Sitting of 13 July 1959

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

    Dukinfield Carriage and Wagon Works
    Mr. Blackburnasked the Minister of Supply what was the original cost of the equipment at the Dukinfield Carriage and Wagon Works owned by his Department; when the equipment was last used; and what is the estimated value today.
    The Minister of Supply (Mr. Aubrey Jones): My Department owns no property at the Dukinfield Carriage and Wagon Works. The premises, including the canteen and equipment, were returned to the London and North Eastern Railway Company in 1946, when the factory ceased to be used for ammunition production.
    Mr. Blackburn: Do I understand that the equipment was given to the railway company?
    Mr. Jones: This matter goes back a very long way. My understanding is
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    that the factory was resold to the railway company, the price taking into account the improvements effected and the equipment installed whilst the factory was in Government ownership.

    de Havilland Aircraft Company
    Lord Balnielasked the Minister of Supply (1) what steps he is taking in consultation with British European Airways to expedite the placing of a contract with the de Havilland Aircraft Company for the D.H.121;
    (2) whether he is aware of the difficulties of maintaining employment in the de Havilland Aircraft Company; and what steps he is taking to ease the problem by advancing Service Department orders to this company.
    Mr. Aubrey Jones: I am aware of the difficulties which this company is having in maintaining employment. My Department has recently placed with the firm a substantial further order for Sea Vixen aircraft, but I see no prospect of further Service orders in the near future. As for the D.H.121, I have nothing to add to the statement I made in answer to a Question by the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey) on 6th July.
    Lord Balniel: Whilst I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the steps that he is taking in the matter, may I ask him if he is aware that the initial production shops have already ceased work on the Comet and that there is now a wide and serious gap between the ending of work on the Comet and the beginning of work on the D.H.121? Will do

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    his utmost to see that this gap is kept as small as possible.
    Mr. Jones: As I said in my Answer to the original Question, I am aware of the employment problems of this company. On the other hand, I hope it will be fully realised that I have no responsibility for the D.H.121, which is a matter between the operator and the manufacturer.
    Mr. Beswick: Does not the Minister agree that someone in the Government ought to have some responsibility for this aircraft? The important thing here is that the specification eventually decided upon should be for an aircraft which can be sold in the world market. Can the right hon. Gentleman say which Government Department is taking part in the discussions and whether it is in a position to help?
    Mr. Jones: This aircraft is being built out of the private resources of the firm. The Government, therefore, have officially no cognisance of the specification.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: Does not my right hon. Friend recall that when the matter was discussed in the House eighteen months ago his Department had quite a lot to say about who should get the contract? How does that tie up with what he tells us today?
    Mr. Jones: That is a different matter. What happened eighteen months ago was that there were two tenders for the contract. One of the people tendering was prepared to build the aircraft from his own resources, without Government money. It was, therefore, my interest as Minister of Supply to ensure that the other aircraft was equally built without any call on Government money. Once that decision was made my Department officially no longer had anything to do with the specification.

    Argosy 660 Aircraft
    Sir A. V. Harveyasked the Minister of Supply on what date the Argosy type 660 aircraft were ordered; and how many modifications have been requested by Service Departments since the negotiations commenced.
    Mr. Aubrey Jones: The contract has not yet been placed, but negotiations are far advanced. As regards the second
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    part of the Question, the Royal Air Force is to have the military, not the civil, version of this aircraft, and the past few months have been spent by the firm, my Department and the Air Ministry in working out the details of the military specification.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: Whilst thanking my right hon. Friend for what he has told us, may I ask whether he recalls that on 26th January this year, in answer to a Question of mine, he said that he hoped that an order would be placed for twenty or thirty of these aircraft within three months. It is now six months since then. The firm wants work very badly. Will my right hon. Friend impress on the Secretary of State for Air that the Services will go on asking for modifications unless someone puts his foot down and says that the aircraft has to be built?
    Mr. Jones: Yes, I recall what I said months ago. I freely confess that I was somewhat optimistic. I had not taken sufficiently into account the difference between the military version and the civil version. On the other hand, I am reasonably satisfied that employment in the factory is not affected and that any unemployment arising is due to other causes.

    P.1 Fighter Aircraft
    Mr. Beswickasked the Minister of Supply when the P.1 fighter aircraft prototype order was first placed; and when it is expected that these aircraft will be ready for squadron service.
    Mr. Aubrey Jones: The order for the development of representative prototypes of the P.1 was placed in June, 1952. The aircraft is planned to be in service next year.
    Mr. Beswick: I wonder whether the Minister remembers that his predecessor boasted to the House that the Conservative Party was going to arrange things much better, and that instead of having a development order of two or three it was going to order 20 additional aircraft for development purposes? Is he satisfied that this new way of going about things has had the effect of bringing forward the aircraft quicker than was previously the case?
    Mr. Jones: Again, I freely confess that there was a delay with these aircraft, but I do not think an undue delay, by and large. The arrangement by which the aircraft are ordered for development in a batch has fully justified itself.

    Avro 748 and Herald Aircraft
    Mr. Beswickasked the Minister of Supply (1) what are the Service requirements for the Avro 748 and the Herald aircraft;
    (2) for what period he plans to have the Avro 748 aircraft flown on proving flights; what is the total estimated cost of these proving flights; who will meet these costs; and what is the planned use of these machines when the programme of proving flights is completed.
    Mr. Aubrey Jones: There is no United Kingdom requirement for the Avro 748 or the Herald at the present time, but interest has been expressed overseas in both aircraft and it is considered that their commercial prospects would be improved by an early demonstration of their efficiency in regular operation on normal services. Negotiations have therefore been opened to this end with the manufacturers and with United Kingdom operators, but until these are further advanced I cannot give details of the arrangements. The cost to Her Majesty's Government is at present estimated to be about £750,000 for each type.
    Mr. Beswick: The Minister has not answered the Question I put to him about the cost of development. He has ignored that question altogether. Can he not give any estimate at all as to what the cost of development is going to be? If he cannot give that estimate, why has he spent taxpayers' money already for six aircraft for which there is no requirement in this country?
    Mr. Jones: It is not for me to dispute with the hon. Gentleman what he put down in his Question, but to the best of my understanding he did not ask me the cost of development. He asked, roughly, the cost of proving flying, and to that question I think I have given an answer.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in any case the firms making these two aeroplanes have paid for the development themselves—that it is entirely free enterprise money?
    Mr. Jones: Yes, I am perfectly aware of that. It has nothing to do with the Question asked me.
    Mr. Beswick: May I ask the Minister please to be a little more forthcoming and to try not to be so clever? The phrase I used is the phrase he himself used. It is perfectly true, of course, that in one company on one aircraft the cost of initial development has been borne by that company and that aircraft is now in the air, but since then his Department has placed an order for another three aircraft still on the drawing board and proposes to develop it though he still cannot give any estimate of the cost. Surely that is a curious way of doing business?
    Mr. Jones: I think the hon. Gentleman is under a misunderstanding. Both these aircraft are being developed from the resources of the firms themselves. In the absence at the moment of a requirement in this country for these aircraft, I am placing a contract, or I hope to place a contract, with certain United Kingdom operators for proving flying. The cost of that contract, which has nothing to do with development, is estimated to be about £750,000.
    Mr. Wigg: While there is some sense in the Government's policy in relation to the Avro 748, inasmuch as the Prime Minister has persuaded Mr. Nehru to order 130, what grounds can there possibly be for spending public money on development of the Herald, for which everybody knows there is not the slightest use now or in the future?
    Mr. Jones: As I have said before, interest has been expressed abroad in both these aircraft.

    Royal Ordnance Factory, Maltby (Houses)
    Mr. D. Griffithsasked the Minister of Supply what is causing the delay in the sale of the houses attached to the Royal Ordnance Factory at Maltby.
    Mr. Aubrey Jones: The valuation has only recently been completed and a decision about purchase is expected from the council later this month.
    Mr. Griffiths: While I am grateful for that reply, may I ask the Minister if he will expedite the matter, for we have a long waiting list of people wanting

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    houses and his Department has been seriously delaying this matter, while the council is anxious to purchase these houses? I hope it will be able to purchase them forthwith.
    Mr. Jones: I am sorry that my Department is being blamed for everything. This matter is now out of my hands. The valuation has been fixed, and it is entirely a matter for the local council, at this valuation, whether it wishes to buy the houses.
    Mr. Griffiths: The matter should have been speeded up.

  HOSPITALS

    Sterilisation Equipment
    Mr. P. Williamsasked the Minister of Health whether he is satisfied with the sterilisation equipment in use in hospitals; and if he will make a statement.
    The Minister of Health (Mr. Derek Walker-Smith): I am sending my hon. Friend a copy of a memorandum I addressed to hospital authorities in April last. I have asked all hospital authorities to review their sterilising arrangements in the light of the Report enclosed with this memorandum.
    Mr. Williams: While thanking my right hon. and learned Friend for that reply, may I draw his attention to the fact that there are many sterilisation rooms which are small, dusty and dirty, and that the safety margin is far too low in many of these cases? Will he not agree that by a certain amount of capital expenditure on this we may effect a long-term saving on expenditure on equipment and obtain better use of nurses' time?
    Mr. Walker-Smith: I will certainly have that point in mind. Of course, the allocations for the current financial year, as my hon. Friend knows, are already made. I would remind him that, as I told the House in February last, I asked the hospital authorities to bear in mind the earlier report of the Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust on this matter in their financial arrangements for this year.
    Mr. Blenkinsop: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman give us an assurance that in any new hospital buildings
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    as well as in any alterations this whole question of sterilisation will be borne in mind, since, as he will appreciate, this affects the layout of hospital wards in the future?
    Mr. Walker-Smith: Clearly, it has an important place in the planning and design of hospitals which we have in mind.

    General Hospital, Coventry
    Miss Burtonasked the Minister of Health (1) whether the purchase of the site for the new general hospital at Coventry has now been completed;
    (2) whether he has now given his approval to the proposal of the Birmingham Regional Hospital Board concerning the schedule of accommodation for the new general hospital at Coventry;
    (3) if he is now in a position to give an actual starting date for construction work on the new general hospital at Coventry.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Richard Thompson): Negotiations for the purchase of the site are not yet complete. The Ministry's officers have discussed with the regional board the scope and content of the new hospital, and further discussions on the details of the schedules of accommodation are being arranged. I cannot yet say when building will begin.
    Miss Burton: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that the three Answers are equally unsatisfactory and a disgrace? As to the first one, can he tell me why this delay is still going on? Does he know that it is more than two years ago since it was agreed with his Ministry and with the owners about the acquisition of this site? Will he tell me why it is still not completed? Secondly, is he aware that Coventry, I think, is about the worst off of any city, following the war, for hospital accommodation and treatment? Does he really mean that he cannot give a definite answer to any of those three Questions?
    Mr. Thompson: In reply to the first of the hon. Lady's questions, the board was given authority to acquire the site in August, 1957, but, as explained to the hon. Lady on, I think, 12th May, 1958, conveyancing difficulties were

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    caused owing to the straightening of the River Sowe, which had affected ownership of small pockets of land. I can, however, say to the hon. Lady that I take just as serious a view of this as she does, and we are doing our best to expedite the matter.
    Dr. Summerskill: Does the hon. Gentleman recall that my hon. Friend has put down Questions similar to these time after time and that it was some months ago that he gave an answer precisely similar to the one he has given now when I asked him by supplementary question what were the difficulties here? He assured us then that things were going to be expedited. There must be something which is not revealed. Can he tell the House what it is?
    Mr. Thompson: No, there is no mystery about this. I recall the previous Questions by the hon. Lady and the replies which were given to them. The problem here is over the conveyance of the land, which is the obstacle that is delaying the matter at the moment, but in the meantime the question of the schedules of accommodation for the new hospital and matters of that kind are all going ahead.
    Miss Burton: On a point of order. As I had three Questions, Mr. Speaker, will you allow me to ask another supplementary question?
    Mr. Speaker: I thought that the hon. Lady's first supplementary question comprehended the three points.

    North Middlesex Hospital (Maternity Department)
    Mr. Albuasked the Minister of Health what further consideration he has given to making a special capital grant for rebuilding the maternity department at the North Middlesex Hospital.
    Mr. Walker-Smith: The regional hospital board last year placed this fifth in order of priority among the projects it suggested for inclusion in the centrally financed programme of major schemes, and I did not find it possible to include it among those selected for planning. I will, however, consider it further when next deciding what additions may be made to that programme.
    Mr. Albu: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that I had a letter only
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    last week from the chairman of the hospital management committee informing me that the temperature in these 1918 Army huts which are still being used as maternity wards was over 90 degrees? In view of the very extensive cost of rebuilding these wards, does he not think that a special capital grant is really due to this regional board?
    Mr. Walker-Smith: Oh, no, Sir. I should get into a great deal of trouble with other hon. Members representing other regions if I succumbed to the temptation to comply with that invitation. The fact is that the North-East Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board has had a very fair share of capital for centrally financed projects and within that region the North Middlesex Hospital has had a very fair share.
    Dr. Summerskill: Cannot the right hon. and learned Gentleman promise to give special consideration to this case? May I emphasise my hon. Friend's point? Having served in this hospital for a number of years in the past I recall these huts. The hospital serves one of the most congested parts of Outer London. Therefore, I would ask him, for medical and social reasons, to give this hospital very special consideration.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: There is one in Stoke, too.
    Mr. Walker-Smith: I also know the North Middlesex and Stoke Hospitals. It is a fact that this hospital fairly recently had a new casualty department and it has a new out-patients department nearing completion. I am sure that the Board will see that proper treatment is given to the claim for the provision of a maternity department.

    Food Poisoning
    Mr. Hastingsasked the Minister of Health how many outbreaks of food poisoning have occurred in hospitals under his direction within the last year for which records are available; in how many of these the probable sources of infection were identified: and what they were.
    Mr. R. Thompson: The available information shows that 48 outbreaks occurred in hospitals in 1958. Fifteen were traced to meats or meat products, two to cheese, and in eight the causal

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    food was not known. Salmonellae organisms were responsible in the other 23 outbreaks, but the causal food was only identified in one.
    Mr. Hastings: Will the Parliamentary Secretary take special care to see that those engaged in the preparation of food in hospitals have some elementary instruction about the dangers of the work in which they are engaged and the possibility of infecting a whole hospital, as has happened more than once, by a cut on the finger being neglected or something of that sort?
    Mr. Thompson: Guidance has been issued to hospital authorities about hygiene in catering departments. I assure the hon. Member that we shall continue to watch this very carefully.

    Mentally Defective Children, West Midlands
    Mr. Bowlesasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of the shortage of places for mentally defective children living in the West Midlands of England; and what steps he proposes to remedy the position.
    Mr. R. Thompson: My right hon. and learned Friend is aware of the shortage, and the regional hospital board is taking steps to meet it. Since 1948 nearly 700 additional beds have been provided for mental defectives, and schemes to provide over 300 more are in hand.
    Mr. Bowles: If I send to his right hon. and learned Friend particulars of a case I have in mind, will he look into it? Secondly, does it not strike the Minister of Health as a rather curious state of affairs in this country when the owners of Ascot Race Course can spend £1 million on a new grandstand and the Minister has not enough money to provide all the necessary beds?
    Mr. Thompson: Nothing I can say seems to arise out of that supplementary question, except that I have shown that there has been substantial additional provision made, and more is contemplated and in hand.
    Mr. Edward Evans: Is the Minister aware that this need, particularly of young children, arises in nearly all the hospital areas? Will the Minister pay special attention to the problem, owing
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    to the terrific stress imposed on parents, especially when a child is growing up into adolescence and into adult life?
    Mr. Thompson: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. P. Noel-Baker: Were the figures given by the Parliamentary Secretary of new accommodation for the West Midlands only or for the country as a whole?
    Mr. Thompson: The answer was related to the Question, which referred to the West Midlands.

    Salaries
    Mr. K. Robinsonasked the Minister of Health what progress has been made towards implementing the recommendations of Sir Noel Hall's fact-finding Committee on the salaries of designated officers in the hospital service.
    Mr. Walker-Smith: This Committee was set up by and reported to the Whitley Council. I understand that the Council have referred the report to a joint negotiating committee which is now examining it.
    Mr. Robinson: Is the Minister aware that it is widely believed that progress in the hospital service is being hampered by the Minister himself through his own representatives on the Whitley Council? Does he not recognise that he has a duty to implement the recommendations and to do justice to this seriously underpaid section of the community?
    Mr. Walker-Smith: No, Sir. I am not aware of any such misapprehension existing in any quarters, and I would be grateful for the help of the hon. Gentleman in dispelling any should it arise. The matter is complicated. It is for the Whitley Council to speed its progress, but certainly no delay has been caused by my representatives.

    Nurses (Accommodation and Food)
    Mr. Hamiltonasked the Minister of Health if he will take steps to provide statistics showing the extent to which nurses' accommodation and food in hospitals are subsidised.
    Mr. R. Thompson: To provide the required information would entail a major extension of present hospital costing arrangements and although a few hospital authorities have been able to

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    carry out the work my right hon. and learned Friend does not feel justified in asking authorities generally to give this priority over the many other calls upon their resources.
    Mr. Hamilton: Would the Minister make available to me such figures as he has got from the different hospital authorities—indeed, publish them in the OFFICIAL REPORT —so that we may assess what nurses are or are not getting in salary and subsidised accommodation and food?
    Mr. Thompson: I will do my best to help the hon. Gentleman. A limited investigation by Abel-Smith and Titmuss, prior to 1956, led them to the view that the cost of providing all resident staff with goods and services was at least 40 per cent. higher than the payments made by the staff for them.
    Mr. Hamiltonasked the Minister of Health whether he will take steps to ensure that a student nurse pays no greater percentage of her salary in residential charges than does a senior nurse, in view of the need to attract increasing numbers of recruits to the profession.
    Mr. R. Thompson: Residential charges are agreed by the Whitley Council. The charge for a student general nurse is only £128 a year and I have no reason to believe that it is a deterrent to recruitment.
    Mr. Hamilton: But is the Minister aware that the representation of student nurses on the Whitley Council is either non-existent or negligible? Can he take steps to ensure that their voices are adequately heard there in order that these genuine grievances may be either removed or reduced?
    Mr. Thompson: That is rather a different question, but there is no reason to believe that the residence charge is a deterrent to recruitment of student nurses; in fact, I am happy to say that the number of student nurses in training goes up every year.

    New Hospital, North Tees-side
    Mr. Chetwyndasked the Minister of Health what decision has been reached on the siting of the proposed new hospital to serve North Tees-side.
    Mr. R. Thompson: My right hon. and learned Friend expects to receive the board's recommendation within the next few days.
    Mr. Chetwynd: Would the hon. Gentleman ensure that I get information on this matter as soon as the Minister receives it?
    Mr. Thompson: I will endeavour to keep the hon. Gentleman in touch with the position as best I can and as soon as I can.

    Hospital Facilities, Wellington
    Mr. W. Yatesasked the Minister of Health what are the new plans for the extension and general improvement of hospital facilities in Wellington. Shropshire, which have been sent to him by the East Shropshire Hospital Board for his approval; and when he intends to allow this necessary work to begin.
    Mr. R. Thompson: Sketch plans have been approved for a new out-patient department at the Wrekin Hospital, and the regional hospital board has now been authorised to prepare working drawings.
    Mr. Yates: I thank my hon. Friend for that valuable reply, but will he take into account the fact that the Midland Regional Board refused to accept the opinions of the local board and prepared plans which eventually were scrapped, and that the result has been a delay of two years in getting a start with this hospital?
    Mr. Thompson: I think we must allow the regional board its head in these planning matters, but I am satisfied that the result of all this will be a great improvement in the hospital facilities about which my hon. Friend is rightly concerned.
    Mr. Langford-Holt: Will my hon. Friend at the same time look into the whole question of hospital services throughout Shropshire?
    Mr. Thompson: I am continually doing so.

    Pharmacists (Recruitment)
    Wing Commander Bullusasked the Minister of Health what steps he is taking to improve recruitment of pharmacists into the hospital service; and what

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    further steps he has taken to give guidance to hospital management committees on the implementation of suggestions made in the report of the Central Health Services Council's Sub-committee on the hospital pharmaceutical service.
    Mr. Walker-Smith: Advice based on the recommendations made by a Subcommittee of the Standing Pharmaceutical Advisory Committee has recently been sent to hospital authorities. A claim for the revaluation of the salaries of hospital pharmacists has recently come before the Whitley Council.
    Wing-Commander Bullus: Would not my right hon. and learned Friend agree that a certain urgency attaches to the creation of the right conditions to attract recruits to this service?
    Mr. Walker-Smith: Yes, it is certainly a very important service. Here again, the Whitley Council will no doubt progress as fast as it can with the matter before it. In addition to that, we are anxious to get the best deployment of the available pharmacists that we have.
    Mr. Blenkinsop: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say how many vacancies there are outstanding at the moment for hospital pharmacists? Is it not true that there has been a rather serious increase in the number of vacancies? Is this not a serious matter for the Health Service?
    Mr. Walker-Smith: It would be most helpful, in order to get the precise figure, if the hon. Gentleman would table that question, but, although there are staffing difficulties in some hospitals, I am glad to say that the number of pharmacists in the hospital service is increasing, albeit rather slowly.

    Hearing Aid Repairs, Maidenhead and Cookham
    Sir C. Mott-Radclyffeasked the Minister of Health whether he will make arrangements whereby facilities for repair to hearing aids could be available at Maidenhead Hospital on certain days in the month in order to avoid the inconvenience at present caused to deaf persons who are obliged to travel from the Maidenhead and Cookham area to Windsor Hospital for this purpose.
    Mr. R. Thompson: The North West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board is considering whether arrangements can be made to improve facilities for hearing aid repairs in this area.
    Sir C. Mott-Radclyffe: While that reply is satisfactory so far as it goes, is my hon. Friend aware that as most deaf people are old it seems a little absurd that they should have to go all the way by bus to Windsor to get hearing aids repaired when there is a perfectly good and very efficiently run hospital on their doorstep in Maidenhead?
    Mr. Thompson: I can well understand my hon. Friend's anxiety. Our difficulty here is to balance the policy of having relatively few fully-staffed and properly equipped centres functioning all the time with the policy of dispersion, which means having less adequately staffed centres, less often open though admittedly more widely dispersed; and in between these two poles we are trying to find an acceptable solution.
    Dr. Summerskill: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that the service for which his hon. Friend asks exists in many parts of the country and that it is desirable that it should extend to all areas? Although the Parliamentary Secretary says that there is a difficulty, I think that if he made representations to all regional hospital boards, including the Liverpool one—which would cover Warrington—those who are suffering in this way would be very grateful to the Ministry.
    Mr. Thompson: I accept the right hon. Lady's natural interest in the Liverpool Board, but, to reply specifically to my hon. Friend's point, the North West Metropolitan Regional Board tells me that the Windsor Group Hospital Management Committee is at the moment considering whether something can be done about repairs.

  MINISTRY OF HEALTH

    Midwives, East Suffolk
    Mr. Edward Evansasked the Minister of Health if he is aware of the shortage of midwives in East Suffolk, and in Lowestoft in particular; and whether he will strive to improve

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    recruitment by improving salaries and conditions of work.
    Mr. R. Thompson: I am aware that there is a shortage of midwives in some areas and I have written to the hon. Member about East Suffolk. The salaries of hospital midwives have recently been improved and those of domiciliary midwives are at present under review by the Whitley Council. Employing authorities are well aware of the need for making conditions of work attractive.
    Mr. Evans: Is the Minister aware that Lowestoft has the second highest ratio in the country of domiciliary confinements and that there is need not only for one midwife, as his letter to me indicated, but for two, owing to the reorganisation of the service? Will the hon. Gentleman realise that it is absolutely imperative, in order to secure that the service works, to add to the rewards and improve the amenities for midwives all over the country, and particularly in the area which I represent?
    Dr. Summerskill: Is a car available for these midwives in this area or do they travel to and from their work on a bicycle?
    Mr. Thompson: I could not answer the right hon. Lady's Question without notice, but, turning to the original Question, on the domiciliary side the East Suffolk County Council has only one vacancy in Lowestoft, and I know that it is doing its best to fill it.

    Care of the Elderly
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Minister of Health if his attention has been drawn to the policy being followed by Salford City Council, in collaboration with various Government Departments and voluntary bodies, in caring for the elderly; and if he will consult the Salford City Council with a view to encouraging a similar policy throughout the country.
    Mr. R. Thompson: I am aware of the enterprise and imagination shown by the Salford City Council in the action it has taken to co-ordinate statutory and voluntary activities for the care of the elderly in the city. It is my right hon. and learned Friend's policy to encourage such collaboration and I am grateful to the hon. Member for drawing public
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    attention in the recent debate to these examples of what can be done in this way.
    Mr. Allaun: While noting the Parliamentary Secretary's very sympathetic reply, may I ask whether he will consider sponsoring a documentary film of these pioneering activities for showing elsewhere, and also the holding of a national conference of local authority representatives on the whole subject?
    Mr. Thompson: I will consider that, but I think that this excellent initiative has received very wide publicity. For our part, we have reminded local authorities again to take steps to encourage voluntary efforts and of the circular which we issued in 1957 following the Department's survey of services available to the chronic sick and the infirm.

    Local Authority Estimates
    Mr. Blenkinsopasked the Minister of Health whether he will make special arrangements for the annual publication of local authority estimates of expenditure on health services in view of the absence of figures for grants to local authortities in the estimates for the current year.
    Mr. Walker-Smith: I hope to continue the practice of publishing the latest available estimates of local health authority expenditure in the Ministry's Annual Report.
    Mr. Blenkinsop: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman not recognise that it is very disappointing not to have available in time for publication in the general estimates the figures for local government expenditure, as this means that the debates on the subject generally, which we may be having this week, for example, are to some extent vitiated by our not having up-to-date figures? Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman also recognise that we did not have them in respect of the block grants, in relation to actual completed expenditure?
    Mr. Walker-Smith: I understand the hon. Member's difficulty in this matter. I am intending to ask the local authorities to let us have estimates of their expenditure on local health services for the current year. I am engaged at present in consultation with their

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    associations about the precise form they should take and I will let the hon. Member have a copy when they are received. As to the future, I hope that in the 1960 Annual Report it may be possible to include local health authority figures then current, but it is rather tight timing if we are not to delay the publication of the Report.
    Mrs. Braddock: In view of the extension of mental health services among local authorities, and in view of the Minister's statement that the global figure of increase in the services throughout the country is 2½ per cent., is he not aware that it is necessary that we should have some idea of what local authorities have spent in this direction, so that we can judge whether they are spending the amount additionally allocated to them as a result of the block grant?
    Mr. Walker-Smith: I have that in mind and I will let the hon. Lady have a copy of the figures which I have promised to the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Blenkinsop).
    Dame Irene Ward: Can anyone on this side of the House have the figures also, or can they be made available in the Library? Will my right hon. and learned Friend not agree that they are of as much interest to us on this side of the House as they are to others?
    Mr. Walker-Smith: My hon. Friend knows that she and I are in pretty frequent correspondence about various matters. I shall be very happy, of course, to include her and perhaps, to save time, I should say any hon. or right hon. Member who would like to have the figures.
    Mr. Blenkinsop: Would it not save time if the Minister did away with the block grants and brought back a more sensible system of financing the health service?
    Mr. Walker-Smith: I should have thought that was a classical example of burning the house down in order to get roast pig.

    Prescription Charges
    Mr. Blenkinsopasked the Minister of Health whether he will make a statement regarding the future of prescription charges, in view of the recommendations of the Hinchliffe Committee.
    Mr. Walker-Smith: I would refer the hon. Member to the replies which I gave him on the 26th January, 1959, and the 13th April, 1959. The Report of the Hinchliffe Committee is, of course, a factor to be taken into account in the consideration of the relevant circumstances to which I then referred.
    Mr. Blenkinsop: Does the Minister not regard this as a rather disappointing reply? After waiting for a month for it we might have expected some further consideration to have been given. Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman not say that, after the recommendations of the Hinchliffe Committee and the pressure from the British Medical Association and other bodies, it is now high time that the whole question of prescription charges should be gone into and reconsidered, if not the charges abolished?
    Mr. Walker-Smith: Of course, they should be gone into, in the sense that they should be the subject of active consideration by the Government of the day. As to whether or not they should be abolished, if the hon. Member will be good enough to look at paragraph 301 of the Hinchliffe Report he will see that it envisaged an agreement with the medical profession for the voluntary limitation of quantities to be prescribed, then a trial period, and, in the fight of the success of the trial period, consideration being given to the abolition of the prescription charge. Therefore, what the Hinchliffe Committee had in mind was a programme over a longer term than that suggested by the hon. Member.
    Dr. Summerskill: Did not the Hinchliffe Committee say that financially, socially and ethically the charges have failed, and did it not give directions to the Minister and in fact say that if there had been a scientific survey before the charges were introduced the Government would not have done what they have done?
    Mr. Walker-Smith: As I pointed out a month ago, the financial assessment is based on a misconception. As for the social survey, it is true that the Committee says in paragraph 291 that if any future changes are contemplated it would be advantageous to try a social survey first. That is obviously a recommendation to which I would give careful consideration.
    Dr. Summerskill: Has the Minister noted the paragraph in the Report which refers to the Martin and Williams Report and states that if the Government had undertaken a scientific survey of the entire position before they would not have imposed charges?
    Mr. Walker-Smith: I was concerning myself with the constructive recommendation as to what should be done in the event of another change. It is not really very rewarding to look backwards all the time on these matters.

    New Drugs (Testing)
    Mr. Blenkinsopasked the Minister of Health whether he will now consider providing for the independent testing of new drugs, in view of the recommendation of the Hinchliffe Committee.
    Mr. Walker-Smith: I am at present awaiting the views of the professional interest on this recommendation
    Mr. Blenkinsop: Can the Minister say whether he has hopes of being able to make a statement on the matter fairly soon, as it is one which has been followed up by questions from this side of the House for some time and is of considerable importance?
    Mr. Walker-Smith: Yes, Sir, of course it is a matter of importance, but it is not one on which, by its very nature, I can make any statement until I have received the views of the professional bodies which have been consulted, which comprise, in addition to the British Medical Association, the Royal Colleges.

    Psychological Medicine
    Mr. K. Robinsonasked the Minister of Health what steps he is taking to encourage doctors in general practice to equip themselves to deal with psychological and stress factors in disease.
    Mr. Walker-Smith: As one of the ways to keep abreast of developments in medicine, general practitioners are encouraged to attend approved postgraduate refresher courses, and financial assistance is given to help them to do so. The content of these courses is settled by the universities and medical schools in the light of current needs for supplementary training, including training in psychological medicine.
    Mr. Robinson: Is the Minister not aware that almost the only practical work in this field has been done in the Tavistock Clinic, that its course of seminars is not officially recognised by the British Postgraduate Medical Federation, and that consequently doctors attending cannot claim expenses or locum fees? Would he use his influence with the federation to ensure that the course is officially recognised?
    Mr. Walker-Smith: I will certainly look into the point made by the hon. Gentleman, because I recognise both his interest and expertise in these matters, but he will know the limitations of my jurisdiction in regard to education and training.
    Mr. Champion: Can the Minister tell us what percentage of the doctors take the postgraduate courses he has mentioned?
    Mr. Walker-Smith: In the last year 2,178 doctors attended, which is about 10 per cent. It is an increasing trend.

    Doctors (Discipline)
    Mr. Liptonasked the Minister of Health why the names of doctors fined by executive councils of the National Health Service for neglect of duty are not published.
    Mr. Walker-Smith: Because the procedure, which is thought to reflect the balance of the public interest, does not so provide except where a doctor is excluded by a decision of the National Health Service Tribunal from practising in the service.
    Mr. Lipton: Is it not quite wrong that a doctor who is so negligent, sometimes at the expense of human life, that he has to be fined, should be protected by having his name kept secret? Is there any larger section of the community which gets a similar degree of privilege and protection, especially in a public service?
    Mr. Walker-Smith: Rather special considerations arise on this. The procedure followed is substantially that which operated in the days of the National Health Insurance. It was a procedure which operated in the days of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) and his right hon.

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    Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand). They may all be wrong and the hon. Gentleman may be right, but, on the other hand, it may be the other way round.
    Dr. Stross: Is the Minister aware that there is no section of the public which gives so devoted a service to their fellow men as does this group?
    Mr. Walker-Smith: Without entering into comparisons, I am sure the whole House will agree with the value and devotion of the work done by the medical profession, and I would remind the House that this is the procedure which commends itself to the profession as a whole.

    TECHNICAL COMMITTEE ON SAFEGUARDS AGAINST SURPRISE ATTACK
    Mr. A. Hendersonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make a statement on the progress achieved at the Technical Committee on Safeguards against Surprise Attack.
    The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. John Profumo): I have nothing to add to what my right hon. Friend the Minister of State told the House on 18th February last.
    Mr. Henderson: As the United States Government feel compelled to maintain a substantial part of their Air Force in a constant state of readiness, and, indeed, the Soviet Government may be doing the same, would not the Minister of State agree that this is a matter of considerable urgency and importance? May I ask him whether the Foreign Secretary is taking advantage of the presence of the other Foreign Ministers at Geneva to raise this matter in order to discuss possible future action?
    Mr. Profumo: The issues before what was purely a technical conference have to some extent been overtaken by the discussions between the Foreign Ministers which have been taking place in Geneva and which have been resumed today.
    Mr. P. Noel-Baker: Is it the intention to reconvene the Technical Committee?
    Mr. Profumo: No, Sir; it is not.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: Would it not, in accordance with precedent, be of value if the Government gave us a White Paper showing the proposals which were made to the Technical Committee and the principal speeches that were made?
    Mr. Profumo: I do not think that is really necessary, because a copy of the report of the conference in the form of a United Nations document is already available in the Library of the House.

    NUCLEAR WEAPONS
    Mr. A. Hendersonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will instruct his representatives at the United Nations to propose the setting up of a committee of experts to study the problem of detecting the existence of concealed stocks of nuclear weapons.
    Mr. Profumo: No, Sir. As I told the right hon. and learned Gentleman on 2nd March, scientific opinion is agreed that there is no prospect of finding any satisfactory method of detecting the existence of concealed stocks of nuclear weapons, and I therefore do not consider that a United Nations study would serve any useful purpose.
    Mr. Henderson: Does the reference in the Minister's reply to scientific opinion mean scientific opinion in this country and in the United States, or does it include scientific opinion in, for example, the Soviet Union?
    Mr. Profumo: It means that all the nuclear Powers have agreed that there is not any prospect of doing this. In fact, the only instrument with which one could find a nuclear weapon in a crate would be a screwdriver.
    Mr. Henderson: Surely Mr. Khrushchev has said that in the view of the Soviet Government it is possible to check hidden stockpiles of nuclear weapons?
    Mr. Profumo: I think that the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. P. Noel-Baker) would probably like to get something in here. I understand that in his discussions with Mr. Khrushchev, Mr. Khrushchev said that he knows of no way of detecting secret stocks.
    Mr. P. Noel-Baker: Is the Minister of State aware that Mr. Khrushchev agreed that there were many things which could be done about secret stocks which would be effective? Cannot the hon. Gentleman confirm to me that his predecessor, Mr. Nutting, made this exact proposal for a United Nations scientific committee in the United Nations Disarmament Subcommittee in 1956, and if it was feasible then why is it not feasible now?
    Mr. Profumo: What I am aware of is that a Labour Party pamphlet, which I understand is an agreed document, has just made proposals of this sort, and because it is an agreed document I am sorry to have to pour cold water on it.

    MOSCOW FILM FESTIVAL (FILM)
    Mr. Rankinasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what reasons led him to advise that the film, Carlton-Browne of the Foreign Office, was unsuitable to be shown at the Moscow Film Festival.
    Mr. Profumo: I would refer the hon. Gentleman to the Written Answer my hon. Friend gave on 6th July to a similar Question by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Swingler).
    Mr. Rankin: I read that reply with interest, and I note that the hon. Gentleman agrees that this was an excellent piece of satire which he feared the Russians might not appreciate. Since when have the Foreign Office become film censors? In any event, are not Burgess and Maclean now sufficiently qualified to enable the Russians to appreciate our various figures of speech?
    Mr. Profumo: I am glad of the opportunity of making quite plain to the House that my Department did not, in fact, prohibit the showing of the film. The film industry selection committee asked my Department for an opinion, and it was told that we doubted whether the film would be good festival material. I have seen the film, and I am bound to admit that I laughed a great deal. On the other hand, it pokes fun at the Russians, and they might have thought it was "Volga".

    THE BALKANS (NUCLEAR-FREE ZONE)
    Mr. Healeyasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what reply he has made to the official Soviet proposal for a nuclear-free zone in the Balkans.
    Mr. Profumo: A statement has today been communicated to the Soviet Government on behalf of Her Majesty's Government. I will circulate the text in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Healey: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that though there is a case to be made against a nuclear-free zone in any area, there is a great deal to be said for the general limitation of all armaments and forces in this area, and as the Government support such limitation in Central Europe, will they not make positive proposals in this sense for the Balkans area?
    Mr. Profumo: As the hon. Gentleman knows, Her Majesty's Government are doing everything possible to help to negotiate a comprehensive disarmament plan, but this, as does any other plan for arms limitation or nuclear-free zones, must, I am sure, depend on an adequate system of inspection. We cannot move without that, except by surrendering our responsibility for the safety of the people whom we represent.
    Following is the statement:
    The Government of the United Kingdom have noted the proposal of the Soviet Government made on 25th June for a denuclearised and rocket-free zone in the Balkans and the Adriatic area.
    It is the sincere hope of the United Kingdom Government that it will be possible to negotiate with the Government of the Soviet Union and other interested Governments a plan for comprehensive disarmament including an effective system of inspection and control. The United Kingdom Government are very ready to enter into negotiations to that end. They believe the time is now ripe for another attempt by the leading powers to reach agreement, and they hope that consideration will be given to disarmament at the Foreign Ministers' meeting in Geneva.
    At the present time the most modern and destructive weapons are being introduced into the Soviet Armed Forces. In view of this fact it would seem unjust and unreasonable to expect the free Governments in the Balkan-Adriatic area to renounce, in advance of general agreement, and without an equivalent concession by the Soviet Union, appropriate weapons of defence. Although the decision is primarily one for the governments referred

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    to, the United Kingdom Government would in the circumstances fully understand their unwillingness to surrender their rights or to discontinue their efforts to take adequate measures for collective self-defence within the framework of their alliances.
    July 13, 1959.

    EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
    Mr. G. Jegerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) why, in view of the fact that under the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 32, the Committee of Ministers is required to decide whether there has been a violation of the Convention, the Committee of Ministers did not state whether there had been any violation of the Convention concerning Application No. 176/56, but merely reported that no further action is called for;
    (2) whether he will now publish the Report of the European Commission of Human Rights, including its opinion as to whether the Convention had, or had not, been violated, as presented to the Committee of Ministers on 20th April, relating to the complaints against British actions in Cyprus.
    Mr. Profumo: Article 32 provides the procedure by which the Committee of Ministers may decide whether there has been a violation of the Convention. It does not oblige the Committee to say in the case of every allegation whether there has been a violation. On Application No. 176/56 the Committee considered that there was no need to make a pronouncement either way. On the question of publication, Article 31 lays down that individual states shall not be at liberty to publish the reports of the European Commission of Human Rights.
    Mr. Jeger: Is not the Minister aware that considerable propaganda has attached to the allegations against our forces in Cyprus, and that those allegations were themselves made by murderers and terrorists, and that unless the matter is cleared up and the facts made known many British ex-Cyprus soldiers, some of them my constituents, will always have those suspicions and allegations hanging over their heads?
    Mr. Profumo: I quite appreciate the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, but I think that the House will draw its own conclusions from the decision of the Committee of Ministers that no further action was called for. Had there been any violation calling for action by Her Majesty's Government, it is hardly likely that the Committee of Ministers would have arrived at that decision.

    SPAIN (VISAS)
    Mr. G. Jegerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has yet reached agreement on the question of entry into Spain from British territories without visas.
    Mr. Profumo: No, Sir.
    Mr. Jeger: Will the Minister bear in mind that the frontier between Gibraltar and La Linea still imposes many restrictions which Gibraltarians would like to see abolished? In any agreement on visas arrived at between Her Majesty's Government and Spain, will they see that that frontier is not neglected?
    Mr. Profumo: The question of the La Linea frontier, which I have seen myself, is one which Her Majesty's Government have very much in mind in the context of these negotiations.

  GERMANY

    Troops, West Berlin
    Mr. Wiggasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will state the number of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation troops in West Berlin on 27th February, 1958, and on 9th July, 1959; and to what extent these troops are armed with weapons other than personal and light support weapons.
    Mr. Profumo: The Allied Forces in West Berlin are not under North Atlantic Treaty Organisation command. They are there as garrisons of the three Western Powers for the purpose of safeguarding the freedom of the inhabitants of West Berlin. The British garrison consists approximately of one brigade group, and this was also the case in February, 1958. It is equipped with the normal equipment.
    Mr. Wigg: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his reply. Is he aware that it is now established beyond any shadow of doubt that those troops are of a symbolic character and that the only military duties which they can be called upon to perform are duties in aid of a civil power and that they are incapable—at present, or at any time in the past or, so far as one can see, in the future—of carrying out operations requiring the use of tactical atomic weapons?
    Mr. Profumo: That is so.

    Hawk Missile
    Mr. Warbeyasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what proposals have been submitted to the Council of Western European Union for an amendment to the Brussels Treaty to permit West Germany to manufacture parts of Hawk missiles in excess of the size permitted under the treaty; and what decision has been reached.
    Mr. Profumo: The Council of Western European Union has given its approval in principle to a German request to be permitted to manufacture the Hawk missile. The terms of an amendment to the Brussels Treaty are at present under consideration.
    Mr. Warbey: Is this another step in the process which The Times Bonn correspondent describes as the circumvention of the Brussels Agreement by the West German Government? Is it not time that the Government made a full statement to the House—so that we could discuss it properly—about their policy of steadily encouraging the undermining of the agreements reached in Paris and London?
    Mr. Profumo: There is no question of undermining any of the agreements arrived at in Paris or London. The Hawk is a defensive anti-aircraft missile.

    VIETNAM (UNITED STATES MISSION)
    Mr. Warbeyasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what report he has received from the International Commission for Supervision and Control in Vietnam on the withdrawal from South Vietnam of the United States Temporary
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    Equipment Recovery Mission in accordance with the Commission's decision that the mission should withdraw by the end of June, 1959.
    Mr. Profumo: No report has been received from the International Commission since the Ninth Interim Report dated 10th March, 1959.
    Mr. Warbey: Since in both its eighth and ninth reports the International Commission expresses concern about continuing American military activities in South Vietnam, will the Minister of State inform the House as soon as a report is received whether the decision of the Commission has been complied with?
    Mr. Profumo: I can inform the House here and now that I understand that there have been further developments since the ninth interim report was submitted and that the question of the Temporary Equipment Recovery Mission has been under further consideration in the International Commission and that the Mission has not yet withdrawn.

    ICELANDIC FISHERIES DISPUTE
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will now make a further statement on the dispute between Great Britain and Iceland about territorial fishing grounds, indicating what steps he has taken to resolve it during the last three months; and with what success.
    Mr. Profumo: There have been no new developments in the fishery dispute with Iceland during the last three months. The policy of Her Majesty's Government remains as stated in their declaration of 4th June, 1958, and their statement of 1st September, 1958. The hon. and learned Member will know that since those declarations were made Her Majesty's Government have on a number of occasions made suggestions for the negotiation of a temporary settlement of the dispute pending the results of the next United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. These suggestions were mentioned in my right hon. Friend's reply to the hon. Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Awbery) on 11th May. The Icelandic Government are aware that these offers remain open, but I regret to

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    say that they continue to be unwilling to negotiate direct or to submit the dispute to the International Court.
    Mr. Hughes: I thank the Minister for that long reply, but does he not realise that it misses the point? Is he aware that this long continued dispute is expensive to both sides? Can he say why Britain, a great and rich nation, does not end this dispute by offering some quid pro quo to Iceland, a small and poor nation? Surely there is an opportunity there.
    Mr. Profumo: I do not know what pro quo the hon. and learned Gentleman has in mind, but Her Majesty's Government would certainly welcome an interim arrangement. I think that the hon. and learned Gentleman knows as well as anyone in the House the energy with which Her Majesty's Government have pursued this matter and that they will continue to do the same.
    Mr. Hoy: As this dispute affects not only Great Britain and Iceland but many other countries, can the hon. Gentleman say what consultations Her Majesty's Government have had with countries interested in this question?
    Mr. Profumo: We have had consultations with all the countries who are interested in this matter. Unfortunately, we have still failed to reach agreement, but if we cannot find an interim arrangement we shall probably have to wait until the next International Conference on the Law of the Sea.

    ANGLO-DANISH TRADE AGREEMENT
    Mr. Liptonasked the Prime Minister what protests he has received against the Anglo-Danish Trade Agreement.
    The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): I have been asked to reply.
    My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has received a small number of representations on this matter.
    Mr. Lipton: Will the Lord Privy Seal say whether that small number of representations has come from authoritative spokesmen of the pig and bacon
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    interests concerned? While the Government have so effectively nobbled their supporters in the House—[Interruption.] —that there was hardly a bleat of protest from them when the Danish Agreement was announced—[Interruption.]—is it not quite clear that the British pig and bacon producers will get hurt as a result of the operation of this agreement—quite apart from the millions of £s which it will cost the taxpayer?
    Mr. Butler: No, Sir. It was very difficult to distinguish the hon. Member's supplementary question because of the interruptions of his own supporters, but so far as I could apprehend what he said, he stated that certain damage would be done. Certainly any sacrifice involves damage, and it would be wrong to say that no damage will be done, but the subsidy and guaranteed prices will continue for British producers and the curers will have the benefit of the Government guarantee on pigs. While my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture has been in touch with them and with the Farmers' Unions, that does not lessen the anxiety felt, but I feel that this agreement is in the interests of the nation as a whole.

  EMPLOYMENT

    I.L.O. Convention (Racial Discrimination)
    Mr. Brockwayasked the Minister of Labour on what grounds Her Majesty's Government has refused to ratify the International Labour Office Convention against racial discrimination in employment.
    The Minister of Labour and National Service (Mr. Iain Macleod): I would refer the hon. Member to the White Paper, Cmnd. 783, which was published on 26th June.
    Mr. Brockway: Is it not the case that when this Convention was before the International Labour Conference it was carried by the overwhelming majority of 189 to 24, with only 13 abstentions, that Her Majesty's Government's representative voted for it, that Sir Alfred Roberts, the workers' representative, voted for it, and that only one employer

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    voted against it? What is the reason for turning down this reasonable Convention?
    Mr. Macleod: It is purely a practical reason. Certain matters of discrimination are mentioned. Her Majesty's Government have said, in the Note which they have laid before the House, that they are fully sympathetic to the principle of the convention. However, to take a simple point, if we accepted the Convention, it would be necessary to legislate that equal pay and equal conditions for women in employment should apply throughout an industry, and it has always been the principle of all Governments that they should not interfere in matters which are subject to ordinary industrial negotiations.
    Mr. Lee: I realise the principle which the right hon. Gentleman is arguing. Would not he also agree that this is a vital principle for the nation to accept? As was said by my hon. Friend, we did not show any antagonism to it when it was before the Conference. Would not the right hon. Gentleman also agree that there are many aspects of legislation dealing with conditions of employment which contravene generally understood barriers? I think that the right hon. Gentleman could agree to ratify this Convention.
    Mr. Macleod: I do not think this is so. This is purely a practical point. There is nothing controversial between the two sides of the House on the desirability of opposing all forms of discrimination. It simply means that this House would have to legislate on industrial conditions, and it has always regarded that as something for the two sides of industry and not for the Government.
    Mr. J. Griffiths: I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman says. Would he at the same time consider taking advantage of some opportunity to discuss this matter with both sides of industry? I am sure the right hon. Gentleman realises how important it is, having regard to our responsibilities, that we should make known our desire that there should be no racial discrimination of any kind in this country?
    Mr. Macleod: I pointed out the difficulty that arises, for example, on the question of sex discrimination—this is
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    not limited to racial discrimination alone—and I should be glad to take an opportunity to discuss that with the two sides of industry.

POST OFFICE (SUBMARINE CABLE SYSTEM)
The Postmaster-General (Mr. Ernest Marples): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I would like to make a statement.
A Motion in my name on the Order Paper provides that an Agreement dated 16th March, 1959, with the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, a copy of which was laid before this House on 26th June, be approved. This Agreement falls within the scope of Standing Orders Nos. 87 and 88. Standing Order No. 87 requires that the Agreement shall not be binding until approved by this House. This requirement has been met.
Standing Order No. 88 requires that the Agreement should be laid forthwith. This, I regret to say, has not been met. For this, I apologise to the House.
Normally, such Agreements are signed, first, by the other party and, later, by the Government. This provides time for arrangements to be made to lay the Agreement before the House as soon as it is completed. But in this case my signature was given first. The reason for this was that the American Telephone and Telegraph Company engrossed the Agreement and sent it to us for signature.
In falling in with this arrangement, we inadvertently prevented ourselves from making that immediate report to the House which Standing Order No. 88 requires. Steps have been taken to ensure, as far as possible, that a similar lapse will not occur again.
I thought it proper to make this statement and offer my apologies to the House before the Motion in my name is considered.
Mr. C. R. Hobson: We on this side of the House accept the apology of the right hon. Gentleman, because there must be very few hon. Members on either side who have not transgressed the Standing Orders at some time or other, but there is one question I wish to ask. Why has there been the delay in making this statement? A Motion has been on the Order Paper for 15 days. It was placed

35
in the Library on 25th June. After many requests had been made by hon. Members on this side for the Agreement to be placed in the Vote Office, it finally appeared on 9th July, last Thursday.
Will the right hon. Gentleman pay particular attention to the penultimate sentence in his statement and see that this sort of thing does not occur again?
Mr. Marples: I agree with the hon. Gentleman and I will. To comply with Standing Orders where other countries are involved is not always easy. It means that this country has always to sign last. If, for example, we have an agreement with America which involves Congress and the Senate, it almost means meeting in mid-Atlantic to sign and then rushing home to comply with the Standing Orders.
I made my statement as quickly as I could when I learned the facts, after consulting the authorities of the House and other people concerned.
Mr. H. Morrison: As one who committed a rather more serious offence of this kind when I was Secretary of State for the Home Department, may I convey some degree of sympathy to the Postmaster-General?
Mr. Ede: Send him a telegram.
Mr. Morrison: In my case, not only did I apologise abjectly, but I brought in an indemnity Bill so that Parliament could either forgive me or not, according to its will. It did forgive me, after suitably caning me in the presence of the House. Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to bring in an indemnity Bill, so that we may discuss him at further length?
Mr. Marples: I admire the right hon. Gentleman's ingenuity in many respects—telegram and all—but I do not think that on this occasion I shall follow the precedent which he set.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. This matter may be debated tomorrow, when we come to the Motion in the name of the Minister.

