rest of us accept for behaving themselves in public. It may be harder, because marriage is not open to them, but that does not lessen their responsibility, because the standard is a moral, not legal, one. The social aim of our recommendation is to swing the majority of homosexuals, practising and non-practising, on to the side of the law, against those whose preference is for boys and those who offend against public decency.
I shall try to sum up what I have said in this way. There are two courses open to the community, and the question we have to answer is: by which of those two courses is morality better served? The first course is to make no change. If we make no change, we are acquiescing in convicting a hundred men each year and letting half a million or more go scot-free. We are acquiescing in the continuance of a capriciously enforced Act of Parliament. We are acquiescing in deep divergencies in judicial opinion. We are acquiescing in different treatment before the law for the homosexual as compared with other sexual offenders such as adulterers, fornicators, lesbians and so forth. We are maintaining a law which, judged by the ordinary four standards of good law, fails. The alternative choice is to recognise that this is a moral and not a legal question and to let it be dealt with by the social and moral sanctions of public opinion.

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I recognise, as my right hon. Friend's speech made so clear, that very strong opinions are held on both sides. There are many very grave doubts in people's minds about such a change as this. Those doubts, it seems to me, are mirrored in the following contrast. About three weeks ago, one of Her Majesty's judges said that it would be a calamity if the recommendation that we made were carried into effect. Another of Her Majesty's judges has signed the Report and has recommended that that change should be made in the law.
Let us put ourselves in the position of a man accused of one of these private offences, who may come up at the Old Bailey before either of those judges. Will anything persuade him that he will get the same trial before either judge, before the judge who described it as calamity or before the judge who recommends that the law should be changed? I agree at once that it is very probable that, in practice, the result may be the same, High Court judges being the sort of people we know they are and the law being clearly defined. Nevertheless, in such circumstances, faced with such a diversity of judicial opinion as that, I say that justice cannot conceivably be manifestly and openly seen to be done. In the circumstances, it seems to me that the benefit of the doubt, which, after all, is the running rule of the criminal law, ought to be given to the man in the dock.
6.4 p.m.
Mr. F. J. Bellenger: First of all, I wish to congratulate the Home Secretary—a thing very seldom done from these benches—on the fair presentation of the whole subject which he gave us today. With a very difficult subject indeed to debate, in either Part Two or Part Three of the Report, he endeavoured to put both what I might call the legal and the moral issues fairly. I have no fault to find with the conclusions he came to as regards Part Two of the Report with regard to homosexuality, although I differ from him slightly, as I shall attempt to show, in the conclusions he came to about the legislation which, he seemed to indicate, the Government are now preparing with regard to prostitution.
Having read the Report, and, in particular, the reservation made by Mr. Adair, the only dissentient voice in the
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Committee, I have come to the conclusion—I am reinforced in it by listening to certain of the speeches this afternoon, particularly that of the hon. Member for Putney (Sir H. Linstead)—that this matter has been taken out of its true context and it has largely been only what I may call the psychiatric or medical issues which have been considered, to the exclusion of what I would refer to as the public good.
I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) appealed to all speakers for toleration, whatever their points of view. I wish to put a point of view which, I know, is at variance with the opinion of a good many hon. Members of the House and, judging by what the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Hyde) said, with the opinions of certain newspapers also. I will not say that I am not influenced by those opinions, but I wish to try to put my point of view as I would put it to my constituents and as I hope my constituents would understand it. I am bound to say that I am not at all sure that the average person would understand this Report or the implications behind it.
The subject we are discussing in one aspect is more for the psychiatrists and the medical people, or perhaps even for lawyers, than it is one for the House of Commons. None the less, we must not forget that we are not a collection of lawyers or psychiatrists. We are representatives of the people, the electors of the country. We must direct our attention to the average elector, not to any small select—"select", I think, is the right word—and exclusive minority. One cannot ignore that minority, because, from reading the Report, it seems to me that those forming it are entitled to some sort of pity if nothing else.
As the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary said, we have to decide whether the recommendations of Part Two and Part Three of the Report should be accepted or rejected. I reject the recommendations in regard to homosexuality. I believe that any arguments which can be advanced on grounds of logic are overwhelmed by moral considerations and the public interest. I hope, therefore, that my remarks will be considered by the House in that light.

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It seems to me that the gist of the evidence given by those who came before the Committee is of a medical or technical character. It amounts to this, that homosexuality may be a sin, and probably is a sin, but it is not a crime. That, indeed, is what all the advocates for removing the legal penalties base their case upon, that it is not a crime, at least in private, but it is a sin. I took the precaution of looking up the definition of "crime" in the dictionary and this is what it says:
"An act in violation of the law; any great wickedness or wrong."
I would say that in the eyes of most of our constituents, homosexuality, or what the hon. Member for Putney calls homosexuality as practised, apart from the abstract idea, if one may use that phrase, is wrong. Indeed, they are led to that conclusion by some of the cases that are brought before the courts. I shall refer to one that was the subject of considerable investigation by the poice and became, as it were, a cause célèbre in the newspapers.
I can well understand the pleas of those who say that those who practise this cult in private are inoffensive citizens. Perhaps they are, if it is meant that they do not break windows or behave riotously. Nevertheless, they are, in my opinion, a malignant canker in the community and if this were allowed to grow, it would eventually kill of what is known as normal life.
Mr. William Wells rose—
Mr. Bellenger: I believe—
Hon. Members: Give way.
Mr. Bellenger: In a moment. My hon. and learned Friend will surely allow me to finish my sentence. I believe that humanity would eventually revert to an animal existence if this cult were so allowed to spread that, as in ancient Greece, it overwhelmed the community at large.
Mr. W. Wells: Does my right hon. Friend think that there is any difference in this respect between male and female homosexuality? If he thinks there is no difference, why is there a difference in the law?
Mr. Bellenger: I will leave that to my hon. and learned Friend to explain. I know something about homosexuality, having served with the Army in two world wars, but I know nothing or practically nothing, except what one may read, about lesbianism. My hon. and learned Friend can enlighten the House on that. After all, he was a member of the Committee and it is his duty, if he speaks to the House, to tell us what it is all about. I am dealing with male homosexuality and that will occupy most of what I want to say.
What I have just said may seem an extravagant phrase. I can only say, judging from what I know of male homosexuality and what we have all read about some of the cases that have been brought before the courts, that I am repelled by the dirtiness of some of those whose conduct is exposed to the public gaze. I want to strip some of this false sentimentality, this false romanticism, from homosexuality. We know how it has been presented.
Hon. Members in all parts of the House have, I suppose, been presented with a copy of a book called "Against the Law". I hope that they have read it. Here is an exponent of this cult and in this book he gives evidence, some of which is very much against him. I do not believe in this fancy talk—for that is all it is—of love and affection for another man. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. W. Wells) may want to intervene again and ask whether I understand love and affection between man and woman. I do understand it, and every hon. Member, I think, knows it, but from the cases that I have read, I do not believe about this love and affection for another man.
Mr. Shinwell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in this book, written by Mr. Peter Wildeblood and which has been sent to every Member of the House, there is a paragraph in which he points out, no doubt quite honestly according to his point of view, that the consort of aristocratic people who are homosexuals with members of the working classes who are consenting parties is leading in the direction of an egalitarian society and is likely to promote social justice?
Mr. Bellenger: One should treat this book in all seriousness. It is part of the case that is being made, or will be made, in this House today and we must give serious attention to it.
That book discloses something which turns me and, I think, most normal people against homosexuality: that is, that it is not love and affection. It is nothing more or less, as this book discloses, than promiscuousness. In other words, to use the word used by Shakespeare, in many cases it is nothing more or less than whoring. Lot hon. Members think of that. This book shows it quite clearly.
The individual on whom the author of this book lavished his affections, or what he called his affections, was a male prostitute. Do hon. Members want to say that we should condone that sort of thing? Do we condone it when it comes to female prostitution? I do not think we do. Why, therefore, should we give preference to those who practise some abnormal and, quite often, dirty business. I mean that literally.
It would seem that we are all to be righteously indignant about the female prostitutes and even to send them to prison if they indulge too persistently in their trade. As for their male counterparts, however, so long as they do not go importuning and soliciting in public, they can indulge their nauseating practice in private and we are asked to alter the law for them.
Whatever may be said by the Churches in extenuation of private homosexuality, I cannot believe that our constituents would thank us for what would be considered an act, as the Home Secretary said today, of condonation if we altered the law. I shall be very interested to hear of those parsons, either of the Roman Catholic or of the Anglican Church, who would use this as a subject for their sermons in their pulpits. Indeed, I go further. I shall be very interested to hear how many Members of Parliament or candidates at the next election put this matter in their election address.
If the hon. Member for Belfast, North is right—and he adduced a lot of figures to show that opinion in this country, at least, is not against a change in the law and may, indeed, be in favour of a change—let us make this a political issue. Whether it be prejudice or bias—but I prefer to say that it is because of a
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healthy assessment of these matters—we know that, in the main, our constituents would be against a change.
I believe that in these matters we as a House of Commons cannot ignore the moral issues. Although today we are debating a Report which says practically nothing about them, nevertheless we must bear this factor in mind when we are coming to a judgment as to whether we should accept the Wolfenden suggestions.
One matter has not been mentioned in this debate, I do not think it is mentioned in the Report, and I wish to refer to it. I am of opinion that there are too many presentations on the stage, either in private or in public, portraying homo-sexuality as their central theme. I notice that the Lord Chamberlain has recently permitted the public performances of certain plays. I regret that. After all, those who use the Lord's Prayer and who pray,
"Lead us not into temptation"
are entitled to ask what are we doing when we throw open to the public gaze both of the mature and immature, on the stage and on television and elsewhere—possibly because of some of those groups referred to by the Home Secretary—performances centring round a subject which can do as much damage as subliminal advertising?
The message can be presented in most attractive and dramatic terms. Anybody who knows of the actions, and the personalities—indeed the Wolfenden Report says so—of some homosexuals, knows that many of them are very ingratiating. They have powers, and sometimes occupy places of influence, whereby they can exercise an effect on the minds of those who otherwise would not be interested in this subject. I think that this House owes a duty to the large number of individuals who may be influenced in that way. I am not talking only of adolescents, but of adults too, and we should hesitate before doing anything which might permit this business to expand and extend. That is why I feel so strongly on this matter and particularly about the public presentation of plays dealing with homosexuality.
I do not set myself up as a moral teacher or even as someone possessed of virtue. I hope that I am no worse—certainly I am no better—than those constituents of mine who returned me to this

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House. In other words, on this occasion at Any rate, if anybody could be so called, I am the "man in the street," and not, on this occasion, in those public places where apparently I could be accosted. As a family man I want to see the best possible chance given to the young to be inculcated with moral principles. That may not prove an absolute sheet-anchor for them, but it may serve to signpost their way through life. Because I should very much resent any of my children coming into intimate contact—or contact shall I say—with homosexuals, I would do all I can to keep such gentlemen as far away as possible from my own children. I think that is the feeling of most people in the country.
We were told by the hon. Member for Putney (Sir H. Linstead) that there is comparatively little homosexuality in this country, when the number of homosexuals is compared with the size of the population—
Sir H. Linstead: With respect, I said nothing of the kind.
Mr. Bellenger: Then I misunderstood the hon. Gentleman. He was a member of the Wolfenden Committee. Does he therefore say that there is a great deal of homosexuality in relation to the size of the population of this country? Let him tell us. I gather from the Report that, in the main, homosexuals are in a small minority compared with the total number of inhabitants. I warn the House that homosexuality can, and I believe it has, increased since the period of some years ago about which we were talking.
I have a few words to say about that part of the Report dealing with prostitution. On reading it, I concluded that the Committee had reversed its actions. In the previous part of the Report the Committee wished to let up, as it were, on homosexuals, or at least on private homosexuality. But in the part of the Report which deals with prostitution the Committee completely reverses that attitude. It says that the only way to clear the streets of prostitutes—that is all the Committee is saying; it does not deal with the root of the problem—is to impose severe penalties, including imprisonment.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale. I think we should be acting unwisely if we implemented the
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whole of the suggestions of the Wolfenden Committee regarding prostitutes. I agree with the Home Secretary that the system in Scotland although it does not eliminate prostitution, provides at any rate a chance for sociological workers to try to prevent it. Of course, we shall not eliminate it from our body politic. It is as old as Adam, or rather as old as Eve, as the Home Secretary said. But I believe that we should take steps not merely to clamp down the law harshly on prostitutes but to do something, perhaps along the lines of the Scottish system, to try to regenerate those who have not become hardened prostitutes. I am grateful to the Home Secretary for telling the House that he will set in motion research within his own Department into the problem of what might be termed female and male prostitution.
I can well understand those foreigners who call us Albion perfide. Why is it that we propose to deal only with prostitution because it has become objectionable to certain residents in certain places? I have no doubt that it has, although I have never been inconvenienced by these ladies as I have walked through the West End—[Laughter.]—I have never been one of their "customers", and I do not want to be. But let us be careful before we sweep them from our streets and in doing so, drive these practices underground—as the Committee suggests might happen—and create a situation which would be far worse. I do not know anything about this, except what I read, but I am told that in America prostitution has been cleared from the streets in certain cities and has gone underground where it has now become a racket as well as a vice.
Some police action may have to be taken. Incidentally, I notice that if the police want to move on a barrow boy, they can do it easily enough, and I should have thought that they might use similar methods to remove some of these females from streets where they seem to congregate at the moment.
The right hon. Gentleman said that he did not know what was the cause of prostitution and I should like to offer the House a reason why I think prostitution is more prevalent now in certain quarters of our cities. I do not know much about Stepney, but anybody who goes to the

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West End can find out a good deal about that area merely by looking round. I should have thought that the reason why there is so much more ostentatious prostitution on our streets is that there is more money about. The supply is now coming up to the greater demand whereas in the old days—[Laughter.]—hon. Members may laugh at this, but I think it is true.
In the old days it was not easy for some of the customers to find the money to pay these prostitutes. I do not know what is their average fee, but I have a shrewd idea, and I should say that it is only because of the greater dispersal of money that many of the customers can afford to pay the price. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh it off, if they wish. I would not wish to say that we can get rid of prostitution by reducing salaries or wages. That was confirmed by an hon. Member who said it was gold they were after. The rewards of prostitution are greater than they were some years ago.
I now want to deal briefly with one point that the Home Secretary mentioned in the later half of the Wolfenden Report which deals with tenancies where prostitution goes on. The right hon. Gentleman warned us against stopping one evil and tending to create another which was infinitely worse. I know something about property law and sub-tenancies. I should have thought that it would not be difficult to protect sub-tenants, especially if they come under the Rent Acts or under the 1954 Landlord and Tenant Act, but I am a bit doubtful about some of the sub-tenants who are living in flats with known prostitutes. I should think a respectable sub-tenant would want to get away from that as quickly as possible. I do not believe that, with all the resources of modern civilisation, we cannot produce curative and preventive measures to reduce the evil of prostitution. I do not know about homosexuality. There I must defer to medical opinion.
I gather from the authors of the Report that once homosexuals have started on their way they can never return to normal life. The book I have mentioned showed quite clearly, if we are to believe this individual, that for them, home life or family life are impossible. It is because I believe that family life is the mainspring
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of all civilised communities that I have spoken so feelingly against homosexuality. It is an evil, and if it were to increase, by whatever method, it would damage family life. Therefore, I am against the recommendations of the Wolfenden Report.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Before I call another hon. Member I wish to tell the House that I have been informed that a large number of hon. Members wish to speak on this topic, which has been introduced in a number of speeches already. What I am saying is no reflection on the speeches we have already heard, but I would ask hon. Members to consider, in speaking, trying to condense what they have to say, or to specialise on particular points which interest them. If hon. Members manage to do that they will earn the gratitude of other hon. Members and also, for what it is worth, my gratitude, because I am anxious to permit as many Members to speak as I possibly can.
Mr. Bellenger Mr. Bellenger rose—
Several Hon. Members: Sit down.
Mr. Bellenger: On a point of order. I would like to put one point, with your permission, Mr. Speaker. You will have noticed that we are to have two Front Bench speakers from the Opposition who are putting only their own point of view.
Mr. Speaker: I am not reflecting on any of the speeches we have heard. Probably hon. Members find it difficult to express briefly what they have to say. I do not think that the Home Secretary could have condensed his remarks more. I am not referring to that at all, but to future speeches, now that the debate has proceeded so far. I cannot enforce a time limit in any way, but I do ask hon. Members to enable me to get as many Members into the debate as I can.
6.35 p.m.
Mr. William Shepherd: I will say what I have to say as quickly as possible, Mr. Speaker, and will try to follow your advice. In general, I accept what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said this afternoon about prostitution, but I have considerable doubt about the wisdom of making a prison sentence part of the deterrent in

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this case. I would accept it as part of failure to pay a fine.
I hope, therefore, that my right hon. Friend will very carefully consider this point when he is drafting the proposed legislation. We can reduce the volume of prostitution by more effective processes, and make our streets more seemly than they are at the present time. My right hon. Friend could very easily eliminate the greater amount of the soliciting in the streets of London if he would adopt a simple device which I suggested in a speech in this House about twelve months ago, the establishment of night courts. If prostitutes were rounded up when soliciting and were taken to night courts and fined, the pressure on our day courts would he relieved and the women would be deprived of the most profitable tine for carrying on their profession. Night courts could deal very effectively with prostitution.
Some women's organisations have protested against stronger penalties against prostitutes on the ground that they would show up the double standard of morality in this country. I do not attempt to deny that there is a double standard of morality. It is regrettable, but it is there. However, I do not think there is any question here of a double standard of morality. In almost all cases of this kind—supplying drugs, illegal betting, drinking after hours, etc.—it is customary to go for the person who benefits financially from the transaction and not usually for the person who pays for it. I hope that the women's organisations who take the view I have mentioned will realise that this is not a matter of discriminating unfairly against women.
On homosexual offences I share the view of the right hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger), but I hope I shall be able to present my views with a little more detachment than he managed to achieve. As one who is strongly opposed to the opinions of the Wolfenden Committee, I want to be fair to the homosexuals in our community. I have taken more than the usual trouble to acquaint myself with the problems surrounding homosexuality, I am much less certain about the whole question than I was before I started. It is one of the most baffling of problems. I rejoice in the news that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is to institute inquiry and research into the problem.
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In trying to be fair to homosexuals I must make it clear that there is more in the case against them than I have heard presented here this afternoon. I shall try to present the case against the homosexual as fairly as I can. Let me admit at once that many people will find it hard to understand the feelings of homosexuals. We must try to believe that there are men who find it as repulsive to have sex association with a woman as a normal man finds it to have association with his own sex. We must accept that there are men who, for various reasons, find it as repugnant to have an association with a woman as normal people do to have association with the same sex. [An HON. MEMBER: "Nonsense."] The hon. Member says "nonsense" but I assure him this is true. I say this as one who strongly opposes the recommendations of the Committee.
The other day I had a letter from a clergyman who talked about congenital homosexuality. No individual in this House, or outside, can talk about congenital homosexuality, because no one can prove that there is such a thing. A very small number of those who are homosexuals in fact go to anything like the full extent of homosexual acts. The majority of them do it for reasons best known to themselves, but for reasons which probably are not compelling. If we were dealing with those who find it impossible to have associations with the other sex, I should unhesitatingly accept the recommendations of the Wolfenden Committee, but we are dealing in the main with the 90 per cent. who indulge in homosexual practices, and not with the true invert—in other words, the bisexual. I hope the House will bear this in mind when considering the appropriate action to take.
Mrs. Mann: Is the hon. Member aware that on Friday night, on the B.B.C., Sir John Wolfenden said that many men indulged in the practice for no other reason than that it was fashionable?
Mr. Shepherd: That is very probable. I would require the homosexual to exert a degree of discipline over his own tendencies. Two friends of mine when sober are as well behaved in terms of sexual behaviour as any individual I know who is normal, but if they have drink they revert to these homosexual tendencies. I cite this as proof, if proof

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is needed, that by control and discipline one can get some sort of hold over these homosexual tendencies. I want to see these individuals compelled, by one means and another, to exert the maximum discipline over their own tendencies. I want to do it very largely for their own good.
I was rather surprised, in fact rather annoyed, at the Wolfenden Committee refusing to accept that these practices are unnatural. I was very surprised that the members of the Committee should jib at that phrase. This, I think, is an attempt to take the view of psychiatrists too literally. I do not want to be unkind to psychiatrists, but I am inclined to agree with Sir Ronald Howe that often they need a little psychiatric attention themselves. In the Church of England Moral Welfare Council and in the evidence given before the Wolfenden Committee there were disturbing indications of the way in which psychiatrists are prepared to absolve from personal responsibility on the ground of some irresistible tendency.
We ought to face the fact that homosexuality is unnatural and that in the majority of cases there are prospects of people overcoming these tendencies. Incest is a much more natural act than homosexuality. I hope the House will take the point that incest is a much more natural act; yet it is true that to most civilised societies incest is repugnant to the greatest possible degree. Why has incest become repugnant to most civilised societies? It is because of the building up of a discipline against that act which, I repeat, is a natural act. In the same way as we have had this discipline against incest, we ought to have it against homosexuality. I believe it our duty to discourage homosexuals as well as we can because, as to 90 per cent., they are not compelled to do the things they do. I quote Dr. West in his book on homosexuality, in which he said:
"Study of the sexual habits of Greece and Rome serves to confirm that homosexual instincts soon make themselves apparent whenever they are given free rein."
It is perfectly true that if one adopts a lax attitude towards homosexuality one promotes its growth. It is no credit to this community that homosexuality is known on the Continent as vice Anglais, but it is a discreditable reflection on our society and I believe it our duty to try to deal with it.
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In giving reasons why I feel we should reject the conclusions of the Wolfenden Committee, I want to give the reasons as they affect the homosexual and as they affect society. I want to discourage the homosexual by the discouragement of the law because the homosexual in society has a very difficult place indeed. He becomes against society. He becomes bitter, his mind becomes twisted and distorted because he feels he is not as other men are. It is essential in the interests of the man himself that we should do everything to discourage him. He is always beset by fears of discovery. The more sensitive ones wear a hunted look. They are not happy in their life. One hon. Member talked about promiscuity. Most homosexual associations are promiscous. If I may add a word of explanation for the benefit of the hon. Member, that is one of the reasons why I would deal with lesbianism on a different basis. Lesbian associations in many cases supply a social purpose, because they tend to be much more lasting or permanent than homosexual associations.
Mr. Ronald Bell: They are both homosexual.
Mr. Shepherd: My hon. Friend says they are both homosexual, but it has been the custom to talk of the male association as homosexual and of the female as lesbian; and I think this makes for clarity. One of the dangers in homosexuality for a man is in his old age. It is true that one can survive with it when one is younger, but the constant search for new contacts is degrading and many men who start on this path of homosexuality end in their later years hanging about public lavatories, where they are apprehended by the police. If a man can be diverted from homosexual practices he and there is a very wide field for diversion—will become a better and happier citizen.
I shall quickly say why I think society has a right to be heard. I think there is far too much sympathy with the homosexual and far too little regard for society. Obviously, it does not require any intelligence to see that if homosexuality were extended over a wide range there would be no society. To that extent it is obviously not a good proposition. Homosexuals have written to me and said, "How glorious was Greece, where there was an idealistic homosexual society".
Mr. Frank Tomney: Look at it now.
Mr. Shepherd: I agree that the homosexual society in Greece was more idealistic than it turned out to be in Rome, but I emphasise that even in Greece, where there was a certain amount of idealism in homosexuality, it could take place only at the expense of the degradation of the female. I take it as an essential part of the Christian civilisation that we uphold the position of the female in society.
I believe that homosexuality causes a great deal of human unhappiness. It appears to be commonly asserted by the Church that it is only the heterosexual offence, like adultery, which causes unhappiness in married life. How foolish and unreal is this point of view. What greater unhappiness is caused in human life than that caused by men in their middle age turning to homosexual practices? I know of two or three people whose wives tried to commit suicide because of this. Throughout the country there must be thousands of similar cases.
The last reason which I give for opposing the Wolfenden Committee Report is that homosexuality sets up a society within a society, and this is indeed sinister. I think that in certain fields of human activity it has already become disturbing to a great degree. It is the means by which preference is secured. One of my constituents, who a few years ago became a West End actor, told me that had he been prepared to indulge in homosexual practices he could have come to the West End many, many years before he did. It is perfectly true to say that in many spheres of activity today the ability and the willingness to enter into homosexual acts is a means of promotion. That is so in a great number of spheres, even in business and maybe in politics.
I believe that it is our duty as far as we can to stop this society within a society. I believe that to a great extent, perhaps 90 per cent. of the cases, these men could be deviated from their path and deviation is important, because once they have set upon this path it is very difficult to treat them. Wildeblood's complaint that he was not treated in prison arises because the view was taken that he was not treatable, not because we do not want to treat the Wildebloods of this world.
Mr. Peter Rawlinson: Is my hon. Friend certain of those facts? Is there treatment which could be given? Does he know what are the circumstances which would enable treatment to be provided for these people in prison? I should very much like to hear about that.
Mr. Shepherd: I do not say that prison is an ideal place in which to treat homosexuals. I was merely saying—because I want to be brief—that I do not know of effective treatment for homosexuals in the great number of what I call the true invert cases. If my hon. Friend wishes to disagree with that he can do so when he speaks.
I have rushed over what I had to say but I have tried to put the case for the retention of the law as we know it at present. I believe that it would do damage to the interests of this country and in the long run to the interests of homosexuals to make the change which the Wolfenden Committee recommends.
6.55 p.m.
Mr. B. T. Parkin: The hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd) deployed his arguments with a restraint and a sincerity which will enable the discussion to proceed between himself and another layman interested in the same subject but taking a different view. If I follow his arguments for a moment or two it is not because I want to be distracted from the subject which I chiefly wish to discuss during the debate, but because I was deeply struck by the sincerity and responsibility of the speech of the hon. Member far Putney (Sir H. Linstead). In view of the circumstances of this debate and the Home Secretary's invitation to hon. Members to express their opinions, whatever point one wishes to raise in connection with one's constituency one has to take a stand on this issue at this moment and to say "Aye" or "Nay" to the Committee's recommendations.
Two colleagues of ours were invited to serve on the Committee before this subject was placed before it. They found themselves landed with it because it was added to the original terms of reference of the Committee. They spent some years in investigating the subject and then they put their recommendations to us. The same responsibility now lies upon us as has been accepted by the forceful leaders of opinion in the religious, educational and sociological world, and I think

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that the House of Commons can do no less tonight than say, even as amateurs, how we stand on this issue. I want to deal with one point made by the hon. Member for Cheadle and to lead from that into my thoughts about the Committee's recommendations.
The hon. Member said that homosexuals are promiscuous. The Home Secretary, in deploying his own argument, was, I thought, less than happy when he introduced the description of groups of homosexuals proselytising, a term which has been taken up enthusiastically by subsequent speakers. One thing which has struck me about homosexuals with whom I am acquainted is that they do not proselytise among adult members of the public. They recognise that one either is or is not a homosexual, and the fact that they associate among friends of their own disposition is quite a different matter. The hon. Member said that they are promiscuous, but surely that can be put more kindly in this way—that, as has so often been commented on by those who study the problem, there is the difficulty, indeed the obvious impossibility, of any physical basis of establishing a stable and permanent emotional relationship.
If we are to help that section of the community to come to terms with itself and to help these people to come to terms with their own personality and with society, surely we ought to think very carefully about the Committee's recommendation in so far as it might encourage them to undertake the effort, which each one of them obviously has to undertake, to avoid landing himself into the kind of trouble which at present is fully covered by the law.
Indeed, the Committee's Report is not in the least sentimental. It is very severe on the subject of the offences committed by homosexuals and it lays down emphatically that the question of punishment and of prison sentences, as well as of remedial measures, must be considered.
There are many recommendations which the right hon. Gentleman did not find time to mention. May I mention one of them? There seems to be an extraordinary anomaly in the law that the prison authorities, even at the request of the prisoner, are not allowed to give the little relief which modern drugs and hormones might give to those anxious to
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repress their desires in the particularly difficult conditions of prison life. Surely the Home Secretary can announce that he will adopt that recommendation.
I make one further comment in passing, on a subject on which some other hon. Member more expert than I might speak. Is there any alternative to the present methods of treatment in prison? Is the Home Secretary investigating the question of group therapy, which seems to offer a great deal more hope than the old individual psychiatric treatment?
I pass now to Part Three of the Report, which affects my constituency. I must confess that I did not know much about this subject. Like many other people, I felt that I was too old; that it was not possible to learn enough about it to understand it; that what with the doctors, the experts and the police, it was hardly worth while trying to catch up with what was already known about it. Nevertheless, I have tried hard to plot the extent of the problem, particularly in Paddington.
When one reads in the books, about Babylon and the Bishop of Southwark's stews, one gets into the frame of mind where one is tempted to say, "It has gone on for centuries. We can never cure it." Then one has to remind oneself that millions of our fellow citizens live and die without ever having come into direct contact with this problem, and know nothing about it except for what they have read in the newspapers.
We have to say to ourselves that we have to go on the basis that, even if it cannot be cured in our lifetime, like other social evils it will be cured in the course of time. It is just common sense. When we think of such masses of population as there are, even in the great industrial areas where people are closely packed together, we see that they do not suffer from this evil, nor from any great prevalence of psychological troubles, or multiplicity of other offences. That being so, we must accept that this problem is largely curable. If we do not, we are apt to get into the frame of mind in which we feel almost insincere in making any plea or suggestion. We get that sort of hopelessness that I sometimes think that the police must get on occasion when told to clear one area, knowing full well that the same trouble will break out in another.

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I wonder if the Home Secretary can do anything about a big gap in our knowledge—I did not know the word aetiology before, but it is in the Report so I suppose it is all right. The gap in our knowledge is a study of the mentality of the customer. It is difficult to draw a parallel, but let us suppose that it was our responsibility to eliminate cigarette smoking; that the arguments of the medical men had led us to the conclusion that we had to attempt that. Surely, we should seek, first of all, to find out what it was about the habit that attracts people, other than the taste of tobacco.
In the same way, there must here be some element in the customers' attitude that we can identify when attempting to deal with the problem. From my own observations, I am perfectly certain that the trade, as a whole, is sustained by a number of casual customers, and that that part of the trade could he reduced if energetic measures were taken, in the spirit of the Report, to drive it off the streets. If I did not think that, I should feel insincere in asking the police to clear the Paddington streets. If it was likely to drive these people underground, only to make more trouble elsewhere, it would not be helpful.
I am certain, however, that large numbers of young men in London are attracted to spend their money in this way merely because the trade is in front of their eyes. I have seen that over and over again. Look at the traffic in Hyde Park—on the carriageways. It is not elderly millionaires in Rolls Royces, but commercial travellers going home in Ford Populars, seeing a car stopping in front of them, hesitating, and then doing the same. If it were never there, they would never miss it.
Having disposed of the casual customer, I think that the analysis gets more and more difficult, because what we now have to establish is why people purchase, prefer to pay, and are driven to a search in circumstances which sometimes get increasingly more squalid and more sordid. First of all, perhaps, there is the attitude of the person who feels, in some way, that sex is a problem that he cannot face and who, when he comes up against it, prefers to pay rather than commit himself emotionally.
Then we come to the person who is in an even worse state of mind, who fears
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and hates sex, and feels that he has to demean the act in some way. There, we get into that twilit no man's land of rather sad human experience, of which not enough is known, and in which there are no real frontiers between one kind of perversion and another. It is a twilight so much typified by Hyde Park after dark—the moving shadows; the furtive figures; the peeping Toms; the handbag snatchers, and the protectors. The customers who appear in that place are at the downward end of the scale.
There may be a common pattern, and if there is this common pattern, it begins to explain the necessity of the protector, who has to protect the girl against the violence that to some people may seem to be an inherent part of the act they are themselves undertaking in demeaning circumstances. Perhaps there is some sort of connection—I do not know—but, any case, it is that sort of research that I should like to see undertaken.
The extraordinary thing about the common prostitute is not that she is a woman who gives herself to anyone, but that she is, in fact, a woman who gives herself to none. Hers is the frigidity that gives way only to the giant or the cripple, and perhaps that is why the protector has to be either a brute or a weak character. It may be that the customer is a person who has never given himself to anybody and, as a consequence, lets himself be driven in this way.
That is the hard core of the problem, but if there is one field of emotional human relationship which has a bearing on this to which we must pay more attention, and which effect can be achieved in social conditions, it is not the emotional relationships between adults but the emotional relationships between parents and children. If only more fathers would play with their children at night, would make toys for them and play with simple things instead of buying off their responsibilities by paying a deposit on some gigantic or expensive toy, what a difference that might make to the recruits to this traffic in the next generation.
Turning to the problem nearer at home, it seems to me, after hearing the Home Secretary, that if he felt that he had public opinion behind him, that if he could let the police understand that what we are saying is not just another general grumble but a demand for a determined effort to

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clear things up once and for all, he would find that many of the powers that he and the police already possess would be adequate; and that a certain amount of ingenuity and energy would prove very effective.
I do not think that I weaken my case by saying that I have the very gravest doubts about the value of prison sentences, and some doubts about the recommendation to eliminate the necessity to prove annoyance. I do not think that it is so very difficult to prove annoyance. I am always annoyed when driving through Hyde Park when cars driven in the circumstances that I have just described make it difficult for me to continue on my way. The annoyance can be to the public as well as to individuals.
Again, we really must have some regard to the dangers that exist for individual women. I bring up this topic now because I have a case that has been in the hands of the Home Secretary for many weeks—no doubt he will find it in his tray some day. It is true that I had an acknowledgement to say that he was investigating the case, but I wish that I had had the reply before this debate took place.
A constituent came to me in the greatest distress. His wife was walking near their home, in a particularly notorious part of Paddington, when a police van swept down, halted, and the police bundled every woman in sight towards the van. Several of the experienced prostitutes ran away, but my constituent's wife was taken as far as the van and, indeed, was halfway into it, when one of the other girls said "Don't take her—she's not grafting." My constituent is convinced that if it had not been for the attitude of that girl, his wife's character would have been sworn away by a policeman the next morning, from which date she would have been a convicted common prostitute and could have been pulled in at any time on the word of a policeman which would never be contradicted. That is a very serious matter.
There are other points which I would like to have developed if there were more time. I am particularly concerned with the use of property. May I add a word of support to the suggestion that landlords who accept exorbitant rents should be assumed to be living on the earnings
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of prostitution unless they can prove to the contrary. This is a most difficult legal problem. It involves complicated questions when the profession itself is legal.
I have in mind, in addition to those who make a regular business of letting flats, some of the despicable characters who own two or three short-lease tenement houses and who make their furtive little visits each night to get from the girl the extra £2 or £3 a day which they demand, although the rent book shows a perfectly normal rent. If there were a dynamic resolve on the part of the boroughs concerned, knowing that they had the backing of the opinion of this House, I am sure that these problems could be solved and the offenders identified and driven out.
I do not want to tell horror stories, but I was a little provoked by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) who seemed to think that this problem did not affect young people. In Paddington we require the recognition that it is possible to get these people off the streets. There is no reason why the residential areas should suffer. The residential areas in particular do not deserve it. As far as young children are concerned, it is not just a question whether there is some strange woman standing about the streets. It is a question where these acts take place.
I have myself seen between fifty and a hundred used contraceptives in the side entrance of a house in Paddington which had been standing empty for a short time. I have known people who have come back to their little basement flat after a holiday and have found the yard in a filthy condition because of this squalid trade which moves from one street to another. I have been told of a policeman who found a little child on his way to school picking up one of these things. What is the policeman to do? Does he tell the child's mother? Does he take the child to the police station and wash him?
These are the real facts of life in the residential areas which have been afflicted by the spread of this evil in London —an evil which I am sure is limited and can be tackled. Indeed, I am sure it would be tackled with great enthusiasm by local authorities, property companies and