PROCEDURE (REPORT OF SELECT COMMITTEE)
Report from the Select Committee on Procedure to be considered forthwith.—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]
Considered accordingly.
3.36 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 from the Select Committee on Procedure.
I should like, first, to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. J. Stuart) and his colleagues on the Select Committee for their Report. The Committee states that it approached its task. "in no partisan spirit", and adds:
"…we are of one mind in our determination to make our recommendations such as will uphold the dignity and prestige of the House of Commons."
I hope that that same spirit will inform our debate today.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Moray and Nairn is an old and trusted Member of this House. I think that his colleagues were valuable, vociferous and well-informed and that we are grateful to them for the Report which has been submitted to us.
I do not wish to take up too much time of the House, as the debate will provide an opportunity for hon. Members on both sides to make their views known. I have taken note of the hope expressed by the Select Committee that
"… the House will continue to show their approval of a front-bencher who can compress his points well within the compass of half an hour".
I hope that this will also apply to Privy Councillors. I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that I am anxiously watching the clock.
The House will recall that the occasion for setting up the Select Committee was the very useful debate that we had on 31st January, 1958. The debate was opened by the hon. Member for East Ham, South (Mr. Oram), to whom we are indebted. If all hon. Members used the opportunities provided by success in the Ballot for private Members' Motions to such good advantage we should improve the procedure of the House. I think that what

37
emerged from that debate was the realisation that it is quite easy to criticise Parliamentary procedure, but rather difficult to alter it fundamentally if one wishes to be certain that the liberty of expression is preserved.
Dictatorships and democracies have their disciplines, the former—that is, dictatorship—to curtail speech, and the latter to preserve it. If we are to maintain Burke's ideal of ordered liberty in a domocracy, there must be discipline. In fact—and this is important for people outside to realise—discipline in our democracy comes from the strictness of procedure.
This is sometimes misunderstood by democratic people outside this House. They frequently ask me—I met a young man of that type this week-end—how men of genius can contemplate coming into the House of Commons, with its antiquated procedure. The answer may well lie in the mouth of the younger Pitt, who said that he could not have run the House of Commons at all had not all his supporters, the country squires, been extremely stupid. Some degree of stupidity and docility is vital to our affairs, as I am sure the Patronage Secretary would agree.
At the same time, I would quote the Latin tag from the epitaph of Sir Christopher Wren. in St. Paul's Cathedral:
"Si monumentum requiris, circumspice";
which I might render as, "Look around and you will see the effect of all this." If we are anxious for men of genius to come into the House, the first advice I would give to them is that they should maintain the elements of our Parliamentary procedure, because it would be impossible for a minority, or a man of genius, to express an opinion here without the protection of our rules of order.
In a spirited article heralding this debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) refers in the Daily Telegraph today to one danger in our Parliamentary procedure, namely, that "morticians" upstairs prepare all our material and send it to the Floor, where we endorse it or lay it out. That is quite a serious criticism. Another criticism is that our procedure is canned and there are very few opportunities for the
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cut-and-thrust of debate which Mr. Speaker FitzRoy, one of your predecessors, Mr. Speaker, used to impress upon the House as being important for the vitality of this Chamber. With those sentiments I would normally agree, but I would still argue that, morticians or otherwise, there is plenty of opportunity for debate on the Floor of the House, and that it is up to hon. Members to take it under the procedure as we know it.
If there are no rules, there is no liberty. How can we assure freedom of speech? How can we meet the other criticism which is made of our present procedure that there is too much tedium in the lives of hon. Members, too much hard work and too little certainty and ease? Let us face this problem. Our procedure has come down from the centuries. In the debate in January, 1958, to which I have already referred, I said that in my opinion no alteration in our procedure must obscure the vital feature of our democratic Parliament that the work of a Legislative Assembly such as this—the oldest in the world—cannot be so ordered or so loosened that hon. Members can be saved from the gusts of opposition or from the struggle to gain power and to use it well.
Politics has always been, and always will be, the ground upon which this struggle will take place. There must, and will always be, in a properly free assembly, surprises, ambushes and jostling together—
Mr. George Chetwynd: And takings by the arm—
Mr. Butler: —with tedious waiting, as there are in war and in love. I do not think we can remove them from the field of politics; and if we did remove them the House of Commons would be a weaker and poorer place. Happiness, justice and wisdom will prevail only if the procedure is not too lax and yet not too strict.
Then, we are asked: why cannot we find time to consider the great issues of the day in debates on important topics? Some people think that this is a happy feature of another place at the present time. Certainly, Members of that place happen to have debates on the most inconvenient subjects at the most extraordinary moments. This, according to

39
the critics, would remove all the tedium from the House of Commons and would assure interest, so that hon. Members would be perpetually in their places and on their toes.
If I pose, as one of our objectives, a better use of our time, both individually and collectively, I do not imply that we can assure to hon. Members personal comfort and absolute convenience. It would be a good thing if the outside world realised that, especially in the House of Commons, politics must always mean a hard life. I am not sure that outside opinion realises what long hours we have to sit, and shall have to sit however much we reform our procedure. Politics is a profession in which the reward is precisely that life, and not the honours that sometimes come from promotion to Ministerial rank or anything else. I do not think that one of us here who has ever seen a man retired from his position will disagree when I say that it is one of the most dignified spectacles to see him take up his normal part in the House of Commons.
We believe that the most important thing here is the life of the House of Commons itself, and that life cannot be regulated if we are to do it on the basis of providing absolute ease and certainty for our Members, either in the Smoke Room, or in the Library, or anywhere else. If we had mechanical voting it would not necessarily be a great improvement. I believe that some of the few chances of rubbing shoulders with, or even taking the arm of, the Prime Minister, occurs in the Division Lobby.
The Select Committee recognised that some delegation of our affairs is needed and many of its recommendations will help towards the better use of our time. The Government have not yet formulated their final views on the recommendations and, therefore, we shall value the view of the House and the expressions of opinion in this debate, as a basis upon which proposals can be put before the House at a later date.
The Report is not revolutionary. It does not go as far as the Report of the learned Clerk of the House. It does not delegate to the extent that the Clerk recommends. There is no harm in looking ahead. It may well be that, in the future, the need for further delegation
40
will arise and that the House, in respect of its functions as a legislative and discussing chamber, will tend to delegate a little more of the technical aspects of its legislative work. I am sure that we are indebted to the learned Clerk for the submissions he made to the Committee. That well may come, but let us, on the present occasion, concentrate on the present proposals for delegation.
More time can be found for general debates only by taking from the Floor of the House all the business which can be satisfactorily handled elsewhere. The first proposal made was in respect of the Finance Bill, to which I come now. The Committee itself says:
"The greatest single economy … would be to commit the Finance Bill at least in part to a standing committee."
It draws attention to the increasing time spent on the Finance Bill since the war. In passing, I might mention that this year, by general good will and cooperation, the Committee stage of the Finance Bill was obtained in six days, as compared with eight days last year I acknowledged in my evidence to the Committee that there is a tradition which must not be lightly set aside, that matters of taxation should be dealt with on the Floor of the House. As a general proposition, that is a principle that we should try to adhere to.
While the Finance Bill will always be an important feature of this House, our business has in this century become infinitely greater and more complex, in the variety of matters with which Parliament now has to deal. If we are to deal fairly with this whole volume of particular matters as well as of general matters, there must be some sacrifice of time on the Floor of the House and in some other respects.
A memorandum was submitted to the Committee by myself on the subject of the splitting of the Finance Bill, and the possibilities have been discussed for putting the provisions of the Finance Bill into more than one Bill on the basis of different taxes; or putting those odious little Clauses, of which I was well aware when I was Chancellor of the Exchequer, dealing with tax avoidance, into a separate Bill; or putting the administrative side of national finance into a separate Bill. There are various views on these matters. We could refer

41
one or more parts of the Finance Bill to Standing Committees and keep the remainder of the proceedings on the Floor of the House.
In my evidence to the Committee, to which I now adhere in this respect, I stressed the importance of approaching this as a question of experience based on experiment. That view the Committee supported. In my view that is the best approach, and if we were to decide to do that in any future year this experimental approach to the Finance Bill would be the best. I do not wish to go farther than that today.
The second form of delegation to which the Committee referred was that all Bills save Consolidated Fund Bills, Bills of major constitutional importance and Bills where the Committee stage is a formality, should be sent upstairs This suggestion is, I think, a good one and I should very much value the views of the House and hon. Members upon it, but it raises acutely the question of limited accommodation upstairs.
This is not a debate in which I can raise the question of accommodation for the comfort of hon. Members. That would be out of order and we must take that on another occasion, but I should say that in pushing further this proposal of the Select Committee it would be imperative for Ministers or the Leader of the House to indicate at such time as any future Motions are laid exactly how we propose to deal with the future accommodation if we are to indulge in delegation to Committees upstairs.
I come next to the question of the Report stage. There has been a temptation to say that the Report stage of certain Bills should also be taken upstairs, but the House will note that the Committee itself rejected the proposal that the Report stage of less important or controversial Bills might be taken in Standing Committee. I am bound to say that as at present advised, and subject to anything that might be said in the debate, I agree with that conclusion.
One of the problems, as brought out by the Select Committee, is that we should have to appoint actually a different committee upstairs to take the Report than that which dealt with the Bill in Committee. I think that with the present stage of conglomeration of Bills
42
for the scrutiny of Standing Committees it would be extraordinarily difficult to take up that procedure. Moreover, I think that the House should be responsible for the final stages of Bills on Report and, therefore, I agree with the Report of the Select Committee that a Report stage should normally be taken on the Floor of the House at whatever inconvenience to hon. Members.
I come to the fourth aspect of delegation, the suggestion that there should be specialist Committees. The Report refers to the experiment of appointing a Colonial Committee. This is something which I believe to be far less simple than it sounds. If we look at it it seems to raise constitutional difficulties of a very high order. The Report of the Select Committee says, on page xxv, that it would "constitute a radical constitutional innovation," and it smacks to me far more of Capitol Hill and the Palais Bourbon than of the Parliament in Westminster.
Let us look at this problem and see what the Select Committee recommended. A specialist Committee on colonial affairs—what kind of a Committee would it be? If we look at its constitution and functions, what would it do? To begin with, it could hardly deal with major colonial policy for that is and, surely must be, a matter for the House itself. Nor do I think it could deal with Estimates. Those are for the Select Committee on Estimates. They involve the examination of papers and officials rather than debate in the ordinary sense.
What, then, is left? If the Committee were to devote its attention to day-today colonial administration, surely there would be a real danger of usurping the functions, not only of colonial Governments themselves, who are enjoying a steadily increasing approach to the idea of self-government, but also of United Kingdom Ministers, who have a responsibility both to and in Parliament itself.
Therefore, I do not think that this would work. I notice that the Select Committee on page xxv, refers to the case of the Joint Committee on Indian Affairs, with which I had something to do in an earlier and far distant incarnation. That was quite a different problem. There was a special Committee set up, a joint Committee of both Houses, to deal with Indian affairs, but that was

43
only to deal with the new constitution. I do not see that an ad hoc Committee, set up according to our normal Parliamentary procedure to obtain the views not only of this country, but also of numerous races and creeds in India, bears any analogy to this permanent colonial committee or a foreign affairs Committee sitting upstairs.
I admire the powers of the senators of the United States, their comfort, their secretaries, their publicity and everything else, but I do not believe that hon. Members can vie with those mighty men. I believe that hon. Members of this House are members of this House and take part in debates upstairs in Committee or downstairs on the Floor of the House or in our own party committees, which are so much bruited and exploited in the public Press. I believe that that method of procedure is far better than trying to vie with the system in which on Capitol Hill Ministers are not in Parliament and not responsible to Parliament.
In this country a Minister is here and can be shot at and, with some difficulty, can be got rid of. He can be seen in the Lobbies, voting. He can be coerced on important occasions to support his own Government and, if he does not, his Government fails. I believe that homely method of contact between Ministers and Parliament is the right way of conducting British democracy.
Mr. R. T. Paget: Is it not somewhat of a red herring to talk about America and a colonial Committee when the Americans have not got colonies, or, at least, claim not to have them? Is not what the right hon. Gentleman said with regard to the Indian Committee proposal what we want a colonial Committee for, because from now onwards our whole colonial administration is a continual process of constitution-making? Is not that just what the Committee should be here for?
Mr. Butler: No, Sir. I do not think that the first part of the question by the hon. and learned Member is relevant and, in reply to the second part, the Indian Joint Committee was essentially an ad hoc Committee. I do not think that a running Committee of the type to which he referred would fit in with our Constitution at all. I take it that the
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Select Committee—any member of it can deny it if I am wrong—was taking the suggestion of a colonial Committee as an example, and that it would be followed by Committees for defence, foreign affairs. and so on.
Mr. F. J. Bellenger: Would the right hon. Gentleman say why he refers to the Senate of the United States in this respect? It is quite right that Ministers do not sit in the House there, but a better analogy would be with the continental Governments of Germany and France, where they do sit in the House and where they have specialist committees.
Mr. Butler: I am a great student of France. In fact, I owe my early history to a study of French history and constitution. That is why I do not wish necessarily to follow it. It is for these main reasons that, although my colleagues and I would like to hear the views of the House on this experiment, I must make it clear that we do not agree with the views of the Select Committee that specialist Committees of this sort would represent a constitutional departure on which we should be wise to embark.
Mr. G. R. Mitchison: The Select Committee did not accept this proposal.
Mr. Butler: Yes, I apologise; I agree that it did not accept it.
There is a reference on page xxv to a Welsh Grand Committee. The Report says:
"Proposals were also made for the establishment of a Welsh Grand Committee."
We do not at the moment feel that a case has been made for a Welsh Grand Committee, but, if hon. Members care to express their opinions in the course of the debate, we should be glad to hear what they have to say. I hope that some hon. Members from Wales may catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, and give their opinion on this point.
I have so far dealt in general terms with suggestions for relieving business on the Floor of the House. I want to turn now to some of the more detailed points of the Report, and I do not wish to keep the House too long. I do not propose to comment on all the Committee's recommendations, but if hon. Members will turn to page xxviii of the Report I

45
should like to comment on some of the more important points.
The first is the proposal for a formal timetable for public Bills and the general reference to timetables in the Report. The Committee thought that there was something to be said for amending our procedure to enable a timetable to be drawn up for important Bills, although it was not unanimous in its recommendations. It stressed the value of the voluntary timetable. In my evidence to the Committee I suggested that a date should be named by Order of the House for the return of a Bill from Standing Committee, and there is a reference to this on page v, paragraph 7, of the Report.
The Committee points out the difficulties in such a proposal, which it says would be debatable—and I agree with that—but it goes on to say that one of the difficulties of this proposal,
"is that the fixing of a date does not in itself take account of the number of sittings of the standing committee which will be required…We therefore recommend…"
I think that this is the one obscurity which I have found in the Report. The Committee does not follow absolutely the recommendation which I was bold enough to put forward, and the word "therefore" is, I think, out of place, because the Committee recommends something else—
"that a business committee representative of the House should be appointed to consider all bills committed to a standing committee after second reading;"
Later, the Committee says:
"The business committee should report to the House the date by which each bill so considered should be reported back from standing committee, and, if they thought appropriate, the number of sittings which should be required;"
That is the Committee's proposal. I fully realise the difficulties in my proposal to set a date by which a Bill should be returned and I accept that there is some improvement in the Select Committee's proposal that the Business Committee should name the date. Later in the same paragraph, however, the Select Committee reports:
"On the assumption that the motion was debatable, there should be no obligation on the Government to move, except where they thought fit in individual cases; for no Government could be expected to use their time on the floor for debate on a business motion which could take up an entire day in exceptional
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cases, when they considered that the most expeditious handling of the bill could best be achieved by other means."
If that is the Select Committee's view, and if the Committee rejects the proposal which I made for a date being fixed for the Bill being returned from upstairs, I am in some doubt whether we could do better than our present system—namely, that we have a voluntary timetable where it can be achieved and where it cannot be achieved we have a timetable imposed with a debate on the Floor of the House.
Mr. F. Blackburn: The right hon. Gentleman will have seen that there was an Amendment, which was rejected, which put teeth into that recommendation by the Committee. Unfortunately, it was rejected.
Mr. Butler: Yes. I hoped that some hon. Member would take up the point. That is why I have stressed it by mentioning it now. I read the Amendments and I noted that the recommendation was not unanimous.
This is one of the most uncertain features of the Report and I should very much value hon. Members' views about it, because if we are to have a Business Committee for all Bills and if the Government are not necessarily obliged to accept it when they consider
"that the most expeditious handling of the Bill could best be achieved by other means",
which means voluntary means, it might be better to stick to our present procedure and have a voluntary timetable on Bills upstairs, and, when a voluntary timetable appears impossible, to resort to the normal procedure which we have of imposing a timetable, although in the teeth of opposition, and then appointing a Business Committee to run it.
That is my opinion. If hon. Members would criticise it, I shall be glad to withdraw my original suggestion that a date should be fixed to bring a Bill back to the House, because by fixing a date we make the Motion debatable and that would itself begin the process of compulsory timetables without giving a proper opportunity for voluntary timetables to work. I have had second thoughts, and I hope that perhaps some members of the Committee may also have second thoughts on the point.
I turn to paragraph 59 (v) of page xxviii of the Report. This deals with

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the announcement of the selection of Amendments by the Chair on Committee and Report stages. I am sure that it would be convenient to hon. Members generally if they knew in advance the Amendments which the Chair propose to call on the Committee and Report stage of Bills. The Committee thought
"that it would be a convenience if occupants of the Chair could announce their selection"
of Amendments
"at the beginning of each sitting on the committee and report stages of bills."
The Committee proposed that
"the final marshalled list of amendments and new clauses"
to Bills might be numbered. Mr. Speaker, you and your colleagues might wish to consider this suggestion. I believe that hon. Members welcomed the arrangement which was made this Session by the Chairman of Ways and Means in indicating his provisional selection of Amendments for the Committee stage. The authorities of the House numbered Amendments and new Clauses in the marshalled list to the Finance Bill, for both the Committee and the Report stage. The question of adopting this as a regular practice might be referred to the Select Committee on Publications and Debates Reports.
I turn to paragraphs (viii) and (ix) of page xxviii. I think that it would be for the convenience of the House if we accepted that Ten Minutes Rule Bills should be limited to only one on any one day. The Ten Minutes Rule is a most useful privilege, sometimes abused, although I do not wish to bring any controversy into my speech, but it can encroach very much on the rest of the Business of the House. I also agree with the suggestion in paragraph (ix) that a week's notice should be given on Ten Minutes Rule Bills.
Turning to Recommendation No. (xiv), I am glad to see that the Committee has adopted the suggestion that an hour should be set aside, at the discretion of the Chair, for brief speeches on the occasion of major debates. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I think that this is a good idea.
Mr. Sydney Silverman: Parliamentary "Children's Hour."
Mr. Butler: The hon. Member says that this would be Parliamentary "Children's Hour," but he is a great exponent of the Parliamentary monopoly hour. It would be a great pity if some hon. Members had not the chance of expressing their views. In any case, it might be valuable if we tried that experiment between seven o'clock and eight o'clock tonight.
The Select Committee added that during this time a Count should not be permissible and that by convention during this period Members should not intervene during speeches. This is another useful suggestion. All these suggestions, whether they come about or not, are valuable, because it is important that more Members should be able to speak in debates. I think that this is a great improvement on allowing Members to publish their speeches without their being delivered, which, I think, is quite intolerable. We are very glad to see that the Select Committee did not approve of that. I hope that we may move slowly, despite the honourable and very eloquent Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), towards this desirable end. I hope that the hon. Member will be called at six p.m., thereby giving an opportunity to others at seven p.m.
I turn to recommendation (xvi), concerning the practice relating to Privy Councillors' rights in speaking. I must be careful about this. While one is in Government and one has an absolute right to speak, one must look ahead—I hasten to add, to the long distant future. Nevertheless, I am sure that this is a suggestion which may relieve many hon. Members, and I hope that the compromise suggested by the Committee will interest back benchers and be accepted by them.
We come to a very humane proposal in paragraph (xxi) that Divisions, if possible, should be avoided at 3.30 p.m. This all turns on certain rather technical points, but I think that it is based on common sense. While we cannot accept that the House should be denuded of Members in the afternoon, nor do we expect it, it would be a very convenient help to certain hon. Members who are barristers, and others, who do not want to come to the House exactly at 3 p.m.

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or 3.30 p.m. It all turns on these technical points. Quite often the rule is suspended for the Committee stage of the Money Resolution to be taken at he conclusion of a Second Reading debate.
The Committee recommends that if Money Resolutions were automatically exempted for three-quarters of an hour, and the Question put at the end of this period, a large number of suspension Motions would be avoided. This, I think, is a good and interesting suggestion. The Committee also recommends that other suspension Motions should be moved at 10 p.m. or at the interruption of business, at which time the Motion would need to be moved only if it proved necessary.
These suggestions, in my view, are very much worth while. Paragraph (xxiii)—House to support Mr. Speaker in checking number and length of supplementary questions. This is, I think, a matter for you, Mr. Speaker, and concerns the conventions and practice of the House and, to some extent, the self-denial of hon. Members.
Paragraph (xxiv)—Number of oral questions. I myself suggested in my evidence that the number of Oral Questions should be limited to two per day instead of three, and I am glad that the Committee supported this change. I hope that this will commend itself to hon. Members.
I have discussed with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister the suggestion that his Questions should be answered at 3.15 p.m. and should be limited to Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I have his authority for saying that he will be content, so far as he can, to meet the wishes of the House in this matter. If the House so desires my right hon. Friend would be prepared to give the proposed new arrangements a trial. This, I think, would be for the general convenience of all concerned.
Paragraph (xxxvii). The Clerk of the House has already acted on the suggestion that the Public Business Standing Orders should be printed separately from Private Business Standing Orders. I can speak from experience, because on one occasion I was rather caught out, as Leader of the House, by reading the wrong section of the "Bible", that is to say, the "New" as opposed to the "Old Testament", by mistake at a critical moment. If these two books were
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printed separately future Leaders of the House would be saved the ignominy which I then suffered.
Having perhaps occupied as long as I said I would, I propose to resume my seat, which, I am sure, will be a source of great satisfaction to the House and fit in with the general tenor of the Select Committee's Report.
If the House will refer to Paragraph xxx it will see the other matters, to which I have not had time to refer, which the Committee has rejected besides that of the Report stage in Standing Committee. I agree with the Committee in rejecting morning sittings and rejecting mechanical voting. I reject morning sittings because I believe that we are too full up with Committees and would not be able to add these, and I do not believe that there is a day except Wednesday in which morning sittings could be conveniently fitted in.
I reject mechanical voting, because I do not think that it will work. It would clutter up the Lobbies and deprive us of the opportunity of meeting each other which, even on a warm summer night, is salubrious and profitable to all concerned. I reject proxy voting.
I reject, as the Committee does, the printing of undelivered speeches, to which I have already made reference. I feel that if we look at the Report of the Committee as a whole we have some gradual steps towards the reform of our procedure.
I should like to say, in conclusion, to those outside who do not understand our procedure that we cannot streamline it in the way they desire, because we should deprive ourselves of the chance of giving the minority a right to speak. We cannot make it more popular, because I think that it would then make it impossible to transact our business efficiently and well, and we cannot meet their desires for depriving ourselves of the horrible necessity of sitting late, because sometimes we have the nation's business to transact.
We are the representatives of the nation. The work of M.P.S is bound to be hard and the procedure is bound to be strict. Although it is not fully understood by our brothers in the Press and some others, those who live here longest come to worship it the most. Those who are most

51
rebellious, such as I remember James Maxton was when he was here, worship it most and those who go through it recognise that it can be amended only gradually, wave by wave and tide by tide, by a natural process rather than a revolutionary process or by some sort of Cataclysm which would alter our character and our nature.
I would say, finally, that the life of the House turns on our procedure. When we alter our procedure we alter the life of the House, and when we alter the life of the House we take away our own life-blood and our own affection. Therefore, as Members of the House of Commons I hope that we shall bow to our procedure and amend it by degrees.
4.15 p.m.
Mr. Charles Pannell: Just at this moment I can appreciate the feelings of a watchdog which finds itself dragged on to the parlour hearthrug. I must explain my position at the Opposition Dispatch Box. Some of my hon. Friends were a trifle nervous that if I Spoke from the back benches when the right hon. Gentleman sat down. there would be such an uprush of right hon. Gentlemen that it would place you, Mr. Speaker, in some embarrassment, so they asked me to speak from this Box to put our case.
I must first of all join with the Leader of the House and thank the right hon. Gentleman the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. J. Stuart) as the Chairman of this Committee. I did not know him very well personally, apart from being a Parliamentarian, when we started, but I think that I can speak for both sides of the House when I say that we not only appreciated what he did for us but we gained tremendous respect for him as a person. I should also like to say a word of praise for the Clerk of the Committee who was most painstaking and who made the Chairman's and our task much easier, as I am sure the Chairman would agree.
In approaching this matter of procedure, the experience of all my colleagues on the Committee would be that it is difficult to change anything in our procedure unless we consider everything. While certain notions seem attractive when advanced on their own, they become singularly unattractive when considered against the whole canvas of
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the procedure of this House. One can think of such things as one Memorandum which we had put forward proposing to give a sort of perennial proxy vote for Parliamentary Private Secretaries. That sounded all right. These busy men thought that they should have a permanent vote, but that does not stand up when we consider the amount of abuse which sets in directly we even start considering proxies for Ministers.
I should like to call attention to one small matter. We think that the usual channels should avoid something which has become an indignity to this House. That is that the sick and maimed should literally be dragged through the Lobbies on party occasions on three-line Whips. I can speak at least for three colleagues, well-remembered on this side of the House—Fred Cobb, Adam McKinlay and George Woods, who literally died from going through the Lobbies too often during the period of the 1950–51 Labour Government. I do not think that is a good thing in itself. Nor do I think that any party advantage justifies it. We say particularly that it does something which for the dignity of the House should be avoided.
It will be appreciated that on certain matters there was a fairly sharp patty cleavage in this Committee, and that when other Committees have attempted from time to time to get a unanimous vote that has not necessarily meant that the Government have adopted the Committee's Report. The Leader of the House has referred to accommodation, and it is important to remember that we cannot really reform our procedure unless we radically alter this place. I think that it is necessary to alter this place, and the Government should at least say why they did not in some way attempt to implement the Report of the Select Committee on Accommodation, on which I served and with which the name of the late Richard Stokes is affectionately remembered.
It must be appreciated that we considered accommodation years ago. We produced a unanimous Report, and the Government of the day set up an advisory Committee with quite derisory powers. Those powers were so derisory that after a Session it was felt that it was not worth while continuing with the Committee, unless the terms of reference

53
were widened. That the Government refused to do.
We really do need more Committee Rooms. More than that, when we speak about dignity, we should remember the things with which we arm a Member. What does an hon. Member get here? He gets a locker that is somewhat smaller than the one I had three weeks ago when I was in hospital. When we consider the job a Member has to do for his constituents, it must surely be agreed that there are not enough private rooms in which he can meet them. Those hon. Members who do their own secretarial work are provided with a typing desk that we would not give to a higher clerical officer in the Civil Service, and even in such accommodation as is provided I understand that the Ministry of Works does not provide those Members with a filing cabinet for their correspondence. On the other hand, those who, like myself, are fortunate enough to have secretarial help are provided with filing cabinets. The conditions in which hon. Members are expected to work are not only derisory but undignified, and are rather less than obtain with any self-respecting local authority.
The Leader of the House did not speak in any party sense, nor do I wish to do so myself. The one reason that I am here is that I have been not only a member of the Selection Committee on Procedure but I am the only Member on this side of the Committee who was also a member of the Stokes Committee. I am worried about the whole business, because I am fairly sure that nothing much can be done until accommodation is considered, as it should be, as a most urgent matter. The terms of reference of the Select Committee on Procedure were rather too narrow, because from time to time we found that accommodation did impinge on our deliberations.
Again, we have to consider the services that are available to Members. To reject the idea of a Colonial Committee may sound rational enough in the present Parliamentary setting, but when we consider the services put at the disposal of American Congressmen by the Library of Congress and the degree of research that is available to them in their job we can understand their form of procedure, too. One of the difficulties we are up against here when considering services available
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to Members is the place that the legislature should have in our day-to-day affairs. We have to do some radical thinking on that.
At the present time, of course, we have the Government and the Civil Service; and the Civil Service is behind the Government. We have White Papers giving the Government's point of view, but because the legislature has no research facilities placed at its disposal it cannot arm itself against the Government. The whole theory of the American practice is that the Library of Congress puts research and expertise behind the Congress itself. More and more, we shall have to think of that sort of thing. The St. Lawrence Seaway has been much in the news lately. It is a fact that the original estimates of the Administration were rejected by the Library of Congress, and the estimates of Congress were those that, I think, in the end largely prevailed, having been subject to scrutiny by the legislature. Here we have to take things very much on trust.
I think that the main cleavage between the two sides of the Committee was on the question of the functions of Members, and in this connection I want to read some words that express our position much better than do those appearing in the body of the Report. They were contributed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn), who cannot be here this afternoon, and we would have preferred those words. They appear in page lii, and read:
"Though our order of reference has confined us to questions closely connected with the machinery and facilities necessary for the better transaction of business, we have inevitably discussed the amount of time which Members ought to be prepared to devote to the House.
There has been a growing tendency in recent years to divide Members into what are called 'whole-time Parliamentarians' and 'those with outside interests'. In this latter category are included those Members who maintain an active professional or business life, whose contributions to the work of Parliament are supposed thus to be of especial value, and whose convenience should accordingly be given extra consideration.
We absolutely reject this classification into first and second class Membership of the House of Commons. We do so for these reasons. Such a classification ignores the fact that many occupations are, by their nature, absolutely incompatible with Parliamentary service. It also leaves out of account those Members who have acquired experience in the field of voluntary public service to which

55
they devote themselves. It tends to write down the value of those who, on election have given up their other activities so as to devote more time to Parliament. And finally, it suggests that the daily routine work—in committee and elsewhere—should be confined to perhaps 250 'whole-time' Members, while the others come only when it is convenient for them to so so.
We believe"—
and this is what we consider important:
"that any person, however distinguished he or she may be, who seeks election to the House of Commons, and is returned here as a Member, must place his obligations to Parliament above all other outside interests whether paid or unpaid. We also think that a slight re-distribution of the balance of work between Members would do a great deal to ease the load from those who already devote themselves whole-time to the service of the House."
We go on to say that, of course, we are anxious to do all that we can to relieve that load, but that too much is said on behalf of those who only give this place part-time service.
I remember that some time ago I wrote to The Times a letter containing those sentiments. I pointed out that an ex-engine fitter like myself could not be expected to do a stint at the weekend, that someone like my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Monslow) could not drive his engine up to his constituency, and that a miner could not be expected to do a shift in the Recess. Yet, as I pointed out, these great trades have to be represented here if this House is to be a genuine cross-section of the nation.
I must say that the response surprised me. I had a spate of letters from all over the country, and from those seaside constituencies that are usually represented by hon. Gentlemen opposite. They wanted to know why engine fitters were in the House, anyway. That really is an attitude of mind, and it is very much fostered from time to time when it is rather suggested that because a lawyer may go, for instance, to some place in South Africa to represent the mining employers there, at a reasonable fee, he is necessarily doing a better job for the State than someone who probably spends morning after morning in Committee deciding whether or not wronged wives should have their arrears of maintenance paid by the wrong kind of husband. The considerations of the type of work we carry out are not properly equated.
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The procedure of the House of Commons has always been a mystery to people outside the House. They have never understood it. Looking through the whole of literature, whether one quotes Hazlitt, Dickens or Carlyle, it is curious that everyone who has ever watched our proceedings has had a very low opinion of them. I quote this from Hazlitt, which might almost be taken from The Times before the Select Committee on Procedure was set up:
"It may appear at first sight that here are a number of persons got together, picked out from the whole nation who can speak at all times upon all subjects … but the fact is they only repeat the same things over and over on the same subjects. … Read over the old debates, they are mutatis mutandis as those of yesterday. … You serve an apprenticeship to a want of originality, to a suspension of thought and feeling. You are in a go-cart of prejudices, in a regularly constructed machine of pretexts and precedents … there is House of Commons jargon that must be used by everyone … you are hemmed in, stifled, pinioned, pressed to death. … Talk of mobs! Is there any body of people that has this character in a more consummate degree than the House of Commons?"
The same sort of things are said about the House today. I never considered it any part of my job on the Select Committee to make it easier for those people to stay away who are not attending here already.
I wish to say a word about the quality of Members, because that reflects on these considerations. Some people may remember that there was an occasion not very long ago when the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) expressed the point of view that no one worth while, no one with any national reputation, had ever entered the House of Commons since 1945. When the right hon. and learned Gentleman said that, I went through the list of the House of Commons. By that time there had been no fewer than 335 changes. I thought it was rather odd that anyone in the legal profession should have said that, because Lord Monckton entered the House of Commons in 1950; so did the Solicitor-General and the Lord Advocate, to say nothing of three Cabinet Ministers and the Leader of the Liberal Party. I thought that it was rather unkind of the right hon. and learned Gentleman to suggest that these were lesser Parliamentary or legal luminaries. At that time we found that Sir Hartley Shawcross,

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now Lord Shawcross, agreed with that point of view. How he ever knew the 335 Members who had come here since 1950 I will leave hon. Gentlemen opposite to guess.
We often complain about the long speeches made in the House of Commons. We have all suffered under that from time to time, but at least it might be remembered that the House has been steadily improving its ways. Anyone who reads some of the old speeches will realise that there has been a marked improvement. Hon. Members can read a speech made by Joseph Chamberlain on the question of over-insurance of shipping. He rose at 5.45 p.m. At 7.45 he said, "After those few preliminary remarks I will now address myself to the Bill". He sat down at 9.45 p.m., without the aid of a glass of water.
Today we are more reasonable in our speeches and if Front Bench speakers tend, rather like Len Hutton, to take rather long to play themselves in, it is something on which they might improve. To many back benchers the Front Bench manner can be summarised in this way. They say "Lastly" and they do last. They say "In conclusion" and they seldom conclude. They express themselves in their peroration as having put the case in a nutshell.
I want to come to one or two topics on which the right hon. Gentleman did not express very much agreement, but which certainly express the point of view of hon. Members on this side of the House. I will deal with the vexed question about which the right hon. Gentleman did not say very much, namely, the merits of morning sittings. When the Select Committee got down to its job, the difficulty was to find time. The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) will not mind me saying this. The other day he said to me that he thought that it was a pity that no one had been appointed to the Committee from our side of the House who was not a Member before 1945. Having thought that over, I am not so sure that it would be an advantage, because the longer people stay in the House the more rational our proceedings appear. They appear more irrational in one's early life in the House.
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In examining the merits of morning sittings, one must consider the dilemma about which I was speaking previously, namely, the claims of the executive and of the legislature. This House has steadily become too much a creature of Governments. It should have a life of its own. However much one entrenches clauses or Standing Orders to protect back benchers and the life of the House, a Government with a spate of legislation to get through will more and more encroach upon private Members' time. Therefore, we must consider whether we can give the legislature some time of its own.
Morning sittings are an answer to that problem as being time which the Government will not seek to use. It is not a new idea; it has been mooted from time to time. In considering the merits of the suggestion one should remember the number of Royal Commissions which sit, whose reports are not considered, and the question of the Estimates Committee from time to time when there are bipartisan considerations to be discussed, because one cannot attack an Estimates Committee in a political way without destroying the very nature of the Estimates Committee. Surely we can from time to time consider the report of an Estimates Committee.
I hold strong views on this issue. The more my colleagues examined the possibility of morning sittings, the more things fell naturally into this sphere. I ask hon. Members to visualise a House of Commons meeting at 2.30 p.m. on a Monday, running on normally to 9.30 or 10 p.m., and then adjourning and from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday considering such matters as this. If there were morning sessions, the question of the Colonial Committee might not have to be considered.
Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Is the hon. Member advocating early morning sessions—ten at night until 2 o'clock in the morning?
Mr. C. Pannell: I am sorry that the hon. Member misheard me. I asked hon. Members to visualise adjourning the House, as now, at 9.30 or 10 p.m., as the case may be, and resuming on an Adjournment at 11 o'clock next morning. Thus, a Tuesday morning sitting would be the normal Adjournment from the

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Monday. To put it in another way, Mr. Speaker would take the Chair on a Monday afternoon. The business of the House would run on, as it does now, until 10 o'clock, although if there were morning sittings it might with advantage be made 9.30. Then the morning sitting would be the normal Adjournment of the Monday debate. Tuesday would be considered in relation to the Monday and Wednesday in relation to the Tuesday. The next morning we could sit under a Deputy-Chairman or someone from the Chairman's Panel. The only person necessary on the Front Bench would be an Under-Secretary to make a purely Departmental case. It would also relieve Ministers of the obligation of making any damaging admissions in the morning in the freer and easier atmosphere then prevailing. A wide variety of topics could be discussed.
We should have extra time for discussing Welsh affairs, and this time could be found in the mornings. It would belong to the House of Commons and not to the Government. To those people who claim that this would merely be "a second-class show" I can only repeat that from time to time during our debates this House has a thin attendance. It often does on Adjournment debates. It is a fact that we could have this sort of debate to which I have referred during morning sittings when there would not be a great clash of opinion such as we normally have.
Mr. Bellenger: I am following my hon. Friend's argument with great interest. Would he say on what form of Motion the morning sittings would take place?
Mr. Pannell: A morning sitting would merely be an Adjournment from the night before. Mr. Speaker would take normal business up till 9.30, and then we would sit in the morning for two hours.
Sir James Duncan: As the hon. Gentleman seems to have considered this thoroughly, may I ask what are his proposals for the Scottish Grand Committee which deals with Scottish Estimates and with legislation concerning Scotland?
Mr. Pannell: I should leave the Scottish Grand Committee as it is at the moment.
Sir J. Duncan: The Scottish Grand Committee cannot be in two places at once.
Mr. Pannell: The hon. Gentleman has raised a question that many other people have raised. He says that the Scottish Grand Committee cannot be in two places at once. That applies equally to hon. Members who attend Standing Committees from time to time. There are other Committees which meet besides the Scottish Grand Committee.
Much of the objection to this is based on the idea that the 250 full-timers will still do the chores of this place. We are trying to give a life in this place to a great many more people, and I maintain that, provided the debates were sufficiently lively and topical, there would be a far more interesting life here for a greater number of Members. I believe it would give an impression to the country that we are far closer to realities than people think from time to time when we have to wait so long before we can debate important matters.
Mr. S. Silverman: I think my hon. Friend began to say a few minutes ago, though he did not develop it, that the case for a specialist Colonial Committee would be less strong if the idea of morning sittings, as he has described them, were accepted. Would he explain that for me? I happen to be in favour of specialist committees, not merely for the Colonies but for a variety of other matters. I recognise the difficulties, but the reasons which make me favour specialist Committees would be, so far as I can see, by no means satisfied by having an Adjournment debate in the mornings.
Mr. Pannell: I would probably be prepared to concede both of those to my hon. Friend. I merely say that we should consider the various alternatives. We are not speaking of the position in which we should have either or both. All my colleagues on the Select Committee agreed with me that there could very well be a business committee which would allocate these subjects for the mornings, which would include colonial matters and considerations of smaller territories and so forth.
Mr. S. Silverman: On an Adjournment debate?
Mr. Pannell: Yes, on an Adjournment debate. I am trying to meet the argument of the Leader of the House that a Colonial Committee would be too akin to the American legislature. The answer is that a morning Committee would provide such an opportunity in the atmosphere of the House of Commons. We could have these things discussed in that way.
There is another matter which the Patronage Secretary might consider to be a good idea. I have always understood that the great difficulty of the Government Chief Whip is to decide what to do with his "Lobby fodder," the Government back benchers. There are many occasions, we are told, when they say, "For goodness sake, let us have the vote". This would be an occasion when the Government back benchers could exercise their opinions without embarrassment to the party Whips. I am sure that that point will appeal to the Chief Opposition Whip.
There are other matters in the Report which were not touched upon by the Leader of the House. We say that we consider that the Opposition should have some drafting assistance. I think that is perfectly reasonable. There is nothing more ridiculous in this House than when, on debates on complicated issues, in reply to an Amendment probably drafted from this side of the House, an Under-Secretary says, "The hon. Gentleman's Amendment as drafted would produce the very opposite result to that which he wants." Then, never having been capable of drafting an Amendment himself, he has one sent from the Box and tells the world exactly how it should be done. That is a thoroughly time-wasting and rather stupid sort of exercise. I cannot see why the Departmental notes should not be in the hands of the Opposition, or why drafting assistance should not be given to the Opposition. It always seems to me that the Government are far too jealous about giving drafting assistance.
The Select Committee on Accommodation reported on page xv that it wanted to have a Bill drafted showing the sort of control that the Commons should have over their own affairs. The Committee said:
"Your Committee thought it was proper to append to their report a draft of a bill which
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would achieve this, but they regret that the assistance of a Parliamentary Counsel was not made available to them for this purpose."
It seems to me that we cannot have the Government facing the House of Commons all the time in this thoroughly unreasonable manner.
There is another matter on which the Committee was unanimous and on which the Leader of the House did not say very much. That is the question of Adjournments under Standing Order No. 9 We refer to the fact that ever since the time of Mr. Speaker Peel, who took office twelve years after the Standing Order was passed, the ambit of the Standing Order has been continually narrowed. As a matter of fact, it was suggested that if a couple of Russian gunboats were to shell the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), Mr. Speaker would probably rule the matter out of order under Standing Order No. 9 on two grounds—first, that the Government were not responsible, and second, that it had already happened.
Nobody can look at the operation of the Standing Order without knowing that it is being continually restricted—though this is not Mr. Speaker's intention—to the advantage of the Government and that the House of Commons is losing a great deal by this. We therefore set out in page XIX at some length considerations for the guidance of the Chair under Standing Order No. 9.
I have looked up some of the old precedents about the time of Mr. Speaker Peel, going back to 1882, which indicate that sometimes our fathers showed us the way. For instance, I find that in 1884 a Mr. Hubbard managed to get past the Chair under the then Standing Order No. 9 a Government proposal on morning sittings, although it was negatived without a Division. There was another occasion in 1887 when a Motion on the conduct of the Corporation of the City of London for corruptly spending money to influence Divisions in the House got past the Chair.
These matters were continually being raised in those days. There was another occasion in 1887—the Home Secretary will be interested in this—when a Mr. Atherley Jones got the Adjournment of the House on the question of the arrest of a Miss Cass in Regent Street. Bearing

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in mind our recent consideration of the Street Offences Bill, I suggest that the Home Secretary might look up this precedent because he might find that sort of case interesting.
It is a fact that, if we look through these records, we see that in 1901 Mr. Lloyd George was raising such a matter as the conditions in detention camps, and Mr. Keir Hardie even got past the Chair on one occasion to call attention to the rise in the number of suicides due to starvation. If we take a long list of these Adjournments that were considered then, we see that they were commonplace in those days. For instance, in 1893 it was done no less than twenty times, and, as a matter of fact, the only year up to 1914 when there was no Motion under Standing Order No. 9, was the year that we would expect—1910—when there was none. They had two elections instead.
It seems to me that if the life of this House is to be preserved, the sort of climate which we lay down for Mr. Speaker must be carefully considered. I believe that the first consideration of the Chair is to maintain the quality of the debates, and to see that the Government should get their way, on the theory that minorities have their rights, but the majority must govern. Lower down the list of priorities, but one of the essential priorities, is that the Opposition shall have fair play, and that the voice of the country shall be reasonably heard. Nobody can suggest that under recent judgments of the Chair that position has been met, and the Select Committee was unanimously of the opinion that Mr. Speaker should be given far more latitude than he has felt himself able to exercise up to now.
On the other matters, I can only say that it was an express remit to the Committee to consider the question of Privy Councillors. It is a fact that it is not a Standing Order, but something which has been accepted as traditional for many years. The tradition, I believe, in the old days never extended to Question Time. That has crept in recently, and I think that the idea of a lot of Privy Councillors muscling in on back benchers' Questions is something that ought to be sternly repressed. I think that both Front Benches might consider that idea on occasion.
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What we suggest at the present time is that Mr. Speaker, in trying to assess a Member and judge how he might contribute to the debate, should bear in mind the terrific experience which individual Privy Councillors have. This is interesting, because I once had a conversation with Sir Robert Young, who was a Deputy Chairman—the first one under a Labour Government—on why he refused to call Mr. John Wheatley in debate on the ground that the debate was not upon a subject concerning a Department for which Wheatley had not previously been responsible. He was the Minister of Health in the first Labour Government.
We considered that matter, and there are certain other people, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewis-ham, South (Mr. H. Morrison), who has been at many Ministries and has had much experience, who would have a right to be called on a great variety of subjects, though I do not think that a Service Minister should necessarily be able to catch Mr. Speaker's eye when the House is discussing the Wolfenden Report. We ought to appreciate that sometimes, by reason of their experience of trade or vocation or experience of other kinds, Members have probably a better right to be called to contribute to the debates than have Privy Councillors themselves. I do not necessarily think that it is a good thing that we should sometimes have Privy Councillors getting to their feet to speak on a Bill introduced under the Ten Minutes Rule when somebody else wants to do so, but all these things happen, and it is a fact that some of our major debates have been rather saturated with speeches from Privy Councillors.
I can remember that we had a major debate last year on a matter of Privilege concerning the London Electricity Board, and there were only two back bench speakers. Only two hon. Gentlemen as distinct from right hon. Gentlemen could get in. One sees that sort of thing happening time and time again. It is not always the case that right hon. Gentlemen attend these debates and exercise that discipline which lesser people like us do. Too often, they blow in, blow up and blow out. It has now reached the point of being an abuse, and I hope that this very reasonable idea

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of leaving it to Mr. Speaker to judge will be found to be enough.
The difficulty with any debates such as this, covering such a wide field, is the question of selection, and unless I am to grossly overrun my time—[HON. MEMBERS "Hear, hear."]—I can only say this to hon. Gentlemen opposite: I do not speak as often in this House as some of my interrupters, but, bearing in mind the number of right hon. Gentlemen who may want to get in today, probably the back benchers might remain articulate for a reasonable time.
The question of selection is a very difficult one. One does not want to make the sort of speech which takes up every point and gives a point of view on it. What we are concerned with here are the broad sweeps of debate, and the general tone and climate of the House of Commons. We are often judged by the sort of people we are, and the worst thing that happened about the Report of the Select Committee on Members' Expenses was that it started a whole course of agitation in the Press as to whether we were worth the money and whether we should receive more or less. Generally, it was used as a means of attack by people who always try to discredit this place, and who try to suggest that this is a rather sordid place, full of sordid people, meanly housed, meanly esteemed and meanly paid.
I can only say that I entertained the ambition to enter this place from my very early manhood, and it took me something like 30 years to get here, and I have now been here 10 years. It is the life that matters, and I echo what the Leader of the House has said. I would rather be doing this particular job than doing any other, and I ask the House to believe and always to act in the way which I have suggested, because I think that politics is not a vulgar trade, but a noble profession. I should like to conclude with some words from T. M. Kettle's "The Day's Burden", which my right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) thought worth putting as the preface to the first volume of his Memoirs. Speaking about his entry into politics, he said:
"There is the two-edged sword that will never fail you, with enthusiasm for one of its edges and irony for the other. There will be always joy and loyalty enough left to keep you unwavering in the faith that
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politics is not, as it seems in clouded moments, a mere gabble and squabble of selfish interests, but that it is the State in action. And that the State is the name by which we call the great human conspiracy against hunger and cold, against loneliness and ignorance; the State is the foster-mother and warden of the arts of love, of comradeship, of all that redeems from despair that strange adventure which we call human life."
These are the ends we serve, and our job is to make this assembly the most efficient in its procedure, as, I believe, throughout the world it is the most humane.
4.59 p.m.
Mr. R. H. Turton: I should like to say that I agree with most of the recommendations in this Report, on which I congratulate the Committee. I agree also with a great deal of the speech of the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell). Where I disagree with him is that I think it is very important that we should not have second-class debates in this House. If we were to have a morning sitting and keep from it all those exercising government in their Departments and, equally, I expect, some leading members of the Opposition who would have their own party duties at that time, we should tend to have rather poor representation of Members of the House and, I think, a rather poor debate.
Secondly, I believe it to be useful to have a wide cross-section of the country represented here. I appreciate that, today, it is quite impossible for, for instance, a young engine driver to attend the House daily and do his work at week-ends. It is, therefore, vital that we should have the old engine drivers here. if I may call them that. But we must try to have enough young Members of the House. This means that it must be right for certain Members to carry on other duties for part of the day.
I have been a Member of the House now for thirty years. Looking back over that time, the great change I see is that the House now devotes far more of its time to what I will call party skirmishing. I do not wish to be misunderstood. I attach great importance to the set battles in which we fight our major questions of policy, and I believe that we should not be squeamish in emphasising our differences of opinion. But, during the last thirty years, there has, I think, been a tendency for us to

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emphasise differences over details which are sometimes imagined and—I often wonder about this—sometimes not really sincerely believed in. It is a great mistake to have a lot of rather pernickety party work in the House in the hope that we shall, by that means, gain some electoral advantage. The effect often is quite the reverse.
The House sometimes neglects the major issues which are interesting the country on which there is no party line dividing the House and on which the cleavage runs not across party lines. I listened to what my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said, in somewhat disparaging terms, about the way in which the other place has taken our place in the debating of important issues. I agree that the other place is an unsatisfactory substitute for the House of Commons in debating these important issues. I make the further point that, in the rôle of watchdog of public expenditure, we are the only debating Chamber in the country. When the issue of public expenditure does not run along party lines, the result, at the present time, is that we do not debate such questions at all. I sometimes feel that the watchdogs of public expenditure are lying asleep in their kennels after being gorged and surfeited on the bones of party contention. This is something of which the whole House should beware.
I speak now not only personally but also as Chairman of the Select Committee on Estimates. In this connection, I wish to thank the Select Committee on Procedure for the encouragement it gave to the Select Committee on Estimates in paragraph 46 of its Report. After reading the Minutes of Evidence, I came to the conclusion that it was a pity that the Select Committee on Estimates had not itself given evidence before the Select Committee on Procedure. The learned Clerk of the House quite frankly admitted that he was not very intimate with the working of the Select Committee on Estimates, but he did say that, in his view, we were not the best body for examining the Estimates in detail, or, in other words, the system was not the best.
I notice that the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Blackburn),
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in question No. 172, made the surprising statement that the Estimates Committee does not examine current Estimates. I gather from the learned Clerk's answer to Question No. 331 that, in his view, according to what he implied, we do not report very timely on the matter of Estimates.
Mr. Blackburn: What I meant was that the Select Committee on Estimates did not examine the Estimates when they are presented to the House. As a member of the Select Committee, I felt that we, as a House of Commons, were neglecting our duty in that we did not examine in more detail the Estimates when they are first presented.
Mr. Turton: That is what I thought. The statement was made that we did not examine current Estimates, and that is why I wish that we had had the opportunity to give evidence to clear up some of the misapprehensions. The Estimates Committee does examine current Estimates and it reports on current Estimates, in nearly all cases, within five months of the start of the financial year. This year, we have reported twice to the House. The Reports have not yet been published, but, in those cases, they have been produced within eleven weeks of the start of the financial year.
Mr. S. Silverman: Is there not, perhaps, a misunderstanding here? I remember that, in an earlier Committee on Procedure, this question was discussed in slightly different terms. I am wondering whether the real point is that we have, at present, no Committee charged with the task of supervising current expenditure, not Estimates. The Public Accounts Committee examines past expenditure. The Select Committee on Estimates examines Estimates of future expenditure. There is no Committee which exercises current control over current expenditure. Is that the point?
Mr. Turton: The point I make is that current Estimates are, at the moment, being examined by the Estimates Committee. I shall pay close attention to the whole of this debate because I want guidance on the work of the Estimates Committee from right hon. and hon. Members of the House. At the moment, we are attempting to discharge our duty

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by examining current Estimates and giving a Report on current Estimates in a reasonably short time.
In his evidence, the learned Clerk made a perfectly valid point in saying that we are not having the Reports of the Estimates Committee debated in the House. He concluded that this was because the House had no interest in the Reports. This may be so, inasmuch as, in this present Session, the only occasion on which a Report has been debated was on 20th February this year, when one of our Reports was debated for eighty minutes at the end of a Friday. As the House knows, Friday is not a very thronged sitting of the House of Commons, especially the later part of Friday. It may be that the House is not interested in our Reports. If that is so, I feel strongly that it would be far better if the Select Committee on Estimates were not appointed at all.
Mr. Ellis Smith: The right hon. Gentleman can take it from me that the House very much appreciates the Reports.
Mr. Turton: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I have worked it out and I find that hon. Members are spending about sixty hours a Session, on average, attending these Committees, and it is a tremendous sacrifice of their time. Therefore, I feel that it would be a good thing if the Reports of the Estimates Committee were debated. To take one instance, the Sixth Report from the Select Committee on Estimates last Session. There were, to name two papers only, three leading articles about it in the Economist and two in The Times. I understand that the Government are setting up an inquiry into some of the problems we raised. Yet nine months have passed and there has been no debate in the House on that particular Report of the Select Committee.
Mr. C. Pannell: Dealing purely with the Reports of the Estimates Committee, I can remember what was done by a colleague of mine who was chairman of a sub-committee which produced a report. It was obviously in the public interest that it should be discussed, but, when the question arose within the party as to whether it should be discussed, we were rather timid about making the work of
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the Estimates Committee a political issue. Members of the Estimates Committee meet in a quasi-judicial capacity, and they might feel somewhat inhibited, perhaps, in making a party point one way or another. It seemed to me that that is the sort of consideration which might fall into place here.
Mr. Turton: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. That was the very point that I was about to make. After all, the Estimates Committee tries to avoid party controversy. It is a very reasonable point that no Government would choose that the time of the House should be used on Reports of the Estimates Committee, because we are not out to pat Governments on the back. Equally, the Opposition would not do that because we are not out to be unduly critical on party lines of a Government Department.
It therefore seems to me—and this is why I tried to speak in the debate—that the House should consider whether there is a way in which, by procedure, time can be allocated for the discussion of the Reports of Select Committees. I am not merely talking about the Select Committee on Estimates. None of the Select Committees is run on party lines. Our present method of selecting them means that their Reports tend not to be debated. I realise that the learned Clerk, in answer to Question No. 286, said that, whatever rule we made on such a subject, any Government would get round it, but I do not believe that that is true on a matter such as this.
I suggest that either Mr. Speaker or you, Sir, as Chairman of Ways and Means, should have the power to select two days from Supply Days for the discussion of the Reports of Select Committees, and that you, Sir, or Mr. Speaker should be aided by a small panel which would advise you on the importance of the subject. I believe that that would be a way to secure that the more interesting or more important Reports of Select Committees were discussed without the point put so well by the hon. Member for Leeds, West in his intervention being brought in.
I should also like to say a word on the Supplementary Estimates. The learned Clerk, in a note on Question No. 203, suggested that Supplementary Estimates should be referred to the Estimates Committee. I should like to put the House

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in the picture on this matter. At present, we have two crops of Supplementary Estimates a year. The first comes just before the end of the financial year and the other comes in July, just before harvest and the Appropriation Bill. With regard to the first crop, it would be quite impossible for the Estimates Committee to get the information on those Supplementary Estimates and to make a Report before the end of the financial year. Therefore, we could not perform our function of reporting on a current Estimate.
With regard to the second crop, if there was no carry-over of the Session to the autumn, clearly we could not report on those Supplementary Estimates in that Session. Apart from that, it would mean that with the normal system of the appointment of a Committee—which always means a delay of three weeks at the beginning of a Session—we could probably not report until as late as January the following year. On the appointment of a Select Committee on Estimates, I would throw out the suggestion that if we were made a Standing Order Committee we would be able to avoid the delay of three weeks before being appointed and we should be able to get to work very much quicker.
One of the difficulties in connection with the Estimates is that we are held up at the beginning of a Session before we get down to work. I should like my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to consider that point when looking at the points raised in this debate.
Sir Spencer Summers: On the point about avoiding delay, would it not also mean that if the Estimates Committee became a Standing Order Committee evidence of a previous Session would be available to the succeeding Committee, which would be a great advantage?
Mr. Turton: Yes; it would generally enhance our status. I should have stressed that point.
This is one recommendation on which I am not in full agreement with the Select Committee on Procedure. Clearly you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and I are not in agreement. If we are not to have time to examine the Supplementary Estimates and if we allow policy to be
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discussed in Committee of Supply, we will get away from the need for a Minister to justify extra expenditure. We should, therefore, be encouraging to a certain extent public extravagance. It is a very good thing for a Minister to have to come to the House and justify a Supplementary Estimate. Last year, we in the Estimates Committee noticed with dismay the growth of Supplementary Estimates.
I should like to say one or two words about Question Time. I have noticed that in the thirty years since 1929 there has been a great change. I remember that when I first came to the House 70 or 80 Questions were dealt with every day. At times, 110 Questions were dealt with. I remember Mr. Ernest Brown answering 100 Questions in machine-gun fashion in one afternoon and getting an ovation at the end of it. I remember that on 19th November, 1929, the House reached only Question No. 52, and hon. Members throughout the House rose to protest to Mr. Speaker Fitzroy on the fact that so few Questions had been answered. In reply, he said:
"… I would remind hon. Members, who have complained that we are only a short way down the list of questions, that the circumstances today have been rather unusual. Today, the floodgates of Scottish inquiries have been unloosed, but no doubt the tide will recede on future occasions."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 19th November, 1929; Vol. 232, c. 275.]
The problem now is that the tide never recedes.
I have given a great deal of thought to the recommendation that the number of Questions allowed to an hon. Member should be cut from three to two. I never like to see the rights of private Members reduced, and I should like to suggest to the House a slight alternative. I suggest that priority should be given to two Questions only each day and that the third Question should drop to the bottom of the list. That would mean that if we restored the discipline at Question Time that we had under Mr. Speaker Fitzroy but which was relaxed under Mr. Speaker Clifton Brown we should be able to get through 70 or 80 Questions a day. I appreciate how difficult it is to restore discipline that has been relaxed, but I think that most right hon. and hon. Members would be in favour of restoring that discipline. No doubt, some hon. Members would be against it. I realise why they want the tide never to recede, but

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generally I think that it would be welcome.
I also welcome the suggestion that the Prime Minister's Questions should be answered at 3.15. It seems to me wrong that matters of great importance to the nation, which are usually dealt with by successive holders of the office of Prime Minister with great wit and sparkle, should not be dealt with because of some lather dreary Questions that have preceded them. There is one thing that I have learned in thirty years in the House, and that is that a great deal of time is wasted by perorations. I do not know whether you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, have ever added up the time wasted. Many hon. Members cannot begin their speeches because other hon. and right hon. Members do not know how to end their own. Therefore, on this occasion I intend to deny myself that pleasure.
5.20 p.m.
Mr. Frank Bowles: I wish, first, to comment on the distinction between Privy Councillors and non-Privy Councillors. I would ask the House to bear in mind the simple fact that the majority of Privy Councillors have either been dismissed from their office by the electorate, or by their leaders. Therefore, I do not think that it is really very much good paying too much attention to the priority which, up to now, they have received in our debates.
What has amazed me in the last three months is that three political correspondents, Mr. William Barkley of the Daily Express, Mr. Deryck Winterton, of the Daily Herald, and my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Mr. Delargy) all asked their readers, in a pathetic kind of way, when Parliament was about to resume, either after the Easter or the Whitsun Recess, to pity them for having to be in the Reporters' Gallery to report the House of Commons. That seems to me a matter to be analysed.
There may be three reasons. First, it may be that this House of Commons is very stale or dead. Secondly, it may be that the real debates that now take place do so in the party meetings upstairs and not on the Floor of the House. Thirdly, it may be something to do with our actual mechanism here.
I wish, first, to talk about the question whether the House of Commons is stale.
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I saw in an article written recently by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) that he said that this House of Commons was born dead. What is important is that future Parliaments should not be. I will come back to that in a few minutes, because I want to deal with the three points in their order.
The next question referred to by the Select Committee when Mr. Speaker was giving evidence before it was that of hon. Members writing to or seeing Mr. Speaker—which I confess that I did on Thursday last week—and asking, as it were, to be called if Mr. Speaker or his deputy thought that right. I told Mr. Speaker that I was going to refer to the matter and, therefore, I am not saying anything behind his back.
Mr. Speaker said before the Select Committee that his list of speakers was by no means final and that he was prepared to depart from it if necessary. My feeling about the matter is that if it is really forbidden for hon. Members to communicate with the Chair when they want to be called and if they really went through the action which they should do, of rising in their place in an attempt to catch Mr. Speaker's eye, certain things would happen.
I feel that the speeches would be more likely to be debating speeches and not just like those which take place in another place, where there is a list of speakers. There is a prearranged list of speakers and anyone can see which noble Lord will follow which other noble Lord. There is all the difference in the world between a series of speeches in which one hon. Member gives a different point of view from that of another hon. Member and a debating speech. There is all the difference in the world between a noble Lord making a speech along one line and another noble Lord making a speech contradicting him. That is not debate at all.
My point is that if hon. Members did not know that they were to be called they would be more likely to make a debating speech. The occupant of the Chair would select an hon. Member to speak and he would hear that hon. Member talking about, perhaps, the activities of the London County Council's Housing Committee. The Chair would see, perhaps, the chairman or the ex-chairman

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of the Housing Committee of the London County Council in his place and would, I think, be rather hopeful that he might rise in his place in order to be called and carry on the debate. In other words, we should begin to establish something more than a series of prearranged speeches and would get back to the cut and thrust of debate which has been referred to before and, most often, by Mr. Speaker Fitzroy. That is something which we have not had for some time. I modestly suggest that that might be very much better than hon. Members knowing when they were to be called.
I remember, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that when I had the honour of occupying your position some hon. Members used to ask me if I could call them to speak fairly early in the debate because they had a dinner appointment about 7 or 7.30 p.m. I thought that was the very worst reason for selecting anyone to speak.
If there were no prearranged list of speakers we should avoid something which annoys every hon. Member, that is, of one hon. Member saying of the previous speaker that he knows that he will forgive him if he does not follow his line of argument. That is a shattering phrase, and I hope that it may be eliminated. The Chair clearly knows the experience of hon. Members and what hon. Member is likely to be the best to select to follow the hon. Member sitting down.
Mr. John Hall: What the hon. Gentleman is saying is very interesting, but would he explain to the more ignorant hon. Member, such as myself, how he exercises this influence, because on many occasions I have given my name to Mr. Speaker when I wished to speak, but I have never been told that I was to be called, and, generally, have not been called?
Mr. Bowles: I am quite certain that after that interruption, the Chair will have more pity for the hon. Gentleman.
What I have suggested would also, I believe, bring about shorter speeches, because hon. Members would not be ready with prepared speeches if they were suddenly called upon to speak and their speeches would be shorter and more of a debating character. One result
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which we would all like to achieve is that more speakers would have a chance of taking part in an ordinary debate.
Whilst on the subject of shorter speeches, I wish to say that I deplore the suggestion made by the Select Committee that at the beginning of the day Mr. Speaker should indicate that between, say, 6 and 7 in the evening, or at some other hour, speeches should be limited to five minutes. If that suggestion were adopted it would divide the House into two classes, or gradings—one consisting of those hon. Members who, perhaps, the Chair thought should take part in the full-dress debate, and the other consisting of those who would be limited to five minutes.
Mr. Ellis Smith: Yes, while the officers can go into the officers' mess.
Mr. Bowles: I do not know whether the members of the Select Committee were unanimous, but the witnesses which came before them were. I am quite certain that Mr. Speaker and hon. Members would all be equally pleased to hear a five-minutes speech whether it took place at 6, 7 or 9 o'clock, or even at a quarter to four.
I was one of those hon. Members who last year wondered whether the Committee stage of the Finance Bill could be taken upstairs. I felt very strongly about the matter, because I am to some extent in touch with hon. Members who are not necessarily very skilled or expert in the law of taxation and other matters usually dealt with in the Finance Bill. Roughly, 600 hon. Members on both sides are tied to the House so as to vote when Divisions are called on this important Bill. I am not debating its importance, or the devotion of hon. Members on both sides who take part.
But I do think—and I would warn the House—that this procedure is boring a large number of hon. Members who are tied to this place because of the Finance Bill and for the length of time it is before the Committee of the whole House and the House itself. I looked up some figures, and I found that this year, from the opening of the Budget until the Third Reading of the Finance Bill on Friday last, we spent no fewer than 90 hours, 38 minutes on it; 44 hours, 51 minutes were devoted to the Bill in Committee and 8 hours, 39 minutes to

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the Bill on Report. That is quite a lot of time.
As I said when I first raised this matter with the Leader of the House, all the time that the House is occupied with the Finance Bill hon. Members in all parts of the House are denied opportunity of debating a great number of other subjects which they want to debate, simply because there is not time available for them. Therefore, I hope some further thought will be given to the idea that the Finance Bill should be considered in Committee upstairs.
Very often in debates in Committee on the Finance Bill there are not more Members present than there are in a Standing Committee dealing with a Bill. It is only when a Division is called that they all troop in. They all know which way they will vote, because the Whips tell them. That is the long and short of the matter. So I hope that the Leader of the House and his advisers will give that matter a great deal more thought.
Mr. Donald Wade: Does the hon. Gentleman make a distinction between the Clauses in the Bill and new Clauses? I mention that because one of the opportunities when hon. Members are able to raise subjects of a financial nature not chosen by the Government or the official Opposition is provided by the bringing forward of new Clauses. Does the hon. Gentleman think that a distinction should be made between the Clauses in a Bill and new Clauses?
Mr. Bowles: No. I do not really see why there should be. Nor do I see any reason why new Clauses should not be moved on Report. However, that is a technical matter. I am anxious to keep the Floor of the House of Commons free for more things than finance for 90 hours a year. That, simply, is my point.
I come back to what I started with, why it is that these political journalists and other people are bored by what is going on in the House. I am very anxious that the party system should be properly established and should be properly working. I have seen, as others have seen, the suggestions made that certain matters should be above party politics; for instance, foreign affairs, defence, education, and housing. My view is that if this were done the House of Commons would suffer seriously—
Mr. George Darling: So would television.
Mr. Bowles: —from the blunting of the edges between the two parties.
I should like to quote an extract from one of three of what I thought were magnificent articles published by the Observer and written by Mr. Michael Foot. These three articles have been published as a little book entitled Parliament in Danger! I think that it would be worth while for hon. Members to read this book. On the question of the "fight" in the House, he quotes Disraeli as saying:
"Above all, above all, maintain the line of demarcation between parties, for it is only by maintaining the independence of party that you can maintain the integrity of public men. and the power and influence of Parliament itself."
Mr. Ellis Smith: Have that underlined.
Mr. Bowles: Most of the real debate at present takes place inside the parties in private, and not between the parties publicly in Parliament. The debates take place on the Conservative side and on the Labour side in private meetings upstairs. Both parties, of course, at the moment enforce very severe discipline on Members of Parliament. I should like again to quote Mr. Foot on this aspect, because he puts it better than I could. He says:
"What happens—to the House of Commons -once the private party meeting elevates itself to the place of effective decision? Clearly, the higher the party meeting rises on the see-saw the lower sinks the Commons. There, two well-whipped forces confront one another in formal, prearranged combat. Speeches of Gladstonian power or Diesraeli-ite wit are unlikely to shift a single vote. We need look no further for the pall of unreality and tedium which descends on so many Parliamentary debates."
That is an analysis which strikes me as being very sound and very subtle, and one which does call for some kind of remedy.
Among ourselves we know and we say that the best debates take place when there are no Whips and there are free votes. That was said years before I came here. For example, I would mention the debates on the Prayer Book. It is at times like that that the House is at its best. Then we had a very interesting debate on the case of Privilege raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for

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Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss), and the debates on capital punishment.
Of course, there have been others, and, as hon. Members well know, this House is at its best on occasions like that when the Whips are off. Many Members come in to listen to the argument and the House is well attended and everybody, from the Chair downwards, has a very much more interesting afternoon and evening than when a matter is all cut and dried upstairs and down here ordinary speeches are made of no real value. I should like consideration to be given, therefore, to our having more days when the Whips are off and there are free votes.
The last time we had a debate like that—I think it was on the question of privilege raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall—my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) said this:
"… this is a day when we can all say what we like without let or hindrance, so that it is, indeed, a day of exceptional privilege. We must use it to the full."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th July, 1958; Vol 591, c. 223.]
The Leader of the House said:
"… hon. Members will be entitled to vote as they think best. …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th July, 1958; Vol. 591, c. 208.]
What a commentary on the present Parliamentary situation that such a thing could be said, implying that none of us is entitled or courageous enough to vote as he thinks best in the ordinary way! I think that that is a matter which should be considered, and if it is, some good will have come out of having had this debate today.
Of course, we all know that any hon. Member who is critical of his party does not remain very popular very long. I have not been a Member for so very many years, but I know perfectly well—it is well known—that when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) was criticising his leaders and his party's policy from 1933 onwards he was ostracised in the Smoking Room of the House; and it is well known that the then Patronage Secretary used to call Tory Members out of the Chamber when the right hon. Gentleman got up to speak. I understand—whether this is so or not I do not know—that there were moves to get him
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unseated in Epping, which was then his constituency.
Fortunately, those moves were not successful, or he would not have been in his place here and not have been Prime Minister and not have been able to make the magnificent contribution he did towards winning the war. Fortunately, his party stopped applying these sanctions just in time to save a national tragedy which could have been caused through the enforcement of that party's discipline. I hope that hon. Members will bear in mind that this kind of thing is always liable to happen and can happen to any of us. [An HON MEMBER: "What is the matter?"] Well, I am not reading my speech, hon. Members may be surprised to hear, as some hon. Members do, but I have lost some of the best pages.
If the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) does not like perorations I must tell him that I have no peroration, but I have a little more meat yet. Mr. Foot writes:
"'During the Egyptian crisis'—we owe the description to Sir Beverley Baxter—'the Tory back-benchers met frequently. On one occasion Mr. R. A. Butler and Mr. Harold Macmillan gave a frank and vivid account of what was going on behind the scenes. No reporters are allowed to be present at the 1922 Committee. But what a story they would have had to tell if they had been present at the crowded meeting when Mr. Butler and Mr. Macmillan really let down their hair over Suez!'
What a scene indeed, and, for all we know, perhaps these feasts of frankness are staged quite often. What a great occasion in the history of Parliament was forgone when Mr. Butler and Mr. Macmillan chose to defend the entry into Suez—or was it the exit from Suez—behind closed doors! And, by the way, how did the lions who voted to go in so quickly become the lambs who voted to come out? We shall never know until the memoirs are written."
The hon. Member for Lanark (Mr. Patrick Maitland)
"suggested that 'underhand' methods of pressure had been employed by the 'Westminster machine' to secure support for the Government from Tory M.P.s in the voting lobbies on the Suez issue. Another M.P. tentatively inquired whether some point of privilege might not be involved."
But it is well known by hon. Members who have been here a number of years that one does not raise delicate questions of privilege touching the Whips' Office. That was quietly brushed aside and we heard no more about it.

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We must reform this great House of Commons. It is well known that years ago Gladstone and Disraeli were able to maintain their majorities during two Parliaments without this serious and effective whipping machine which we have at present. What is more, they were able to get through such voluminous legislation as would compare favourably with that of the present century.
Mr. Bellenger: No.
Mr. Bowles: I said "comparable". Perhaps my right hon. Friend will tell us exactly how many Bills were passed in those years.
Mr. Bellenger rose—
Mr. Bowles: In due course, not now.
All this has gone a little too far. Obviously, we do not want to try to deny opportunities for leaders and their followers to consult together, but those of us who have been here some time know that the best debates are the debates which end in a free vote, and we would wish to raise the standard of the House of Commons as the best debating Chamber in the world. It is because I believe so strongly in maintaining the House as the greatest debating Chamber in the world that I have made my speech, and I look forward to hearing the views of other hon. Members on the kind of subjects which I have been able to mention.
5.45 p.m.
Major Sir Roger Conant: So many hon. Members are waiting to speak and there is such scope for oratory in the Motion before the House that I would confine my remarks to one or two points in the Report from the Select Committee on Procedure which have a bearing on the Committee of Selection, of which I have had the honour to be Chairman for some time past.
May I preface my remarks by saying that I wholeheartedly favour the idea that Parliament should arrange its business in such a way as to make it possible for hon. Members, if they so wish, to indulge in outside activities. I recognise, of course, that the work of Parliament requires that a large number of hon. Members should be good enough to give their whole time to its service. I am confident that Parliament would be less
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respected if we all made ourselves into professionals. As for accommodation, in which the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) was so interested, that problem would be worse than it is today if we all had to spend a great deal more of our time in the precincts.
I want to refer to the recommendations of the Select Committee in relation to the composition and procedure of Standing Committees. I agree with the Committee's recommendations, and I agree in theory with the proposal that Standing Committees should be further reduced in size. Every Standing Committee contains some hon. Members who feel that they would be doing better work elsewhere, perhaps on some other Committee or on a Private Bill Committee, and every Standing Committee contains hon. Members who pair with one another. If that is true, it is obvious that a Standing Committee can be smaller in size and still represent adequately the views of the House as a whole.
During this Session there have been seven Standing Committees sitting at the same time and, as far as I know, they have all done their work efficiently. Nevertheless, several were concerned only with Bills which were not at all controversial. It is difficult to see how, in practice, the size of Standing Committees can be reduced unless the view is taken that a Government defeat does not matter because it can be put right from the Government's point of view on Report.
I do not take that view, not so much from the point of view of prestige, for what that is worth, but because I think that more time would be wasted in putting matters right on Report which had gone wrong in Committee than would be saved by having smaller Committees if that resulted in a large number of Government defeats. The Government have a majority of three or four in Standing Committees at the moment. There have been occasions in the past, and there may be in the future, when the Government's majority on the Floor of the House has been smaller than it is now and their majority in Standing Committee therefore quite negligible. In such cases, presumably, very few Bills would be sent to Standing Committee.
The difficulty arises from epidemics of illness which unhappily do not treat the

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parties justly and equally. Illness is more evenly divided over the House as a whole and if a Standing Committee is very small, a 'flu epidemic will hit one side more than another. Therefore, it is impossible for the Government to have a working majority on small Standing Committees unless we are prepared to adopt unusual methods.
I entirely agree with the Select Committee in its opposition to proxy voting I agree that the vote is a matter personal to an hon. Member, but I think that there is a case for proxy voting on Standing Committee on production of a medical certificate. Whether that method should be incorporated in Standing Orders or be a matter for arrangement through the usual channels I cannot say, but I cannot see any other way in which the size of Standing Committees can be reduced appreciably unless we are prepared to face continual Government defeats.
One other point in that connection concerns the position of minority parties. In the present state of the parties the Liberal Party is entitled to representation only on the two larger Committees, that is to say, the one composed of 50 Members, or the other of 45 which is more usually appointed. In all the smaller Committees consisting of 40, 35, or 30 Members, the Liberal Party is not entitled to representation since its claim represents less than 0·5 per cent. of a Member. If we reduce Standing Committees still further in size, the minority parties will not be represented, so I put forward the suggestion that, at the discretion of the Committee of Selection, those parties might be allowed representation on a Standing Committee without the power to vote. This would happen when there are Bills, even controversial ones, in which they have a special interest.
Finally, I join with other hon. Members in congratulating the Select Committee on an excellent and valuable Report, and express my thanks to the Chairman and its members.
5.51 p.m.
Mr. F. J. Bellenger: I feel somewhat embarrassed in rising to make a few remarks on this issue, but am encouraged to do so by seeing so few hon. Members on the back benches on
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my side of the House who seem to be trying to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I hope that in speaking this evening as a Privy Councillor, and also as a Member of Parliament, I am not keeping anybody out of the debate. At any rate, I do not propose to speak too long. Certainly, I will not follow the example set by the Front Bench this afternoon. Mostly the criticism of Front Bench speakers comes from back benchers, until those back benchers get to the Box and address the House.
My remarks will be concentrated on two or three issues because the members of the Select Committee have covered a wide area and have done an excellent job. They have made considerable research and have discussed various points affecting the House. I agree with the Leader of the House, however, that very few revolutionary suggestions have come out of their Report, except the one of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), but one expects a revolutionary idea from that quarter in view of the nature of the constituency in the past.
On the question of the more expeditious working of Parliament, I see no reason why the whole of the Finance Bill, after its Second Reading, should not go to a Standing Committee. I suppose that the Finance Bill is considered important, because it deals with taxation and the raising of large sums of money and we all know that there is no taxation without proper representation. I often wonder, when I listened to the Committee stage of a Finance Bill, and looked around the Chamber at the small number of Members present; and they are mostly specialists. I cannot see why that discussion by specialists should not take place upstairs, in the same way as the Committee stage of other important Bills.
I can well understand that hon. Members may have to represent constituency points of view, but that could be done either on the Second Reading or on the Report stage, when the Bill comes back to the House. Incidentally, I am in favour of keeping the Report stage of all Bills on the Floor of the House, and the Third Reading, but I am in favour of the whole of the Finance Bill being taken upstairs in Committee.

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In considering the range of subjects coming before the House, we must always bear in mind the fact that, with the exception of Supply Days, which are within the province of the Opposition, all the business coming before us is on Government initiative. I am excluding, of course, Private Members' Bills. Therefore, we are all conditioned and governed by what the Executive chooses to bring before us. I cannot see any necessity for having morning sessions, because they would only develop, as do so many of our debates, into a handful of hon. Members turning up because they want to hear themselves speak.
I believe in the exhortation of Mr. Speaker FitzRoy, when I was a young Member, urging the House to debate and to use the cut-and-thrust of debate. How often does that happen today? Some of us remember the days before the war, when we really had the cut-and-thrust of debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Bowles) reminded us of the days when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), who did not by any means limit himself to one or two subjects, attacked his Government particularly on the issue of defence.
It made a good debate because the right hon. Gentleman, then a private Member of the House but with certain privileges as a Privy Councillor, could catch Mr. Speaker's eye and, what was much more important to him, could get the evening Press and the next morning's Press to report what he said. No hon. Member who listened to those debates then would doubt the effectiveness of the right hon. Gentleman as a private Member.
I have no objection, if the House thinks fit, to abolishing the Privy Councillor's privilege of being called earlier than some other hon. Members, but I would remind the House that they did not become Privy Councillors without learning their business the hard way through many years' previous service to the House. I suspect that it would not be beyond the ingenuity of Privy Councillors, even if they lost this privilege, to be called as often as, for example, my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), and other back benchers who seem to catch the eye of the Chair all too frequently and, if I may say so
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with due modesty, Sir, more often than some Privy Councillors, of whom I happen to be one.
I have never understood that Privy Councillors should have the right to be called on supplementary questions. I hope that I am not being too revolutionary in saying that I would go further and limit supplementary questions to the original questioner with perhaps the Front Bench, who themselves do not originate Questions as a rule, intervening to put a supplementary question.
Mr. E, Shinwell: How often?
Mr. Bellenger: I would limit the number of Front Bench questioners or supplementary questioners, and then we would avoid the spectacle, seen too often, of several hon. or right hon. Members rising in their places and even competing with each other to put a supplementary question. I am all in favour of limiting the number of Questions per Member per day to two instead of three. I wonder, however, how many hon. Members here remember the late Sir Kingsley Wood, who achieved his reputation by persistently putting down Questions on the subject that he was studying, and who eventually became a Minister, largely, I think, because of his persistence and consistency?
Mr. Ede: My right hon. Friend was here with me at the time. Does he not remember that Sir Kingsley Wood put them from the Opposition Front Bench?
Mr. Bellenger: Yes, but I rather think that he originated Questions and not merely came in on supplementary questions only.
What I have to say about Parliament is that, whatever the House decides in the way of procedure, hon. Members can make up their minds that television is destroying a lot of our debates today. We hear nothing about some of our hon. Friends who are now television stars and are debating on television the subjects which should be debated in this House—and being paid very handsome fees for doing it. Therefore, if we are to get these up-and-coming young men into more debates, I should have thought that Parliament might have considered some limitation of the television debates in which they take part. In saying that, I

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have no wish myself to appear on television.
I believe that political debates on television are now ceasing to be serious, as I would hope they would be in this House, and are becoming a form of entertainment, and he who can be the most sensational—sometimes this does not apply only in the case of television—gets the most publicity. If it is only publicity and merely an opportunity for hearing ourselves speak that we want, then I do not think that this place is the proper forum. Here we should rise only because we have something to say, because we want to say it and because it will provoke an hon. Member on the other side of the House, or perhaps on our own side, to say something in return.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton said in his opening remarks that he would be against Privy Councillors having any privileges at all, because they had either suffered at the hands of the electorate or had been sacked by their leaders. That is not always a correct assessment of the reasons for Privy Councillors resigning their posts.
Mr. Bowles: I did not say "all of them". I said that many of them were either dismissed by the electorate or by their own leaders. That does not mean everybody. The right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) is a good example. However, I do not see that we need take many of them as seriously as they take themselves.
Mr. Bellenger: I thought that my hon. Friend was generalising a little too much and perhaps being a little offensive in the process. However, I would say, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, that the right hon. Member for Woodford, Sir Anthony Eden, Mr. Duff Cooper, Lord Cranborne and innumerable Ministers in the House have resigned their position not because they were told to go by their leaders, but because they felt that their conscience or belief would not allow them to continue carrying out the policy that their colleagues in the Government were pursuing. Would that we had had a few resignations at the time of Suez, and then it would not have been left to my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton to quote a non-eye-witness
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account of what happened behind the scenes.
I did not agree with the point put by the Lord Privy Seal for denying the necessity for specialist Committees. Ha took an example which the Select Committee considered, namely, a colonial specialist Committee. I agree with him to the extent that I think that would be the worst sort of specialist Committee to have, but for some considerable time I have advocated having a specialist Committee on defence. Whether it is right or wrong to have bipartisanship or partisanship on that, I would not know, but I advocate—
Mr. Herbert Morrison: My right hon. Friend should declare his interest.
Mr. Bellenger: My interest is that I happen to know something about defence, but I am bound to say that it is a long time since I was at the seat of power and had access to information which would enable me to come to the House and speak with some authority and knowledge of the facts. No hon. Member today, unless he is closely connected with the defence Ministries can come to the House and speak with knowledge and authority about policy which is now being discussed up and down the country, on television and by trade unions. Today, the membership of the House of Commons, with very few exceptions—this has been said previously by certain hon. Members who have been abroad and have mixed with members of continental Parliaments—knows less about defence matters in this country than is known by our opposite numbers abroad who are members of specialist defence committees.
Therefore, I advocate some of the experimentation which the Lord Privy Seal advocated this afternoon. Let us try out one of these specialist Committees. it may be that we shall have to alter Standing Orders or modify or rearrange our Constitution, but the whole process of British Parliamentary history throughout the ages has been modifying and rearranging our Constitution. I am sure that there would be less irresponsible speaking both in the House and outside if, in defence debates, Members of the House of Commons were much more properly and

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adequately informed than they are at present.
Questions are put to the Defence Ministers, and they are dismissed because of security considerations. What happens abroad? If we take the West German Parliament or the French Parliament—for all I know, this may apply to other Parliaments—we find that on defence matters their members are able to listen to the highest authorities and experts on defence. That may be the reason why, in debates in their Parliaments, there are fewer ill-informed and bitter attacks on the rights and wrongs of a certain defence policy.
Mr. John Hall: Would the right hon. Gentleman also agree that members of Parliaments in other countries, in addition to knowing far more about their own defence organisation than we do, also know a great deal more about our defence organisation?
Mr. Bellenger: Yes, the hon. Gentleman is right. It is a most undignified position for us, and I hope that other hon. Members will support and endorse the point of view that I am putting. I know that on both sides of the House, at any rate among the back benchers—I am proud to be a back bencher—there is the feeling that there ought to be some kind of specialist Committee for defence matters. Having said that, I have no doubt that a case could be made for other subjects as well.
I would say that if any hon. Member, certainly if any right hon. Member, abuses the position that he has in the House, that is quite wrong. Therefore, if the feeling of the House is that Privy Councillors are abusing their position, then the House is entitled to say so. However, I have noticed that the criticism comes mainly from the younger and less experienced Members, who themselves are very adept at getting into debates and getting on Select Committees. One has only to look at the membership of the Select Committee on Procedure to see how many entered apprentices, as I would call them, there are—
Mr. Ellis Smith: Say "delegations" as well.
Mr. Bellenger: —who ignore the ripe wisdom of those who have served for
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a long time in the House and, perhaps by virtue of their ability, have been members of Governments.
The other day I was looking at the index to the OFFICIAL REPORT for last Session, and I was surprised to find how few Privy Councillors—perhaps with one exception, and I will not mention any names—had taken part in the proceedings on the Floor of this Chamber by way of Questions, supplementary questions or otherwise. I can show the House columns of names of back benchers on my own side and on the other side of the House who have put down long lists of Questions. Therefore, it is all a matter of proportion.
If we leave it to Mr. Speaker to decide who is to be called—and I have every confidence in the Chair—then all I ask is on what set of principles Members are to be called. It would be an advantage if at some time the Chair could favour us with an indication of the procedure for calling hon. Members, so that we can be better informed about it and, possibly, more tolerant.
I want, finally, to refer to the Opposition Front Bench. I have noticed something which never used to happen before the war, the practice of back benchers flitting from the back benches down to the Front Bench so that they have the best of both worlds—they go on to the Front Bench for Question Time, where, presumably, they get priority in putting their Questions, since they are then occupants of the Front Bench, and, having finished with that subject, they go to the back benches and claim to catch Mr. Speaker's eye since they are then merely back benchers.
Speaking as one with a vested interest, I have no objection if the House alters its system, but we have to clear up the matter of the Opposition Front Bench. I have an idea that ex-Ministers are entitled to sit on the Opposition Front Bench if they want to do so. I have never exercised that right, if such a right exists, and I do not want to, but I am bound to say that if some of my hon. Friends who have not been Ministers claim the right to speak from the Front Bench pro tern, then that is a little unfair to the remainder of back benchers.
I hope that I have kept well within the bounds of the half-hour or less which was laid down by the Select Committee.

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As one who has been an hon. Member of this House for many years, since before the war, I think that I am entitled to put my point of view and to hope that I shall provoke that cut and thrust of debate which we were told, when we were young Members, was what hon. Members should try to do.
6.13 p.m.
Mr. Ronald Bell: It is a little surprising that a debate on the Report of a Select Committee which laid considerable emphasis on short speeches should have substantially consisted of rather long ones. As a member of that Select Committee, I hope that I shall be more successful in trying to compress my remarks than was one of my colleagues who addressed the House from the other side.
A debate of this kind should be taken up not by Members of the Select Committee concerned but by other hon. Members who want to speak about the matters which were before the Committee. I should not have sought to intervene had I not noticed that there was no question of members of that Committee taking a disproportionate time of the debate, but I shall confine my remarks to a very short speech. I want to put before the House one or two matters arising out of the Committee's Report and one or two other matters on which I did not succeed in attracting enough support to my point of view to justify my putting forward Amendments.
The Committee was set up to consider what changes, if any, there should be to procure the more efficient despatch of business. I understood that primarily to mean more efficient in point of time: we should get through our business more quickly so as to lessen the load upon hon. Members, and possibly also to make more time available to discuss matters which are not now discussed.
I was not happy about the recommendation that the Finance Bill should go to a Standing Committee upstairs. I see many objections to that. Many hon. Members take part in Committee debates on the Finance Bill and many put down Amendments. Until the Finance Bill is published, certainly until the Budget statement is made, one does not know whether it raises a constituency or some other interest of which one has knowledge, or
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in which one is especially concerned. If the Finance Bill goes to a Standing Committee, hon. Members who are not members of that Committee will feel rather cut off, which will result in a substantially longer Report stage.
It is extremely difficult to find some other way of saving four or five days in a Parliamentary year. I think that it is a regrettable necessity, but it is very difficult when one examines the business of the year to see how one can get the days unless one cuts down the number of Supply Days, which most hon. Members would find open to greater objections.
I do not know whether this came within the Committee's terms of reference—there was some difference of opinion about it and I did not press the matter—but it is my view that many of our difficulties stem from the size of the House. If we are to have a House of about 640 Members, we shall always be rather short of time. The larger the assembly the larger the number of people who want to speak and the more difficult it is to get through business quickly and efficiently. I do not suppose it is a very popular suggestion, but in my view at some time we shall have to revise the electoral quota. If it stays as it is, with the population growing, before long we shall find ourselves with a House of Commons of about 700 Members. I think that is getting too unwieldy. A reasonable size for the House would be about 500 Members. I leave it at that, because I want to make a short speech.
I take the view that a great alleviation of the burden of hon. Members would be brought about if we changed the country's financial year. I also advocated that in Committee, but possibly it was outside the Committee's ambit. I do not think it is possible to equate the financial year with a calendar year, because one wants to know the result of the calendar year before starting one's financial year. I suggest that the financial year should end on 28th February. That is a change of only one month, but my inquiries have told me that it could be brought about with no dislocation, except in the year in which it was introduced.
That change would allow the Budget and the Finance Bill to be introduced and the Bill passed into law so that the

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House could rise for the summer comfortably by the middle of July. It is desirable that we should do so. It is absurd that every year Parliament should sit to the last days of July or the first days of August, usually until the Friday before Bank Holiday, and then expect hon. Members to go for their family holidays and so forth at the most congested and inconvenient moment of the year. What is more, the last three weeks of July are not the most suitable time of the year to sit in London and consider public business.
To those hon. Members who say that we should sit for as long as possible, I reply that I would not object to coming back a week or two earlier in the autumn, although I am not sure that the public advantage is as much promoted as some hon. Members think by having Parliament sitting for the maximum length of time.
Sir Peter Agnew: There is something which I cannot follow in the argument of my hon. Friend. He said that he wants to save time for the more efficient despatch of business. If the House got up a whole month earlier, how would any time be saved from the point of view of getting through the business of the House?
Mr. Bell: I think that my hon. Friend has misunderstood me. Perhaps it was with that thought in mind that some hon. Members who served on the Committee considered that this suggestion fell outside the terms of reference of the Committee. But its terms of reference were the more efficient despatch of public business and I suggest that public business would be more efficiently dispatched—
Mr. S. Silverman: If we did not meet at all.
Mr. Bell: I do not know how the hon. Member thinks I was suggesting that.
I was suggesting that the financial year should end a month earlier, which would allow the Budget and the Finance Bill to be introduced a month earlier. Then business would proceed on its statutory course under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act, and it would be possible for the House, if it wished, to rise by the middle of July. Whether that would involve any shortening of the Parliamentary year would
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depend on whether the House reassembled earlier in the autumn. That is a separate matter which the House could decide on its merits. There is difficulty, I think, about closing the financial year on 31st December, because every financial year would be ending then, the ordinary financial years as well as the national financial year, and perhaps the concentration of the burden of work on staffs would prove excessive.
The Select Committee made a recommendation regarding Standing Order No. 9, about which I do not feel very happy. The purport of the recommendation is that there should be more special Adjournments. I appreciate that there must be a safety valve of that kind, but I have never felt that a special Adjournment under Standing Order No. 9 was a very good safety valve. I can see no way to make tolerable the task of Mr. Speaker in respect of that Standing Order. If he is to decide on the importance of a matter, he is in a very difficult position. If he says that a matter is not sufficiently important, there will, of course, be cries of indignation from hon. Members opposite at the outrageous suggestion that a matter is not sufficiently important. There would be difficulty for Mr. Speaker in saying that a matter is not urgent. If we leave it to the House to decide whether a matter is sufficiently important, there will always be 50 hon. Members opposite who will rise—[HON. MEMBERS: "Forty."] Very well, 40, although one could get 50 if they were needed—there is no doubt about that.
Because I could not recommend a better and more workable alternative I did not dissent from the recommendation, but I really think, were it practicable, that we should leave it to Mr. Speaker to say in general terms whether he would grant an Adjournment and not force him to specify whether he refused such an Adjournment on the grounds of urgency or importance, and that we should never question his Ruling. We should not have these half-hours of argument on points of order. If we did that there would be no need for the recommendation which is contained in the Report.
Lastly, there is the question of "clearing the deck" in this Chamber by sending business to Standing Committees

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so that we may have more general debates. If we send business to Standing Committees we must make sure that we do not double the burden upon ourselves. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Sir Roger Conant) said that the size of a Standing Committee could not be reduced any further without endangering the Government's majority—unless it were decided that a defeat of the Government in Committee did not matter—and so I understood that we could not do it. I reach an opposite conclusion. I should like to see smaller minimum figures for Standing Committees in the Report. I hope the House will make that suggestion to the Government. To send more Bills for discussion by Standing Committees of 40, 45 and 50 hon. Members is to make the system almost unworkable. For the life of me, I cannot see why a Government defeat in a Standing Committee should matter. If it does, what freedom of action is left to hon. Members? I never hesitate to vote against the Government in Standing Committee. I have served on Standing Committees where I have voted against the Government as often as I have voted for them. I never have considered that an hon. Member should hesitate to do that.
On general questions of principle and so on, we must operate the party system and keep to it. We could not send the Finance Bill to a Standing Committee and allow the Government to be defeated on an important Clause. Nobody would suggest that. But in the general work of phrasing and drafting which goes on in a Standing Committee it is nonsense that there should be directives from the Government Department concerned about any Amendment to a Bill, or that a Government defeat on an Amendment of that kind should be regarded as a serious matter. I say, therefore, let us reduce the size of Standing Committees. If a Government have a small majority after a General Election let us be sensible and give to the Government one "bonus member", one extra in the majority, to make the system work. In that way we should incorporate a little sense into the operation.
If in that way we create more time for debates on the Floor of the House, I hope that our debates will be useful
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and that we shall debate the Reports of Select Committees, like the Select Committee on Estimates. But I think it would be dangerous were the House to try to shift too much of the emphasis of its work away from legislation and towards general debates. Nothing diminishes the authority of an assembly more than talking at large and taking decisions which have no operative effect. We have all seen this sort of thing happening in certain consultative assemblies abroad which I will not particularly specify. But it would be a dangerous development to allow this place to become a mere "talking shop"
The strength of the House of Commons lies in the fact that we are almost always taking operative decisions, even though sometimes they appear to be on tedious matters of detail. That has the effect of holding people to realities and compelling them to take a commonsense and down-to-earth point of view. Therefore, while I agree with the general sense of what appears in the Report, I wanted to say that word of reservation about the way in which we should use our time. I speak for myself when I say that I should not be unhappy if we used a little of any time so saved in not being at Westminster quite so much as we are at present.
6.28 p.m.
Mr. Herbert Morrison: The House is indebted to the Leader of the House for the clear, if necessarily provisional, cautious and restrained observations which he made on the Report of the Select Committee. We have some idea about how the Government mind is working, though the right hon. Gentleman quite rightly reserved the position of the Government until he had heard this debate.
We must remember that this institution is a Parliament, and let us not underestimate the importance of it being a Parliament. It is not an aggregation of committees which meets from time to time and merely considers reports from a committee upstairs. It is a Parliament with its own rights. The authority of Parliament is on the Floor of the House of Commons and not in Committees. Whatever we may do about the delegation of certain legislative and other functions, do not let us lose sight of the principle that the authority of Parliament resides on the Floor of the

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House. If we do lose sight of that principle, we shall be in danger of going the way of some other Parliaments where the Parliamentary institution is something in the nature of a farce.
We are all in a dilemma about this matter. We wish to save Parliamentary time, partly because in some ways it is used excessively, and partly because we wish to use any time saved for other purposes.
We must be a little careful. We do not want to run this place upon the doctrine that the hours ought to be over-long, or longer than they are. They are long enough. It is not good that the House should be served by hon. Members who are physically and mentally tired out because of the number of hours they are required to be in attendance here. It is common ground that there is a problem and that hon. Members are in many respects somewhat overworked. We want to give them a lighter time. Some hon. Members who say that, however, then proceed to invent new devices whereby hon. Members will have to spend more time in the service of Parliament and Parliamentary institutions.
For example, there is the question of Committees, to which I will come a little later on. Whatever point of view we take, we are liable to get into a state of contradiction about Committees. I would join the Leader of the House in paying a tribute to the service rendered by the Clerk of the House and his predecessors to the work of the Committee. They have been given impossible tasks. The Committee was appointed partly to find out how to save Parliamentary time and to use it for other purposes, so the Clerk was asked if he would kindly prepare a memorandum saying how this could be done. The true answer is that it cannot be done. Nevertheless the Clerk was instructed to tell the Committee how it might be done, so he prepared a memorandum. He submitted the memorandum, which he knew and the Committee knew would be unacceptable to the Committee; so the poor man has been wasting his time. Nevertheless, the House of Commons is grateful to him. Someone has to do this work of producing ideas which may be unacceptable. They mean well by it, and they do it in order that a committee may examine the ideas and find that they are wrong. The
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same thing happened to Lord Campion, when he was Clerk to the House under another name. He produced most elaborate reports about financial control, but they were no good. They were turned down.
Viscount Hinchingbrooke: They were no good to the right hon. Gentleman at the time, but to the Committee they were.
Mr. Morrison: I do not agree with the noble Lord. I was a great friend of Lord Campion, but I did not agree with him on this particular matter.
Another thing is that the House is not called upon to make up its mind whether hon. Members should be full-time or part-time. There are, thank goodness, quite a number of hon. Members who give substantial full-time service to the House, including service on Standing Committees, committees like the one whose Report we are now examining, and Select Committees on Public Accounts and Estimates. This is a heavy and laborious job, but fortunately there are some who can do it.
Nevertheless, I still take the view—if we have to go into this matter it cannot be helped—I do not want a House of Commons which is 100 per cent. composed of people with no other interests. Some of my hon. Friends are doing a full-time job on the trade union principle of "one-man-one-job", which arose partly during the days of unemployment. I understand their feeling that if they are doing a full-time job everybody else should do the same, but the health of our Parliamentary institutions should and can only derive from the fact that a noticeable proportion of its Members are doing other things and have contacts with the world outside, so that this House does not become a closed house, a sort of monastery—
Mr. John Rankin: Does my right hon. Friend mean us to infer from his remarks that because an hon. Member does a full-time job in the House of Commons he has no contacts with the world outside?
Mr. Morrison: Some hon. Members do not make it a full-time job. While not attacking those, the last thing I want to do is to attack those who do make it a full-time job. I have quite enough

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trouble on my plate at the moment without doing that. I listened with great respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell), who made an interesting speech this afternoon, but I regret to say that he did not convert me to the view that I know he sincerely holds.
Standing Committees could conveniently be reduced in size, but if they are then for heaven's sake let them behave themselves like committees and not like Parliaments. I had one or two painful experiences when I was Minister of Transport years and years ago. proving that hon. Members can make speeches as long in Standing Committees as they can on the Floor of the House of Commons itself. I should like to see Standing Committees follow more the example of committees of local authorities, where the discussion is brief and business like and where members, when they have said what they have to say and made their material points, finish. That would save a lot of time in the Standing Committees. It is important that we should save time not only on the Floor of the House but in committees, especially if the Finance Bill goes to a Standing Committee.
I do not mind Bills going to commitee. Why should I? I sent a lot of Bills upstairs when I was Leader of the House and present Government supporters were sitting over here. What a pity that they are not sitting over here now. I am therefore in favour of the principle of a Bill going upstairs; but Bills of essentially constitutional character, and the Consolidated Fund Bill, should stay here.
I have been somewhat mystified over the view that the Finance Bill should not go upstairs for its Committee consideration. I am not really mystified, because I understand the traditional background. I quite see the doctrine that matters of taxation belong to all the people's representatives—I do not think it is practicable to divide the Finance Bill up into two or more Measures because we should be faced with Second and Third Readings for each Bill. It would not make for tidy legislation to carve a Bill up so that part of it was considered here and part of it upstairs. I would send the whole Bill upstairs, but I would not let the Report
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stage of the Finance Bill or any other Bill remain upstairs. There must be a stage in the House of Commons, when the House as a whole can determine what is going into the Clauses.
If the Finance Bill goes upstairs there will be the little stratagems and tactics, such as have been going on not only while my party is in Opposition but when the Conservatives were in Opposition. There has been obstruction at some stages of Finance Bills, although I do not see the point of it. When I first came here there was a lot of obstruction. There used to be endless discussion of Supplementary Estimates, discussion which was a disgrace to the House of Commons, a waste of time and a lowering of our temper and dignity. I took the view that that kind of obstruction was bad. Fortunately, it has largely gone as a result of better conduct on the part of the main parties in the House of Commons. I am glad that that is so. Obstruction is legitimate when one is fighting a terrible Bill—like that on commercial television. The Government retaliated with the Guillotine, as it was capable of doing, although that was an abominable thing because the electorate had given them no authority for the Bill, let alone for the Guillotine.
I say that obstruction is bad except on matters of real principle. If there are to be time-tables they should be voluntary. I offered a voluntary timetable, if the Government Front Bench will forgive me saying so, to the Opposition on the Iron and Steel Bill of the Labour Government. I said we would be generous if the Oppo sion would respect a voluntary timetable, but quite legitimately the Opposition said that the Bill was so objectionable and would be disastrous to the country—it would be almost a betrayal of John Bull—that they could not enter on a voluntary timetable. I said, "I have to put it through, and if we do so with a compulsory timetable I hope you will forgive me," but they did not do that either. On matters of that kind the Opposition of the day has a right to try to obstruct, and I must confess the Government of the day have the right to see that they are not obstructed if they can do so.
The Leader of the House said that the timetable could be voluntary or by a Guillotine, but I would ask him to preserve another course, that there should be no timetable at all on certain matters.

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I think he has a duty as Leader of the House sometimes to say to himself, "I know the Opposition has been rather naughty about this, that and the other. I have tried to get it to agree to a voluntary timetable and it will not, but I do not want to impose a compulsory Guillotine on Parliament if I can help it" I hope he and the rest of the House will leave open the possibility of Parliament having a free fling upon these matters.
I do not like the idea of morning sittings. Hon. Members have a lot of other things to do in the mornings. They have their letters to deal with. Many of them have Committees of one sort and another upstairs. What sort of morning sittings would these be? So far as I can tell by definition they would be sittings of no importance, where a limited number of Members could have a go as they do on the Adjournment, but there might also be sundry Orders and Prayers dealt with on those occasions. The more I look at the suggestion the more it seems to me that of all the dull periods of Parliamentary sittings this would be the dullest in this or any Parliament, and that is saying something, or on matters on the Adjournment I say: do not pursue this matter.
The Committee started off on the basis of finding how Parliamentary time could be saved. Then a number of hon. Members came up with the proposition of how Parliamentary time can be added, which seems somewhat illogical. Moreover, Ministers have duties in Whitehall. It is said that Parliamentary Secretaries can come to answer these debates. That is said in the tone of voice which suggests that they are poor little things who do not matter, that they have nothing to do and might as well come here and speak from a prepared brief, which in all probability will have to receive the O.K. of the Ministers before they read it. That is not respecting Parliamentary Secretaries. I want them to have responsible duties in their Departments. I do not believe in this kind of thing. I do not believe that the morning sitting should be a sort of pantomime. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West referred to first-class and second-class Members of Parliament, but if we had morning sittings that would be a third-class Parliament. I say, forget it.
Mr. C. Pannell: I was referring to first-class and second-class Members of Parliament, not in the sense in which we might use those terms, but in the sense in which the appellation is sometimes used in the Press by drawing a demarcation between those who have to put in full time here and those who do not. In dealing with this matter, will my right hon. Friend deal with the question of consideration of the Report of a Royal Commission. Would he regard that as a debate of no importance?
Mr. Morrison: I cannot see that it is essential that the House should debate every Royal Commission Report. It really is not essential. Some of them are worth debating, and when they are they get debated, as was the famous one a few months ago, but a number of Royal Commission Reports do not require to be debated in this House, and it would not be any better if they were.
Now I come to the Privy Councillors. I apologise for the fact that I am following a Privy Councillor from this side of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger). I only say that I tried hard to stop him speaking at all. I warned him. I said, "You are going to do the very thing these back benchers object to." I feel that I must speak because I am a former Leader of the House.
Mr. Ede: That is no excuse.
Mr. Morrison: Who asked my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) to butt in? Why should one ex-Leader of the House turn round on another? They should stick together in their troubles. It is important that Privy Councillors should exercise a wise restraint about how often they speak. If I may say so with all humility, I think I do so. I have often intended to speak and not done so because someone else was going to make a speech and I thought it better that I should not enter into the competition because it might upset some of our back benchers, for whom I have a very great respect. There is another problem, and that is the number of supplementary questions which are put from the Opposition Front Bench. Whether they are Privy Councillors, ex-Ministers or even not ex-Ministers, they sometimes overdo

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it at the expense of hon. Members on the back benches.
I do not like the idea of five-minute speeches. Even the London County Council, which is the next greatest authority in the country, allows fifteen-minute speeches. These five-minute speeches would be something like a speakers' class in a junior Conservative association. I am disposed not to interfere with Standing Order No. 9 too much. Of course, in Opposition, one sometimes feels that the Speaker has been a little severe or restrictive in his Ruling. If I may say so, Mr. Speaker, I have never felt that way because I have great understanding for your problems. When I was Leader of the House and the Conservative Opposition was up to the same lark, I can remember saying to myself, "I hope to goodness Mr. Speaker does not allow this; it will upset my timetable tonight."
It is a severe Standing Order, but I think it ought to be, because it involves changing the business of the House for that evening. Let us be careful about the provision by which 40 Members can stand to determine whether a matter is a matter of public importance or not, because I assure hon. Members 40 Members will stand whatever the merits. I have stood up myself quite often as one of 40 Members when I did not believe in it but because I wanted to stand loyally with my friends and help them out of an awkward situation. I do not know that there is anything wrong with the present situation.
I turn, next, to Standing Order No. I and the suspension of the rule at 10 o'clock. As one who has had a lot to do with the Whips in my time, I like the possibility of one Division at 3.30 p.m. It lets the Whips on both sides know how many Members they have here, and it may shake up the back benchers to be here when otherwise they might not. Whether the Whips would hold them here until 10 o'clock for a possible Division I do not know. If the Division is to be at the interruption of the Orders of the Day, the Whips will not know, nor will hon. Members, when the Division will take place. I am not sure whether it would be wise to make this change, but there is nothing very serious about it. I declare my impartiality on
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these matters, because unhappily by the time these changes are in operation I shall not be here. I am sorry that that is so.
I agree with the Committee that mechanical voting is not good for this House. I have seen it worked at Middlesex County Council. It works very well for members there; they each have a desk, and it can be worked. I think that Divisions in the House of Commons, however, are among the most human institutions that we have. We are all mixed up in the Division—I nearly said irrespective of who we are, but of course, there are parties. Party leaders and back benchers are all mixed up together, and it is even possible for humble Members on the back benches to meet now and again the really great men in the party. If they sit on the Government side of the House, they may even meet Ministers. I think that is a good thing.
Moreover, I believe that the public likes to see the House of Commons marching out to vote. I do not think that the public understands what it is all about, and that is accompanied by the fact that we do not always understand, either. I am against mechanical voting, and I think that proxy voting would be disgraceful. The Committee is very wise to say, "Let there be no more slaughter of people called to vote in a House with a close majority when they are sick." I agree that there should be no more slaughter of such Members by refusal to provide them with a pair. If there is genuine sickness which makes it undesirable that a Member should come from his home to Westminster to vote, especially if he has to come in an ambulance—which I am afraid has been done—it is a bad and inhuman thing to make him come here. If he comes here and later dies, then in a mild way somebody is nearly guilty of murder. It should never happen again. Let there be the humanity which says, "If there is a genuine medical reason, we will give a pair". That can easily be arranged.
I agree that supplementary questions ought to be somewhat shorter, but if hon. Members want to see the record supplementary question for length, they should look up a question asked by our respected colleague, the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), when the Labour Government were in

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power. I forget whether his supplementary question went to one, two or three columns of HANSARD. It was one supplementary question. He was interrupted by some hon. Member saying, "Speech". He replied, "No. I am putting this in an interrogatory form". He was. Nevertheless, supplementary questions could be put with greater brevity, and some Ministers could answer with greater brevity. Some of them would be wiser if they did not answer at all.
I do not like the idea of specialised committees upstairs and I do not believe in it.
Mr. C. R. Hobson: No rapporteurs.
Mr. Morrison: It detracts from the authority of the Floor of the House. The point which distinguishes this Parliament is that authority is on the Floor of the House, and the point which distinguishes the Parliament of France, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw said, is that there is little authority on the Floor and little authority on the part of Ministers. I agree with him that the United States is not exactly analogous because Ministers there do not sit in Congress, but France and West Germany are analogous, and there, instead of the battle of Ministers being on the Floor, the battle of Ministers is in Committee upstairs. What does this mean? What would it mean if we adopted this procedure? It would mean that the voice of authority would tend to pass from this assembly as a corporate institution and go upstairs to limited committees. It would mean that Ministers would have to go there. It is no use saying that they could send Parliamentary Secretaries and feel that all was safe.
In any case, why pick on the Colonial Secretary, poor man? He is a very heavily worked Minister, one of the most heavily worked. I well remember when my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) was Colonial Secretary. It is a very heavy job. This farming out of Parliamentary responsibilities to Committees upstairs will not do. Why the Colonial Office? Why not the Foreign Office? Why not the Ministry of Defence, as my right hon. Friend asked? Why not the Ministry of Housing and Local Government? There are plenty of matters on which that
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Minister could be cross-examined. I believe that the suggestion is not fair to the House of Commons and not fair to busy Ministers and that it means more work for Members of Parliament.
I have possibly overdone the length of my speech and I am obliged to the House for having let me express my views about this matter. Even though I may disagree with some of the views of the Select Committee, I join with others in expressing our warm thanks to the Chairman of the Select Committee, whose eloquence when he was Secretary of State for Scotland we well remember. I know from my own appearance before the Committee that he was an excellent Chairman. We thank him for his labours and we thank his Committee, which was a very well assorted body of hon. Members, for the work which they have done and the conscientious way in which they have made their recommendations to the House.
6.58 p.m.
Mr. John Baldock: It is a considerable privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison), who, I think everyone will agree, has made some of the most constructive and interesting comments on the Report of the Select Committee. Like the right hon. Member, I do not agree with everything in the Report, but unlike him, I should have liked to see some of its recommendations go rather further.
It is common knowledge that in the country and in the House there has been a great deal of unease for some time about our procedure and about the time which is being spent—and, in the view of many hon. Members and of the public, wasted—in the House. As a result of that, two Select Committees on Procedure have been set up in recent years and a Committee of Privy Councillors was formed to inquire into the question of the overstrain of senior Ministers, which to my mind is part and parcel of the subject that we are debating this afternoon.
These Select Committees and that Committee of Privy Councillors had the object of finding means of enabling the House to conduct its business more efficiently, which is generally interpreted as more quickly. I should like at this stage to declare a personal interest, because I am one of those hon. Members whom the

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hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) feels possibly have no place in the House. I was pleased to hear the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South say that we have a place. I am one of those hon. Members who have tried over nearly ten years to serve as a Member of Parliament and to do a job outside.
Mr. C. Pannell: I said no such thing. I merely pointed out that we should not have first and second-class Members of the House. I am quite prepared to accord to anyone who has an avocation outside his correct place, but I refuse to believe what has been suggested in some quarters of the Press, that they are rather superior because they earn a living outside, compared with myself, as one who does voluntary service outside the House.
Mr. Baldock: I understood the hon. Gentleman quite differently. I understood him to say first and second-class Members, but I thought that he did so rather in the sense that those who were not able to put in full time in this House were second-class Members. I disagree with him about that because, like the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Lewisham, South and, I am sure, from the way in which the House listened to his remarks, like the majority of hon. Members in the House, I think that there is. a place for those who have some other contact with what I might call real life outside the House as well as those who devote—and it is most essential that there should be a proportion of them—the whole of their time to the work of this House.
I have found that it is not possible to combine both those things as a Member of Parliament under the exacting conditions of the House of Commons today. With great regret, I shall not be standing again at the next General Election. I declare that interest partly because, if I did not, I might be accused of trying to grind my own axe, which I am not doing. I am merely trying to explain to the House that I have a personal knowledge of the problems which the present amount of time which the House takes up imposes upon a Member who has also a job to do outside the House.
This problem has been growing up for some time, but it has become much greater as the result of the appearance of the Welfare State and the nationalised
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industries. With the general growth of the power of the State and centralisation of control it must follow that the work of Parliament is very much heavier than it was formerly.
I cannot agree with an hon. Member opposite who said that the House is not passing any more legislation or doing any more work now than it did a hundred years ago. I think that anyone who has studied the matter seriously realises that this is false. We are expected to contend with infinitely more legislation and much more work and a far wider scope and range of subjects than any previous generation had to undertake. There are the additional burdens of our closer integration with the Continent of Europe, which is taking up a large amount of time of a considerable number of hon. Members, and this is something which is likely to grow.
As the result of this increasing pressure on hon. Members, a situation arises where it is inevitable that one of two things must take place. That, I think, is what the House has to decide. Either the procedure of the House must be changed, not too rapidly, not too drastically, but, nevertheless, in the end considerably changed, or the composition of the House must be considerably changed. The composition of the old procedure and the old type of Member cannot continue in the future. Many of those who speak about the ideal composition of the House regard it as a microcosm of the nation, or as a cross-section of the people, as, I think, was said by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, West. Of course, the House of Commons has never been that, but perhaps it is nearer that today than it ever has been.
In the past, Members of Parliament from both sides of the House were largely drawn from the class of people who had an unearned income. They were not under any pressure, or under any inclination or necessity to do any other job than this if they desired not to do so. They were able to give their whole time here, regardless of financial considerations, and they had a great deal of independence, particularly financially, which many hon. Members today cannot have. But those days are past.
Today, the number of people who have sufficiently large unearned incomes

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to be able to come here and be independent of party or their Parliamentary salaries is becoming very small and is likely to become smaller. If people who come here are to be independent, it is likely that they will have some job outside. The new and more onerous conditions of service in this House make it necessary for a change to take place. Either these independent or amateur Members, as they have been called, will have to go, if they can no longer combine a job of work outside or their their interests outside with their service in this House, or the procedure will have to be changed so that it is possible for them still to do both things.
It has not, perhaps, reached that stage yet, but I would suggest that if centralisation of control and co-ordination with the Continent of Europe, with N.A.T.O. and with all the other international bodies, continues, and if civilisation continues to get more complex, it is inevitable that the work of the House will continue to increase and it will become steadily more impossible for one person to play his full part in the House conscientiously and properly, and as his constituents would desire, while, at the same time, doing a job outside the House.
I suggest, therefore, that the decision which the House and the Government have to make is whether the proposals for improving the efficiency of our procedure, and other more sweeping ones, I believe, as well, should be adopted, or whether we should reconcile ourselves to having a House predominently consisting of full-time professional politicians who would become, in my view, more and more a louder species of civil servant because they would be divorced from the life outside.
As the right hon. Gentleman said, they will be living a sort of monastic existence, considering our problems somewhat in a vacuum with little time to have outside contacts and certainly no time for doing the difficult job of earning the money or making the profits which the House is spending, but becoming more and more like full-time paid officials, more and more afraid of quarrelling with their party organisations for fear of losing their livelihood and pensions and entirely different persons from those who served this House in the past.
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That, I believe, is the choice. For those reasons, I hope that the Government will very seriously consider the recommendations of the Select Committee on Procedure and also some of the wider and more drastic proposals that have been made so that, in future, these problems—as well as the enormous pressure on Ministers, which I think is now reaching almost intolerable degrees in certain Departments—may be alleviated.
7.9 p.m.
Mr. Ellis Smith: This may prove to be an historic debate. Within the limited time at my disposal I am unable to make out a reasoned case, based on my experience, for those fundamental changes that I should like to see, based on a close analysis of the Select Committee's Report and on the privilege I have enjoyed of the friendship of servants of the House.
Within ten months those of us who are re-elected will meet in a new Parliament, and if it is a dynamic House, as it has been occasionally in the past, with a number of young Members—especially representing the class to which I belong—I hope that it will take a special interest in the importance of Parliamentary procedure and practice, and that those young Members will use their youthful exuberance in a desire to equip the House adequately to fulfil its future tasks.
I should have liked to have moved a reasoned Amendment—subject to its acceptance by Mr. Speaker—to the Motion that we are now considering, but to have done so would have been idle in view of the limited life of this present Parliament.
Before making my few observations, I should like to join with my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) in paying tribute to the Clerk of the House for the excellent memorandum that he submitted to the Select Committee. I differ from my right hon. Friend in my view of that memorandum. Like all pioneering work, it is not accepted today, but it is as certain as I stand here that the younger Members here will live to see the day when this House accepts many of the proposals contained therein.
I should also like to pay a tribute to the conscientious staff who serve the

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Clerks at the Table. Those of us who have had long experience in many directions have not known men and women who have served their institutions better than, and very few as well as, the Clerk of the House and his staff.
We should also remind ourselves that Mr. Speaker and the Chairman of Ways and Means will no longer be Members of the House after this present Parliament finishes. I hope that they, too, will study what is said today, as well as the Select Committee's Report and, drawing on their own experience, will place their views on record so that they may be available for any future Select Committee that considers this subject.
A few of us have been pressing for many years, and on good grounds, constructive proposals for the more efficient conduct and despatch of Parliamentary business. One of my late right hon. Friends wrote a book on the subject, which he discussed with some of us for many hours. My right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South has also made an historic contribution to the functioning of Parliament and the solution of its problems.
The book to which I refer was produced by a man who, in my view, was the greatest aristocratic intellectual of our time. Sir Stafford Cripps was a Parliamentary giant, but even he was unable to make any progress on this business in his time. Nevertheless, if Parliament is to manage the nation's affairs and meet modern needs, fundamental reforms will be required.
We should also place on record our appreciation of the excellent contribution made this year by the HANSARD Society. As I have already said, my time is limited so I cannot do justice to it, but it would be wrong not to mention that monumental work, which represents immense toil done behind the scenes by many men and women who are interested in Parliamentary practice.
I have also studied a recent book entitled "The Control of the Purse". It is well worth reading. It is an historic and informative work, and one that I am sure will receive the attention of hon. Members for many years. I do not accept it all, but I believe that page 9 sums up the book's constructive proposals. It rightly emphasises that the Public
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Accounts Committee works post mortem—and I think that that is the difference between the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House and some of my hon. Friends.
Those of us who know the work done by that Committee greatly appreciate it and have said so on several occasions. I agree that those Reports should receive more consideration and general discussion, but I think that it is a matter for specialist Committees. I would not go with many hon. Members so far as to suggest wholesale specialist Committees, but for a concrete purpose such as that referred to by the right hon. Gentleman in opening the debate, and for other purposes to while I shall refer later, I think that in this modern age, with the tempo of life as it is, there is a case for specialist Committees that would keep the larger House well informed on problems to which it cannot give adequate consideration.
At the same time, the author of the recently published book, and anyone else who agrees with him, should be told in no uncertain terms—and this is a constitutional point that needs to be emphasised—that the elected members of the House of Commons should be supreme in determining how the national income is spent, how the finance raised by the Inland Revenue is dealt with; and should also be told that the elected representatives in this House need no advice from another place on that subject. The "battle of the purse" was fought out here many years ago, and we should be on our guard against accepting the advice of another place, or from other places.
It is now twenty-four years since I became a Member. In those days, more time and interest was devoted to Votes of Supply, and to the detailed analysis and examination of expenditure. In some way or another we have to get back to that, and if that assertion is accepted the only question that remains is how best to get back to it.
I agree that it was the 1939–45 war that changed things. We then voted millions of pounds almost in seconds, and have never got back to the pre-war policy of close analysis and examination of expenditure. Before the war, we voted thousands; since the war, we have voted millions of pounds in minutes—

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sometimes, in seconds. In addition, since the end of the war we have all acquiesced in a most dangerous course. Votes of Supply have become automatic. They have been read out by the Clerk, and we have then proceeded to consider other questions having nothing to do with the millions of pounds which we have voted in a few seconds.
Therefore, I plead with those taking an interest in this problem, including the authorities that serve us behind the scenes, to consider constructive proposals in order that any future Select Committee or, if possible, the Government, can recommend and take action so that we can return to the pre-war procedure. This is a very serious matter. A trade union in this country is subject to the Public Auditor. It has to account for every farthing. Yet we vote millions of pounds in seconds.
In addition to that, we have this humiliating position. That is how I look upon it. I am not asking any other right hon. or hon. Gentleman to look upon it in this way, but I do. It is our own conscience. Every year when we have the report, printed on the Order Paper, we are taking advantage of the application of virement. That is a most humiliating position for an elected Member of Parliament to be placed in.
I say that because I have friends who are counted among the most competent accountants in the country. Some of them have worked their way through to their professions by scholarships and, as a result of having done so, are now employed to conduct very severe auditing and have become the best accountants in the country. As a result of their friendship, I know how carefully balance sheets must be prepared and how careful they must be in publishing all expenditure and income. Yet every year the House of Commons is prepared to allow the hundreds years out of date method of dealing with virement.
Those of us who have served in the Armed Forces are in a strong position to know how that is done. Anyone who served in France, Belgium, Germany and other places and saw what went on in wartime made allowances for it because of the difficulties of wartime. But knowing what goes on in peacetime in these large camps in different parts, the time has arrived when the House
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should consider the question of virement. This is one respect in which I differ from the Clerk of the House of Commons. In his memorandum he contents himself with making proposals to submit a certain formula, which I accept, but that is not going anywhere near far enough and the Select Committee should have given greater consideration to it.
I readily accept the proposals contained in paragraphs 4, 5 and 6, but I am very concerned about the Committee's proposals for the appointment of Standing Committees and the timetable. I feel very uneasy about the proposal for a timetable. For example, I remember that just before the last war some of us seized an opportunity to raise the question of National Service and we kept the House sitting all night. The next morning the Government gave way, because they saw that there was something in our point. If this proposal is accepted, it will mean that we shall not be able to do a large amount of that kind of good work. I could give further examples of the pre-war action over the means test, the Assistance Board Regulations, Mining Subsidence Bills and the Factories Bill. I hope that the House will be on its guard when considering the question of a timetable and the personnel to serve on Committees.
There is one thing about which I am more indignant than anything else when it comes to the assembly of men and women, wherever they assemble. That is the amount of patronage, the amount of servility, and the creeping and crawling which goes on. If there is very much of that kind of thing, the timetables will be readily agreed to, and people who have a grievance to put forward on behalf of the people, or who wish to make constructive suggestions, will be ridden over rough-shod. Some of the personnel selected to serve on Committees will ride rough-shod over people who have still retained their manhood and a certain amount of independence.
I accept, and with certain reservations welcome, the proposal with regard to the Finance Bill. First, what interpretation do the members of the Select Committee place upon "brevity." The Report says:
"We hope, therefore, that the House will support brevity in all speeches during the Committee stage."