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public opinion as a whole if a right lead were given by the Government as a result of this Report.
7.14 p.m.
Mr. James Dance: Various hon. Members have referred to the Report and have paid tribute to the authors. I, too, would like to subscribe to that tribute, for we have certainly been given a great deal of help by this document.
I should like to refer in particular to Part Two of the Report, which deals with homosexual practices. I oppose this section of the Report. We hear a lot these days of the potential danger to future generations from the fall-out of strontium. I believe that these homosexual practices are not a potential danger but are a present danger to the youth of our country.
I also feel that it is the sentimental psychiatrists, and people who support their sentiments, who increase this danger. There are far too many people looking into the mind of the murderer and not at the agony of mind of the relations of the murdered person. There are far too many people looking into the minds of the Teddy cosh-boys and not into the minds of the old ladies who have been coshed. In exactly the same way, too many people are looking into the mind of the homosexual rather than considering the repugnance which is caused to millions of decent people all over the country. There can be no question that this practice is a social evil and that it undermines the morals of the country.
One only has to look back into history to find that it was the condoning of this sort of offence which led to the downfall of the Roman Empire. I feel that it was the condoning of these offences which led to the fall of Nazi Germany. [Laughter.] Yes, that is perfectly true. I believe that here at home if these offences are allowed to continue unchecked our moral standards will be lowered.
Mr. Hale: On the hon. Member's point about Nazi Germany, has it not occurred to him that had a psychiatrist looked into the mind of Hitler, and more particularly into the adrenaline deficiency in his thyroid gland, we might not have had any trouble at all?
Mr. Dance: That may be so from the point of view of the war. I was referring
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to morals in Germany, which were deplorable.
I should like to quote from the words of Mr. Adair in the Report, who sums up the situation as follows:
"The presence in a district of…adult male lovers living openly and notoriously under the approval of the law "—
and that is the point—
"is bound to have a regrettable and pernicious effect on the young people of the community."
I subscribe to that point of view.
I have mentioned psychiatrists, but I should not like it thought that I do not think they do a good job of work. It is the sentimental attitude that I deplore. Of course, I am in favour of psychiatrists endeavouring to cure these unfortunate people. Indeed, I should like there to be further research into other possible cures. But to the gentleman who, I know, meant well and who must have spent a lot of money in sending these books to us, I would say that that money could have better spent in helping these people by promoting research into a cure for them. Hormone treatment has been suggested, although I am informed that that can be very dangerous. However, that is the sort of line which should be pursued, and I hope that in the near future some cure will be established.
I should like to make a practical suggestion. I do not think it would necessarily work now, but when a cure is available I suggest that in the same way as one sees those venereal disease posters in male public urinals, similar notices should be put up advising homosexuals that there is a cure and mentioning the nearest clinic where they can get that cure. I would go even further than that. When we have this cure and its availability publicised—free, if need be—the full severity of the law should come down on homosexuals who carry on these practices.
It is said in the Report also that the Committee feels that consenting males over 21 years of age should not be regarded as committing a crime if they practise homosexuality in private, because it really will not affect anyone else. I do not altogether agree with that. Whereas males over 21 may be content to associate together for some time, I greatly fear that, as age advances, they will search

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for someone younger. I believe that to allow this sort of thing to continue would be a great menace to the youth of the country.
Time is short, and I shall speak for only a few moments more. Please let us keep sentiment out of the whole question. Let us look at it on a factual basis. By all means, let us try to find a cure. I do not believe that it is beyond the power of medical science today to find some way whereby these people can be treated and cured. I sincerely hope that the cure will be found.
In the meantime, we must not take away any powers from the law. I do not say that we should increase them; let us leave them as they are now. We can always change the powers of the law in the future if desirable. I sincerely hope that, by keeping the law as it is and by encouraging our scientists to pursue their research, the beastly and horrible problem which faces us today will gradually minimise itself so that the law enforcing punishment will no longer be necessary.
7.21 p.m.
Dr. A. D. D. Broughton: I was very surprised that the Wolfenden Committee should have been asked to investigate and report upon two such very different vices. However, the Report contains recommendations on both subjects, and I wish to speak for a few minutes on both.
The subject on which I have less knowledge is prostitution. I have little knowledge of this because it presents 90 problem in my constituency, and few prostitutes come to psychiatrists. Psychiatry is the branch of medicine which I practise. I understand that the psychiatrists who gave evidence before the Committee provided some very useful information about homosexuality, but they regarded prostitution as a social problem and did not supply the Committee with any helpful advice. I can see their point of view, of course, but I think that we must all recognise that there is something psychologically abnormal about a woman who chooses that way of earning a living.
Years ago, when I first heard of prostitutes, I assumed that they would be highly sexed women who entered the
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profession in order to satisfy abnormal sexual desires; but my professional experience has taught me otherwise. Those whom I have met in my professional experience are women who have been deprived of the love of one or other, or both, of their parents in childhood.
In the light of the limited experience I have had in this matter, I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) who said that these women are incapable of giving or receiving love. At least, those whom I have come across I have found to have been attracted to prostitution because it was an easy way of earning a living, and they were drawn towards it by what I regarded as a deep desire for the real love which they were incapable of giving or receiving. They all suffered feelings of isolation and worthlessness. I must say that I feel very sorry for them. It would, however, be wrong for me to generalise from so few cases.
I agree entirely that there is need for a great deal more research. I maintain also—this is not original; other hon. Members have said it—that there is certainly need for research, if it can be done, into the mentality of the men who resort to prostitutes. Let us remember that there would not be one prostitute in England if there were no clients.
Although I blame the men principally, and I do pity the women who make themselves outcasts from decent society, I feel that, when we consider this Report, we must think of what is best for the community. I am of the opinion that the sight of prostitutes in our streets is displeasing to respectable men, is offensive to respectable women, and is a thoroughly bad example and a temptation to the young. For those reasons, I agree with the recommendations of the Wolfenden Committee.
If we accept those recommendations, let us be quite certain in our minds that we are not effecting a cure. All we should be doing would be trying to drive prostitution off the streets. It is better, I think, if we have a festering sore, to keep it covered and out of sight rather than have it exposed, a revolting sight to decent people and a possible cause of infection among the young.

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I turn now to the part of the Wolfenden Report which relates to homosexuality. First of all, of course, one would like to know what its prevalence is in the country. It is probable that there is a large number of male homosexuals. Some authorities give the figure as 4 per cent. Others put it as low as 2 per cent. If we accept the lower figure, that means that there are half a million male homosexuals in the British Isles.
Some of the causes have already been mentioned by, for instance, the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, North. The causes of homosexuality are deeply embedded in a person's mental make-up. Undoubtedly, fin some cases at any rate, there are constitutional factors which play a part, but we believe that the environment and upbringing of a child are the most important factors. The book written by a known homosexual, which, I understand, was sent to all Members of Parliament, was, I thought, quite good on this particular aspect of the subject. The author states:
"A baby is interested in nothing but itself; a mall child directs its affection towards other people regardless of their sex; an adolescent boy begins to feel attracted exclusively towards girls; a grown man chooses a woman as his partner. That is the normal pattern. In some cases, however, the process is arrested or reversed. The man remains as the child was, failing to discriminate between the sexes; or he develops in the abnormal direction of being attracted only towards his own sex".
I think that that is quite true. If we accept that, then we can regard heterosexuality—that is normal sexuality—as part of the process of growing up. Most of us make the natural transition into normality, but there are some in whom the natural process of development is arrested and even reversed.
We come across some homosexuals who take the male or active part. They appear of the masculine type. I believe that they have been directed along the path of homosexuality by what I might call an accident. For example, in childhood they may have been made to avoid girls and, therefore, have come to regard the fair sex as repulsive. They may, when boys, have had sexual experience with an adult woman and that has filled them with some feeling of disgust.
There are other homosexuals who have a femaleness of outlook. In psychological language, we say that they are the
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people who probably had a bad father-image and because of this bad father-image they had more interest in what the mother and the sisters were doing. It is worth noting that people of this particular type are very vain and are apt to indulge in exhibitionism. It is in that group that we find the really decadent types and the male prostitutes.
It has been said by one hon. Member that it is possible for homosexuals to repress their desires. I think that that is true to a large extent, but I would ask the House to understand that the sex urge is not weakened in a man by his being a homosexual. A normal, healthy, virile man knows what sex is, and I believe that sex can be and often is just as powerful in the homosexual.
The matter of treatment has been referred to by the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Mr. Dance). I wish I could share his optimistic outlook. Treatment is extremely difficult. Many homosexuals look upon the suggestion of becoming heterosexual as quite absurd. We must realise that it entails their changing their whole life pattern. I think that hon. Members can best realise that by imagining that someone said to them that they wished to change them from what they are, normal heterosexual persons, to homosexuals. That would mean an entirely different outlook. Women would become no longer attractive and men would be sexually attractive. The idea is absurd. It would mean a change of their whole life pattern, and I can assure hon. Members that it is equally difficult for the homosexual.
Dr. Donald Johnson: May I ask the hon. Member to elaborate on this matter a little for the benefit of the House? Is it not correct that hormone treatment merely lowers sexuality in general rather than makes any change in homosexuality?
Dr. Broughton: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that that is the effect at the present time.
I feel very sorry for these people. They do not know what they are missing. There is no doubt that the law is savage in dealing with them, and the question which we have to ask is: should the law be changed? Should it be modified in the way recommended by the Wolfenden Committee, namely, that homosexual

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practice among consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence? If we accept that recommendation the general public would gather the impression that Parliament condones this practice. Should we condone it? The question that we might ask ourselves is, does homosexuality strike against normal healthy family life?
Among the voluminous correspondence that hon. Members have received, much of which I have read, I came across a sentence in a letter which said:
"Men and women joined in true marriage are complementary the one to the other; the man with his strength, ruggedness, thoughtfulness and protective love and respect for his wife; and the woman with her sweetness, intuitive wisdom, love of beauty and reverence for her husband."
I suggest that that is the type of love that we want to encourage. There is no getting away from it. We must say that homosexuality is biologically wrong.
If we accept the recommendations of the Wolfenden Committee about homosexuality, I have a fear, based on what I know of homosexuals, that some, certainly not all, homosexuals will repress their homosexual feelings less. They may go to the extent even of showing some signs of the affection that they have for one another in public. I can envisage men walking along the street arm in arm, possibly holding hands, and at dances perhaps wishing to dance together and even caressing in public places. I think that that is possible, because, as I mentioned when I was trying to describe one of the types of homosexual that we come across, that particular type likes to be exhibitionistic. If we see a man and woman walking along arm in arm, we approve of it. If we see a boy and a girl holding hands, again society approves. But if we see men showing affection for one another in public it gives most people a deep sense of disapproval. It is unnatural, it is biologically wrong, and, worst of all, because it is biologically wrong, it is a shocking example to young people.
Mr. S. Silverman: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and I think that we have all listened to his speech with the greatest possible interest. Having said what he has about the homosexual whom he has described, let us now suppose that he is right in what he is
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saying; does he think that that is a justification for sending homosexuals to prison, because that is the inevitable result of not changing the law?
Dr. Broughton: As I have already said, I believe that the law is very savage. I think that the penalties are too severe. As I have also said, however, I fear that if we modify the law, the impression will go out to the general public that Parliament is condoning the offence. We are in a difficulty. It is a great pity that such heavy penalties were ever imposed, but, since they have been imposed, I fear that if we were to alter them at this particular time, the public would probably misunderstand our motives and many people would be of the opinion that we were condoning these offences.
Mr. Charles Pannell: We respect my hon. Friend's knowledge in this field, but I would like to pursue the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman). Would my hon. Friend send homosexuals to prison? That is the simple question.
Dr. Broughton: I myself would not go so far as to send them to prison—
Mr. Silverman: Then the law must he changed.
Dr. Broughton: —for two reasons. Long-term imprisonment is too severe a penalty. Furthermore, prison is quite the wrong place to send these people. That, however, is not a very original idea of mine. It has already been mentioned today and I hope that the Home Secretary has taken note of it. By sending homosexuals to prison, as we do at present, we are doing little, if anything, to change them and it may well be that they are changing other prisoners who have previously been able to lead a normal sexual life.
Mr. Silverman: May I ask my hon. Friend one more question, the same question as I asked the Home Secretary? In view of what he has said in the last few seconds, will my hon. Friend explain why that argument is not conclusive?
Dr. Broughton: I did not say that the homosexual should have no punishment. I fear, as I am trying to explain, that unless some punishment is imposed, there is a danger of others becoming acquainted with this practice and indulging in it.

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I should like to make just one other point. I apologise for taking up so much of the time of the House, but I have been delayed by interruptions. Hon. Members will remember that the Home Secretary referred to groups of homosexuals. Later in the debate, one hon. Member said that homosexuals were promiscuous. I suggest that just as normal people with their wives and families band themselves into groups and others are promiscuous, so there are the same different types amongst the homosexuals. It is a well-known fact that homosexuals band themselves into groups, and I fear that if the law were changed so that homosexuals did not have this fear of punishment, those groups might elevate the practice of homosexuality to a cult.
I have heard of cases where homosexuals meet in groups and that a considerable amount of trouble has been taken by certain members in the seduction of others. Drinking parties have been organised as an introduction to the practice of homosexuality. I believe that the organisers have no sense of sin they are homosexuals and they do not see that what they are doing is sinful. I fear that if we were to accept and implement the recommendations of the Wolfenden Report, that practice might grow.
I have said before that I am very sorry indeed for homosexuals. I think that the penalties of the law are too cruel and savage. For the reasons which I have given, however, I am not in favour of accepting the recommendations of the Wolfenden Report concerning homosexuality. We have, most unfortunately, both prostitution and homosexuality with us. I wish that they could both be cured, but, until they can, I think it best that we should keep them out of sight of the general public.
7.45 p.m.
Dr. Reginald Bennett: Everybody will agree that the discussion we have had so far today has been conducted largely with detachment and with as near a factual appraisal as the knowledge of facts allows anybody in the House to consider these distressing subjects.
Like the hon. Member for Batley and Morley (Dr. Broughton), I have for many years followed the same branch of the medical profession and both before and
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since becoming a Member of this House I have done a good deal of practice at the request of the courts in reporting upon the state of mind, and, indeed, undertaking the treatment of, homosexuals. Therefore, I am particularly content to know that my colleague on the other side of the House, the hon. Member for Batley and Morley, who has also engaged in this practice, agrees with me, because, frankly, I feel that few other members of the psychiatric profession similarly agree. I thought I was in a minority of one. I see now, however, that I am in a minority of two.
I assure the House that I shall be as quick as possible. I was interested to hear the observations of the hon. Member for Batley and Morley, which, I thought, came right to the nub of the whole subject of prostitution. Surely, what we in this House are trying to do is to take the advertisement of the wares of these people off the streets, even if the practice is historically insuppressible.
For the sake of shortness, I will merely quote a remark which I found in the works of Dr. Flexner, who wrote in 1904 that 15 per cent. of men will find a prostitute no matter how great the effort, 15 per cent. of men will refuse to go to a prostitute no matter how much the offer is made to them, and that the rest will respond in accordance with the ease with which a prostitute may be obtained. It is surely that 70 per cent. that we in this House can take a great hand in preventing being submitted to the temptations which will encourage what is not only—let us face it—an occupation, but a highly organised industry.
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has asked for our comments on the changes in the law, if any, that we advocate. I would certainly say that we should heighten the penalties, but we should beware of doing so to such an extent that every case becomes defended, that the turnover of the courts drops to next to nothing and that the defence of these women becomes more and more an undertaking for the monarchs of the industry.
I also endorse my right hon. Friend's observations that we should certainly penalise very heavily those who exploit this industry, if we can catch them. My information, however, has always been that these men are very well protected by

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those whom they protect, who are very commonly in love with their protector, however brutal he may be, and that catching them is a very different matter. By all means let us penalise them heavily, but what can we do to catch them? Parliament is up against a very different problem in this regard.
On homosexuality, I have had a certain amount of practising to do for the courts in investigating states of mind. In the light of such humble experience as I have had, I find it difficult to understand why the Wolfenden Committee came to the conclusions it did. My only hope of explaining that to myself is by reference to paragraphs 56 and 57 of the Report, which talk about the adult male who has sought as his partner another adult male and whether or not he would seek boys as partners, too. On the strength of assurances from expert witnesses—to wit, psychiatrists—I gather that
"They are in no doubt that whatever may be the origins of the homosexual condition, there are two recognisably different categories among adult male homosexuals. There are those who seek as partners other adult males, and there are paedophiliacs, that is to say men who seek as partners boys who have not reached puberty."
The argument continues:
"We are authoritatively informed that a man who has homosexual relations with an adult partner seldom turns to boys, and vice versa, though it is apparent from the police reports we have seen and from other evidence submitted to us that such cases do happen."
That may be true, though personally I doubt it, and I think that we should have much more information before we accept that. I absolutely decline to accept that the man who accepts another adult male as his partner will not seek an adolescent male above the age of puberty, because I think they all do. That is why, if we were to make indulgences in private not offences we would be permitting the spread of an activity which would inevitably lead to a greater evil in proselytising adolescents.
Mr. Frank Tomney: In 1947 the Cambridge Institute of Criminal Science made an inquiry embracing 1,000 cases from 14 police districts in the United Kingdom. There were in those 14 districts 275 indictable offences for homosexual practices involving 406 accomplices or victims. An examination of the records showed that
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the majority of victims were under the age of 16 and only 11 per cent. over the age of 21 and only one case of one adult with a consenting adult.
Dr. Bennett: That is not, I am sure, far from an average sort of figure. It so happens that in my attempts at practice in aid of the courts I have seen a fairly large number of homosexuals and I have been struck by the proportion of them who were adolescents who had been picked up. They were late developers, slow in maturing, uncertain of their sexual direction and they had been pushed into that direction.
I found that it was remarkably easy to cure these people with the aid of hormone treatment which has been already mentioned today. By reducing sexual tension of the individual, provided he is under suitable treatment, this treatment can so suppress it that a reorientation of ideas has time to take place so that when sexual desires are allowed to return on the cessation of treatment they take a more natural form. I am happy to say that if patients are suitably selected it seems that there is a good prospect of curing these men. That shows that we cannot regard homosexuals as hard and fast incurables nor as hereditary, congenital or even environmentally produced people who must have a separate way of life.
In my belief, a big part at least in the influencing and the curing of these young men and restoring them to normal life has been, so far as we can ascertain, the fear of the sanction of the law. I would respectfully take issue with anyone who says that the law is not a deterrent. I believe that it is a profound deterrent especially in the case of people of whom we have most hope of success. Therefore, I say that it would be disastrous to abandon the law on that point.
For these reasons I cannot accept the findings of the Wolfenden Report on homosexuality. My submission of evidence to the Commission was rather an odd thing and perhaps the House might take note of it. I worked in a public clinic in psychiatry and the staff were circularised about their opinions and evidence to be submitted to the committee. A questionnaire was circulated, which had already been prepared, and I found increasing difficulty in filling it in. There ultimately came a paragraph which

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I could not in any way fill in without agreeing to the resolution which the Wolfenden Committee has accepted. I wrote back that I refused to fill it in because it was impossible to do so without agreeing to this. I saw afterwards, in a paper, that in a Government clinic the staff had unanimously reported in favour of this so-called reform with one exception, and I wonder if that was me.
I do not think that the evidence produced by the psychiatric profession can necessarily be accepted as being as sound as it has been accepted as being by the Wolfenden Committee. That is all I wish to say on this subject. No doubt there will be ample opportunities of debating it in the future, and I should now like other hon. Members to have their turn to speak.
7.55 p.m.
Mr. Douglas Jay: I want to say only a brief and dispassionate word in support of the Wolfenden proposal to make homosexual acts between consenting adults in private no longer a criminal offence. The present law seems to me, in the words of The Times this morning, to be "obsolete and unjust," mainly, among other reasons, because, I believe, it infringes a basic principle of personal freedom.
I do not believe that the State or the criminal law has any right to interfere with the conduct of the individual, unless that conduct has some effect upon some otter people. That seems to me to be a basic principle on which one ought not to compromise. It also seems to me that that is true whatever the nature of the act we are considering. Therefore, many of the arguments that we have heard today are strictly irrelevant to the real issue before us.
The only issue is whether the practices in question have some effect on the rest of society or not. And if it is contended that they do—and I am not going to argue that tonight—I believe that it must be shown that the effect is clear and that it is substantial. I do not believe that a case has been made out in the instances we are now discussing nor, from the evidence that I have seen, can it be made out.
Once we depart from that principle and start arguing that, because we dislike some practice, or because we ourselves
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think it morally wrong, we should therefore legally prohibit other people from doing it, even though it has no effect upon anyone else, we are on a very slippery slope. This seems to me to be the beginning of all intolerance. It is a road which leads—much further on, but going in the same direction—eventually to concentration camps and to the persecution of heretics. The Home Secretary quite rightly mentioned today the argument that, if we remove the legal prohibition, the practice might actually spread as a result.
That argument can be used, and has been used, in favour of persecuting all sorts of heresies. I would prefer not to have even a foot on the road that leads, in that direction.
Therefore, I support the proposed reform, with all the safeguards, of course, for young people, which are not in issue at all in this debate. I believe that in the world in which we live we ought to give the benefit of the doubt, if there is a doubt, in favour of toleration and the liberty of the individual. Personal liberty as this 70-year-old controversy has again shown, is something very easily lost and very hardly won.
8.0 p.m.
Mrs. Evelyn Emmet: I am very grateful for having caught your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I think the women's societies and the public at large would have been rather surprised if no woman had intervened in this debate, and I hope that there will be one or two more women who will be able to take part. I shall be very brief, but I should like to take up two points relating to prostitution, on which I have noticed women's societies have been most interested.
There has been great objection to the proposal to drop the establishment of "annoyance". I am inclined to the views of the Wolfenden Report and the Home Secretary on this because, from records one has seen and from police evidence, it is almost impossible to establish annoyance and it seems to me that if it is not a practicable proposition then there is no point in keeping it in. The object of those wishing to keep it in is to insure that the client can be brought forward as a witness. We know very well that that never happens and that the evidence of

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the policeman has to be relied upon in any case.
I think that the annoyance is not so much the speaking of a woman to a man and soliciting in that way but annoyance to the public by the quantity of prostitutes haunting the streets. That is the real annoyance at present. It does not seem to me that the establishment of annoyance needs to be maintained to deal with that. We can surely deal with it under proceedings for loitering with intent or for being a public nuisance. I feel that is the most practical way of proceeding.
It has been said, and I think the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) raised the point in an interruption, that if we can prosecute a woman for offering wares we should be able to prosecute a man for accepting them. But we have to prove that, and to prove it we must catch him in flagrante delicto, and there is no chance at all of prosecuting a client unless we pursue the matter to the final end.
I am not at all sure that prostitution has increased as much as one would think from looking at the streets. I have the feeling that the difficulty of obtaining accommodation, the expensiveness of accommodation, the shortage of customers since the Services have shrunk and the war came to an end have driven the women more into the streets than they were before. For the same reasons parks also have been made more use of. I think we ought to proceed as recommended in the Report. Whatever the danger from clearing the streets, there are, as has been said, great advantages to the young in removing temptation which justifies our doing it.
I should like to deal briefly with the second point taken up by many of the societies, and that is the label of common prostitute. I should like to see the Scottish method brought to England, the caution. I feel that if there is one caution on the spot and one caution at the police station there is very little doubt that if there is a third time the fact is established that we are dealing with a common prostitute, and if we are dealing, with a fact we must admit the name. I do not see anything to quibble about in that.
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The caution enables the police to put a girl in touch with voluntary societies which can help her at an early stage. I feel that there should be a greater variety of treatment specially for these girls. I should like to see it made possible to bring them before the juvenile court and put under supervision as being in need of care, I should like to see the older ones sent to an approved school from the juvenile court.
Where I vary from the Report, and, perhaps, the Home Secretary, is that though I think the fine should be increased as suggested I should not like to see imprisonment as the only alternative on the third offence. I should like to see fines, or other suggestions by all means, and imprisonment also, but I should not like to see imprisonment as the only measure which can be taken.
Mr. W. Wells: I should like to point out to the hon. Lady that we did not, of course, recommend that that should be the only course open to the courts, but that that course should be open to the courts and that the courts should have power and discretion to impose a sentence of imprisonment if they thought fit.
Mrs. Emmet: I thank the hon. and learned Member. I hope that will be made clear in the summing up of the debate tonight. It is not clear at present, whatever the Wolfenden Report may have said. The point is not made by the Home Secretary today.
All the suggestions we have had up to date have really been negative ones, that is, on the repression of prostitution. There is one matter, however, which we should consider carefully. The type of girls we find on the streets are on the whole poorly educated, some of them are of low mentality, and most of them have left school early and come from bad homes. The result of that is that they will not be able to obtain a really remunerative occupation. They will be competing in the lowest markets for wages. We can see, therefore, the temptation of prostitution; we can also see that if they are driven underground they are not the type of girls who would be able to organise themselves, for they would not have the mentality for it. If they wished to pursue this trade they would hand themselves over to be

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organised. That is a matter we must bear in mind.
I was for some six years chairman of an approved school, and I studied a great many case histories there. We had a lot of girls of this type. It was quite obvious that the two principal factors in their background were bad homes and low mentality or poor education. It seems to me that if we are really going to do something about this matter other than try to repress prostitution we have to take a very much longer view.
We have to rethink in the educational world. I was very much in sympathy with what an hon. Member opposite said who talked about the family. I am certain that that is where we have to start, because bad homes mean there have been bad parents who do not realise their responsibilities.
I have a feeling that we have gone the wrong way about sex education in schools in recent years. Sex has been far too great a headline. What we ought to be doing is training our boys and girls in the responsibilities of married life and parenthood, of which sex naturally would be a part of the instruction. It has been taken out of its context and dealt with separately and given far too great importance.
There is a great deal to be done, particularly in training the girls. Hon. Members will know of the famous saying of the Jesuit, "Give me a child for the first seven years of its life and you can do what you like with it afterwards." The mother has the principal responsibility for the first seven years of a child's life. We teach our girls a certain amount of domestic science and how to wash and look after the baby physically, but I do not think we have begun to teach our girls how to conduct themselves when they become the mothers of future citizens.
I do not think that girls have realised that all the raw material will be going through their hands and that for the first seven years they will have a tremendous effect on the child, which may even by that time have the foundations laid for being a good citizen, a prostitute or the client of a prostitute. This tremendous responsibility which girls have as future mothers needs to be studied and the whole of the educational side gone into
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very carefully. I suggest that in this connection we ask our two bachelor Ministers in the Ministry of Education to consider seriously the setting up of a special committee to inquire into what methods are necessary to bring up not just educated youngsters but future parents.
8.11 p.m.
Mrs. Jean Mann: I hope that the hon. Lady the Member for East Grinstead (Mrs. Emmet) will forgive me if I do not follow her in her remarks and I return to the Wolfenden Report. I have never known a Report which was so well boosted. There has hardly been a week since its publication when the author has not been appearing either in the Press or at public functions or on the B.B.C.
Talk about the ten days' rule! How wonderful that last Friday, on "Any Questions", it was three to one. There was Sir John himself, there was Victor Mishcon, who wants us to follow Paris, and also someone from the Observer. I do not know the opinions of the fourth. I do not say that this was deliberately arranged for last Friday, but it was deliberately arranged for a date when it was known that the Wolfenden Report debate was bound to be in the offing. And, as usual, there were three cheers from the audience. There are always cheers, but particularly when it is represented that there will be prosecutions where there is an attempt to contaminate the young.
But an account of the Report in its entirety is never given. It is pointed out that there will be no prosecution of male adults who misconduct themselves privately, but who can object to that? It sounds to me quite good. It would never be found out, would it? Intercourse in private is not found out. If it is found out, it cannot have been in private. All people with normal minds accept that if it is conducted in private there will be no prosecution.
I think, however, that we had better have a definition of "private", and for that and other things I must return to the Report. I believe that very few people indeed have read it. I think that very few Members of Parliament have read it. I know that a great many people say that they have read it. It has been in my hands since September of last year, when I was asked by Granada Television

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to debate it one night. I find that I have had to return to the Report again and again. It is one thing to read a paragraph but quite another to get its full import.
One thing stands out a mile—that statutory authority is given to all adults to approach other adults and attempt by invitation or otherwise to get them to go to a private place for homosexual behaviour. These are the words of the one dissentient, James Adair. He says that to give statutory authority to all this
"is in my view a retrograde step and may readily lead to many undesirable scenes and to an increase in the amount of the behaviour itself."
No one has any right to talk about this Report without pointing out these implications.
The Report states in paragraph 115:
"…we recommend that Section 13 of the Sexual Offences Act, 1956, be amended in such a way that a person is not guilty of an offence against that section merely because"—
Yes, merely because—
"he procures or attempts to procure the commission with himself of an act which is no longer a criminal offence."
That is what we have to offer the public. Do hon. Members want to go to their constituencies with this—"What Wolfenden offer you"? If so, let them thumb-index it, and give it a good glossy print. Adult males can get other adult males to go to some private place. They can set up as lovebirds anywhere.
At present, it is no legal offence for a woman to take a separate dwelling. It would be if there were two of them, but if one woman takes a separate dwelling that is not an offence. The courts have held that it is not. Nor is it an offence if in her apartment the woman entertains her gentlemen friends. The Home Secretary has told me so.
The right hon. Gentleman goes further and informs me also that she can do this for the purpose of habitual prostitution. He has added that it would be no offence if another lady across the landing or in the same block of flats also took a separate apartment for the same purpose. Therefore, one might have this sort of thing spreading across a certain district. Thus we should open the door for the male who is now demanding equality with the female—and I have always held that he should have equality.
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There are other facets of this Report which in my opinion show the Committee's deductions and conclusions to have been arrived at on a far from scientific basis.
Is the number of homosexuals increasing? That is a vital point which is referred to in the Appendix under the heading "Statistics Relating to Homosexual Offences", with a subheading, "Homosexual Offences Known to the Police". Then there is a table of figures from the years from 1931 to 1955. This shows that in 1951 there was a total of 622 offences and in 1955 a total of 6.644. What do our friends say about that? That does not impress the Committee, not a bit. The report states:
"…homosexual offences known to the police will therefore be conditioned to a large extent both by the efficiency of the police methods of detecting and recording, and by the intensity of police activity."
Now, Sir, you and I might think that the Chief Commissioner of Police knows his business, and in his crime report he makes the deduction that if there is at any given period an increase in the cases coming before the courts, there is usually a far bigger increase in the cases that never come before the courts. One would expect the Committee to agree, but not so. This wonderful Committee in fact states in the Report:
"In brief, therefore, it would be dangerous to argue from the police statistics alone either that there was an overall increase or that homosexual behaviour was most prevalent in those areas where the number of cases recorded as known to the police was the highest."
There is another thing you and I might think, Sir. It is that our police have been working short-handed. Indeed we have heard that they have been very shorthanded indeed, but the Committee does not think so. The Committee deduces that the police have had such a surplus that they have been able to chase up all the homosexuals in the various districts of London.
Here is another example of a fallacious argument about homosexuality in the Report. After stating that it is a misconception to think that it belongs only to the intelligentsia, the report states:
"Our evidence shows that it exists among all callings and at all levels of society…"

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Then there is this argument that:
"…among homosexuals will be found not only those possessing a high degree of intelligence but also the dullest oafs."
Then the Report states that because a prominent man gets great newspaper publicity, we all deduce from this that the practice is particularly active in the upper classes. Why gaze in the crystal when we can get police statistics? The police statistics and indeed all records of crime would show where homosexuals come from. Yet the Report gives nothing beyond an argument, with no logical reasoning behind it as to whether this practice comes from a university or anywhere else. An argument cannot be sustained when it is taken from the particular to meet the general case.
Sir H. Linstead: Will the hon. Lady allow me to intervene for a moment? I feel that she must want to do complete justice to the Committee. She has selected a number of extracts which suit her argument and she might at least include the final words of paragraph 46, in which we sum up by saying:
"…the incidence of homosexuality and homosexual behaviour must be large enough to present a serious problem."
Mrs. Mann: It is still very inconclusive as regards the police report. Again I ask you, Sir, to look at this fallacious reasoning in paragraph 218. Here the Press is blamed. Of all people, the Press is blamed for giving far too much publicity, and the Report states that the reporting of such cases is "almost wholly bad." Now let us look at what the "bad lads" of the Press have been doing. The Report goes on:
"We have, incidentally, encountered several cases in which men have got into touch with homosexual offenders whose convictions were reported in the Press, with the result that further homosexual offences were committed."
Being an ordinary person, my feeling is that a report in the Press of a homosexual case would scare the wits out of most potential homosexuals. The Committee takes the opposite point of view. Even the Press is wrong. I should imagine that the Press was doing a mighty lot of good in reporting these cases. I should think that those who had any tendency towards homosexuality would say, "We had better watch our P's and Qs." As a mother, I would welcome that; I would feel that it would scare the life out of any young boy.
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Now I will return again to the Churches who have supported this, with the exception of the Church of Scotland. Mr. Adair points out that most of these organisations were either advised by, or had evidence given to them by, psychiatrists. Neither psychiatrists nor the Churches condemn criminals. Ask the clergy what kind of sentence they would give to anyone. They would not want to give a sentence at all, regarding these people as poor, beloved sinners. They say we must hate the sin but we must love the sinner. They know all about sin—
Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is my hon. Friend aware of the Christian sentiment:
"He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone…"?
Mrs. Mann: Oh, yes. Quite an old one that, but it should not be used, and surely never was intended to be used, as an incentive towards the furtherance of crime. I am reminded of the man who, coming back from church, met another man in a quiet road in Scotland. He said, "Jock, you are a very faithful attender at church". Jock replied, "Aye, I go every Sunday. I love to listen to that parson, because he kens all aboot sin."
I notice that professional bodies and the Church are mentioned, but I do not notice mention of the trade unions. There is not one trade union here. I cannot imagine the miners' lodges welcoming a Report which will mean that it will no longer be an offence to procure an adult male and to set up a house in a mining village for a male friend. I cannot see the Co-operative women's guilds welcoming this, or the townswomen's guilds.
A very limited but very powerful and influential body is behind the Report, and behind the expense of the sending out of the Report. It has very wide ramifications. The evil thread runs through the theatre, through the music hall, through the Press, and through the B.B.C. It has international ramifications. When this Report tries to soften our hearts about blackmail, we must think how often we have heard of the poor fellow whose name appears in the Press and is blackmailed. But we are not told of blackmail in reverse. Have none of us heard about fellows who are passed over, in favour