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I should like someone to interpret that word, because I have not yet heard it interpreted. Some say five minutes, especially ex-officers, and I will deal with that later. Others say 10 minutes, others say 15 minutes, and others say 20 minutes. The time has arrived when someone should commit himself and have enough confidence in hon. Members to believe that they will try to work to it as near as they can as soon as someone has given them a lead as to what it means.
Mr. R. Gresham Cooke: I will commit myself and say 10 minutes, if the hon. Member will agree to that.
Mr. Ellis Smith: The hon. Member does not want to be so insulting, because I was not attempting to insult anyone. I treat the House in a very different way. Therefore, I hope that we shall not have a repetition of that. I do not mind if there is a repetition, because we shall know where we are and we can start a little cut and thrust.
This is an important constitutional point, of which I hope the House will not lose sight. We in the House are all elected on the same basis, although I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South that one would not think so at times. One of the most important elements in that basis is that the elected people's representatives control finance. Before the House parts with finances, the people's grievances or ideas should be put forward. Therefore, that right should be safeguarded on these Committees if they are set up. I hope that that will be considered by whoever will determine the policy.
On Private Bills, I think that the Select Committee's recommendation is a big step in the right direction, but I hope that evidence will be taken from the town clerks. After the terrible experience of Stoke-on-Trent and Manchester prewar with regard to Private Bills, which I have not time to go into, I hope that we shall be on our guard about that.
The suggestion for five-minute speeches is the most insulting undemocratic proposal ever made in Parliamentary literature. [Laughter.] I do not blame hon. Members opposite for laughing, because some of us know where it
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came from. The logic of the proposal is that first and second-class officers should be introduced—in other words, an officer class and other ranks in the House of Commons. Hon. Members opposite may deny it, but that is the logic of it. That is the logic of the mentality of its source.
Mr. Arthur Moyle: Middle-class morality.
Mr. Ellis Smith: I thank my hon. Friend for his candid support. All hon. Members are selected on the same basis, and up to now our Parliamentary rights have been the same. For twenty-four years I have, if anything, been more than reasonable. But I can see myself getting into difficulties with Mr. Speaker in future if anyone tries to limit me to five minutes—and that is not a threat. What I am saying is that if one is elected to this House one is entitled, in association with other hon. Members, to play the game, but no one can do that within five minutes. Therefore, I hope that we have heard the last of that suggestion.
I agree that proxy voting is an absurd suggestion and I hope that it will not receive another moment's consideration. I believe that we all ought to play our part in this House. Whoever suggested that speeches which have not been delivered should be published cannot have given much consideration to what has gone before in this House. I agree with the Select Committee's Report. I am resolutely opposed to the proposal. It would mean that well-placed Members, many of whom would not have the capacity to make a speech in the House, could dictate their speeches in their offices, could get the Clerk to go over them and then have them published in HANSARD.
I welcome this opportunity of making those few brief observations. I agree that one cannot do justice to the subject, cannot make an analysis of the Committee's Report, within the limited time available. But within the time that we have had, we have been able to put forward some constructive suggestions and ask the House to be on its guard against a number of proposals. I hope that the next Parliament will consider this debate, and will bear in mind the experience of Mr. Speaker, of the Chairman of Ways and Means and of the

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Clerks who have served the House so well, so that this House, having adapted itself to the needs of a changing world, can continue to do so and serve a country that is modernising itself in many other ways.
7.32 p.m.
Mr. Robert Cooke: The projected time for five-minute speeches has, I think, arrived. I have endured this Palace of Westminster for three summers, a place that could be the finest public building in the country. The small imperfections in our present procedure have given me ample time for architectural contemplation. Much has been done to improve this Palace of ours since the war, and many of us will agree that the bombing of the House of Commons was a blessing in disguise, although much more still could be done. In fact, I think it would not be unfair to say that some parts of the Houses of Parliament are today dirty, dingy, ill-ventilated and downright depressing.
Paragraph 6 of the Report draws attention to the acute needs for more space for Standing Committees. In my submission, it is no use tinkering with this problem. I advocate as a solution the immediate consideration of Sir Charles Barry's scheme for completing the Palace of Westminster by a building round New Palace Yard stretching from St. Stephen's entrance round to the base of the Clock Tower. This would provide 200 extra rooms at the estimation of Sir Charles Barry and would help to provide the extra Committee rooms which we need so much. I throw that out briefly as my suggestion for solving this problem of accommodation. I realise that it does not arise from this Report, but for the sake of accuracy I will give the reference for the scheme—Volume 53 of Accounts and Papers, 1854. I would add that there have been subsequent discussions of the proposal and that the then estimated cost was £263,000.
To get back to the Report that we are considering, Questions have been mentioned. I would welcome a reduction to two Questions per Member per day. Indeed, I have collected some statistics on today's Questions. There were 59 Oral Questions in all; 46 of these were put down by the Opposition and 13 by the Government side. There
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were 12 Opposition Members accounting for 28 Questions; four put down three each and eight had two each. I am not attacking the Opposition in saying this. Obviously the Opposition is more likely to want to put down Questions, but if the Government side also made an effort to get their share of the time we should find the Order Paper cluttered with about 100 Questions per day; so some reduction under the present rules would be desirable.
Perhaps also a better balance in the Prime Minister's Questions might be achieved if a private Member were able to put down only one Question to the Prime Minister on any day. That would avoid some of these campaigns which go on from time to time to harass the Prime Minister unduly. After all, if it is the Opposition's desire to harass the Prime Minister, they can do it by getting a number of Members to put Questions to him instead of leaving it to only one or two.
Mr. S. Silverman: What is wrong with that?
Mr. Cooke: The Report also mentions the provision of drafting assistance to private Members. We have already seen how valuable the Table Office is to us in that respect and how the intention of a Member asking a Question can be put into plain English, or Parliamentary English at any rate, by the Table Office. Certainly some assistance of that sort to Members wishing to bring in Private Bills would be a great help.
There is also reference to the use of private Members' time, and I should like to say a word or two about Private Members' Motions. When private Members' Fridays occur I feel that sometimes we private Members are not as clever as we might be in using the available time. Too many of us sign the book in the Lobby, collect the printed list from the Whips and read out the first topic if by any chance our names come out first. Surely, if we really wanted to use that time properly we could find plenty of subjects of our own. It is up to private Members to make more use of that time.
On the subject of Adjournment debates, I feel, having listened to a good many, that an Adjournment debate consists of half-an-hour in which there is a

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public exchange of letters from the Member concerned and from the Minister who replies to the debate. Obviously it is difficult to get away from that, but perhaps once a week we might have an extra half-hour, making an hour's Adjournment debate at the end of the day, in which the Member and the Minster can have ten minutes each, leaving more time for five-minute speeches by other Members. Of course, this would not work in debates about constituency matters, but it might work in a debate on a topic of general interest.
The proposal to which I am trying to adhere, but in which I am afraid I have already exceeded my limit, is that of five-minute speeches. It is not all that difficult to stick to somewhere near five minutes. Perhaps it might also be thought advisable to try a debate for an hour in which we were limited to ten minutes each; that would avoid the situation which occurred today when only two speeches in the debate have been for less than twenty minutes. I have never heard a speech of half-an-hour by a private Member which could not have been compressed into twenty minutes, and some hon. Members on the Front Bench who sometimes speak for an hour could well get their remarks into forty-five minutes.
I share the hope expressed by many Members that some immediate benefit, perhaps some small improvements in our procedure, will arise from this debate, and also that possibly one certain result will be the better use of our existing procedure, having examined it in public today. I should like to end as I began, by making a plea that perhaps the Palace of Westminster might also be considered on another occasion.
7.40 p.m.
Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: I wish to respond briefly to the invitation of the Lord Privy Seal and to say a word on the recommendation of the Select Committee as to the establishment of a Welsh Grand Committee. I am sorry that the Lord Privy Seal does not appear to sympathise with the idea of a Welsh Standing Committee, but I know of his interest in Welsh affairs generally, and I also know that he is open to argument. I hope I shall be able to convert him to a different view in this debate.
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We are grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards), who made submissions on this subject to the Select Committee, and for making the recommendation possible. My main complaint about the recommendation is that it is a rather tepid one. For instance, the last sentence in paragraph 48 reads as follows:
"If a need arose for more discussion of Welsh affairs in addition to the present Welsh day on the Floor of the House, this is a method which might be tried out to avoid further encroachment upon the time of the House."
That is a rather negative approach to the problem. The fact is that Welsh affairs are not given sufficient time on the Floor of the House. Everyone who knows the Principality and who reads the annual debate on Welsh affairs realises that there are no adequate facilities for the proper discussion of Welsh affairs in this House.
Since I became a Member of this House some eight years ago, this has been one of my most frustrating experiences—and that is saying something. This is the situation. Every year, the Government publish a Report dealing with their activities in the Principality. This document deals with a wide range of subjects, over 20 in all, and including such important matters as agriculture, the whole range of industry, social services, transport, roads, education and so on.
There is also an accompanying document called the Welsh Digest of Statistics, and these two documents are the subject of our annual debate on Welsh affairs. The House will readily recognise how difficult it is to arrange an effective debate on a document which deals with official activity in over 20 spheres. There are 36 hon. Members from Wales, and half their number are fortunate to be called to speak in these debates on Welsh affairs, so that many Welsh Members must rest content to take part in a debate on Welsh affairs once in two years, or twice in the life of the average Parliament.
Furthermore, in order to make the debate more effective, the Welsh Members, by consent, seek to confine the debate to two or three main subjects out of the 20 or more which are dealt with in the Report. Even this means that the 17 or 18 remaining subjects in the Report are neglected year by year. There are

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certain important subjects in the Welsh sector which have never been adequately debated in this House since the Government's annual White Paper was first published. Of course, I know that hon. Members are enabled to raise subjects on the Motion for the Adjournment or in general debates, but this does not meet the need, for obvious reasons. An Adjournment debate has its limitations, and not more than one, or at the most two, hon. Members from Wales can expect to participate in a general debate, for example, on agriculture, housing or education.
One is tempted to compare Welsh arrangements with the Scottish position. Even allowing for the fact that a fair proportion of Scottish business stems from Scotland's distinct legal system, nevertheless Scotland enjoys a distinct advantage as compared with Wales. Scottish hon. Members have their Standing Committee, and they have far more debates in the House itself. In addition, they have special facilities at Question Time. Wales has no separate legal system, and, therefore, the requirements of Wales are not as extensive as those of Scotland, but the case for providing more time for the discussion of Welsh affairs in greater detail is, I think, unanswerable. The recommendation of the Committee may go far towards providing a solution to the problem.
This is the considered view of the Welsh Parliamentary Party, which contains Members from all three parties in the House. I think I should make the point that the Welsh Party cannot accept that a Welsh Standing Committee should replace or be a substitute for debates on the Floor of the House itself. The present Standing Order which enables a Welsh Grand Committee to be set up—Standing Order No. 58—would have to be amended or a new Standing Order passed. As at present constituted, the Committee may deal only with Bills which relate exclusively to Wales and Monmouthshire, and such Bills are very few and far between. I think it is right to say that in the last 30 years only one Bill has related specifically to Wales and Monmouthshire. In the Standing Committee, we should wish to deal with the more important and pressing of the subjects covered in the Government's annual White Paper on Welsh affairs.
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There are also the very important Reports which come from the Council for Wales and Monmouthshire. In 1956, they published a very important memorandum dealing with administrative devolution in Wales which has never been fully debated, and, as far as the Principality is concerned was a report of first-class importance. There are other reports as well, and one on the Welsh ports has never been discussed in the House. At present, the Council for Wales and Monmouthshire is inevstigating the entire field of tourism in Wales. Under present arrangements, when that Report comes to us, we shall have no opportunity of debating it at all, because we shall be told when we raise the matter on Business Questions on Thursdays that it is impossible to find time in which to discuss it. Many of these frustrations could be avoided by having a Welsh Standing Committee.
Mr. C. Pannell: My hon. Friend will appreciate that the Select Committee, in bringing forward a proposal for a Welsh Committee, did not mean to take any existing rights away from Wales. It was to supplement existing rights and to meet that very point. Perhaps my hon. Friend would like to consider whether, even if we have a Welsh Committee, it would not be better to take these particular subjects at the morning sittings of the House.
Mr. Hughes: I am much obliged to my hon. Friend. I listened carefully to what he had to say about morning sittings, but I feel that these Reports could well be dealt with in the debates in a Standing Committee. I am much obliged to him, and I appreciate that he has great sympathy with the Welsh position. The hon. Members from the Principality gave this very careful consideration, and concluded that these matters could be dealt with in the Standing Committee, but that that should not be a substitute for a debate on the Floor of the House itself.
Although there are no Welsh Estimates, as there are Scottish Estimates, it is nevertheless possible to extract figures of Welsh expenditure from certain Departments, and these would give the debates on certain subjects added effectiveness and importance. For example, in the Standing Committee, it would be possible to have rewarding debates on

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health, housing, local government, agriculture and education.
As to the composition of the Welsh Standing Committee, this is something that will have to be considered very carefully—whether it should be composed exclusively of hon. Members from Wales, or whether other hon. Members should be added, as in the case of the Scottish Grand Committee, so that it might reflect the state of the parties on the Floor of the House. This will depend on the functions that would be allotted to a Welsh Standing Committee. I personally tend to the opinion that we should conform to the Scottish model on the ground that to be fully effective we should be able to vote on Estimates. However, these are matters which hon. Members from Wales are now considering. I hope the HOUSE recognises the need for something to be done to make discussion and debate on Welsh affairs more effective. The recommendation for a Standing Committee is, I think, a modest and practical one, and I hope that it will be accepted by the Government and by hon. Members of all parties.
7.50 p.m.
Mr. Philip Goodhart: I am very sorry that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) threw his great weight against the suggestion put forward by the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) that there should be a period set aside in important debates for five-minute speeches. I believe that that was, perhaps, the most imaginative proposal made to the Select Committee during its sittings.
During the past week, I have been carrying our some small experiments. I have been reading aloud the first leading articles in The Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Manchester Guardian. It has been suggested that short speeches would necessarily be speeches of little weight. I find that these first leading articles can be read aloud, without haste, in three or four minutes each.
On Friday, there was in The Times a first leading article of exceptional length on the "fission" troubles among right hon. and hon. Members opposite. I read this article to my secretary. When she had recovered, she told me that I had taken five and a half minutes. Every time
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The Times put "T. & G.W.U.", I read "Transport and General Workers' Union". Perhaps, if I had used the shortened form, I could have been within the five minutes. I certainly hope that the House will give sympathetic consideration to the proposal which has been advanced.
I myself am a prentice Member, and I do not object to the procedure which I find exists here. Such malaise as I have as a back bencher comes from the extreme power which the Executive wields within the House. I think, that many people outside believe that the Executive wields too much power within the House. Therefore, it seems a little odd that the Select Committee should seek ways to facilitate the business of the Executive because this, surely, would increase the power of the Executive as opposed to the ordinary bencher.
I myself would favour making legislation yet more difficult rather than making it easier for the Executive to pass such Bills as it wants. How will the Executive use the spare time which is made available to it? In paragraph 25, the Select Committee expresses the hope that the time will not be usurped, but this is surely a pious hope. What has happened this year? We have had a very short Finance Bill. We could not hope for a shorter one on the Floor of the House if the full recommendations of the Select Committee were taken up. Have we had more general debates on, for instance, the Report of the Royal Commission on Inland Waterways, or on Welsh affairs? Certainly not. We shall go home a week earlier than usual; the Whips will want to get us away, and quite rightly so.
If we are to curb the Executive and increase the power of the back bencher, we should look to the ordinary Adjournment debate. From the short experience I have had, it seems to me that a regular Adjournment debate concentrates the mind of junior Ministers just as the prospect of hanging is supposed to concentrate the mind of the criminal. I should like to see an increase in the number of regular Adjournment debates we have in the House. I see no reason why we should go home at 4 o'clock on a Friday. Let us have some Adjournment debates after 4 o'clock on Fridays, until,

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say 6, 7, or 8 o'clock. The inconvenience of the time would, I think, ensure that we should not be likely to have irrelevant Motions discussed.
Again, on the days set aside for Private Members' Motions, we have at the moment a rather diffuse debate. I should like to see at least part of the time given over to the sort of Adjournment procedure which we have on the days immediately preceding our rising for Recess. This would lead to a much sharper and tighter debate. Perhaps what I suggest would increase the burden on junior Ministers. That might well be so. We could use the occasion as an excuse for paying them more, because I believe that they certainly deserve an increase.
7.56 p.m.
Mr. George Darling: I was surprised at the suggestion which the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) made about extending our hours of work, so to speak, on Fridays. He should have explained to us very carefully where his constituency and his home are located before making a proposal of that kind. Such an arrangement, of course, would press very heavily on Members who live in the North of England, in Scotland, in Northern Ireland and other distant parts.
If I may say so, instead of making a comparison between a five-minute speech here and a leading article in The Times, since the words have to be spoken, the hon. Gentleman should have directed his comparison to a radio or television news bulletin. It is worth while pointing out that the B.B.C. 9 o'clock news bulletin, on which I used to work at one time, covers the whole of the news of the world in 13½ minutes. I regard that as a salutary thought to bear in mind as we discuss the length of our speeches here.
One proposal about the length of speeches which might well be borne in mind is this. If we could become accustomed to announce, as soon as we rise to speak, how long we intend to take or at what time we propose to sit down, you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, would be in a position to say to any hon. Member who overstepped his time that he was, in fact, overstepping it. Any hon. Member—I mean, of course, a back bencher—who rose and announced that he intended to speak for half an hour would receive at
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least some murmurs of disapproval which might deter him from making the suggestion again. I propose to follow my own precept. I shall certainly sit down before a quarter past eight.
I wish to follow the point about proxy voting and pairing to which several hon. Members have referred. It is now generally agreed that any right hon. or hon. Member who is sick should automatically be paired without any trouble whatever. All talk about doctors' notes and things of that kind is completely undignified. If a person is sick, then, obviously, he should be paired. Also. Ministers and Opposition Front Benchers, and any hon. Members who are on delegations or engaged in work away from the House which is obviously important, should automatically be paired. They ought not to be dragged here to vote when they are probably doing work which is far more important than voting in the Lobbies here. I should certainly apply that to Ministers and to Parliamentary Secretaries when they are engaged on Government business. They should automatically be paired and should not have to go through the undignified business of going round the House begging hon. Members to pair them so that they can be away on Government business. I think that that is altogether wrong.
The Leader of the House suggested that hon. Members could make their contributions here without a great deal of alteration to our present methods and procedure. I think that he suggested that there are plenty of opportunities for Members to make speeches and to take part in the work of the House. That was more or less echoed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison), another member of the "Leaders of the House Trade Union". The point that they are making is that there are plenty of opportunities for us to take part in the business which they, as Leaders of the House, bring forward, but there are many other things which hon. Members on both sides want to bring forward which are not within their terms of reference, so to speak.
Let me give a current example. We know that the British Transport Commission has presented a Report to the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation

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about the reappraisal of the modernisation plan for the railways. That Report should be discussed. It is absolutely essential, in my view, that it should be discussed before the Summer Recess, but I am confident that if the Government can avoid a discussion of that Report they will do everything that they can to do so. I do not think that it is in the public interest that that Report should be avoided and I think, therefore, that we must have some kind of procedure by which matters which are not very favourable to the Government, and which may not have the approval of the Government, can be discussed.
When considering how we can extend the range of our business without extending the hours of work one comes up against an arithmetical problem. I have some figures which rather startled me when I worked them out. If Standing Committees are excluded, the Parliamentary time that we spend in this House from 2.30 until whatever time we have the Adjournment on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and from 11 o'clock to 4.30 on Fridays amounts to 1,200 hours a year. If we assume that Ministers and members of the Opposition Front Bench take up one-third of that time, we find that if the rest is divided among 500 back bench Members on both sides, we each get one and a half hours per year to make a contribution to the affairs of the nation, either in speeches or at Question Time. Obviously, many of us speak for more than one and a half hours a year, which means that other Members do not speak at all. It may be that there are reasons which inhibit them from speaking, but it is, at any rate, a startling fact.
If we are to take greater opportunities to raise issues which are not raised now—I think that there is a general desire among hon. Members on both sides that that should happen—we must extend the opportunities within the present 1,200 hours. In other words, some work must be done simultaneously. There is no other arithmetical way of doing it. It is not possible to put more than a quart into a quart pot.
We must, therefore, look more carefully at the general proposal for setting up Committees for discussion and not for taking decisions. The Select Committee
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has put forward a proposal for a specialist or special Committee on colonial affairs.
Mr. C. Pannell: The Select Committee rejected it.
Mr. Darling: I am sorry. The proposition that was put to the Select Committee was for a special Committee on colonial affairs. I agree with some hon. Members who suggest that that is probably the last Committee that should be set up. Colonial affairs are so important at present that they ought to remain on the Floor of the House if possible. There is, however, a wide range of subjects which, because of our present procedure, are not discussed but which should be discussed. Some others are discussed at a rather late hour when discussion is possible—for instance, the reports of the nationalised industries.
I am sure that every hon. Member interested in fuel and power and transport problems would agree that the reports and accounts of the nationalised industries are never adequately discussed. Obviously, the coal, gas, electricity and nuclear power industries should be discussed together. They should not be discussed in watertight compartments. If time were provided for adequate discussion of these matters, the specialists in them would turn up. There would be only about 20 Members on each side to discuss these matters. I see no reason why those 40 Members, instead of being here, should not be moved into a Committee room for their discussion, which could go on for a long time, for days if they wished.
The Committee work must be fitted into the general procedure of the House. My suggestion is that if discussion Committees are set up they should meet on Mondays. As they would be Committees for discussion and not for the purpose of making decisions their membership should not be restricted and hon. Members should be able to take part in more than one of the Committees to make their contributions. They must indicate the Committee in which they want to speak for the purpose of each day's discussion, but the number of Committees in which Members would be interested would be limited. For instance, I am not greatly interested in foreign affairs. I should not want to be

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a member of a Committee dealing with foreign affairs, or of a Committee dealing with education or local government. I am interested in trade and industry and labour questions. I would be perfectly happy to specialise in two or three subjects or even in one if there were only one Committee covering the whole of them.
If every Monday during the period of the sittings of the House were devoted to this kind of Committee work, and the House did not meet on Mondays but used Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays for discussion of public affairs, for main debates and for the Second Reading and Report stages of Bills, we would have far better debates and we would be able to pursue our specialist interests in the various Committees set up which, as I have said, would meet simultaneously on Mondays.
I am opposed to the idea of morning sittings. I would willingly agree to an alteration of the hours of the House so that I came here at 11 o'clock in the morning and went home at 7 o'clock in the evening—that would be a more civilised way of carrying out our business—but so long as we meet at 2.30 in the afternoon and continue until 10.30 I do not think that morning sittings, for reasons which have been given and which I will not repeat, would be satisfactory. Whatever we do about the idea of having more Committees—the idea will certainly grow—the pressure is becoming more powerful, and I think that, whether it is to be in a short or long time, we shall have some kind of Committee system for discussing matters with which Parliament should deal.
But we must first tackle the accommodation problem. This was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell). We have only three Committee rooms in this building in which that kind of Committee work can be conducted, and if the Scottish Grand Committee, the Welsh Committee and the colonial Committee met at the same time, and we wanted Committee rooms for Standing Committees or any other purpose, they are not there. The public should be aware of the physical difficulties under which hon. Members have to work. It is shocking and disgraceful that this Parliament of ours is so ill-equipped for the work that we have to do.
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Not only do we need more Committee rooms, but we need far better accommodation for Members of Parliament. There should be at least a separate desk and filing system for each hon. Member. Also, the services to Members of Parliament are not good enough. It is disgraceful that when we set up a Standing Committee to deal with an important piece of legislation we ask each Member of that Committee to do his own ferreting for documents, for background information, for everything relevant to the job that he has to do. It is really contemptible that in the middle of the twentieth century, in this great country, Members of Parliament are not even provided with a service giving them documents for their work. I hope, therefore, that as we deal with the question of procedure, we shall deal with these questions, also.
Members of Standing Committees should be presented with all the relevant documents before they go into the Committee room. Not only that, but if we are to have specialist Committees for the discussion of important matters with which we must deal, and which to some extent we ignore these days, hon. Members should have a greatly improved Library service, with all the background information needed. There is no other Parliamentary system in the Western world that treats its members of Parliament so shabbily and so meanly as we are treated. We ought to protest about it, and I am doing my best to protest now. So, in our discussions on procedure, whatever emerges, we should get the better services for which I am asking.
You will see, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that having promised to sit down before 8.15, I now proceed to carry out my promise.
8.10 p.m.
Mr. John Hall: I am so surprised at being called, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that I have risen without my notes.
The debate today is a first-class example of some of the things which perplex and worry back benchers. I have been keeping a running score as the debate has continued. I am the fifteenth speaker to rise today. We have had the two opening speakers, we have had three Privy Councillors, we have had one

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Chairman of a Select Committee and one member of a Select Committee, and we have had eight back benchers without influence, including myself. Perhaps I ought to say seven, because I gathered from the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Bowles) that he knew whether he would be called or not, and presumably he has an influence denied to others. That brings me to the question of difficulty in getting into a debate, which was brought out so well by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling). It is a difficult and frustrating experience for hon. Members to sit for debate after debate, as they so often do, having composed in the small hours of the morning a masterpiece of a speech, and then having to leave the Chamber with it undelivered.
That is one of the reasons why so many hon. Members do not speak today, because they know it is a sheer waste of time to come here and try to do so. It is possibly the fault of the back benchers themselves, including myself. Perhaps we have not got the right personality and so are not called as often as other back benchers whose names I should not mention. Perhaps our approach is wrong. Perhaps we speak badly and bore the House, and the Speaker is well aware of it—though I cannot think that is the reason when I reflect on some of the debates we have had. There may be reasons of that kind, but the fact remains that there is not as much opportunity to speak in the House as our constituents think there is, and so they wonder, therefore, why we are so silent.
As the Leader of the House said, the Report we are discussing is hardly revolutionary in character. It made 37 recommendations, and we shall be lucky if we get 7 accepted and acted on. I confess that the Committee faced a difficult task. The members of the Committee faced it with a certain amount of skill and ingenuity, but they were attempting almost the impossible. We must start with the accepted conclusion—at any rate accepted by people outside the House—that all Members of Parliament are insane. If one comes into the House knowing the conditions that will be found when one gets here, one must be insane to start with. If, having got
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here and discovered the conditions, one remains, one is certainly insane. To set up a Committee to inquire into the conditions, therefore, is like asking the insane to make a report on insanity.
There are many people who find this procedure acceptable. Some hon. and right hon. Members have been here a long time and, as The Times said in an article on this problem a little while ago, if one stays here too long the siren of the House gets you and you are lost. I think that is true. After a time one begins to adapt oneself, certain parts of the brain die, and one does not notice the problems that perplexed one earlier.
The procedure satisfies the full-time Members of Parliament, of course. At this stage I want to say that I do not divide Members of Parliament into what have been described as first and second-class Members. It seems to me that those who serve full-time do so because, for one reason or another, they are free to do so, and those who can only come part-time complement the others, as they must and should.
I have often thought that the full-time Member had a great advantage over the part-time Member, and I envy his ability to be here all the time. In return, I give him credit for perhaps having given up so much time and having in all probability sacrificed other things in order to give that full-time service to the House. As I say, the procedure obviously satisfies the full-time Member and is not altogether unacceptable to the leaders of the parties. Whatever may be said in debates, it gives a magnificent opportunity for delaying legislation which a party may not like and the machinery of the House enables it to check and to counter-check. Any Government in power remembers that one day it may be in Opposition and may wish to have the same opportunity for checking and delaying. There are many people in the House who find that the increasing demands made by the growing legislation with which we have to deal, the increasing demands made on them by their constituencies—especially marginal constituencies—which takes all their spare time, such as it is, and also the demand on their pockets, if they are people who have to earn a livelihood, is proving too much for them.

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Having said all that, there are still many hon. Members who would be prepared to accept the sacrifices which everybody knows life in the House of Commons imposes on us if they felt they were making a really constructive contribution to the work of the House. We have already heard from many speakers that the opportunity to take part in debates on the Floor of the House is limited, particularly in the great debates. There is more opportunity in the Committee stages. Therefore we must look round for other opportunities to serve, and we must ask ourselves what is really the purpose of Parliament.
In February this year there was a debate on the Third Programme of the B.B.C. in which several people took part, including my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell). I was interested to hear him say that the purpose of Parliament was to criticise, criticise, criticise. If that were true it would mean that Government back benchers would spend the whole of a Parliament absolutely silent, but I do not believe that to be true. I believe that hon. Members should be able to exercise influence in shaping and directing legislation both before it reaches the Floor of the House and during its progress, and should be given an opportunity for so doing.
What is happening too much today is that controversial matters are being taken off the Floor of the House altogether and debated outside in the party Committee Rooms, so that on the Floor of the House, especially these days when the majorities are fairly narrow, one can stage the set-piece debates and maintain a fairly united front. I think that this will weaken the House in the end.
This arises largely from the tradition, which has sprung up only in comparatively recent years, that it is fatal for a Government to be defeated. I believe that to be wrong. It is only in the last seventy years probably that that tradition has developed. In past centuries Governments could be defeated and did not mind two hoots. As long as they kept the main confidence of their supporters in the things that really mattered they went on. But now we cannot defeat the Government even on apparently small issues on Amendments. That
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applies particularly to the Finance Bill, when hon. Members on the Government side table Amendments and may wish to take them to a vote against their own side. But the Whips say "You cannot do that. Think of the effect that it will have on the prestige of the Government if you carry the Amendment to a Division and the Government are defeated." We must get away from this. If we do, we can restore to our debates some of the vitality and vigour which has been lacking for a long time.
What is the position? Let us take Ministers first. I want to deal not with the recommendations of the Select Committee, but with the recommendation that it decided not to make. What is the position of Ministers in the House today? Most people will realise that Ministers are over-burdened with work. One of the great tragedies of our system is that Ministers do not have time to think but are overwhelmed with day-to-day details. Their job should be to think forward and plan ahead, and they should have time to sit back and reflect where they are going; but they have not time to do this. Our system makes it worse for them, unless their Parliamentary Private Secretary is fortunate in getting a plentiful supply of pairs for them. I speak as a Parliamentary Private Secretary, and I know how difficult it is to get pairs. I cannot get pairs for myself, much less for my Minister. Unless the Parliamentary Private Secretary is able to do that, the Minister has to be here very often into the early hours of the morning merely to trudge through the Division Lobby, when no one in his senses would think that he would ever vote against the Government. That must be nonsense.
As the hon. Member for Hillsborough said, Ministers ought to be able to get away from the House unless it is absolutely essential for them to be present. I do not know whether the hon. Member was referring to pairs or proxies. If he meant that Ministers and all sick hon. Members should have pairs, that reduces the number of pairs available for other hon. Members.
That brings me to the subject of proxies. There is a great deal of prejudice against the idea of a proxy vote. When I read paragraph 37 of the Report of the Select Committee I first got the

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impression that the whole question of proxy voting had been thoroughly discussed and thrashed out, that the arguments for and against had been examined and that the Committee had arrived at the conclusion that proxy voting was not on. But that is not so. When we read the evidence we find that there were nine oral witnesses, and of these five were against proxy voting. Of these, only one gave a real reason—that was the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison)—and four others merely made the flat-footed statement that they did not like proxy voting. When he was asked about it the Opposition Chief Whip said.
"Proxy voting I do not like, and I would not like to alter our division system. It is part of our tradition and something rather wonderful."
When we consider what we do, are we really so sure that our Division system is so wonderful? The theory is, I suppose, that we listen to debates or, if we are not listening to debates, we are picking up our information by talking to our colleagues outside, and that we make up our minds on the argument deployed on the Floor of the House and go and vote. We know that that is complete nonsense. When I first entered the House I had an idea that something like that really happened. I have become insane since. I remember one occasion when I did not know what we were voting about, and I asked a colleague in the Division Lobby what it was. There was a moment's hushed silence, and then he said "Old boy, why are you asking? You are in the right Lobby."
What we have done in effect is this. We have said that on the main issues of party principle and party policy we agree with our party and on matters of detail, especially on a number of technical Bills or other Bills on which we could have no detailed knowledge and understanding, we have to accept guidance from those who are experts. Therefore, what we have done, especially in Committee stages on the Floor of the House, is to give our vote to the Whips—it is nothing more nor less than that—but instead of them marking it off the register for us, we go through the Division Lobby and deliver it for ourselves.
I have yet to hear a really logical reason why proxy votes cannot be used,
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except the fact that that system used in France and, therefore, must be wrong. There is some idea that if we introduced it here the Chamber would be empty and hon. Members would never be here. Is that really true?
Let us also consider the question of the count. One of the suggestions made in the Report of the Select Committee is that we should increase the time given to hon. Members to reach the Chamber when a count is called from two minutes to four minutes, so that people like myself who are out of training do not have to puff up the stairs in a rather undignified way to get here and be counted as one of the forty. That is an excellent idea. But why do we have to have a quorum of that size? Are there forty hon. Members in the Chamber now? If any hon. Member called a count, I think there would be a little rush from somewhere. [HON. MEMBERS: "Call one."]
There are many cases when the number of Members in the Chamber is very small. There are many cases when the Bills discussed in this House have a very limited appeal to a few persons who have some technical knowledge about them. There are many occasions when from 3.30 onwards many hundreds of hon. Members are in the House with very little to do except to sit around waiting to go into the Division Lobby. It is said that hon. Members have other work to be done. That is true up to a certain hour of the evening. There are Committees and various other activities in which hon. Members indulge as part of their work in the House. There are constituents to be seen, and so on. But at a certain hour in the evening there is less and less to do and there is less and less physical energy with which to do it.
The right hon. Member for Lewisham, South pointed out in his evidence to the Select Committee that there is a peculiar atmosphere about the House which makes it very difficult to work and to concentrate on things which an hon. Member may bring along with him to do when he has no particular political work to do or nothing to do in the Chamber. That is true. If one is sitting here from the late evening to the early hours of the morning just waiting for the House to divide one can do very little that is useful. That seems to me to be both rotting and frustrating to most Members of Parliament.

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I cannot understand why an hon. Member should not be able to give his proxy vote to his Whip. It could be registered as a proxy vote in HANSARD the following day so that people could see how often the hon. Member voted by proxy. I do not see why an hon. Member should not be able to go home or go and do something far more useful than just sitting in the Smoking Room where he probably drinks too much, eating the rather indigestible food in the Tea Rooms or just drinking too much tea, or just sitting about here. There are many occasions when Members would be much more profitably employed outside the House than in it.
There would be many opportunities for Members to visit industrial or Government installations, many opportunities which Members might have to travel about and gain for themselves additional information which would add to their value as Members of the House. They are not able to do so now because of this extraordinary conception that a Member can be absent only by means of a pair and that proxy voting is somehow immoral or shows that one is not doing one's duty.
With the good example set, by the last two speakers, anyhow, I shall not continue for very long, but there is one other point which I want to make before concluding. I was interested to see in paragraph 80 on page 18 of his memorandum, which has been spoken of with some praise, the Clerk of the House referred to the possibility of setting up certain types of special Committee, of which he quoted a defence Committee as being a very good example. I think that it is the experience of all hon. Members that when we come to discuss Service Estimates and Service matters the tendency is to have a discussion on policy. The general terms of the debate range over the world-wide strategy of the Government in power at the time, so that the opportunity to get down to a detailed examination of the Service Estimates is very limited, and vast sums of money are voted without proper consideration.
This type of special Committee seems to provide an opportunity to debate those Estimates in detail without taking anything from the authority of the House, because the authority of the
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House must be paramount in the end. Reports of these Committees must come here for consideration, and the job of the Committees would be to draw the attention of the House to any special factors about which they thought that the House should know. We already have Select Committees on Public Accounts and on Estimates which do something rather similar. I see nothing wrong in that recommendation. It has the one great advantage that it is one of the ways by which some Members would be given an opportunity to do something constructive.
To sum up my feelings about our procedure; the procedure of the House should be for the Member and not the Member for the procedure. If we are to make a constructive contribution and lead the kind of life which will encourage first-class candidates to present themselves for election in future—and it is from the membership of the House that we have to draw a Government responsible for ruling a very great country—those candidates must not feel completely frustrated and become embittered when they come here through their inability to do any worthwhile public service in the House. At the moment they can do a great deal more public service by staying out of the House, because there is more opportunity for doing it. Here they will be hamstrung and restricted by one thing or another.
I hope that the recommendations advanced by the Select Committee will be accepted, although I am not very happy that many of them will be. I could go on at far greater length, but I know that other hon. Members wish to speak. I commend to the House and to the Leader of the House all the recommendations which have been made so far, but I hope that they will not stop at that.
8.32 p.m.
Mr. Clement Davies: It is always a pleasure to listen to the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall), but he has never given me greater pleasure than with the vigorous and effective speech which he has just made and in which he rightly called attention to so many defects and deficiencies with which the Select Committee did not deal as fully as one would have liked.
The purpose which we all have in mind is to make the procedure of the House more effective and to enable us

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to get through our business more efficiently and more expeditiously. That has been the aim of all of us, and rightly so, because the House occupies a unique position in the democratic world. Not only does it have our deep respect, affection and admiration, but it has the respect and admiration of all democratic countries. They have mainly patterned themselves on our forms and our procedure, and our methods of election. This House has largely been their guide.
Even if we adopt every one of the Select Committee's proposals and even all those which were not adopted by the majority of the Committee, we shall be only touching the fringe of the problem. It goes far deeper than that. This is not the moment when we should enter into it in great detail, but I wish to draw the attention of the House to the matter.
This House is much the same as it was in 1832. The rules under which we are working have been in existence since the 'eighties. Yet we have passed through the greatest revolution the world has ever known, and certainly the greatest revolution which ever occurred in this country occurred during the last fifty years. But the House is expected to deal with all the matters with which it is confronted today with the same expedition and efficiency that the old House was called upon to deal with far fewer matters
The hon. Member for Wycombe rightly called attention to the position of Ministers, which has altered out of all knowledge in the last fifty years. Some Ministers whose posts which were the most important in the Cabinets of fifty years ago are no longer in the Cabinet—posts which were highly thought of and much sought after. There was the Secretary of State for War and the First Lord of the Admiralty as well as the Lord Privy Seal, which position today is combined by the right hon. Gentleman with his duties as Secretary of State for the Home Department and the Leader of the House. On the other hand, offices which, sixty or seventy years ago, were scarcely of Cabinet rank, and considered rather inferior positions, are today regarded as some of the most vital positions in the Government.
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For example, the President of the Board of Trade not only had the duties which are cast on the Board of Trade today, but he did the work which is now done at the Ministry of Supply, the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation and the Ministry of Power. Yet the President of the Board of Trade was regarded as an inferior Minister and was paid only £2,000 compared with the £5,000 paid to the First Lord of the Admiralty. Very often the President of the Local Government Board—now represented by two Ministers, one in the Cabinet and one not—was rarely in the Cabinet at all.
That change has been recognised in the Cabinet and in the Government, but this House has to go on in the same way. Therefore, the question arises: is the House, as at present constituted, capable of carrying out effectively the duties which it undertakes, and, at the same time, as responsible to the people as any democratic House has ever been? The time has come when all these matters should be given the greatest consideration.
The hon. Member for Wycombe referred to overworked Ministers. Consider the change in the position of the Foreign Secretary. In the old days the Foreign Secretary never left Downing Street. He was always the one who answered all the Questions on foreign affairs. An Under-Secretary was never allowed to answer them, because the matter was much too important. The office of Minister of State had not been created. I do not know how much time the present Foreign Secretary has spent out of this country this year, but I do know, as we were told when we were asked to sit as a small committee, that in 1957 the present Foreign Secretary spent 111 days out of the country. That is nearly half of his working time. Meanwhile, work piles up in his Department, awaiting his return.
In the old days the main work of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was the preparation of his Budget, beyond which he had very little to do. Now he has to pay attention to all kinds of international committees, such as G.A.T.T., and be prepared to take his part in negotiations with other countries, and so on, which necessitates his absence from the country. While that has been done with

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regard to the Government, the House of Commons continues to be much the same.
The change came about fifty years ago, when the Liberal Government began to establish what is very often referred to as the Welfare Society or the Welfare State, in which we are expected to take an interest in almost everything that happens to almost every individual throughout life, and not only to know what the requirements of our constituencies are on matters of general policy but to have a careful and detailed interest in everything else. My hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey (Mr. C. Hughes) mentioned that every year we are now presented with a Report on Wales dealing with 20 different subjects. Each of us has to familiarise himself with every one of those subjects and to account for his actions and views on them. It is beyond the capacity of any human being today to do it.
The hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) called attention, very rightly, to something I said I am sorry that I went out of the House just at that particular moment. I understand that he referred to a speech that I had made, in which I said that the House had not the advantage—I forget my actual words—of having in it the kind of men we used to have, men of the greatest distinction. I was referring particularly to the members of my own profession.
Mr. C. Pannell: I am sorry that I had to mention that in the absence of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I am not familiar with his place in the Chamber, but I did glance round to see whether he was there. The charge I made was that he said that since 1945 nobody of real achievement and distinction in any outside activity had gone into the Commons. I gave instances to the contrary.
Mr. Davies: That is a correct interpretation of what I said, but I was calling attention to my own profession. I remember when we used to have as Members of this House Sir Edward Carson, Sir Rufus Isaacs, Sir John Simon, Sir F. E. Smith, Sir Douglas Hogg, and others. They were the busiest members of the Bar, men who were the envy of all in their profession. The busiest members of the Bar are not here now, and the House is the poorer for it. I
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hope that it will appeal to the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) when I say that I remember only one scientist in the House, and that was the former Member for Cambridge University.
The House ought to have the advice of the finest brains in the country, but it is impossible for men like that to carry on their ordinary work and also to give to the House all the attention that would be necessary. I agree with the hon. Member for Leeds, West, that the House should take first place, but when sincere and conscientious men came here they would say, "How can I possibly come into this House? I should like to take part, but it means that I have to cut myself off from almost everything else How long will I be there?"
A young man in his early twenties or thirties would have to ask whether he had to abandon such a career as he wanted to make for his own independence. He might be here for only a short while and then be out at the next General Election. It is matters of that kind that influence men. I mentioned, at the same time, remembering two of the biggest leaders of industry in the country at the time, Sir William Hesketh Lever and Sir Alfred Mond, being Members of this House. Where are the leaders of industry, those who have been so often attacked? I should like to see them here, answering for themselves.
I should like to see leaders of the trade union movement here. I recalled that if the country had not had the benefit of the membership of the late Ernest Bevin what a loss that would have been, not only for the country but for the world. I should like to see Mr. Cousins, or Sir Thomas Williamson—who was here for only a short while—in this House, and many others. The House ought to have the finest brains, wherever they come from. I quite agree that every walk of life ought to be represented in this House. It ought to be a picture of the country itself.
What can be done? The House cannot possibly do all the work which is now thrust upon it. We have the very good example of Northern Ireland. How much time is spent on matters relating to Scotland? I agree that there is a day for Welsh affairs, but there is not day for discussion of Northern Ireland. All

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matters with reference to roads, education and health in Northern Ireland are dealt with by the Northern Ireland Parliament and this House is relieved of them.
How many hon. Members have called attention to the fact that there are so many subjects we cannot find time to debate today? The hon. Member for Wycombe mentioned some of them and the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) mentioned others. I have not yet heard a debate on one of the most serious matters which concerns not only us, but future generations, our attitude to the 600 million people in China. That is a problem with which the coming generation will be faced. There is also our attitude towards Asia and Africa generally and innumerable other questions upon which this House is lamentably silent.
Anxious as one is for democracy, we have to realise that democracy today is fighting for its very life, fighting much more than it was when I was young, fifty years ago. It is passing through a testing time. Parliaments have been created on the pattern of this Parliament—created within the period, 1945–59, the last fourteen years—and they have not proved effective for the purpose for which they were created, so an army has taken charge.
We set up a Parliament for Pakistan and an army has taken charge. We set up one for Burma, and an army has taken charge. We set up one for the Sudan, and an army has taken charge. It is time we looked more deeply into the position and tried to make this House not only effective, but also the admiration of everyone, attracting to it the finest characters and brains the country can produce, so that, once again, we can set an example to the democratic and non-democratic world. So, while I say nothing about all that is contained in this Report, supposing all of it were carried out, it would not achieve the purpose for which it is designed.
8.49 p.m.
Sir Hendrie Oakshott: I should like, in the very few minutes that I intend to detain the House, to go back to the speech of the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison). I hope that neither the right hon. Member
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nor the House will think it impertinent if, as a back bencher with a Parliamentary life very much shorter than his, I venture to pay a tribute not only to the speech he made today—with which, with one exception which I shall mention in a moment, I found myself in almost complete agreement—but a tribute much more than that, to a great House of Commons man.
The right hon. Gentleman recently announced his intention of not contesting his seat again after the end of the present Parliament. With all the accumulated knowledge and experience which the right hon. Gentleman possesses, this House can ill afford to lose his services, and he will be greatly missed. I remember him when we were in opposition and he was Leader of the House, and I recall the very artistic way in which he used to stonewall the bowling and the engaging way in which he would always suggest that any subject which we urged for debate could obviously be debated on one of our own Supply Days. I hope that it is not out of place if I, as a back bencher, say that many of us feel that the House will be the poorer without the right hon. Gentleman's presence in it.
There are two points which have arisen in the debate which much attract me, one mentioned in the Select Committee's Report and the other not mentioned. The first is the question of a possible timetable for the Committee stage of Bills. It seems to me that there is a great deal to be said for the idea of a permanent standing Business Committee of the House, with hon. Members from both sides added in respect of particular Bills, to try to determine the timetable within which the Committee stage of a Bill could be handled.
There is the difficulty of using time to debate the timetable, but it seems to me that if the Business Committee reached agreement on a voluntary timetable, as I am sure it could in many cases, with the cachet of an official Committee of the House behind it, it would not be very often that the House wanted to debate the timetable. If the Committee were unanimous, I believe that the timetable would generally be found acceptable to the House without further debate. It is an attractive idea and I think that we should find that time would be saved by it.