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of someone who is willing to render service to someone up above? We have heard of contracts that are lost, or of engagements that are given for services rendered. This blackmail of the vilest type is running through our society like an evil thread.
We are told about lads who do not get promotion because they have a Scottish accent. I wish the truth were known about why many of them do not get promotion and why many others get both promotion and contracts.
Now I want to speak about this idea of homosexuality in private. We should have a definition of what is meant by "in private". Mr. Adair says:
"…it will make legal acts which have in the past been the subject of some notorious and highly objectionable cases."
In other words, they will be kept out of the Press because they will be quite legal in the future. Mr. Adair goes on:
"I refer to acts in rooms and cubicles of hotels, lodging houses and hostels where even the owner, occupier or manager may be a principal participant."
Though parents with sons and daughters growing up to manhood and womanhood be ever so careful, there comes a time when the children must leave the family home. Many of them go to boarding school. If, in a boarding school or university hostel, two adult males are constantly together night after night in a bedroom, they set a very bad example to other boys and it gets talked about. Let hon. Members make no mistake about that; the boys will talk about it.
Today the boys can say, "That is illegal", and the adult males concerned dare not do it for fear they are found out, when they will be brought before the magistrates. If effect is given to this Report, that will be all right; they can do it, Parliament will have decided that it is O.K. I will not go into all the facets of this problem, but on Friday night I heard it said on the radio that it is indulged in for no other reason than that it is perhaps fashionable.
Some people are genuinely afflicted and deserve all our sympathy and all our help. We should have a care for them and let them have the treatment which is available. There are others who, like women on the street, take up the job
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because there is good pay, it is easy work and they like it. Those who might be tempted and could have treatment will find they do not need to bother any further about taking treatment, as they are never likely to be impugned by the law. They will never see their names in the newspapers for having committed these acts. There is blackmail in reverse. When a man of 21 and over goes to a young fellow of 18, the younger can say at present that this is a crime as well as a sin. He will not have that reinforcement behind him. The tempter will be able to say to him, "It is all right, Parliament has approved it."
There is the anxiety of parents. I quote from what was said about homosexuality by an Oxford University preacher. He said:
"I know this sort of thing is afoot in the university. People, particularly parents, are anxious about it."
In his sermon he had said:
"It is open to any senior member of this university to corrupt our undergraduates with considerable security callously filling the lives of these young men with misery and sin."
This Report shows how to stimulate and encourage it. In what way should we deal with it? By heavy penalties and long imprisonment? I do not think so. In cases which appear from time to time, one feels that no amount of imprisonment will ever cause the hurt that those concerned have caused to their wives and probably to their children. Imprisonment, however severe, never pierces so deeply as these actions on the remaining members of the family of the one who is imprisoned. I am not enamoured of that method at all.
I should like to get to the cause of this problem. I thought we were spending £8,046 to get to the cause of it. I think the Report is worth the odd £46. There is no attempt in the Report to get to the cause of it. There is only a recommendation that perhaps we could try to get to the cause of it, and I hope that we shall. I hope, too, that we shall give some detailed study to the treatment of it and I hope that we shall review our ideas about whether putting homosexuals into prison will help or hinder.
I should like to see the Scottish system introduced. I do not like to see a man listed at once but not tried for perhaps six weeks or two months. It should be

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left to the Procurator Fiscal to make the charge and at that time to fix the trial. There are some reforms to which we could turn our minds, but I am sorry to see that they are not in this Report.
May I conclude with a word of warning that wherever I find the Wolfenden Report moved, as it will be, into discussions public or private, I shall follow it to show that the Committee is asking for an amendment of the law to allow male adults to procure male adults and to allow male adults to set up house together. The public ought to be properly informed.
8.43 p.m.
Mr. Cyril W. Black: I think the hon. Lady the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mrs. Mann) has done well to draw attention to the very high pressure campaign which has been undertaken in recent months in support of the recommendation of the Committee on which she has been speaking. Those who are in favour of the recommendation arid who seek to effect an alteration in the law are perfectly entitled to organise themselves for the purpose and to undertake any publicity and propaganda that they may wish in that direction. But I think the House should have its attention drawn to the fact that such a campaign has obviously been in progress and that there is a fear that, as a result of that campaign, we may be led into thinking that that view represents a majority of public opinion, when in my view exactly the reverse is the case.
Statements have been made this afternoon about the attitude of the churches oil this matter, and this is only one of the particulars in which the campaign which has been undertaken has misrepresented the true position. It has been stated, for instance, by the Homosexual Law Reform Society that the utterances of the churches have been overwhelmingly in favour of the implementation of the recommendation. I do not believe that that is an accurate statement of the opinion of the churches at all. It is a fact that the Church of Scotland, the Church of Ireland and the Salvation Army have all expressed themselves against this recommendation. My own church, the Baptist Church, is certainly not in favour of it, and when we come to the other churches which have given
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more or less qualified support it is interesting to look at what the voting figures have been.
Let me take the Assembly of the Church of England in order to see the extent of the support in the Established Church. At the meeting of the Church Assembly in which a vote was taken on this matter there could have been 735 members present. That is the strength of the Church Assembly. When the vote was taken, 155 members voted in favour and 138 voted against, so that out of the whole body of the Church Assembly, 21 per cent. voted in favour of the recommendation of the Report, 19 per cent. voted against, and 60 per cent. either were not present or abstained from voting.
Mr. John Mackie: I do not say this in any hostile spirit, but may not that have been due to the fact that the Most Reverend the Primate of Canterbury made a speech in the debate in another place on the Wolfenden Report, strongly favouring the recommendations? Perhaps the 60 per cent. who abstained may not have wished to offend the Primate.
Mr. Black: Possibly. I only say that it is quite incorrect to state that the churches' utterances have been overwhelmingly in favour of this recommendation. I think that it would be much fairer to say that the leaders of the various churches have shown themselves to be more or less equally divided on the subject. When we come to the rank-and-file membership of the Churches, however, my impression is—and I give it merely as an impression, because no one can prove or disprove what I am about to say—that in this matter the instinct of the rank-and-file has been more sound than has that of many of the leaders, and I think that among the rank-and-file there would be found to be a considerable majority against the proposal.
I am singularly unconvinced by the argument that a hard-and-fast line can and should be drawn between sin and crime between sin, which is to he tolerated by the law, and crime which is to he punished by it. I cannot but feel that the attempt to draw this distinction leaves the great mass of ordinary people entirely unimpressed—
Mr. Hale: What about adultery in those circumstances? Is that to be prosecuted?
Mr. Black: If the hon. Member will wait for a moment I will develop my argument, but I will develop it in my own way.
On this attempt to draw the line between sin and crime, the case has been most admirably put by Lord Justice Denning, a great lawyer and a great churchman, who has said:
"It is impossible to draw a hard-and-fast line between crime and sin. So far as the right standards of behaviour are concerned I say most emphatically these standards and these morals are the concern of the law whether done in private or in public. Without religion there can be no morality and without morality there can be no law. A great part of our legal system is concerned with laying down the right standards of behaviour, and to a great number of people these are the only standards they know…The law influences public opinion and, conversely, public opinion influences the law. They act and react on one another, so it is of the highest importance that the law should lay down the right standards, standards that commend themselves to right-thinking people as being correct. Law in the wider sense governs most of the spheres of human activity, and I say it is impossible to draw a hard-and-fast line between crime and sin."
That sums up the matter in very much better language than I could command.
I also find myself differing from the view, so frequently advanced in this debate and in discussion in the country, that to relax the law in favour of the homosexual would not lead to any considerable increase in this type of behaviour. Quite frankly, I do not believe that. It seems to me to be contrary to all human experience and I think it certain that the proposed relaxation of the law would inevitably lead to a great increase in this type of practice.
In this connection, it is interesting to see what Mr. James Adair, the dissenting member, said in his speech to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. He told the Assembly of homosexual clubs in Britain affiliated to an international organisation with a membership of 14,000. He said:
"We are being asked to consider as being no longer unlawful something which is practised for its own sake. Sinning, it may be said, for the sake of sinning."
This was something which was organised, as was well known in the South. There were a number of clubs composed of this
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class and they were propagating this practice.
He continued:
"Within five weeks of the publication of the Wolfenden Report one of the smaller clubs received forty applications for membership. The international organisation had a publication which gave out a directory telling members of places in principle cities where they might meet those of their own kind. It included hotels and restaurants."
Mr. Austen Albu: Was any evidence given on how this information was obtained? It seems to me to be rather detailed information, and if it was known to the police presumably police action was taken.
Mr. Black: The sources of a great many statements made in this connection have not been disclosed. I am simply quoting what Mr. James Adair said as a man of responsibility, a member of the Committee and a man who would not make that kind of statement without having evidence to support it. To relax the law now in favour of the homosexual would be accepted as a signal that the State tolerated and condoned unnatural acts between men. The moral stigma would be lifted, not only from this conduct thus taken off the list of crimes, but from other conduct far more damaging, such as acts between adults and boys. What is admissible for those over an arbitrary age, it would be felt, could hardly be very wrong for those just under that age.
We have all, been greatly impressed this afternoon by two speakers who are practising psychiatrists, one from either side of the House, and each has condemned with qualifications this proposal and has expressed his own views about its unwisdom. Their testimony is of particular value and force, as it so often happens that psychiatrists as a class are to be found among those who would take a light view of moral responsibility and the moral consequences of acts of a sinful character.
The British Federation of Psychologists welcomed this recommendation. I am quite clear that twenty-five years ago this recommendation of the Committee would never have been seriously considered either in this House or in the country, but since then the intensive operations of a large body of psychologists have done much to weaken the sense of personal responsibility.

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There seems to me to be a dangerous tendency in this country at the present time to suggest that no criminal can really help or should be held responsible for what he is doing. When a vicious young man nearly batters an old woman to death and steals money from the till some people are inclined to say that he cannot help it, that his mother was unkind to him when he was young or that he had a bad home environment. That may be true, and one is sorry for people in that position, but that is not a reason for not pitting the law into operation, because the public must be protected against acts of violence.
The same sort of argument applies in the case of homosexuals. It is no doubt true that some of them are so constituted by nature that they cannot help being homosexuals, but is that a reason for altering the law and making it easier for them? If one applies the principal logically, then one must apply it also to other forms of mania. For instance, what about kleptomaniacs?
I was brought up to believe, as I think many hon. Members were brought up to believe, that men and women are responsible moral beings, that every day in which we live we have the choice either of walking in the straight and narrow way that leads to life or treading the broad and slippery path which leads to destruction. The consequences follow according to the moral choices that men and women make, day by day and year by year, in the course of life. In my opinion, anything which has the effect, as I believe this proposal would have, of weakening that sense of moral responsibility, should be opposed by this House.
These unnatural practices, if persisted in, spell death to the souls of those who indulge in them. Great nations have fallen and empires been destroyed because corruption became widespread and socially acceptable.
8.56 p.m.
Mr. Leslie Hale: To the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black), I can say that he could have made that speech in any century in history without fearing any prosecution for heresy.
I understand that I must be brief. I have listened to many speeches today. I listened with particular interest to the brilliant and moving speech made by
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my hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin). I have listened always with doubt. I have no certainty on this matter. It is to one limited aspect that I wish to devote my time, but if I may I will say one thing in opening. The vice Anglais is not buggery but hum-buggery. This is said also on the Continent. It is one of the things we ought to make a very great effort to avoid. I think that both sides in this controversy should make an effort to avoid it. I believe that the sort of propaganda which has been circulated round the House during the last week or two, and through the post, has done much more harm than good to the cause it tries to serve.
On the subject of homosexuality, I go no further than this. I am in favour of trying what is proposed as an experiment. I am in favour of supporting the Report. I came to that decision with reluctance. I was a little frightened when I began to receive organised support of this kind. I am perfectly in favour of saying that as a sinner myself I am anxious to be tolerant to my fellow sinners, but I am not in favour of establishing a corps d'élite of sexual perverts.
A few sentences, if I may, on the subject of prostitution. I note with some surprise that a great deal of the attention of some reverend gentleman is devoted to Sodom and Gomorrah and very little is devoted to the woman who annointed the feet of Christ. I do not, of course, ask anyone to believe that the ladies who can be seen in Compton Street today are Magdalens, but I do suggest that they are a public responsibility. We should have regard to that responsibility.
I can think of very little worse than putting them in prison. It would be bad for them, and it would be worse for the other women prisoners, very seriously worse. My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) made that remark. I agree with it of course. I appreciate that it was his desire for brevity which prevented him from developing it. I wonder whether that does not show so much of the evil of the prison system that a few other questions are made relevant.
Yesterday morning, I talked to a young, bright-eyed, rather fine looking young man who was about to embark on a new life. In a very few months, he will seek a new existence, in circumstances which

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are rather unusual. He appeared to me to be a boy of 23. I was told that he was 30. About eleven years ago he was sent to prison. I said, "It has to be a fairly serious crime for a man of 19 to be sent to prison for eleven years". I was told that it was; he was sentenced to death for the murder of his father. I know that a number of hon. Members opposite will say that I have no sympathy for mothers and fathers and will put forward an argument which has been used ad nauseam over the years. That man has had the hard discipline of a French prison under a director who is seeking to cure his patients. He has had to do hard work for fifty-six hours a week for ten or eleven years. He started with what might be called nine months' solitary confinement, which might sound brutal but which is really segregation.
In a prison of 400 people there are ten highly qualified observation officers to watch the progress of that man and to find out whether there is any hope for him and to move him a little from one section to another until finally, after about ten years, he may graduate to a dormitory society. There is no fear of homosexual activity or anything of that kind, and ultimately he may go outside to work and come back to the prison at night. All that is done in an organisation in a country which we rather sneer at in relation to the work done for the reform of prisoners. If he had been condemned in this country in all probability he would have been sewing mailbags for twenty-three hours a week.
We do not even make the men work. A constant allegation against penal reformers is that they want to pamper prisoners. The first thing that a prisoner should be called upon to do is a full week's work—productive work. I did not see the figures for the prison in the Forest of Fontainebleau yesterday morning. I had only a few hours, having to come back to vote on motor cars. I would hazard a guess that that prison costs less per head to run than the average British prison, which has a larger number of warders and which is wholly unproductive. The men in the French prison are working exclusively for the French Government, the United Nations and the Council of Europe. They were providing excellent material like filing cabinets, doing steel work, printing
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and bookbinding and so on. Provided they worked jolly hard and preserved good discipline they could win a few privileges.
I talked to a lad who had just gone into the segregation section. He had raped a girl of 14 three or four years ago. He will have fifteen years of penitence for it. I have a great deal of sympathy for the girl, who may be ruined for life. The State should be looking after her. It may be that it is. But we should adopt the attitude that these matters are the responsibility of ourselves. We have to do something about it.
I do not accept in toto the suggestion that homosexuality is nearly as widespread as has been suggested. My view is that it tends to become an urban crime, and the fact that it tends to become an urban crime shows that it can be acquired by other means than by hereditary or congenital means. There is no question that this can have a psychic infection. The conditions in Berlin immediately after the First World War showed that this sort of thing can spread and is dangerous.
I agree entirely that if we make the experiment it will be a risky one. If we make it, I suggest that we should do it on the two grounds which the right hon. Gentleman put so clearly. After all, Oscar Wilde was not a very attractive figure. I do not regard him as a very considerable figure in literature, but he had wit and he had talent. By and large, he was from many points of view a singularly objectionable individual. He was arrogant and ungenerous. He played no part in society. He had a melancholy genetic history, but the public still feel a considerable responsibility for the way in which he was harried down by self-righteous people with less virtue than he.
We all feel a responsibility to these men, who, we know, may in the main be victims of genetic conditions and who are placed in a situation in which the very mention of a charge of this kind against them commences a social ruin; in which the charge is so difficult to defend; in which it is so brutally punished and in which it leads, at present certainly, to no particular obvious opportunity of reformation; and, as the Home Secretary fairly said, it is so unevenly applied. It

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is applied unevenly geographically because some police forces are much more active than others. It is applied unevenly because so often it comes to light only as a result of somebody else, and it is applied in circumstances that excite a certain amount of reprobation.
I have referred to what has been done in France and I would like to say to the Home Secretary, who, I know, feels deeply about these matters and whose interest in mental health is not the subject of any suspicion, that I am sure that he is sincerely interested in these matters. I would like him to go to the little institute at Utrecht and see the work that is being done there. If he would talk to Professor Baal and Professor Rosenberg there, he would find out that they are embarking upon a really new voyage into the interior of the human mind. It is a fantastic experiment.
I am not depreciating the work which has been done in England. The Utrecht people refer with admiration to Dr. Maxwell Jones, at Belmont, and with' great interest to the limited group at Wormwood Scrubs. We are making our contribution. The people at Utrecht, however, have adopted the legislative principle to start with that if a man is certified as suffering from a mental condition which diminishes his responsibility and, at the same time, is capable, in their view, of remedial treatment, he is treated at once as a patient. He is not convicted in any way. He is ordered to be at the disposal of the Government, which means that he may lose his liberty in a treatment institution for up to two years; and even that can be extended if necessary. He is from the start a patient.
Those engaged upon this experimental work found that they were committing many errors, which they frankly confess. They found, amazingly enough, that the psychiatric treatment had detrimental physical results, that it was possible to light up old infections and even to light up a dormant tuberculosis or to excite a gastric ulcer because of the strain to which the patient was being subjected. As they studied they came to a conclusion, which should be sufficiently obvious, that when one is dealing with a psychiatric sufferer, the one place where he should not be sent is prison, because the world of a prison is a restricted and abnormal world, whereas the task is to
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lead the sufferer back to normality. Prison is a confined world, and the aim is to build freedom of the mind. It tends to become a renounced world, because, as the right hon. Gentleman well knows the prisoner tends to become a victim of a quite unreal persecution complex and to develop a sort of inverted esprit de corps with his fellow prisoners against the State, against society, and so on. These are the difficulties with which we have to contend.
I have the greatest admiration for our prison staffs. I consider that Gilbert Hair, at the Scrubs, is doing a marvellous job in almost impossible conditions. He has a vast variety of races and religions to look after—all types of prisoners, 1,400 of them. As far as I know, he has three deputy-assistants, that is, four skilled officers for 1,400 men. Brixton is just a darned great passenger station with chaps wheeling in and wheeling out, and no time to find out who they are. And so it goes on. We who used to lead the world in penal reform are now definitely behind in the struggle to get results.
I listened with great attention and respect and, I hope, with understanding to my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Morley (Dr. Broughton) and to his colleague on the other side of the House, the hon. Member for Gosport and Fare-ham (Dr. Bennett). It would be impertinent of me to express any doubt even about their conclusions. All I would say is that from all the information which I have been getting in visits recently the view that the arrogance or isolation of the homosexual makes him unresponsive to psychiatric treatment is beginning to be broken down.
The division between invert and pervert is recognised as a false division. Reliance on the endogenous theory now gives way to the view that, more often than not, sociogenous and psychogenous factors intervene in early infancy. Often, of course, in a quite different class of case, association with boys, producing a condition of things which it is our duty to protect parents against—of course it is; no one disputes that—there may be a lighting up of a latent endogenous condition by the temptations of fortuitous opportunity." But light is coming. The psychiatrists know that they are working in a long and almost interminable tunnel.

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groping in the dark and sometimes groping backwards by mistake, but always borne on in their work by the feeling that there is a little light at the end which seems to them to get a little clearer and brighter as time goes on.
I have seen, time after time, the pitiable state of the helpless man—not merely the homosexual; all kinds of sexual complexities come into this—the man who never did any harm at all but who commits an habitual, perpetual and foolish act of indecent exposure. We send him to prison, out he comes and does it again; the man who commits some rather tiny indecent assault sometimes on young girls and sometimes on girls of a certain age and goes on doing the same thing in a hopeless, helpless and repetitive way.
The experts have been trying to deal with repetitive crime which can include almost anything from stealing a bicycle, never a tricycle, robbing a poor box and never a safe, assaulting a girl of seven and never attempting intimacy with a girl of 20.
For years I have seen men, otherwise decent, go through the agony of prosecution, go through the horror of communication with their wives and go through the misery of giving up their job. They go to prison and come out absolutely resolved that they will never do it again. No one can question that. Then some little circumstance occurs and it happens again. Let us never forget that physical conditions operate too. It is very easy to develop a hate complex against crime. It is always useful that we should have a reservation of indignation, but we all know that some simple disease can affect a man's mind to the extent that he becomes irresponsible for a short period to temptation. He may be a perfectly reputable and decent man, but he suffers a dose of influenza and he may develop a suicidal complex or a curious lack of responsibility, a susceptibility to temptation which may ruin a brilliant career and leave him utterly hopeless in the face of an accusation of a shameful nature.
It is in the sense of feeling sympathy for those who have gone through this terrible misfortune that we should consider the matter and see whether we cannot remake these broken lives so that
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when the prison gate opens after due punishment there will be hope for them in the future.
9.15 p.m.
Mr. Peter Rawlinson: We have all listened with interest to the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale), who sometimes serves us a souffle and sometimes a more robust steak and kidney pudding. His speech in this debate has not been in the same light vein which has characterised many of his speeches to us.
I want to follow by giving the practical experience of a professional member of the Bar. In my practice and in the course of my duties I have seen at close hand some of the tremendous personal tragedies which arise from these cases, and if there are any hon. Members, whatever their views are about this Report, whether they think that recommendation should be accepted or not, who are prepared to pooh-pooh the extent of this human tragedy, then they are very wickedly wrong, because the penalty which society demands, which society obtains, arbitrary as it may be, for one single act to be paid perhaps after years of service with distinction, is such that to see it and witness it is something one can never forget.
I can only say from my personal experience that I have left the court at the conclusion of some trials sickened by injustice, not so much of the verdict, but sickened by the injustice which does surround so many of this kind of crimes. To sit there and see a man, perhaps of talent and distinction, in the box, and to see the worthless wretched creatures being paraded there as witnesses for the Crown, pampered by the police as persons upon whom apparently there has been cast the mantle of perfection, to see it is to feel that it is a mockery by society, the mockery of the administration of the law, and it leaves an impression wellnigh inerasable.
I want to make it quite clear to all hon. Members that my principal concern and my greatest aim here is with the administration of the law rather than the law itself. I do not approve of procedures, which have arisen in these cases, of rearrest on other charges, of the impression of other people involved to secure conviction of a particular person. They

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illustrate so much the temptations there are to the police and show the need of revision of the system of prosecution and of those persons in charge of prosecutions. I can only say, apart from any of these cases I have seen, that for the persons convicted of offences, which even under the present recommendations of the Wolfenden Committee would still be offences, the tragedy is immense.
While I listened with the very greatest of interest, if I may be impertinent enough to say so, to the extremely good speech by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood), and while I have tremendous sympathy with these persons, nevertheless I cannot personally accept the main recommendation of the Wolfenden Committee in regard to homosexuals. I do believe as an individual —I may be right or I may he wrong—that there do exist private realms in which the State should intrude.
I believe that the removal of this offence from the Statute Book would be at this time against the public interest. I think that as the State does not allow that any two people are entitled to batter themselves to pieces in a prize fight, that no person is entitled to say, "I will put an end to my life", that no person is entitled to commit even in privacy the offence of incest, and as the State can intrude to uphold these laws, so it has the right and duty to say, "You may not do this even though it is done in the privacy of your own home".
One has to accept straight away the implications of this argument, that this will condemn these people to an existence of extreme loneliness and celibacy. It is a desperate penalty to pay and an enormous burden which is thrust upon them. Nevertheless, I feel that the recommendations which are made involve such difficulty that I personally cannot accept them.
We cannot, as these recommendations appear to do, equate somehow the position of men and women in this problem. We cannot really talk about, or at least we shall find it difficult to disagree that, one act is natural and the other unnatural. Surely everybody knows which is the ordinary natural function. Protection, of course, is given to a young girl at a certain age, and the
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legal age of consent is 16. It may have been in years past, in the times of our great grandfathers or beyond, that young girls if they had reached a certain age of physical maturity were able and did indeed get married. But can we in making a recommendation like this draw an arbitrary line and say that at a certain age a man can engage with another man in an action which is in fact, whether we accept it or not, unnatural?
Which is it to be? At 20 or 21? Is it to be at 18 or at 16 years of age? The difficulties are acknowledged in the Report. I found it very difficult to follow the differences and distinctions brought out by some hon. Members with reference to the pedophiliac who prefers the young boy. My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) referred to the subject. What is to be the position of the adolescent? Will not the person who says, "I can do this with a man of 21", not perform in that way also with younger persons? There is this fear of proselytisation, and I think that is a very serious fact which must be considered.
The whole of the debate has turned on this one recommendation, but there are other recommendations which in my view should be acted on straight away. The administration of the law in these cases should be humane and should be sensible. There should not be a prosecution without the leave of the Attorney-General. Leave has to be given by the Attorney-General to prosecute in cases concerned with the Prevention of Corruption, offences under the Official Secrets Act and incest, unless proceedings are brought by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
I have been shocked in reading the Report at some of the extraordinary cases involving blackmail which are quoted in various paragraphs. I have always understood that if a person went to the police and told them a story of blackmail that person was given, straight away without question, unless the circumstances were very remarkable, the protection of the police. Why was not that given in the case to which reference is made in paragraph 112 of the Report? Who was it who gave approval to a prosecution in that case? The police, of course, have a duty, but I should have thought it was clear that if we are to maintain the

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law the police must not entertain in any shape or form a prosecution in a case where complaint was made arising out of blackmail.
At least one hon. Member representing Scotland has spoken in the debate, and I would recommend to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary a very close study of the Scottish system of law. It appears to me that when we have these debates in the House and we have the one balanced against the other the Scottish system of law always comes out very much to advantage. I speak with very little knowledge of Scotland and with no understanding of the language, but I believe that the Procurator Fiscal, who is responsible to the Lord Advocate, prosecutes and his overriding consideration is the public interest.
It is interesting to note from various paragraphs in the Wolfenden Report that in the three years ending March, 1956, 449 out of the 480 persons over 21 in England, or 94 per cent., made confessions or admissions to the police, whereas in Scotland that was so in one out of the nine cases. In England about 300 acts were committed in private and in Scotland seven. I asked my right hon. Friend for the figures since 1956 but he was unable to give the information. It is important that we should have the information in order to be able to decide how great is the problem, how many of these people have been convicted, and how many are being sent to prison if they are convicted.
The views of the Committee were clear, that the prevalence of homosexual activity in different parts of Scotland and England was comparable. Yet there are all these prosecutions and convictions in England and very few in Scotland. Why? Because there is a discretion in the Procurator Fiscal to prosecute only when it is in the public interest.
Secondly, there arises the great matter of the taking of statements, which involves prisoners in eventually arriving in the dock. Under English law the taking of these statements and the procedure of the police is governed by the Judge's Rules. A police officer can question, subject to a caution, up to the time the prisoner is taken into custody. Even then, even if that caution is not given in breach of the Judge's Rules, neverthe-
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less that evidence may still be admissible at the discretion of the judge. In Scotland, however, they are much more strict. A person may not be questioned so as to incriminate him, and if one thinks that the person is the perpetrator of the offence, he must be cautioned and questioning must cease. Then, if he wishes to make a statement, he sends for his adviser, his solicitor or even a magistrate.
Of course, justice includes the convicting of the guilty just as much as the acquitting of the innocent, but why is it so important to take statements in cases of this kind? It is because in homosexual cases often the only corroboration is the confession. The greater the necessity therefore to obtain it. The temptation of the police in the exercise of their zeal, the inducement, through fear of publicity, that if a statement is made nothing more will be heard about the matter—all these are abuses of the procedures of the court, and therefore the corrupting of officers in the most important of their duties, the sanctity of truth and the sanctity of the rules of procedure. Therefore I ask my right hon. Friend to see that these changes are brought about and brought soon. As there is to be no change in the law there should only be prosecutions with the leave of the Attorney-General, and they should be brought by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
We have heard about the variety and the uniformity of practice. Let us recollect that no hon. Members in this House can ask any questions of my right hon. Friend about county police forces. We must remember the different position of the police forces compared with the Metropolitan Police Force, about which we can ask questions of my right hon. Friend.
Then there is the question of stale offences, which gives great offence to all of us. Again there should be the Scottish procedure, where no proceedings can be brought in the court of summary jurisdiction after six months. They can, of course, try on indictment and then they have to go to the Crown Office—not to the chief constable or whoever prosecutes in the county, but to the Director of Public Prosecutions, so that he can make his decision and can say whether it is in the public interest to bring the proceedings.

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There is another change of the law I wish to see, and it is why I say with all respect to my right hon. Friend that legislation is needed, even if it is not intended to implement the main recommendation of the Committee. Importuning is not now triable by jury, it should be. I know that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has expressed in this House greater confidence in the ability of magistrates to convict, than he has in juries. I believe, however, that a man who is put on a charge of importuning—again the fine does not matter, the penalty does not matter; it is the charge that is brought against him that matters and on which the whole of his future career depends. I believe that such a man should have a right to be tried by his peers and that this should be brought into operation immediately.
Mr. Ede: The hon. Gentleman has mentioned my name. I have never spoken on this issue in the House. I did deal with the question of the kind of case which could, with advantage, not go to a jury, but it had nothing to do with the sort of case with which the hon. Gentleman has dealt or with the consequences which he has just mentioned.
Mr. Rawlinson: I remember the occasion very well. The hon. Gentleman had been speaking of persons who were charged with being drunk in charge of a motor car, and he said it would be better if they were tried by a magistrate instead of by a jury because juries had a strange tendency—these are almost the hon. Gentleman's words—to acquit. On the other hand, I would take the offenders whom we are discussing now before a jury, where they would have a far better, a proper, form of trial than they have before a 'magistrate, or before a London stipendiary whose list is usually so full and the pressure on whose time is so great that he would welcome a proposal that these people should he given a chance of trial by jury.
I disagree with the Committee on one further matter. There is a distinction between buggery and gross indecency. One is a more serious offence and it should be retained as an offence because it is an abuse of a natural function. The penalty should be greater. I want to make it clear that I do not think a term
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of imprisonment should ever be imposed for offences between consenting adults in private. It is the wrong penalty for this crime. Let us retain it as a crime. The punishment is not what happens when the persons have been found guilty and the magistrate or the judge passes sentence. The penalty has been paid long before, innocent or guilty, mark my words. The mere accusation, as such, makes the penalty quite out of proportion to the offence that may have been committed.
Prison is as useless in these cases as it is for attempted suicides and for persons who commit incest. The offence should be retained, just as it is for attempted suicide, to mark our disapproval of this conduct, but it is quite sufficient 'to fine the offender, or put him on probation, or impose any of the other penalties which still exist and do not involve going to prison.
I recollect very well the words that you spoke earlier this evening, Mr. Speaker, about the length of speeches. I would only add that I believe there are grave difficulties about the question of prostitution. There are 500 registered prostitutes on the list at Bow Street and that list is nothing like the list at Marlborough Street. There is a pretty large list of practising prostitutes in our community. Are we to drive them underground? If we do, shall we not thereby create a system in this city in which there are far greater opportunities for corruption and for much graver evils, in which other persons earn and enjoy more of the fruits of the labour of these women? The fine should be increased. The existing 40s. is quite out of date, and out of relation to the value of money at the present time. I would ask my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to think very carefully and to take the advice of those who have to deal with these people in courts—I am sure he will—before bringing in the legislation which is promised.
There are further points which I should have liked to raise on Part Three of the Report. [HON. MEMBERS: "Go on."1 In view of what you have said, Mr. Speaker, I do not think it would be right for me to take up more time. These are urgent matters. Many people say that a great deal of the time of the House is wasted over matters which are not of

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very great concern. As a very junior and younger Member of this House I say that this subject affects the lives of many people. It behoves us to examine carefully what legislation may shortly be laid before us. I can only ask my right hon. Friend that when he is thinking of the legislation about Part Three of the Report, to legislate on these matters in the interests of the administration of justice so that there can also be reforms on the lines of the other recommendations of the Wolfenden Committee's Report.
9.35 p.m.
Mr. Henry Usborne: I am sure the whole House will agree that we have listened to an extremely interesting speech. Not being a lawyer, I hope that the hon. Member for Epsom (Mr. Rawlinson) will forgive me if I do not follow the points he made. I want to make it perfectly clear that anything I say is said with great diffidence, for I know a little about this subject, but only enough to know how little I do know.
I start by taking up one point made by the hon. Member for Epsom. He seemed to argue very eloquently that we should retain upon the Statute Book a crime for homosexual relations between adults, but that the penalty was unimportant and that prison should never be an element of that punishment. He went on to say that he thought buggery, as distinct from gross indecency, had a different connotation and was a crime, a more abominable crime. I do not believe we can easily draw a line in this matter. I should ask the man who holds that particular view whether he would agree that anal intercourse with a prostitute is not just as abominable a crime; but nevertheless that is not a crime, it is not regarded as so abominable a practice.
Mr. Rawlinson: It is a crime.
Mr. Usborne: It may be a crime, but it is seldom brought to the courts, and most people do not regard it with the same abomination as they do homosexual acts. It seems that those who oppose the recommendations of the Wolfenden Committee Report do so on the argument that we cannot in fact draw a line, but I feel that we have to draw a line and that in all legislation dealing with
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moral problems we are constantly drawing a line. It is never an easy thing to do. Precisely because adultery is not a crime and homosexual relations are a crime we have drawn a line which I do not think it is sensible to draw.
On the problem of prostitution, I accept the Wolfenden Committee's Report to the extent that it is now necessary to do something to drive blatant prostitution off the streets, because clearly this is a conclusion which society now demands. I also accept the view of the Committee that although an increase in penalties probably may, and certainly might, drive it off the streets, that cannot prevent it. It merely brushes it under the carpet. To the extent that the object of imposing increased penalties on prostitutes is merely to transfer their activities to some other place, or some other way, it seems perfectly logical—indeed I should think it essential—that a penalty should also be applied to the men who are soliciting on the streets.
It does not seem impossible to work out a definition of soliciting in such a way that the law could effectively be enforced in the courts. This is particularly important, because I believe that if the men who use the prostitutes knew they were risking arrest by soliciting girls they would not dare very often to do so on the streets. The best way of getting the girls off the streets is to show that the street is the place where they will least easily find customers.
Many people who represent London constituencies have said, I think rightly, that the incidence of blatant prostitution in the streets in the parts of London which have been mentioned is a temptation to local young people who see these girls and, because they see them, are liable to use them. There must be some force in that argument, but I am inclined to think that a great many men who make use of prostitutes are not local people at all. Someone has mentioned cars which may belong to commercial travellers. I believe people come great distances from their homes and places where they are known in order to make use of those prostitutes and thus, in a sense, the demand tends to create the supply.
I do not believe that by increasing fines and penalties we shall reduce the