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The other idea, which is not in the Report, was adumbrated this afternoon by my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton). It is that too infrequently are the Reports of important Select Committees of the House debated. He suggested that it might be possible for two Supply Days in the year to be given to debates on these Reports. I fully realise that this could be done only by agreement between the two Front Benches, through the usual channels, but it is desirable, and I think that it is an extremely good idea which is well worth pursuing.
I have little else to say about the Report. I will, however, mention the matter in which I find myself in disagreement with the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South. It concerns the Committee stage of the Finance Bill. He himself, certainly in a different context, said that the real authority of the House rests on the Floor of the House. When we are dealing with a Bill which affects the raising of revenue, taxation and the expenditure of the nation's revenue, it seems to me that as individual Members we cannot divorce ourselves from our responsibilities. It would seem entirely wrong to me for the Finance Bill to be taken upstairs and entirely impracticable to try to break it into two or more parts.
I do not like the idea of specialist Committees, which many hon. Members have mentioned, for they smack to me far too much of the continental system. I do not suggest that it is necessarily wrong just because it is continental, but many hon. Members like myself on both sides of the House have had experience in the various Assemblies of Europe in the last ten years of the continental committee system, and I cannot believe that it is what we want here. I repeat what was said by the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South: the repository of authority is the Floor of the House of Commons, and we cannot take these great subjects and hand them over to some specialist Committees upstairs.
The Select Committee made certain recommendations about the use of Standing Order No. 9, one of which was that a decision on the importance of a subject should be left to the House. It is a very onerous duty on Mr. Speaker, and very hard luck on him, but I cannot accept the recommendations of the
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Select Committee. I believe that, however hard it may be, the responsibility for that decision must rest upon Mr. Speaker and upon no one else.
Having tried to study both the Blue Book and the Report itself with as much care as I can, I am impressed by the splendid work which my right hon. Friend the Chairman of the Select Committee and all his colleagues on both sides of the House have done. I believe that they have done all of us in the House a great service. It has let a little air into some of our procedure, and I personally should like to express my warm gratitude for what they have done.
8.57 p.m.
Mr. M. Philips Price: I hope that the hon. Member for Bebington (Sir H. Oakshott) will forgive me if I do not follow immediately what he has just said in his interesting speech, but I hope to touch on some of the points that he made in the course of my remarks.
I cannot take the pessimistic view which some hon. Members on both sides of the House have taken about the procedure of this House and the way in which it conducts its business. Looking back over 26 years, I do not feel that there is any serious deterioration in the methods by which this great House conducts its business or in the relations between Members of the House, with the possible exception of the vexed question of the rights of Privy Councillors, which, I think, has become rather more serious than when I first came into the House. I do not remember back benchers getting squeezed out quite as much then as they are now by Privy Councillors. That is the only thing in which there has been deterioration.
On the other hand, I feel the greater complexity of our industrial civilisation in this scientific age has brought it about that the business of this House is increasingly cluttered up with all sorts of business which are matters of detail—important it is true—but not matters of first principle. I have seen that happening. I think that our task is to see if we cannot do something to stop this cluttering up. I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bebington who has just spoken about this because I think that the Finance Bill is

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a case where that might possibly be dealt with in this way.
I think that there is a case for sending not all but part of the Finance Bill to Standing Committee, although I recognise that it would be to some extent a breach of tradition that all Members of this House are responsible for the taxation levied upon their electors. However, if the Report stage and all new Clauses were taken on the Floor of the House it would safeguard that condition to a great extent. Possibly, technical Clauses could be put in a separate Bill and sent to a Standing Committee. Even if the House could not accept the whole of the Finance Bill being treated in that way, surely technical Clauses that do not arouse deep emotions could be so treated. I know that it would be difficult, but we should try to do it—
Sir J. Duncan: I am sure the hon. Gentleman realises that the powers of selection of the Chairman of a Standing Committee are far less than those that apply on the Floor of the House. Therefore, were the Finance Bill to be sent to a Standing Committee it would take far longer.
Mr. Price: I quite recognise that. I know that there are great difficulties, but I believe that it could be done. In the Finance Bill with which we have just dealt there were a number of Clauses about which only taxation experts or lawyers could speak with any degree of knowledge. While those Clauses were being discussed there were hardly any Members present. For instance, nobody but the experts understand the subject of death duties on life policies. On the other hand, a lot of Members were present during the discussion on the taxation of cinemas.
I therefore feel that certain new Clauses might be selected and sent to Standing Committee, there to be dealt with by the experts, while those new Clauses likely to arouse emotions and dealing with first principle issues might be kept for debate in the Chamber. That seems to be one way in which the House might save some time and so make it possible for other, and very important, issues to be discussed in this Chamber. They could be discussed in Adjournment debates. The present practice of
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Adjournment debates coming on at ten o'clock at night or later is of very little use, but it does help.
Could we not get back, perhaps, to the private Members' day on Wednesdays? When I was first a Member we had Private Members' Motions on a Wednesday, and Bills, if I remember aright, on a Friday. So there does seem to be a way, if only we could get rid of much of the detail work which modern conditions are forcing on the House and making it difficult for it to discuss these other questions.
On the other hand, I am against specialist committees. That would be wrong, especially if a specialist Committee were set up on foreign affairs, colonial policy or the like. That would be particularly wrong, as it would tend to undermine the authority of the Executive, and control of the Executive is better exercised by this House than by a Standing Committee. If Members of a Standing Committee could get to know a number of things that other Members could not know, the delicate balance between the Executive and the legislature that we have developed throughout the centuries would be upset, and I could not agree with that.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) spoke of other countries where such is the practice, but other countries have histories different from ours. I daresay that there was a time—at the time of the Civil War and of the Commonwealth—when this House became a sort of Executive itself—
Sir Kenneth Pickthorn: A terrible failure.
Mr. Price: During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries we had this delicate balance that other countries had not. France's great revolution and the constitution that has followed has tended to tilt the balance in favour of the legislature against the Executive, and the result has been the dreadful situation in which France has found herself till the last twelve months. To some extent, the same is true of the United States. Here, we have this delicate balance, and I would be very chary of upsetting it.
I remember very well that I went to Persia in 1953 just after the fall of Mossadeq. I was the first Englishman to enter Persia legally. Two others

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entered illegally. I remember applying at the Persian Consulate at Bagdad for a visa. After a few days' consultation with Teheran I was informed that they would be very pleased to see me, but they asked me not to go as a Member of the House of Commons but as a journalist or writer. When I reached Teheran I understood that the reason was that, if I went as a Member of the House, some people would think that I had some official Government mission. They were quite oblivious of the fact that an M.P. cannot have executive power. Many people thought that as an M.P. I would have a Government mission. That shows how dangerous it is to argue that, because abroad they have this method of dealing with foreign Colonial affairs and defence, we should deal with them in the same way.
The danger is that the party machine tends to dominate our proceedings. This needs checking, but it can be done only by the individual Member who has sufficient character to express his own views. It cannot be done by rules and regulations. In these days of a mass electorate there must be pary machines. As much as I dislike them, party machines are necessary evils. They must make their influence felt, and their discipline must be exercised over us. If one is of sufficient character and has views, one can express them in the House, even if they do not always agree with the party machine. I have done that myself. There have been occasions on foreign issues when unfortunately I have had to disagree with some of my hon. Friends, but I have never felt any ill effects or consequences. It depends on the way in which it is done. It is important—the House of Commons must retain this right—that a Member of Parliament should be a representative and not a delegate, referring back to the famous speech of Burke.
I believe also that the House of Commons is still a place for part-time politicians. I shall be sorry to see it filled entirely by those who are entirely full time and professionals. There must be professional, full-time men—probably more so in the future than today—because the complexity of legislation is such that Bills cannot be steered through the House without a certain number, probably an increasing number, of hon. Members specialising in their work,
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speaking on it and giving indications to their side of what ought to be done, what should be voted on and how it should be dealt with. That cannot be helped. On the other hand, we must retain part-time Members, those who are Members of the House but are engaged also in the general affairs of the nation, with experience and knowledge of everyday life and its main problems. If we do that, we shall retain the traditions of this great House.
I expect that this will be the last time I shall have the honour of addressing the House. After twenty-six years in the House I have had the honour of watching certain changes taking place, but those changes have not been as great as some hon. Members on both sides have indicated that they desire. There are problems with which we must deal, and the main problem is to relieve the Floor of the House of much business which can be dealt with elsewhere, thereby giving the Floor of the House the opportunity to discuss vital and general principles.
9.10 p.m.
Sir Kenneth Pickthorn: It falls to me, after the last words from the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Philips Price), to express a kind of upside down congratulation upon the loss of maidenhead, to express the regret of his closer colleagues and, indeed, of all of us to hear his announcement. When he spoke of his detestation, I was not clear whether it was the party machine or of the electorate, but he detested one or other very much.
Mr. Philips Price: The machine.
Sir K. Pickthorn: I mean to be short in my remarks; I could wish to be long, but who am I to stand between the House and the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison)? I will be as short as I can, and I think I can be all the shorter because the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison), I am glad to see, has retained his place, and one of the things that I wish to say and which might have had less point were he not here, is that, on the whole, I agree with everything he said except one thing to which I shall return in a moment. Like all the rest of us, I enjoyed his speech and admired it; and, I hope like most of the rest of

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us, I agreed with all of it except one point.
My excuse for now addressing the House is that I want to say a word about that one point. Perhaps there is one other point that I might allow myself. That is that I believe, with respect to Mr. Speaker, to the Select Committee and to everybody here, that we have all said much too little today—and there is little time for me now to do it—about the growing and now flagrant, intolerable and odious abuse of supplementary questions in particular and of other conscious and deliberate breaches of order in general. We are very apt to flatter ourselves that we all understand each other very well, and that we all know ways of keeping the cads amongst us in order. The fact is that we do not. We are extremely bad at it.
People are a little apt nowadays to laugh at the old-fashioned business of "It is not done." The truth is that men can be governed only with sticks or with assumptions that this or that is not done, for instance, if there were enough of us who thought it an intolerable crime, much worse than cheating at cards, consciously to get one's word across by saying what one knew perfectly well would be at once perceived to be out of order; we should all place much more insistence upon that than we do; and, with all respect, I think that the Chair should be quite ruthless in rebuke and should always feel able to count upon the support of the House in that matter.
However, that is not really a sufficiently urgent and immediate point for me to trouble the House by speaking in this debate. I wish to speak on one other point, about the Finance Bill and sending part of it, or, at any rate, part of the Committee stage, to Standing Committee upstairs. I do not think that I should have pushed really hard for that if I had known that my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington (Sir H. Oakshott) was going to say what he did. But, on the whole, my impression is that of those recommendations or semi-recommendations of the Committee which have been discussed today, the one that has been least criticised or opposed was that one, among the more important ones.
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Since we are told that the object of this debate is that the Government may collect opinions, I wish to say that I, for one—I have no authority to speak for anybody else, although I believe that a good many others are of this opinion—am extremely dubious about that proposition. I will not now pause to argue my objection at length, but perhaps I may a little indicate some of it.
I remember that long ago, when the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South was giving evidence before the last Select Committee upon this topic, I examined him—if he will permit me to say so—I have not looked up the records, and I am speaking purely from memory—to get, as I thought, an admission that any Bill of any considerable constitutional content should always be taken on the Floor, and that any sufficiently generalised and widely operative economic change should be presumed in modern conditions to be constitutional, as, indeed, I think it is. I am not accusing the right hon. Gentleman, as I think he fears, of having gone back on that. All I am saying is that that was what I was trying to get him to say, what I thought I had got him to say, although he thought that I had not got him to say it.
Mr. H. Morrison: I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I think that he is mistaken. I think that he is right about matters of serious constitutional importance. There is no doubt about that. I take the same view. On the question of substantial economic change, for example, a series of Bills for transfers from private to public ownership, which I imagine were the ones in dispute, I was challenged across the Floor of the House to say whether it was not a constitutional change, and I said, "No, it is not. It is merely a question whether it is to be run by private capitalism, or run by the community in the interests of the people, and that is all. This is one method of conducting industry against another, and that is not a constitutional change". I stuck to that all the way through.
Sir K. Pickthorn: I was not trying to score off, or to use, the right hon. Gentleman, but I think that he has given me my case. [Laughter.] I do, indeed. It is very odd that those chaps who always say that politics is the mere shadow of economics, and that politics is not even the tail that the dog wags—

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but only the way in which the dog wags his tail—should not see that all their ancestors would have taken it for granted, that a general rule that no one should have a horse unless the king said he might, that that was a constitutional question if ever there were one, and so it is if one man wants to have 20 horses under the bonnet of a motor-car.
However, that was not the point which I was trying to discuss tonight. The point that I was trying to get established for the moment is that in a Finance Bill it is, first, very difficult to know what is of major constitutional importance. Secondly, I can hardly conceive how a Finance Bill now cannot contain constitutional importance. Nor can I see how any except the most expert people, on reading a Finance Bill, can say where are the points on which constitutional importance will arise.
The argument that most of us cannot understand most of the debates on Finance Bills is not an argument for keeping us out of the room, but an argument for having us in the room. when I have heard a Committee stage point on a Finance Bill well argued by an intelligent person on this side, and there have been some, sometimes, perhaps, and then by the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) on the other side, and no other, when I got away and cross-examined my expert friends outside, either in the City or in academe on the point, I have come back here and thought myself fit to put an argument on Report—though I have seldom or never done it, because there have been very many other people who wanted to do it—but the thing has an educative effect. It much more than doubles the safeguards against something of constitutional import getting by in a Finance Bill, far more than doubles the safeguards if we have a Committee stage and a Report stage than if we have only a Report stage.
There is a very great deal I should like to say, but I promised to be brief. That was the main point I wanted to make. I beg right hon. and hon. Members to believe that, even though I said it, it does deserve very deep consideration.
9.20 p.m.
Mr. Eric Fletcher: I promise to speak for only two minutes.
Sir K. Pickthorn: I should not have sat down if I had known the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) was going to speak. [Laughter.]
Mr. Fletcher: I wish to put one point very briefly for the consideration of the Leader of the House. The affairs of the House are governed, very largely, by convention. There has been a time-honoured convention which, I thought, was seriously broken one day last week. For a very long time, it has been a recognised rule of the House that a Count is not called during the half-hour Adjournment debate at the end of the day, to which private Members, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, attach very great importance.
One day last week, it so happened that I had the half-hour Adjournment debate. It came late at night. To my surprise, and, I am quite sure, equally to the surprise of the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, who had been waiting for a long time to reply, a Count was called by the hon. Member for Middleton and Prestwich (Sir J. Barlow) and, as a result, the Adjournment debate finished before I had an opportunity of finishing what I had to say or the Minister had an opportunity of replying. If this becomes the recognised practice, I am sure that it will constitute a very serious invasion of the rights of private Members. It could be put right only by a change in Standing Orders.
Having mentioned the matter, I hope that it will be given consideration. I bear no personal ill-will, because you have been good enough, Mr. Speaker, to give me the Adjournment for one day later this week, but this, in its turn, will rob some other hon. Member of a similar opportunity.
9.22 p.m.
Mr. G. R. Mitchison: I should find it impossible to reply to all the many points which have been made by hon. Members in the course of a particularly interesting debate, if, indeed, I were in a position to do so; but, of course, this is not a matter upon which, on our side of the House at any rate, we have any party line. It is a matter for individual judgment, and, therefore, I can do no more than express my own individual judgment and, so far as there

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has been a measure of agreement among us on this side, state that as a fact.
At the outset, I should like to mention two matters upon which I know I shall have the agreement of the whole House. First, I wish to join with those who have thanked the right hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. J. Stuart), who served as Chairman of the Committee, for the tact, the knowledge and the complete impartiality with which he conducted our proceedings and really helped us all very much indeed.
The second matter in which I know I shall have the whole House with me is this. Today is, I believe—I may be wrong—the first occasion on which my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) has spoken from this Box. I should like to say how much I and, I believe, the whole House enjoyed what he said, and how I, at any rate, felt, at the end of the day, that his speech was, set down in eighteenth-century terms, a fine balance of feeling and sense. It was, as hon. Members who listened to it may have noticed, a singularly well formed and well arranged speech, even if, with the eloquence of my hon. Friend, one did not always spot that as he went along. But it proved to be so.
It is quite obvious that, in one sense, the task of the Committee was impossible. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) pointed out, there are 630 Members of the House, and all of them, such is our nature, want to speak more often than the time available can allow. Whether he was right in his calculation of one-and-a-half hours a year, I am not in a position to check, but that, or something of that sort, represents the real difficulty. It is not merely a question of individual Members speaking; it seems to me to be the character of this House itself.
The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House was wise, if I may respectfully say so, to remind us of the struggle for power that goes on in this House, and that is, in a sense, the thing that appears throughout all our work. But that struggle for power does not merely take place on Second Readings of important Bills, debates on foreign affairs or important Supply Days. It runs through all our activities.
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I hope that the House will agree with me when I say that it is not, as one is led to think from some speeches, merely a struggle for power between Front Benches and back benches, but a struggle for power between two political parties and two different philosophies and different views of our duties and of the future. That runs through what I should describe as the three main almost technical fields in which we work.
The first is that we are a legislative assembly; the second, often separate from that, is the control which we have of finance; and the third, again, I would think, a separate function, is the redress of grievances, which takes many forms. It comes up at Question Time and in Adjournment debates when hon. Members raise constituency questions. All those aspects of our activities must be considered.
When we turn to discover what the Committee was considering, it was this. Here I quote from paragraph 4 of the Report:
"… that the House should be relieved of the pressure of detailed work and that more time should be afforded for general debates."
I think that that sentence came from a deep feeling among the members of the Committee, which was substantially a non-Ministerial Committee, leaving out the impartial Chairman. Only one member of the Committee had actually held office. All the others were back bench Members. One felt, as one has felt in this debate, that there was something very real here, but when one seeks to put a meaning to "general debates" it is not easy.
Does it mean debates on first-class matters conducted by back bench Members? They would be very good debates. I have spent far more of my time in this House on the back benches than in the temporary appearances that I have made where I am standing now. They would certainly be very good debates, but it has been suggested that those have gone to party meetings. I very much doubt that. I do not think that it is true of my own party, and I should have thought that that was a rather unreal point. Does it mean that we should have more time for other things? I think that that is the answer, because, when one looks at the proposal, of what members of the Committee, were trying

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to get was more time on questions of a general Adjournment character in the first place and, secondly, on matters like the Reports of Royal Commissions, of the Estimates Committees or reports of nationalised industries—matters of general interest in that sense, but not of high combative value. Those were the things which I believe many members of the Committee felt that the House as a whole should have a fair chance to deal with.
The Committee suggested—it is worth looking at this—only three ways of dealing with the matter. The first was greater use of Standing Committees; the second, the rearrangement of the Finance Bill procedure; and the third, morning sittings. As regards the Committee procedure, that would mean sending more business upstairs. When one looks at the facts which are stated in the next paragraph, and I will not repeat them, it seems that the change suggested will not make a very large amount of difference. It will dispose upstairs of certain Bills discussed in Committee of the whole House for urgent administrative reasons or for reasons of expediency.
That is really a matter for the Government, but when one looks at the Bills for which figures are given, most of the total was occupied on a very special case, the Homicide Bill, and of the remaining two large Bills which would have been affected by this proposal, one was the Rating and Valuation Bill, which was kept downstairs purely as a matter of Government policy as far as I can see, since there seemed to be no other reason for it, and a third Bill which I think could also have been covered in that way. Therefore, valuable as that suggestion is, it does not make a very large difference, and as far as it makes a difference, it depends on Government action more than on the acceptance of that recommendation.
As to proposals for the better functioning of Committees, first, on the merits, I would say that I still prefer the timetable proposal. Here I agree with the hon. Member for Bebington (Sir H. Oakshott) on the Committee's Report rather than with the right hon. Gentleman's own suggestion of fixing a date, and that for a simple reason. This Government, in particular, have on two or three occasions changed a Bill almost
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out of recognition after Second Reading. The Opencast Coal Bill was changed in that way, and we had another instance the other day, when a Bill came back with about one-third added in another place. As long as that kind of thing goes on—and I am making no comment on the merits of it in those two cases—we must have an elastic procedure, and something more elastic than fixing a date when the Bill leaves this House on its Second Reading.
Therefore, I think that what was suggested there came to this: the setting of a voluntary timetable; its official recognition—as it were, making an honest timetable of it, if I may put it that way—in every case; the imposition of a timetable only in lieu of a guillotine, and an arrangement for modifying this as the Bill developed in Committee. I believe it is very difficult, in the case of a complicated and contentious Bill in Committee, to know beforehand just how long it will take, and we must be prepared to change any arrangements we have made in the course of Committee.
Sir H. Oakshott: The hon. and learned Gentleman will admit, of course, that it would be possible, under the flexible arrangements he has in mind, for the Business Committee to meet again during the proceedings if necessary to modify the timetable?
Mr. Mitchison: Yes, indeed, and I think the hon. Gentleman will find that in the Report, and it is so intended. I think it would be a great advantage. Having said that on the merits, I would point out that, of course, the more rapid we make the progress through Committee the quicker we bring back Bills to the Floor of the House. We do not clear the Floor of the House, we simply enable the Government to put a little more business on to the Floor of the House because the Committee proceedings are quickened. Therefore, that by itself is no relief to the main point which the Committee was considering.
On the Finance Bill, if hon. Members care to look at the detailed proceedings of the Committee, I must admit at once that they will find I voted against sending any of it upstairs. I was the only hon. Member on my side of the House to do so, and I am bound to say that in a matter of this kind I live to learn. J know that most, at any rate, of the hon.

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Members on this side of the House agree with the proposal of the Committee, which was not to send the whole of the Finance Bill upstairs but only part, and to separate that part on lines which the Treasury considered were practicable; that is to say, by selecting one part of the four or five parts in which the Finance Bill annually appears.
I can see the point of that, but one has to remember that that, too, will not make an enormous amount of difference. We are required by Statute to get our financial business through by a certain time in the year, and if we send some of it to Standing Committee then we leave a little more on Report on whatever we send upstairs. If we send much upstairs, as it appears in the Report, then we shall work the Committee, or Committees—because there may be more than one—very hard indeed. Without going into it in detail, one must not over-estimate the amount of saving.
It is in the light of that general conclusion that what the Select Committee recommended, valuable though I believe it to have been, would not make any enormous contribution to saving the time of the House. I feel that we ought not to neglect that
There are also two other proposals which were put forward. I wish to make it perfectly clear that in what I am about to say I speak only for myself. I am merely asking for more consideration to be given to two proposals which were turned down by the Select Committee and, for all I know, may well be turned down by the Government. However, I am not certain that either of them has been fully understood.
One was the proposal about morning sitting. It was a very limited proposal. In one form at any rate, it was Wednesdays only, and that as a trial. The suggestion was that it should be used for what I would call the "Adjournment plus" business and general matters such as the Reports of Royal Commissions and Select Committees, the things I mentioned a short time ago. The obvious difficulty is that one has to be very careful indeed about what one does with the Government of the day on a matter of this sort. The suggestion was that the Parliamentary Secretary should be present. Even so, one would be straining
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the whole Governmental machine, including the Department in question on that day. I merely say that it was a very limited proposal.
The same goes for what have been currently described as specialist committees. It is true that there is a sentence in the course of the proceedings which suggests that the proposal might go further, but the only thing that was really considered was the case of the Colonies. I appreciate, as we all appreciated, that it is a constitutional innovation. I think I might shorten what I have to say by simply recommending hon. Members to read the Amendment dealing with this matter which was moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale), for it was very well written and it faced up to this difficulty—and it is a difficulty.
But the purpose of the specialist committee was not to enable the Minister to be harried. It was not really a part of the struggle for power. It was another aspect of the matter. I am not expert on colonial affairs, but it has always struck me, and I am sure it must have struck other hon. Members, that there are parts of the world for which we have a real responsibility which we can never discharge. Some of the smaller Colonies, for instance, are never dealt with in debate here. At the most, they may get a Question or two. Discussion of some smaller colonial problems is never possible. The feeling of those who supported the proposal was simply that it would enable us to discharge our responsibility and let the people concerned in the smaller problems feel that it had been discharged. As to that suggestion, I say no more than that it merits consideration.
I will not go into any small matters or minor points, but I will mention one or two of them summarily. With great respect to the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton), I doubt if the third Question suggestion would work. I see a queue of Ministers waiting at the end of Question Time for their third Question, but be that as it may—
Mr. Turton: I do not think that the hon. and learned Gentleman was in the House at the time when we had a second round. In those times it was normal at the end of Question Time to have a long

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queue of Ministers waiting for their turn. It was a very good thing because we had them waiting all together in the House.
Mr. Mitchison: It was just because I was not in the House at that time that I took the precaution of getting the advice of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) who was, and he agrees with me on this point.
I speak with real deference about the suggestions about Standing Order No. 9, because I should have thought that this was a matter on which older experience of the House would be particularly weighty, but it seems that what has happened here is that you, Mr. Speaker, have been more tightly bound by precedent on precedent and that what was originally a much more liberal intention has been narrowed, since the effect of each precedent has always been narrowing and not enlarging.
Sir Godfrey Nicholson: Actually, there is now more use of Standing Order No. 9 than there was under Mr. Speaker Fitzroy.
Mr. Mitchison: I would rather not discuss it with the hon. Gentleman now. He will find a lot of evidence about it, and a good deal can be deduced from the pages of Erskine May. My impression is the opposite and that the rule was originally made—and it goes back well beyond Mr. Speaker Fitzroy—with the intention that it should not be as narrow as it has become. I am not in a position to judge the exact incidence of the narrowing effect during the two recent Speakerships, but by and large it is true to say that it has become narrower since it first came into operation. That is all I need say for that purpose. It is my personal opinion that it is now too narrow, but I shall not say any more on that point.
On other matters, the Leader of the House has indicated acceptance in some cases and non-acceptance in others. He promised us—and I hope that he will tell us again—that he would consider the debate as a whole. I believe that when we get a Report of this kind, a Report which must be a little frustrating because, as various hon. Members pointed out, including the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies), in a sense the Committee was trying to do the impossible, we should
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not just take a few small points from it and say that honour is satisfied and that we can leave it at that. I do not believe that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House works in that way.
I hope that he will consider not just what he has indicated, but whether anything more can be done to get towards the object which the Committee had in mind and, above all, that whatever is intended to be done shall be done, not by the end of this Parliament, but by whatever Government returns to power. I hope that it will be done wih a full sense of the struggle for power to which the right hon. Gentleman alluded, since we must keep our methods and our procedure on the one hand a strict and proper discipline to ourselves, but on the other hand a piece of machinery which can meet the changing demands on Parliament and on this House, remembering always that we are 630 human beings with certain peculiarities in the calling or professions which we adopt here and that the human side of the problem is to make the best in the public good of the 630 human beings we are.
9.45 p.m.
Mr. R. A. Butler: As Leader of the House, may I have permission to give a short reply to the debate?
I think that we have had a useful debate. Certainly, more hon. Members have been able to take part than in almost any debate I can recently remember. Therefore, the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) need not be too worried about absolutely insisting on the necessity for a five-minute rule between seven o'clock and eight o'clock. But we are going to reserve our opinion on that.
We were glad to see the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) speaking from the Opposition Front Bench. We understand that recently, in hospital, he has had to go through a rather more rigorous procedure than that in this House, and has survived, We are glad to see the hon. Member looking so well. Certainly, there was no evidence of his recent affliction or procedure in his speech today. We are glad to see the Opposition Front Bench strengthened at this critical moment when hon. Members opposite are waiting for a new leader, and it was suitable that at a juncture of this sort the hon. Gentleman should have

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come forward to make his debut. We know that he has great diplomatic qualities—he referred to it in his oration—and we wish him well in the future.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the need for some respectable accommodation. I regarded that as being somewhat out of order in this debate, but I did mention it myself. I do not propose to say any more about it today except that we should like to consider that matter separately both in the interests of the comfort of hon. Members and of accommodation for Committee rooms.
This leads me to a short reference to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke), who said he wished that Barry's design extended the House of Commons beyond the catalpa trees and elsewhere. That would be rather sad. The Palace Yard has some of the most beautiful trees in existence, at any rate in London, and there may well be other proposals which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Works may have available for accommodation in other directions, some indication of which has already been given, that may take the place of Barry's original design. We are aware of the problem of accommodation as it affects procedure and hope that with the aid of my right hon. Friend we shall be able to make some progress.
The next matter I wish to come to is the contribution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton). He suggested, inter alia, that two days should be subtracted from the number of Supply Days so that we might discuss the Reports of the Committee on Estimates.
Mr. Turton: The Select Committees.
Mr. Butler: Yes, the Select Committees. If that be so, and if that be the correct rendering of my right hon. Friend's speech, I was not intending tonight to give him a final answer, but we shall consider his suggestion, although I must say that it falls more in the province of the Opposition than it does in ours. Therefore, it is a matter which would have to be discussed with the Opposition, because it is a feature of our constitutional procedure which is somewhat difficult for the outside world to understand that many of the subjects
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which we discuss on Supply Days are chosen by the Opposition.
Sometimes when the Government are criticised it is the fault of the Opposition for not choosing a more interesting subject. Sometimes when our procedure is criticised it is also the fault of hon. Members opposite for not enlivening our procedure by exercising a greater discretion in their choice. So I ask my right hon. Friend to address himself to the Leader of the Opposition on his return from his journey abroad, if the right hon. Gentleman has time at the present juncture to see my right hon. Friend.
I suggest, also, that we discuss this subject through the usual channels. I consider it interesting to entertain observations put forward with such authority by my right hon. Friend, in particular, because in this debate we have had a certain amount of consideration of the real object of the House of Commons, which is to look after Supply and money. This was brought out in the speech of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith), whose contributions in the House are always looked forward to, especially on the subject of money matters. The hon. Gentleman is perfectly right. We do not spend enough time in looking after the money of the nation. In this connection, I hope, also, that in any future discussion we may pay some attention to the contribution which he made to the debate this evening.
To my hon. Friend the Member for Carlton (Sir K. Pickthorn) I should like to say that he need not fear too much that if a contribution comes from him it would automatically be rejected. He made a contribution of great weight to the effect that the Finance Bill should not go upstairs. All that we have said is that there might be an experiment in that direction. I went no further than that today. I do not think that the Select Committee went any further. I would like to reserve that possibility, although obvious dangers and difficulties have become apparent in the course of the debate; but I would not like to close the door to any experiment of that sort in delegation. My hon. Friend's contribution will now be studiously digested over the next few months.

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We then had speeches from the two right hon. Gentlemen the Members for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) and Lewisham, South. I will deal with the latter first. It was a source of great regret to the whole House, I am sure, that the right hon. Gentleman underlined, although in a tactful and quiet way, the fact that he will not be in the next House of Commons. I say, as Leader of the House to the right hon. Gentleman, who is one of my predecessors, that his absence will be a great loss to this Assembly.
With his great knowledge of procedure and his activity in the government of London, the right hon. Gentleman carried into our affairs, not only as a Member of this House but as its Leader, very great drive and considerable native wisdom, which is what the House values most. When that was interlaced with wit, as one or two "cracks" demonstrated today, we felt that the right hon. Gentleman was at the top of his form. We are glad that he took part in today's debate and we are equally sorry that he will not take part in debates in future Parliaments, whatever his future opinions may be of another place.
The right hon. Gentleman raised the subject of timetables, which I mentioned in my opening remarks. He would like to see, not that we had a fixed timetable, which was referred to by the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), or a voluntary timetable, but that there should be a timetable, on certain matters. He wanted the House to have liberty to let itself go. That is precisely what is happening now. On many matters the House just goes away, upstairs or downstairs, and the Government do not intervene. They let it rip, knowing that the House has the peculiar quality of human nature of knowing where to stop, because it gets tired in the end. It is often better to let a horse run away and to run its nose into a hedge rather than to tie it down; so it is with a timetable. If I did not make that clear in my opening remarks I make it clear now to the right hon. Gentleman.
I shall not rehearse what I said to the right hon. Member for Kettering about the timetable, but I would draw attention to the fact that I think there is ambiguity in this part of the Report in
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relation to what will happen. It refers to the right of the Government not to adopt a timetable if they do not want to. The phrase "other means" can only mean liberty of progress for Members of Parliament. I think that it is a case of having a voluntary timetable, or no timetable when it is not necessary, or of imposing one by Resolution of this House, in which case it would be debatable and the House could decide. We would like to give further considerations to the observations raised in the debate on this matter.
On the subject of specialist Committees, the hon. and learned Gentleman—I am glad that he agrees with me, because it gives me some comfort—will recall that I made a small mistake in my opening speech. The India Committee was not the Select Committee to which the Committee whose report we are discussing was referring, but the India Committee set up to examine Indian affairs. Even though that be correct origin of the Question and Answer in the evidence, I still maintain that this would not be a good innovation in our Constitution or would improve our constitutional practice.
The right hon. Member for Bassetlaw made a plea for a specialist Committee on defence. I know that defence is a subject, like theology, on which many people feel they know more than the Government and even, if possible, more than the Minister of Defence, but despite that, I think it would be a mistake to extend this practice into the field of defence.
As to morning sittings, I was glad that the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South also agreed with what I said. There was a slight feeling of the "morning after", I thought, in the speech of the hon. Member for Leeds, West, because we had some difficulty in eliciting from him exactly what the postponed Adjournment would be. It would clearly be "the morning after the night before", and I do not think that that would make a very dignified sitting. Therefore, I agree with the right hon. Member in saying that it would introduce a third-class into our sittings. We are going to keep Standing Committees very busy in the mornings. Therefore, I do not think that it would be right to say that we were rejecting it as a proposal

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which had not been thoroughly thought out.
I must refer to the hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. C. Hughes), who made a plea for a Welsh Grand Committee. I do not close the door. I think that there would be difficulty. There would be a case for further consulation and association with Welsh hon. Members, but I could not at this time of night give any further promise at all on that matter.
My hon. Friends the Members for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall) and Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) made spirited speeches which, unfortunately, were not heard by the Patronage Secretary. They were heard by some of the junior Whips and also by the Leader of the House. They even suggested that voting against the Government in Committee was not a sin. That sounds very nice, very rebellious and bold, but there are limits to voting against the Government, even in Committee.
If the practice were carried on without some slight rebuke, from the Leader of the House on this occasion, it might lead to such an erosion of the dignity of the Government that the Government might be in difficulty, but there is another problem which arises. That is, if there are efforts to alter certain aspects of Clauses of a Bill and the Bill might become unworkable. It might have been worked out on the Government anvil by draftsmen and expert advice. Therefore, the Government are entitled to ask their supporters to support them in Standing Committee as well as on the Floor of the House. Subject to that slight correction, I should say that both my hon.
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Friend's spoke with great authority and energy.
The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) has written to say that he is sorry that he could not be here this evening. I am sure that we have lost by his absence, because he would have added a bright interlude to this debate, which has included so many attractive features.
I come, last, to the speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Baldock) and the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Philips Price). We are, indeed, sorry to hear that my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough is resigning his seat, partly because he finds it difficult to combine outside work with the work of the House, and also the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West, after having concluded twenty-six years of service at the end of this Parliament.
Before I sit down, I should like to make this one general observation, which is linked with the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies). If it be true that in the changing society of today, the changing circumstances of the younger generation and the changing difficulties of our time, we cannot adapt our procedure to get the best people into the House, it will be our fault. It will be in the spirit that we wish to get the best people in that we shall examine this Report and introduce what Motions we think right.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House takes note of the Report from the Select Committee on Procedure.

ARTS COUNCIL (GRANTS)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Bryan.]
9.59 p.m.
Dame Irene Ward: My hon. and. learned Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, speaking on an Amendment to the Finance Bill asking for tax concessions on gifts to the Arts, made the statement that he preferred grant-aided objects because in that way Parliament exercised control. I pondered for quite a long time on what my hon. and learned Friend meant by that, because I have observed—
It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.— [Mr. Whitelaw.]
Dame Irene Ward: —over a period of time that what my hon. and learned Friend meant was that there was control by the Executive and that Parliamentary control in the sense which I mean, as a representative of the back bench Members, is almost non-existent.
With the agreement of my hon. and learned Friend, although I admit that he had not much chance to oppose me, I decided that, tonight, speaking as a back bench Member, I would not call upon a member of the Executive to answer what I shall say about a grant-aided body in the shape of the Arts Council. On another occasion my hon. and learned Friend suggested that if one had one's ear close to the ground it became so full of grit and grime that nothing else penetrated to the brain. I would point out to him that if one sits on a summit one may get into a very rarefied atmosphere and may become like the pilot in an aeroplane who, flying too high, begins to lose his sense of direction and his sense of balance and has to have an injection of oxygen. I suggest to my hon. and learned Friend that although I agree that one ought not to go about with one's ear close to the ground, nor ought one always to sit on a summit. What one wants is a balanced approach to these matters.
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I think that the whole House welcomes my hon. and learned Friend as Financial Secretary to the Treasury. Hon. Members admire his competence, his charm, his efficiency and his method of dealing with the problems which arise from time to time. At the same time, there are occasions on which he could descend from always supporting the Arts Council when Parliament is anxious to obtain some information because of the growing anxiety of the general public about what the Arts Council's policy is driving at. I do not want unduly to criticise my hon. and learned Friend, because we are devoted to him in the House, but I think that he makes a mistake in not asking hon. Members under his own ideal of Parliamentary control, what evidence they can produce when they seek to criticise the Arts Council's policy.
Fortunately for everybody concerned, J do not often speak about myself in the House, but I have been in the House for twenty-three years, whereas my hon. and learned Friend has not been here nearly as long, although I recognise that he has reached Government circles. I would also add that under no circumstances would I think that my judgment was always right. It could not possibly always be right. I make a distinction, however, between judgment and evidence, and I also make a distinction between judgment and integrity.
My hon. and learned Friend and I have the honour to represent parts of the North of England. In the North, many people challenge my views, many people dislike my views, many people would fight me to the death over my views, but nobody has ever challenged my integrity. Therefore, when I make a statement on what I think is a wrong policy on the part of the Arts Council, my hon. and learned Friend might do me the honour and justice of asking me to produce my evidence. I am a little surprised that a distinguished lawyer should be prepared to exercise his judgment on behalf of the Arts Council without seeking any evidence as to whether the Council is right or those who are criticising are wrong.
I feel—and I am not alone in this matter because this is not, I am glad to say, a party question—that what is causing a great many people anxiety is the continuing attempt of the Arts

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Council to concentrate the whole of its direction from the centre. I want to develop that argument. First, we had the break-up of the regional organisations. Of course, the Scottish and Welsh organisations were retained intact, but the regional organisations, which were the contact between certain parts of the country and the centre, were by an action of the Arts Council disbanded. That was the first action by the Arts Council, and no one paid very much attention to it, because it takes a long time for public opinion to tumble to what is happening.
The second action on behalf of the Arts Council was the elimination—I am not going into this in great detail—of the Carl Rosa touring opera company, the only provincial touring opera company which we had in Great Britain. It was eliminated, and there was a concentration of power at the centre. I am very proud of the heritage of our great capital city in the Arts, but I also argue that the provinces enrich the centre as well.
The Carl Rosa Opera Company was eliminated. My hon. and learned Friend did not ask for anyone's evidence but took the side of the Arts Council. I will deal with one aspect of that in a moment. Having got away with that, the next thing was that Sir William Williams, without even consulting his own Council, gave a very long and detailed interview to the Daily Telegraph. In that rather delightful and free-and-easy way of his he said that opera had been dealt with—put out of action—and then announced that he intended to telescope the provincial repertory theatres. I am glad to say that that evoked very much criticism from all over the provinces.
Had I asked my hon. and learned Friend to reply, he would have said, as he said in an Answer to the hon. Gentleman for Goole (Mr. G. Jeger), in reply to a Question the other day, that it was all a matter for the Arts Council. If my hon. and learned Friend accepts the basis of Parliamentary control, it is not all a matter for the Arts Council. I do not want Parliament to interfere in the day-to-day running of the Council, but I do want to know what its basic policy is.
I am not satisfied with this zest for power, the desire to put everyone in a gilded cage, the "old boy" theory of
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being on all the committees in London and the provinces never being heard. The provinces look for some support. I think that the country is now thoroughly alarmed and, speaking with all the force at my command as a back bencher, I hope that the provinces will revolt. I hope that every single repertory theatre will make it perfectly plain to my hon. and learned Friend that it does not intend to tolerate the Secretary-General of the Arts Council, without even consulting his own Council, announcing to the world what he thinks ought to be done to the provincial repertory theatres.
Before moving on to my next point, I want to make one other rather difficult comment. A very distinguished member of the musical profession, Sir Steuart Wilson, who, at one time—and I have his permission to refer to this—was the Deputy General Administrator at Covent Garden, put in a very strong report on certain aspects of administration. As was very proper, he put it in to the then Chairman of the Covent Garden Trust, the late Lord Waverley. Lord Waverley did not feel that he could deal with the matter, so, as is the case with many other criticisms, any discussion of or action on the Report was abandoned. Sir Steuart resigned, and is now the very distinguished principal of the Birmingham School of Music.
My only reason for raising this is to show that I am not the only person—nor, indeed, is the hon. Member for Goole the only person—who feels strongly about the actions and the attitudes of the Council. I have to add that Sir Steuart Wilson does not agree with my views on the Carl Rosa but, fortunately, he did have some slight regard for my integrity. He gave me the Report and told me that I could do with it as I wished, and it may be of some small comfort to him to know that although it was rejected by the Prime Minister, by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and by the Chief Whip, none of whom felt able to deal with it, I placed it in the hands of the Gulbenkian Foundation when I approached it about difficulties in the administration of the Council. I hope that that may prove some source of satisfaction to Sir Steuart.
I come now to my next point. I raised with my hon. and learned Friend, and I hope that he will not mind my saying so, the fact that the last annual Report

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of the Arts Council contained gross inaccuracies. As far as I could make out he seemed to think that the Council's Report was a matter for the Council, but that Report must have been paid for from money allocated by the British taxpayer. My hon. and learned Friend is always talking about the British taxpayer and his rights—and, indeed, he has some rights—and this Report, which contains gross inaccuracies, was paid for by the British taxpayer. In addition, the salaries of the Secretary-General and all the Council's administrative officers are paid for out of the taxpayers' money.
I do not think that it is consistent with sound administration, nor is it right that Parliament should have confidence in the Council when it issues a Report that contains a gross inaccuracy. I shall give the evidence for that statement. I have tried to make my hon. and learned Friend believe that I am "on the level" about this, but he does not think that that is the way to handle the Council.
Perhaps I may read the relevant passages and appropriate minutes that dispute what was contained in the last Report. I quote, first, from page 15 of the Report:
"The proposal to amalgamate Sadler's Wells and the Carl Rosa was neither initiated nor urged"—
and I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will note the word "urged"—
"by the Arts Council. It was wholly their own idea."
On page 16, we find:
"A few reflections on this opera crisis are, perhaps, admissible. The first is that the Arts Council rejoices that allies have at last reached the battlefield and that Sadlers Wells, as we know it and respect it, is to continue in action. The next, and the one particularly appropriate in its own annual report; is that the Arts Council neither imposed nor sought to impose amalgamation upon the companies concerned."
I take great exception to that, because it does not happen to be true. I have a copy of the minutes of the Carl Rosa Trust. In answering a recent Question asked by the hon. Member for Goole, my hon. and learned Friend said that there was now a senior representative of the Treasury on the Arts Council. From that I assumed that there was not a senior representative of the Treasury on the Arts Council before. I cannot help feeling that, if the Treasury is represented on the Arts Council, when the controversy arose
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over Sadler's Wells and the Carl Rosa Opera Co. Ltd. the Treasury representative should have called for the minutes of the Carl Rosa Trust.
The Arts Council also had an assessor on the Carl Rosa Trust. Therefore, everything which went on at the Carl Rosa Trust was known to the Arts Council. I am bound to say this, in case my hon. and learned Friend does not think that I am giving a true statement of the facts. I am sorry to say that, but I think that it is absolutely essential.
This is minute No. 313 of 24th February, 1958:
"He—
that is, Sir William Williams, who was present at that meeting—
"then repeated that although Sadler's Wells faced the sharpest disappointment it had accepted the proposal for a unified operation of the two companies, and he"—
that is, Sir William Williams—
"had the authority of the Arts Council to say that if the two Trusts should be unable to combine on these lines there was no room to suppose that either would receive a grant individually."
Does my hon. and learned Friend think that that minute confirms the statement in the Report of the Arts Council that no action was taken or urged by it on the two opera companies?
I turn now to an extract from the minutes of the meeting of the Carl Rosa Trust held on Monday, 21st April, 1958:
"Dame Irene Ward had submitted an additional paragraph which had been circulated to members, prior to the meeting, for consideration, as follows: Dame Irene Ward asked who was responsible for the document submitted at the last meeting of the Carl Rosa Trust at which the merger scheme with Sadler's Wells was based and discussed. Dame Irene referred to a letter she had received from the Assistant Editor of the Observer, in which he asserted that, on the very highest possible authority, he had been informed that the Arts Council strongly opposed this Scheme which was drawn up without the Council's knowledge. Sir William Williams reminded members of the Trust that the basic document had been drawn up by Mr. Denison'"—
he is the head of the music panel of the Arts Council and the assessor on the Carl Rosa Trust—
"'and submitted by him for discussion at a meeting called by the Arts Council of the Chairmen of the Trusts concerned. Sir William said the Observer's letter was inaccurate.'
Mr. McRobert said that, in view of the fact that this Amendment quoted Sir William

175
Williams, he was not prepared to accept it until such time as it had been referred to Sir William for his approval. It was agreed therefore that the Amendment should be sent to Sir William".
It was sent to Sir William. It was approved and is in the minutes of the Carl Rosa Trust.
Is my hon. and learned Friend, who I am sure wants to do the best that he can for the Arts, prepared to argue in favour of the annual Report of the Arts Council, which deliberately misconstrues its attitude towards the amalgamation of Sadler's Wells and Carl Rosa? If, as I have proved, it is a false statement in the Arts Council's Report, I wonder whether the country, which depends on the Arts Council for the sound administration of the money granted by Parliament as a grant in aid to the Arts Council, is right to have any confidence in the administration of the Arts Council.
I want to say one other word about the Carl Rosa Trust As I say, there may be legitimate difficulties. As my hon. and learned Friend said to me one day, he thought that I was too much in the centre of it to be able to exercise a reasonable judgment, and I am prepared to accept that from him because an enthusiast sometimes allows one's enthusiasm to run away with one. At the same time, I feel very strongly that the members of the Carl Rosa Trust, whose integrity and position in life are equal, if not better than, those of the members of the Arts Council, are equally entitled to consideration by my hon. and learned Friend. I fail to see why members of a Trust, who have given loyal and devoted service to a well-loved and admired provincial opera company, should be held up to ridicule by the Arts Council. I go further than that and say that there was not only ridicule but bribery and bullying.
Dozens of musicians have been to see me, and I agree with the point of view that they hold. They all said that if they make any criticism of the Arts Council their career is finished. Certainly, after the withdrawal of the grant from the Carl Rosa Opera Company, many people who had not been involved at all in the controversy were thrown out of employment. Many people who had served the Carl Rosa
176
Opera Company for many years with no adverse criticism against their character were ruthlessly thrown out and my hon. and learned Friend and Parliament failed to stand up for them. That is not what Parliament is for. It certainly is not what I stand for, neither is it what I think British democracy stands for.
Those people have no chance. Nobody will hear their case. I can take all these criticisms and antogonisms on my shoulders because I have been long enough in Parliamentary life not to let them worry me at all. But I have to speak up for people who were thrown out of jobs, with nobody to fight their battles because, forsooth, the Arts Council wished to concentrate the patronage of the Arts Council in London and anybody who went contrary to that policy was regarded as an enemy of the Arts.
When the question of the Arts Council was raised in another place the Minister without Portfolio was asked to reply. It has been extremely difficult to find out who briefed the Minister without Portfolio, but—I do not think it was his fault—the speech that he made was completely inaccurate. He led those who were interested in the Carl Rosa Trust and who were discussing the withdrawal of the grant to believe that a meeting was to take place on the future of the Carl Rosa Opera Company.
The Minister indicated that the Arts Council and the Carl Rosa Trust were to meet to see what the future of Carl Rosa could be. Of course, that was completely inaccurate, and the Chairman of the Arts Council, Sir Kenneth Clark, has repeatedly refused. Indeed, when he did see members of the Carl Rosa Trust before the Trust was finally closed down we were told that we could go to see them—very graciously—but under no consideration were we to be permitted to discuss the controversy which had arisen between the Trust and the Arts Council.
I must say that Sir Kenneth Clark came to see me and told me that the Carl Rosa Trust had a very distinguished and good chairman, who is Mr. Charles Wilson, of Jesus College. I quite agree that he is a good chairman, but I would have much preferred Sir Kenneth Clark to have said that we were all very bad administrators, rather than play up like

177
that, knowing, at the same time, that they were going to stab the Carl Rosa Trust, in the back. That is not the kind of thing that I expect of people in public positions with public money to spend.
It has taken me a very long time to find out about the debate in another place, but I am glad to say that with the support of our Chief Whip, who has been extremely helpful, and the support of the Leader of the House of Lords, I have had a note from him today which is not marked "Private and Confidential", saying that the Minister without Portfolio has written to me. I have not yet received the letter, but I hope that in it he will express his regret at the kind of interpretation which he put upon the artistic directorship of Mrs. Phillips. It has taken me all these months to get the Minister without Portfolio to make an apology, and I do not think that that is consistent with proper behaviour on the part of Her Majesty's Government.
I do not like that sort of thing. I do not mind if there is a genuine controversy. It might well have been that Lord Bridges felt that there should be an overall policy for opera. I might agree with that, but the Arts Council made it perfectly plain, and I do not blame it, that it does not like Members of Parliament sitting on its committees, but if Members of Parliament were not sitting on these committees, I hope that my hon. and learned Friend realises that there would be no means of exercising Parliamentary control. In these difficult
178
months, the Executive has been always on the side of the Arts Council, and has never been prepared to examine any evidence given in this respect, and therefore Parliament cannot exercise adequate and proper control over public expenditure on the Arts.
I think my time is coming to an end. I think that it will be understood why my hon. and learned Friend has not intervened, because I feel on this occasion that for once Parliament should speak and not the Executive. I know very well that in our Parliamentary life we base our whole Parliamentary system on the power of the Executive, but if the power of the Executive is exercised in such a way that ordinary people who were in the Carl Rosa Company had to be thrown out because of the desire of certain people to concentrate power in London, as opposed to the provinces, all I can say is that it is time that, in this respect, the Executive were shot up.
I am going to be delighted that representatives of the Arts Council, including the Secretary-General, will read my criticism of the Arts Council, and for once there has been no member of the Executive to stand up here and say that what I have been saying is inaccurate.
The Question having been proposed at 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 Ten o'clock.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH
  Mental Health Occupational Centre, Louth
  Mental Health Occupational Centre, Louth
HOSPITALS
  Royal Free Hospital and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital
  Royal Free Hospital and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital
  GERMANY (FORMER NAZI JUDGES)
  GERMANY (FORMER NAZI JUDGES)
  NUCLEAR TESTS
  NUCLEAR TESTS
EMPLOYMENT
  Shipyard, Govan (Trade Dispute)
  Shipyard, Govan (Trade Dispute)
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  White Fish Industry Schemes (Loans)
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  Bacon
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PENSIONS AND NATIONAL INSURANCE
  Instruments of Payment (Encashment)
  Instruments of Payment (Encashment)
MINISTRY OF POWER
  Nuclear Power Stations
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  Fuel Oil
  Fuel Oil
  Nuclear Power Station, Dungeness
  Nuclear Power Station, Dungeness
COAL
  Smokeless Fuel (Sulphur Content)
  Smokeless Fuel (Sulphur Content)
HOME DEPARTMENT
  East Germans (Holiday Visits)
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TRADE AND COMMERCE
  Industrial Efficiency
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ROYAL NAVY
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KENYA
  Makerere College (Students)
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EDUCATION
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NATIONAL FINANCE
  Statistics
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Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Salisbury

EXPORTS TO CHINA
2.35 p.m.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government if they will state the value of the exports to China for the five months ended 31st May, 1956, and for the five months ended 31st May, 1959, respectively.]
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, the figures are £3·5 million and £9·3 million respectively.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I beg to thank the noble Earl for his Answer. Is he aware that the satisfactory increase of about £5¾ million in three years shows the benefit accruing to British trade from the progressive reductions in the restrictions on trade with China, and that it is also indicative of the commendable activities of British exporters to the China market?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I entirely agree with what the noble Viscount says, especially the last part of his supplementary question. Perhaps I ought to mention that the monthly figures for the last five months are £1 million for January, £4·6 million for February, £1·1 million for March, £1·5 million for April and £1 million for May, from which it looks as though there is a slight decline from a peak in February; but we hope that that may be reversed.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, we hope that it may be owing only to some seasonal reason.

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING BILL
2.37 p.m.
Order of the Day read for the consideration of the Commons Amendments to one of the Lords Amendments.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Amendments to one of the Lords Amendments be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons Amendments to one of the Lords Amendments be now considered.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING BILL
  COMMONS AMENDMENTS TO ONE OF THE LORDS AMENDMENTS
  [The reference is to Bill (90) as first printed for the House of Lords]

  LORDS AMENDMENT
  After Clause 33, insert the following new clause:
  Enforcement of limitations imposed by development orders
  (".—(1) Where by a development order (whether made before or after the commencement of this Act) permission is granted for any development subject to limitations specified in the order, sections twenty-three and twenty-four of the Act of 1947 (which relate to the enforcement of planning control) shall, subject to the provisions of this section, have effect in relation to any non-compliance with those limitations as they have effect in relation to noncompliance with any conditions subject to which permission is granted for any development.
  (2) For the purposes of this section and of the Act of 1947, any provision of a development order (whether made before or after the commencement of this Act) whereby permission is granted for the use of land for any purpose on a limited number of days in a period specified in that provision shall (without prejudice to the generality of references to limitations in this section or in that Act) be taken to be a provision granting permission for the use of land for any purpose subject to the limitation that the land shall not be used for any one purpose in pursuance of that permission on more than that number of days in that period.
  (3) Where, in the case of any development which has been carried out before the commencement of this Act,—

  (a) permission for that development was granted by a development order subject to a limitation (whether by virtue of such a provision as is mentioned in the last preceding subsection or otherwise) and

  (b) a notice purporting to be an enforcement notice under section twenty-three of the Act of 1947 has been served before the

  1015
  commencement of this Act, alleging that the development was carried out without planning permission, and the steps required by that notice to be taken have not been taken before the commencement of this Act,

  the service (after the commencement of this Act) of an enforcement notice in respect of non-compliance with that limitation, notwithstanding that it is served more than four years after the date of the alleged failure to comply therewith, shall not be treated as out of time if the notice is served at any time before the first anniversary of the commencement of this Act.
  (4) The validity of a notice purporting to be an enforcement notice under the said section twenty-three (whether served before or after the commencement of this Act) shall not depend on whether any non-compliance to which the notice relates was a non-compliance with conditions, or with limitations, or with both; and any reference in such a notice to non-compliance with conditions or limitations (whether both expressions are used in the notice or only one of them) shall be construed as a reference to non-compliance with conditions, or with limitations, or both with conditions and limitations, as the case may require.
  (5) In the application of this section to Scotland, for references to the Act of 1947 and to sections twenty-three and twenty-four of that Act there shall be substituted references respectively to the Scottish Act of 1947 and sections twenty-one and twenty-two of that Act; and in subsection (3), for the words `four years after the date of the alleged failure to comply therewith' there shall be substituted the words `two years after it has come to the knowledge of the local planning authority that the limitation has not been complied with'")
  The Commons proposed to amend the above Amendment as follows:
  Line 21, leave out subsection (3);
  Line 54, leave out from ("Act") to end of line 58.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the two Amendments which were made in another place and which are connected, affect the new clause that was inserted after Clause 33. Your Lordships will remember that that clause was inserted to deal with the effect of the decision in Cater v. Essex County Council. That decision dealt with a technical difficulty that had arisen: that the County Council had served a notice stating that the person in question had acted without permission, whereas under the general planning order a temporary permission for twenty-eight days had been granted; and on that the notice was held to be wrong. Subsection (3) of the clause dealt with existing development, and a difficulty was felt in that regard because the clause dealt with cases in which the development had already occurred, including the Cater
  1016
  case itself. Under Section 23 of the Act an enforcement notice had to be served within four years of the time the development was carried out. In the Cater case, and in a few other cases, this time limit had expired, and it was therefore provided in subsection (3) that a further notice could be served at any time within one year of the commencement of the Bill. This, however, might be thought to be unduly oppressive, to seek to reverse the decision of the court in this way, because persons like Mr. Cater, and a few others in a similar position, have by the passage of time acquired certain existing use rights.
  My Lords, we carefully considered the matter and we realised that in a small number of cases it might be unwelcome to the local authorities. But I should like to emphasise that the change suggested in another place will affect only a limited number of cases where, first, an enforcement notice has been served but not complied with and, secondly, the notice was of a particular kind which the judgment in the Cater case has shown to be invalid; and thirdly, the four years since the alleged contravention will have run out by the time the Act comes into force. It is only where these three factors co-exist that the dropping of subsection (3) will make any difference. As I say, there must be a small number of such cases. The Amendment to subsection (5) is consequential. My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the first Amendment to the Lords Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment to the Lords Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I suppose that we have got to agree with the Commons in this Amendment—we have no choice. Therefore any discussion that the noble and learned Viscount and I have on this is a pure formality. None of us wants to run the risk of defeating the Bill, or even of having a major quarrel with another place on a matter of this kind. But I am bound to say that I think they are wrong; and I think that the noble and learned Viscount's reasons for asking us to agree with this Amendment—namely, that it is only a little one, and that there will not be many cases of this kind—are not altogether convincing.