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incidence of prostitution. We can change its habits and forms, but I do not think that the imposition of heavier fines will abolish the trade in prostitution.
There are, however, other things one ought to look at. I suggest, most tentatively, that there is a connection between fie second part of the Wolfenden Committee's recommendations and the third part, because when we examine the circumstances I think we are all struck by the fact that a very large percentage of girls who take to prostitution come from broken homes and are children of parents whose marriages have been a complete and utter failure. If, therefore, we would try to prevent the breakdown of marriages and to prevent unhappy and miserable homes, this, and only this, would he the effective way of reducing the number of girls who take up prostitution.
I make a plea for a broad-minded attitude generally to the fact of abnormality in sexual relationships. I believe that superstitious taboos, odd and terrifying ideas that there is a norm of sexual relations and that anything which is abnormal, particularly homosexuality, is an abominable crime, for which people will certainly be burned in hell—these simple. superstitious taboos which the existing legislation supports—may be Lund to be the cause of more marital distress and trouble and to be the background to more broken homes than most of us ever realise.
If we could at least say that, as with adultery so with homosexuality between consenting adults, it is deplorable, it may be a sin but it ought not to be a crime—-if we could equate those two things, then at least we should begin to impress upon our society in some way that these deviations, which I believe are perfectly natural although they may be very unfortunate, are not things of which we need to be so hideously frightened, and not things which we must not dare to talk about before our wives.
If it is possible to make it easier for people who suffer the terrors of recognising in themselves what they call sexual deviations from the norm; if only they can be helped to discuss these things themselves, and with their wives, I believe that it would be possible to reduce quite considerably the number of broken homes, and, in that sense, we might even begin
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to have some effect on the incidence of prostitution.
Therefore, I wholeheartedly support the view on the Wolfenden Report that my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) put in a brilliant, eloquent and moving speech, with which I wholly agree. I would say only that it is more important than he seemed to suggest to accept the recommendation of the Committee in Part Two as well as in Part Three. I am sorry if I have taken too long, but I wanted so much to put these points to the House, and I thank hon. Members for having listened to me.
9.45 p.m.
Mr. Norman Cole: I believe that one thing will have emerged from this debate, and that is, if I may very humbly put it, that in this debate the House has lived up to its best traditions of expressing its free opinion, with one hon. Member differing from another. I say that, because it will help me to indicate that my view differs from that of the hon. Member for Yardley (Mr. Usborne), from whom I differ so much, although I preserve for him my very great respect.
My approach to this whole matter is not a new one, but at least it is mine, and I believe it to be that of many hon. Members and, perhaps more important, of most of the people of this country. That approach is a simple one. Whether or not one calls it an unnatural act, this practice of homosexuality, or any other term, most hon. Members and most members of the public abhor the practice in any shape or form whatsoever.
I will go further and use an old-fashioned word that has been used once or twice in this House today, thanks be; I regard this, as I regard some other things that do not appear in our criminal law, as a sin. I am not ashamed of saying that, and I know that in saying it I shall have the support of most men and women.
To say that, however, does not mean that I am directing all my force and energy against the individual. In this country, we preserve in the Christian ethic the basis of loving the sinner whilst hating the sin. It is from that viewpoint that I look at Part Two of the Report. I do not want to provide any more

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opportunities for or in any way seem to condone what I and most other people believe to be a sin, whether it is called an unnatural practice, a deviation or anything else—
Mr. Hale: The hon. Member says that we must hate the sin, but hatred is one of the seven deadly sins.
Mr. Cole: I do not want to make a debating point of it, and I can only think that the hon. Member was not listening to me with the attention he normally gives to speakers. I said that we preserve in the Christian ethic the hating of the sin, whilst loving the sinner. If, in hating the sin, I am committing another sin, I regret it, but I still hate the sin, and I think that the majority of people feel the same way.
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary used three points to show why he did not feel that we in this House should be called on at present—and I hope that we never shall be called upon—to implement Part Two in law. Perhaps I may put the points in a rising crescendo of importance as follows. First of all, he did not think the public at large would like the suggestion that this House was condoning homosexual conduct. That is very true. Then he went further and said that it would be an offence to the moral sense of the majority of the public. I believe in the moral sense of the majority of the public. I believe that when the House of Commons or any other legislature is in some doubt as to how far it should move, it is a pretty safe plan to rest on the majority feeling from the point of view of morals. I certainly am quite prepared to do that.
The third point was that if the practice of allowing this kind of act to take place in private was not regarded any longer as a crime, the group might tend to draw in others to its society. I think that is an understatement of the position which might possibly arise. I wonder if the public at large who know about this Report have visualised a number of places where this practice, even on its present scale without spreading, might be taking place and known to be taking place—as it were, a society within a society—and, despite the condemnation of the public at large, the State having no power to intervene.
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One of the factors which have been mentioned in connection with driving the ordinary female prostitute off the streets—both Front Bench speakers have referred to it—is that there is some kind of worry that it might tend to drive it indoors or underground. It has been admitted on both sides that that is one of the worries. Yet in the same Report there seems to be no worry expressed about driving homosexual prostitution off the streets and indoors. I suggest that we are either consistent in these matters of morality or we are not. We cannot have it both ways. If it is wrong for prostitution to be covered up, surely it is even more wrong for this unnatural crime to be covered up.
I should like to refer to Part Three of the Report dealing with something which is equally important but perhaps more recognisable on the streets. I was glad to hear my right hon. Friend mention as his first premise in this matter—and, indeed, it is so very true—that we and all authorities should practise every art of redemption that we can in the case of these unfortunate women. But on the point made by my right hon. Friend about the psychology of mind of these prostitutes, this task of redemption is going to be far more difficult than a hundred years ago.
I hope this quotation from paragraph 223 of the Report is wrong; I believe it was said in all sincerity, but I hope it does not represent the truth. It says:
"As one of the women witnesses put it—'Prostitution is a way of life consciously chosen because it suits a woman's personality in particular circumstances'".
If that is so, how true it is, as has been said in this debate, that our society has a responsibility for this state of affairs. This way of life is chosen, not by any force majeure, not by broken homes, as has been suggested, not because they have been seduced in early life, but because it is a deliberate choice as one would choose any other way of life—because it suits their particular personality in certain circumstances. That is an appalling condemnation of something which is radically wrong with our society today.
Mr. Usborne: Is it not true that the word "personality" in that context refers to that which is created as people are brought up in the home? It is the home

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background which creates the personality, which makes some people take to prostitution.
Mr. Cole: I would not disagree with the hon. Gentleman for one moment. I say that there is something radically wrong with our society, and I am sure that he, too, would include the home as part of our society. I am not concerned that he or I or anyone else should be proved right. My concern is that we should find the reason for this new cause of prostitution, which, in my limited experience of this kind of matter, I find appalling. It is a choice. No woman finds herself in that kind of life. It is a deliberate, objective choice at some stage, taken according to her personality, which may derive its cause in the home, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, or from some other factor.
A great deal has been said about the impossibility of dealing with the male part of the female prostitution problem in our streets. Today is 26th November, and it is almost 10 o'clock in the evening. I venture to suggest, and I do not think that any hon. Member will disagree, that, if there were no men walking or riding about the West End of London at the present moment likely to be customers of prostitutes there tonight there would be no prostitutes on our streets. That is a fact which must be faced and reckoned with. Of all things in this world, this is one where there would be no supply if there were no demand. We do less than our duty, irrespective of viewpoints expressed in any particular quarter, if we do not regard the responsibility of the man as at least equally great as that of those who provide the supply.
With very great respect to my right hon. Friend and others who have spoken, I do not believe that it is impossible to bring the man in as an accomplice in this matter. If it is possible under the present law, irrespective of any strengthening which may take place, to prosecute a woman who is seen soliciting because she is known to be a common prostitute, surely, if she is seen to go away with a man who has accepted her offer it is possible for them both to be apprehended and dealt with. Except for the difficulty of tradition and making a change in our procedure at law, I see no impediment there which cannot be overcome.
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In my view, it would be a good thing to drive prostitution off our streets. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett), who quoted the remark by a doctor that the vast majority, 70 per cent., of the people who were clients of prostitutes took the offer because it was made to them and probably would have desisted if the prostitutes were not there. I believe that to be absolutely true. I do not believe that many people who take the offer because prostitutes are there in front of their eyes in the streets of London and other cities would go to the trouble, risk and difficulty entailed in trying to find prostitutes in houses or some particular haunt. I believe that if we take away the availability of the supply and make it much more difficult we shall find that the whole industry, as it has been called, will be reduced to much smaller proportions.
That is all I have to say. As always in this House when matters of conscience, above politics, are concerned, I as a Member have tried to put my viewpoint. It is. I believe, a simple viewpoint which represents the opinion of the majority of our people.
10.0 p.m.
The Rev. Llywelyn Williams (Abertillery): The only justifiable approach to the recommendations of the Wolfenden Committee is one as free as possible from emotionalism and pharisaical self-righteousness, that self-righteousness which says, "God, I thank Thee that am not as other men."
Some words are very highly charged in their emotional content, and the word "homosexuality" is one of these. We should, therefore, be as free from emotionalism as possible in our analysis of these problems and difficulties. I admit that it is not easy for the so-called normal person, such as myself, whose physical and sexual life is happily integrated in a satisfactory marital relationship, to be unemotional or objective in these matters. I confess that it is only on the basis of knowledge acquired by extensive reading on the subject plus a deliberate act of a sympathetic imagination that enables me to understand or even to try to understand the problems and difficulties of a homosexual. But the effort must be made, otherwise there can be no progress in dealing with this admittedly difficult problem.

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One's approach must be as enlightened and unemotional as possible and that certainly was the approach of the Wolfenden Committee. I find myself, after much serious thinking and much heart searching, able to accept the recommendations about consenting adult homosexual behaviour in private. The distinction between a crime and a sin which has been made not only by the Wolfenden Committee but by representatives of the Anglican Church and Roman Catholic Church is valid. I do not accept the rather hysterical notion that this will lead to wild orgies. The heterosexual will remain heterosexual. From my reading, I gather that a percentage of homosexuals are homosexuals because of inborn or innate tendencies which in the majority of cases perhaps cannot be eradicated. Dr. J. A. Hadfield, lecturer on psychopathology and mental hygiene in the University of London, insists that radical cures are possible in many instances. He says this in an article in the British Medical Journal of 7th June, 1958. He admits to many failures also.
As the Wolfenden Committee recommends, there must be much more research into the cause and origin of homosexual behaviour. I believe that the Committee rendered a service by insisting that there should be no distinction in law between heterosexual behaviour involving adultery, fornication and seduotion which takes place in private and homosexual behaviour between consenting adults which takes place in private. The operative words in this context are "in private" and "adult". I would have no mercy at all for homosexual adults who offend against young boys. The maximum sentence for such people must be the severest possible, exactly as there are severe, and rightly severe, sentences for heterosexual adults who commit rape and serious offences against young girls under 16 years of age.
I sometimes wonder whether Jesus Christ was thinking of this type of shocking wickedness when He used this most biting condemnation.
"And He said unto His disciples, It is impossible but that occasions of stumbling should come—but woe unto him through whom they come. It were better for that man if a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were thrown into the sea, rather than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble."
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There is not much of a gentle, meek and mild Jesus about that denunciation. But the Wolfenden Report deals with homosexual behaviour between consenting adults and in private. It recommends that while society could never give moral approval to that type of behaviour, nevertheless, since it takes place in the privacy of a household, it should not rank as a criminal offence any more than heterosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private, such as adultery and fornication, to which again society could never give moral approval, should rank as a criminal offence.
In the very nature of things, the law must take more cognisance of public behaviour than private behaviour. The latter can be dealt with only by the sanctions of morality. That is why the Committee recommends the stiffening of sentences for persistent solicitation amongst prostitutes on the ground of public annoyance. It even considered—in my opinion, rightly—the question of making kerb crawling for immoral purposes by men in cars a criminal offence. This detestable practice is increasing and causes much offence to decent women. The Committee, however, could not find an adequate legal solution to this matter. I hope that, one day, the law can operate the scales of justice equally between female prostitution and this indiscriminate soliciting of women by these prowlers.
Another sphere in which a uniform and standard law should operate is in the open promiscuity in our public parks and on our sea shores. This has really reached scandalous proportions and one feels that there must be a stop to this open flagrant exhibitionistic love-making before the very eyes of young children. To use a cliché, there is a time and place for everything. Even our public transport, the Underground particularly, is not free from this business. For goodness sake, let us preserve some of the basic dignities and decencies of life. I know of no other country in the world where such licence is enjoyed in these affairs.
I conclude with a brief word about the Committee's recommendation on prostitution. Prostitution is as old as the hills. Whatever changes may take place in the law, it is not likely to disappear in our generation. The existing penalties, however, are farcical and absurd. I agree that there must be a stiffening of sentences.

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I am, however, rather chary to accept the imposition of a maximum penalty for a third or subsequent offence of three months' imprisonment. I can accept that change in the law with regard to persistent offenders only if Recommendations (xxi) and (xxii) are first introduced. Recommendation (xxi) is
"That consideration be given to the possibility of introducing more widely the more formal system of cautioning prostitutes which is in force in Edinburgh and Glasgow."
Recommendation (xxii) is to the effect
"That consideration be given to the practicability of extending the practice of referring to a moral welfare worker particulars of a prostitute cautioned for the first time."
I want the maximum possible reclamation work to be done with and for prostitutes, but I agree wholeheartedly that the noxious, widespread solicitation which goes on in the West End of London must be contained and reduced to something more consonant with a decent civilised society. The penalties for the landlords, agents and pimps who batten on to this filthy trade cannot be too extreme in my opinion.
We who legislate in this House should not be too timorous in supporting these recommendations because public opinion may be lagging behind. In a sense, we are the creators of public opinion. Certainly, someone must give a lead in these matters. The Wolfenden Committee has done its job splendidly in this regard by presenting us with this great social document. We should do our part in revealing a similar sanity, understanding and determination in implementing the Report.
10.9 p.m.
Mr. Kenneth Younger: In rising to make the last speech from this side of the House in this debate, I must say, as was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) in opening, that I speak for myself alone. We are not here speaking for our party; we are expressing our own views. Speaking at such a late stage in this long and interesting debate, I cannot hope to be able to say anything very new.
As the Home Secretary said, these two subjects that we are discussing do not have much connection with one another, but in each case important moral issues are involved; and I think it would be agreed that in each case the existing law is unsatisfactory.
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The Home Secretary's recommendations to us are very different in each case. On homosexuality, he offered us no hope that he would make any substantial changes in the law, whereas on prostitution, he virtually promised early legislation, while leaving somewhat vague the exact form it would take and indicating that he was prepared to listen to representations made in the House today.
I understand very well the reason for both his decisions. In the one case, as we have seen from today's debate, there are very great differences of opinion on the subject of homosexual offences and, in the other, there is the feeling that there is a very real demand for certain action to be taken and the fact that he is under pressure to which he feels he must respond. I understand these things, but I must say that I am not very happy about the decision in either case.
If I may turn first to the question of prostitution, on which there seems to be some prospect of the Home Secretary taking action, I do not think that any hon. Member has attempted to deny that there is a real measure of public anxiety and complaint about street solicitation and real annoyance to residents in some areas.
It may be that this is not entirely confined to London, but when I asked the Home Secretary about his information regarding other areas, his reply led me to believe that he has in fact no substantial evidence about the problem elsewhere, one way or another. He did not specifically say that it did not exist, but he said that it was on quite a different scale in London from the scale on which it is found elsewhere and, so far as I have been able to make any investigation, that confirms what I have found.
In my own constituency of Grimsby, not a very large town, there are only 100,000 people but it is a seaport with numbers of foreign seamen coming in. It appears that for the last 30 or 40 years this street problem has scarcely existed and there have been only four prosecutions for soliciting in the streets since the end of the war. It is probably larger in some other towns but clearly this is, by and large, a London problem and even within London, agitation has arisen only with regard to certain areas where it is something new, areas which formerly (lid not suffer from this pest.

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The Wolfenden Committee was not able to say in its Report whether there had in fact been an overall increase in this or not. The prosecution figures are not very reliable, because they depend to a considerable extent on the time that the police can spare for this work from one year to another. Probably most people would agree that there has been, in very recent years at any rate, some increase—how big we cannot say. That being, so far as one can get it, the picture of what the problem is, surely we should pause rather carefully before we radically increase the severity of our criminal law to meet what is clearly a limited and perhaps even a local problem and one which may even be temporary.
The big rise in the figures of prosecution have corresponded very much with the big rise in delinquency generally covet the last three or four years. We all know that the causes of that rise are rather hard to get at—they are not simple. It is very unlikely that we can solve this any more than we can solve the wider problem of delinquency by some simple solution. It may turn out that this is purely a temporary phenomenon, but the new pattern of the trade, if I may so describe it, which may be caused by changes recommended in the Wolfenden Report, will be permanent.
We welcome what the Home Secretary said about research and his intention to develop other means of redemption. I thought that was very vague in the Report, and I am not clear what in fact he thinks he can do. I hope that he will pay great attention to it.
On the main question of penalties proposed by the Wolfenden Committee, I should like to recommend a cautious approach of the kind recommended in a leading article in The Times today. I think that most people accept the necessity for higher fines. I think this might by itself deter some girls when they are beginning, who at present are told by those in the trade that it really costs almost nothing and that it is only a form of small tax on their earnings. It might make a difference to some of them, but nobody really supposes that by itself it will clear the streets. So I recognise that there is a problem.
Nevertheless, I should like to put some considerations about the prison sentence to the Home Secretary. My own guess is
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that this would drive prostitution off the streets, and might also do what some hon. Members have already suggested, namely, reduce the total volume of prostitution simply because the women would not be there to be seen by those who would not go out of their way to go with a prostitute but do sometimes fall for the temptation when they see them there. If it were to happen that many of these women would go to prison, I think the Home Secretary would agree that, from the general prison point of view, this would be extremely unfortunate. It may be that we cannot regulate our criminal law according to the capacity of our prisons, but nobody supposes that short prison sentences are going to do these girls any good, and most of us, I think, believe that the presence of these women in prison would do the other inmates of the prisons a great deal of harm, and I know that the prospect is not at all welcome to the Prison Service.
People use the facile phrase about sweeping it under the carpet. Is this really less objectionable—I am not sure—than what we have today? The possible dangers of sweeping it under the carpet are mentioned in paragraphs 286 to 290 of the Report, the possibility that there would then be closer organisation of the trade, that there might be increased attempts to bribe the police, and so on. These were made light of. I do not think the Committee dealt adequately with the realities of these dangers.
Its findings about the present situation, with which I do not quarrel, are that there is at the moment no really large-scale organisation of vice, no major white slave traffic, or anything of that kind, and also that the police in this respect are fairly free from corruption. I would accept both those. So far as I know, those are true. But what would be the effect if the law were made more repressive? This is only guesswork, but we do know that both these things, organised vice, and corruption of the police in relation to this matter of prostitution, do exist on a very large scale in many other cities abroad, particularly cities where prostitution in the street is heavily penalised and the whole thing is done on the call-girl system or some highly organised business way.
Does the Home Secretary really think that it would be better if every taxi

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driver, every hotel bell hop, every door-man, every commissionaire were getting a rake off from some big-scale business-man sitting somewhere in the background? Does he feel quite sure we are not running a risk, very well known in America, of the corruption of what are called the vice squads of the police? I understand that in practice in the major American cities it is almost always the vice squads which fall victim to corruption. I do not say that these things would necessarily happen here, too, but it is evidence that a somewhat serious risk has to be run, and I do not think that the Wolfenden Committee considered this as fully as I should have liked. I hope that the Home Secretary will pay great attention to it.
The only other point I want to make on this aspect of the Report relates to the proposal to drop the requirement for proving annoyance. I agree that this is rather a farce at present, and that it is workable only because almost all prostitutes plead guilty. On the rather rare occasions when they do not, I think there have been cases where the magistrate has refused to convict because it turned out that the police evidence on the point was exceedingly thin. I can appreciate the attitude of the police on this, for they feel that they themselves are being abused in this matter. Their officers are expected to go into the witness box and say that the customer appeared to be annoyed, when really they are not sure that it is true. But I feel that to make the penalties for this offence heavier and simultaneously to remove from the charge the only element and the only point at which the police evidence is seriously open to challenge by someone who chooses to fight the case is to put these women too much at the mercy of the police. That again can open the way to corruption.
I should also like to make the further point on this, that the serious nuisance in those areas of which we have heard a great deal is not so much the annoyance caused to men who are solicited. Some men, no doubt, passing regularly along these streets have found these women annoying, but more important is the general annoyance to the residents in the streets, not men only but often women and children who live there and who are annoyed not by the solicitations of a
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particular woman but by the visible existence of so many of them in those streets. The Wolfenden Committee in respect of that kind of annoyance said that the law was a dead letter, just as in the case of individual soliciting where the customer will hardly ever give evidence.
I am inclined to challenge this. If it were true that I was annoyed by a prostitute standing night after night near or outside my house I do not think that I would refuse to give evidence. I do not see why people who are genuinely worried about this and write to the newspapers about it should not co-operate with the police. I believe that they would get some convictions if they did so. This is a point which the Home Secretary might well consider before taking the step recommended by the Wolfenden Committee.
My conclusion on this part of the Report is that, firstly, there is here a strong element of guesswork. We do not know, the extent of the problem, except in relation to a few streets in London. We do not know what effect a reform of the law would have. If the Home Secretary introduced legislation broadly on the lines of the whole of this section of the Report, it would be a rather unpalatable addiction to our penal law.
Looking at the recommendations as a whole, it seems to me that the Report is pretty severe on the women in the streets and it is notably weak on what I have called "the trade." It has not found any ways of getting at the trade and, of course, the proposals for higher penalties might well increase the power of the trade. The Report is also weak on discrimination between the male customer and the woman prostitute. On practical grounds some discrimination must be accepted. We realise that, but discrimination between the sexes in this matter becomes somewhat more objectionable as the seriousness of the penalty is increased.
If this is to become a really serious offence, the inevitable discrimination is altogether more unpleasant and will be more strongly felt by women's organisations. The Report is complacent about driving this traffic off the streets into other channels. I would impress upon the Home Secretary the need for very great

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care and a cautious and moderate experiment rather than the full recommendations of this part of the Report when he brings legislation before us.
As to Part Two of the Report, I want to spend nearly all my time on the main issue of principle contained in paragraph 62 and the first recommendation—the proposal that homosexual acts between consenting adults done in private should be taken out of the criminal code. I should like to say, in passing, that I agree with the suggestions made in a very fine speech only an hour or so ago by the hon. Member for Epsom (Mr. Rawlinson) about many of the minor reforms in the administration of the law. I hope that the Home Secretary, who I think was not in the House at the time, will read the speech very carefully. I think that there would be a very wide measure of agreement if he introduced reforms covering the kind of points which the hon. Member for Epsom made, even if the right hon. Gentleman feels that he cannot meet some of us who would like to see a more sweeping reform of the law.
In his review of the homosexual problem, the Home Secretary showed himself very well aware of the effects of the existing law. He said, if I may put it in my own words, that the existing law causes a great deal of suffering, that it offers opportunities for blackmail—
Mr. R. A. Butler: The right hon. Gentleman has just referred to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom (Mr. Rawlinson). I heard every word of it, and I thought it a very remarkable speech.
Mr. Younger: The Home Secretary and I are in agreement on that, and I am delighted that he heard this speech, because I thought he came in afterwards.
If I may resume what the Home Secretary said—I hope I am quoting him reasonably accurately in my own words; he said that the existing law on homosexual offences undoubtedly causes a great deal of suffering, that it offers opportunities for blackmail, that it affords an opportunity for old, stale offences to be raked up at an undesirably late stage and, finally, that prison is a thoroughly unsuitable medium for the rehabilitation of this type of offender. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman
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argued much of the case on merits against the Committee's recommendations. He really based his decision not to accept the recommendations almost wholly upon his appreciation of the unreadiness of the public mind for a change of this kind, which he felt would be generally regarded as implying approval by the Government and by Parliament of homosexual acts.
It is not unnatural that the public mind should be in this condition because, after all, this subject was almost undiscussed in public until the Wolfenden Report was published. I hope that the Home Secretary and the Home Office, who are clearly aware of the need for public education in this matter, will play a positive part in this respect. I believe that on such a subject people start by being ignorant and accepting as normal and natural whatever has been in the past. There is a long tradition in respect of homosexual offences and the criminal law. People naturally have got this into their heads and positive steps must be taken if we are to get these in many ways old-fashioned ideas out of their heads. My hon. Friend the Member for Abertillery (The Rev. Ll. Williams), who spoke before I rose, referred to the necessity for making a deliberate effort to understand the problem. I believe that is so, and I hope we can have the co-operation of the Home Secretary in helping us to persuade the public to look rationally and calmly into this problem, when I believe there will be a fairly rapid evolution of opinion.
I would like to clear out of the way one or two misconceptions that seem fairly prevalent about what the Wolfenden Committee has recommended. To hear one or two speeches—not many, I am glad to say—one would think that Sir John Wolfenden and his colleagues had in every respect been lenient to homosexual offenders, but this is far from being the case. The Report is not lenient to anyone who engages in homosexual acts with the young; indeed, so far as it makes recommendations it strengthens the law against them. It is not lenient to anyone who employs any method of duress or force or undue influence to procure homosexual acts, and it is not lenient towards any homosexual act which offends in any way against public decency.

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So far as some homosexuals may be attracted both to adults and to boys, which we are told by the Report is unusual, although that was contradicted by an hon. Member of this House who is a psychiatrist; in so far as that is the case, I think it is fair to say that the proposal of the Wolfenden Committee to remove adult practices from the criminal calendar would probably tend to divert any such persons away from the young towards adults. I do not make a big point of that, but it was one made to the Committee not by psychiatrists but by the Netherlands police, who have had experience of operating a system in which adult acts are not criminal. It was part of their evidence that they thought this was a tendency it was having. So any who have doubts—and we know there are some who have—can feel happy that to accept the Wolfenden recommendations would not in any way increase danger to the young.
How big is this problem, and who are the people with which this major recommendation deals? It is clear that this is like the iceberg, of which only a small part is visible above the surface and most is submerged. Very few people know much about the homosexual problem taken as a whole. The police see few instances and what they see I believe is untypical, because they see that section which is most likely to get into trouble with the law in any event.
The doctors and the psychiatrists see a bit more of it, but they all admit that their view of it is incomplete. There are certainly many of them who think, unlike the hon. Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett), that they would have a great many more of these people coming to them for help but for the fear that they would have to admit a criminal offence. There is a wide feeling among doctors that they would have the opportunity of treating people at an early stage if they were not afraid to trust the confidence even of the doctors.
A good deal has been said—
Dr. Broughton: Is it not possible that it works the other way, that at the present time homosexuals come to psychiatrists in the hope that they may be changed because they fear the law? If the law allowed homosexuality among consenting adults they would not be so worried about it.
Mr. Younger: That is, of course, perfectly possible. On this, as on so many points in this argument, one cannot reach a 100 per cent. conclusion. There is room for argument both ways. I did not know that this was the view of my hon. Friend. I referred to the hon. Member opposite. I am aware that there is a division of opinion but as far as I have been able to get the opinion of the medical profession the majority take the opposite view.
May I make one or two generalisations about what seem to me to be the broad medical conclusions on the matter because I think it is something which helps us to decide our attitude towards the people with whom we are dealing? I need not recapitulate what has been said about their numbers. Clearly, there are very large numbers. The hon. Gentleman opposite made the rough estimate that there might be 500,000 who actually practise homosexuality, and, of course, there are many more who do not. Therefore, it is not a tiny group of peculiar people but a substantial section of the community. It is clear that they are not a race apart. There is what Dr. Kinsey called a continuum, a sort of spectrum going from those who are mostly heterosexual to those who are homosexual. Therefore, there is a gradation. They are not a group of people to be regarded as untouchable and peculiar.
Nor is the practice peculiar to a particular class, either a social class or any particular profession. Least of all is there any correspondence between these people and the people who otherwise get into trouble with the criminal law.
I think it is agreed that in many cases the question of whether a man has or has not homosexual instincts is not in any sense a matter of choice for himself. It is a matter of his constitution just as such things as colour blindness are matters of constitution. It is more true to describe the condition as a diversion from the normal than to use the common phrase "unnatural."
I think, therefore, that we should avoid setting these people apart as an untouchable class irrespective of the effects which their action may have on the public. They are a large minority and as varied as any other cross-section of the community one wishes to choose. So far as

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their private voluntary acts are concerned—this is what this recommendation deals with—I suggest that the harm caused by those acts to the public is non-existent.
Many would say that this is a private matter, or, to put it in a more moderate way, that it does only such harm to the community as any other private act of immorality which any of us might commit in our personal relations. It is no more harmful than heterosexual acts or any other immoral acts which have nothing to do with sex at all. I think that that is as high as we can put it. It is the crucial judgment which we have to make. Some people believe that the harm to the public even of a private act between consenting parties is something greater than that.
This is a matter of making a judgment on rather scanty evidence. I can only say that I agree with the Committee, and, I believe, with the balance of Church opinion and of informed opinion among social workers who have studied the problem that these acts should definitely fall on the non-criminal side of the line and should be treated as immoral but not criminal.
It is worth noting in this connection that with regard to Lesbianism, homosexual acts between women, no one seems to take a different view, yet I am not sure in what respect they would claim that Lesbianism is in fact different. The real difference is that people know nothing about it. It is not talked about and is not referred to in the Old Testament. I have never been able to find any fundamental difference except that one is talked about and the other is not. I have never met anyone who, in relation to Lesbianism, does not share the views put forward by the Wolfenden Committee in respect of male homosexuality.
On the integrity of the law, a letter by three or four distinguished people, headed by the Archbishop of York, appeared in The Times saying that the law was widely discredited. How far is that true? It cannot be enforced. We have had figures showing approximately the numbers of prosecutions for this sort of thing committed in private. The Report says there were 300 convictions in England and Wales in the three years ended March, 1956, and seven in Scotland. After what we have heard about the numbers of
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homosexuals likely to be engaged in some form of homosexual acts in private, it seems likely that that touches only a tiny minority of the offences committed.
That might not matter quite so much if the small section who are prosecuted were those specially suitable to be prosecuted, but there is no reason for believing that. There is every reason for believing it is entirely capricious. Two classes can be prosecuted. The first class is of those cases in which one of the partners, having been a consenting partner, later informs the police and the police persuade his partner to own up. The second class are those in the area of a police force which, for perfectly reputable and responsible reasons, take the matter more seriously and prosecute more strenuously than in other areas. I think this variability is undesirable.
I would commend the Scottish practice to the Home Secretary, but I rather wonder whether the hon. Member for Epsom was right in thinking that this sort of difficulty can be entirely dealt with by an alteration in the procedures. In any case, I think the other cause for capriciousness, namely, whether confessions can be obtained, is a much more serious matter. No doubt if the Scottish practice were adopted we could do something to make the position better.
There is no doubt that our present law gives rise to the possibility of blackmail out of all proportion to blackmail in other matters. I do not pretend that if the practice were taken out of the criminal category that would stop blackmail, for after all there is a great deal of blackmail in regard to heterosexual irregularities; but the victim then can complain to the police and we get cases concerning "Mr. X" when his reputation is safeguarded. We see examples in the Report of how very far this is from being the case when a homosexual matter is under discussion. I feel that blackmail is so much more a corrupting factor in our society than these private homosexual acts that we should be prepared to take a considerable risk to get rid of this particular danger. I also find it impossible to believe that this would open the flood gates. We cannot prove this, either. Why do people insist in all these matters in ignoring foreign experience?

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I did not appreciate that I was speaking for too long; and I at once sit down, leaving the matter where it is, to allow the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department to wind up the debate. I am sorry that I have kept him for too long.
10.41 p.m.
The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Renton): My right hon. Friend, in opening the debate, said that he hoped that he would have the help and advice of the, House in helping the Government to reach conclusions at a later stage about what proposals to put before the House on these difficult matters. My right hon. Friend gave the House some indication of the way in which his mind was working. He said that the Government would not be justified at the present time in proposing legislation to carry out the Wolfenden Committee recommendation that homosexual behaviour between consenting adults be no longer a criminal offence. In listening to the debate we have been interested to hear the very varied advice which we have had about that. We have had some most moving and sincere speeches and, although I am net trying to take particular comfort from the fact, we were very interested that the only two doctors in the House who are practising psychiatrists were both against the Wolfenden proposal.
I wonder whether, in the short time which I have for discussion of the matter, I could start by trying to find some common ground between the two divergent points of view. I should have thought that it is clear, from the facts given in Chapters III and IV of the Report, many of which have been repeated by hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood), that there is at least a small minority of men whose affections are exclusively homosexual throughout their lives after their adolescence. As my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Sir H. Linstead), who was a member of the Wolfenden Committee, pointed out, such men include a high proportion of genuine inverts, people in whom homosexual behaviour is so natural and so strong that there is little hope of their ever being different from what they are.
The trouble is, however, that besides these people, with their unalterable impulses, there is a wide range of others,
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varying from the psychopathic pervert to the opportunist male prostitute and including vast numbers with homosexual tendencies which they manage to control. My hon. Friend the Member for Putney mentioned that altogether there may be as many as half-a-million practising homosexual men in this country, although I must say that I was very surprised when, apparently referring to that half million, he said that their homosexual tendencies were in no way a matter of choice. I do not think that we can accept that because, as I say, they are of such a wide variety of personalities.
The Government are faced with the problem that if they were to legislate to protect and absolve that genuine minority, they might foster the growth of that larger group of homosexuals which surely should not be allowed to spread. It was pointed out, and perhaps stressed, by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Hyde) that the Wolfenden Committee considered that danger and discounted it; but, with great respect to the views of the Committee, the Government have to take note, both of the risk of homosexuality spreading, and of possible corruption and degradation in society if it does, if the law is changed. In our debate on crime and punishment three or four weeks ago my right hon. Friend, referring to the crime wave, described
as,
"no sudden crisis but a deep-seated disorder in society."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st October. 1958; Vol. 594, c. 497.]
I am therefore sure that it will be understood if the Government, exercising their responsibility as a Government, show some reluctance to run the risk which I have mentioned; for nobody can say with certainty—and the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Younger) admits this—that allowing freedom of homosexual practice to consenting adults in private would not increase still further that disorder.
"Ill habits gather by unseen degrees,
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas."
In this matter, particularly if there is a question of doubt, I suggest that we should consider our special duty towards the rising generation and those who follow after.
Of course, as the Committee said, it may be possible that adult homosexuals are not likely, if given freedom, to turn their attentions to those under 21, and if they did they would, of course, still be

503
punished. So, although it is a danger, as my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom (Mr. Rawlinson) said, in a very fine speech, it is not the principal danger.
There are other dangers, however, and the worst is that adolescents who have both homosexual and heterosexual impulses before 21—as, we are told, many have—would indulge freely in homosexual practices when given their freedom after 21 years of age, whereas at present they nearly always grow out of homosexual practices—perhaps the criminal sanction helps them to do so.
There are other results of granting that freedom. The hon. Lady the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mrs. Mann) mentioned the effect on children in a locality seing two notoriously homosexual men living together. Sex is no longer, as D. H. Lawrence called it, a "dirty little secret". It would be known, and it is hard to believe that the knowledge would not be harmful to boys in adolescence. Again, in boys' schools, where the difficulties are sometimes great enough as it is, the knowledge that homosexual practices amongst masters were not unlawful might have awkward results.
The results of such freedom in the Armed Forces, although mentioned in the Report, have not been mentioned in this debate. The Committee recognised that an exception to its general proposal might have to be made here, and Mr. Adair commented on this in his minority report, and said that if possible we should avoid making differentiating offences unless there were something peculiar to the Services and not likely to be met with in civilian life. That, of course, would not be the case here.
That is why we believe that it is the instinct of most members of the public and of most Members of both Houses of Parliament to decline the Wolfenden proposal. Nevertheless, there are, as I say, some homosexuals who, perhaps, cannot help themselves but who can be helped, and we shall consider what more can be done for them. The moving speech of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) has stimulated thoughts about that, and we shall study his suggestions with care.
I see that I must now skip along very quickly. Psychiatric treatment is already available to men in prison. There are
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units at Wormwood Scrubs and at Wakefield. There have been some successful experiments in group therapy, and we hope that these will be extended. The hon. Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) asked about oestrogen treatment, and I am glad to say that the Wolfenden recommendation on such treatment is being implemented. There is also the question of research.
The attitude of the churches was mentioned in the debate. I do not want to cover that ground again, but I do want to mention one thing. The Archbishop of Canterbury wished to leave what he euphemistically called the "full offence" as a crime. That, I think, is significant, and it is interesting to consider what would have been the effect on public opinion if the majority of the Wolfenden Committee had qualified their first recommendation by saying that the full offence should remain a crime. I think that the hon. Member for Batley and Morley (Dr. Broughton) had that in mind when he referred to the biological effects, and that, also, is what my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom would have preferred.
I must, perforce, turn now to the subject of prostitution. The first question to be decided—and it has been very hotly debated here tonight—is whether we want the streets cleared or not. I have been trying to take a sort of Gallup Poll as we have gone along, and I find opinion rather divided on that, although, paradoxically enough, nearly every hon. Member who spoke on the subject said that the fines should be increased. Perhaps, however, those views are consistent.
There are those who say that we should not try to drive prostitution off the streets at all, that that is merely sweeping it under the carpet and not solving the problem, but creating other and greater problems by driving it underground and letting it become a highly organised trade with sinister possibilities. That argument must not be ignored, but I think that most Members were certainly worried, as indeed we know the public are worried, about this present known evil of women offering themselves blatantly on the streets, if in curing that evil other evils arise we must deal with them as that becomes necessary.