  1017
  First, it is not correct that people in these cases have acted on a temporary permission; they have obtained no permission at all. The 1947 Act gives them the right temporarily to carry out development or to act in the way they have done; but no more. It was never intended that they should be able to carry on with this development for more than a month without applying for permission. What has happened is that, on a pure technicality, when they were challenged after carrying on beyond the permitted period under the Act they were able to say that they were not carrying out this development in defiance of the Act; that because they had permission to carry on for a month, the notice challenging them was wrong. I do not think that such developers are entitled to any sympathy at all, and it seems to me a great pity that we are allowing them to carry on and preventing the local authorities from putting the matter right on what is a pure technicality. Nor am I, as I say, convinced by the fact that this will apply to a limited number of cases. However, if we are going to have a first-class battle with the other place I should not have thought this was a big enough issue to have it on; and therefore, with great regret, I think we have to let it go.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I have great sympathy with the point of view which the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has put forward. As he will appreciate, the difficulty is that in these cases the four-year period had expired, and therefore it could be argued that, with however much lack of original method at the time of expiry of the Bill, an existing right had been acquired, and that is the other point of view. I am grateful to the noble Lord for the restraint he has shown to-day in accepting, albeit reluctantly, the Commons Amendment.
  On Question, Motion agreed to
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move the second Amendment, which is consequential.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to

THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION
2.46 p.m.
LORD HENDERSON LORD HENDERSON rose to call attention to the international situation; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. The Foreign Secretaries have reassembled at Geneva and to-day they resume their Conference on the Berlin problem after three weeks' recess. I think it was a wise decision to have an adjournment. It provided, as the Foreign Secretary said,
"a brief interval to take stock and decide what the other side has really been saying, or, perhaps more important, been meaning."
I think most of us would agree that when vital interests are at stake a short interval for this purpose is sometimes a necessary part of the process of negotiation. It helps to avoid the hardening of misunderstanding and misconception which can so easily thwart efforts to reach agreement. I have no doubt, therefore, that both sides have benefited from a break for reflection.
Study of the proceedings of the last day of the Conference before the formal adjournment shows that there was a danger of misunderstanding. On that day the Soviet Foreign Secretary handed to his Western colleagues a new Soviet paper on Berlin. It represented an important development in the Soviet attitude. But the significance of these revised proposals was not fully appreciated by the Western Foreign Ministers, whose response was that they "constituted no change in the previous Soviet position" No real harm, however, was done, since a few days later Mr. Gromyko took the opportunity to issue a special statement in the course of which he amplified and clarified the modifications in the Soviet position. I will come to them in a moment.
What I want to say at once is that the Western delegations have now had time to study and analyse the Soviet new proposals, to assess their value as a contribution to an agreed basis for an interim settlement, and to prepare themselves for further discussion on them at Geneva. There surely can be no doubt that the Foreign Ministers will begin the second stage of their work with the knowledge that the gap between the two

1019
sides has been appreciably narrowed. This should ensure that they resume their discussion in a more favourable atmosphere. There is now reasonable ground for hoping and expecting that further progress will be made towards an agreed basis—enough to satisfy President Eisenhower's test for attending a Summit Conference and to enable the date for that meeting to be fixed and announced in the near future.
We all know that if there is to be an interim agreement on Berlin, the final stage can be settled with Mr. Khrushchev personally only at the Heads of Government meeting. Bearing in mind the history of the present crisis, Mr. Khrushchev's position can be summed up in a few words: "My agreement only at the Summit". But, my Lords, the indispensable step towards the Summit must be taken by the Foreign Ministers. They have to discover the elements of an agreed basis. The view that the prospects are hopeful is based on a comparison of statements on Berlin which are published in the White Paper on pages 39 to 43. On June 18 the Western Foreign Ministers put forward three proposals: first, limitation of their combined forces in West Berlin to the present strength, armed only with conventional weapons, and the possibility of reduction as soon as the situation permits; second, German personnel to operate the procedures for free and unrestricted access, and difficulties to be settled by the four Governments acting through a quadripartite meeting in Berlin; third, reciprocal measures to avoid, in both parts of Berlin, activities which might disturb public order or seriously affect the rights and interests of others.
The Soviet Foreign Minister countered those three proposals in his paper of June 19. He proposed: one, reduction of Western occupation forces in West Berlin to symbolic contingents; two, termination of subversive activities from West Berlin against the German Democratic Republic and other Socialist States; three, non-location in West Berlin of atomic and rocket weapons. My Lords, it is surely unthinkable that renewed discussion on these points should fail to produce agreement. There should be little difficulty for the West to agree to make a token reduction in their present
1020
forces stationed in West Berlin, since they are only symbolic now; or for the Soviet Government to agree that measures to avoid "subversive activities" shall apply to both parts of Berlin. Prestige should be no obstacle, since each side would be making a concession; and if an agreement on Berlin is achieved, the easing of tension which would follow will be worth the price of a token reduction by the West.
The Soviet Foreign Minister also proposed an all-German committee on a parity basis
"to discuss and work out concrete measures for the unification of Germany and consider questions pertaining to the preparation and conclusion of a Peace Treaty with Germany."
Our view is that the West should accept parity. Their own proposal for such a committee was twenty-five members from West Germany and ten members from East Germany. Decisions were to be taken by a three-quarter majority. As the West German representation would not constitute a three-quarter majority, it would have to rely on a breakaway from the East German side to get the necessary majority. It would be futile to expect that to happen. Decisions will not rest on the counting of votes. They will come by agreement or not at all. Here, again, no question of prestige should be allowed to intervene. At the Geneva Conference itself there is parity. The East German Foreign Minister is there for consultation; so is the Federal German Foreign Minister or his deputy. We expect that the resumed conference will be able to agree on parity.
As originally put forward by the Soviet delegate, this all-German committee was to reach an agreed decision within one year. The same time limit was to apply to the West's carrying out what they called "minimum measures" in regard to West Berlin; otherwise, the Soviet Union would not confirm its agreement to the continuation of the occupation regime in West Berlin. This time limit was regarded by the West—and rightly regarded—as arbitrary and wholly unacceptable because of its threatening nature. In his later paper, Mr. Gromyko stated that the question of a time limit was a matter neither of major importance nor of principle to the Russians. He indicated that a time limit agreeable to all sides concerned could be agreed.

1021
and suggested a year and a half. Agreement on this issue should not, therefore, be difficult—say, a time limit of two years.
The strongest objection to the Soviet proposals was set out in the Western paper of June 19. I quote from the White Paper, page 41, the middle two paragraphs:
"Although the latest Soviet statement extends the time limit of the proposed agreement from one year to a year and a half, it reserves to the Soviet Union freedom of unilateral action at the expiration of that period. Moreover, it is clear that it is the Soviet intention that the Western Powers upon signing such an agreement would acquiesce in the liquidation of their rights in Berlin and the abandonment of their responsibility for maintaining the freedom of the people of West Berlin."
The statement went on:
"It is true that there is provision for a resumption of the consideration of the Berlin question by the Four Powers during or at the end of the year and a half period. But if no agreement has been reached in the meantime the Western Powers would enter into any negotiation at the end of that period without any rights at all so far as Berlin or the access to it were concerned."
The points raised here by the Western Foreign Ministers are of vital importance, and it is essential that they should not be left in any doubt. But if these objections were based on doubts as to the real meaning and intention of the Soviet proposals, those doubts have surely been largely removed by Mr. Gromyko's special statement on June 28. Mr. Gromyko said in the course of that statement—and here I will quote from a text issued by the Soviet Embassy in London:
"If we envisaged only a one-sided solution of the problem of the rights of the Western Powers in Berlin now or immediately on the expiry of the term of operation of the interim agreement on West Berlin, we would not be suggesting the joint working out of an interim status for West Berlin and the settlement of the question of guaranteeing this status, and the setting up of a four-power supervisory agency. Nor would we be proposing a resumption of the joint discussion of the Berlin question if the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany do not agree in the all-German committee Thus, the Soviet Government prefers to reach, and this also refers to the new proposals, an agreed decision—I repeat, an agreed decision—concerning West Berlin, a decision which, of course, must accord with the present situation in Berlin and in Germany and which must not and cannot proceed from a desire to perpetuate the occupation regime in West Berlin."
I quote those words from what I suppose I can regard as an official text of Mr. Gromyko's speech. That statement appears to answer, and to answer satisfactorily, the objections advanced by the West. It certainly clarifies our position, and in the resumed discussions the Western delegates will be able to clear up any remaining doubts and ambiguities. There has been, and there is, no difference between Her Majesty's Government and the Opposition regarding the need to maintain our basic rights in Berlin and our duty to stand by the West Berliners in preserving their freedom. But so far as I can see, there is nothing in the elements of an agreed basis which I have been discussing that would prejudice or sacrifice those two vital interests.
I pass from the Berlin problem to the wider issues of German reunification and European security. A study of the Western Peace Plan and of the Soviet Draft Treaty shows that the two sides remain far apart on these issues. They approach the wider German problems from opposite poles. The Western Powers want reunification by free elections and then a peace treaty; the Soviet Government want a peace treaty first and then some form of reunification, and they clearly have in mind a confederation of the two parts of divided Germany. It is quite clear, I think, that a definite objective of Russian policy is to gain legal recognition of the Communist regime in East Germany, and to have a treaty signed either by both parts of Germany or, if necessary, by East Germany alone. Thus deadlock continues, with nothing to suggest that fundamental differences are likely to be narrowed in the near future.
There seems no alternative at present but to recognise that more time must elapse and that more progress must be made in other directions before there will be any chance of a comprehensive agreement. It is not surprising, therefore, that this first phase of the Conference was abortive. I cannot believe that the Western Foreign Secretaries themselves had much hope of progress when they put forward their four-stage plan as an "inseparable whole". The best part of the plan was the set of proposals directed to enabling reunification to be achieved by free elections. This was a definite advance on previous proposals, but it found no approval from the Soviet Foreign Minister. That rejection is not

1023
surprising, if Mr. Harriman is correct in reporting Mr. Khrushchev as having said that he would agree to no reunification of Germany which did not provide for a Communist system.
There are two other aspects of the Plan which provoke disappointment. Insistence on a reunited Germany being free to join N.A.T.O. is a permanent stumbling block. We have discussed this proposal on many occasions, and I do not propose to go over the ground again to-day, except to say that Her Majesty's Government must surely be convinced by now that the Soviet Government will never agree to it. Then the proposals for European security impress me as being confused and largely academic. Ideas about gradually thinning out foreign military forces, a nuclear-free area and progressive disengagement find no place at all. European security is made to depend on the achievement of German reunification and agreed measures of general disarmament. Even if the Western plan for reunification had been accepted, it would take at least two and a half years, according to their own timetable. One wonders why problems concerning general disarmament, hitherto dealt with through the United Nations Disarmament Sub-Committee, were dragged into the Western "package deal." It is not easy to understand what practical value this could have brought to the discussions.
I want to turn from the disappointing position on these wider issues to the favourable developments at the Geneva Conference on the cessation of nuclear tests. I am sure the whole House will welcome the progress that has been made. It is surely now clear, from the real concessions that have been made by both sides, that there is a genuine desire to reach agreement. One hopes that this mood will prevail during the remaining weeks of what may be difficult negotiations. It seems that there are two main problems to be solved: first, the composition of the control teams; and second, the circumstances under which on-site inspections can be carried out. There has already been a move towards compromise on the composition of the control teams. The Soviet Union, which had originally insisted that all personnel of control posts should be nationals of
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the country concerned, has now conceded that seven at least should be recruited from other countries. The Western Powers, who first said that all should be foreign nationals, have now conceded that four should come from the home country. A compromise must be reached, and we must recognise that neither side will be satisfied with the number that is eventually agreed upon. As The Times said in its leader on July 3:
"The West in their search for a foolproof system of control will want a higher number than the Russians, with their fear of espionage, are prepared to concede… It is also clear that there will never be a moment when the scientists are satisfied that their methods of detection are perfect."
A final compromise must be a figure approaching parity between foreign and national members of the team. The control team would be hamstrung if it were not to have the confidence of the country in which it is operating; and, equally, its effectiveness would be destroyed if the nationals of the country concerned were to hold control.
The Western Powers must also be prepared to compromise on the number of Veto-free inspections. After all, the fact that there will be a number of these inspections to which the Veto will not apply will ensure, so far as possible, that violations of the treaty are in the gravest danger of being caught out. It is quite unnecessary to insist that there should be an on-site inspection of every unidentifiable earth tremor. It is also impracticable. Even one in ten should be adequate to ensure compliance. It must be recognised, however, that it will be a long time before the control system is operating. Quite apart from the difficult negotiations which lie ahead, even when the control system is agreed upon it will be necessary to recruit and train a large number of personnel and to establish control posts with highly technical equipment. This cannot but be a long process; and it is vital, therefore, that nothing should happen between now and the establishment of the control system which could cause either the negotiations or the operation of the control system to break down. Having got so far towards agreement it would indeed be a tragedy if any of the three Powers should give in to pressure from their military advisers and break the truce

1025
(perhaps I should call it an abstention from tests) which has been so encouraging a feature of the last eight months. A solemn declaration that the three Governments will not resume tests would be a valuable contribution to achieving agreement at the Conference.
But, my Lords, it must be recognised that the present negotiations affect only three nuclear Powers. So far they have discussed only control posts on their own territory; yet the report of the experts urged that control posts, numbering 160 in all, should be set up throughout the world. What action will be taken by the Government to bring other States into the proposed present agreement? Can we imagine that the system will continue in operation if other countries begin testing their own nuclear weapons? Are we, for instance, prepared to say that we should stand by the Treaty if China, Czechoslovakia and East Germany were to conduct tests? Would the U.S.S.R hold herself bound by agreement if France, Belgium and Canada were to conduct tests? Just to pose these questions shows the terrible prospect which faces the world if more and more countries decide to manufacture their own nuclear weapons.
It is for this reason—because we dare not ignore the prospect of a new round of nuclear tests, with all the frightening consequences that could have for mankind—that the Labour Party, while rejecting unilateral nuclear disarmament, propose a new initiative from Britain. On February 11, in a debate in this House, I stated the official Labour Party policy as expressed by the Leader of the Opposition at the Labour Party Annual Conference in October of last year. These were his words:
"If it were really a choice, if we in Government knew for certain that only our continuing to manufacture these weapons stopped this agreement, which would finally freeze, as it were, the distribution of nuclear weapons to those two Powers (Russia and America), I know my colleagues and I would regard that as a very powerful argument indeed, and I give that undertaking."
Since that time the danger has become more acute. We are authoritatively informed that twelve countries now have the technical and economic ability to manufacture nuclear weapons, and that another eight countries will be in that position within the next five years. It is
1026
in these circumstances that the Labour Party Leadership has decided that a Labour Government would seek an agreement with all countries, other than the Soviet Union and the United States of America, not to test, manufacture or possess nuclear weapons. The agreement would be subject to complete and effective international control to ensure that it was carried out. We, for our part, would join them, ceasing our manufacture of nuclear weapons and depriving ourselves of our own stocks.
We believe that this agreement would be an effective safeguard against the spread of nuclear production and weapons and thereby facilitate our main objective—a multilateral disarmament agreement covering both nuclear and conventional armaments. Our proposal would in no way weaken our support for N.A.T.O. or our readiness to accept the continuance of American bases in Britain, subject to joint decision for operational use in an emergency. We recognise that there are difficulties. Who can say that France, China and others would agree to join in such an agreement? But how can we know the answer until we try? And if we do not try, then what other proposals have the Government to make to ensure even that an agreement to end tests is not overtaken by events?
My Lords, we on this side of the House have repeatedly criticised the Government for failing to follow up the one moment of hope in the United Nations Disarmament Sub-Committee when Russia appeared to have substantially accepted the proposals which Britain and France made in 1954–55. Surely one of the most urgent and vital tasks at a Summit Conference will be to set in motion once again negotiations towards multilateral disarmament. Here is a great opportunity for a British initiative. If problems of procedure could be cleared away at the Summit Meeting, then the United Nations Assembly this autumn could get to grips with the problem of disarmament in an atmosphere which would be more likely to lead to success.
Finally, let me say this. I have been able to deal with only two or three major aspects of the international situation which are likely to receive attention at the Summit Conference. But there are others which should receive attention at

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the same high level. There is the problem of the Far East and the question of Communist China's membership of the United Nations. There are problems in the Middle East: its dangerous unsettlement; the question of the freedom of passage through the Suez Canal, to which the noble Lord, Lord Barnby, referred in a Question in this House last week; the question of the resettlement of Arab refugees, which has been the subject of a valuable and constructive report by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. These are problems which cry out for solution, and much of the responsibility for finding agreed settlements lies with the four Powers working together in harmony with the Charter of the United Nations.
I think it is recognised that one Summit Conference will not settle even the European problems. There will have to be a series of such Conferences. If progress is to be made over the wider field of problems to which I have referred it seems to me that the heads of Governments should bring both the Far East and the Middle East within their compass, and co-operate to bring about the removal of the causes of dangerous tensions in the other parts of the world. If the coming Summit Conference can succeed in making a Berlin settlement and in setting up an all-German committee, tensions will be greatly eased and a more favourable climate created. I do not wish to seem unduly optimistic, but I believe that the way would thereby be opened for further co-operative efforts to advance the cause of peace and security in other directions. It may be that the world is going to be taken away from the brink by gradual steps. If reason and common sense and the interests of peoples are allowed to prevail, it may be that history will be able to point to the coming Conference as the real starting point. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.20 p.m.
LORD REA: My Lords, once more we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, for initiating a debate on foreign affairs, and for again doing so in the moderate, objective and comprehensive manner we have come always to expect from him when he pleases us by his intervention in our deliberations. He has touched chiefly on two aspects of
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the German question, Berlin and German reunification; and the third part of his speech dealt, to some extent, with the general question of nuclear force. Because it seems to me that in all aspects of foreign policy everything is so much dominated at the moment by nuclear developments, I hope your Lordships will bear with me for a short time if I deal mostly with that aspect of the matter. For in foreign affairs, even the major aims and ideals—those of prosperity, health, freedom and a concentration upon the advance of civilised philosophies—are nowadays all forced to take a dangerously subservient place when their fount and origin, humanity itself, is at stake.
I do not propose to sift through the kaleidoscope of views which are held about the H-bomb, for these are so various, so numerous and often so individual that no Member of this House, I suggest, speaking from any Party Benches or from the Episcopal Benches or from the Cross-Benches can hope to expound the views of more than a section of the world's or this nation's population, which is so divided, so puzzled and so anxious about the whole matter. It is no secret that within the Conservative Party to-day honest men and women of good will and intelligence take conflicting views upon the moral responsibility and the material effect of what may or may not be undertaken in respect of nuclear potentialities. It is no secret that within the Liberal Party agonising appraisals do not conform to one solution. And in the Labour Party the position is, I understand, even less of a secret.
This problem, to my mind, is no Party matter at all; and with the prospect of a General Election before us the genuinely conflicting Party views upon foreign affairs (in the conventional sense of that phrase) cannot, it seems to me, honourably be attached to a nuclear problem so colossal and so universal that no political creed or dogma has any direct relationship to it: it is a matter of individual conviction or individual hope, unrelated to the electoral and historical practice of trial and error by one or another political Party. It is in this context and in the context of the recent appeal made by the Lord President of the Council to all political Parties to realise their joint as well as their distinctive responsibilities

1029
that I make a plea for freedom of individual conscience unallied to some hard and fast Party proposals.
Recrimination between opposing lines of thought is totally unhelpful on this matter. To attempt to put a dividing line between what is sometimes called sentimental wishfulness, on the one hand, and experience in bygone eras, on the other, is to cloud the problem in prejudice—and prejudice is the rock upon which innumerable good international intentions and plans have foundered. My own greatest problem is a deep conviction that the responsibility facing the generation which is alive in the world to-day is totally new, both in character and in its implications, each of which is almost beyond human comprehension. In the old days, a declaration of war meant in general terms that a country was willing to expend the lives of a fairly large proportion of its younger manhood in furtherance of its national aims, whether they were defensive or offensive; and that decision involved one generation only and allowed national recuperation to the enjoyment of things both of the future and of the past.
To-day, however, a declaration of war is surely likely to lead to the expenditure of all, or nearly all, human life—men, women and children—and to wipe out additionally, as has been often pointed out, the future untold generations and all that they might enjoy. But I would add this—and it is, I think, a point which has not been so much stressed: that it would also wipe out the past. That remark may sound a little paradoxical, but the past exists as a mental conception of what has gone before; and if no conception of it is allowed to persist, then all the philosophies, all the art and civilised progress, all the painful centuries and aeons of development and improvement, all the inspiration and work of Confucius and Christ and Buddha and Mohammed, and of their millions of devoted followers over the years—all these things are wiped out, too. That seems to me to be a responsibility of decision which no single generation, passing through this world only during its own infinitely short existence, can take as a current political gambit. It therefore seems to me that a deterrent whose use can only bring about this complete catastrophe is one that is morally unacceptable.
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What is the alternative? I suggest that there are two choices One, which is perhaps more relevant to this debate, is to bend every effort, nationally and internationally, towards enlightenment and information and persuasion and a sense of human proportion throughout the world—the highest aim, surely, of all foreign policy and of all foreign affairs. Here I am convinced that we could give a far greater lead in devoting much more of our limited national resources to these international aims, and in spending much less on armaments whose vast cost is already crippling our ripe trade—and prosperity—potential, and adding little more than a token contribution of amour-propre to the nuclear defences of the Western bloc whose interests I think we could serve much more effectively in pacific and constructive leadership.
The other choice is to let matters take their course and to face the chances of this country being overrun and conquered. To me this latter choice is utterly repugnant; and, far from being a pacifist, I, and millions like me, would again (as we have done already twice in our lifetime) gladly offer our whole energies and our lives in the protection of our country. But this offer of the lives—even of all the lives—of Britain's total manpower seems to me to be the limit of what we, living in this transient generation, are entitled to sacrifice: we have to-day no mandate to take upon ourselves the decision to extinguish humanity and all its future and all its past. In the last resort—and the general use of the H-bomb would be the last resort—I think it would be better that we should, if necessary, be overrun and conquered, just as we and almost every other civilised country in history have been in the past overrun by unacceptable adversaries and have survived and have assimilated; and have emerged, different perhaps, but with civilisation still around us, the wealth of the past still behind us and the building of the future still there, with foundations and with hope.
My Lords, I have addressed myself to matters of nuclear armament because, as I say, that is the international preoccupation which overshadows every country's movements in foreign affairs. But I hope to hear in the course of this debate exhortations to Her Majesty's

1031
Government to strike out on a fresh idealism of purpose in many less all-embracing fields: the need to give moral backing to the rightful and overdue recognition of China—as the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, mentioned—in what should be an all-nation organisation, the United Nations; the need for a sensitive and sympathetic understanding of France's new, tentative and difficult resurgence; the urgency of always working towards a prospect of independence and freedom for the enslaved satellite countries. And I would urge them to remember, in their dealings with America and Russia—two nations whose parity with the civilised world is less than three hundred years old—that we are coming to the end of a long era when physical power meant influence and dictation, and are about to enter a new era where physical power is a boomerang and means death. And, perhaps most immediately important, is the need to meet Russia and to face Russia, neither on her terms nor on our terms but on new approaches which should replace tradition by improvisation, suspicion by careful experiment, and uneasy contest by a mutually reliable co-ordination which must come about if the world is to survive.
3.30 p.m.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, while the present conferences at Geneva on the future of Germany and on the discontinuance of tests of nuclear weapons have been in progress, we have had a number of debates in this House all of which have been opened by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, who always opens these foreign affairs debates to the delight of your Lordships.
As I stand here to-day, when the Foreign Ministers are reassembling in Geneva, I am not yet able to announce to the House any final or concrete results. But that is not to say that there have not been some genuine gains. For instance, we have moved—and we have moved by the general consent of those who are negotiating—away from the atmosphere of immediate ultimatum into that of negotiation; negotiation which is tough and hard, but, nevertheless, the countries concerned in the future of this part of
1032
Europe are talking. We are perhaps too close to the picture to see it whole, but I recall that only a few weeks ago, when Mr. Menzies visited this country he called public attention to the value of talk on matters in dispute in the world. In the course of his travels he had seen most of those engaged in these talks, and he drew attention to their value and to the effect on the negotiators themselves, on the one hand, and on the world outside, on the other, a world which has to be educated on these issues—because there is no escaping the fact that the repercussions of any particular international quarrel are world-wide at the present time.
Again, if at times we feel frustrated, and if we see the path blocked in ways which seem to us to be unreasonable, I always recall the negotiations for the Austrian Peace Treaty. Your Lordships will remember that time and again they seemed hopeless and endless, but in fact they did end, and with a settlement which has been lasting. So the Foreign Secretary, who returns to Geneva to-day, goes there with the intention of persevering for a settlement on the issues and matters which are the subjects of these two conferences.
May I take first the conference which is dealing with the future of Berlin and the wider question of Germany? The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, has pointed out, perfectly truly, that although all the parties in discussion state that they are agreed on certain principles—for instance, on the ultimate unity of Germany, or again on the holding of free elections—nevertheless we are unlikely to be able to come to any agreement on those wide issues now. Hopes for the unity of Germany must be hopes deferred. In time, these issues must be settled; but there are short-term objectives, valuable in themselves, which, as the noble Lord indicated, might well bring long-term settlements nearer.
The important issue in the immediate forefront of the stage in the present Conference is, of course, the future of Berlin and any arrangements which may be made for Berlin in the context of the Russian threat to withdraw her Four-Power participation. I will not rehearse to your Lordships the plans, both the plan of the West and the plan of the Russians, which have been put forward.

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Your Lordships will have read them in the White Paper, a fuller edition of which I may perhaps remind the noble Lord is being produced. Within those plans there are, of course, matters to be settled such as the level of forces which might remain in Berlin, questions concerning espionage, access to Berlin from the West, and so on. These matters, as the noble Lord indicated, should be capable of settlement.
The main point of difference which still has to be resolved is this—and the noble Lord put his finger upon it. The House will remember that the Russian plan proposed an interim status for Berlin lasting some eighteen months, during which time a committee of East and West Germans would meet to extend the contacts between the two parts of Germany and to work out measures for reunification and for a peace treaty. The point of ambiguity is this. Under the Russian plan, what happens if the committee of East and West Germans fails to agree in the interim period? Do the Foreign Ministers at the end of that time resume where they left off? Is the committee to sit under an ultimatum which expires in eighteen months' time when the Russians will say that the right of the Western nations to be in Berlin has expired? Those who prefer the speeches of Mr. Gromyko and Mr. Kozlov have one interpretation, and those who have read the interviews of Mr. Khrushchev with Mr. Harriman, or his speeches, another.
Although we may speculate, what matters is what Mr. Gromyko says and what he is prepared to agree to at Geneva. I do not know whether your Lordships have seen an amplification of the Russian statement which Mr. Gromyko himself made after the Conference had adjourned three weeks ago. He was saying that he did not quite know why the West had put the interpretation on the Russian proposal that at the end of the term there would once more be an atmosphere of ultimatum. What he said was this:
"Why is such a conclusion drawn? The fact that the Soviet Union proposes that on the, expiry of the term set in the agreement fresh negotiations on West Berlin should be held, if the all-German committee does not succeed by that date, speaks for itself.
If we envisaged only a one-sided solution of the problem of the rights of the Western Powers in Berlin now or immediately on the expiry of the term of operation of the afore-
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mentioned interim agreement on West Berlin, we would not be suggesting the joint working out of an interim status for Berlin"—
that is what the noble Lord has said—
"and the settlement of the question of guaranteeing this status, and the setting up of a four-power supervisory agency. Nor would we be proposing a resumption of the joint discussion of the Berlin question if the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany do not agree in the all-German Committee. Thus, the Soviet Government prefers to reach, and this also refers to the new proposals, an agreed decision—I repeat an agreed decision—concerning West Berlin, a decision which of course must accord with the present situation in Berlin and in Germany and which must not and cannot proceed from a desire to perpetuate the occupation regime in West Berlin."
There may still be ambiguity there, but if Mr. Gromyko's statement is taken at its face value, one would hope that agreement is possible. I profoundly hope that it may be so. However, as I say, speculation is really fruitless until the Foreign Ministers get down to work again. So, my Lords, one would hope that in this Conference the areas of disagreement would be sufficiently narrowed to be taken to a Summit Conference where they might be resolved.
I turn now to the second of the Conferences mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, the Conference on the Discontinuance of Nuclear Weapons Tests. I think it is well once again to remind ourselves of our objectives. The first is the hope that we may prevent the pollution of the atmosphere, as the cumulative effects of explosions may add up to a danger to the health of mankind. The second is that we have the opportunity to pioneer a system of inspection and set a pattern which might extend beyond this particular field into the field of wider disarmament. The third is that if we can find ways and means of measuring explosions in the upper atmosphere and underground, the full prize of the abolition of tests altogether may be within our reach. Those are the objectives with which our negotiators have gone to Geneva.
A good deal of technical progress has been made. I think your Lordships probably know that in the last day or two as far as the high altitude tests are concerned the experts are agreed on practical ways and means to measure them. We now hope, therefore, that the Russians will join us in examining the possibility

1035
of detecting underground tests and the way to control them. Indeed, over this whole field, as the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, said, without raising any undue hopes, quite significant progress has been made which ought to form the basis for an agreement.
Here again there is one matter of principle involved, of which I must remind your Lordships, and which we have always made clear to the Russians: that the abolition of tests would be absolutely valueless without inspection. Only a system of inspection agreed between the parties concerned will bring the necessary confidence to the world outside. We have always made it clear, too, that a system where one party had an absolute veto on the inspectors would be equally valueless. But, of course, we are sufficiently realistic to know that Russia will not accept an unlimited number of inspections; nor may they be necessary. It was to break that jam and to find a method of conducting inspections which was at once practical and effective that the Prime Minister, when he went to Moscow, made the proposal for a quota of inspections in each year. Little progress has been made on that proposal, but it still seems to us the proposition most likely to bring us near to agreement. The gains of an inspection scheme, if one can be worked out, are so infinitely great that again our negotiators will use infinite patience in exploring every possibility; and if the differences here, too, could be brought within a narrow compass then again the problems could be transferred to a Summit Meeting which one might hope might settle them.
I think it is worth reminding ourselves—and I remember saying this in at least one debate before—that the abolition of nuclear tests is not disarmament. But its significance lies in the fact that it is undoubtedly the gateway to general disarmament. It is, I am sure, a mistake if we are obsessed by the nuclear picture alone, and if we allow ourselves to forget the appalling destruction which conventional weapons can wreak to-day on our country, and indeed on any country which is the victim of war. Things have not stood still since 1945, and although in the short term to-day we are going all out for an agreement on the aboli-
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tion of tests of nuclear weapons, nevertheless we have not in any way lost sight of the goal of general disarmament, and I hope that that, too, may be a matter which a Summit Meeting might profitably discuss.
The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, was, I thought, a little shy of dealing with the question of the "non-nuclear club." I do not want to press him about it to-day. I am just wondering, if he compares his speech to-day with the one he made on the Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Simon of Wythenshawe, not long ago, whether they exactly coincide. The noble Lord, Lord Rea, if I understood him aright, made a plea that we should all be allowed to make up our own minds about the nuclear bomb and its use. Of course, we must, but I thought that his speech almost elevated indecision into a virtue; and that we really cannot afford in a matter which affects the peace of the world and the future of mankind.
I am not going to argue with the noble Lord to-day where the members of his "club" are coming from. I do not see a rush to join, but I am going to say this: that I simply do not believe that the people of our country—indeed I myself hold this view very strongly—with all our Imperial and Commonwealth responsibilities, will allow us to stand aside and surrender the right to play our part in guaranteeing the peace of the world in this nuclear age. I do not much fancy myself the other "club" either, which as I understand it, will consist of the United States and Russia, two Powers with all the nuclear strength in their hands and none in the hands of any other nation. Therefore, although the United States is our greatest friend and we are most deeply indebted to her, I do not believe it is right that any two Powers alone should monopolise the nuclear power of the world. The right solution, which I should have thought was strongly in the interest of the Russians and the United States and of ourselves, is to arrange a cut-off of fissile material, which will prevent the spread of nuclear power to other countries—the dangerous spread which noble Lords rightly fear.
Therefore to-day, as the Foreign Ministers reassemble in Geneva, I think the prospects can be described as moderately hopeful, and at any rate the Foreign Secretary as our representative will persevere to get results. Maybe we shall

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fail to make headway with the Russians, and the temptation to them to pursue the policies of international Communism may be too great. If that is so, the world will have to endure the burden of the arms race, the risks inherent in a nuclear balance of power, and fear will remain the best deterrent against the aggressor and against war itself. Whatever happens, we shall do our duty as a nation by the free world. But I must make our choice clear beyond doubt. Our choice as a nation is the way of negotiation and the way of disarmament; and to this task we are dedicated, because we seek to lift fear from mankind and to try with all our power to bring security and peace nearer in this way.
3.50 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, whatever the merits of the proposals for a non-nuclear club, I am sure that some of your Lordships would wish to have a non-nuclear debate. It is an unfortunate fact these days that, whenever we come to debate the international situation, we are inevitably obsessed with this awful problem of nuclear weapons and their control. I do not propose to detain your Lordships very long. We have had an interim report from the noble Earl on the progress at Geneva both in regard to Germany and in regard to control over nuclear tests. I should like to congratulate the Government, and the Foreign Secretary in particular, on the measure of progress that has been made.
When we debated this subject two months ago, there was little appreciation—indeed, some of my friends and some noble Lords on the other side, I think, had not fully realised—just how significant had been the Prime Minister's initiative in regard to on-site tests. Although we have not yet reached a point where agreement is in sight, there is no doubt that there is every prospect of there being such an agreement in the long run. This is one quite striking advance, one encouraging factor, in a world which usually presents a uniformly gloomy appearance in the matter of international agreement. The Foreign Secretary—I understand it was his initiative that, to a large extent, led to the recess in the Geneva conference—said at the time in a debate in another place that he found it helpful that the statesmen should take the opportunity to consider the various issues which they had been debating and pos-
1038
sibly to look at their own views and see whether or not they were showing an unduly restrictive approach. He did not say it in so many words, but I am quite sure that that must have been in his mind.
In the matter of the other conference, on the control of nuclear tests, I think the British position has been perfectly clear. It is obviously impossible to agree to anything which is scientifically not established. Clearly we have to get agreement on the type of signs and readings and indications, on the basis of which inspections can take place. The Russian Government, having made a step forward, then undoubtedly became most suspicious that the British and the Americans were stepping back, because new scientific data became available to complicate the situation. But I have every hope that, providing we stick as patiently as I hope we are sticking to the views we are putting forward, we shall get the sort of agreement which has now been obtained in the matter of tests in space. This was the point on which I questioned the Government in our last debate, and it is most encouraging that in the last few days once again agreement—it seems that scientists are able to reach agreement whatever statesmen can do about it—has been reached on a method which they obviously consider will be proof against the testing of atomic weapons way out beyond the atmosphere.
I think the situation is one on which we may really take some encouragement. But I agree with the views of noble Lords on all sides, that the control of tests is not by itself a solution to the problem. It is a tremendously important step forward, but we are none the less in the long run faced with the need to get some form of agreement on armaments. I should like to stress again the position which I hold, and which I still believe to be the position in my Party: that it is not just a question of an agreement to ban atomic weapons; we must have a comprehensive agreement on weapons. It is not the slightest use our being mesmerised by the horror of the atomic bomb; to relax in the thought that we have agreement on atomic weapons; and then to expose ourselves to all the horrors of a conventional war—much worse than the horrors of the last war—even if atomic weapons are not used.

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I hope that noble Lords, particularly those opposite, will take the proposals that have been put forward in regard to the non-nuclear club rather as the Prime Minister did in the other place the other day, quite seriously. I must admit that I myself am not yet convinced of their practicality, nor am I convinced that they are right; but I do believe that it is highly necessary that somebody, at some point, should start trying to think of solutions. I would assure noble Lords—because many of us have had much heart-searching on this matter—that it is not simply an electoral device. I believe that those who have put it forward have put it forward not in order to dish Mr. Cousins but because they see a danger in this proliferation of atomic weapons among countries who at the moment have not got them.
I confess that, on the whole, I have a slightly comfortable feeling about the international situation to-day. It is obviously full of all sorts of dangers, but so is life generally, and on the whole the situation is frozen. There is no overwhelming reason in the world why there should be an outbreak of atomic war. The degree of counter-threat and threat, with the consciousness that the use certainly of the ultimate weapon, the hydrogen weapon, would lead very largely to the extinction of civilisation, has, I believe, had the effect of turning the thoughts of mankind, for the first time in history really, adamantly and firmly against the idea of war. But there is a further danger that these weapons may get into the hands of too many people, and I believe no more than 20 lb. or so of plutonium is required. Plutonium is a material easier to separate than the old uranium 235. It is merely a different chemical isotope of uranium. It is perfectly possible that many countries in the world will be driven in the way that France is driven now, because they wish to seek their own position of privilege in the nuclear club, in the direction of creating nuclear weapons. Therefore, while I do not yet go the whole way in regard to the non-nuclear club, and it would be wrong for me to pretend that I do, I hope that noble Lords will look seriously at the proposals, because somewhere, sometime, agreement has to be reached on this question. It may well be that an ultimate inter-
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national agreement—possibly one which will be sanctified under the United Nations—will be along these lines, whereby we recognise that there are certain Powers in the world who will be given the particular responsibility of keeping the peace of the world, acting as a kind of super policeman.
My Lords, this is something which I know is not going to be particularly popular with the British electorate and it is not going to be an easy one to understand. If I thought that it would lead to the break-up of N.A.T.O., and if it is shown to be destructive of interdependence, then I would say that the price was too high to pay at the moment. But it is up to the Governments of N.A.T.O. to do a great deal more than I think they have done to explain the principles that motivate them, to give more confidence and understanding to their own anxious peoples and to their own anxious politicians.
Quite recently there was a meeting in London of the Atlantic Congress. It was a meeting which certain Members of the British Parliament had played a big part in bringing about—the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, in particular, and honourable Members from another place—and at that Congress all of us. I think, of all nations, found ourselves caught up very much in the idea of the community of the Atlantic. It was not a negative community at all. Comparatively little was said about defence. A great deal of it was concerned with the positive contribution the Western Community could make to building a better world. I would ask the Government, as they have been asked before (I think particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, and certainly the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, has said it), that they should devote more efforts to putting across in their own country and abroad the positive ideas that inform and encourage the Western democracies.
In particular there was one proposal that came out of that Congress, and that was the proposal for an organised, international effort along the lines of the Colombo Plan for raising living standards in the rest of the world. This is the obverse side of this awful problem of the nuclear bomb. This is the non-nuclear club in which I should like to see this country taking a lead, and it is

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along these lines that I hope the Government, when they get time to get away from these Summit discussions, will lead this country and will encourage other people in the rest of the world. I would say only this: I hope that the Prime Minister will continue his efforts, rather unrewarding ones, on advance towards the Summit. He may not have got very near it yet, but at last there are some shafts of sunshine on the down-land where we have got to-day.
4.3 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, it is only proper that your Lordships should have the opportunity of expressing your views on the situation before the discussions—if discussions be the word, rather than disputations—resume at Geneva. I do not propose to deal with the minutiae of proposal and counter-proposal, not because they are unimportant but because they have already been dealt with in this debate and will no doubt be dealt with by other speakers. I intend to confine myself rather to general observations.
So far as it is possible to judge at this distance, and without being able to analyse the atmosphere on the spot, I would certainly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, that the Foreign Secretary was wise in suggesting an adjournment of these talks last month in order that delegations might have a pause in which to recover their breath. I do not intend to speculate or prophesy in any way what the results may be, now that the delegations have their second wind. I can only hope that they will be more productive than the first phase. But, my Lords, I certainly mean no possible disrespect to my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary, who has borne with fortitude, wisdom and patience the major weight on behalf of the West in these discussions up to date, if I say that perhaps I never expected any very sensational or significant results from the discussions of the Foreign Ministers. I have always thought that it was the Russian view that the Foreign Ministers' talks were a tedious and superfluous knock-up before the real match began, and I am therefore not acutely disappointed if the results so far have not been all that some people may have hoped.
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It may be that some of your Lordships think that if the Russians are as anxious as I think most of them are to pass to the second stage of the Conference, why do they not hurry to take every possible step to sweep away the preliminaries and proceed to that second stage? My Lords, that is not their technique. I am by no means alone in this House in having had some experience of negotiating with the Russians, although possibly my experience is more recent than that of other noble Lords: but I have watched with close interest the familiar pattern being followed on this occasion, just as it has been followed in the conferences which I, and I expect they, knew, and which has indeed been followed for the past 300 years at conferences which the Russians have attended. One of the most powerful weapons in the Russian diplomatic armoury is time. They quite deliberately spin out negotiations for the purpose of breaking down the resistance of their opponents and driving them in the end to accept the unacceptable from sheer mental and physical exhaustion.
I observe that my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary, in his speech in another place the other day, used the word "exasperation", and I think those who have had experience would agree that that is the apt word. But if the proceedings are long-drawn-out it is not, as some people are prone to think, because the Russians have no sense of time; it is because they have an extremely astute sense of time as a tactical manœuvre in order to exhaust and to exasperate their opponents. They are extremely expert at it, and they seem to enjoy it. Indeed, if they set their minds to the task they can make Fabius Cunctator look like a flash of lightning. I think it is also true that the somewhat bewildering process by which suddenly they advance a few steps, and then, equally suddenly, retreat a larger number of steps, is all part of the same design. The intention is that by the advance the other side should be led to say to itself, "Ah! At last they are beginning to give a little ground"; and then when the withdrawal comes, the effect, of course, of the sudden collapse of its hopes, is only to intensify the ensuing impatience and frustration and wrath. It is all part of the same plan.

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I think it is also right to say that generally they set up a decoy at the beginning of a conference but never show their real offer till the last possible moment, when it appears that there is nothing to look forward to except final and irretrievable deadlock. I recall that at Geneva in 1954 we spent three months on Indo-China, and I think it is safe to say that if the Russians had moved or had said that they were prepared to move in May, even to the extent to which they finally moved in July, we could all have gone home in ten days. I do not doubt for a moment that they knew from the beginning approximately how far they were ultimately prepared to go, but they preferred to play out the game in the hope that they would only have to go that distance if every other alternative failed and if the campaign of attrition was not attaining its objective.
My Lords, another thing that I think one has to bear in mind is that the particular proposal by which, in the end, some degree of success is achieved must originate with them. I have seen them reject a proposal from us, or from one of our friends, with indigation and contumely; and then, within two or three days, blandly bring forward the same proposal themselves as an example of their own resourceful inspiration. Again, they must have the last word. Mr. Gromyko's issue of a statement in the middle of the night on the day before this present Conference adjourned was absolutely characteristic and true to type—just as was the subsequent statement to which the noble Earl the Leader of the House has referred—coming out after the deliberations were at the moment at an end. These things are well known to those dealing with the Russians and I mention them only in case they might throw some slight ray of illumination on those of your Lordships who have not undergone the experience of actual negotiation with them.
But, my Lords, having observed that at this Geneva Conference up to date the rules of the game as played by the Russians seem still to be of full force and effect, I should not be surprised if, at the last second of the last minute before the Conference appears to be coming to a conclusion, the Russians
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come forward with a proposal which will make a Summit Conference possible. Indeed, I greatly hope that that may be so. I believe that they want a Summit Conference and nothing but a Summit Conference; and, that being so, they are not disposed to let anything very vital emerge from any discussions at a lower level. If that be the reason, my Lords, it seems to me essential that we should strive as far as in any of us lies to achieve a Summit Conference, because only in that way shall we know at least a portion of what their real intentions are.
I have seen some reference to the fact that a Summit Conference is supposed only to ratify the decisions reached at the Foreign Ministers' Conference. I believe that that is a profound error. If that is all they are going to do, the great men might as well exchange autographs from their respective desks. A Summit Conference, if it is going to justify itself in any degree, must be a far more flexible and a far more widespread discussion than that. It must cover—if not this time, at least in the future—the sort of points which the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, indicated at the end of his speech.
I think it is true to say that the running commentary by Mr. Khrushchev on the proceedings at Geneva has been neither very helpful nor very hopeful. The production would have been a better one without a compère in Moscow. Perhaps I saw as much as, or more than, most people of Mr. Khrushchev when he paid his visit to this country in 1955. I would judge him to be a very vigorous, a very shrewd, a very determined, but, at the same time, perhaps a slightly mercurial personality. With him, the conversational temperature seldom remains normal for long. My Lords, I think that the Prime Minister has been absolutely right to emphasise that it would be an appalling mistake to inflate a possible Summit Conference now into a Summit Conference to end all Summit Conferences rather than as one in a regular series of such Conferences. If it succeeds, it will be a beginning: if it fails it must not be the end. My Lords, the hydrogen bomb may be a deterrent against war, but so, too, in their way, are high-level talks.

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I would end, my Lords, by expressing two hopes. The first is that the countries of the West, even if they do not attain all they have hoped or desired from the Foreign Ministers' conversations, and even if the olive branch which is held out to them at the end contains few and wizened fruit, will, at the same time, not allow considerations of national prestige or amour proper or pride to stand in the way of an acceptance to attend such a conference. My Lords, to mount a high horse now may be to ride for a very serious fall. As regards the second hope, I realise that it is necessary to placate, to keep in step with, and to agree with our Allies; but I would hope that we should not go to this resumed Foreign Ministers' Conference, or to a succeeding Summit Conference, brandishing a bundle of proposals which we and everybody else know perfectly well the Russians cannot possibly accept. That, my Lords, is the negation of negotiation. It may well be that those proposals are essential to any long term solution, but that does not mean that they must be brought into the forefront of the discussions at this moment. In diplomacy, if I may slightly adapt a well-known legal phrase, timing is of the essence of the contact; and you may well have in your hands proposals which, before you can come to a final settlement, must be put forward, but which at the same time can well be put away for the moment into the diplomatic deep-freeze in order that they may not, by being exposed to the thundery weather, go sour. After all, my Lords, the point of all these discussions is one short, sharp point: the immediate task is to find not battleground but common ground.
4.18 p.m.
LORD BIRDWOOD: My Lords, I am sure we are all very grateful to the noble Marquess who has just sat down for what I might describe as a "behind the scenes view of the Soviet technique". I am sure, also, that we are all very conscious that perhaps it is a precedent that we should have an important debate on international affairs on the eve of Geneva; and we should wish that nothing said here this afternoon will in any way hinder the task of the Foreign Secretary. At the same time, we do not live in a totalitarian State: we live in a free State, which allow
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free speech. It may be that it could serve a purpose not only to indicate to Mr. Gromyko at Geneva (that is, believing that Hansard finds its way there) the methods of a country which recognises free speech, but also to draw attention to the anxiety—and, indeed, the bewilderment—of great sections of the British public at some of the more recent manifestations of Soviet policy. The noble Marquess has referred to Soviet technique, and when I come to this aspect of Soviet policy it is on Soviet intention that I shall hope to lay emphasis.
I intend only to say a brief word, if I may, about the Middle East before coming to the maze of negotiation at Geneva. Within these last months Her Majesty's Government have had to face the charge that perhaps in the Middle East we have drifted into a kind of political vacuum, without objective, without leadership and without direction, and it is against that kind of charge that I should like to offer the Government some mild defence. It cannot be too often emphasised that all we require of the Middle East—indeed, all we have ever required—is two things: first, bearing in mind that the great artery of Empire and Commonwealth has always passed through the area, we want to be able to move backwards and forwards through it on our lawful occasions without hindrance; and secondly, and far more recently, within these last few years, we want to know that the oil for Europe and the West will flow out of the Middle East and will not be subject to every passing political hazard of the day. Those two requirements, which might be described as the twin pillars of a policy, surely, in turn, depend on what I think is a third requirement—that is the goodwill of the people of the area.
Those who are inclined to thump the table and demand one clear-cut, clearly defined, positive policy to blanket a number of very different situations, to blanket what is a complex of different loyalties, should ask them selves just this question: Will such a policy guarantee the goodwill of the people? When put in that way, I think that your Lordships will see that perhaps it is not a policy at all that is required; it is more an attitude of mind. It is an attitude which would watch and wait and be ready to help. The doubts in some of your Lordships'

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minds will be whether, in these circumstances, such a policy, which is negative, will prevent the area from falling eventually under the control of the Communists. If the problem were one of uniformity, if all the people in the area were all going the same way under the same leadership, such a policy to-day might make sense. But with so many imponderables, I consider that it would be a grave error to commit ourselves either to the support or to the suppression of any individual or any group. It is in the knowledge, I submit, that our help is there for the asking, that we are more likely to preserve this area for sanity. Let others who come in make the mistakes. Let the Soviet discover, as perhaps we have discovered, to our cost, that when one makes friends in one area in the Middle East, one makes enemies in another.
To-morrow, July 14, it will be just a year since the Iraqis assassinated their King and Prime Minister. I am told that the Iraqi Embassy have sent out invitations to celebrate the event. What exactly is going to be celebrated I would not know, unless it is the stimulation of watching a so-called "legal court" which has become an insult to civilisation, and which is recognised as such by all Iraqis of discrimination, whatever their affiliations were previously. The Iraqis I have encountered who have come out of Baghdad are certainly prepared to regard such a process with horror and dismay. But the occasion does serve to remind us of the uncertainty of the future. I have yet to meet the Englishman who came out of Baghdad immediately after July 14 of last year, whether expert Arabist or otherwise, who would not have predicted that within a matter of weeks Iraq would have been a third limb of the United Arab Republic. Within the last three weeks, I have encountered three Iraqis out of Baghdad. Each submitted a different kind of development as governing the future, and each development demanding a different kind of policy from this country. In such circumstances, surely patience is the only virtue.
It is not easy to speak of this objective approach of good will and friendship, when we hear of the things that continue to be said about us. I refer particularly to Major Salem in Egypt. He seems to
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have transferred the nimble manipulation of his limbs to an equally agile play with words. In a signed article in a prominent Egyptian newspaper he seriously puts forward the idea—and presumably it is believed—that a combination of Iraq, Israel and Jordan—a strange kind of brotherhood, in all conscience, in the Middle East!—was working under British direction to destroy the United Arab Republic. I mention this matter because we have the impression that today Her Majesty's Government are, rightly, as I believe, hoping and striving for better relations with the United Arab Republic, and with Egypt in particular.
There are practical reasons why we should come to a better understanding with Egypt—not that true friendship is ever based on practical premises. But at least a practical understanding is a start, and I believe that the time has come when we can afford to turn to President Nasser and tell him that we should like to develop a more reasonable understanding with a view to establishing friendship. There may be obstacles on both sides. One obstacle, from our point of view, is the continuation of the fairly venomous Press campaign against us. I would only suggest that in a country where presumably both Press and radio are subject to strict Governmental control, it would be easy to switch the great publicity machine to the support of better Anglo-Egyptian relations. I feel that if that much could be done in Cairo, Her Majesty's Government, on their side, might be quick to respond.
If I may come to comment on the discussions at Geneva, may I take the matter of the all-German committee set up to achieve German reunification. There is one great difficulty—that is, that hitherto the Federal Government of Germany have refused to sit at the table with the Eastern German representation. I think that in so doing they deserve our full sympathy and understanding. It is not enough to say that we have recognised the Peking Government in Communist China as the de facto Government of that country and that they should just do the same here. We could, I think, compare their position more to that of Norway had the Norwegian Government been asked after the war to negotiate with Quisling, or to a Government in Whitehall asked to settle the fate of this

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country in negotiation with a Government in Birmingham. That is the kind of thing we are asking Western Germany to do. Nevertheless, I believe that the time has come when perhaps this is the wisest advice we could give to the Adenauer Government. If I sound a note of pessimism in regard to Geneva, it is not because I do not appreciate the value of the advances which the Foreign Secretaries strive so valiantly to make; nor that I do not hope that those advances will be made. It is that I fear that in making them there may be perhaps an abandonment of principles. That is my fear. As I see it, at Geneva we face a challenge to all normal rules of free democracy. What are those rules? Our belief is surely just this: that the will of the simple majority prevails over the will of the simple minority. In other words that 51 prevail over 49: and how very irksome it can be at times! With that in mind, and turning to the Soviet proposal for Germany, what do we find? We find that, having refused for ten years free elections in East Germany, having set up and held up a Government in East Germany which, if the Soviet force behind it were removed, would immediately disappear, they then demand parity of representation, one for one, as between East and West. This is where I find myself in profound disagreement with the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, who has apparently sanctioned the system of coming to agreement on a basis of parity.
The Western proposals for the setting up of an all-German committee have, as we have been reminded, been put forward on a basis of a representation of twenty-five for the West and a representation of ten for the East, based on comparative populations. The interesting feature is that the decisions have to be taken by a three-quarter majority which, if my arithmetic is correct, means that two of the East. Germans would, in any decision, have to vote with the West. As I see it, the East German Government thus have their safeguard in the application of a normal but perfectly fundamental principle of democratic representation.
But now, apart from a denial of justice in the Soviet proposal, there is another and much more profound reason for treating any system based on parity with the very gravest suspicion. It is here that I am raising the ideological issue, an
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issue I have raised before. I should like to put the matter once again, and perhaps in a slightly different way. Anyone who studies the parallel operation of Communism and a free democracy cannot fail to note that whereas the one insists on the united approach and indeed is unable to tolerate any form of dissension in its own ranks, the other regards argument, dispute and dissension as merits inherent within its system. If that be true, it is quite easy to see the kind of fear the West Germans have of a committee which bases itself on parity of representation. Sooner or later they fear—and it has been put to me by West German leaders—that control would inevitably drift over to the other side. That sounds like an uncomfortable admission before the event, yet it is a very real fear in Germany—the fear of a technique which has many successes to its credit ever since Lenin pointed the way to the winning of power, not by a majority, not even by an equal number, but by a minority; a hard, disciplined core of dedicated men hacking their way through to power as a minority. This fear is what we have to face in this matter of setting up an all-German committee. Far better to go on with existing conditions, with existing loyalties confirmed, than to yield in this matter.
Where, then, can there be hope? Where can we yield a little? We all recognise the value of flexibility in this situation. Your Lordships have noted that the Western proposals are in the nature of a package deal. Rightly, we appreciated the advantages of being able to gather up every aspect of the international situation under one formula in the hope that the fate of Europe will be settled once and for all, and as a by-product, the world may be set on the path to disarmament. It is clear from paragraph 25 of our first proposals, where we relate the establishment of an all-German Government to the creation of a zone comprising areas of comparable depth and size on either side of a mutually agreed line: a zone in which both sides would reduce their troops—in other words, a thinning out, which in itself would be a very great advantage.
Therefore I am suggesting that to some extent we can afford to relax this concept of the closely-knit package deal,