505
This, I hope, would be of some comfort, that if we were to accept the last reservation in the Report, by Mrs. Cohen and her colleagues, that the maximum sentence for living on immoral earnings should be increased from two to five years, we should be hitting at those who might stand to benefit from the increased organisation of the trade, so we would be anticipating that trouble at the same time as taking other measures.
It was generally agreed that pecuniary penalties should be increased, but many doubts were expressed about introducing imprisonment. Doubts were expressed also about the need to prove annoyance. Some Members pressed us to accept the recommendations concerning premises used for prostitution, and I think that everybody agrees that we should increase the penalties for living on immoral earnings.
Now a brief word about annoyance. Having to prove annoyance in practice undoubtedly adds to the difficulties of the police, although I should at this moment like to refer to the latest figures for prostitution offences. The last figures given in the Report were those for 1955 when there were nearly 12,000 convictions in England and Wales. It was almost exactly the same number in 1956, but in 1957 the total number of convictions was 15,486.
Answering the right hon. Gentleman's question about where the trouble is worst, it is mainly in London, but in some of the large cities of the North as well. But in places like Grimsby and, I am glad to say, Huntingdon—in the mass of smaller country and provincial towns—although this problem is known, it is a very minor problem. In the rural places it is only in the region of Army camps that it causes any trouble.
To return to the question of annoyance, in practice it is not often found necessary for the police to prove annoyance, because the women like to plead guilty, pay the fine, get out of the court as quickly as possible and on to the beat again. But if imprisonment were the ultimate sanction, more women would undoubtedly plead not guilty, and there might then be very few convictions if annoyance had to be very strictly proved in every case. However, we shall consider everything that has been said in the
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debate, and we shall consider the arguments for and against accepting the recommendation with regard to annoyance.
In any event, surely the principal aim of the Wolfenden Committee was to get the women off the streets rather than merely to prevent them from causing annoyance to people while on the streets. The Wolfenden Committee came to the conclusion that the streets could not be cleared without the sanction of imprisonment. The Committee's reasons have, as I say, been mentioned, and they are explained in paragraph 275 of the Report onwards.
The Wolfenden Committee regarded imprisonment as a last resort. The Committee felt that it would be useful not only as a deterrent but also for the reformative element in punishment. By that the Committee clearly did not mean that a short term of imprisonment would be much good for reform—the right hon. Gentleman appreciated this point—but that with imprisonment in the background prostitutes would be more willing to accept probation and heed any warnings which might be given to them. Both those things would be of special value in the case of the young prostitute. The problem of crowding the prisons with women really does not arise. I can set that fear to rest. In any event, if many women did have to go to prison for prostitution, that would not cause the same difficulty as would a great increase in the number of men going to prison, because. while the men's prisons are seriously overcrowded, the numbers in women's prisons, I am glad to say, have been declining.
Perhaps an even more unpleasant thing than seeing so many women offering themselves for hire upon the streets is the knowledge that they have fallen into this way of life and what lies behind it. To my mind, the most important question considered tonight is how we can prevent this endless flow of young and sometimes beautiful girls, many of them from good homes—not all come from bad homes—from reaching this terrible market.
The fact that the problem is an old one makes it no less a challenge to us. All the Wolfenden proposals on prostitution can be said to have a direct or an indirect bearing on that question. In our

507
opinion, provisionally formed, and subject to scrutinising what has been said in the debate today, the sanction of imprisonment, even though it is intended only in the last resort, will in itself go a long way to help, partly because girls will be reluctant to enter into a way of life which will lead them to prison, and partly because it will give probation officers an opportunity of persuading them from their folly before they are beyond redemption.
The hon. Member for Stepney (Mr. W. Edwards) has a special problem in his constituency. I myself went down to Stepney one night—well chaperoned by the police, I may say—and saw what there was to see there. I should like to assure the hon. Gentleman that the problems of his constituency, thanks to the representations made by the two deputations seen by my right hon. Friend and myself, are very familiar to us. We have noted what he said about night cafés, and we shall consider it.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bassetlaw wished us to do something about premises. As my right hon. Friend said in opening, we welcome help and advice on that very difficult problem, and we shall study his suggestions. It is a
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most complex subject, in which we find the criminal courts having to be used to decide difficult points on the law of real property. I can, as a lawyer, assure the House that that is not a very promising prospect.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead (Mrs. Emmet) asked for an assurance about proposed penalties. I can assure her that they would be maximum, not fixed, penalties.
I am sorry that I have had so little time to answer the points which have been made during the debate. Although we live in an age of rapid material and social progress, of great advances in scientific knowledge, we have today been discussing two of the oldest problems known to civilised man. The House has shown a sincere understanding of them without, if I may say so, being either sentimental or sententious. We are grateful for what has been put before us, and we shall consider it most carefully.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House takes note of the Report of the Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (Command Paper No. 247).

SANATORIUM, LONGRIGGEND (CLOSING)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Oakshott.]
11.0 p.m.
Miss Margaret Herbison: I wish to raise tonight the question of the closing of the sanatorium at Longriggend, in my constituency. As far back as 6th May this year, I put a Question to the Secretary of State for Scotland. It was answered by the Joint Under-Secretary of State, who I understand, is to reply to this debate. On that occasion, he told the House:
"When the necessary local consultations have been completed, my right hon. Friend hopes to make a comprehensive statement on the SU bject."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th May, 1958; Vol. 587, c. 1007.]
This is now 26th November, over six months since we were promised a comprehensive statement by the Secretary of State. During those six months, the right hon. Gentleman has been completely silent, but decisions have been taken in this matter without its ever coming before the House.
I wrote to the Secretary of State on 10th October. I had a reply from him on 13th November. I was writing particularly about this sanatorium at Longriegend and in that reply he told me that the decision was taken on 31st October to close the sanatorium. I consider that the Secretary of State has been completely unfair to this House. I am not the only Member who has been concerned about this matter, and there were other hon. Members who were anxious that the Secretary of State should have their views before any irrevocable decision was taken.
On 6th May, the Joint Under-Secretary said that some of the hospitals that were no longer being used for tuberculosis—and we are all very glad that they are no longer needed for tuberculosis patients—would be used for other purposes and that others would be put on a care and maintenance basis. The only conclusion that one could draw from the statement that some of them would be put on a care and maintenance basis was that the Government were trying to save money. To me, that is completely indefensible in the matter of health.
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The Government, however, have gone further. The Secretary of State's letter to me on 13th November said that the intention of the Western Regional Hospital Board was, not to put this hospital on a care and maintenance basis, but to get rid of it altogether. In his letter, the Secretary of State said that
"sometimes the right thing to do with an empty hospital is to close it and use the resources so freed for necessary developments at other hospitals."
These necessary developments will, however, take time and during the period from the closing of the hospital until those necessary developments have taken place, many people who ought to be in hospital will be denied accommodation in hospital. It is for that reason that I have raised this matter on the Adjournment.
Only last year, the Western Regional Hospital Board spent £1,000 on the hospital's kitchen. Now, in the following year, it is decided to close the hospital. The nursing staff of 13 may be used elsewhere, but there are 17 other staff, including domestic workers, gardeners, boiler men and a part-time secretary. These people, I am almost certain, will not be used in any hospital. They live in an area where unemployment is exceedingly high. These manpower resources, therefore, will not be used.
I could think of many uses for this hospital, which has 52 beds, but tonight I shall deal with only two. Can the Joint Under-Secretary deny that there is a waiting list for hospital accommodation for mental defectives in Scotland? Of course not. I have a letter from the Secretary of State dated 14th August, which he sent to me during the Recess in answer to a supplementary question of mine. He was referring to Birkwood Institution, Lesmahagow, and, at the end of his letter, he said:
"In view of the great need for additional beds, I am asking the regional board to consider whether there are any special measures they can take to assist the institution to obtain the staff needed to enable these empty beds to be brought into use."
The Secretary of State's own words were "the great need for additional beds."
I turn to the latest Report from his own Department of Health. On page 43 we find, in paragraph 160, these words:
"With the accommodation at present available"—

511
that is, accommodation for mental defectives—
"as the above figures suggest, only very slow progress can be made in reducing the existing waiting lists for admission to mental deficiency institutions."
Only very slow progress can be made, and, of course, the waiting lists are very great. If the whole story were known in Scotland it would really be a public scandal. The Joint Under-Secretary of State knows that as well as I do.
The hon. Gentleman also knows that not only are many of these children who should be in institutions suffering because they are not having that treatment, but that many parents are heartbroken, and other children, normal children at home, are suffering considerably. It seems to me that while we are waiting for the schemes, and, I think, good schemes, of having these children attached to bigger hospitals, and the suggestions which have been made by various committees, we ought not to have let any chance slip of at least getting another 52 of these children placed in hospital accommodation. This institution would have given 52 children and 52 homes great help. The Government have decided otherwise.
I turn now to the second category, our old people. I ask the Under-Secretary again: can he say that there is no single waiting list for hospital accommodation among our old people? Again, I say to him that he just cannot say that there is no single waiting list. I shall quote again from the Report of his own Department. It is important to read it, because I do not think that the Joint Under-Secretary or the Secretary of State really know, If they did know, they would not have acquiesced in the proposal of the Western Regional Hospital Board to close this institution.
This is what we are told in paragraphs 151 and 152:
"As was shown in last year's Report, the percentage of admissions of persons over 60 years of age rose steadily"—
in the mental hospitals—
"from 24·5 per cent. in 1930 to 45·4 per cent. in 1955."
That is a very steep increase.
"It is not uncommon for an old person's acute phase of confusion to settle down quite quickly and many elderly patients are discharged after a short time in hospital."
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Is it not scandalous that these old people should be taken from their homes and, because there is not accommodation in general hospitals, made to suffer the stigma of having been in a mental hospital? Because there is still a stigma attached to the inmate, or patient, as we say today, of a mental hospital. They go there, the phase passes, and they are ready to go home, and the stigma still sticks to them or their family. The Report goes on:
"More than half of the certified patients over 65 years of age discharged from hospital in 1956 had been in hospital for less than six months and three out of every five for less than a year."
I find the next paragraph even more telling:
"In 1956, however, about 2,000 patients…died in mental hospitals, of whom 70 per cent. were over 65 years of age. As the proportion of patients who are old is high relative to the proportion in the general population, this percentage is not in itself of special significance."
But it is the following words that are important:
"Some concern may, however, be felt at the number of elderly patients dying within a very short time of reaching hospital. Some at least of the old patients dying within a few days of reaching a mental hospital need not have been sent there at all if alternative accommodation with suitable care had been available."
That is what the Secretary of State for Scotland tells us and Scotland.
The Report continues:
"Similarly, so long as there is no such alternative, mental hospitals will require to care for a number of those old people who recover from their initial confusion, and who do not need, or no longer need, to be there."
What a tragedy. What a picture. Old people taken from their homes with all the stigma for their families and, within a few days. dying in a mental institution.
Again, though old people recover after being taken there, they are left in the mental institution until they die because they have nowhere else to go. That is a tragic picture of which none of us in Scotland can be proud. So long as these conditions obtain and there is such a crying need for accommodation, particularly for children in mental institutions and for the care of old people outside mental institutions, there is no case at all for the Western Regional Hospital Board deciding to close this hospital.

513
Longriggend hospital lies between two villages in which there will be no difficulty in finding the help needed to take care of old people. The town of Airdrie is also close at hand. Whether it is decided to use the accommodation for old people or for mental defectives, parents, relatives and friends would not be involved in long journeys to see either class of patient. A good bus service passes the hospital gates. I plead with the Joint Under-Secretary to reverse his decision. The staff is still there. Let him use the hospital for one of the two purposes which I have suggested.
11.13 p.m.
Mrs. Mary McAlister:I follow my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) only on one point, on account of shortage of time, but I have sat on these benches to await the debate because I feel so strongly about the Government's slowness in the use they are making at the moment of the empty sanatoria beds in Scotland. We were told, and I think that there are figures to prove it, that when the new techniques for the treatment and diagnosis of tuberculosis were put into operation, sanatoria beds would be left empty. We know that there is a great number now empty in Scotland. Those in Longriggden are one example.
My hon. Friend asked whether there was a waiting list for the acommodation of old people in Scotland. There are waiting lists in Glasgow and in many other industrial towns so large as to be disgraceful. It may not always be an official list, but the old people are there and there is no place to put them. This is particularly disgraceful today in view of the fact that with the great advances in the science of geriatrics there is some hope for these people when they go into hospital. Hospitals for the chronic sick are no longer what they used to be—places where old people took to bed for a long time before they were gathered to their fathers. These hospitals need not be a last port of call. These people can be rehabilitated and put into the stream of life again. But that can be done only if the basic number of beds is sufficient to give a sufficiently quick turnover.
It has been estimated by an expert on geriatrics that the average stay in hospital by the patient who can benefit from rehabilitation treatment is about 50 days; and that the average life of the patient
514
who does not respond to this treatment is about three years. So, if the turnover is not quick enough—and it cannot be if the beds are insufficient—then these longterm beds tend to "pile up" with the result that those who could benefit by the treatment given cannot obtain a bed. This is a fact; it is not any sort of propaganda.
In the big industrial cities, such as Glasgow, there is something amounting to a scandal. There we have old people in lodging houses, and other completely unsuitable accommodation, who cannot get a bed in hospitals because the Government has been so dilatory in utilising these sanatoria beds.
11.16 p.m.
The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. J. Nixon Browne): I am grateful to the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) for having raised this question tonight, because, among other things, Longriggend is not an isolated case; but it is typical of the problems which have arisen, strangely enough, from the success in our fight against tuberculosis. Longriggend is a small, fairly isolated sanatorium of 52 beds to the north east of Airdrie, which closed on 31st October. After a very full and careful review of hospital needs by the Western Regional Hospital Board, it is now proposed that it should be sold.
Earlier this year, the Board concluded that this hospital could be closed, but before coming to a final decision, they consulted the Board of Management for Coatbridge, Airdrie and District Hospitals, who are responsible for the day to day management of this hospital; the Executive Council, and the Local Medical Committee for the County of Lanarkshire; the Lanarkshire County Council, and the Town Councils of Coat-bridge and Airdrie. None of these bodies raised any opposition to the closure of this hospital, although the Town Council of Airdrie suggested that its use for geriatric patients might be considered.
The Regional Board then gave most careful consideration to the other uses to which the hospital might be put, and the two main purposes, which have also been suggested tonight, are geriatric and mentally deficient cases. But the Regional Board is entirely satisfied that the hospital is not suitable for either of these purposes. I agree with the concern which

515
the hon. Lady the Member for Kelvin-grove (Mrs. McAlister) has expressed, but it is not desirable to treat old people—geriatric patients—in separate small hospitals such as that at Longriggend. They should be treated in units which form part of, or are closely associated with, general hospitals in which specialist staff, active medical treatment, and facilities for rehabilitation are available. The staff needs also a variation in the type of patients.
Mrs. McAlister: I was not necessarily referring only to Longriggend, but to many other hospitals which could well be used.
Mr. Browne: I appreciate that; but the one thing which we do not need is a hospital where old people feel that they are only going there to die; that is one of the dangers of using a small, and rather isolated hospital. But the Board of Management is now considering the possibility of using geriatric beds which are no longer needed for tuberculosis patients in Coathill Hospital, and also at Lightburn Hospital.
Miss Herbison: I did not mention the word "geriatric" because we do want these old people, I agree, in larger hospitals. The people I am concerned about, and for whom this hospital could be used, are those old people—and particularly old, confused people—who are going into mental institutions.
Mr. Browne: For the reasons which I have given, the management committee looked at that, and decided that it could not be used for such a purpose.
So far as mental patients are concerned, the Committee on Mental Deficiency in Scotland reported in 1957. It recommended that institutional accommodation for mentally deficient patients should not be provided in small units. It recommended relatively large units comprised of not too large ward blocks or individual villas. Only large units permit the proper classification of patients and the best use of occupational and training facilities and the best use of staff.
The hon. Lady, quite properly, mentioned staff. When I give her the details I think that she will realise how properly the hospital authorities have treated the matter. At the date of closure there were 32 of a staff, of whom seven are still employed on care and maintenance. The
516
staff knew what was in mind well in advance of the official decision, and they were informed immediately the decision was made.
Those wishing to continue in hospital employment were offered jobs either at Coathill Hospital, where there is an increase in geriatric beds and a further increase is pending, or at Bellshill where the building of the new nurses' home has already permitted a substantial increase in the number of maternity beds.
One or two of the trained nurses have obtained hospital employment in other areas, and some members of the staff have found jobs outside the hospital. I agree that it is of the utmost importance that the staff displaced in this way should have the maximum notice and consideration and should feel not only that the decision affecting them was taken after the most careful and exhaustive examination, but also that the change will enable them to make better use of their skills and of their devotion to the service of the sick.
I would like to look, as the hon. Lady has looked, at Longriggend, in the perspective of the national problem. The mass radiography campaign has been successful beyond our wildest dreams, though it is too early yet to assess the final results. We know already that the campaign, with the help of new and powerful drugs, is substantially reducing the number of T.B. sufferers in Scotland. The number of beds needed is steadily declining in spite of the large temporary increase in patients due to the mass X-ray campaign.
We have quite a number of small isolated hospitals originally built to meet the needs of many years ago. Now, with the development of medicine and the potentiality of regional planning, which were not available many years ago, these hospitals are no longer suitable and no longer essential for the best health service in the area.
The hon. Lady said that my right hon. Friend should not have authorised the closure of this hospital before he had made his general announcement. Of course, the Adjournment debate has rather overtaken events. My right hon. Friend will now be in a position to make his statement quite soon. I agree that there has been a rather long delay, but this has been an important matter. In fact, we told the Regional Hospital

517
Board before a thought was raised about a formal announcement by my right hon. Friend that we were in general agreement about the closure of Longriggend, subject, of course, to the further fullest investigation with all concerned.
My right hon. Friend will make a statement quite soon about the actual T.B. hospitals concerning whose future the regional hospital boards have already made recommendations to him. There are others, of course, still under consideration, and this consideration must be a continuing process as the demand for T.B. beds falls still further and the pattern of the nation's health needs changes.
Two years ago the number of occupied T.B. beds was 4,290. At the end of last June it was 3,280, but the number of staffed T.B. beds is not 3,280, it is 4,700, and we are well aware of the urgency of clearing the waiting list and making the best use of these beds.
The regional hospital boards are now transferring large numbers of these surplus beds to old people. I agree with the hon. Lady that we cannot rely indefinitely on the mental hospitals, although I hope that in the public opinion, which I know she will try to foster, the stigma of the mental hospital will gradually fade away. These beds will be transferred to old people, the chronic sick, convalescents and mental defectives. Eighty additional beds were recently provided for mental defectives in the hon. Lady's region. Within this wide and encouraging trend we must leave it to the regional hospital boards, after consideration with all concerned, to look critically at the small hospitals.
Miss Herbison: The hon. Gentleman says that we must leave it to the hospital boards. Is not the Health Service in Scotland the responsibility of the Secretary of State? The hon. Gentleman has given many figures about tuberculosis tonight which were well known to us. Our concern is the long waiting list. He has said nothing which changes our opinion that this ought to be used until such time as he can safely say there is no waiting list. In these two categories he has not answered at all.
Mr. Browne: I have told the hon. Lady how the surplus beds are to be used. I had hoped I had convinced her that because a bed is surplus it is not necessarily the best thing to do to use
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it immediately for a short time for a purpose for which clearly it is unsuitable. The duty of a hospital board is to look at the clinical needs of the area, the finance available and the other resources in the area.
Miss Herbison: Hear, hear.
Mr. Browne: It is no good the hon. Lady saying, "Hear, hear." The boards' duty is to match the best possible treatment for the patients with the best use not only of the money, but, also, and even more important, the staff available to them. If, after consideration of all the factors involved, a regional hospital board decides to alter the use of a small hospital or put it on a care and maintenance basis, or close it, that board will have the full support of my right hon. Friend. As the hon. Lady well knows, we are not simply trying to save money. As I have said, the best use of our existing resources will only be possible if in this case—and there will be others—we are prepared to recognise that sometimes in the interests of the health of the people of Scotland the right thing to do with an empty hospital is to close it and use the resources for necessary development of other hospitals where they can do most good.
I am well aware of the fact that the decision to close a small hospital in any area must give rise to a great deal of heart burning. Many of these hospitals have been in existence a very long time, but we must be realists. We are extending facilities of many hospitals. Many hospitals have been upgraded, and we are relying more and more on modern treatments and modern methods requiring modern skills. We have satisfied ourselves, after the utmost scrutiny and after careful examination with all concerned that the hospital can be closed down or put on to care and maintenance without detriment to the health of the patients.
11.29 p.m.
Mr. Thomas Fraser: Having listened with the greatest care to the Joint Under-Secretary, I shall leave this building tonight convinced that he is letting this waiting list remain and that these categories of people for which my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire. North (Miss Herbison) pleaded will be unprovided for just for the sake of saving a little money.

519
The hon. Gentleman stressed that the regional hospital boards were doing the best they could within the finance available to them. That is obviously the limiting factor which the boards have had to take into account in deciding to close accommodation while the waiting lists for accommodation referred to by my hon. Friend remain. That is a positive disgrace in Scotland at present and is quite out of keeping with what the Department of
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Health has said in the Report from which my hon. Friend quoted. I am very sorry indeed that the Joint Under-Secretary has felt obliged to make the kind of speech he has made to the House tonight.
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 half-past Eleven o'clock.

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  Women's Royal Naval Service (Uniforms)
  Women's Royal Naval Service (Uniforms)
  Surplus Stores (Sale)
  Surplus Stores (Sale)
  Houses, Weymouth and Portland (Greenock Employees)
  Houses, Weymouth and Portland (Greenock Employees)
  Ships (Nuclear Propulsion)
  Ships (Nuclear Propulsion)
  Polaris Missile
  Polaris Missile
SHIPBUILDING
  Steel Plate Supplies
  Steel Plate Supplies
BRITISH ARMY
  Troops, Kenya
  Troops, Kenya
  Vehicles (Direction Indicators)
  Vehicles (Direction Indicators)
TELEVISION
  Mid-Wales
  Mid-Wales
  Advertisements
  Advertisements
  Additional Commercial Programme (Representations)
  Additional Commercial Programme (Representations)
POST OFFICE
  Vans (Direction Indicators)
  Vans (Direction Indicators)
  Commonwealth Communications
  Commonwealth Communications
  Collection of Letters (Search Fee)
  Collection of Letters (Search Fee)
TELEPHONE SERVICE
  Kenilworth
  Kenilworth
  Ewhurst Exchange
  Ewhurst Exchange
ROYAL AIR FORCE
  Royal Observer Corps (Radioactive Fall-out)
  Royal Observer Corps (Radioactive Fall-out)
TRANSPORT
  Car Parks (Abandoned Vehicles)
  Car Parks (Abandoned Vehicles)
  Travel Congestion, London (Committee)
  Travel Congestion, London (Committee)
LONDON TRAVEL COMMITTEE
  TERMS OF REFERENCE
  TERMS OF REFERENCE
RAILWAYS
  Automatic Train Control
  Automatic Train Control
  Superannuitants
  Superannuitants
  Norfolk and the Midlands (Improved Services)
  Norfolk and the Midlands (Improved Services)
ROADS
  East Mill Road, Morpeth (Inquiry)
  East Mill Road, Morpeth (Inquiry)
  York Road, Leeds
  York Road, Leeds
  Watford By-pass
  Watford By-pass
  Summerhill Road, Gainsborough
  Summerhill Road, Gainsborough
  Road Schemes
  Road Schemes
  London Roads (Report)
  London Roads (Report)
  Butterton, Leek
  Butterton, Leek
SHIPPING
  Suez Canal
  Suez Canal
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
  Funeral Expenses
  Funeral Expenses
  Overseas Stations and Strategic Reserve
  Overseas Stations and Strategic Reserve
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
  Smoke Pollution Survey, Chesterfield
  Smoke Pollution Survey, Chesterfield
  Runnymede Caravan Site
  Runnymede Caravan Site
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Advisory Service, Swindon (District Officer)
  Advisory Service, Swindon (District Officer)
  Farm Improvement Schemes, Wales
  Farm Improvement Schemes, Wales
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Police, Middlesex (Strength)
  Police, Middlesex (Strength)
MINISTRY OF HEALTH
  Leprosy
  Leprosy
PENSIONS AND NATIONAL INSURANCE
  National Assistance (Rents)
  National Assistance (Rents)

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD MERTHYR On the Woolsack.
Prayers
The Earl Baldwin of Bewdley—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his brother.

THE LATE VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD
2.35 p.m.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, it is one of the privileges of this House to be adorned from time to time by the accession of rare minds and natures to its deliberations, and Lord Cecil of Chelwood was such a one. With his father a great Prime Minister, and one of his brothers, whom many of your Lordships will remember, one of the most brilliant Parliamentary debaters of our day, Lord Robert Cecil carved out for himself a successful Parliamentary career and made his mark on our administration both in peace and in war. But it was as a public figure outside Parliament that he reached his highest stature in the public mind.
He was one of the first people, perhaps, in the modern world, in the world of this century, to foresee the absolute need for nations to meet round the table in discussion of their national affairs in the interests of peace. He was one of the architects of the League of Nations. And your Lordships will recall the unflagging enthusiasm with which he pursued the cause of peace wherever he went. His vision of a world disarmed, where conciliation would hold the day, was time and again disappointed; but since he was active in politics, purposely, patiently and deliberately, Governments have persevered in trying to devise a system which would give the world, first, collective security, and finally, a situation in which force would be renounced as an instrument of national policy. Lord Robert Cecil was the pioneer of these great thoughts, ideals and practical movements. And all since have been convinced of
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the rightness of his ideal, although the world has not proved itself yet great enough to match his great conception. In the United Nations, which was the successor of the League of Nations, there is many a living monument to Lord Cecil. Many of the committees which do great work in the international field were the result of his conception and are daily drawing people closer and closer together in interdependence.
I, myself, because my father was very keen and with him did much in the League of Nations field, remember Lord Robert Cecil coming to stay at home; and many a time at dinner, when I was a comparatively young man, I would watch him, with his long figure, slide more and more under the table, until only the distinguished head was left above his plate, and he would tell us of all his plans for the future peace of the world. Ever since then I have felt that so long as he was alive there was one among us who, however bitter the strife and however blind the world, never despaired of finding peace in our time.
Your Lordships will wish to send to his widow, that gracious lady, the survivor of a very long and happy life, all our sympathy and our pride that he was a Minister in this House and one of ourselves.
2.40 p.m.
ViscouNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I rise to associate the whole of my Party on this side of the House with the full and worthy tribute which has just been paid to the late Lord Cecil of Chelwood by the noble Earl the Leader of the House. No one could have covered the ground more ably in paying such a tribute than he has done this afternoon, and we are grateful to him for it. I do not intend to speak for more than a few moments, because, though I had personal relations with the noble Viscount at one time, there are others of my noble friends who would like to speak —both my noble friend Lord Pethick-Lawrence, who was associated with Lord Robert Cecil in friendship for many years, and my noble friend Lord Attlee.
For my part, I always received inspiration from my contact with Lord Robert Cecil. For some years I had the good fortune to be closely associated with him as Vice-Chairman of the Council of the Royal Institute of International

839
Affairs, and at that time he impressed me by his complete devotion to the cause which ought to be, if it is not, the main cause in all our lives—to try to secure peace and to establish the brotherhood of man. I culled from Lord Robert Cecil a quotation from Tennyson's The Dawn which I shall never forget:
"Red of the Dawn!
Is it turning a fainter red? so be it, but when shall we lay
The Ghost of the Brute that is walking and haunting us yet, and be free?
In a hundred, a thousand winters? Ah, what will our children be …?"
I am sure that the whole nation mourns the loss of a great public figure, to whom and to whose work we are all greatly indebted.
2.45 p.m.
LORD REA: My Lords, I should like to associate the noble Lords on the Liberal Benches with the tributes already paid. It seems almost inappropriate that we should divide ourselves into political Parties to pay this tribute to such a great man who, though technically a Conservative, was indeed a Liberal Socialist Conservative in all his outlook. In this British Parliament it seems that we are particularly blessed, through either historical tradition or perhaps some national characteristic, in the fact that the political stage is never bereft of some great figure of noble stature and personal integrity who typifies the sort of elder statesman whom we should like other parts of the world to regard as the typical elder statesman of our Parliament. The late Lord Cecil of Chelwood fully fulfilled that stature.
He was, of course, of a generation older than many of us in your Lordships' House, and some of your Lordships who have recently joined this Chamber may remember only the less important matters with which he occasionally dealt. I believe the last speech that I heard him make was to the effect that the rate of a running horse was the safe speed for all moving traffic in this country.
But, as your Lordships well know, Lord Cecil dealt with other things on a higher plane. I am given to understand that it was he, together with the late Duke of Montrose, who sat on these Benches, who was largely instrumental in getting put into the Health Services aid for those who suffer from the same affliction of
840
deafness from which he suffered and which, from his personal experience, he knew caused such loneliness and suffering. It was typical of him that he should put his own experience, with his usual vigour, into action and get alleviation for those similarly afflicted.
The noble Earl the Leader of the House has mentioned a personal recollection, and I wonder whether I may be allowed one, too. It goes back to the year 1914, forty-four years ago, soon after the out break of the First World War. On that occasion, by chance, I, then a young boy of fourteen, had the privilege of being present at a small informal meeting of five or six people at a house in Westminster, when apparently some people were already thinking of means of possibly avoiding such a terrible catastrophe as a global war in the future. As a young boy, not doing my school prep., as I should have been, I shall never forget sitting at the feet of Gilbert Murray and Lord Cecil. From that remarkable meeting there came a little club which, after some deliberation, they called the League of Nations Society, from which grew that tremendous organisation of which the noble Viscount was a guide, and, indeed, a great personal inspiration.
Like other Members of your Lordships' House, I feel that we should also wish to-day to offer our greatest sympathy to his widow and his distinguished family, and, for ourselves to say that we have indeed lost from this House a very great figure.
2.45 p.m.
EARL ATTLEE: My Lords, I should like to add one or two words to what has been so admirably said by the noble Earl the Leader of the House. My acquaintance with Lord Cecil goes back a very long way. Fifty-three years ago I was in Chambers with Lord Cecil before he was an M.P., and I recall many occasions of his kindness to a young barrister. The next thing I recall from the time when I was interested in schoolchildren, is that it was Lord Cecil who carried through the Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons for the inspection of school-children, which revealed such defects that there followed an immense amount of legislation and administrative action. Then, later on, I often saw him in connection with the Legue of Nations and with the United Nations. I think the

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whole world has lost a very great man and a very great friend. Wherever the cause of peace is mentioned, the name of Lord Cecil will always come up, and the complete devotion that he gave to that cause for so many years. May I add, also, our deep sympathy for this widow.
2.47 p.m.
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: My Lords, I am sure your Lordships will permit one who knew Lord Cecil intimately over a very long time to add a humble personal tribute to the delightful personality who has been taken from us. I first came into contact with Lord Cecil some fifty years ago, when Christabel Pankhurst and I prevailed upon him as a barrister to plead the constitutional case for the suffragettes in the courts: and needless to say, with his great ability and wisdom, he acquitted himself nobly. One little humble incident I should like to tell your Lordships, because, though it may seem a small matter to-day, when we had different manners in regard to the different sections of our community. a friend of mine met Lord Cecil at about that time in a London tea-shop and she reported to me, rather with astonishment, and with tremendous appreciation, that he treated the young waitress who served him with the same courtesy that he would have treated any lady in society.
Other noble Lords have spoken of Lord Cecil's great work in connection with the League of Nations, and that was one, if not the principal, feature in his life. But there was another thing which he did which had great effect upon the happiness of large numbers of people. Unless my memory deceives me, it was Lord Cecil who was mainly responsible for carrying the Notification of Births Act, which almost immediately reduced the neo-natal death rate of children in a remarkable way. He was a man of broad sympathies and wide understanding, and though he was a great idealist he was a very practical man. There is one saying of his which I have always cherished through all my life. Someone was using the famous "thin end of the wedge" argument, and he said at a public meeting:
"The British Constitution is stuck full of the thin ends of wedges which the common sense of the British people has never driven home."
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I will conclude by saying that I cherish with great pride the memory of this delightful man, whose life was devoted not to self, not to his own aggrandisement or some advantage of a personal kind, but to the well-being of his fellow human beings and the good fortune of this country and the whole world.
LORD HANKEY: My Lords, I was not expecting to speak to-day because, having left my home very early, I did not see the newspapers; but I should like, extemporarily, to add a word or two to the tributes that have already been offered to the memory of Lord Cecil. I myself saw one side of him that has not been mentioned. It was at the Paris Peace Conference where he played a very prominent part Of course, his principal claim to distinction there was that, with Field-Marshal Smuts, he represented the British Empire delegation on President Wilson's Commission which drew up the Covenant of the League of Nations. I saw a good deal of that as I was the British Secretary at the Conference. Later on at the Conference he took up the cause of the suffering peoples of Europe. Central Europe was starving, and, regardless of whether it was friend, neutral or late foe. he took up that cause with great assiduity. The Council of Four, of which I happened to be Secretary at that time, towards the end of the Conference entrusted the whole business to him, and he deserves from all Europe very high tributes for what he did in those days. I associate myself with everything else that has been said.