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and attempt progress in those spheres, such as thinning out, where it seems that the Soviet are interested. In effect, I am suggesting that the egg can to a certain 'extent be unscrambled and that agreements can be reached on some of the very important ingredients, such as the noble Earl, Lord Home, quoted to us, of agreement possibly being reached in the matter of using satellites for testing nuclear explosions in the higher altitudes.
Finally, I should like to go back to the hard core of the problem, the ideological division: the roots which are the causes behind these surface moves. It is now about forty years ago since Lenin gave to the world the pattern for the future. Out of many possible quotations I have chosen one from his works, Volume 24, page 122:
"We are living not merely in a State, but in a system of States, and the existence of the Soviet Republic side by side with Imperialist States for a long time is unthinkable. One or the other must triumph in the end. And before that end supervenes a series of frightful collisions between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois States will be inevitable."
Since then that kind of assertion has been elaborated over and over again in varying terms. The actual prediction of war may be absent, but the implication that Communism will at all costs prevail is always there. It was recently reaffirmed by Mr. Khrushchev in 1957 in a programme from Moscow that was televised all over the United States. It was repeated by him in Tirana a few weeks ago, and repeated more certainly to Mr. Harriman. In Tirana his assurance merely presages the intention:
"Communism would inevitably take over from capitalism because it constituted a higher stage of social development."
To Mr. Harriman he was more precise and we are in debt to the Hendersons in both Houses for reminding us of what he said. He said just this: that he would never agree to a reunification of Germany which did not provide for a Communist system. We have been repeatedly told that this voice of Mr. Khrushchev is the only voice that matters.
But before I return to this aspect, I would ask your Lordships to note the play on words: "Socialism and Socialists", "Communism and Communists". They appear to be interchange-
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able. In the above case, in the interview with Mr. Harriman, The Times used the words "Communist system" and the B.B.C. used "Socialist system". The Communists regard the words as interchangeable for a deliberate purpose. One service the Party opposite could perform for us, having in mind that we all share a common problem, is that they could repudiate the right of the Communists to label themselves with the word "Socialism". Where it has been deliberately used I ask that it should be deliberately refuted.
To return to Mr. Khrushchev, surely the time has come when, alongside arguments and the physical moves, we are entitled to know whether the objectives of Lenin still govern Soviet policy? Are not our leaders entitled to ask that question at Geneva; and is not the British public entitled to know the answer? Let it be clear that if Mr. Khrushchev means what he says, the implication is that he expects us to lie down meekly and allow our free democracy to be destroyed. In those circumstances, let the world know where the responsibility lies for an increase in international tension.
For myself, sometimes I wish that we could have a little of the technique borrowed by the Western leadership and we could hear from them that
"freedom will inevitably take over from Communism because it constitutes a higher stage of social development".
We need the stimulus of words, whether in peace or in war. Words are the media by which this peace of nerves is to be lived out in the future. No less an authority than Sir William Hayter reminded us that we faced a period of ten years in which we should have to face a barrage of words which would be put down in order to divert our attention away from such things as suffering Hungary and suffering Tibet, and directed to playing on our far more accommodating sentiments in regard to the controversial effects of H-bomb explosions and to diverting our attention away from the mental and physical cruelty which exists now by exploiting our doubts surrounding human folly not yet known and certainly not yet effective.
If within that context we could send a message to Geneva, I suggest that it should be of this nature: Let us hope and pray for agreement on this move

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or that; for an all-Berlin Council or an all-German committee. But if you cannot achieve that, do not despair. Pass these problems to the Summit; and if they fail, do not despair. Let it be clear—and this is a point on which I should like an answer from the noble Marquess who is to reply—that we will never drop the first H-bomb I say that because there seems to be some doubt about this point, and I make a clear distinction between an H-bomb which destroys whole areas and a tactical weapon used in the field, which I think a commander is entitled to use if he sees his own command in sudden danger. It is against that kind of background that I suggest it would be far better to retain the status quo in which basic principles remain intact than to move forward to agreements only in the name of relaxing tension—and, incidentally, in so doing, as I see it, abandoning the cause of Hungarians, Tibetans, Poles, Czechs and others, whom I for one, and I am quite certain the majority of the people in this country, could never regard as lost.
4.43 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I propose to follow the example of the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, and devote most of my speech to that rather general appreciation or attempted appreciation, of the situation, and particularly in relation to Berlin and the German problem. But perhaps I ought to say a word or two in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, who raised a matter which has been a conflicting subject for philosophers ever since philosophy started—namely, the problem of the meaning of words. We all put our own interpretation upon the words that we use for the purpose of attempting to convey our thoughts or our meanings to our fellow human beings. I think that, just as some people, who in my conception are not democrats at all, are entitled to style themselves as democrats, if they wish, so is Mr. Khrushchev entitled to regard himself as a Socialist. His conception of Socialism is not mine; and neither of our conceptions of Socialism is the conception held by the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood. I do not feel that one can push it much further than that, at any rate, profitably.
LORD BIRDWOOD: I am obliged to the noble Lord for allowing me to
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interrupt him. Does he imply that there is no distinction to be made between Socialism and Communism?
LORD CHORLEY: I have just been attempting to explain that one interprets these things according to one's own philosophy: that people with diametrically opposed views of what is meant by democracy style themselves as democrats, and in the same way people with differing views as to Socialism style themselves as Socialists. I do not really think there is much profit to be gained out of this attempt to condemn Mr. Khrushchev for calling himself a Socialist. After all, his socialism stems from Marx, and few people would have said that Marx was not a Socialist. Yet there is another brand of Socialism which can equally well be worked out from a great deal of the truth which is contained in Marx's famous book. If we were to pursue this subject we should be here for a long time, and I do not think it would profit us a great deal. I did feel, however, that I should say a word or two in reply to the question which the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, put to noble Lords who sit on this side of the House.
I suppose that Berlin is the most sensitive spot in foreign affairs at the present time, and I think it is all due to the fact that a serious mistake was made at the very beginning, after the end of the fighting in 1945, when that great city was divided by the conquering Powers into two halves. I think one might say that it was more than a mistake; it was a blunder. It was a blunder of the same type, although a more serious one, as that which was made at Versailles, when Prussia was divided into two halves, one half being handed to Poland and the other half being handed back to Germany. That act had in it the seeds of war, just as the division of Berlin also has in it the seeds of war. And it brought about a more serious situation, because quite obviously it was done to create in the centre of Europe a hornet's nest. The only surprising thing is that in the intervening period the hornets have not been buzzing around more viciously than they are buzzing around at the present time. We did, of course, have a rather had scare at the time of the Berlin blockade and airlift some ten years ago. We got over that with considerable difficulty, but it must have been fairly obvious that

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the same sort of situation would arise again, and probably in an even more acute form.
It seems to me that this blunder was made, as so many of the great blunders in international history have been made, through the jockeying for position which seems to be inevitable among the conquerors after the successful termination of a great war. The Western Powers were anxious to create a new Germany in their own ideological image which might be a bulwark—and which I think was intended to be a bulwark—against the surprisingly powerful Communist U.S.S.R.; whose victories took the Western Powers almost as much by surprise as they took Hitler's Germany. I think the Western Powers also felt that if they could get a good foothold in Berlin they would have something more than a bulwark against Communist U.S.S.R.; they would have a spearhead for attack in the event of attack proving necessary. It is unrealistic, in my view, to suppose that there were not voices raised in this country, and still more strong voices in the United States, of people who felt that the time would not be far distant when the Western armies would have to cross over the Russian frontier.
LORD BOOTHBY: Would the noble Lord answer one question? If that is the case, how does he account for the fact that in 1945, on the order of President Roosevelt and General Eisenhower, the United States forces were withdrawn several hundred miles from the positions they then occupied.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, that was surely done under an agreement which had been entered into; and they did not break their undertakings quite so obviously as that. I myself talked to very high American Generals whose view was that before long it would be necessary to attack, and that Berlin would obviously be an important point. What other purpose was there in having Berlin broken up in this sort of way except for the basis of a position of power? The Russians were at the same time establishing East Germany in exactly the same way as a bulwark against a possible attack from the West—which they feared just as much, and possibly with just as much reason—and not only to create a new East German State, which
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would not of itself have given them much of a bulwark. Their aim was to create a new East German State in their own ideological image, and to get it closely knitted up with their own power complex and their own industrial complex.
They had, of course, the advantage that there were already strong Socialist and Communist cadres in existence in the great industrial areas of Brandenburg and Saxony, which, from their point of view, had the advantage of being Protestant rather than Roman Catholic, as are the industrial areas in the Rhineland and in Bavaria. So the project of creating a Communist East Germany was just as feasible, though, no doubt, it would take longer to carry through, because of the comparative lack of resources in the U.S.S.R. as compared with the Western Powers, with their much greater undamaged resources, particularly in the United States of America, in building up Western Germany. I have no doubt that both the camps were governed by considerations of power politics and the furtherance of their own interests, and not by any real sense of the requirement of the solution of the problem of making peace in Europe.
It is because of this approach to the problem on these perennial lines that we are in the difficulties which we are facing to-day. It has left us, of course, with a disunited Germany, and it has left us with the problem of reuniting Germany, which is as big a problem in foreign politics as ever statesmen have tried to handle. As anybody objectively studying the position in Western Germany over the last twelve months or so will know, it is certainly not to be solved by military re-conquest by the West German armies. That possibility, unfortunately, has become certainly as large as the cloud of a man's hand on the horizon over the last months. That, undoubtedly, would result in the war which everybody wishes to avoid.
It is quite obvious, I should have thought, that there is no immediate prospect of the reunification of Eastern and Western Germany. Eastern Germany has too many and too great advantages, not only to the U.S.S.R., in particular, but also to Poland, as well as to the preservation of peace in Middle and Eastern Europe, because it is obvious that if East and West Germany were reunited to-day into the same sort of

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German Empire as existed under, shall I say, Bismarck, the Weimar Republic or Hitler, the frontiers of Poland and the integrity of Poland would immediately be menaced. Therefore it is quite obvious that neither Poland, nor the U.S.S.R., nor the complex of States in Eastern Europe are going to allow a reunited Germany to be re-established without tremendous safeguards and without a very great quid pro quo. It is obviously a task of Herculean proportions for Western statesmen, or for statesmen anywhere, to provide those safeguards and also to provide that quid pro quo.
That initial mistake has had built upon it a number of other mistakes. The mistake of rearming Western Germany has, in my submission, been the reestablishment of a powder magazine in a position where, when it blows up, it can do the most widespread destruction possible. We have only to contemplate as a Conservative Member of Parliament is contemplating in The Times newspaper this morning, the military history of Germany from Frederick the Great, who first made war a trade in Germany, through Bismarck, through the Emperor William and through Hitler, to appreciate the sensitive fear that exists throughout Eastern Europe in respect of a re-militarised and rearmed Germany. We have only recently got to know that no fewer than 25 million Russian soldiers lost their lives as a result of Hitler's invasion of Russian in 1941. Is it to be wondered, as The Times said in a remarkable leading article, that there is in the U.S.S.R. a real apprehension of a re-militarised Germany? Is it to be wondered at that there is a burning longing for peace?
This fear, this longing for peace, is not peculiar to the Russians. It exists in all those other countries. It exists particularly in Poland, whose people fear the iron heel of the invader even more grimly that the Russians fear it themselves. Moreover, it is feared also in the present Eastern Germany, because, as I have already said, there are indications that Adenauer's Germany is building up its forces once more, not only for the purpose of resisting a possible aggressive attack from the U.S.S.R., but also as a possible method of possibly reuniting the two Germany's together. The ugly head of the German Eagle is clearly raised
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once more in Central Europe. Only the other day I read in the Press of a great rally in Germany in which the orators had contemplated the re-establishment of the frontiers of 1938. What does the re-establishment of those frontiers mean? Quite obviously, it can be done only by force of arms. It means that the German armies are again to be on the Vistula; that Sudetenland is to be brought in again. Obviously, if these things are to be achieved, Europe will be drawn into war, and the world will become an armed camp again.
I suggest that we made a great mistake in deciding that we would rearm Germany in order to strengthen the forces of N.A.T.O. No doubt France must accept a great degree of responsibility for that decision, because the French have chosen to employ their forces in trying to quell independence movements in Algiers, which it has been beyond their power to do, although every few months they tell us they are on the point of success. One had hoped that when General de Gaulle took over power in France a year ago that there might be some possible prospect of a new dispensation in Algeria which would enable those people who have been struggling for all this time to secure self-government, the Arab population of Algeria, to be met half way, and that something might be done to bring about peace in that unhappy country. Unfortunately, as the months have gone by there has been little prospect of that consummation being achieved, and it has filled us all with despair. What will be the result if French arms do succeed eventually, at the cost of untold blood and treasure, in eliminating the freedom movement in Algeria? Only a ruined country. They are endeavouring to make a desert in order that they may call it peace.
I have always thought that what we ought to have done was to neutralise. Germany at the end of the war, and in this way we would have removed the running sore of militarism; we would have relieved the peoples of Eastern Europe—and, indeed, we would have relieved Western Europe, because we have suffered from German militarism over all those years just as much as anybody else—by the establishment of a great neutral area in Central Europe. We would have provided something which is

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a great deal better than the sort of military barrier which the statesmen at Potsdam were attempting to set up against each other. It is true that we might have given to the Germans great advantages in industry and trade; but even a Germany more prosperous and wealthy than any other country in the world could hardly have been purchased too dearly if peace could have been established over all that part of Europe.
It might be said that it is not for us to decide whether the Germans should have arms and armaments; that it is wrong to deprive a great nation of the power of armaments. But the history of Europe over the last 200 years to which I have referred, from Frederick the Great to Hitler, surely has meant so much in the way of danger to peace-loving peoples that it is not wrong to require that that country should be neutralised. You may say, "This is all old history; it is too late now to do anything about neutralisation; neutralisation is no longer a possible policy to pursue" And, clearly, as the years have gone by and the other type of policy has been built up, the taking of it to pieces and the establishment of another policy in its place has become more and more difficult. It could not be done immediately or very easily, but there are undoubtedly strong forces in Germany, both in the East and in the West, which would welcome proposals of this kind, and while complete neutralisation may be a long way away I feel that in modified ways a great deal could be done.
The Rapacki Plan, which would have established over most of Germany and a good deal of Eastern Europe a nuclear-free area, would have been a step in that direction. The prevention of the giving of facilities to the West German Government to build up fissionable materials and to make atom and hydrogen bombs—which was almost hinted at in the speech of the noble Earl the Leader of the House—would be another step in the same direction, and in this and other ways I think it might gradually be possible, if not to build up complete neutralisation of Germany, at any rate to go so far in that direction that to a great extent the fears of the U.S.S.R. and other countries would be relieved.
In the meantime, obviously we have to look for some kind of temporary solu-
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tion to the problem of Berlin. The Russians have made the proposal that Berlin should be a free city. Free cities are not easily established and not easily kept going when they are established, and it may be that it is not a completely viable proposal, but it is at any rate a proposal which is, in my view, well worth discussing. Indeed, a proposal coming from the West which has gone quite a distance in that direction is that at any rate for some period of time the Government of Berlin should be handed over to the United Nations. That is a proposal which has been put forward in the United States just as strongly and warmly as it has by interested groups in this country and in other parts of Western Europe. It is not, of course, a long-term solution. Obviously the long-term solution is far away; it is the reunification of West and East Germany. But it may provide a breathing space during which a modus vivendi could be worked out. And a modus vivendi must be worked out.
When Mr. Khrushchev said he would not let East Germany go, so to speak, without Communism being safeguarded, I do not think he meant what the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, was suggesting that he meant, namely, that he must have a wholly Communist Germany. I think that what he was after was some situation in which the Communist State could work, so to speak, in a larger Germany. We in this country—it would be quite unrealistic not to face up to it—are faced with the problem of working a mixed State. The Opposition party, the Government of to-morrow, is a Socialist Party which, during its period of power and office, socialised a good deal of the productive industries of this country. The other great Party, the Conservative Party, which is in power at the present time, believes with sincere conviction in a completely different economic and industrial set-up. We have to work out, and we are in the process of working out, some sort of modus vivendi between those two conflicting outlooks. I think the Russians appreciate clearly that they are faced with a similar problem, and there is no place in Europe in which it is more important to achieve that modus vivendi and where its working out is so pressing and urgent a task for statesmen. Let us address our minds to these things and let us attempt, by going step by step,

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to achieve the peace and prosperity which by more ambitious projects we have not been able to bring about.
5.10 p.m.
LORD GLYN LORD GLYN had given Notice of his intention to ask Her Majesty's Government if a full statement can now be made regarding the matters in dispute between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of Saudi Arabia, and how far the new set of proposals that have been under consideration since July 6, 1954, have helped to bring about a lasting solution. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to ask your Lordships to look at the Order Paper, on which you will see that I had put down a Question to be addressed to the Foreign Office in regard to Middle East affairs. I do not propose to follow the noble Lord who has just sat down in his dissertation upon the general situation, but shall concentrate more upon the position in the Middle East. That position is surely one where we can hope for a solution in the near future, whereas I am afraid that this debate has shown, as so many debates have shown, that we cannot expect much in the way of settlement for some time to come in regard to the affairs of Europe and so on.
I want to mention this question of the Middle East because some of us have had something to do with that part of the world. I believe that in the past British prestige was gained by decent behaviour out there, and that we had the trust of the Arab peoples. All that seems for the time being to have gone. Two years ago I put a Question in this House asking Her Majesty's Government what progress had been made in the negotiations which, I had been told previously, were set on foot. I was told that they were progressing, it was hoped, satisfactorily. There are two points in regard to this matter which I feel are of vital importance. Some of the Arabs are most anxious for good relations to be restored, especially between Saudi Arabia and this country. Saudi Arabia is an enormous territory. Its future we do not know; but we do know that there are peoples who have the use of the Russian wireless in Cairo, and the indications are that they want to keep up this vicious campaign of antipathy to anything British.
One of the things that surely matters in this day of uncertainty in great affairs is that we should try to get hack, so far as we can, where we can, to a position where we shall regain the respect of, and I hope close co-operation with, the Arab countries. It surely can be no good to us or to the Middle East that this running sore in Saudi Arabia should continue to exist year after year. It was due to the misunderstandings over the Suez affair that we lost our position there. Prince Feisal, who is the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, has said over and over again that he is longing to find some bridge whereby good relations can be re-established.
I think there are people in the Foreign Office who believe that it is necessary to eliminate as far as possible causes of disagreement in any part of the world. If that is so, why should we not make a beginning during this period, when apparently we cannot do anything very striking, at Geneva or anywhere else, and try on a small scale to get back to something where I believe we can achieve some success? For I believe that we can get a success in Saudi Arabia; and with such a link-up, I think we shall get better understanding of what the Egyptians are trying to do. I do not know that we are quite sure what their policy is. We surely know that to-day there is one man who is risking everything to try to bring his country round to a situation where the poverty in the country can be eased through the development of oil. As I understand it, he is willing to continue oil arrangements with the British, Americans and others who have for many years been engaged in gaining oil from that part of the world.
All I want to try to impress on your Lordships to-day is that it is now exactly two years this month since Her Majesty's Government gave me the answer in this House that there was a new set of proposals in regard to Saudi Arabia to which they attached importance and in regard to which they had great hopes. After these two years I thought it might be a good thing to try to discover the present position; because there are those interested in Middle East affairs who believe that the opportunity to bring about some sort of settlement which we have publicly announced as our desire may not recur. It is rather difficult to

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make a speech about a Question when one expects to have an answer before speaking. That is my position to-day, because I thought the Question would be answered before I should have the opportunity of addressing your Lordships. But if the answer of the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, is favourable, nobody will be more pleased than myself.
5.15 p.m.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Rea, I propose to concentrate most of my remarks this afternoon on the matter of the bomb. But even my great affection for him will not persuade me to take up the same attitude or place the same emphasis. I think that those of us living to-day in the West, who are in touch with affairs and also in touch with reality, have geared ourselves to an uneasy epoch, to a, frankly, dangerous century. Without many illusions, we intend to survive. By that I mean that we intend to preserve our existence and our freedom, both of which are threatened to some extent. The dilemma of such a situation is that those who are obsessed exclusively with one of those dangers invite the other, and we are bound to be hustled from time to time by both obsessions. That is endemic to the situation, and it must be accepted, together with the occasional crises provoked from either side.
There are those who believe that the only escape from Communist domination lies in a preventive war and dropping the bomb. Others think that the only escape from the bomb is to ban it ourselves, in the cherubic hope that everyone else will follow suit. The advocates of the preventive war take little account of those living in the preventive area, or of its certain outgrowth from that area. The bomb-banners take little account of anything, it appears to me, except their own human but suicidal despair. Our survival depends on keeping both these factions under control, and of course I mean keeping them under control by persuasion. This has nothing to do with the freedom of conscience required by the noble Lord, Lord Rea. Our survival depends on keeping our heads, and I am sure that it can be achieved.
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I think that we can feel reassured this week that we in this country have a Prime Minister and also a Leader of the Opposition who are determined to keep their heads. Anyone would find it hard to keep his head if he believed that the only way of stemming the advance of Communism was by dropping the bomb. I believe myself that our possession of the bomb is essential to prevent its use by others. But there are other less obvious and far less explosive weapons in the armoury of the West, which we must exploit to the full, and show ourselves ready and determined to exploit. Sometimes we have done so and sometimes not.
At first sight, partly because of its centralised economy, the Soviet world appears to be better fitted and better poised for both hot and cold wars. The discipline of terror gives it an ominous edge in both. But whereas we have not known slavery, the Russians have not known freedom in living memory. The reactions of free men and free nations continually perplex them. They were taken aback by that reaction in the case of the Berlin airlift, in Korea, and by the response of Turkey's Allies to the Soviet threat two years ago. Now they are puzzled, undoubtedly, by our firmness over Berlin again. Why should we feel so sentimental about freedom, they wonder, when it merely concerns some Germans whom we were fighting a few years ago? I think it beats them entirely, and I think that must be to the good.
But it also wakens some ironic echoes in other quarters, and this I feel bound to mention as an example of Western failure to exploit advantage. I should be the first to affirm that one of the great physical assets in Western defence, a growing asset, is the new Germany. On this point I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, who spoke a few moments ago. On the other hand, I come, I feel, nearer to Lord Chorley's way of thinking than I am ever likely to come again, when I say that morally, in the eyes of a great number of Russia's opponents, Germany is a liability. It is not seen as a new Germany at all. There are nations in Europe behind the Iron Curtain which have suffered both from the Germans and from the Russians, and the former suffering is not by any means forgotten: it is still vivid in people's minds

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and memories, sharpened often enough by remaining bodily pain.
These silent millions of Allies behind the Iron Curtain have seen Germany accepted into the West in return for positive gestures, gestures directed exclusively to the West, to the nations which suffered least at German hands in the course of the war. These gestures are not so convincing behind the Iron Curtain—we can hardly expect them to be—and there is a certain perplexity, even bitterness, among those people, most of whom are more positively anti-Communist than we can ever be, as they see the solicitude of the Western Powers towards their savage and defeated, but now triumphant, foe whose reparations have not reached or touched them at all. I suggest that there are acts, not acts of weakness but of generosity, that Germany could make towards the East as well, which would be of the greatest benefit to our cause to-day. There are still many thousands of victims of Nazi oppression, of concentration camps and medical experiments, uncompensated by the new Germany, and nearly all with relatives behind the Iron Curtain, receiving and spreading gratuitous anti-German propaganda which colours their attitude to Germany's new partners, the N.A.T.O. Powers. There is also the question of the Oder-Neisse frontier, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Chorley; the frontier between Poland and Germany, which the Germans refuse to recognise, backed, up to now, by ourselves. This is a stronger card in Khrushchev's hands than the geography of Berlin.
Just as I believe that it behoves the Germans to make a larger moral contribution to Western strength, I believe it behoves us to maintain and even increase our physical contribution, even against the impassioned counsel of some in our midst, whom we are bound to respect. It would be more stupid than insulting to impugn the sincerity of men like the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and Mr. Cousins. And yet, in March of last year, the noble Earl, Lord Russell, considered all nuclear defence as "insane fanaticism." He reasoned as follows:
"If the Communists conquered the world it would be very unpleasant for a while, but not for ever. If the human race is wiped out, that is the end."
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My Lords, at least by my reckoning, that is not sober reasoning; it is near hysteria. It assumes, on the one hand, that those who possess the bomb are bound to use it. It ignores, on the other, that life under Communism is not life as we know it and demand it. It ignores the dread fact that millions of people living to-day under Communism, millions who know it at first hand, would rather die than believe that no hope of release lay ahead, if not for themselves, at least for their children and their children's children. But that is the fate to which this undoubtedly kindly and brilliant man would commit not only the slave nations of to-day, but the whole of humanity.
In the same way Mr. Cousins declares that no one can make him regard his children as expendable, and the hearts of millions of parents must be drawn to him by that declaration. But has he any idea of what happens to decent, un-corruptible, courageous, Left-wing leaders and to their families in a Communist conquest? It is not pretty. Let him read the fate of Petkov and Pastukhov in Bulgaria, of Maniu, Hategianu and Titel Petrescu in Roumania, of Jan Masaryk in Czechoslovakia. There are not many of us in this House, I believe, not many in Parliament or in the political life of this country, who would not wish their families dead in such a circumstance, rather than at the mercy of the N.K.V.D.
The loss of freedom, this death of a nation, may be harder for us to imagine than for some others, so that an extra effort is required from our imaginations. The key to survival is the will to remain free. If this wavers, or even appears to waver, we may be lost. If the enemy concludes at a given moment that we will not take a risk to remain free, that moment could be the last we know of freedom. The smallest uncertainty among any of us, endangers us all.
To-day the Labour Party is in, at best, a state of polite pandemonium on this question, and it seems likely that even the politeness may wear thin in some quarters in the days ahead. I take no pleasure whatever in that prospect, at least in the present context, so serious and so important to us all; because even though we are opponents politically we are partners in survival, in this plan to

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survive. Those who can see only one threat to our survival, one danger to be avoided, imperil us all. It sometimes seems to me that the Labour Movement contains those who know most about the menace of Communism and those who know least: the most alert and the most blind; and it is by no means always true that in the Country of the Blind, the one-eyed man is King. The denizens of that country are most likely to follow the blindest among their number, or the one who can most lucidly justify their blindness to themselves, especially if it be the blindness of panic or even of dull hopelessness, of which they are secretly ashamed.
There is a note of panic, even a basis of panic, in much of the "Ban the Bomb" propaganda. The so-called March to Life in London two weeks ago, which if it could obtain its object would be in fact a March to Slavery, was a demonstration of this point. I witnessed no more of it than a few recorded moments on the television screen the same night, but they were enough to convey the tone of hysteria—hysteria skilfully provoked, infectious and perilous to the community or the country which it touches. There is no doubt, I think, that this hysteria was deliberately engendered by the only force which stood to gain by it, by the Communists. The only extensive prior publicity given to the demonstration was in the Daily Worker; I saw no mention of it in any other paper. Yet 10,000 people marched; nearly 10,000 of them innocent dupes. Not all their leaders were Communists; some were the true, the typical representatives of the blind and frightened mass. They are perhaps the most dangerous; they are the ones that all of us, but I think perhaps most of all noble Lords opposite and their colleagues, must cope with. I take it that all, or nearly all, of those who marched in that procession were Left Wing supporters, and for that reason more open to persuasion by members of the Party opposite than by us. In my own estimate, the persuasion that I have heard from noble Lords opposite should be strong enough, but it seems not to be.
In a debate five months ago, mentioned by my noble friend the Leader of the House this afternoon, the noble
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Lord, Lord Henderson, was replying to a Motion from the Benches behind him, a Motion very similar to the present proposals of Mr. Cousins. I hope the noble Lord is aware of the personal as well as the political respect with which I always listen to every word he utters, and that day was no exception. He demanded [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 214, col. 169]:
"I ask quite seriously: does any noble Lord really believe that the object of Lord Simon of Wythenshawe is realisable in present circumstances? Does anyone really believe that it is realistic to think that all nations, apart from Russia and the United States, would join a non-nuclear club? Does anyone believe that France and China would join such a club? France will soon have the bomb: she will soon afterwards begin to test it. Both France and Britain are members of N.A.T.O. What, I ask, would be the effect upon N.A.T.O. if these two nations were to renounce the manufacture, ownership and use of nuclear weapons in present circumstances? Would such unilateral action as is proposed be taken without prior consultation and agreement with N.A.T.O.? Then, further, would it bring this country greater security? This island would still be in the front line in the event of a major war, and the horrifying consequences of nuclear bombardment would still have to be reckoned with unless (and I repeat 'unless') we excluded American bombers and bases from our soil—and perhaps even that would not protect us."
He asked: did anyone really believe what they were asked to believe by his noble colleague? It appears that what they were asked to believe is now believed by the Labour Party, but I am certainly not here to taunt the noble Lord on that in any sense whatever. Far be it from me to speak against an increase in optimism. But what does disturb me, and disturbs me deeply, is that some of his Party are ready to believe, or are desperately anxious to believe, so much more, that they seem to me to part company with reality. It would be folly to describe Mr. Cousins as hysterical, because nothing I have ever heard about him would warrant saying that. I hesitate to call him blind; but who can avoid the feeling that there is a blind side to the understanding of this robust, intelligent, and straightforward man? Is it, I dare to ask without knowing him, an ingenuousness more to be feared than even cowardice, with which he has never been, and I am sure never will be, indicted?
I say again that the Labour Party are in a better position than ourselves to study

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Communism and to describe its dangers—and that opportunity is by no means ignored. They are in daily, hourly conflict with Communism in the unions—a conflict we can only watch from the sidelines. The most detailed and damning evidence of these activities comes from trade union sources, in the publications of I.R.I.S., the Industrial Research and Information Services—in my humble opinion, one of the most important and patriotic institutions in this country today. I assume that the leaders and members of the Party opposite are in closer touch with that institution than I am. That being so, it must be axiomatic that they know more than I could possibly tell them of the methods and aims of Communism. They, more than I, know of the vital need to confront this force, that seeks to engulf us if we are weak or if we weaken.
So it may seem strange, and even impertinent, to your Lordships that I should have taken up the time of your Lordships' House with an appeal from these Benches to the Party opposite, however respectful that appeal. I beg them to spurn again any further tempting, but perhaps calamitous, compromise, even with the most valued elements and individuals in their Movement, on this particular issue. It seems to me that such a compromise—a further compromise, because I must look upon the advocacy of a non-nuclear club as some form of compromise—even if limited in intention to a form of words, might subtract a crucial grain of confidence from this side, the side of freedom, while adding a crucial grain of audacity to the other. The balance is so very delicately set. I think we might all thank our stars—as I do, at least—that there are men at the head of the Party opposite who know what weakness leading to defeat might mean. It might mean the abolition of everything that we hold dearer—yes, dearer!—than life itself. They have rejected that invitation in the past few days, and I pray that they always will.
5.33 p.m.
LORD STRANG: My Lords, like some other noble Lords who have spoken, I do not propose to follow the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, in a detailed discussion on the present state of the negotiations in Geneva. I propose rather to touch on a topic of more
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general scope. It is fashionable among some of those who write for the newspapers to pretend that we have lost our influence in the world, and that we now count for little in the councils of the nations. That is far from the truth, as a glance at the record will show; and it would be well if our present-day Jeremiahs would look at contemporary events with some regard for historical perspective. Of course, it is true that we are not now as influential as we were, say, in the heyday of Palmerston's early tenure of the Foreign Secretaryship in the 1830's and 1840's, but we were never at any time omnipotent. We could never get all that we wanted. We never found it so easy to get our way, even in the nineteenth century, as popular tradition still seems to suggest. Of course, again it is true that we cannot to-day rival the United States or the Soviet Union in power or resources.
We could not, as we have done in the past and as the United States did during and after the last war, carry the great coalition upon our shoulders. We could not, as the Soviet Union did in Hungary, go our own way undeterred, in defiance of strong, world public opinion. But, as we all know, material power, indispensable though it may be, is not the sole basis of international influence; and though our power has declined, we have certainly left our mark on international history in the postwar years.
My Lords, let us have a look at the record. It was the initiative by Ernest Bevin that gave the first impulse to the working out of the Marshall Plan, that most successful and beneficent of all the post-war international enterprises. Bevin was one of the first, if not the first, to see the need for a North Atlantic Treaty as the basis for our post-war security, and was one of the first to work for it. It was Sir Anthony Eden who salvaged Western European Union from the wreck of the European Defence Community. It was Eden's plan for Germany that engaged the attention of the Berlin Conference of 1954. It was that same plan that formed the basis of the proposals put forward jointly by the Western Powers at the Summit Conference of 1955. It is that same plan again, modified to meet the new circumstances, which was jointly submitted by the Western Powers at the earlier session

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of the present Geneva Conference of Foreign Ministers in May last—and it is true to say, I think, that we played no small part in shaping those modifications. Let us recall, also, that the meeting of the 1955 Summit Conference itself owed much to British initiative. And, as the Prime Minister justly claimed the other day, the convening of both the Geneva Conference on Nuclear Tests and the Geneva Foreign Ministers' Conference was largely due to the initiative of Her Majesty's Ministers; and if a Summit Conference now follows, the Prime Minister will have played no small part in bringing it about.
And, my Lords, that is not all. In the economic sphere we have been perseveringly active. When the six Western European Powers, by the Treaty of Rome, largely under French impulse, set up the exclusive European Economic Community, it seemed to us that this would split Europe and undo some of the work of the past. Our first attempt to remedy this—the wider Free Trade Area, embracing all the O.E.E.C. Powers—did not succeed, largely owing to French opposition. Our second attempt, the organisation of what has been called the "Outer Seven", now promises well One of the major obstacles has been removed by our projected agreement with Denmark. We can now hope to work out a new synthesis between the association of the "Outer Seven" and the community of the "Inner Six", for the benefit of all.
Now it is worth noting, I think, that all these initiatives of ours have one common characteristic. They have all been designed to promote international agreements. By helping to bring them about, we have, of course, served our own interests. That is the first duty of any Government. But we have tried also to serve a wider, international interest. Historians have rightly pointed out that this double objective—the attempt to serve both the national interest and the general interest—has been a consistent mark of our own foreign policy. It has been imposed on us as a maritime and trading community with vulnerable interests in all parts of the world. That is why the characteristics of our foreign policy have usually been caution, compromise, patience and a long view.
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In our time, the mark of the post-war international scene has been the formation of the regional association, or community, for common defence. In that community we have found our post-war security. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, has said, we may hope to move on a common basis into other fields. And I think that we have been wise enough to see that by serving the community, by being a good member of the association, we are most likely to exercise our full influence. Membership of a community certainly limits freedom of independent action, but within those limits it opens up a field for useful initiative within the community. It gives an opportunity for the weaker as well as for the stronger members to have their say. It tends to reduce inequalities among members.
There certainly can be special relationships within the community. Our special relations with the United States have been the cause of some jealous concern on the part of some of our European associates, and undoubtedly we have a special relationship with the United States. It is based on historical fact. It is based also on intimate war-time cooperation. It is not always a harmonious relationship—indeed, it is because we are so close that we sometimes differ so much. But at its best, it can and does strengthen the international community; and I think it is fair to say that this is the way we ourselves try to use it.
One of the complaints we have heard recently is that we are, or have been, too ready to compromise with the Russians. In some quarters there have been what seem to me rather foolish murmurings about "another Munich." There is no parallel whatever between 1959 and 1938. In the 'thirties, we were weak and disunited, at home and abroad. Now we are united and armed. We have done what Winston Churchill said that we ought to have done in 1938: we have armed to parley. In recent months, we ourselves have put to our allies our ideas about the great problem of our time, as it seems to me we have the right and duty to do. Some of these ideas have been accepted; some of them have not. But we and our Allies have, in the end, moved forward together on an agreed and united basis for our parley with the other side.

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There is another difference between 1959 and 1938. In the late 1930's, war seemed inevitable: there was an impending sense of doom. I do not think that that is the situation to-day. Khrushchev, unlike Hitler, has no need to go to war, and the balance of nuclear terror is making both sides very cautious about running the risks of any kind of war. The differences between the two sides in the general negotiations are vast. The area of possible immediate agreement is narrow. But—and this seems to me to be important—both sides seem to be agreed upon seeking agreement upon the narrow basis as the first of a number of possible succeeding steps. In point of procedure, of course, there is no reason at all why the Foreign Ministers themselves should not reach agreements, if these were possible, both on nuclear tests and on an interim solution for Berlin, provided that they were given the necessary day-to-day instructions and the necessary final authority by their Governments.
But since it appears to be true that at any rate one of the Heads of Government wants himself to conclude any agreement, if there is to be one, a Summit Conference seems to be called for. I have never been a supporter of Summit Conferences, because they have tended to raise delusive hopes and because they have been a forum for long public propaganda speeches. But this time these disadvantages may well be avoided. The Foreign Ministers have set a good example by getting down to real negotiation, in a calm atmosphere and in private, and it is to be hoped that the Heads of Government, if they meet, will do likewise. As the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, has reminded us, it has been suggested again and again by the Prime Minister—and not by the Prime Minister alone—that at the next Summit Conference there should be a narrowly limited objective and that, if this objective is achieved, it will be the first Summit Conference of a series. On this basis, a Summit Conference may well take a significant step towards international harmony; and we must all hope that it will.
5.47 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Strang, speaks with tremendous knowledge and experience, and one
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is tempted to follow the path which he laid down in his speech the whole way and to take up practically everything he said. I think that it would be most useful if we could have a debate at some time on the lines that he has laid down, not because we necessarily disagree with most of what he said—indeed, there is a great deal with which I would agree—but because we are concerned to-day to deal with the narrower question of how we can best help, if we can, in the discussions that are starting at this moment in Geneva. I propose to confine my remarks to that subject, rather than to follow the tempting but more widely ranging path laid down by the noble Lord.
I would mention, however, two things to which the noble Lord referred. One is the question of British influence. I think that he is right in the instances he has given, like that of the Marshall Plan, of the effect of British influence. But if we are going to relate the possibility of our not having the voice we should like to have, we must look at the other side as well; and recently there have been many cases where, by our actions, we have lost a great deal of ground. I do not want to carry this aspect any further, because this is just the kind of topic which we might well discuss at some other time, when we are not primarily concerned with what is happening at Geneva at the present moment.
The other point is that, though it may well be there is considerable agreement among the different Powers at the present time, it does not in the least follow that this agreement is agreement which would be the wish of this country. We have, it is true, agreed with the other members of the West, but it does not in the least follow that on each occasion it is the view of our people that has been accepted. Indeed, on many occasions we have had to give way to the views held by the other side. But I want to deal with the question which is coming before the parties at Geneva at the present time.
The noble Earl, Lord Home, dealt with differences of opinion in the Labour Party. I think he dealt with this matter very gently, and I make no complaint of his having done so. The noble Lord, Lord Rea, also referred, though with rather more approval, to the difference of

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opinion in the Labour Party at the present moment. I fully agree that at some time the Labour Party has got to come to agreement over this question. But I think it is right, and a good thing, that we should discuss any difference of opinion freely, openly and courageously, and then come to a decision. We have the machinery for doing so, and we shall come to a decision at the Annual Conference, provided that the Prime Minister does not order his Election before we have it. In that case we may be put in some difficulty.
Assuming that we have an Annual Conference, I can promise the noble Earl that the Labour Party will come to a decision, and a firm decision, on our policy; and I think it will be accepted by the Party as a whole. I would submit that that is a proper, reasonable and fair way of making up one's mind on what is a very, very difficult problem. It would be ridiculous to suggest that this is an easy problem, on which everybody on this side ought to be in agreement, and that everybody on that side of the House ought to be in agreement too. I would take a bet on with the noble Earl that there is as much difference of opinion on his side of the House as there is on this side. The speeches that have been made this afternoon do not indicate complete agreement on the other side of the House. The speech of the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, is not one that I should imagine the Leader of his Party would accept in toto. I think there was a difference in emphasis, a difference in approach and a difference in detail; and I think he would be the first to agree. I do not blame him in the least; he is perfectly entitled to put these views forward. But do not let us assume that disagreement on this subject is on one side only. We are all thinking, and eventually each Party must come to a decision.
I want to start off my consideration of this matter by taking the view that no side wants war and that no side intends war. The noble Earl and noble Lords may have read an article in The Times last Wednesday which dealt with the grave losses incurred by the Russians during the war. It referred to something like 45 million of the population. I think that figure is rather fanciful, but
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it is a fact that the population of the Soviet Union to-day is less than it was in 1939, and that, whatever calculation you make, they have lost something like 20 million of their people, mostly men, which accounts for the fact that a large number of women are obliged to carry on occupations which normally would be carried on by men. That has been kept a secret for some time, I understand, but the facts have now emerged.
A country that has lost 20 million of its population in a normal war is hardly likely to be enthusiastic about starting another war, or even contemplating another war. This was a war in which they were victorious. In a war fought under present conditions we can all consider and make up our minds what the losses would be. Those who take an extreme view say that the whole nation would be wiped out; but even if one takes a less extreme view, it would be far, far more than 20 million lost. Therefore I rule out, for the purpose of our negotiations with the Soviet Union, the possibility either that they want another war or that they are prepared to make another war, either as an instrument of policy or for any other purpose. And I think we must accept the fact that we on our side are not prepared to make another war, although our losses were not so heavy as those of Russia. Neither does any other country want war. Therefore we all start on that footing.
Accepting that, I would look at the matters which are under discussion at the present moment, to consider how far it is possible for a reasonable agreement to be reached. I would say first that it is a mistake to take the view that for every concession you get from the other side you have to make an equal and opposite concession. I do not think that is negotiation at all. There are cases where we have taken a line which I think we could not reasonably justify, and there we ought to be prepared to give way without necessarily asking for some concession which is going to be very difficult to find. For instance, there is our contention that when we come to open discussions between East and West Germany we should be represented at the rate of three to one, or something of that kind. I take the view that that was an unreasonable suggestion to make. If we give way and agree to equal representation I do not think it is reasonable

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to suggest that we ought to get some quid pro quo for that. On the other hand, there are many matters where it is possible to argue either way.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE): For the purpose of clarification, is the noble Lord referring to the German Mixed Committee?
LORD SILKIN: Yes, that is the Committee to which I am referring. The noble Marquess knows better than I do that it is proposed at those meetings that matters should be settled by a three-quarters majority. But, of course, it is so arranged that neither party can get a three-quarters majority unless there is cross-voting. So there seems to be no particular point in putting forward this gross inequality of representation at a conference where voting is not going to be a determining factor. They are not going to pass resolutions; they are going to have discussions and discussions only. It seems to me to get this sort of meeting off on the wrong foot if you start off with one of the parties having two or three times the representation of the other. When we do eventually agree—and we have given some indication that we are prepared to agree to this—it does not seem to me to be a matter on which we should want an equivalent concession elsewhere.
On the other hand, there are matters on which the two parties have a perfectly legitimate point of view which each can maintain and sustain, and there it is necessary to compromise; and the ideal form of compromise is for the parties to meet each other halfway. But this idea that every time you make some concession you must necessarily get an equal concession from the other side does not seem to me to be the right and honest way of carrying on negotiation. Let me say at once that this applies both ways: it does not apply only to the West; it applies equally to the East. They have put forward certain claims which cannot be justified. For instance, they are asking us to agree to certain things in connection with arms. But they must be prepared to do exactly the same thing, and it would be quite unreasonable that they should ask us to make concessions because we are insisting on refusing some
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claims that they ought never to have made at the outset.
There are three main questions which I imagine are going to be discussed at the present Conference. The first is the future of Berlin. The noble Earl the Leader of the House was not clear as to what was the intention of Germany if these discussions broke down. He read out a paragraph from the statement of Mr. Gromyko, and it seemed to him that that paragraph was capable of clarification. But he did not read the next paragraph, and as it is a short one, I hope he will not mind my reading it. It says:
"Critics of the Soviet proposals go to the length of attributing to the Soviet Union intentions to absorb West Berlin, to deprive the citizens of freedom. Such strange assertions were made for instance in Mr. Herter's broadcast upon his return from Geneva to the United States. Need one say that such arguments do not contain a grain of truth and cannot attest to a desire to interpret the Soviet Union's position fairly?"
It is not a polite form of carrying on a discussion, but I should have thought that that paragraph makes it abundantly clear that, if it is not possible to arrive at a settlement after the discussions, the West have not surrendered their position,
I agree very much with the speech made by the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, on the other question as to the abolition of tests and inspection and the matter of the reunification of Germany. I agree that it is desirable if we possibly an, to reach some kind of agreement on the abolition of tests and on inspection for that purpose. But let us be under no illusions: that is not disarmament. I suppose that any kind of agreement we can arrive at with the Soviet Union at the present time is worth having for its own sake, because of the atmosphere it creates; but it does not go very far towards disarmament, and in the last resort it is disarmament that we want, rather than a limitation of arms, inspection and so on. Indeed, it seems to me that it will be almost easier to arrive at an agreement for complete disarmament than to lay down conditions and rules as to testing and inspection. But noble Lords may have seen that I have a Motion down for next week in which I hope to enlarge on this subject, and I do not propose to do so further to-day.
I would say that if we are to go along the lines we are discussing, for want of anything better, any conditions that we

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try to make as regards the Soviet Union's arms—inspection and so on—must apply mutatis mutandis to ourselves We must be prepared—and I hope we are—for the same kind of inspection and rules as regards inspection of our arms as we are claiming for the other side. I have no reason to think that we should not agree to that, but in all the discussions I have seen in the Press it has never been clearly stated. It is always that we are claiming the right to inspect the Soviet Union's weapons; never that we are prepared to accept the same condition. I hope that the noble Marquess will be able to give us some assurance on that point, because it is most important.
One of the disturbing features about nuclear weapons is the threat that before many years have gone by a large number of countries will be wanting to use them. If we are to arrive at an agreement it seems to me that the only effective kind of agreement is for the complete abolition of these weapons. I think that any kind of control and inspection in the light of what is likely to happen in the near future is bound to be useless. We have France, Germany and China—and even Egypt and Israel have been mentioned. I leave it to your Lordships to imagine what might happen if these smaller Powers were in possession of dangerous weapons of this kind. Whether they would have the necessary restraint I should not like to say. I am convinced that the only hope for the world is not restriction and control, but complete abolition of these weapons. If only we can secure agreement among ourselves I think that at the present time it is not too late to ensure that complete abolition would be available throughout the world.
The third point upon which discussions will be taking place is the re-unification of Germany. I would suggest that at the present moment this is an almost impossible task. Noble Lords may have read an article by the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, in yesterday's Sunday Times, I wish he were here. I wish he were able to make that speech in this House, at any rate before publishing the article in the Sunday Times, because it would be very interesting to have the noble and gallant Viscount before us so that he could be tackled on what he said.
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Nevertheless, he has come out pretty strongly about the question of the reunification of Germany and its difficulties. He has placed these difficulties fairly and squarely before us; namely that the West cannot allow a reunified Germany to be in the Eastern bloc—of course they cannot—and that the East will not allow a reunified Germany to be in the Western bloc.
Let us be quite frank about it. We are pressing for a reunified Germany because we believe at the present time that such a Germany would come into the Western bloc. What would be our attitude if we thought there was the slightest danger of such a Germany being in the Eastern bloc? I do not think we should be anything like so enthusiastic about a reunified Germany. I hope that I am not being unduly offensive to Germany, but we have no guarantee that Germany will not to-day or to-morrow be in the Western bloc, and the day after join the Eastern bloc if it should suit her purposes. I think we are very shortsighted if we support the reunification of Germany on the basis that she is going to come with us permanently. I would suggest that that is one of the matters we might leave alone for the time being. It is not practicable. The Soviet Union will never agree to reunification unless she has good reason to believe that the reunified Germany will come over to her side.
So I would suggest, in conclusion, that we must not be ambitious in these discussions, and we must not be in a hurry. We must be patient, and we must be at least as patient as the Soviet Union is reputed to be. Nor must we take up any attitude from which we cannot retreat—better still, an attitude which we cannot justify. I myself—I ask your Lordships to forgive the personal note—have spent many years of my life in negotiations, and I have always adopted a policy which I have come to the conclusion is well worth while. I never take up an attitude that I cannot fully justify. It means, of course, that there is less room for negotiation, but I do not mind that. If one is sure that one is right at the outset, there is no reason why one should make concessions merely to ease negotiations; and if it became known that we had taken up this sort of line—that we had given careful consideration to it and were not putting

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forward anything we did not conscientiously believe was right—then there might still be room for negotiation and concessions. But there would be all the more reason for their being mutual.
The road is long, tedious and wearisome, but let us go on talking. Go on talking as long as it may be necessary. It is better to talk than to cease talking. The choice before the world is destruction or life. The efforts to arrive at an agreement are to-day efforts towards the greatest achievement in which any nation can take part, and I hope that we shall be as patient as may be necessary in order to arrive at an agreement on these difficult problems.
6.16 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I am sure that once again we are all very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, for having put down his Motion, and for having set once more the tone he did, which has been followed by all the subsequent speakers. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has repeated a theme which seems to have been running throughout the course of this debate. The noble Lord appealed for patience. Earlier on, my noble friend Lord Reading alluded to the shrewd sense of time which the Russians have, and the need for patience to negotiate with the Russians. The noble Lord, Lord Strang, from his vast experience of foreign affairs, also referred to the need for patience. I do not want to be flippant, but I am going to ask your Lordships for a little more patience this evening to listen to me.
One of the things for which I think we in this country must be profoundly grateful is that the conduct of these extremely difficult and important negotiations is in the hands of two men, both of whom are endowed with exactly these qualities—the qualities of infinite patience. The Prime Minister, among his many other remarkable qualities—I think noble Lords on all sides of the House will agree—has perhaps the deepest sense of history of any man in public life at the moment. I believe that my right honourable and gallant friend the Secretary of State, fortified by the advice which he receives from the Prime Minister, has been able to produce an atmosphere of calm common sense throughout these long, laborious negotiations.
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Let us just think for a moment about where we might have been. We have got right away from the November 27 idea of an ultimatum. By May 27 something very unpleasant might have been going to happen. Quietly and patiently we have worked the thing through, and we are, as the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, said, still talking, and are very gradually making a little progress. I should like to remind your Lordships of certain observations made by the Prime Minister in another place in the very short speech which he made in winding-up the foreign affairs debate. He drew the attention of honourable Members to this fact. He said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 608 (No. 142), col. 1494]:
"On the Western side we meet continually. We make journeys and see each other, but there is a kind of gulf fixed between East and West."
Well, my Lords, I submit to you that the Prime Minister has done everything in his power to bridge this gulf, and it is certainly the policy of Her Majesty's Government to do everything to bridge this gulf. We do not have strong doctrinaire ideas against contact with the Russians; the reverse is in fact the case.
I think I might at this juncture say one or two words about the creation of an organisation of which your Lordships are, I think, aware. That is the Great Britain—U.S.S.R. Association, of which the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, is President. This is an Association which has been created for the purpose of increasing contacts between our country and the U.S.S.R. The members of this Association are drawn from the major political Parties, and it is an Association which is genuinely representative of this country, It has, as your Lordships know, only recently come into existence, but here again is an earnest of the attitude of mind of Her Majesty's Government to seeking how we can learn to live with Russia and how perhaps Russia—and this is equally important—can learn to live with us. There is a real effort being made. The same thing applies, of course, in the realm of trade.
In winding up a debate such as we have had to-day I will try, if I can, to draw together the threads of the various speeches to which I have listened with very great interest. The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, referred to the question

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of parity on the German Mixed Commission. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, also referred to this question, as did the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood. I would simply say this: that this obviously is a question which is now under discussion and an important one, but I should like to remind your Lordships of what was said by Mr. Herter at a Press Conference in Washington on July 9. He expressed the view that the numbers involved on each side in the constitution of an all-German committee was not a matter of primary importance, and that view is a view which is shared by Her Majesty's Government. We do not consider that this is a question of primary importance, and I perfectly take the point made both by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, and the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, that the thought of prestige and pride should not be allowed to fog this issue. The noble Lord, Lord Rea, referred in the course of his remarks to a new approach to Russia. I think that what he was saying is very much in the minds of the leaders of the political thought of Her Majesty's Government, and this one instance that I have given you is one of many. It happens to be the most recent and I think is one which will be of increasing importance—that is, this Great Britain—U.S.S.R. Association.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, the noble Marquess did not say whether this Association had Government support. He said it was under the Presidency of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, but that does not necessarily mean that it is supported by Her Majesty's Government.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I had anticipated that the noble Lord might ask that question. Suffice it to say at the moment this Association has the blessing of Her Majesty's Government. The exact form of that blessing I shall be able to tell the noble Lord, I hope, later on, but not to-day.
In the speech of my noble friend the Leader of the House I was particularly glad to hear him say that the abolition of tests is not disarmament. He followed that up by saying that our choice, the way in which we go, is the way of negotiation; and that I think has been abundantly proved by every statement which
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has been made by Government spokesmen. We are for negotiation. But here I find myself in a difficulty with the observations made by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin. He said that it is safe to assume that we do not want a war and that Russia does not want a war. He drew our attention to the immense losses of life that had been sustained by Russia in the last war, as did the noble Lord, Lord Chorley. Whether it was 20 million or 25 million is of no consequence, but it was a vast figure. And the noble Lord would have us believe that because of that desperate carnage, because of the suffering Russia has had, it is inconceivable, and we must not bring into our thoughts the possibility, that she may make a war. With great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, I cannot agree with that. Are we completely to disregard the observations of the avowed leader of Russia, Mr. Khruschchev? Was he making a joke in bad taste when he was talking with Mr. Harriman? Can we completely disregard that sort of talk? I submit to noble Lords on the other side and in all quarters of the House that we cannot do that, but we can all accept the premise that we do not want a war. There I am in total agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Silkin. But it is a false assumption to think that because we do not want one a war could not be brought about. Therefore, alas! we have to take the steps necessary to protect ourselves against such an eventuality.
Perhaps this might be the proper moment for me to answer the question that was put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood—namely, the question of the use by ourselves of the atomic weapon. As this is a most important and delicate matter, I think your Lordships will forgive me if I read, word for word, from a Defence White Paper of 1958. For reference, it is Command 363, and I am quoting from paragraph 12:
"…it must be well understood that, if Russia were to launch a major attack on them, even with conventional forces only, they would have to hit back with strategic nuclear weapons. In fact, the strategy of N.A.T.O. is based on the frank recognition that a full-scale Soviet attack could not be repelled without resort to a massive nuclear bombardment of the sources of power in Russia."
I think that that answers the question which was put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, perhaps the noble Marquess will allow me to intervene on this very important point. I had rather understood that Government policy had changed somewhat, and that there was now the possibility of repelling a major attack, possibly with conventional weapons, or with tactical atomic weapons. It seems to me that the noble Marquess is making a most important pronouncement on behalf of the Government which is slightly at variance with what has been recently said.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord. I think, if he will cast his memory back, that he will observe that I used these words:
"… they would have to hit back with strategic nuclear weapons"
I then went on to use the words which he may have thought were at variance with present day policy—namely, the reference to:
"… a massive nuclear bombardment of the sources of power in Russia."
Those words are taken from a Defence White Paper of 1958, and so far as I am aware there has been no alteration of opinion in that regard.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, has there been any change of opinion in N.A.T.O.—in the meetings that have taken place in N.A.T.O. since—with regard to N.A.T.O. strategy? I agree with my noble friend. I thought that N.A.T.O. strategy was to begin with the use of tactical and not strategic nuclear weapons.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I think the noble Lord is perfectly correct. I started off with "tactical"—I beg your Lordships' pardon, "strategic"—and then went on. Those are the words which I have taken some pains to transcribe accurately, and I think your Lordships can take it from me that they are accurate.
LORD SILKIN: Is the year 1958, or 1956?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: It is Command Paper No. 363 of 1958. Of course, if I am wrong, I will at once take steps to correct this statement. Naturally, I will report back to your Lordships without fail.
LORD BIRDWOOD: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Marquess? What he has just said would imply, would it not, in meeting the objections of Mr. Frank Cousins, that we could quite honestly say that we would never drop the first H-bomb indiscriminately against directives which had not a military significance? That is the implication in the demand of Mr. Cousins.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I think that as we are talking about a matter of the most vital importance it would be most unwise and improper for me to depart from the form of words which I have already given. Therefore, I should be grateful if your Lordships would not press me on this matter further. I gave the answer to the best of my ability and I should prefer not to be drawn further into this discussion. I think it would be unwise.
The noble Lord, Lord Glyn, who was good enough to bring his Question into the body of this debate, has put me in a slight difficulty. I took it that the Question that he was asking me referred back to the Question which he originally asked, I think in July, 1954, because the words that he has used on this occasion were almost identical to the words that he used then. I hope that I have not misunderstood the Question, but, judging from the observations of the noble Lord afterwards, I think that I am in a position to reply. I would say at once that Her Majesty's Government entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Glyn, and we wish very much indeed that friendly relations with Saudi Arabia should be restored. That is what we have been trying to do all along. I do not want to go into past history, with which the noble Lord is entirely familiar. I feel that to rake up the past will not improve the prospects for the future. I can only say this: that if, as the noble Lord, Lord Glyn, has told us, Prince Feisal is anxious to build a bridge, to find a way, we shall be more than pleased, and will do whatever we can within reason to help him build that bridge.
But there is one thing that I think I must say to the noble Lord. Lord Glyn, and that is that we cannot consider "buying back", if I may use the expression, our diplomatic relations by making concessions at other people's expense. I