ARMED FORCES (HOUSING LOANS) BILL
Brought from the Commons, endorsed with the Certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill, within the meaning of the Parliament Act, 1911; read 1a and to be printed.
DEVELOPMENT OF INVENTIONS BILL
Brought from the Commons, endorsed with the Certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill, with the meaning of the Parliament Act, 1911; read la, and to be printed.
REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (AMENDMENT) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read la, and to be printed.

PARKING METERS
2.54 p.m.
LORD BARNBY: 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, having regard to the meter experiment in Grosvenor Square and the lessening of congestion thereby in contrast with the congestion now developed in adjoining streets without meters, to the south, they are now able to regard this as evidence of the useful contribution meters can make in mitigating the parking problem in general.]
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, the Road Research Laboratory and the Westminster City Council have not yet completed studying the effects on traffic congestion and safety of the parking scheme in north-west Mayfair. Until these studies have been completed any definite reply to the noble Lord's Question is not possible. Results to date have, however, been most encouraging. My right honourable friend the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation has already announced in another place his willingness to consider applications by any London borough who may be thinking of going forward with similar schemes. My right honourable friend hopes shortly to announce his decision on a scheme put forward by the St. Marylebone Borough Council.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for his most encouraging reply, may I ask him if he would give consideration as to whether it would be worthwhile circularising the other boroughs, drawing their attention to the possibilities which he has just told us are available to them to accelerate the installation of meters?
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his kind reception to my reply to his Question. I
844
do not think, however, that there is any necessity to circularise even further the borough councils. The announcement which my right honourable friend made in another place has already been published in the Press, and we are under the impression that several borough councils are seriously considering putting forward similar schemes.
LORD KILLEARN: My Lords, arising out of the reply of the noble Earl, may I, as a humble resident in a square which is completely congested, ask whether the ordinary, humble resident of a square can do anything about it in the way of making representations, either to the borough council or otherwise? The square in which I live is blocked for three-quarters of the day.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, the noble Lord has my complete sympathy. I tried to get in the square the other day to have a drink with him, and I was unable to park my car. However, the only thing I can suggest to the noble Lord is the suggestion he has himself made: that he bullies his own borough council.
LORD KILLEARN: I have asked the police and I "got no change" whatever. They told me that I have no rights whatever on the thoroughfare, although I have a frontage facing it.
LORD WALERAN: My Lords, arising out of the questions and answers, would the noble Earl indicate what steps Her Majesty's Government are taking to prevent serious hardship and inconvenience to motorists and householders by the introduction of additional parking restrictions without provision of off-street parking accommodation?
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords. I think that that is a complete Question in itself, and I would ask the noble Lord to put it on the Order Paper.

GLASGOW CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

COMPULSORY TEACHING OF WELSH
2.58 p.m.
LORD RAGLAN LORD RAGLAN rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in their opinion, the teaching of the Welsh language to children against the wishes of their parents is in accordance with Section 76 of the Education Act, 1944; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, many Welsh children are now being taught the Welsh language against the wishes of their parents, and I shall suggest to your Lordships that that is illegal. The section of the 1944 Act to which my Motion refers reads as follows:
"In the exercise and performance of all powers and duties conferred and imposed on them by this Act the Minister and local education authorities shall have regard to the general principle that, so far as is compatible with the provision of efficient instruction and training and the avoidance of unreasonable public expenditure, pupils are to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents."
So far as I can learn, no English parents have ever been asked whether they wish their children to be taught Welsh. Supposing they had been asked, the authorities, as the section directs, would have had to consider two matters. One is cost. It can hardly be denied that the cost of teaching Welsh is higher than the cost of not teaching Welsh. The other matter they will have to consider is the question of efficient instruction. I should have thought it quite clear that a child can be efficiently instructed without being taught Welsh, and the only reason I can find that is given for instructing English-speaking Welsh children in Welsh is that the Welsh language ought to be preserved. My Lords, I suggest that is not an educational object at all, and that education authorities have no right to take that into consideration.
Though not a Welsh speaker, I shall now venture to say a few words about the Welsh language. The Welsh language is a very ancient language. I believe that it is a very difficult language, but it has a fine old literature. That literature flourished up to the end of the fifteenth century, by which time I should say that it compared very favourably, in quality and quantity, with that in English. But a Welshman, Henry VII, became King of England; the Welsh gentry flocked to London. Those who returned to Wales
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took to speaking English, so that the Welsh language gradually fell out of fashion and has been declining ever since.
Then, at the beginning of this century, under the influence of an incipient nationalism, there began a revival of the Welsh language. The language selected for this revival, as I understand it, was not the language that anybody now speaks. There are now at least two spoken languages in Wales, North Welsh and South Welsh, and I believe that those who speak one cannot understand those who speak the other. The language which was selected was the ancient literary Welsh, which I am told is nobody's native tongue and is not understood by ordinary Welsh speakers. This appears to be confirmed by a letter which appeared a few days ago in the Western Mail headed "New Welsh". I will read the letter:
"Sir—The controversy regarding the Welsh language is really interesting. Having always spoken Welsh at home it pains me to hear my young grandson tackling quite a new language in school which is also called Welsh.
"Having been brought up in our smooth Welsh at home he has to start a quite different language, a language quite foreign to him.
"Even the numerals nave quite different names from what he has been used to.
"The concoction of words on the Welsh news is very amusing. Why not keep the Welsh at home and in school learn English—which will take you round the world?"
I shall leave it at that, and go on to consider who, in one form or another. speaks Welsh.
At the Census of 1951 28 per cent. of the people of Wales and Monmouthshire over three years of age returned themselves as able to speak Welsh. Those figures are somewhat misleading, as it is certain that quite a number of those who returned themselves as speaking Welsh have not spoken it since childhood, while many others have not acquired more than a smattering. However, taking the figures at their face value, we see that, of the total population, 72 per cent. speak no Welsh and less than 2 per cent. speak no English. To say then that Welsh is the language of Wales seems to me quite ridiculous. There is no country in the world except Eire where so small a proportion of the inhabitants speak what is alleged to be the national language.
Further than that, there are many parts of Wales in which the Welsh language is

847
dead, for a language may surely be said to be dead if less than 5 per cent. of the people speak it. Areas in which the language is dead include my own county of Monmouthshire, which, strictly speaking, is not in Wales. It also includes Cardiff, the capital of Wales, the whole of Radnorshire, the whole of South Pembrokeshire, in which Welsh has not been spoken for centuries, and considerable parts of other counties. In those areas Welsh is for all practical purposes a foreign language.
Another striking feature to be extracted from the Census is that while 28 per cent. of the population as a whole were returned as Welsh-speaking only 18 per cent. of children were returned as Welsh-speaking. This indicates the rapidity with which the Welsh language is dying out. In Cardiff, the capital city of Wales, 4 per cent. of the population speak Welsh, but only 1.3 per cent. of the children of school age and only .6 of 1 per cent. of the children below school age. It is clear that many people, many Welsh speakers, have migrated into the city, and they have not brought their children up to speak Welsh. Why should they, when there is no one they can speak it to, nothing they want to read in Welsh, and when the only time they hear Welsh spoken is during the very few seconds that elapse before a Welsh programme starts on the wireless, when somebody says "Welsh! switch it off"? "Switch it off: it's Welsh!" is a proverbial saying throughout Wales.
There is little in Welsh, apart from the rather specialised studies of the ancient literature, that anyone wants to read. There is no daily newspaper in Welsh, and I am assured that the weekly newspapers depend largely upon their advertisements in English. As for books, quite a number of books are published in Welsh, and are dutifully bought by all the public libraries. It is very doubtful whether anyone reads them, however. Some years ago the librarian at Barmouth, a town in the heart of Welsh-speaking Wales, included in his annual report, which created some comment, mention of the fact that in the course of the whole year not a single Welsh book had been taken out of the library. Only last week I was sent a cutting from the Liverpool Post by the librarian of Wrexham, a very important
848
industrial centre in North Wales serving about 80,000 people; and he said that, of every 1,000 books taken out of the library, only three were in Welsh. He asked his council whether it was worth while taking any more Welsh books. The population of Wrexham is largely Anglicised, but 160 out of 1,000 of the inhabitants speak Welsh. Those 160 people took out only three Welsh books. This, to my mind, shows quite clearly that either the Welsh speakers do not read any books at all or they always read books in English.
As regards the speaking of Welsh, I would just relate one anecdote. Your Lordships will know that the Welsh people are very interested in the ancient Welsh game of Rugby football. A few years ago the Welsh Rugby football team visited France, and their hosts, anxious to make the visitors at home, produced a Welsh-speaking Welshman to greet them. They were disappointed to find that not a single member of the team spoke a word of Welsh.
The Welsh language fanatics have alleged that I am waging a one-man war on the Welsh nation, the whole of which is united in hostility to me on that account. I can refute that allegation only by reading a number of extracts from letters which I have received during the last month. I am afraid that it will take some little time, because I have a large number of supporters. From Pembrokeshire I have had this comment:
"A big majority of the population approve of your views."
From a leading member of the Labour Party:
"You speak. I believe, for a very big section in Wales."
From Cardiff:
"There are very many more people on your side than would appear from the newspaper correspondents."
From west Glamorgan:
"You speak for the overwhelming majority of Welshmen."
The writer of this letter goes on to say that at his local debating society a motion "That the Welsh language is an anachronism" was carried by a large majority. Then from Cardiff I have had this message:
"More power to your elbow! Ninety-five per cent. of the people in Wales are with you."

849
My Lords, I am afraid that that statement is an exaggeration; I should not put the number of my supporters at more than 80 per cent. From Radnorshire a writer says that he has been surprised by the number of teachers who support me, but that responsible men have said to him:
"You may quote me, but you must not mention my name; I dare not protest."
He goes on to say that
"the compulsory Welsh school has captured the pass and will take some shifting. There is profound disquiet about their policy."
From Aberdare comes this statement:
"Most of the people in this district are on your side."
And from Barry:
"Because English is now the language of the people it is putting the clock hack in education to place so much emphasis on so relatively unimportant a tongue as Welsh."
From Porth, Glamorgan:
"You are absolutely right in your views regarding the obsolete Welsh language. The trouble is that the umpteen thousands who think as you do are not so vociferous as those who encourage the cult."
From Cardiff:
"Our poor kids in school have enough to learn without burdening them with the obsolete Welsh language which has no practical value."
I had another letter just now, as I came into the House. It came from Brecon, and said:
"Be assured that countless Breconshire people will he behind you."
I commend that to the noble Lord who is going to answer me.
A Member of your Lordships' House writes from Wales to say how sorry he is that he cannot be here to support me. He says:
"A professor at Birmingham University told me not long ago that many of his students from Wales are greatly handicapped in their studies by their Welsh schooling."
He continues:
"I think that one of the most sinister aspects of this movement is the inevitable segregation of the people in Wales. After all, we are a United Kingdom and anything that is calculated to divide us is to be deplored."
This segregation is what the language fanatics and the Ministry of Education are working for. A Cardiff lady complains that her seven-year-old daughter has to spend many hours being taught Welsh, and she goes on:
"American people do not have to learn Blackfoot, Sioux and Choctaw. Why should
850
ours have to learn the language of the aborigines?"
I do not share that lady's view of the Welsh language, but I sympathise with her indignation. A Swansea father objected to his child being taught Welsh and asked that she should be transferred to the English side of the school. The headmaster refused, so the father appealed to the local education authority. They too refused, and he appealed to the Ministry. The Ministry again refused; so, as a protest, he took his child away from the school, and as a result, was prosecuted and fined. There is freedom for you! From West Glamorgan a writer says:
"Though Welsh teaching is not in theory compulsory a child who does not agree to attend the Welsh classes is made to feel an outcast."
At a head teachers' conference, the headmistress of a secondary school said that at her school Welsh was not compulsory, but she admitted that she had it put into the curriculum and that all the girls were expected to attend. From Lampeter a writer states that it took a whole year of agitation before he could get his non-Welsh-speaking child transferred from the all-Welsh school A lady writes from Llangadog, Carmarthenshire—not far from the home of my noble friend Lord Dynevor—to say that her small child attended a school in which half the people spoke English only and the other half were bi-lingual. Last September the Welsh language adviser to the local education committee arrived at the school and told the teachers, without a word to the parents, that the teaching in future was to be entirely in Welsh. She has had to take her child away and send him to his grandparents in order to be educated in English. I believe that Wales is the only part of the British Dominions in which an English-speaking child is not allowed to be educated in English. Another lady from the same county said that her children had to attend a school where all the teaching is in Welsh. Two of them went on to an English school and they were so far behind the others in the commonplaces of English teaching that they never caught up.
Last year, to alleviate local unemployment, the Saunders-Roe Company established a factory in Anglesey, and they brought in some of their skilled employees, with their families, in order to

851
get this factory going. There is in Beaumaris a grammar school at which the teaching is in English. These English-speaking children asked that they should be allowed to sit for this school. They were told that because they could not pass an examination in Welsh they would not be allowed to do so. When they complained they were told, "Oh well, you have chosen to come to Wales and you must take what you get." Complaints are received not only from purely English speakers but from Welsh speakers as well. I am told that the grammar school boys at Aberystwyth, though Welsh-speaking, are sick of the overdose of Welsh. Last year the honourable Member for West Flint, Mr. Birch, was reported as saying:
"Money seems to have been spent on providing Welsh education for which there is no genuine demand; it has been thought to justify the expense by the exercise of compulsion on Welsh-speaking parents."
He was referring to a complaint made by some of his Welsh-speaking constituents that they are not allowed to transfer their children from an all-Welsh school to an English-speaking school. This was forbidden by the headmaster of the school and by the local education authority. Acting on Mr. Birch's advice, they fought the case; and I am glad to say that they won. This happened last year.
I have been sent a more recent example of the kind of coercion which is being employed. Last Thursday there appeared in the Western Telegraph, the Pembrokeshire leading paper, an article headed "Chemistry in Welsh angers parents". It begins as follows—I will not read your Lordships all of it:
"The parents of children attending the Preceli bi-lateral Grammar School at Crymmych are ' up in arms '. All the parents are Welsh-speaking, also their children, but while they are willing to be taught certain subjects in their own language, they feel it is entirely wrong to he taught chemistry, history and geography in Welsh. Parents say 'Our children are not having fair play. We want them to stick to their own language in this rural school, but it is ridiculous to be taught chemistry, for instance, in the Welsh language'."
The editorial comments:
"It is well known that certain persons with Welsh Nationalist leanings are busily engaged in doing all they can to foster and to cultivate the Welsh language and culture.
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These people honestly believe that what they are attempting to do is right—others, who have a sincere understanding for those feelings, hold the opposite view.
But whatever the merits of the respective arguments, the interests of the children should be of paramount importance.
What scope in the wide world is there for a future chemist, physicist or the other specialist pitchforked from an all-Welsh class into one of the great universities of Britain?"
I hope the noble Lord, Lord Brecon, will be able to answer that question. I may add that, under the auspices of the Ministry, schools in which all teaching is in Welsh have been established at Cardiff, Penarth and Swansea—all English-speaking towns. A man who speaks no Welsh told me recently that he had been strongly urged to let his daughter be taught chemistry in one of these schools. What can the future of these children be? And what can one think of a Ministry which perpetuates such criminal folly?
My Lords. I now propose to read two short communications, for which I hope your Lordships will excuse me. I shall not read them in full, but I have to make my case and I cannot do so merely by giving my own opinion. The first, on a postcard from Porthcawl, reads as follows:
"Thank you for your leadership. Although Welsh-speaking, I resent the attempt to force Welsh on my grandchildren in Wales and consider my grandchildren in England are fortunate. The compulsory learning of Welsh in schools is:

(1) an unnecessary additional burden. Everyone in Wales understands English.

(2) Useless. Pupils are unable to carry on a conversation in Welsh after years of teaching.

(3) Disliked. Very few people take it at 'o' or 'A' level although in many schools attempts are made to force them in order to occupy Welsh teachers. Children do not buy Welsh books. Few protest because they are afraid of making the children unpopular."

The Ministry of Education has established teachers' training colleges in Wales in which only the Welsh language is used. Teachers come out of those colleges incapable of teaching anything except Welsh, and jobs have to be found for them.
The last letter that I shall read to your Lordships runs as follows:
"Although I am not in a position to sign this letter, I feel bound to write to you to say how happy I am that you are making such a stand against the largely bumptious and

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arrogant section in Wales who, at this moment, are slowly but surely forming a militant dictatorial group.
They have captured the B.B.C. and are making a determined assault on our schools. I am afraid these Eisteddfod-going Welsh-language-thumping people will stop at nothing to force their views on the majority. Already they are splitting erstwhile happy teaching staffs into two, just as they are doing with the nation as a whole. Most of the people are on your side. I wish you every luck in your endeavours."
Your Lordships will notice that the writer says he is not in a position to give his name, and you may remember that an earlier writer whom I quoted said that responsible teachers said they dare not protest. One of the ladies from whose letter I quoted just now asked me not to mention her name because her husband is a civil servant and might suffer for it. A few days ago I was talking to a man with a temporary Government appointment, and he said, "I am entirely with you, but: I dare not say so. I should lose my job." I said. "Surely not!", and he replied, "Yes, I should. You do not know how powerful these people are." I do not know how powerful those people are but I find it difficult to believe that my informants are lying.
Your Lordships may well wonder how a minority of language fanatics could possibly attain such power. The principal reason is that they have the full support of the Minister of Education. I will not trouble your Lordships with a history of the discussions that have taken place about teaching Welsh in the schools, because the present situation really goes back only to 1952. In that year the Minister of Education, Miss Horsbrugh, appointed a body to be called the Central Advisory Council for Education (Wales). It was a remarkable body. All its members were drawn from Wales, and a majority of them—I believe thirteen out of nineteen, including the Chairman—were Welsh speakers. They issued a voluminous report, their bias being 63vious in almost every line of it: everything that makes for more Welsh teaching is commendable; every decrease in Welsh speaking is a catastrophe; the English are aliens. The Boy Scouts are not mentioned, but the Urdd Gobaith Cwmry, the nationalist organisation set up in opposition to the Boy Scouts, is praised unstintedly.
This egregious document is the most blatant piece of special pleading that I
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have ever read, yet the Minister of Education seems to have swallowed it all and it has become the charter of language fanatics and their authority for ramming the Welsh language down people's throats all over Wales. As a result of the policy of the Ministry, large numbers of children are being educated partly in English and partly in Welsh; and I believe it is maintained by all educationists outside Wales that bilingual teaching in any two languages is bad educationally and psychologically. It is said that children so educated never learn to think clearly or to express themselves clearly in either language.
Since I put down this Motion the honourable Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Llewellyn), in an article which he contributed to the Western Mail, mentioned some of the defects in the system of education, and asked that there should be an inquiry by a body with no vested interests into the teaching of Welsh in schools. I believe he will get that inquiry only against the opposition of the Welsh language fanatics, for any form of inquiry they would resent very strongly.
In conclusion, is not the example of Eire sufficient to show the futility of trying to keep a dying language alive by artificial respiration? It is notorious that in that country education has been sacrificed to an entirely unsuccessful attempt to revive the dying Irish language. Not only has this policy failed completely in its object, but it hay brought in its train other serious disadvantages. As a writer in the Western Mail stated a few days ago:
"Teachers in Denbighshire are ranting about the Welsh language becoming dead. Let them cross the water to Ireland and see what has happened there, where fanatical emphasis on one subject in the school curriculum affects the mental adequacy of all the teachers."
This has not yet happened in Wales, but it may be on its way. Some of the teachers of Welsh teach it only because they have to, and they recognise its futility. Others are preachers rather than teachers, and what they preach is hatred of England and everything English. But in whatever spirit Welsh is taught to English-speaking children, it may inflict a permanent disability on them, and at best it is a complete waste of time. Those who favour the Ministry's policy are Wales's worst enemy; and it is because I believe their activities are illegal that

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I have put down this Motion. I beg to move for Papers.
House adjourned during pleasure and resumed by the Lord Chancellor.
3.29 p.m.
LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: My Lords, what rather amuses me is that the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, did not read to the House all his correspondence.
LORD RAGLAN: No, there is a lot of abuse from Wales.
LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: I noticed that the noble Lord kept clear of the bulk of his correspondence.
LORD RAGLAN: Oh no, I did not.
LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: The noble Lord read from his correspondence what suited his purpose. He knows that, as Lord Lieutenant of Monmouth-shire, he has acted differently from many other Lord Lieutenants in either Wales or England. He has taken it upon himself to be a partisan on this vital issue of the Welsh language. I do not know of any debate in your Lordships' House which has created more interest throughout Wales than this one —not because of the Motion but because of the individual who has brought it forward. Let us be quite plain with each other. I could read to your Lordships far more correspondence than has been read by the noble Lord—correspondence which I should be ashamed to receive if I were a Lord Lieutenant. In August last year the Royal National Eisteddfod was held in the county of the noble Lord. It happens on every occasion in the county where the Eisteddfod is held that the Lord Lieutenant of the county is invited. Invariably he attends. But not this one. Oh no! He put forward the pretext that it was a Welsh occasion.
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? I never put any pretext; I sent a polite refusal in answer to the invitation. I never put up a pretext.
LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: It may not have been a pretext; we thought it was.
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But let me put the position quite plainly to the noble Lord. The National Eisteddfod is under the patronage of Her Majesty; and one would have thought that for that reason in itself, if for no other reason, he would have accepted the invitation. But he gave the reason or the pretext for not attending that it was an all-Welsh occasion. Not every day at the Eisteddfod is spent on Welsh affairs. There is an instrumental day; there are brass bands there, and they are concerned with neither English nor Welsh. But there was also a special day. The British Council had invited students from the Commonwealth overseas to attend. They informed the noble Lord that it would be an all-English occasion.
LORD RAGLAN: They did not.
LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: They told me they did. Was the noble Lord there? Not likely! Why should he condescend to come to a Welsh gathering in any circumstances, even on an "English day"? The national Eisteddfod is very dear to the Welsh people, and that attitude towards us creates resentment and a storm; but the storm abated after much correspondence. Then what happens? The noble Lord issues an article in a monthly magazine called Wales. He has done some quoting and I will do some too. This is one of the most offensive articles one could read.
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, what has it to do with education of children?
LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: I know the background. We will come to that, and soon enough, too. I ask your Lordships to listen to this:
"In general, therefore, Welsh is the language of the illiterate Welsh, English of the literate Welsh."
He makes that statement. He does not recognise any Welsh literature. There are literary men in Wales. They may not be as literary in English as is the noble Lord, but they are nevertheless literary men. It is not for him to say that because they are literary in their native tongue they are illiterate or semi-literate. The article continues:
"The dialects of north and south are so different as to be mutually unintelligible."

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That is not true. In Wales the northerner understands the southerner. But let us consider north and south England. The noble Lord will not have heard of the two individuals at Wembley, one from the north-east and the other from the West Country. The man from the West Country kept jabbering something which the north-easterner could not understand, so he said, "Oh, either talk English or shut up!" That was not in Wales; that was at Wembley.
In writing this article the noble Lord was enjoying himself. I ask your Lordships to listen to this. Could your Lordships think of anything more offensive to any nation than this? And if a small nation it is all the worse:
"The Welsh language is thus used for at least three undesirable purposes, to conceal the results of scholarship, to try to lower the standards of official competence "—
this is a Lord Lieutenant saying this—
"and, worst of all, to create enmity where none existed."
Imagine ascribing those three offensive things to the language!
LORD RAGLAN: It is true.
LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: And he has the audacity to say that they are perfectly true. Well, I was told when I was entering the House, "Don't forget you are dealing with a silly fool." I shall believe it shortly.
But let us come to the last sentence—because he is entitled to his opinion:
"It will be a happy day for Wales when that language finally takes its proper place—on the bookshelves of the scholars."
We are told that surely the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, is entitled to state is opinion. Who said he was not? But I should like to remind the House that so was another rather fervent, ardent Welshman. He read the article and when he got to the last sentence he amended it slightly in this way:
"It will be a happy day for Wales when Lord Raglan finally joins his fathers and his body rests on the shelves of the vault of his family."
He also was entitled to his opinion. But that opinion would not entitle him to try to hurry along the day when the noble Lord. Lord Raglan, joins his fathers. The noble Lord has said that Welsh is a dying
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language. If it is, let it die naturally. Why hurry it? This is not a storm, but a tornado, that resulted in someone communicating with the Palace—wrongly, of course. Why try to drag Her Majesty into this? It is not right to drag Her Majesty into this. It is the Lord Lieutenant himself who is concerned and he, as a Lord Lieutenant, should know better than to treat little Wales in that way. We now come to the Motion.
A NOBLE LORD: Hear, hear!
LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: And it was very necessary that I should say what I have said before the noble Lord said "Hear, hear!". Why was this Motion put on the Order Paper? That was the question asked, because the noble Lord had obtained publicity which many noble Lords and Members of the other place would envy. Overnight he became the most talked-of man in Wales. Wherever one went, whatever newspaper one got hold of to read, it was a question of "That man again!" The matters to which I have referred already are the background to this Motion on the Order Paper. Why was it put there? It could have been because the noble Lord felt he had a mission and he must save the Welsh people from their own folly, since they would not save themselves.
LORD RAGLAN: The folly of a small part of them.
LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: I can well believe he may in the early hours of the morning imagine himself taking a firm stand. In fact, my Lords, I omitted to tell you that the title of the article is: "I take my stand". I can well imagine the noble Lord saying to himself:
"Dare to be a Raglan;
Dare to stand alone;
Dare to have a purpose
And dare to make it known!"
I can quite understand that. It may well be it was that sense of a mission that caused him to pursue this matter. It may well be. But, my Lords, it may be bravado. It could be braggadocio; it could be defiance and arrogance, with the attitude of. "Who are they, these illiterate and semi-illiterate people, to criticise me, the Lord Lieutenant of Monmouthshire?" It could be a horrid attitude he adopts

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towards them. It could be; but it could also be intelligent anticipation. He could have thought that someone might put a Motion upon the Order Paper and he had better forestall him. There is already a similar Motion on the Order Paper of another place. It may have been that.
What does this Motion say? It simply asks a question which could be answered from the noble Lord's own Front Bench in one word: "Yes" or "No." Do not forget that the 1944 Act was an Act of Parliament in the time of a National Government. All the Parties at that time were national ones. What did they do? They decided who should have the authority to determine the curriculum of a school in an area. In their wisdom they decided that the local education authorities should have that power; that they should have the direct responsibility, and nobody else. That is what they decided.
What does the noble Lord say? He says "No". From his speech to-day, one gathers that the parents should be in a position to say to a local authority: "No; don't put this subject in; don't put that subject in, and don't put the other subject in". Surely the noble Lord is not confining this to the Welsh language, is he? He is not going to say to the local education authorities of England and Wales: "You can do what you want regarding other subjects, but on the question of the Welsh language parents should have a right to contract out"? He is surely not suggesting such unfair treatment as that, is he? Is he saying that parents should have the right to decide from which subjects their children may contract out? Can they contract out of chemistry or history? Can they contract out of any subject? If that is the position he is advocating, it will create chaos in our schools. I cannot believe that he intends singling out this one subject.
I do not know whether or not the noble Lord has ever served on an education authority, but if he has he will know how careful a local education authority are when determining the curriculum for a school, and how careful they are when determining which subjects should go in and which should not go in. If he thinks, and if other noble Lords also think, that it will serve the interests of education in this country, in Wales or in England, simply to say: "The local education
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authority must have the approval of parents for every subject"—not singling this one out, but for every subject—then he is asking for chaos throughout the school world, both in England and in Wales.
The noble Lord then makes great claims. He tells us of some schools, somewhere, where 90 or 95 per cent. of the children are English and yet they have got to turn over to the Welsh language. In my own county, Flintshire, where I was born and where I live, there was some discussion some few months ago relating to the position of their ten schools, where almost all the children are English. It was said that 90 to 95 per cent. of the parents of the children there were objecting to Welsh being taught in those ten schools. The education authority, in their wisdom, decided to have meetings in the ten schools and to hear what the parents had to say, and to try to explain to them what was behind the policy of the L.E.A. Less than 25 per cent. of those people on fire—those people against—turned up at the meeting. Less than 25 per cent.! The education authority were told that the whole place was seething with discontent— yet less than 25 percent. turned out. And when the vote was taken the majority of those who did turn out were in favour of Welsh being taught. Everyone there was English, and they were in favour of Welsh being taught.
The noble Lord must have seen the Argus. He knows that in Newport not long ago it was suggested that headmasters should be asked to canvass the children, through their parents, on whether they would like a Welsh school or a Welsh lesson. To make it easier for them, it was suggested that it should be held on a Saturday morning. They thought they might get 25 to 30 favourable replies: in fact, they got over 500. And the vast majority of those persons were English. That was in Newport. Monmouthshire—so it is no use the noble Lord coming to the House of Lords and trying to tell us that the whole of Wales is seething against this.
We must bear in mind that local education authorities are made up of responsible men and women. They know, better than anybody else what is best to teach in their respective schools. I do not know of one local education authority

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in Wales—and I know them all; and hundreds of the members of those local education authorities—which would agree to Welsh or any other subject being introduced into a curriculum if they thought it would endanger the general education of the children. I do not know of one single education authority in the whole of Wales who would agree to any subject—English, Welsh, or any other subject—being introduced into the curriculum if it was going to endanger the general education of the scholar. What is the position regarding the very important question of how the general education of the children is affected by the learning of Welsh? The noble Lord may be surprised to hear that, generally, the child who learns both speaks both well —very well indeed. The interchange of translating one to the other enriches the vocabulary.
Let me now look at another quotation. Here is the testimony not of an illiterate or semi-illiterate Welshman but of a headmaster—an Englishman. He is the headmaster of a grammar school. Surely this will be accepted. He writes to the headmistress of a Welsh school about the progress of her pupils after transfer to his school. Let me read this:
"I should like to take this opportunity of telling you how well the boys from your school have done at the end of the first year. One or them is top of all the boys in Form I, with an average percentage of 86, the highest average that I can remember in a junior form. You will perhaps be interested to know that all these boys have done very well in English, one of them gaining 88 per cent. I am sure these results afford adequate proof, if such were needed, that children who are taught mainly in Welsh are not thereby hindered in their progress in English and other subjects when they come to a grammar school. These facts disprove categorically those statements in the Press that education through the medium of Welsh penalises any child if he proceeds with the study of English or any other language afterwards."
Then I spoke to the director of education for my native county of Flintshire (I am sorry to say that he is one of the "illiterate" or "semi-illiterate" Welshmen), and asked him what his experience was. He said that the time is now coming when we can adjudicate on the issue as to how far the introduction of Welsh has affected the general education. He said that the fact of the matter was that, in the main examinations, the children who had learnt Welsh did as well as, if not better than, those who had
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not. So it is no use thinking that learning both languages confuses the mind of the child. It does nothing of the kind.
There is another aspect which I want to emphasise. After all, your Lordships have always agreed that there is a Welsh nation—as much a nation as the English nation. What amazes me is that, after eighteen centuries of battling, the Welsh language is still alive. Let it be clearly understood that it has been a fight right through. One prominent Welshman, writing a few years ago, said this:
"How the ancient speech of the Britons, after battling for eighteen centuries against three such powerful languages as French, Latin and English, has survived at all, is a mystery; the fact that it is today more studied, more written about and more read than ever before is a miracle."
That was a man who may be known to the noble Lord. Professor Sir Alfred Zimmern—an Englishman this time, said this:
"Welsh has survived because it represents something—a spirit, a culture, a national character."
And Ruskin said about seventy years ago:
"God forbid that the Welsh language should die! It is the language of music."
There is another quotation that I want to read. This is by somebody who happened to be a good friend of mine, George Tomlinson, who was Minister of Education in the Labour Government. George Tomlinson was a thorough Englishman. There is nobody more English than a Lancashire man, and George Tomlinson was thoroughly Lancashire.
"I believe,"
said the late George Tomlinson
"that the language, the literature, the history and the traditions of Wales ate the priceless heritage of all Welsh children."
I beg of the noble Lord, if he must pursue this course, to do it with a little more discretion. I would beg of him, also, if he does so, to resign his position as Lord Lieutenant. Then he will be able to say it far better and with better grace.
It is suggested that a bunch of Welshmen known as the Welsh Nationalist Party are running Wales. Anyone who suggests that does not know Wales. A friend of mine who holds a high position in Wales said to me the other day that it was not the noble Lord, Lord Raglan,

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who would kill the Welsh language but the Welsh Nationalist Party, by their silly, overmuch lauding of the language. Suppose that to-morrow morning every man, woman and child who lives in Wales, including the noble Lord, woke up able to speak Welsh fluently. Would that mean that because we should all then speak Welsh we would make a mass attack on England? Is that the idea? That is what is suggested. It is suggested that the more people speak Welsh the more we endanger the relationship between the two countries. That is just silly.
The Welsh people have played their part in the United Kingdom—a noble part and a part that ought never to be forgotten. Many of them are anxious to-day to preserve their language. I have spent fifty-five years in Lancashire and therefore I think I can view the position a little differently from those who have spent all their lives in Wales; but to those of us who know the language and enjoy reading our literature it seems wrong to stop the attempt to talk in the language and to use the schools to help to make our children Welsh and give them a knowledge of the Welsh language. Is that a right attitude? Is that a statesmanlike attitude? I presume that at the end of the debate the noble Lord will be able to find it unnecessary to force a Division and will find it possible to withdraw his Motion. On this issue there is no Party policy and I have no doubt that if a Division were called we should be a mixed bag in both Lobbies. I want the House to send this message to Wales: that the exclusion of any subject from the general curriculum, which exclusion might endanger the general education of the children of Wales, is opposed by your Lordships.
It must be remembered—and this is important—that there are those in Wales who are dissatisfied with being ruled from Westminster and who think that if they had a Parliament for Wales, sitting at Cardiff, they would be much better off. Many of us in Wales do not accept that doctrine at all and we will do all we can to prevent it, because we think that our interests are joint interests and that it is far better to keep together. If we want to drive Wales into the hands of the Nationalist Party, all we have to do is to pursue the kind of policy which is in the
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mind of the noble Lord. Then more Welsh people than ever would feel inclined to support a Parliament for Wales.
3.55 p.m.
LORD SWANSEA: My Lords, it is with some trepidation that I rise to address your Lordships' House for the first time, and I must ask your Lordships' indulgence while I occupy your time for a brief space. I am afraid that I cannot speak with the eloquence achieved by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, who has just spoken. Like the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, I am an Englishman living in Wales, where I was born. Although I speak no Welsh, I find it no hindrance, and certainly I should not choose to live anywhere else. Although I agree with a great deal of what the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, has said. I feel that the article which he wrote for the magazine Wales, which has raised such a storm in Welsh circles, was rather unfortunate in coming from him, an Englishman of high standing living in a county which is neither in England nor in Wales.
The noble Lord said that small languages are a hindrance to communications between countries, but even if the world had a universal language, there would still be a need for tact and a certain forbearance in people's dealing with each other. I think that the article has served to influence a hot-headed few and to offend the feelings of many who otherwise bear no ill-will towards the English. I think it is remarkable that while the noble Lord, Lord Raglan has received numerous letters commending his view and contributing further opinions, all the letters of the opposite viewpoint, which have been published in the Press have been, almost without exception, simply abusive and have offered no concrete and reasoned arguments. This only illustrates the intolerance of a Nationalist minority towards anybody who dares to oppose their views.
I believe that the Welsh language should not be allowed to die out. The best way for it to survive is for people to speak it in their homes and to bring up their children to speak it. Many people who wish their children to learn, say, French send them abroad to France. There, living perhaps with a French family and in a French atmosphere, they

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naturally absorb the language and quickly become efficient in it through daily use. If children are going to learn Welsh in their homes, it is only right and natural that they should be able to have lessons in grammar and spelling at school. But if they do not speak the language at home, it is useless for parents to insist that they learn it at school, because as soon as they leave school they will soon forget all they have learned and much time and money will have been wasted. There is the added difficulty, as the noble Lord, Lord Raglan has said, that there is no such thing as standard Welsh, the equivalent of what we know as the Queen's English. First, there is great difference between the written and the spoken language in any one place. Secondly, there is just as great a difference in the language as spoken in North Wales and South Wales, and even in adjoining counties. Even children who have been brought up to speak Welsh at home find that the Welsh they are taught at school very different.
Much is being said about attracting industries to Wales, and there is no doubt that the potential benefits, both to Wales and to Great Britain's prosperity as a whole. are enormous. However, workers will not be keen to come to Wales from, say, the Midlands unless they have some assurance that their children will have a good education in their new homes. What possible justification can there be for compelling these children to learn Welsh? Or more still for compelling these children to attend schools in which all lessons are conducted in Welsh? That has happened already, as the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, has told us. A case was reported in the Press a short while ago. A boy went to a village school in Anglesey where all the teaching was carried out in Welsh. He did net understand one word of the language and was given a pencil and piece of paper to keep him occupied. What benefit could that boy have obtained from such an education? It is not to be wondered at that he was classed as backward, through no fault of his own.
Fanatical insistence on one language cannot produce happy results. The case of Ireland provides a lesson for anyone who thinks otherwise. The policy of Mr. De Valera was survival of language at the expense of unity; yet today, I am told, 90 per cent. of the people in Ireland are English-speaking, and there is still
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no unity. Their Government has made every effort to make Gaelic the official and universal language of the country, to the extent of adopting the Gaelic spelling of place names, and even of personal names, so that they become quite unrecognisable to anybody but the 10 per cent. who speak Gaelic. In some counties in Wales, too, this practice is gaining ground. One sees large signs on the county boundaries, and outside towns and villages, hearing the English and Welsh names, which often have little or no apparent connection with each other. One cannot help wondering whether, if one addressed a letter in Welsh, it would in fact reach its destination.
What has happened in Ireland is also happening in South Africa, where the present Government is trying to make Afrikaans the official language of the country. I was once told by an African N.C.O. there that in the South African Army all correspondence is carried out in alternate months in English and Afrikaans. Unfortunately, Afrikaans is rather weak in technical terms, so that if during an Afrikaans' month they want to indent, say, for a small part with a long name for a rifle they leave it, if they can until the following month when they can indent for it in English. The same person also told me that the literal translation in Afrikaans of the command "Mark time!" would be: "Make as if you are walking, but do not walk."
The Welsh language is similarly handicapped. Although it is a language of great antiquity, it is not flexible and adaptable to changes in requirements. It is not alone in this respect: technical German, for instance, fairly bristles with portmanteau words which would make Lewis Carroll green with envy. But because of this handicap Welsh has to borrow wholesale from English to fill the gaps in its vocabulary. A few days ago I was in a garage in South Wales when a customer came in and spoke to the proprietor in Welsh, in the middle of which I heard the word battery ". The proprietor responded with another flow of Welsh, in which the words "two-year guarantee" appeared like lucky charms in a Christmas pudding.
Welsh is a language with great tradition behind it, and a lot of memorable poetry and prose. For that reason the language should not be allowed to die out altogether.