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am quite certain that the noble Lord, Lord Glyn, would not wish us to do anything of the kind. From the knowledge that I have, the attitude of mind of the Sultan of Muscat and Oman and of the Ruler of Abu Dhabi is opposed to taking the differences that exist at the moment to arbitration. So there we are in a difficulty. But we are in constant touch with the Saudi Arabians, and I think that the noble Lord can rest assured that the Foreign Office is far from being unaware of the importance and value of the traditional old friendship that we have with the Saudi Arabians, and that we are doing everything in our power to restore that friendly relationship.
The noble Lord, Lord Strang, reminded us that material power was not everything. He reminded us of the initiatives that have been taken as the result of the thinking of British politicians—I deliberately say "British politicians" for the noble Lord, Lord Strang, was not referring to the men of any particular Party. He reminded us of the initiative taken by Mr. Ernest Bevin with the Marshall Plan and the N.A.T.O. Alliance. He reminded us of the initiative taken by Sir Anthony Eden at the time of the collapse of E.D.C., by the creation of W.E.U. He reminded us that in 1955 it was thanks to the initiative of Her Majesty's Government that that Summit Conference took place. He reminded us that it is again largely due to the initiative of Her Majesty's Government that both the Conference on Nuclear Tests and the Foreign Ministers' Conference are taking place at all. So I think that we need not feel too gloomy about the position of the United Kingdom in the world. Even, as it is doubtless true, if we have lost a great deal of our material power, we still have a tremendous influence in the counsels of the world. That is why it is so important that we should retain our balance and our calm and our patience. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Strang, described British foreign policy as being based on caution, compromise, patience and a long view. Well, I hope that in the present negotiations we are living up to that admirable description, as I think it, of British foreign policy, and I believe we certainly are.
I do not wish to weary your Lordships by going into any flights of fancy
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of my own. I should like to conclude by simply saying this—and I am repeating what has already been said by other speakers in this debate. I believe that what is going on at Geneva is just a beginning and, as the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, said in his opening speech, we must look forward to a series of conferences at the highest level where outstanding problems, such as those that the noble Lord himself enumerated and others that I could add to them, will be discussed. The Prime Minister has made it clear all along that it was his hope that there should be a Summit Conference; but, equally, he has made it perfectly clear that he never believed in a Summit Conference as being an end in itself. He has said to us that probably, if a Summit Conference can be brought about, the most hopeful area in which we can work will be exactly the question of general disarmament. I am quite certain that, thanks to the careful handling of affairs in Geneva, the close co-operation of the Allies and the frank statements that have been made in Westminster, we have got a proper sense of proportion over what this Geneva Conference is and over what the Summit Conference may perhaps give us.
I felt earlier on that there was an exaggerated idea about the possibilities of the Summit Conference; and I think that the warning we were given to-day by my noble friend the Marquess of Reading was justified: that we should not inflate (I think these were the words he used) the idea of the Summit Conference but should realise that it might be only one in a series. The noble Marquess also allowed himself to offer a very serious piece of advice to Her Majesty's Government and to those other countries negotiating at present. He said: let not the ideas of armour propre interfere with reason. Let us not ride high horses out of pride, because this could lead to a serious fall. He advised us against brandishing a bundle of proposals that we knew the Soviets could not accept. He was very much in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Silkin: do not hurry, be patient, do not be proud, do not consider that every concession demands a counter concession.
My Lords, I think that this excellent advice will be taken. With great respect, I am not convinced that all this advice

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was necessary, for I feel that our affairs are being conducted in the most admirable, patient and skilful way and I am quite certain that, before I sit down, I can say that I know that from this House, from every corner, the good wishes go out from all of us to my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary. We all wish him well in his negotiations, and we all pray that he may hang on to the qualities of patience, imagination—for I believe that to be a quality which is very necessary too, so as to be able to appreciate the problems of the other side, to which the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, was drawing our attention—courage, loyalty to principles and steadfast work with our Allies.
6.46 p.m.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, perhaps the noble Marquess would allow me to put one question to him arising out of his extremely interesting speech. Implicit in that speech, quite clearly, was the fact that Her Majesty's Government can draw no valid distinction now in the event of a major attack upon the West by Russia between the use of tactical atomic weapons and the use of the major strategic weapon, the H-bomb. I happen to think that that view is absolutely right. I think that if there were any misapprehensions on this business, if it were felt that you could draw a valid distinction between the use of the tactical atomic weapon and the strategic hydrogen weapon, we might all blunder into a Third World War largely based on that understanding. But it is, I would suggest, an observation of the greatest possible importance. I do not think all of us were quite aware that that was the clearly held view of the Government—it has been my clearly held view for a very long time—but it is an announcement of tremendous importance, and as the noble Marquess himself suggested, if there is any inaccuracy about it he will come and inform the House. I simply want to get this point clear, because I think it is frightfully important not only for this country but for the whole world.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I am sure the noble Lord has had the same experience as I have on occasions; to find that a letter was dull
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throughout but was interesting in the postscript and that the postscript was perhaps the important part of the letter. I am not prepared to add a postscript to my observations.
6.48 p.m.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, I have risen to ask leave to withdraw the Motion. I want to take little time in doing it, because I understand that there is more Business to follow the withdrawal. I should like just to make two points. The noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, in the course of his speech made the suggestion that a precedent was being established to-day by having a Foreign Affairs debate on the eve of the Conference. I hope that no other noble Lord will think any precedent is being established, because I personally should be very strongly opposed to such a precedent. It so happens, by the accident of circumstances, that the White Paper on the first part of the Geneva Conference was not available until some time early last week. That was followed by a debate in another place in which the Foreign Secretary, who is conducting these negotiations, had his own statement to make. The earliest day this House could have had a debate was today, when the Conference is reassembling. If we had missed to-day, we should not have had a debate: and I think that, although it was getting very close to being dangerous, we have had it without any ill-effects upon the Conference, and I do not think that anybody will complain.
The other point was a personal reference made by the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, who quoted from a speech which I made early in the year in a debate on nuclear disarmament. He need not have quoted the speech for my benefit; I am very aware of it. But if, tomorrow, he will look at the speech I have made to-day, he will see that I did give a reason why there was some modification in the position which I took up then. I admit that quite frankly: but I do emphasise, as I did then, the difficulties with which we should be confronted in seeking to give effect to the policy to which I have referred. I should like to point out, however—because he did not quote this part of my speech, which I

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think is important and relevant—that I did say [OFFICIAL REPORT, VOl. 214, col. 167]:
"We want to see all weapons of mass destruction outlawed everywhere. We want to see a complete shutdown of the production of nuclear weapons. We agree that an extension of the production and ownership of these weapons would increase the existent menace to humanity. We want to achieve a ban on tests. Indeed, we want to go further; we want comprehensive controlled disarmament over the whole field of armaments."
I think that if the noble Lord will do me the honour of reading my speech against this statement, he will find that the variation is not so great as he thought.
LORD ST. OSWALD: I hope the noble Lord did not think for one moment that I was quoting his speech against him. He knows how very uncharacteristic of me that would have been.
LORD HENDERSON: No. On the contrary, it was a perfectly fair comment. There is a difference between the speech of to-day and the speech I made in February. Having said that, my Lords. I ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to re-enact in a form in which they apply to Scotland the provisions of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1959. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

MENTAL HEALTH BILL
6.53 p.m.
Further considered on Report (according to Order).
Clause 54 [Duty of mental welfare officer to make application for admission or guardianship]:
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved in subsection (1), to leave out "regard to any wishes expressed by" and insert:
"taken all reasonably practicable steps to ascertain the wishes of the".
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The noble Lord said: My Lords, under the clause as it now stands it would be possible for a patient to be compulsorily admitted on the application of the welfare officer and without the knowledge of the nearest relative, because in the present words of the clause there is no obligation on the officer to take stops to inform the relative, nor is he obliged to ascertain the relative's wishes. The only duty which is laid on the officer in this regard is in the general provisions in Clause 27, but that duty, I submit, is a negative one, because the onus is laid on the relative. The relative is obliged, under that clause, to make his wishes known to the officer. I submit that this is wholly wrong. We all know the circumstances in which mentally retarded or mentally afflicted people may come under the notice of the officer, and we know that in many cases the relatives are not in any way sure of their rights, or of how to express them, or to whom they should go for advice—and, indeed, in many cases the patient will not be living with his or her relatives. Therefore, under the clause as it now stands it is not merely possible but is very likely that an application will be made by a welfare officer and the patient will be in hospital and the relatives not know anything about it.
It must be borne in mind also that in many cases the patient cannot, for various reasons, inform his relatives himself of what is likely to take place. I would submit that this will give rise unquestionably to some of the evils that we are trying to avoid, some of the things that have happened in the past and which we are trying expressly by this Bill to avoid happening in the future. In my Amendment I am suggesting the employment of the words "reasonably practicable"—that is to say, that the welfare officer is to take such steps as are reasonably practicable to inform the relatives. Those words are exactly the same words as are used in Clause 27, and I would submit that they are surely applicable here.
In Committee, the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack admitted on this point that this subsection assumed that the relatives had already expressed a view; that they knew about it; that they had already been informed. But he will agree that many cases must arise where they have had no opportunity to express a view because

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they have not known anything about it. I appreciate the concern that is felt with regard to emergency cases, and that it is necessary to protect the position of the welfare officer when emergency cases arise, because he must act quickly: but I submit that the wording that I suggest will protect him. It will not stop him from taking action in emergency cases, because it would be reasonable for him to take action to make the application in an emergency without consulting the relatives if they were not accessible, or were not reasonably accessible. But I think we must, nevertheless, impose on the welfare officer the duty of consulting relatives whenever it is reasonably practicable for him to do so. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 38, line 46, leave out ("regard to any wishes expressed by") and insert ("taken all reasonably practicable steps to ascertain the wishes of the").—(Lord Stonham.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I think that this Amendment to Clause 54 arises from a slight confusion as to what is done under Clause 27 and under this clause. I am sorry if I shall take up a little time, but it is very important that the point should be made clear. The circumstances in which applications may be made, and the persons who may make them, are governed by Clauses 25 to 29 and, for guardianship, Clause 33. Clauses 25, 26, 29 and 33 allow applications to be made either by a mental welfare officer or by the patient's nearest relative—or, in emergency cases under Clause 29, by any relative.
Consultation between the mental welfare officer and the nearest relative in cases where the mental welfare officer proposes to make an application is dealt with in Clause 27. Subsection (2) of that clause provides that a mental welfare officer may not make an application for admission for treatment under Clause 26 if the nearest relative has notified him, or the local authority by whom he is appointed, that he, the nearest relative, objects to the application being made. It also lays on the mental welfare officer a duty to consult the nearest relative before making an application unless the officer considers that such consultation is not reasonably practicable or would involve unreasonable delay. All this applies to applications to be made under
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Clause 26 and also, by virtue of Clause 33 (5), to applications for guardianship. It does not apply to applications for admission for observation under Clause 25 or to emergency applications for observation under Clause 29. Therefore it is Clause 27 which deals with the extent of the mental welfare officer's duty to ascertain the views of the nearest relative on the question whether the patient should be admitted or not.
Clause 54 deals with a different point. The Bill as originally introduced was criticised on the grounds that the power to make applications given by Clauses 25 to 29 and 33 to the mental welfare officer and the nearest relative was permissive only. No duty was laid on the mental welfare officer to make an application even in cases where the officer is satisfied that an application ought to be made. Such a duty exists under the present law. It was therefore agreed, while the Bill was in another place, that a similar duty should be imposed by the Bill, and Clause 54 was therefore inserted.
If the noble Lord will look at subsection (1) of Clause 54 he will see that it describes the circumstances in which the duty is imposed. First, the mental welfare officer must be satisfied that such an application ought to be made—that is, he must be satisfied that all the conditions laid down under Clauses 25 to 29 or 33 are fulfilled. This, of course, includes his being satisfied that the conditions laid down in Clause 27 have been fulfilled. Subsection (2) of Clause 54 specifically refers to the duty laid on him by Clause 27 (2) to consult the nearest relative when an application under Clause 26 or 33 is proposed and which precludes him from making such an application against the known wishes of the nearest relative. Clause 54, therefore, neither adds to nor detracts from the duty of consultation 'imposed by Clause 27. Secondly, the last three lines of Clause 54 (1) limit the duty on the mental welfare officer to make the application to cases where, having been satisfied that the application ought to be made, he is also of the opinion that it is necessary or proper for the application to be made by him rather than by the nearest relative, or under Clause 29 by any relative.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, if the noble and learned Viscount will allow me to interrupt, may I say that I do not think that there is much point of difference between us. I know that the duty is laid on the mental welfare officer to satisfy himself that an application should be made, that he must consult the relatives and that, if they oppose, unless the opposition is unreasonable, he cannot then apply for an order. I cannot see anything in Clause 27 or in Clause 54 which indicates that if the relatives are unaware of the position then the mental welfare officer has to take reasonable steps to consult them.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the point I was making is that this is really a matter to be dealt with under Clause 27. The difficulty is that under Clause 54 he should make the application himself. In forming this opinion, he is required to have regard to any wishes expressed by the patient's relatives or any other relevant circumstances. These "wishes expressed by relatives" relate only to the question of who should make the application. They do not deal with the question of whether the application ought to be made at all, as this is covered by Clause 27. The purpose of this reference to the relatives' wishes in Clause 54 is to make sure that the mental welfare officer is not to be obliged to make the application in cases where the nearest relative would prefer to make it himself. In many, if not most, cases the relative is likely to prefer the welfare officer to sign the application.
The Bill as brought from another place used the expression in Clause 54 "having regard to the wishes of any relatives of the patient". It was felt that these words might be interpreted as laying on the mental welfare officer a duty to consult the nearest relative over and above that already imposed by Clause 27, and that it might be held that such consultation was required in all cases, even in emergency cases under Clause 29. It was for this reason that I moved my Amendment in Committee to change the words to "any wishes expressed by relatives" and to add the words in lines 7 and 8 on page 39 after the word "Act".
I am very conscious that I did not give this explanation on Committee stage. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord
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Stonham, will forgive me. I said a great many other things on Committee stage; but I did not really have the history of this matter in my mind. The noble Lord will appreciate that, whether he thinks Clause 27 ought to have gone further or not, this is really an independent point which comes up in a separate form, and I have not been cutting into the point in the noble Lord's Amendment by dealing with the question of who should make the application. When the noble Lord has read what I have had to say—because it is bound to be technical—I hope he will be satisfied: if not, I shall be pleased to deal with it again, if he will send me a letter.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor for his explanation and for the detailed manner in which he has dealt with the question. The crux of the matter so far as I am concerned is that Clause 27 apparently lays the duty on the mental welfare officer, and Clause 54 determines by whom the application shall be made. I most certainly accept the noble and learned Viscount's invitation to study his remarks. I am quite sure that they will cover my point, but if not I will write to him. Meanwhile, I beg your Lordships' permission to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 56 [Regulations for purposes of Part IV]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, Amendment No. 25A is a drafting Amendment consequential on earlier Amendments to this Clause. No. 25B is also drafting and enables a juvenile court to make a hospital or guardianship order in respect of a child or young person in certain circumstances. Nos. 25BA and 25BB are also drafting. No. 25BBA deals with a point which is also dealt with by other Amendments to Clauses 71, 72, 74, 79 and 80. Which are designed to clarify the provisions for equating the Secretary of State's directions removing persons into hospital or guardianship with hospital orders or guardianships orders as the case may be, and his directions restricting discharge with orders restricting discharge. Nos. 25BC, 25BCA, 25BCB and 25BCC are all drafting. I think that I should say a

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word about 25C when I come to it. Unless your Lordships have any difficulty in the matter, I think perhaps we might in the interests of economy of time put Amendments 25A to 25BCC together I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 40, line 13, leave out from ("any") to ("this") in line 14 and insert ("application, notice or report the service of which is regulated under paragraph (b) of")
Clause 61, page 44, line 4, after ("are") insert ("so far as applicable")
Clause 62, page 44, line 33, leave out from ("practitioner") to ("may") in line 34.
Clause 63, page 45, line 21, after ("directed") insert ("to do so")
Clause 63, page 46, line 20, leave out from ("application") to ("by") in line 21 and insert ("hospital order or guardianship order")
Clause 66, page 49, line 1, leave out from ("shall") to ("is") in line 2 and insert ("not in any event expire until the patient returns to the hospital or")
Clause 68, page 51, line 20, leave out ("Sections sixty-three and") and insert ("Subsection (1) of section sixty-three and section")
Clause 68, line 23, leave out from ("in) to ("were") in line 24 and insert ("the said subsection (1)")
Clause 68, line 28, leave out from beginning to end of line 30.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 70 [Appeals from magistrates' courts]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to add to the clause:
Page 52, line 30, at end insert—
("(4) Section two of the Summary Jurisdiction (Appeals) Act, 1933 (which relates to legal aid) shall with the necessary modifications apply in relation to an appeal against a hospital order or guardianship order made by a magistrates' court (whether or not brought under this section) as it applies in relation to an appeal against sentence.")
The noble and learned Viscount said: My Lords, I mention this Amendment particularly because its object is to make clear that the provisions relating to legal aid for persons who appeal to quarter sessions against sentence imposed by a magistrates' court apply also to people who appeal against a hospital order or a guardianship order. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 52, line 30, at end insert the said subseetion.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 71 [Persons ordered to be kept in custody during Her Majesty's pleasure]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, at the beginning of subsection (1) to insert
"Where under any enactment to which this subsection applies any person is ordered to be kept in custody during Her Majesty's pleasure, that person shall, until detained in pursuance of any directions under subsection (2) of this section, be detained in such place of safety as the court may order, and the order shall be sufficient authority for his conveyance to that place.
(2)".
The noble and learned Viscount said: My Lords, this Amendment and the following Amendments, 25E, 25F, 25G, 25H, 251, 25J, are related. Clause 71 deals with the Secretary of State's power to make a direction authorising removal to and detention in a hospital in a case in which a person has been ordered to be detained during Her Majesty's pleasure, having been found guilty but insane or insane on arraignment.
The Amendments are designed to meet a point recently raised by my noble and learned friend Lord Denning. Lord Denning drew attention to a case in which a man who was a patient on licence from an institution for mental defectives was charged with an offence and subsequently found by the court to be insane on arraignment. It was extremely likely that the Secretary of State would order that the defective be sent back to the hospital in which he had previously been a patient and to which he had been recalled to await trial, and the court considered it unfortunate that, as a result of being found unfit to plead and being ordered to be detained until Her Majesty's pleasure be known, the defective should have to await the Secretary of State's decision in prison instead of being returned direct from the court to the hospital. When my noble and learned friend brought that point to my attention I thought it was one I ought to deal with, and I put down the series of Amendments which I have mentioned in order to deal with it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 52, line 31, at beginning insert the said subsection.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, I should like to ask one question. Does it apply also to insane as well as to mental defectives?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes, I understand that is so. If the noble Lord will look at the Amendment he will see the words
"…under any enactment to which this subsection applies any person ordered to be kept in custody during Her Majesty's pleasure, that person shall…"
I certainly thought it was general, but I will verify that for the noble Lord and let him know.
LORD TAYLOR: It is a very substantial advance if it is general. I greatly welcome this change because it will be an excellent thing that these patients are not sent to prison.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Lord may have noticed that by a kind of telepathy I am confirmed in my view that it is general. If there are any second thoughts I will write to him but it is extremely unlikely.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Amendments moved—
Page 52, line 32, leave out ("section") and insert ("subsection")
Page 52, line 35, leave out ("removed to and")
Page 52, line 36, at end insert ("and where that person is not already detained in the hospital give directions for his removal there")
Page 52, line 37, after ("which") insert ("subsection (1) of")
Page 52, line 39, after ("1883") insert ("and")
Page 52, line 40, after ("1907") insert ("and the enactments to which subsection (2) of this section applies are the aforementioned enactments and")—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
7.16 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment consequential on the Amendments to Clause 71; and Amendments 25K to 25L deal with another point which is little more than drafting. The object of the Amendments is to make it clear that when the Secretary of State remits a patient to prison or remand centre under this clause the original direction under which he was sent to hospital is spent and so ceases to have effect. Amendments 25KA and KB are also consequential drafting. 25M is also drafting as are Amendments 25N, 25O, 25P, 25Q, 25QA, 25R and 25RA. If your Lordships will allow me, I will move that the other Amendments under the letters and numbers 25 be now agreed to.
Amendments moved—
Page 53, line 3, leave out from ("and") to end of line 7 and insert ("where such a direction is given in respect of a person while he is in the hospital, he shall be deemed to be admitted in pursuance of and on the date of the direction")
Page 53, line 16, at end add ("and on his arrival at the prison or remand centre the direction under this section shall cease to have effect")
Clause 72, page 53, line 40, leave out from ("case") to end of line 44.
Clause 74, page 55, line 34, leave out from ("sixty-five") to end of line 45.
Clause 76, page 57, line 14, at end insert ("and on his arrival at the place to which he is so remitted the transfer direction shall cease to have effect")
Clause 76, page 57, line 15, leave out ("such direction having been given") and insert ("direction having been given under paragraph (a) of this subsection")
Clause 77, page 58, line 21, leave out from ("Act") to ("and") in line 23.
Clause 77, page 58, line 23, leave out ("the said Part IV") and insert ("this Act")
Clause 78, page 58, line 35, leave out from ("Act") to ("and") in line 37.
Clause 78, page 58, line 37, leave out ("the said Part IV") and insert ("this Act")
Clause 79, page 59, line 16, leave out from ("case") to end of line 18.
Clause 80, page 60, line 9, at end insert—
("(3) Where a patient who is liable to be detained in a hospital in pursuance of an order or direction under this Part of this Act is treated by virtue of any provision of this Part of this Act as if he had been admitted to the hospital in pursuance of a subsequent order or direction under this Part of this Act or a subsequent application for admission for treatment under Part IV thereof, he shall be treated as if the subsequent order, direction or application had described him as suffering from the form or forms of mental disorder specified in the earlier order or direction")
Clause 80, page 60, line 9, at end insert—
("(3) In the following provisions of this Part of this Act, that is to say—

subsections (2) to (5) of section sixty-three;

subsections (3) to (5) of section sixty-five; and

section sixty-six,

any reference to a hospital order, a guardianship order or an order restricting the discharge of a patient subject to a hospital order shall be construed as including a reference to any order or direction under this Part of this Act having the like effect as the first-mentioned order; and the exceptions and modifications set out in the Third Schedule to this Act in respect of the provisions of Part IV of this Act described in that Schedule accordingly include those which are consequential on the provisions of this subsection")—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR said: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment consequential on Amendments to Clause 46 made in Committee. Amendment 26A is also drafting. I beg to move these Amendments.
Amendments moved—
Clause 93, page 69, line 40, after ("Act") insert ("or under the said section forty as applied by section forty-six of this Act")
Clause 96, page 70, line 44, at end insert—
("2) Where a patient is treated by virtue of this Part of this Act as if he had been removed to a hospital in England and Wales in pursuance of a direction under Part V of this Act, that direction shall be deemed to have been given on the date of his reception into the hospital.")—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 103 [Particular powers as to patient's property and affairs]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved in subsection (4) after the second "made" to insert: "or that there has been any substantial change in circumstances". The noble and learned Viscount said: My Lords, this Amendment is designed to ensure that the court's power to vary a settlement shall continue to be as wide as it is now under Section 171 (7) of the Law of Property Act, 1925—namely, that a settlement made under that section may be varied where the court is satisfied either that any material fact was not disclosed at the time that the settlement was made or on account of any substantial change in circumstances.
Your Lordships will appreciate that Section 171 will be repealed by the Bill in toto; and it was thought when the Bill was prepared that in justice to interested third parties the power to vary sentence should be kept as narrow as possible, with the result that subsection (4) of Clause 103 of the Bill as it now stands limits the power to vary to cases where there has been non-disclosure of a material fact. On consideration, however, we thought that we ought to take a different course. We thought originally that the court would write into the settlement the appropriate provision for variation, if any were likely to be needed, but it now appears to me that a number of settlements made by the Judges in Lunacy under Section 171 have con-
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tained no express power to vary in reliance on the court's statutory power. They relied on Section 171 being there; they did not put in a power to vary. Obviously there will be some settlements where it is necessary to have the power to vary on the grounds that I have mentioned, and I think it is fairer on the people who own the property that that provision should be there. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 74, line 33, after ("made") insert the said words.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 124 [Rules as to procedure]:
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved, in subsection (1), after "may" to insert "from time to time". The noble Lord said:
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Silkin has had to leave and has asked me if I would move the Amendment which stands in his name and my name on the Marshalled List. I would suggest to the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack, if he does not think it presumptuous on my part, that in the interests of economy of time it might be convenient if we discussed Amendments Nos. 28 down to 29F in one discussion, which, so far as I am concerned, will be quite short.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes.
LORD STONHAM: We seek to insert here the words "from time to time" because we feel that it would be necessary for these regulations——
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Perhaps I can interrupt the noble Lord to say this. Under Section 32 (1) of the Interpretation Act, 1889, it is provided that:
"Where an Act …confers a power or imposes a duty, then, unless the contrary intention appears, the power may be exercised and the duty shall be performed from time to time as occasion requires"
The contrary does not appear here. I am glad the noble Lord has raised this point, because it enables me to give that assurance that I will keep the working of the Tribunals under review and make any amendments and additions to the rules as prove necessary, and they will go to the Council of Tribunals. So I shall have the advantage of my noble

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friend Lord Reading and his Council, who will not only make their own suggestions but will pass on any complaints that come from the people who have found the Tribunals not working. I thought the noble Lord would not mind my interrupting, as it is a point that is covered by an obscure Victorian statutory provision.
LORD STONHAM: I am grateful to the Lord Chancellor. I was going to suggest that he should interrupt, and I am now going to suggest that after a few more sentences he may think it right to interrupt me again. He will remember that in Committee I pointed out that Clause 62 (3) provided that when an accused person is brought before the court a copy of the medical report is to be handed to his solicitor or to the accused person or his parent or guardian; also, that the doctor can be required to give oral evidence, and that evidence on behalf of the accused may be given in rebuttal. I ventured to suggest then that these rights which were accorded to an accused person ought to be similarly enjoyed by a person against whom no offence is charged. My question now—and I hope the noble and learned Viscount will interrupt me if it is not right—is: Is it the view of the Lord Chancellor that his Amendment, No 29B, would confer those rights on a person who was not an accused person?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes.
LORD STONHAM: I am obliged. That covers that point. There is one remaining point that I have, and that is the Amendment at page 84, line 26, to leave out "if not desiring to appear in person". It will be recalled that when I raised this point in Committee it was because the original wording made it appear to me that the applicant had the alternative either of appearing himself and conducting his own defence or of not appearing himself but allowing someone else to conduct his case on his behalf. I therefore propose to delete these words, "if not desiring to appear in person", so as to make it absolutely clear that an applicant can have a third alternative of appearing with a relative or friend who will help him to present his case to the tribunal—that is, that two of them can appear together. This, as
1104
I say, would give three opportunities: first, for the applicant to appear in person alone; secondly, for the applicant not to appear but to be represented by someone else, a solicitor or counsel; and thirdly, to appear but also to have a friend or relative with him.
That last practice is exactly in accord with what happens before the pensions appeal tribunals, which, incidentally, deal with many cases of pensionable neurosis or applications for pensions on that ground and which, in my submission, have proved eminently satisfactory. We do not want anything approaching a court of law, but I should be happy if I could feel that we were to have something like the pensions tribunals, which means that a friend or relative can go with the applicant. All the papers will have been seen beforehand, and it is likely to excite less fear and less apprehension in the mind of the patient than almost any other method of which I can think. If that is what the Lord Chancellor's Amendment No. 29A means and is intended to provide, then I am quite happy. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 84, line 1, after ("may") insert the said words.—(Lord Stonham)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I have tried to meet the point that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, raised. As he will remember, there was some slight difficulty about the words "appearing in person" and "being represented" in the technical senses in which they are normally used, and we could not provide for both the applicant and his representative to conduct the case. But we think it will help to meet the point if the words "conduct their own case" are substituted for "appear in person". That was to try to meet the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, in order to make clear what is intended. But the point the noble Lord has raised to-day, that the applicant who appears in person might want to be assisted informally by a friend, can be done no doubt by the rules. I have every sympathy with this. Like the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, I have had a certain amount of experience of the tribunals mentioned—not only in my present office, but in my early days at the Bar and as President of a branch of the British Legion—and I am in full sympathy with the point. I assure him that

1105
it can be done, and I shall provide for it myself.
I think I have tried to meet the point; at any rate I do not think that anything fell from the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, with which I had any reason to disagree. The Amendments I have put down, Nos. 29A to 29F, deal with the points which either the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, or the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, raised on the Committee stage. I have tried to advance in the direction wished for by Lord Stonham and I hope he will feel that his points have been met. Perhaps it will be convenient for him to indicate that he will not press his Amendment, and I will move mine.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am completely satisfied with the answer given by the Lord Chancellor, and I am most grateful to him. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I shall not repeat the explanation I have given, but with your Lordships' permission I will move Amendments Nos. 28A, 29A, 29B, 29C, 29D, 29E and 29F. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, will not move Amendment No. 29. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 84, line 18, at the end insert—
("(c) for enabling a tribunal to dispose of an application without a formal hearing where such a hearing is not requested by the applicant or it appears to the tribunal that such a hearing would be detrimental to the health of the patient;")
Page 84, line 27, leave out from ("to") to end of line 28 and insert ("conduct their own case, be represented for the purposes of those applications;")
Page 84, line 29, at beginning insert ("for regulating the methods by which information relevant to an application may be obtained by or furnished to the tribunal, and in particular")
Page 84, line 31, leave out ("to the tribunal")
Page 84, line 35, leave out from ("of") to ("except") in line 36 and insert ("any documents obtained by or furnished to the tribunal in connection with the application, and a statement of the substance of any oral information so obtained or furnished")
Page 84, line 39, after ("tribunal") insert ("if so requested in accordance with the rules")
Page 85, line 1, transfer paragraph (h) to page 84, line 15 as paragraph (b).—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 129 [Assisting patients to absent themselves without leave, etc.]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, this again is a consequential drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 88, line 18, leave out subsection (4)—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, after Clause 131 to insert the following new clause:
Notification of hospitals having arrangements for reception of urgent cases
". It shall be the duty of every Regional Hospital Board to give notice to every local health authority for an area wholly or partly comprised within the area of the Board specifying the hospital or hospitals administered by the Board in which arrangements are from time to time in force for the reception, in case of special urgency, of patients requiring treatment for mental disorder."
The noble and learned Viscount said: My Lords, this Amendment is the best solution which we could find to the point raised in Committee by Amendments to Part IV of the Bill, tabled by my noble friend Lord Milverton and the noble Lords, Lord Taylor and Lord Stonham. This Amendment will ensure that local health authorities know which hospitals in their area are prepared to accept patients at short notice, or even without notice in cases of acute emergency. That was the point which was stressed by my noble friend Lord Milverton, and also by the noble Lord, Lord Burden, as your Lordships will find in the OFFICIAL REPORT for June 29, cols 402 to 407.
The Amendment will in effect require Regional Hospital Boards to notify local health authorities which hospitals have what one might call "psychiatric casualty beds" ready to admit any patient in a real emergency of the sort described by the noble Lords, Lord Milverton and Lord Burden. The information will of course also be given to general practitioners who may arrange an emergency admission, with the agreement of the relatives, without calling in a mental welfare officer. I discussed these points on the Committee stage, and I do not want to go into them again. We have considered this matter very carefully, and I assure noble Lords that we have gone as far as we think we can go. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 89, line 1, at end insert the said clause.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, in welcoming this Amendment I should like to take this opportunity of expressing our gratitude to the noble and learned Viscount for the courtesy and consideration which he gave to the proposals we made and the point we tried to make. As he has very generously given us the essence of what we have required, I quite appreciate the reasons why he finds it undesirable to go any further. I take this opportunity of saying how grateful we are.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, may I also welcome this Amendment? There is one very small point arising on it. The Lord Chancellor said that general practitioners would be notified of the hospitals having these emergency beds. One wonders whether the words, "and the local executive council" after the words "local health officer" in line 2, might possibly have been considered, because the local executive councils are frequently in touch with the general practitioners. They are the bodies who employ general practitioners. Would it be appropriate to notify them as well as the local authority, so that they in turn would automatically inform general practitioners? So long as general practitioners get the information, that is all that matters.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: They will certainly get the information, but I should like to look into that point. I must say frankly that I have not considered it, but if it is of great importance I am sure the House would allow me to put down an Amendment. The noble Lord may take it that general practitioners will in any case be informed.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 32 to 35 inclusive are all consequential drafting and, therefore, with your Lordships' permission, I will move them all together. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Clause 132, page 89, line 13, leave out from beginning to end of line 14 and insert ("In the application of this section to Scotland").
Clause 137, page 92, leave out line 36.
Clause 138, page 93, line 9, leave out subsection (4).
Clause 140, page 94, line 39, leave out from beginning to ("references") in line 1 on page 95 and insert ("In this section").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
7.35 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR LORD TAYLOR moved, after Clause 143 to insert the following new clause:
Research
". The Minister may undertake, or cause to be undertaken, research into the nature, causes and treatment of mental disorder, as defined in this Act."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the new clause standing in my name and the name of my noble friend Lord Pakenham. It will be seen that this is an abbreviated version of the clause which my noble friend and I moved in Committee. My noble friend then said that he hoped the Lord Chancellor would see no objection to our returning to the subject quite briefly on Report. On the previous occasion, the Lord Chancellor properly pointed out to me that the point of the clause is, in fact, covered by the Schedules to the Bill, and I move the Amendment only to emphasise our great interest in the encouragement of research in mental health, and to spur the Government on to do even better than they are already starting to do well.
May I speak for one moment about money? Between 1956 and 1958 the Medical Research Council spent approximately £7 million on medical research. Of this, less than one-sixtieth was spent on research into mental disorders. A few years before this the situation was so bad that a group of public-spirited individuals and a number of research psychiatrists set up a body of which the noble Earl, Lord Feversham, is, I think, the senior patron—the Mental Health Research Fund—and I have the honour to serve on its Research Committee. In the four years 1954 to 1958, the Mental Health Research Fund expended as a voluntary body nearly as much on psychiatric research as the Medical Research Council. By contrast, in America the National Institute of Mental Health is now spending 14 million dollars a year on research into mental disorders, and their total research budget in this area, including both Federal and State, is of the order of £10 million a year. It is not surprising that

1109
there has been some flow of research workers from this country to the United States.
We are indeed pleased to note that there has been a change of heart on the part of the Government and on the part of the Medical Research Council. Two new research committees, one under Sir George Pickering and the other under Dr. Aubrey Lewis, have recently been set up and, even more important, two new research units, one under Dr. Slater and the other under Dr. Morris Carstairs, dealing with genetics, psychiatry and epidemiology have recently been started. I greatly welcome this step. I cannot think of better people who could have been chosen. The expenditure will be of the order of £20,000 a year. That is about what the Medical Research Council spends on each of its research units. I would say that the total expenditure on psychiatric research is still grossly under 1 per cent. of the expenditure on mental hospital care of patients—possibly only about 1 of one per cent.
The smallness of Government expenditure on psychiatric research appears to arise from three reasons: first, the fundamental philosophy of the Medical Research Council. That philosophy has been always to back men rather than projects. There is much to be said for this view. They pick a good man, build a research unit round him and tell him to get on with it. But that is only half the story. In industry and in atomic research things usually go the other way round. The project is decided upon and the men sought to run it. That is precisely what the Americans are doing in the sphere of medical research, and particularly in the sphere of biochemical and electrical psychiatry. It is increasingly being found that the technique of finding a project and financing it and then finding the workers is, in fact, successful. Demand for scientists creates supply. We want the Medical Research Council and those who have charge of money for research to start thinking much more on those lines.
The second factor is the great difficulty which the psychiatric research worker who has done, say, three years on research usually finds in getting a permanent or career post. It is easy enough to get finance for the initial period of research; one can get a grant of £1,200
1110
or £1,500 a year for two or three years and start off a project, but at the end of that time there is a blank wall: there are no further vacancies in the research world, or very rarely, and the result is that excellent young psychiatric research workers have to go to America or become clinical psychiatrists in the National Health Service. They earn a good income and keep their families all right, but they have no time whatever for research. Even our teaching professors now spend much of their time on routine clinical out-patient psychiatry because they cannot get senior research posts from the University Grants Committee or the Medical Research Council. There seems to be unwillingness on the part of the Medical Research Council to finance what in America are called "Associate Professorships" to work alongside, and with similar salaries to, clinical teacher professors, but devoting their whole time to research. The official answer is that the Medical Research Council sets up its units. It is doing so, but there are far too few, and often they are too late.
The final thing that inhibits psychiatric research in this country is that the research workers on the Medical Research Council are de facto civil servants. Doctors working for Regional Boards and local executive councils are under the Third and Fifth Schedules to the National Health Service Act allowed to sit and vote in the House of Commons. This greatest civil liberty is preserved for members of the great profession which has been virtually socialised. This right is actually exercised by one consulting psychiatrist who sits on the Conservative Benches in another place. My noble friend Lord Amulree is a consultant employed by Regional Hospital Boards. He is not in the least inhibited from discussing his own particular subject, geriatrics, or any aspect of the National Health Service in this House. But were I a research worker I doubt whether I should be able to make this particular speech, any more than I am able to make a speech on the new towns. Recently a member of a research unit of the Medical Research Council desired to become a J.P., particularly as he was a worker in a sphere closely touching the social aspects of medicine; but he had to go cap in hand to a Civil Service official of the Medical

1111
Research Council and was cross-examined on his political affiliations to get permission before he could do this. This is unthinkable with any clinician employed in medicine, and it is entirely wrong. It is not a matter of evil intent but something which has grown up over the years, something which we very much hope will be speedily put right, so that the research workers in the Medical Research Council may in fact enjoy full civil liberties.
I will say very little more about this. Mental health research is immensely difficult. The mind and brain are far the hardest organs to study. We have to use very inferential techniques, very difficult histological biochemical techniques. The sphere where I work, social psychiatry, is the easiest of all, using techniques of sampling and field investigation. But even here there are many difficulties. We are eager to press on, but we desperately need more research workers. The people are there; the men and women are waiting. But there is no money to employ them. Our achievement will be precisely proportional to the Government's generosity. We ask for help not only in the name of folk suffering from mental illness of all kinds, but because the Government should also bear in mind that any help given to psychiatric research will bear dividends, we hope, in the short and long term reduction in the amount of cost of the National Health Service in caring for the mentally ill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 143 insert the said new clause.—(Lord Taylor.)
7.47 p.m.
THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM: My Lords, I feel that I must support the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, who has moved this Amendment which stands in my name as well as the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham. Your Lordships' House will remember that when we reached this Amendment on the Committee stage the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor suggested that at a later stage we might have a fuller discussion of this Amendment, in view of the fact that such a discussion would provide paving stones for my right honourable friend the Minister of Health and, indeed, the Lord President of the Council
1112
in consideration of the importance of research and of some of the arguments that have so lucidly been put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor. I could not agree more with Lord Taylor's view that we regard this matter of research as most important. I put that forward as my excuse for detaining your Lordships longer than I would otherwise intend to do.
I think that all will agree that one of the most impressive conclusions that may be drawn from the debates on this Bill is that mental disorder is probably the most tremendous scourge in the country to-day. One could well assume that the biggest single cause of illness would in this country, as elsewhere, command the largest resources both in money and manpower. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has pointed out, neither is the case. I think it is necessary, if this matter is going to be reviewed in the light in which it should be reviewed, to remind your Lordships that the Younghusband Committee quoted an estimate that 2 million mentally disordered patients are cared for by general practitioners. Eighty million man-days are lost to industry every year through absenteeism caused by psycho-neurosis. I think the interesting point about that estimate is that on average this is twenty times more than the man-days lost to industry through strikes.
Another major point is that hospital care for the mentally disordered, sickness benefits and the loss of production are estimated to cost together some £200 million a year. The biggest single cause of illness and, I think, of unhappiness and disruption is undoubtedly due to mental disorder, and I doubt whether there is to-day anything that we know so little about. Yet how much do we spend on research? The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has already given us some figures which largely correspond to my own. We know that in 1958 the Medical Research Council spent £63,000 on mental health, and from the Exchequer the Medical Research Council spent last year £130,000, which is another way of putting Lord Taylor's figure of 4 to 4½ per cent. of their total grant.
How do the Research Council spend this £130,000? I have here the projects sponsored by the Medical Research Council in the sphere of mental health. They make a formidable and lengthy

1113
list, and I have no intention of going through them. They were provided by my right honourable friend the Minister of Health in another place. It is an impressive list comprising many diverse and vital investigations. These projects number 31, and when that total is divided into the Exchequer grant spent by the Research Council, the answer is that the Council who sponsor these projects are spending on an average on each of them less than £4,000. I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, that the new units which the noble and learned Viscount announced previously—one on the epidemiology of mental disorders and the other on psychiatric genetics—are a most valuable new addition. But I should like to ask the noble and learned Viscount whether they also will share the total that I have mentioned or will be given a separate or additional grant of funds.
I am pursuing this matter in some detail because I was not at all satisfied with the reply (admittedly it was not a full reply) of the noble and learned Viscount. If we add those together, the Mental Health Research Council grant to the £130,000, the £55,000 spent by the Regional Hospital Boards, the £15,000 in other odd items, we get a total of £200,000 spent out of public funds. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor has given your Lordships the expenditure by the United States Federal Government—and I, too, have the figures here—and I think that any comparison between what this country does and what the United States does casts a very poor reflection upon us. It may be said that the results of the research of the United States will eventually become known to us, but I suggest that that is no reason why this country should be so complacent at its own efforts and at the spending of only this negligible sum.
It may also be said—indeed, it has been said—that powers exist under other Acts for the promotion of research. Whatever powers there have been in other Acts, the figure that I have quoted, and which the noble Lord who moved this Amendment has referred to, shows conclusively, I think, how unsuccessful this method has proved so far. We cannot be complacent when we hear that in Washington the Institute to which the noble Lord referred, The National Institute of Mental Health, spends 5
1114
million dollars in research into one illness, schizophrenia. Our own Research Council has a total grant of only £3 million for physical and mental research for which they are responsible. It is not surprising that we know virtually nothing about the many aspects of mental illness. Several treatments which since the war have proved to be very successful are little more than empirical, in that of course we do not know why they produce the results they do.
Almost every book or paper that one reads in relation to mental health says the same thing—that the crying need today is for research. Recently there has been a comprehensive survey of mental deficiency which in every chapter says the same thing: that the main project now seems to be to investigate experimentally the mechanisms involved, both in environmental (reduced retardation and recovery from the effects of deprivation) and in genetic influences, which are no less important. Elsewhere in this book very much the same thing is said.
I do not wish to detain your Lordships further on this subject, but in spite of the extreme courtesy and capable manner, to which we have grown accustomed, of the noble and learned Viscount, when giving answers in regard to any Bill that comes before your Lordships' House, I cannot quite accept that the reply given in respect of this matter was the reply he would have given had he been in the office of my right honourable friend the Minister of Health, or, indeed, that of the Lord President, who is responsible for research. It appears that the responsibility for research does not fall primarily upon the Minister of Health; it falls primarily upon the Lord President. The sort of reply of a degree of complacency that has been apt to be trotted out when this question arises, emanates from those who are neither trained nor expected by the public at large to be responsible in regard to the wide concern that I think many of your Lordships share concerning the need for research.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Earl? He is telling us—I think it is most important if it is so—that the responsibility for research into mental health falls on the Lord President and not in any way on the Minister. I am only asking for information.
THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM: The authorised and responsible Minister, as I understand it, for the Medical Research Council is the Lord President of the Council and not the Minister of Health. It was Mr. Walter Elliot who said in another place—and I think he was so right in saying it—that no ambitious student starts research in this country which may lead him into an investigation of mental processes, because there is no future to it. We in this country are not tackling research with sufficient realism for young doctors to give it a future. That is perhaps the reason why a number of eminent people in this field have gone abroad to pursue their studies. I personally have known three doctors who have done that, and who are now in America: Professor Finney, who was formerly Professor at the Maudsley and Bethlem Royal Hospital; Professor Elkin, formerly Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology at the University of Birmingham and Doctor Mainwaring, who was Director of Research at the Romford Hospital in Essex. They have all left this country because of lack of opportunity in this field. That, I think, is a serious indictment of the way we regard openings for young men to train.
As I was saying, it was Mr. Walter Elliot who brought to the attention of another place that there is a shortage of manpower in psychiatric work. And if this problem were tackled by the Government, if the Government would say in indisputable terms that the status of research in this field is going to be on the highest plane, if it were known that research was to be given a high priority, I am convinced, as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, is, that many competent men might be encouraged to take up psychiatry. Quite clearly, the supply of ideas for research also might be similarly encouraged. That is the experience we have had in the body with which I am closely connected and to which the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, referred.
As to this Amendment, I know what the answer of the noble and learned Viscount will be as to the inappropriateness of including these words in this Statute because they are included already in a previous Statute and named in a Schedule. Therefore, it seems unnecessary to press the Amendment. But I hope that the noble and learned Viscount will pass on to those who are
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responsible the essential features and factors underlying the purpose of the noble Lord in putting down this Amendment. We are sitting late this evening, as time is reckoned in your Lordships' House, due to the fact that we have listened to a debate for many hours on foreign affairs, dealing with the deterrent of the H-bomb and methods to prevent humanity from blowing man off the face of the earth. I do not think it is beyond the terms of practical expression to say that if there were greater concentration upon, and a greater sense of value applied to, research into the motives of man, and why he acts as he does, some of the problems with which your Lordships' House was engaged today under the heading of foreign affairs might possibly be easier to solve than we can see at the present moment. I therefore feel, without elaborating or developing that argument, which one might well do, that this subject is of paramount importance to the wellbeing of the Bill.
8.2 p.m.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, I should like, very shortly, to support this Amendment, particularly underlining the word "treatment". A lot of research has been going on and I understand that a good deal of the research into treatment and rehabilitation of mental patients has been due over the years to unofficial bodies, supported by appeals for public funds or sometimes by local authorities. One such institution is the Institute of Social Psychiatry. They have pioneered a number of projects in the field of treatment and the returning of mental patients to normal life, which seems to me very deserving of support. They were, I believe, the pioneers of the day hospital, which was designed to enable patients to live with their families and to restore them by degrees to normal life. Then there are therapeutic clubs which have been started, of which a number exist in London now, providing a setting in which people returning from treatment in mental hospitals may learn to get on with one another and eventually become adjusted to living normal lives. Finally, there is the rehabilitation centre, which again is for patients who are convalescing from mental disorder and who by this means are enabled to take their place gradually in normal society.

1117
The day hospital has been taken over as part of the Health Service. These other efforts are supported to some extent by local authorities, but otherwise by purely voluntary means. I would emphasise that the object and the effect of all these efforts is to reduce the demand on beds, on in-patient accommodation for mental patients; therefore I suggest that it is in the interests of the service and of Her Majesty's Government to support this work in every way possible.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, I was anxious, as I am sure the House was, that we should hear in the limited time available from the acknowledged experts who have already spoken in favour of this Amendment. I should like to support all they have said and what has just fallen from my noble friend the Earl of Lucan, and in particular what he has said about treatment. I would only say this: that the National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children, of which I had the honour to be chairman, is overwhelmingly impressed—one might say obsessed—with the importance of research and I should not like anyone to suppose otherwise. The noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, who is a joint honorary treasurer, was to have spoken to-night on certain detailed aspects, but he has, unfortunately, been called away. Therefore I rise to say that when we look to the ultimate benefit to the community, it is perhaps in the field of research, even more than in the other fields we are discussing under this Bill, that the great hope for the future lies. Therefore I should like to support all that has fallen from the previous speakers.
8.8 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I should like to say for myself that I have seldom been more impressed than I have by the speeches that I have heard on this Amendment. I am sorry if I gave my noble friend Lord Feversham the impression of complacency in my earlier statements. I know exactly what he means. When a Minister is dealing with a Bill from another Department he cannot have the specialised knowledge involved, and when he retails information that he is very properly and fully given it perhaps sounds as if he were more satisfied with
1118
it than any Minister should ever be satisfied about anything. If I did so I am sorry, but I should like to make it quite clear that my right honourable friend is not in the least complacent on this matter and he will certainly take into account the most striking facts that have been put before your Lordships' House as to the importance of the matter, and also the various methods of approach of the various societies.
I am extremely glad about one thing. My noble friend Lord Feversham asked me one specific question. That was whether the new units—one on the epidemiology of mental disorder and the other on psychiatric genetics—would be taken out of the present amount. I am glad to be able to inform him from the information that has been given me—and I give him the exact words—that this will inevitably involve considerable additional expenditure. So on that specific point I am glad to be able to reassure my noble friend.
I would willingly go through again the account of the research which I have already given to your Lordships twice—because my noble friend Lord Feversham will remember that I did give that general account when he introduced this matter a year ago, and I gave a shorter account on Second Reading—but I do not think that that is what my noble friend Lord Fevers ham wants, or what any other noble Lord wants. That might give the impression to those who have not been here that I was satisfied and that my right honourable friend was satisfied by what has been done. He is not; he wants the research to increase. He wants it to go forward and be improved—of course in a steady and orderly manner, but constantly to be improved.
One or two noble Lords mentioned the statutory background. As I explained to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, the effect of the Amendment is to include this in the powers under Section 16 of the 1946 Act. Now it might occur to noble Lords: Why was that put into the 1946 Act if it was in the 1919 Act? I thought it might interest them to know the answer. It is that Section 16 did two things: it replaced certain powers previously held by local authorities—under the

1119
Mental Treatment Act, 1930, for example; and it also extended my right honourable friend's powers beyond those contained in the 1919 Act. His powers under the 1919 Act were not precise or clear, particularly having regard to the point the noble Earl mentioned—namely, the powers given by the same Act to the Medical Research Council. They did not explicitly include power for the Minister himself to conduct research or to make financial grants towards the conduct of research; and Section 16 of the 1946 Act put his power to do this beyond doubt. I explain that only because I know your Lordships have been making inquiries into it.
My Lords, I think that really the best answer that I can make is threefold: one, that I myself entirely agree with the importance that has been attached to this subject by everyone who has spoken. I mentioned Lord Taylor and Lord Feversham, but I of course listened to and will read carefully again what the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, said, and what the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, said about the organisation in which he is specially interested, apart from his general words. That is the first point: that my own interest has been increased a little (I think I can claim) by what has been said to-night. I shall convey that to my right honourable friend personally, and he will, I know, examine most carefully everything that has been said with a view to increasing and improving the amount and quality of research. If I am to say anything about comparative statistics I know that I shall again fall into a trap, to the annoyance of my noble friend Lord Feversham, because comparative statistics always depend on what particular figure you start from: and someone like Lord Feversham, who knows the original figure, is not impressed by arithmetical comparisons. So I simply say to him, frankly, that there will be an increase. I cannot say how much, but there will be an increase. However, we are certainly alive to the problem which has been put so graphically in front of us.
Having said that, may I be flippant for one moment? It has nothing to do with the Amendment; but the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, mentioned that there was a consultant psychiatrist in the House of Commons. I leave your Lord-
1120
ships to draw your own conclusions from the fact that he was my Parliamentary Private Secretary. I hope your Lordships will not take that as any diminution of the seriousness with which I approach the rest of the subject. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, will not press his Amendment now.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor for his kind remarks. By a strange coincidence, I was Parliamentary Private Secretary to a Lord President of the Council when I was also practising psychiatry, so perhaps it is the habit of Parliamentary Private Secretaries to become psychiatrists. I should like to apologise, if I might, to the noble Lord, Lord Feversham, for failing to mention his name when I moved the Amendment. It was very rude of me, but it was due to relying on too early a copy of the Marshalled List. We know how the noble and learned Viscount always follows up our points; and, with the assurance that he has given that he will follow them up with the Lord President, I know we feel fairly satisfied and very pleased. I therefore beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, it has been intimated to me that this would be a convenient moment at which to stop to-night. May I say to your Lordships, from the point of view of convenience in making arrangements for to-morrow, that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has an Amendment No. 37 and also an Amendment No. 45. The rest of the Amendments are purely consequential and drafting; and the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, alone knows how long those two Amendments will take. I wanted merely to tell your Lordships that there is nothing in the other Amendments.

EXPORT GUARANTEES BILL
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Bill had been endorsed with the Certificate from the Speaker that the Bill was a Money Bill, within the meaning of the Parliament Act, 1911.
House adjourned at eighteen minutes past eight o'clock.