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Eisteddfods, both local and national, do much to keep the language alive by encouraging the growth of new writers; but care must be taken lest Eisteddfods become bogged down through insistence on the use of one language. The other day I was told the story of an Englishman who happened to be in Ebbw Vale at the time of the National Eisteddfod. Being keenly interested in music he obtained tickets for it. In the course of the programme he asked the people sitting next to him to explain what the next item in the programme was. They started to tell him in Welsh. He said: "Look here, I cannot understand a word of what you are saying. I have come here because I am very interested in music, and I want to know what the next song is about, so that I can appreciate it." They still continued to talk to him in Welsh and, not unnaturally, he was so annoyed that he got up and walked out. An Eisteddfod could be a great attraction to tourists, were it not for the narrow-mindedness of some people who have not the courtesy to speak to visitors in a language they understand perfectly well.
To many people Welsh is an essential part of their home and community life. But what practical purpose does it serve? In the centres of commerce and industry, such as Cardiff and Swansea, I am sure it would be difficult to find anyone who regularly uses the language in the course of his business. Of all the local authorities in Wales, only one conducts its meetings in Welsh. The members must, I presume, derive some satisfaction from using it in the council chamber, but what good can it do them in their correspondence and transactions with other and higher authorities? It has been suggested that in some parts of Wales preference is given to Welsh-speaking applicants for posts in local government, regardless of whether their other qualifications are adequate. If this is so, it is yet another example of the inverted snobbery which is unfortunately so common these days.
The quality of being Welsh is not dependent on language alone. The Welsh people who have contributed most to the world. in science, the arts, literature, commerce, and even in politics, have done so through the medium of the English language. Many of them, even among the writers, have succeeded in displaying
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their Welshness through their work without being able to speak or write the language. One has only to look at Census figures to see how Welsh has declined since the beginning of this century. To-day only a quarter of the population, most of them in the higher age groups, can speak Welsh fluently. The literature of the language to-day is meagre: there is no Welsh daily newspaper; few periodicals and only a few books are published, simply because the demand is not there, as my noble friend Lord Raglan has already said. In one of the most Welsh-speaking towns only one Welsh library hook is borrowed for ten English ones. In other parts, as we have heard, the proportion is even less.
There is one body which, perhaps in consequence of this controversy, has been stung into action. The London Welsh Association, which I gather up till now has conducted all its functions in English, has now resolved to conduct them in Welsh. However, I see from a newspaper report that at a dinner organised by the Association an appeal for the preservation of the Welsh language was made in English. If Welsh is to be preserved, let people speak it at home; and let it be taught in the schools, but only with the consent of the parents. The object of education is to make children fit to take their place in the world, and their needs, my Lords, should surely have first consideration.
4.9 p.m.
LORD DYNEVOR: My Lords, it falls to my happy lot to congratulate my noble friend Lord Swansea on his maiden speech in this House. It will be apparent to your Lordships that we shall benefit very much from any future contribution he may make to us, which we hope will not be too long delayed. Having said that, I am not quite sure that I agree with all he has said. I am sure, however, that I do not agree with the method that my noble friend Lord Raglan has adopted to bring this matter to the attention of Parliament. It may be said, perhaps, that some violent electric shock should be administered to Parliament to make it consider this vexed question— because undoubtedly it is a vexed question—but I feel that we can discuss the matter without hurting other people's feelings to quite the degree that I think they have been hurt by those who are

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perhaps more extreme Welsh nationalists than I am, although I yield to no one in my desire to do what I can for my country in the best possible manner.
Undoubtedly a shock has been administered; I feel even that my noble friend opposite, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, felt the prick of the needle when he was making the first part of his speech. That is all as it may be. Surely, the point of this debate is to find out, in the words of the Motion, whether the Education Act, 1944, is in fact being carried out. If the forum of the nation, in the shape of the two Houses of Parliament, cannot discuss this matter in a reasonable voice, then that is, of course, the negation of what the Houses of Parliament stand for.
I am delighted that the Welsh language survives, and I entirely agree with the noble Lord. Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, that it is a miracle that it does. Perhaps I may, with due diffidence, be allowed to say that, because my family was not one of those which left Wales at the time of the Tudor accession to the throne. Possibly it was because of forfeiture or execution that it had to remain where it was. But it recovered. Of course, the position of the Welsh language varies greatly according to the part of Wales you are in, and what may appear to be quite ridiculous in one part of Wales is not so ridiculous in another. I live in a county where the Welsh language is the current speech of the countryside. Many children go to school at the age of five unable to speak English and that is, of course, the strength of the language—it is in the home.
But we must recognise that Welsh parents want their children to learn English when they go to school. There is absolutely no doubt about that. The village schools are slowly being closed, and it makes education in those that survive very difficult. It is not long since that I was in a small village school in Carmarthenshire which had eleven children as pupils. Only seven spoke Welsh, and only four spoke English. The schoolmistress, who, incidentally, lived in the town of Llangadog which my noble friend Lord Raglan mentioned in his speech, said she had an extraordinarily difficult task, because every lesson had to be done twice—not only the ordinary lesson, but
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also the teaching of the two languages vice versa. The English children certainly did not want to learn Welsh. Their parents were there on a temporary job for a year or two, and then the children would go away and forget all they had ever learned.
I will turn for a few moments to the question of how to overcome that difficulty. So far as the language is concerned, I submit that we should encourage it in the home in every way we know. We have now a Welsh broadcasting system which competes, I hope successfully —I am not quite sure; in fact, I rather doubt it— with English television and English radio, and there are, of course, the Eisteddfods and the literature which can encourage it naturally. But, in spite of all that, I think there is no doubt that the Welsh language is declining slightly. In my submission, the mistake of the ardent Welsh nationalist is in making a fetish of the language, because, whether we like it or not, the majority of Welsh people do not speak it. I tried a few moments ago to point out that whether it appears reasonable or unreasonable depends upon where you live. But because the majority of the Welsh people do not speak Welsh, I do not think they are any less patriotic for that reason.
It was my immense privilege two or three weeks ago—and the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, was there—to speak the closing words of the Festival of Wales in the big stadium at Cardiff, in the presence of several thousand people. That occasion was the culmination of six months of the Festival which reached into every town and village. I believe that those who were present will bear me out when I say that there was a tremendous feeling of culmination of a great national effort, and that everybody who was there felt that all the trouble, time and expense that had been given to it was well worth while. But, my Lords, it was in English. That was the language spoken, because most of us could not speak Welsh—at least I and and others on the platform could not speak it. But although the Welsh language was not used at that function, I yield to nobody in my feeling of patriotism towards Wales. I can only say that I came away feeling that the whole thing was a great. moving success. The present Archbishop of Wales cannot speak Welsh. He comes from the County of Monmouth.
A NOBLE LORD: Worcestershire.
LORD DYNEVOR: No, he was the Bishop of Monmouth before he was appointed Archbishop of Wales. I instance that only to show the slow pressure of the English language upon the Welsh language. In Cardiff, the capital city, you will hear virtually no Welsh spoken. but there are many good Welsh people there, for all that.
With that background, I come to the actual issue of this debate: the compulsory teaching of Welsh in the schools. This is indeed the crux. It may be argued that the decline of the Welsh language would have gone faster if it had not been that the language was compulsorily taught in the schools of those particular counties that insist upon it. Indeed, I have no particular objection whatever to the teaching of Welsh in the schools, if that is what the parents want, but—and here I come to the great difficultyနI have a great deal of sympathy with the English children who do not want to learn it. I do not know how to get over that difficulty. In our old-fashioned, rather over-crowded school-houses and buildings, it is difficult to know how further segregation can be made and classes divided so that while Welsh is being taught on one side of the school, English children, or those who do not want to learn it, can be taught something else.
There have been suggestions, and there still are, that all-Welsh schools should be built. I have in my hand a notice issued last year by the Education Committee of the Carmarthenshire County Council which I received as a governor of one of the voluntary schools which may be affected. It says:
"Notice is hereby given, in accordance with the provisions of Section 13 (3) of the Education Act, 1944, that the County Council of Carmarthen, being the local education authority, propose to establish a new Welsh county primary school for about thirty children mainly of the age of five to eleven …"
The school will be available for that district. That notice is in English, and it is naturally printed in Welsh on the other side. The question which interested me and my colleagues, I think I may say, when we received that notice was: Will the children benefit? Your Lordships will have noticed that the school is for thirty children. I suppose one could argue the other way round: that one
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is providing a school for thirty children who will be unable to speak English until they are eleven, and they will make more room in the other schools for those who wish to learn English and do not want to learn Welsh. But I do not think that that is really in the interests of the children, which must be the paramount issue.
English, as has already been said by noble Lords, is the language of commerce, the language of science and the language of the exciting world of the future which our children have before them to-day. There is no single scientific Welsh word. In spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, said, I cannot think that a child will not take some harm from not being able to speak a word of English until it is eleven. although I dare say that the medical profession can tell you that a foreign child coming here, speaking only Russian at the age of eleven, will be nearly word perfect in English by the time it is fifteen. That may well be; but within the confines of these British Isles, where we have this one universal language spoken, whether we like it or not, in Ireland and Scotland and England, I cannot help feeling that it is a slightly retrograde step. from the child's point of view, to prevent its acquiring a sound knowledge of the English language at the earliest possible age.
If there are those who want to speak Welsh, to become fluent in it, to become scholarly in it—and, so far as I know, there is only one universal Welsh book and that is the Bible—well, if we like to pay for it, allow that to happen. But the overriding consideration, in my view, must be for Parliament to give the fullest protection to every child in this country who desires to become perfect in English, and do nothing to handicap it in commerce, trade and science in the great world of the future.
4.22 p.m.
LORD GRANVILLE-WEST: My Lords, I rise to address your Lordships' House for the first time, and I crave that indulgence which your Lordships so generously grant to one who faces the ordeal of the maiden speech. I face that ordeal now, and I am acutely aware of the very high standards which your Lordships set and of the wholly admirable quality of the maiden speeches which

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have so far preceded mine. Furthermore, I realise that a maiden speech, to be acceptable to your Lordships, must be non-controversial. I am in the unfortunate position of having chosen to speak in this debate, which your Lordships may think was rather rash on my part; but whatever the feelings may be in Wales and elsewhere with regard to the matter now under discussion, I can only assure yam. Lordships that I, for my part, shall avoid the highly explosive nature of them. Furthermore, it may be of some comfort to your Lordships to know that I shall be brief.
Perhaps I may be permitted to deal with a preliminary point. The noble Lord, Lord Raglan, has based his Motion upon the legality of the teaching of Welsh in schools in Wales. He rests his objection on Section 76 of the Education Act, 1944. With great respect to the noble Lord, I would submit to him and to the House that Section 76 of the Act of 1944 is a section which does not deal with the curriculum in schools but deals with choice of schools. There is this great difference. If a local education authority, in pursuance of the powers given to them, have erected two schools, then there may be a choice to the parent to decide which of those two schools his child shall attend; and it is upon that point, I think, that the noble Lord has rested his objection. In fact, the section which deals with the curriculum in schools is Section 23, and that matter, under the Act, is given to the local education authorities to decide.
Now, my Lords, one of the reasons why I ventured to intervene in this debate at all was that, like the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, who has so eloquently and so vigorously introduced this debate, I have a close and intimate association with Monmouthshire, a county which, as the noble Lord said, is technically outside Wales, but which, of course, has historical Welsh connections; in fact, it has often been described as the most Anglicised part of Wales. However, I do not propose this afternoon to talk upon the technical matter of the true legal status of Monmouthshire. What I think is indisputable is that Monmouthshire, at any rate historically, formed the Welsh Kingdom of Gwent Its place names are Welsh. The eisteddfod, which is so essentially Welsh in character, is firmly
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established in the towns and villages of that county and is so much a part of the life of the people. Furthermore, my Lords, successive Governments have recognised the inseparability of Monmouthshire from Wales in matters of education, local government, industry and Statute Law. Perhaps I may be permitted to say that one of the convincing arguments in favour of the association of Monmouthshire with Wales is the fact that so many Monmouthshire men find their place in the Welsh International Rugby team.
The point I want to make is that, not-withstanding these close Welsh connections, the Welsh language in Monmouthshire is virtually non-existent. Even the local eisteddfodau are conducted in the English tongue. It is true, as the noble Lord, Lord Raglan said, that only 3.5 per cent. of its total population can speak the Welsh language. With regard to schoolchildren between the ages of five and fifteen in maintained primary and secondary schools, the position is even worse; only 2 out of every 1,000 of them are thoroughly bi-lingual; and only 8 out of every 1,000 are able to carry on an elementary conversation in the Welsh language. In this respect the position of Cardiff, the capital city, is not much better. Only 4 out of every 1,000 of its schoolchildren of the ages I have mentioned are thoroughly bi-lingual, while only 16 out of every 1,000 can carry on this elementary conversation in Welsh. Monmouthshire's position does not greatly differ from that found in other industrial areas. In Glamorgan and Rhondda only 7·2 per cent. of their schoolchildren are thoroughly bi-lingual. So there is undoubtedly a remarkable decline in the use of the Welsh language in Gwent.
There are various reasons for this. One, of course, is to he found in the large number of people who crossed the borders into Gwent from England during the last century, when industrial development took place, But another reason, and perhaps the most significant of all, is that in very few schools in Monmouthshire was the Welsh language taught; and certainly in none of them was it a compulsory subject. If, therefore, the Central Advisory Council for Education are right when they declare that the distinct culture of Wales is closely and intimately bound up with the language,

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and little of it will survive the language, then Welsh culture is in serious danger in those industrial areas. It follows from this that the cultural future of Wales rests not on Monmouthshire or Glamorganshire—though perhaps in time they may be able to make a greater contribution—but on the counties north and west, where about 70 to 80 per cent. of the population are Welsh-speaking. They are now the guardians of the Welsh language and culture. But when industrial development spreads to them, as all are hoping to see, will they, too, be able to withstand the pressure, or will the industrialisation and the influx of population, mean Welsh denationalisation?
The Celtic language has been subjected to many pressures and to many threats of extinction throughout the centuries, but it has survived over a thousand years. There are still nearly one million people in Wales who speak the Welsh tongue, but undoubtedly it is true that the English influence is strong and permanent, and must exist in Wales side by side with that of the Welsh. It is therefore not possible, nor indeed is it desirable, to have a Principality wholly and exclusively Welsh in language or in culture.
The Central Advisory Council for Education in Wales clearly saw the road ahead when in their Report they said that the only feasible way in which Welsh culture could be kept alive and saved for posterity was by a policy of bi-lingualism. They could see only one other alternative, and that was for Wales to become monolingual English, which would mean the disappearance of the Welsh language and culture. I do not believe that the English, certainly much less the Welsh, would wish to see so rich a heritage lost. It is therefore in the Advisory Council's recommendation that the greatest hope lies. It was accepted by the then Minister of Education, Miss Florence Horsbrugh, who urged local education authorities to implement it as quickly as possible. The recommendation was that the children of the whole of Wales, including Monmouthshire, should be taught Welsh and English according to their ability to profit from the instruction. Some progress has been made even in Monmouthshire. In 1955, the Monmouthshire education committee established a small school with Welsh as the medium of instruction.
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Perhaps I may refer at this point to some observations which have been made with regard to the teaching in Welsh schools. The impression that has been conveyed to me is that English-speaking children are compelled to attend Welsh schools and submit to instruction in the Welsh language. If that is so, then I must confess that I was not aware of it. The position as I understood it was that in regard to the Welsh schools where Welsh was the language of instruction, it was the parents who decided whether their children should attend such schools. The children were taught the Welsh language up to the age of seven, and from the age of seven the English language was introduced progressively up to the age of eleven-plus. They then sat for the eleven-plus examination which in Wales was, and still is, taken on a knowledge of English and arithmetic. To get into the grammar schools the children had to satisfy the standards in English and arithmetic. So far as I have been able to understand the position, the results of the examinations show that the children who have been taught bi-lingually (which the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, said was educationally bad) obtained, on the average, a higher percentage of places in the grammar schools than those who were taught in the English language alone.
But I was saying that some progress has been made in Monmouthshire, and I mentioned the establishment of a school in which the language of instruction was Welsh. That is the case where the parents exercise their choice. They have in the same area arranged for Welsh to be incorporated in the curriculum of the primary schools as a second language—this is a bi-lingual effort—while in the secondary school it is taken as an optional subject. There are three other schools within the county—two grammar schools and one secondary modern school—in which Welsh is taught as an optional subject. If I am wrong in the impression I have gathered from the noble Lord. Lord Raglan, I hope he will forgive me. but I rather gathered the impression that he was complaining that children of English parents living in Wales were compelled to attend school and to receive Welsh instruction.
There is another side to the story, because in Monmouthshire, which the noble Lord knows so well (the noble Lord and I at one time served upon the

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same local education authority) a questionnaire was sent out to 5,000 parents inquiring whether they would like their children to take the study of Welsh. Three thousand five hundred of them replied and said that they would like it done; but because of the difficulty of making arrangements in the schools, and because of the shortage of teachers of Welsh. those 3,500 children could not be taught the Welsh language. So that it is not wholly on the one side that these difficulties arise.
Then again, in Monmouthshire there is the Caerleon Training College. This college is one where the Welsh language is extensively used, and it has become a stronghold of the Welsh language and culture. It is, of course, in the predominantly Welsh-speaking areas of the north and west where the policy of bilingualism is being most extensively applied; but the pattern throughout Wales and Monmouthshire as a whole is a highly complex one. Your Lordships may have been given the impression that in Wales all schools are taken in the Welsh language, and the Welsh language only. The position, as I understand it, is as follows. There are schools where the Welsh language is the language of instruction, subject to the parents of the children giving their consent. Then there are schools where English is the medium of instruction, with Welsh as a second language—that is to say, if the children take Welsh in the primary schools, they are taught English up to the age of seven, and at the age of seven they are then gradually and progressively taught the Welsh language. In other schools, where English is the language of instruction, Welsh is an optional subject; and there are a large number of schools in Wales where English is taught but no Welsh is taught at all. This pattern, my Lords, demonstrates, I think, that local education authorities, upon whom the responsibility for providing the school curriculum rests, are discharging their responsibilities with sympathy., with understanding and, I hope, with wisdom; and that this matter can safely be left with these local education authorities who have so faithfully discharged their responsibilities in the past.
4.39 p.m.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, I regard it as fortunate that it falls to me
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to follow the noble Lord, Lord Granville-West, and to express—I believe I carry your Lordships with me in this—our appreciation of his maiden speech. I, at any rate, felt that his calm manner and the balanced selection of facts with which he supported his argument were of a kind to commend themselves to your Lordships, and I feel sure that if he can do as well as that on his maiden speech, we shall look forward with interest to his further contributions when he has perhaps become more accustomed to your Lordships' House. I particularly commend his suggestion that this is a Motion which should not be decided on legalistic grounds—particularly when the legalistic ground on which the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, who moved this Motion, relies, is of extremely doubtful validity in the opinion of every lawyer whom I have heard give an opinion upon it. The question should be decided on grounds which transcend every petty legal consideration, and I am sure that when the noble Lord, Lord Brecon, comes to reply he will deal with that matter more adequately than I can.
Having said that, I wish respectfully to express my own dissent from the opinions of the noble Lord, Lord Raglan. I would go further and say that if the noble Lord is looking for a windmill to tilt at or a mission in life in the field of education, I believe he could find one more worthy of his influential position, one less likely to inflame Welsh opinion against him and, I am afraid I must add, against his high office, and one which, moreover, would be more likely to be rewarded with success. Let me, in passing, mention just one subject which I should like, with all deference, to suggest to the noble Lord: the proportion of children who are taught French compared with the small proportion who are taught German or Spanish; and the infinitesimal proportion of children who are taught one of the two great trading languages of the future, Chinese or Russian. Surely there are more material gains to be attained by espousing a cause of that kind than to pick on a subject which arouses such intense antagonism among the noble Lord's own people and population.
What makes the noble Lord's case at once more plausible and more provocative is that there is a grain of truth in

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each of his three main points. Undoubtedly there are Welshmen who would give a job to the devil if he could speak Welsh and would reject the Angel Gabriel if he could not. But gentlemen with dominating prejudices are to be found at every appointments board, and noble Lords must be aware of the exceptional but still numerous class of person in a position of authority to whom religion, accent, school, politics or common membership of something or other is preferred to competence. These are not characteristics of the Welsh alone; these are human weaknesses, and I have no reason to suppose that they are any worse or that they run more strongly in the breast of a Welsh nationalist than they do in a large number of other categories of gentlemen whom I need not name.
I was sorry to hear the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, say that hatred of the English was being taught by some of those who are teaching Welsh in the Welsh schools. That I do not believe; and I found it rather astonishing that a proposition so grave should be put forward by one of your Lordships without a scintilla of evidence to support it. It is perfectly true that a number of semi-jocular references to the English are made occasionally, just as there are references to the Scotch and often to the Irish. I remember once being told by no less a person than Mr. Lloyd George, with whom I had the honour of some close association, that when he first went to the Peace Conference he said to M. Clemenceau: "How do the Bretons fight?" M. Clemenceau said: "That is a curious question to ask. Why do you want to know that?" Mr. Lloyd George told him, "The Welsh and the Bretons have a great deal in common and I am very curious to know if they are as good fighters as the Welsh." M. Clemenceau said: "They are the most wonderful fighters—but they are subject to one condition: we have to let them think they are fighting against the English". I am sure that that is the kind of semi-jocular reference which constitutes the only foundation which the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, could bring forward to support his serious proposition that hatred of the English is being taught in Welsh schools.
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A further point in reference to his speech which I should like to submit to your Lordships is this. He skated swiftly and lightly over the case upon which he originally based his argument and he founded his case before your Lordships on reading a succession of letters which he had received from correspondents since he published his rather extreme article in the Press. Your Lordships know that there is no proposition so foolish but which, if published in the Press under the name of any person in authority, will not attract a whole flood of letters in support. I would go even further and say that the more foolish and fanatical the proposition, the more letters will it attract. I believe that before your Lordships would vote on so sensitive a question as this you would want some more real proof than that which was adduced by the noble Lord.
I said that there was a grain of truth in some of the propositions put forward by the noble Lord, but there are others which are not supported by any grain of truth at all. One of those is his statement that most of the speakers of Welsh are illiterate or semi-illiterate. I submit that that statement is simply not true. I have not the honour of any personal knowledge of the mover of the Motion and therefore I may be mistaken in this; but his statement seems to me to indicate that he has lived in an ivory tower and has not mixed with the Welsh-speaking people on such a level as would enable him to assess their intelligence and literary knowledge.
If noble Lords would not mind a very brief personal reference, I feel that I can speak with a little personal detachment on this subject, like one or two other speakers. None of us, I believe, are strong Welsh nationalists. Both my parents spoke Welsh as their first language, and my father's first pastorate was all-Welsh. My earliest recollections are of two services every Sunday, each under twelve heads, all in Welsh, with all hymns in Welsh. I have not myself been. and am not to-day, an advocate of applying any strong stimulus to the growth of any small language, whether it is Irish, Gaelic Afrikaans or Welsh; indeed on this part of the subject I agree with almost everything that was said by the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, and if he had been framing the Motion and opening it I venture to believe that it would

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have had a great deal better chance of passing through your Lordships' House than that which has been put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Raglan. If I understood the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, aright, his attitude is very different from that of the mover of the Motion. The mover has made an attack, rather an immoderate one, I am afraid, on the educational and cultural standards of the Welsh-speaking people, and has insinuated—in fact rather more; he has declared in no equivocal terms—that the Welsh language is a forced growth.
I want to give just one more brief personal reminiscence or memory, which as an argument is sometimes a little more powerful and valid than mere statistics. When I began my business life it was as a junior apprentice in a bank. About 80 per cent. of the customers of that bank were Welsh, the name over the door was written in Welsh and the cheques were written and drawn in Welsh—and (an even greater moment of truth) when the manager wrote to customers asking them to call next day without fail and reduce their overdraft, that too was written in Welsh. I have written so many of those stock letters in my own hand that I could recite the terms of them to your Lordships even to-day, a great many years after those events. What nonsense it is to suggest that a language so universally spoken by people is a forced and unnatural thing which ought to be allowed to die! I do not presume to be a better judge of literacy and literary culture than is the noble Lord, but I am prepared to put forward this proposition: that the standards of culture of the people of Wales are highest where the proportion of Welsh spoken is highest. In saying that, I do not exclude even those circles in which the noble Lord himself moves.
I do not know whether it is too much to expect the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, not to press his Motion. Many people will be with him in deploring an exclusive nationalist cult of Welsh which would exclude from the comity of Wales a much greater number of Welshmen who live outside Wales than who live in it. I believe the Welsh have that in common with the Irish and the Scotch—there are more people of Welsh, scotch and Irish origin outside their three countries than there are within the three
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countries. I do not dissent from what the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, said: a very large proportion of the achievements of Welshmen who live outside Wales are at least equal to the achievements of those who live inside Wales. I think that an attitude which attempts to exclude those non-Welsh-speaking Welshmen from the comity (that is the most general word I can think of) of Wales is mistaken and ought to be opposed. I believe that reasonable men informed by the same facts will come to the same conclusions on this rather sensitive subject and thus will present a united opposition to those who take an emotional view on either side.
I believe that a public policy of understanding, common sense and tolerance is what is required to deal with this situation. As for the place of the language in the curriculum, I repeat that the question must be decided on grounds which transcend the legalistic grounds; and I hope that if your Lordships cannot oppose this Motion on the legalistic grounds, you will, if it is pressed to a vote, reject it on grounds which have a far greater importance than that.
4.53 p.m.
VISCOUNT TENBY: My Lords. I must confess that when I saw this question on the Order Paper for the first time, a quick glance did not make me feel it was entirely unreasonable. The only thing that I felt, as the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, also felt. was: why on earth should there he one particular subject which should be dropped on the grounds of parents' intervention? It would be a very serious thing if children were to drop certain subjects because of a whim of their parents. I can well understand (if my memory goes back to my schooldays) the very much better proposition that subjects could be dropped at the request of the children. I had some excellent candidates myself which I would have put forward with the greatest possible pleasure. The reason why I think that would have been a good idea is that I believe it was a famous headmaster of Rugby who said that boys are always reasonable, masters sometimes, and parents never. I think it would be a tremendous mistake if a subject were allowed to be dropped at the whim of parents.

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However, having read the article of the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, I came to realise that that was not really the purpose of the Motion. There is no doubt whatever for anybody who has read it that the noble Lord's purpose is to abolish the language altogether. I am not using this word in any offensive sense (as I need hardly say to the noble Lord, Lord Raglan). but his article reveals as appalling an ignorance of Wales, as a country, as it is almost possible to believe of anyone who knows Wales. This afternoon the noble Lord gave figures for various parts of Wales. Those parts have not been Welsh-speaking for years. South Pembrokeshire has not been Welsh-speaking for 400 years. But he did not mention what is a very important point indeed: that in three of live Welsh counties, the percentages of Welsh-speaking children attending school are over 80 per cent.—in one case, it is 88 per cent.; and in the two other counties 77 per cent. and 68 per cent. of the children are Welsh-speaking. That covers a part of Wales which is entitled to consideration. There is rural Wales and there is industrial Wales. Anglicisation comes with industrialisation, obviously, because a tremendous number of people who developed Welsh industries came from over the Border.
Judging from the speech of the noble Lord, he has definitely come to the conclusion that the Welsh language is at death's door and he is anxious to pull it through. I would remind your Lordships that this is not the first time that efforts have been made to destroy this language. I refer back to the Act of Union, 1536, at which time it was practically attempted by Statute. That was followed some fifty years later by a remarkable achievement which makes the Welsh language differ from both Gaelic and Erse, and that is the translation of the Bible from Hebrew into Welsh by Bishop Morgan. That obtained for Wales a classical language that is still with us. That is a very great difference. And despite the Act of 1536, there are far more people who can, and do, speak Welsh to-day than when the Act of 1536 was passed.
I suggest that there are three approaches to this question: there is the extreme Right (if I may put it that way); there is the extreme on the Left and there is the middle way. I confess that
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in this particular instance I am a middleman. I am bound to agree with certain of the observations which the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, made to-day, particularly with regard to Monmouthshire, where the percentage of Welsh-speaking schoolchildren is very small indeed. At the same time, I regard him as one who thinks it would be better if the language were completely abolished throughout the country. On the other hand, we have the extreme Nationalists who, so far as I can ascertain, would like to exclude everything from Wales unless it is Welsh. It savours to me very much of the castor oil which one used to hear about in days gone by. They would even insist on the income tax forms being in Welsh as well as in English. I myself find it impossible to understand them in English, and I certainly could not understand them in Welsh. But I, personally, favour the middle course.
In many parts of Wales, Welsh is the domestic language. I spoke none other for years. May I tell a personal story which has an application to this debate? I went to a school in London when I was six years old. I revisited that school some three years ago. The master had kept the mark book; to my horror he had kept my marks as well. There were three subjects on which we were marked. known to your Lordships as reading, writing and arithmetic. Beside the name of "G. Lloyd George" there appeared, "0", "0", "0". I was, I confess, very disappointed with this until the Chairman of the London County Council, who very kindly took me there, said "Do not be surprised. I made inquiries and I was rather shocked. You got '0', '0', '0', because you were not assessable as you could not speak English." I went to a school in London not understanding one word of the English language. I should have been taken away, I assume, if it had been such a handicap that I did not learn anything.
I assume, if I read the article correctly, that I am like the others—semi-literate and not half as competent as I should have been. It is not for me to judge my own competence, but I have never felt at any time that being able to speak the two languages had any effect upon me at all. In fact, I think that on the whole it has been a great advantage, as it is to be bi-lingual in any two tongues. I would inform your Lordships that one senior

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civil servant (if not the senior civil servant) in Wales to-day is a Scot. He has taught himself Welsh, well enough to speak on a public platform. I suppose that by now he also is "semi-literate" and is not half the civil servant that he was before he decided to do this rather foolish thing.
There is one part of Lord Raglan's article to which I must call attention, because I have some experience of it—I think. Lord Swansea also referred to it. It says:
"The dialects of north and south are so different as to he mutually unintelligible, and the literary language, which is taught in the schools but is nobody's mother tongue, differs considerably from both."
He is then good enough to add:
"At least, that is what I am given to understand."
That is the explanation of that quite fantastic statement. My Lords, I was a North Welshman; I lived as far from South Wales as one can live. As to the dialect, as he calls it—and, of course, it is not a dialect—I became a candidate for a seat in South Wales, and at least half my meetings had to be addressed in the Welsh tongue. If these two are mutually unintelligible, it is the first time I have ever understood so. I addressed meetings there for many elections, and despite this difficulty of understanding (or maybe because of it; I do not know), I was returned at least six times. It is utterly ridiculous to say that people from North Wales cannot understand people from South Wales. Indeed, I suggest to the noble Lord that if he were to go and have a talk with a Durham miner it would be a very one-sided conversation.
My Lords, as a man who is in the middle of the road on this Motion, want to say only one other word. I do not know whether many of your Lordships realise this, but the knowledge of Welsh gives to those who read it and to those who speak it an access to poetry and literature which is not surpassed in any other language in the world. I will mention Dafydd ap Gwilym, Goronwy Owen, Ceiriog and Pantycelyn. Another pleasure that one can enjoy through a knowledge of the Welsh language is the oratory of the pulpit. Some noble Lords may say that you can translate these things, but one loses by translation certain things which it is almost impossible
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to describe. Of course they can be translated, but there is a loss through translation which, in my opinion, is absolutely irreplaceable. After all, there are 800,000 people who understand and speak the Welsh language to-day. Why should we, by any act of ours, deprive future generations of these treasures which we, who speak this language, know exist? I hope, first of all, that the noble Lord will see fit not to press his Motion. Then, secondly, I hope that the Government will continue, as Governments have in the past, to give every help to the teaching of Welsh in schools.
5.4 p.m.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, my only possible justification for joining in this debate is that mine is the only non-Celtic voice in the list of speakers which is, at the same time, unconnected politically or residentially with the country of Wales. I can therefore lay claim to some extent to territorial and racial detachment. But on the issue itself I am not detached. It seems to me a hard thing to pass a sentence of death on a living language: to commit it consciously and deliberately to the limbo of lost tongues. That is what the Motion of my noble friend Lord Raglan in fact proposes. And it would not be a painless death. So much has been made clear by noble Lords who can speak far more poignantly and knowledgeably than I on these matters. But it was plain, even without their evidence presented this afternoon, that this proposal had grieved and antagonised many people in Wales. I am told that many more than half the people in Wales would be deeply affronted were the Motion to be carried this evening.
It is hard for me—and it must be still harder for the rest of your Lordships' House—to see why I personally am so moved, but I do feel moved. It may be some undeparted loyalty of blood, harking back across four centuries to the time when my family lived in Llanrwst, in Denbighshire. To-day I can hope for little honour among true Welshmen, being at best a lapsed Welshman, if not a renegade. Certainly all my territorial loyalty to-day belongs to Yorkshire. But even there I am conscious that 1,300 years ago, which is no great span of history, that which is now the Welsh language was spoken in my region, and that the town which is now called Leeds, ten miles from

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my own home, then bore the Welsh name of Elfed. It was only in 1615 that a wedge was finally driven between the North Brythons, from whom some members of this House spring, and those of the South Welsh who now form the Welsh nation.
My Lords, after Greek and Roman, the Welsh language contains the oldest extant literature in the whole of Europe, and I think that we might all draw some bride from that knowledge. In fact, one Welsh friend of mine, who feels very strongly about this whole matter, affirmed to me that in the sixth century, when Wales already possessed its own literature, the language we speak to-day was no more than a system of weird shrieks echoing through the forests of Schleswig Holstein. I am happy to say that a little personal research has gone far to persuade me that this was something of an exaggeration.
It is perhaps only fair to say that I have been approached by those who feel strongly the justice of Lord Raglan's case. In some way my temerarious intention to speak in this debate became known in Wales, and I received a letter yesterday from a lady living in Cardiff, whom I gather not to be of Welsh stock herself. She said:
"As the mother of a little girl who is being taught against my wishes this jaw-breaking, mummified language miscalled Welsh, I am grieved to read that you intend to speak on Wednesday."
I am assured by those with an authority quite lacking to me that there are three mis-statements in that opening passage. Nobody has ever broken a jaw speaking Welsh; though difficult for an adult to learn and pronounce, it is nevertheless quite simple if one starts young. Nor is it mummified. New compositions in prose and verse are continually being added to the existing treasury of the Welsh language. I am told, moreover, that no-one has logically denied its right to be called the Welsh language, and I am bound to confess that here I find the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, and of my noble friend Lord Tenby more convincing than the statement of Lord Raglan.
The lady continues:
"Many of us in Wales and Monmouthshire are behind Lord Raglan in his brave fight. He has voiced the feelings of the majority of
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people in Monmouthshire, and I suspect of Wales as a whole."
At first sight there is already an element of guesswork, not to say wishful thinking, in that claim regarding the rest of Wales. Even regarding the categorical claim in respect of Monmouthshire I have been given evidence to cast some doubt. It must be, I think, the same evidence mentioned by Lord Granville-West, as to the questionnaire sent out by the divisional education executive, representing Aber-tillery, Ebbw Vale, Blaina and Nantyglo, four years ago. It was sent to about 5,000 homes containing school-age children, asking if they would like to have the teaching of Welsh added to the curriculum. Rather more than three-fifths of the parents registered their wish that Welsh should be added to the existing school curriculum. That leads me to follow my noble friend Lord Granville-West in his suggestion that, if the sort of referendum required by the noble Lord. Lord Raglan. were put into effect, it might in the event reveal a desire for more Welsh teaching instead of less; to the teaching of Welsh as opposed to the teaching of other subjects in Welsh. I was glad also that the noble Lord drew a clear line between those two.
As an outsider, I feel that a language of such vital and ever-increasing richness as this has been shown to be ought to be retained, and that Wales must be its proper home. Last night I spoke to a most distinguished Member of your Lordships' House, who is not here to-day, but who has spoken Welsh with those who honour it in large areas of the United States, such as Scranton and Philadelphia, and who has had contact with the 30,000 who use it as their mother tongue in South Patagonia. There are Welsh churches and congregations in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, among other great cities of the United States. It would seem to me a depressing development if they were to become, through neglect at home, the sole repositories of this noble language.
The advantage of being bi-lingual is undeniable, and to my knowledge it has not been seriously denied. Certainly some of the most eloquent Members of this House and of another place must owe their particular eloquence to having been taught Welsh as children. We should affront them at our peril. I am reminded

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of the strategy of the Croat deputies in the Austrian Parliament, the Reichsrat of Vienna, before the 1914–18 War. There were about a dozen of them, and by way of emphasising their independence, they spoke deliberately on every conceivable subject, at great length and always in Croat, which nobody but themselves could understand. I feel that we should be inviting the same sort of retaliation by Welsh Members, if we were to approve the purpose of the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, to-day. That would impose a great additional burden on the procedure of Parliament.
But most importantly, in my impression, it stands out that the Welsh people as a whole have been antagonised and hurt by this proposal. If, in another 1,300 years, our own language were to be threatened with extinction, I hope that its executioners would not be able to quote a verdict of your Lordships' House to bolster their own. If the defence were to plead on such an occasion for the survival of the language of Milton, Shakespeare and my noble friend Lord Raglan, I hope that it would not be crushed by a reminder of how casually we, its trustees in the twentieth century, abolished the language of Taliesen, Evan Evans, Gorónwy Owen and my noble friend Lord Tenby, whom I was so proud to follow this afternoon and who, if I may say so, rebuts any possible claim that the learning of Welsh as well as English means that one cannot speak either well. If we are ready to spend, as we have spent, noticeable sums in restoring Stonehenge, let us at least protect something less tangible, but certainly a far more inspiring and beautiful link with the past, which can still enrich the future. Even if Welsh was not the forefather of our own language, it was the language of our forefathers, and I believe that we should all be the poorer by its disappearance.
5.15 p.m.
LORD SEMPILL: My Lords, my mother came from Wales and your Lordships will understand how distressed I was to hear from my noble friend Lord Raglan the unsympathetic remarks about her native tongue. It is true that she was not a very fluent Welsh speaker, but in her later years she became a fairish one. I think that your Lordships will agree that the Celtic peoples, wherever they are to be found, essentially must be bi-lingual. They speak English as the language of
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commerce and Welsh, Erse or Gaelic as the language of the family and the home and provided these languages are taught to the children when they are in their early years, they are perfectly capable of absorbing at least two languages—even more.
I hope, with my noble friend Lord Tenby and others who have spoken, that my noble friend Lord Raglan will not carry this Motion to a Division. His remarks made me unhappy, but my happiness was restored to a large extent by the speeches of my noble friends Lord Granville-West, Lord Dynevor and Lord Tenby. From my own point of view, when privileged to be invited to Wales to make a speech for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution or some engineering concern, I invariably make it a practice of putting at least five minutes of what I have to say into the tongue of my mother. And if I cannot work it out myself properly. I get my noble friend Lord Tenby to coach me on pronunciation, or to do it over again, so that I do not go wrong. I very much hope that my noble friend Lord Raglan will not carry his Motion to a Division. If he does, I shall certainly oppose it.
5.17 p.m.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, we have had an interesting, in fact, a fascinating debate. In some ways I regret that it was held on a Motion so narrowly drawn, but the debate has ranged widely. As my noble friend Lord Dynevor so rightly said, it is a subject which agitates a large number of Welsh people and deserves serious consideration in your Lordships' House.
Before going on to deal with the merits of the case, I should like to congratulate the two noble Lords who made their maiden speeches to-day. First, there is the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, whose people lived in my own little town in Wales, though now the noble Lord has gone to a foreign country (speaking in a tribal and not in a national sense), to Breconshire. There is just one correction I should like to make to what he said—probably I should have intervened during his speech had it not been a maiden one. The noble Lord said that the London Welsh Association have decided to conduct all their proceedings in Welsh. I am the President of the London Welsh Association and have

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been for four years, and we have not made any such decision. We realise that roughly three-quarters of the people of Wales do not speak Welsh, and therefore some of our proceedings are conducted in Welsh and some in English. The noble Lord also referred to the annual dinner. This is conducted in English because the bulk of members do not understand Welsh. I mention that point because otherwise your Lordships may gain a wrong impression.
Then there was the speech of the noble Lord. Lord Granville-West. I must congratulate him most heartily. I had the pleasure and privilege of being one of his Sponsors, and his speech, in form, content and manner, was a model of its kind. We shall look forward to the future contributions of both noble Lords with added interest now that they have spoken; and that is not always the case.
I feel that the noble Lord, Lord Dynevor, put his finger very nearly on the spot in this case, and that what he told your Lordships was about what the average Welshman in Wales (if there is such a person) would think about this matter. To all Welshmen, I think, whether illiterate, literate or semi-literate, the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, has given much offence; and noble Lord after noble Lord to-day has said so. It is a serious subject, but, so far as the noble Lord, Lord Raglan. is concerned, it has not been treated in a serious way. Statements have been made, both here to-day and in this article to which reference has been made in the magazine Wales, without any vestige of proof, as the noble Lord. Lord Trefgarne, has so rightly said; and many of the pieces of evidence which the noble Lord has produced have been written since he wrote his article. That is an odd type of evidence in any court of law.
The noble Lord suggested that the language should be relegated to the universities, as in the past it was relegated to the peasants. The situation is this. In a nation of some 2½ million people, little more than a quarter speak Welsh. But most Welshmen, whether they speak Welsh or not (and for this purpose I must regard myself as one of those who do not speak Welsh—at least. not fluently), have a sympathy for it and would not like to see it die out. Nevertheless—and this, I think is a point
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that has to be made—while the percentage of Welsh speakers declines, the Welsh national spirit expands; and I am one of those who firmly believe that, even though the Welsh language may, in time, die out, it is by no means the case that the Welsh national spirit will die out. The same thing has happened in Scotland. The Highlands to a large extent, have lost the Gaelic; but no one can assert, I am glad to say, that the Highlands have lost their national spirit: the national spirit of Scotland is as firm as it ever was. As the Archbishop of Wales, who has been referred to to-day, and who is an Englishman, said recently:
"The Welsh national spirit grows all the time—and rightly, very rightly."
Then the Prime Minister said in another place on December 12 last [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons. Vol. 579; col. 1422]:
"The Government's cardinal purpose is to put beyond all doubt that Wales as a nation has a place of its own in the councils of Britain.…"
That is one of the most significant Government statements on Wales that has been made for many years, and I was very pleased when I read that statement in Hansard.
The Welsh language, as has been rightly said, even by the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, is not some patois or hedge dialect; it is the ancient tongue of the British people. It is the ancient tongue of noble Lords whose ancestors were from the ancient people, whether they now call themselves Welsh or not. It was formerly spoken over a wide area of this country; not only in what is now Wales, but in the North country, the South of Scotland and elsewhere. One of the earliest of poems which is extant at the moment is a perfectly readable account of an attempt by the Saxons to capture the British town of Catraeth, now known as Catterick. The British King who was resisting this held his Court at Edinburgh. So that he, at least, and the people whom he ruled at that time, spoke the same tongue as those who can speak Welsh do to-day. These poems, whether the one to which I have referred, or the poems of Taliesin and Aneurin, the sixth century poets, are quite legible to-day.
I would give your Lordships another example from an experience of only last week, of how this tongue has come down

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in such an understandable form. Last week I, with other noble Lords, represented your Lordships' House at the N.A.T.O. Conference in Paris, and we had at that Conference colleagues from another place, one of whom is bi-lingual, Mr. Idwal Jones, the Member for Wrexham. Mr. Idwal Jones was standing in the lobby of our hotel, and for some reason (which I have now forgotten) he spoke in Welsh. A French gentleman standing near immediately spoke to him, and they carried on a conversation. They could each understand what the other was saying. It turned out that Mr. Idwal Jones had never been in France before, and this French gentleman had never been in Britain in his life: but he was a Breton. The Bretons were originally Cornish people, and they left Cornwall in the sixth century. Yet their language has remained and is perfectly understandable by someone who speaks Welsh well. All these things show what a great treasure this language is—I say this although, unfortunately, I have only a slight knowledge of it—and I think that most countries, if they had a treasure of this kind, which has existed right back into the mists of time, with poems of the kind I have mentioned, would be reticent to jettison it. and certainly reluctant to kill it.
Under the 1944 Act, as your Lordships have been told, the responsibility for educational policy in the various parts of this country is imposed on the local education committee. These committees are not, I imagine, directed by Whitehall, but are elected by the local people and do what the local people want them to do and if they do not, the local people at the next election can turn them out. So that, in the first place, we have to remember that these are elected bodies, carrying out policy which is approved by, or at least acquiesced in, by the people who elect them. Then there are the headmasters, who are the captains of their ships. They have wide latitude. They are not interfered with, so long as they carry out the broad framework of the policy of the local education authority.
I am told—and I shall be interested to hear about this from the noble Lord, Lord Brecon, when he comes to reply—that in fact the Government do not direct local education authorities, and do not direct headmasters: they advise, and
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inspect, but only in rare cases do they intervene. There is an odd coincidence about Monmouthshire, when we come to look at this point about the policy of the education committee. I have here the magazine Education, which is the, official magazine of the local education authorities. In the October 24 number there appears this statement:
"In the same week as Lord Raglan's blasphemies appeared the Monmouthshire Education Committee decided to extend their experiment in holding Welsh classes in the north-west of the county. This decision resulted not from a Ministry edict, or from an approach by the National Union of Teachers, but because of pressure from parents. This has been something of an embarrassment to the local education authority, who have troubles enough with teachers and premises. The consequences of Lord Raglan's irritant may well be to excite parents into even stronger demands."
The noble Lord, Lord Raglan, did not give us a hint of this to-day: he did not tell us that in the north-west part of the county of which he is the Lord Lieutenant parents are actually pressing the education authority to have Welsh classes. If he was putting before your Lordships all the evidence on this matter. it is odd that he did no: include that comment—which, after all, is a very telling piece of evidence—from his own county.
The picture that he put forward was of parents being dragooned by the Ministry. Not long ago the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham—he is one of the dragoons—was the man who was dragooning parents to have their children taught Welsh. I have known the noble Viscount for a good many years. and I must say I have never regarded him in the nature of a dragoon.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (VISCOUNT HAII.SHAM):Light infantry, rather.
LORD OGMORE: A sharpshooter. maybe—one who enfiladed the Government when he was not in it, but never a dragoon. I am quite certain that the present Minister of Education Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd, and Dame Florence Horsbrugh, the noble Viscount's predecessor, were not dragoons either. One must imagine that people in this position—who. after all, so far as I am aware, have no Welsh affiliations; at least not recent I ones—would look at the whole problem

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from an objective point of view and do the best for the children in the area.
This policy—and this is a point I want to make very clearly—is not by any means one which is peculiar to Wales. It has a wide significance in these days, not only in Europe but in Asia and Africa. In fact, it is one of the most vexed questions with which statesmen have to deal in India, in the Far East, in Africa and so on. Therefore it is interesting, quite apart from the narrower context of Wales, for us to look at it from that wider point of view, which I am trying to do. I was for a comparatively short time—a year, maybe—Chairman of the Colonial Education Council, and one of the points that was always coming up to us was: At what stage do you teach the vernacular language, the language of the indigenous people, and at what stage do you teach the international languages, English, French or whatever it may be, of the colonial Power?
As your Lordships can imagine, that was long ago laid down by an authoritative body, and I am quoting from the Report on Education in the United Kingdom Dependencies. At page 47 the Advisory Committee said, in 1927:
"It was recognised by the Imperial Education Conference, which met in London in 1923, that the language best known and understood by the child on his entry into school life is, from the educational point of view, the most effective medium for his instruction in the preliminary stages of school education.… The clearness of thought, independence of judgment, and sense of responsibility which are developed through the wise educational use of the language in which a pupil has learned from infancy to name the things he sees, hears and handles, are the best and surest guarantees of success and progress in the later stages of education. There is common agreement that vernaculars must be used in the first stages of elementary education."
That, I think, is a most authoritative doctrine, laid down first of all by the Imperial Education Conference, and then by the Advisory Committee on Education in 1927. I should have thought that it is common sense. You teach the child in its early stages in the language it has learned at its mother's knee.
Applying that test to this case, I would say that Welsh or English should be the medium of instruction in primary schools, depending upon whether Welsh or English is the child's normal tongue. Where
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Welsh is the medium, then English should be taught as soon as practicable as a subject, and should become the medium of instruction in later life in secondary schools, Welsh remaining as a subject. Where English is the child's normal tongue, the child should he taught in English throughout, taking Welsh, if the parents and the child so wish it, as an optional subject. Personally, I am so proud of the ancient language that I do not want to force it on anybody, and should hope that it would be possible for the local education authorities to make arrangements for all those people who normally speak English to have the primary tuition in English, whether they are of Welsh or English parentage. I should have thought that that was reasonable. The child who is brought up in a Welsh home learns all subjects in the primary school in Welsh; the child who speaks English at home, whether of Welsh or English parentage, takes subjects at the primary stage in English, and takes Welsh as a subject if he so desires. Then, in the secondary school, there is a switch over, and the subjects are taught in English, whether the child is from a Welsh or an English home. This will not satisfy the keen zealots of the language, but I am perfectly certain it will satisfy most people in Wales.
There is the special case, of course, of the English parent in a Welsh-speaking area. Again, I should not try to force the children to speak Welsh at all. I do not want anybody to have to speak the Welsh language who does not want to. I am quite certain that in that case it is open to the local education authority to make the necessary arrangements. Wales is a small country; you can motor or go by bus over a good deal of it in a very short time. I cannot believe that there is any district in Wales where there is not a school where tuition is in English near to any particular child whose parents desire him to be taught in English. I do not believe there are these wide areas where nothing but Welsh is taught. It is not so in my experience. If a child goes into hospital, teachers are provided by the local education authority for the children, or even one child, in that hospital, and I feel that it is quite open for, and, indeed, should be the practice of, local education authorities to make similar provision for isolated children of

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English parents where they happen to be in an all-Welsh-speaking district—if there is one, which I very much doubt.
Finally, I should like to say that the language of Wales and the people of Wales have survived all vicissitudes. They have survived them largely by the tenacity with which they hold on to their language and their national way of life. But to-day in many ways there is a greater danger to the language and to the way of life than ever before—there is a great danger to the English way of life, for that matter. We are becoming so cosmopolitan and international to-day that one hardly knows what country one is in. If one looks out of the window, maybe the foliage is different, but the people look the same, dress the same and drive the same sort of cars. We are becoming more and more internationalist, and small countries like Wales, with a limited number of people speaking the language, are under greater pressure than countries like England.
Of course, if the noble Lord were really wise he would suggest that everybody should study Mandarin, because Mandarin will be the language in the 21st century. There are already 800 million Chinese, and I am quite certain that a sensible parent, wanting to give sensible advice to his child, would insist that he spoke Mandarin. In about fifty years' time a distinguished Chinese statesman will be getting up in the House of Assembly in Peking and asking: "What reason is there to keep on this language, English? After all, it is of little commercial value, although it has some cultural value." He might say that the people of the world—a World State then being in existence—should not bother with a language like English, but should speak the great language, Mandarin. The way the Chinese are developing, this is not quite so fantastic an argument as your Lordships may think. Unless children are taught Mandarin in our schools we may find ourselves, in the 21st century, left at the heel of the hunt.
However, the danger to Welsh, I feel in these circumstances, comes to a large extent more from the zealots than from the Lord Raglans. I believe that the language will survive for many years to come if it is allowed to take its natural place in the life of the people. If it is not forcibly fed, if the three-quarters of the Welsh who either speak no Welsh or,
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as in my case, speak very little Welsh, are not too forcibly fed with the Welsh language, then I think it will survive for many years to come. But if, through the medium of the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Independent Television Authority, the schools and all the rest of the media, it is too strenuously forced upon us, the three-quarters, then the effect may be the reverse of what the one-quarter hope to achieve.
My Lords, that is really all I have to say. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, and the noble Lord, Lord Sempill, for the support they have given to our ancient language. It will be very much appreciated in Wales, and I am quite sure that the Welsh mother of the noble Lord, Lord Sempill, has every reason to be proud of him.
5.40 p.m.
LORD BRABAZON OF TARA: My Lords, I intervene for just a moment because of an experience I had showing how sensitive the Welsh are about their language. During the war, when the whole world was listening to our broadcasting, especially at night, at eleven o'clock the B.B.C. changed to the Welsh tongue. I did say, as I say now, that that was a very poor time to broadcast in Welsh. At any other time it might have been good; but not that time. I have never in my life been inundated with such a spate of offensive letters as I had after those few innocent words.
A NOBLE LORD: In English or Welsh?
LORD BRABAZON OF TARA: The ones I understood were in English. That was just a little experience. I must say that, broadly speaking, I am against all languages except English. You have in America that sort of thing happening. You go 1,000 miles; you open your mouth, and you find you are still talking the same language. But take Europe: a man situated in Luxembourg has to go only twenty miles and he has to speak any one of nine languages. I maintain that one of the curses of the world is this difference in language; otherwise we should all understand each other.
The Welsh speak better English than anybody else in the world—when Emlyn Williams speaks English it is like listening to a symphony, compared with most English people speaking their own

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language. But the danger, I think, lies in going to extremes. Ireland, I think, has gone to the extreme. There it has been imposed upon you. If you want a driving licence to drive a motor car you get a form on which there is not one single word of English. Nobody in the county can understand it, and you have to go to the local post office and get it translated and be told how to fill it up. There again they have their own characters, and that is the most frightful curse. You come to a fork road. You look up to see which way you are going. What do you see? A triangle, a tennis racquet and a couple of moustaches. That is of no earthly good to anybody. It is that danger of overdoing the thing which wants discouraging. I do not believe that, with this Welsh language, considering the small number of people who speak it, there is that danger. and I believe that it would be a pity for it to be suppressed in any way. Let it go on, because it has a great history, the history of an unconquerable race from the past who spoke the original language. They have poetry and they have literature. I agree wholeheartedly with the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore; that is the sort of compromise which I am sure will be acceptable to everybody in this House.
5.45 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR WELSH AFFAIRS (LORD BRECON): My Lords, I have listened with great interest to the debate on the Motion which has been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, and to the many interesting speeches that have been made, not only by Welshmen but by Englishmen as well, to whom we are very grateful. I should like to offer my congratulations to the two maiden speakers—first to the noble Lord. Lord Swansea, who I am delighted to see here; he lives in my own county of Breconshire. I hope that, having made his maiden speech, he will come here and help with contributions in the future. I would also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Granville-West, who lives in the neighbouring county of Monmouthshire. It was delightful to hear him speak about education, and his remarks showed his great knowledge. Perhaps serving on local education authorities is to be commended in this matter.
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My Lords, this debate, I believe, is the result of an article that has been written by the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, and published in a magazine recently. I have read this article, and I wish at this early stage of my reply to say that I completely dissociate myself from the views expressed in it. To me it appears unfortunate that this article was ever written, and still more unfortunate that it was ever published. As a Welshman, and whether one speaks Welsh or not. I think one cannot but be deeply hurt at some of the statements in the noble Lord's article.
Noble Lords this afternoon have ranged over a great period of time discussing the Welsh language in many ways, its culture and everything else. I am sure you will expect me in reply to state quite clearly the Government's position on this matter. The noble Lord. Lord Raglan, is asking Her Majesty's Government whether the teaching of the Welsh language to children contrary to their parents' wishes is in accordance with Section 76 of the Education Act. I was grateful when I heard the noble Lord, Lord Granville-West, say that it is not Section 76 of that particular Act that deals with this matter, but Section 23.
The Government's position is quite clear on this point. The Minister of Education has no power to require the teaching of the Welsh language in any publicly maintained school. He can only give encouragement to the teaching of the language and its use as a medium of instruction. For the last fifty years this has been done mainly through pamphlets and reports to local education authorities. The principles that have been followed in these reports and pamphlets are, first, that in the early years of a child's education—that is in the primary period—the language of instruction should be the child's mother tongue. Secondly, the second language, English or Welsh, should be gradually introduced during these early years. Thirdly, by the age of transfer to secondary education every child's competence in English should be such as to enable him to profit from any type of secondary education. The fourth principle is that the study of Welsh as the first or second language should be continued during the years of secondary education.
In 1953 the Central Advisory Council of Education far Wales produced their Report on the place of Welsh and English

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in the schools of Wales, and I think it is acknowledged by everybody, by educationists throughout the world, that this is one of the finest documents on bilingualism that has ever been published —it is referred to by many nations of the world at present. This Report announced as one of the Council's recommendations that children throughout Wales arid Monmouthshire should be taught Welsh and English according to their ability to profit from the instruction. This was commended to the attention of the local education authorities and they were asked to consider its application in the fullest possible way. My noble and learned friend on the Woolsack was at that time the Minister for Welsh Affairs, and I know how much he supported that view in the matter of bi-lingual teaching.
So far, I have stated the position of the Minister of Education in relation to the teaching of Welsh. Now I want to give the position of the local education authorities. The local education authorities are wholly responsible for their language policy—and this is right when you consider the complex and linguistic pattern that is in Wales. Every local education authority must take this important factor into account when determining its own policy, and these policies are always adapted to meet local requirements. In predominantly Welsh-speaking areas, Welsh is the medium of instruction in the early part of the primary school course and English is the second language. When the child is eleven years of age it should be competent in the English language. In the English-speaking parts of Wales, English is the medium of instruction. Welsh is taught as a second language in the primary schools, where it is the local educational authority's policy to do so. In areas where Welsh and English are spoken about equally and where the schools are large enough, parallel classes are organised in the school, one class being instructed through the medium of Welsh, while the other is instructed through the medium of English; the alternative language is taught as a second language.
In the secondary schools the position is more tentative. In many of these schools, Welsh is not taught at all. There are nearly 400 secondary schools in Wales and in 90 of them Welsh is not taught at
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all. In others it is obligatory for the first two or three years. In some rural schools Welsh is the medium of instruction in some subjects, but in only one secondary school in an urban area is Welsh used as a medium of instruction substantially throughout the curriculum.
Now I must deal with the parents' wishes in this matter. Should any parent at any time object to their child being taught through the medium of Welsh or English—because there are objections to teaching in English, too—they can make representations to their local education authority, and failing agreement on a satisfactory arrangement, the parents can then appeal to the Minister of Education. So far as the teaching of Welsh as a language is concerned or the use of Welsh as a medium of instruction, the Minister has already made it plain that it is considered appropriate to the circumstances in Wales that it should be the language of instruction at the primary stage for children whose mother tongue it is. Generally, however, the Minister would find it difficult to uphold a parental objection to the language when it is the subject of curriculum. The Minister does not, if possible, interfere with the responsibilities of local education governors and managers, and the content of a school curriculum is one of those matters.
I did not think I should get evidence so helpful to that point about curriculum as I did this week from my fourteen-year-old daughter, who wrote her weekly letter. In it she said:
"Yesterday we had the dullest lecture on embroidery one could imagine. Honestly, to have a lecture on embroidery! It was made compulsory, too, partly because if it had been optional no one would have gone, I suppose. But it did help to pass the time away."
I do not know whether I should now raise objection to my daughter's being compulsorily taught embroidery, which would be to the detriment of learning Latin, French and German. But the Minister gives advice to local education authorities about their curricula and he wholeheartedly supports the inclusion of Welsh in the curriculum; but so far there is no evidence that because children are being taught Welsh in our schools it is at all affecting their standard of education in any way. In fact, I think that if any evidence can be provided it is to prove that they are benefiting in many other ways.

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There is a need for a bi-lingual policy in Wales, and what the Government have done is to give an equal opportunity to those who want to learn and speak Welsh with those who want to speak English. I would say here that it is not to the exclusion of English that we want to learn Welsh. Sometimes difficulty arises when an English-speaking family goes to live in a Welsh-speaking area. When those cases occur the local education authority are expected to provide suitable arrangements in regard to the problem. The noble Lord, Lord Raglan, referred to a case in Carmarthen. I have an idea that we have been thinking about the same case. The lady also wrote to me and I am glad to say that three days afterwards I received a letter asking me not to take any further action, as the matter had now been settled. That was last week.
The noble Lord has questioned the legality of teaching Welsh, on the ground that it is not necessary for efficient instruction. Efficient instruction does not refer to one particular subject—it must surely refer to the child's general education, and the teaching of Welsh in Welsh schools cannot be held to be the cause of inefficient instruction, any more than the teaching of any other subject. It is interesting to note that of the seventeen local educational authorities in Wales, ten have adopted the Central Advisory Committee's policy on bi-lingualism; two have a modified policy; and five have made no policy at all, and this includes the noble Lord's own county of Monmouthshire. Here Welsh is taught at the primary schools at Rhymney and Abertysswg. Welsh is taught at only one secondary modern school in Monmouthshire, at New Tredegar, and at the grammar schools only at Rhymney, Ebbw Vale and Pontllanfraith. The reason for teaching Welsh in Monmouthshire is to meet parents' wishes.
The total population of Wales is about 2½ million. Of these, 714,000 people speak Welsh, according to the last census, and the Government cannot ignore the demand from nearly one-third of the population that opportunities shall be available for the teaching and learning of Welsh. These opportunities have been provided, but certain problems arise when the local education authorities decide their policy and sometimes this
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policy does not meet the wishes of all the parents. Here the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, made the point that the parents have an opportunity to deal with local education authorities in the triennial elections, when if they want to make their voices and their opposition to the local education authority heard, they can do so by means of the ballot box, when they can change their representation. This is in addition to the parents' right to appeal to the local education authority and then to the Minister.
On the whole, the people of Wales do not take a narrow and singular view on this question. In fact, the trends are, at the present moment, although it is always difficult to be quite certain, that more and more people are wanting to learn Welsh and are learning Welsh. I am sure that the opportunities that are being given to those young people to learn Welsh in their primary school and the demands that we have heard from some noble Lords this afternoon will mean that perhaps Welsh will be spoken more frequently in the home. Certainly it is true that for our own Royal National Eisteddfod the proceedings are always held in the Welsh language, although I understand that because this year it was being held at Ebbw Vale, in Monmouthshire, special arrangements were made and the English tongue was heard—perhaps this was for the benefit of the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, and the right honourable gentleman who represents Ebbw Vale in another place.
I should like to remind your Lordships that Wales is also the host to the International Eisteddfod at Llangollen, where not only Welsh and English are heard but also the language of many foreign countries, where one can hear their songs and see their colourful dances and costumes. These are the cultural pursuits which we enjoy and prize so much; but I doubt whether any of them would survive if they did not have their own native tongue to support them. Wales has had a very successful year. We were the hosts at Cardiff to the Sixth British Empire and Commonwealth Games, which were a resounding success and for which we shall long be remembered with gratitude by our visitors from the Commonwealth. We had, too, the Festival of Wales which produced many fine features of our national life.

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My Lords, I have spoken at some length in reply, but this matter is of great interest and importance to us, and I feel that the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, has shown that he is not fully acquainted with all the facts and all the problems. I believe that the noble Lord has based his conclusions upon assumptions which reflect adversely upon Welsh-speaking people as a whole. He has advocated policies which reveal a considerable lack of understanding of the whole matter. I wish to state that the manner in which a bi-lingual policy for Wales is being interpreted does not cause the Minister to feel that there is anything radically wrong. There will always be difficult cases, but, as I have already said, only six or seven have been sent to the Minister in the last three years. The Minister will, of course, continue to take a sympathetic and constructive interest in this matter—on both sides—and I trust that the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, will now agree to withdraw his Motion.
6.2 p.m.
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby has left the House but he accused me of wishing to abolish the Welsh language. I have never said any such thing. I do not wish to abolish anything. I did express the view that I thought it would be in the interests of Wales that her people should gradually cease to use the Welsh language, and I still think that is true; but the last thing I should wish to do is to abolish the Welsh language. If people wish to speak Welsh they are fully entitled to do so, and I should be the last to try to stop them. I hope that that is perfectly clear.
The speech of the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, was merely a personal attack upon me and suggested the old adage: "No case—abuse plaintiff's counsel." I found very little with which to disagree in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore; the policy which he advocated, and which he thought would satisfy most people in Wales, would certainly satisfy me far better than the present policy of Her Majesty's Government as outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Brecon. I feel it is obvious that children who have been brought up to speak Welsh should be able to go on speaking Welsh
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in the primary stages of their schooling; but at the same time I think the English language is the proper language for secondary education throughout; and that is what I understood was said by the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore. I wholly agree with him.
As for the policy indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Brecon, I can only say that I feel it is quite wrong; and when he seeks to hide himself behind local education authorities I would remind him of an article written by the head of the Welsh Department, Sir Ben Bowen Thomas. which appeared not long ago in the South Wales Argus. He stated that it was the deliberate policy of the Ministry to do all the things to which I and those who have written to me object. I hope very much that what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, will be taken seriously to heart, and that Her Majesty's Government will think over this policy of coercing parents, which undoubtedly is being adopted. It emerged from everything that was said by the noble Lord. People who do not wish to learn Welsh are being forced to do so and that is going on in many parts of the country. From what the noble Lord, Lord Brecon, has said it is obvious that Her Majesty's Government have no intention of stopping it. However, things being as they are, I shall not press my Motion, which I beg leave to withdraw.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn

PROVINCIAL POLICE FORCES
EARL WINTERTON: My Lords, in view of the lateness of the hour and what I regard as the importance of my Motion on the Paper on the subject of provincial police forces, I do not propose to move it this evening but will do so on December 8.
MANŒUVRES BILL [H.L.] SLAUGHTER CF ANIMALS BILL [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills, without amendment, and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House.
ADOPTION BILL [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills, with an Amendment, and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House.

NATIONAL DEBT BILL [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills, with Amendments, and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at five minutes past six o'clock.